Robin Patchen is a wife, a mother of three teenagers, a freelance editor, and an award-winning multi-published author of seven novels and novellas. She loves to illustrate the unending grace of God through the power and magic of story.
When do you find time to write? Robin: I don’t find the time so much as make it. When I’m working on a book, I set aside two hours every day to write. No matter how many words I write during those hours—even if I add no new words at all—I work on my book for two hours a day, five days a week. On a good week, after 10 hours of work, I’ll add about 8,000 new words.
How do you connect with your characters? Robin: I like to interview them about their lives, asking them tough questions like, “What are you most afraid of in this story?” and “What do you need me to know?” It’s weird that their answers surprise me, because I’m writing the answers too. Somehow, interviewing them puts me in their head.
How do you pick the location/setting of your romantic suspense novels? Robin: Most of my novels take place in New England. I grew up in New Hampshire, but I’ve lived in Oklahoma for 21 years. I love writing about New England, because it reminds me of home.
Current book: Twisted Lies: Hidden Truth Book 2 An American teacher working in a Mexican orphanage must return home to find millions stolen from her former employer or lose her adopted daughter forever.
This piece originally appeared on the ACFW blog on March 29, 2016.
Who wants to be ordinary? If I asked that question at an ACFW conference, I doubt anyone would raise their hand. For some reason, ordinary has become associated with dull, listless, uninteresting and uninspiring. As writers, we may be content to live ordinary lives, but we want our writing to be extraordinary, to be the kind of work that everyone talks about and that inspires greatness in others.
As Michael Horton writes in his excellent book, Ordinary, “Our life has to count! We have to leave our mark, have a legacy, and make a difference. And all of this should be something that can be managed, measured, and maintained.”
If we’re honest with ourselves, most of us would say, “Yes! I want my writing to count, to leave a mark, a legacy and to make a quantifiable—and noticeable—difference!”
But what if for most of us, our writing lives turn out to be more ordinary than extraordinary? What if we have end up with an average list of published books with average sales numbers? In other words, what if God is calling many of us to be mid-list authors?
Would we be content with that? Would we think our writing in vain if we never reach more than thousands of readers rather than hundreds of thousands of readers? Would we continue to strive to write the best ordinary women’s fiction or the best average romantic suspense novels or the best everyday historical fiction?
I’ve been pondering this lately as I think about my own writing goals. To be honest, I’m struggling with this idea of ordinary as a good thing, as a God-given calling to make a difference in the small area in which He has placed me. I might never sell hundreds of thousands of books (or even hundreds of books). I might never hit a best-seller list. I might never have a robust speaking circuit.
I might, in fact, live a quite ordinary life.
And what I’m slowly coming to terms with is that I’m okay with that. What I’m striving for is that I should be more than okay: I should rejoice in the very ordinariness of my existence. Not that it means I’m settling for meritocracy—heaven forbid!—but that I’m embracing where I am and living that life to its fullest, richest way possible. That I’m writing the books He has given me to write. That I’m encouraging other writers in this wonderful calling we share. That I’m content with where I am in my writing career and enjoying the ordinariness of everything with a passion and perseverance to continue running this race to the best of my average ability.
So to all of you who are, well, ordinary, remember that to be ordinary in a life God has give you is to be truly extraordinary in all the ways that matter most.
Mary L. Ball is a multi-published Christian author, a member of ACFW and a singer. She resides in North Carolina. She enjoys fishing, reading, and singing with her husband at church functions.
What’s your go-to when you need a pick-me-up to keep writing? Mary: When I need to lift my spirits, I practice my singing. Praising God in song is always sure to make you feel better.
What’s the weirdest way someone has died or been killed in your novels? Mary: In Escape to Big Fork Lake, a visitor at the Inn is poisoned by a slice of pie made from a Yew berry bush. The visitor’s murder was a mistake because the pie was meant for another character.
Have you ever regretted killing off a character? Why? Mary: In my recent novel, Sparks of Love, Lynette’s father is killed. I disliked that part of the plot because losing a love one pricks at the heart strings, but through that experience, Lynette learns several things about the Lord’s grace.
Current book: Sparks of Love Misjudged and accused, Lynette Cunningham walks away from God and everything she loves.
An award-winning author, June Foster is a retired teacher with a BA in education and a MA in counseling. Her characters find themselves in tough situations but overcome through God’s power and the Word. She writes edgy topics wrapped in a good story. To date, she’s seen fourteen contemporary romances published.
When do you find time to write? June: Since I’m retired from 34 years of teaching elementary children and my entire house only takes 45 minutes to clean, I have lots of time to work on my work-in-progress. (My house cleaning duties are light because we live in our RV!) I’m blessed to have time day or night—any time I get inspired, which is most of the time. But I generally write my first draft early in the morning after my Bible reading when I’m feeling refreshed. The rest of the time I use for self-editing, critiquing, and other projects.
Why do you like writing romantic suspense? June: I love to write a story centered around a boy-meets-girl theme in which the driving force of the plot is getting these two together despite high stakes—a novel in which romance is at the heart of the tale. But adding an element of suspense keeps readers turning the pages of their kindles and enriches the story. Especially romantic is when the hero can protect and defend the woman he loves, the heroine, from harm. When they can work together to solve a mystery, it only drives them closer together.
Current book: Restorations of the Heart True beauty isn’t found at the Miss Idaho pageant but in a deserted ghost town in the mountains of Idaho.
Note: This piece originally appeared on the ACFW blog, 3/16/17.
I’m a details person, which translated well into my chosen profession of writer and editor. I notice things like misplaced commas, wrong usage of apostrophes (don’t get me started on how years can’t be possessive!) and subject/verb disagreement. It used to drive me crazy when I encountered grammatical or word choice mistakes in the real world, like church bulletins, business signage or political campaign literature.
But I’ve largely been able to turn off my inner editor—or at least hit the pause button—for most of those instances (with the notable exception of school communication…the people teaching my children should certainly understand the proper use of its versus it’s, but I digress). And lest you think I’m an overly strict grammarian, I mostly point out these missteps to my husband (who’s also an editor) and don’t call out the grammar hounds on the culprits.
However, I’m sure I’m not alone with how much it bothers me to uncover multiple mistakes in books. The hair color for the heroine started out blonde but ended up brunette, with not a whisper of a dye job in between. The hero had vivid blue eyes on page 16, but deep brown ones on page 230—and he wasn’t undercover with tinted contacts. A major secondary character undergoes a name change that was unintentional.
If a reader is pulled out of the story because of simple errors, then we run the very real risk of losing that reader. And the reader might not abandon this book only, but could decide not to bother picking up other books we’ve written (or will write) too.
Take heart, gentle writer! There are ways to avoid the pitfalls that have befallen many an author before you (and probably many after you too). Here are some common mistakes and how to correct them.
The Switcheroo. Eye or hair color are the easiest ones to mix up with a character. Word processing tools like Scrivener can help you have easy access to character sketches. One trick I use when writing a rough draft and I don’t want to slow down to look up those things is to write something like this: Sally Smith gazed into Burt Brown’s COLOR eyes and sighed. Then when editing, I can easily insert the correct color.
The Lost Time. This one I struggle with because I have a hard time creating timelines when writing, but I’m finally figuring out how to keep track of where my characters are in relation to months and days of the week. For example, some writers have a file with chapters listed and dates/days next to them. If you don’t keep it straight, you can bet sharp-eyed readers will notice!
The Pet Phrase. We all have them—those phrases that keep popping up in our books, sometimes within the same chapter, but the phrases are unusual enough that you notice. For example, the character “hits the [car] gas” not once, not twice, but three or more times (Lisa Scottoline, I’m looking at you!). I’ve found that my online critique group provides a much-needed service in this area—they are never slow to point out when I’ve overused a particular word or phrase.
The Missing Info. This one’s harder to pin down, but it can be so annoying when a character walks into a room with a brown bag, but then is able to gesture and hug and do all kinds of things as if the brown bag had never existed. This kind of magic isn’t going to endear your readers. Pay attention to what your characters are wearing, doing, taking or leaving. Beta readers can be invaluable in helping to point out these inconsistences.
Remember, editors are wonderful and they catch many things, but the cleaner we submit our manuscripts, the more likely the finished product will have very few errors. We don’t want our readers tripped up by these small mistakes in our writing—we want them entranced by our storytelling.