Category Archives: The Writing Life

IT’S HERE…Deadly Communications!

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I”m so excited to announce that my latest release–DEADLY COMMUNICATIONS–will be out sometime today at most of your favorite online bookstores!

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Deadly Communications is a new novella mystery series that features Maven Morris, a speech-language pathologist (better known as an SLP) who gets a little too involved in her client’s life. In Deadly Communications, the first in the series, Maven is struggling to cope with several life-changing events in her life.

But, in fact, she’s not coping well at all!

Lizzie, her well-meaning friend, decides it’s time to step in and help…and that’s when all the trouble starts!

This is what the back cover blurb says:

Improving communication skills is never easy. In this case, it could be murder!

Maven Morris is a speech-language pathologist on medical leave–or as she likes to put it: out to pasture. When she’s offered a lucrative position by one of the community’s most powerful men to help his traumatic-brain-injured daughter improve her communication skills, Maven discovers deadly secrets behind the iron gates of the mansion.

Now, she must find the courage to seek justice no matter who gets hurt–even if it’s her. 

As a speech pathologist for more than 30 years, this book was especially fun for me to write. I hadn’t planned on writing a story, let alone a series featuring a crime-fighting speech-language pathologist, but three things happened within a few days of each other to inspire DEADLY COMMUNICATIONS.

First, my brother asked why I didn’t write a story featuring a speech-language pathologist. To which my answer was it would be difficult to come up with a suspense story with an SLP as the main character. After all, I know how boring my life is! I couldn’t even imagine how an SLP could get involved in a mystery.

Secondly, a few days later I was talking with someone whose daughter had been involved in a serious car accident and was now experiencing communication difficulties due to a traumatic brain injury.

Thirdly, as writers are prone to do, I was sitting daydreaming and had a vision of a young woman running through the woods and then into ongoing traffic on a highway..

That’s all it took!

My writer mind took over from there and DEADLY COMMUNICATIONS was born!

To celebrate the release of DEADLY COMMUNICATIONS, I’m giving away an e-copy of the novella. All you need to do is leave a comment! The winner will be picked next Friday–July 25th.

Don’t know what to say? Here’s a few questions that you can answer: What’s some other jobs that might seem like you couldn’t write a mystery about? What do you think an SLP does? What’s your job and how could you use that job as part of a mystery?

UNTIL NEXT TIME…GOD BLESS & GOOD READING!

 

 

My Writing Journey–Why Christian Fiction?

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I didn’t start out writing Christian fiction. My first bumbling efforts at writing novels were filled with all the things I now proudly tell people are NOT in my books–bad language and explicit sex scenes.  Anyway, I can tell you I am so thankful I wasn’t published until I made the switch to writing Christian Fiction.

So what exactly is Christian Fiction? The answer to that question is as varied as the books you’ll find when you search the genre Christian Fiction. A few years ago a preacher I was listening to gave this definition for a parable:

It’s an earthly story with a heavenly message.

As soon as I heard that definition, it resonated with me. That’s the way I view Christian fiction–an earthly story with a heavenly message. Or in the case of science fiction it might be an-out-of-this-world story but it still has that heavenly message!

So, what’s the heavenly message? Again, there are lots of choices. Most of my stories seem to focus on God’s love; forgiving others; and living out the Golden rule.  I don’t limit myself to those themes, it just seems to work out that way most of the time.

I’m not much for following rules, but I do have a few as I write. First absolutely NO bad language, NO explicit sex scenes; and NO premarital sex (though a character make reference to it but always as a regret or a mistake.) Most of my characters are Christians at various stages on their walk with God. Some may not be actively following their faith at the beginning of the story, but as the story progresses, so does their faith.

So, I’m not just a writer, I’m a Christian writer. And I’m not just a Christian writer, I’m a Christian Fiction writer, and for me that means something. Just as the title Christian means something.  Taking the title of Christian Fiction writer means I will write in such a way as to be God’s ambassador to my readers.

Sounds a bit lofty and even arrogant, doesn’t it?

As someone said (I think it was JFK) we’re either part of the problem or part of the solution. I choose to be part of the solution with the stories I write. There’s so much darkness in this world, I want to add some light. So even though I write mysteries and suspense stories, they have a message of faith, hope and love.

And that’s how I derived my tagline: Lillian Duncan…stories of faith mingled with murder & mayhem!

 

 

My Writing Journey–Life After My First Contract!

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In the past few weeks, I’ve talked about the moment I decided to start writing, the first novel I ever wrote, and shared some of the joys of submitting in the “old days!” Today, I’ll share a little about the life of a writer. And yes, I do call myself a writer now! It took awhile for me to get used to saying that but that’s the way I think of myself now.

Anyway–it took 15 long, long, very long years to get my first traditional contract. Along the way, I did self-publish a book and then did two more with what was called Print On Demand (POD) back then. I self-published in 2004 when self-publishing was still considered a big no-no. I suppose some people still think that way but more and more self-publishing or as it’s called now indie publishing is becoming more acceptable day by day.

Of course, there have been many great writers and books that were self-publshed, such as Charles Dickens and John Grisham. So, why there is–oops, I mean was such a stigma associated with self-publishing is a puzzlement. Actually, it’s not that big of a puzzlement. The reason is that, like myself, many authors self-publish before they actually should!  That’s hard to admit, but I wasn’t ready to publish when I did. The stories themselves were pretty good, but I still had a few things to learn about the writing craft itself.

I’ve re-published two of the three books I published before I got my traditional contract. And I plan to republish the third one next year–if I have time. I consider myself a hybrid author. If you don’t know that term, it’s not surprising. It’s a fairly new term. It simply means that some of my books are published by a traditional publisher and some are indie published my me.

Anyway back to the topic at hand–life after my first contract. As you can imagine, I was thrilled when I received my first contract with a traditional publisher. And to this day, I still tear up when I think about the day I received the news. I actually received a second contract within a week or so of the first contract.

What a blessing from God!

So how has my life changed since those first contracts? A lot and not at all! How’s that for an answer.

It’s changed a lot in that I now consider myself a writer. In spite of all my health issues and being retired, I still have a purpose.  Another thing that’s changed is along wtih the writing of stories, I now have other writing obligations. Meaning marketing books, marketing myself, working on my own blog as well as guesting on others. Not to mention social media! Those are a few of the activities that keeps me busy during my writing time.

What hasn’t changed is that I still devote a great deal of time to my writing. Iwrite most every day. I don’t feel “right” if I’m not working on a new story. I usually work on one new story at a time while polishing and editing other stories that the first draft has been completed but hasn’t been submitted. When my publisher sends me edits for a contracted book, all the other writing stops while I complete the next round of edits.

Sometimes, people will ask me how many times I have to read my own story as I work on it. They are shocked when I tell them it’s at least five times, and usually many more than that. They ask me if I don’t get bored or tired of it after reading it so many times. I simply smile and tell them…

“No way!  I love being a writer!”

What a blessing from God has given me my heart’s desire! I truly feel blessed even in the midst of  dealing with my brain tumors and the effect it’s had on my life. How about you? Has God given you your heart’s desire? If so, please share it with us. If you’re still waiting on it, tell us about it.

UNTIL NEXT TIME…GOD BLESS & GOOD READING!

 

 

 

My Writing Journey–Time To Submit!

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After writing and rewriting several novels, I thought it was time to try to become a “real writer.”

Back then, I was under the very mistaken belief that to be a real writer you had to be published by one of the big publishing houses. So much has changed in the past decade with publishing but that attitude may be one of the biggest changes–ever. That and the Internet.

I didn’t have a clue as to how to submit a manuscript back then.  As with everything in my writing career, I figured it out as I went. This would have been in the mid 90s. The Internet existed back then, but it had little to do with our daily lives. Boy, that was about to change! Anyway, all submissions were done by snail mail. Actually that term didn’t even exist back then.

Anyway, I bought a copy of The Writer’s Market and lucky for me, it explained step by step on how to query and submit to agents and editors. I became an expert on the process. For the next ten to twelve years I queried and queried and…. Well, you get the idea. Lots of queries but no luck.

Anyway, let’s take a little break while I tell you about the querying process back then.

But before I start, let me apologize to all the trees I killed in the process.

A few words come to mind as I think back to those days– lots of paper and lots of time!

Just as now, I would start with a query letter. But it could be up to six weeks or more before they responded. Now, it’s usually within a few days. So, I’d make a trip to the Post Office and send out my letters.

After that it was time to send a synopsis. Some kind agents/editors would let you do the query and the synopsis at the same time, but not all of them. Another trip to the Post Office.

If they were interested, it was time to send them a sample. Usually, three sample chapters, ten pages or fifty pages. So my office would be littered with piles of  paper.  First the query letters, then ten pages, then three chapters, then fifty pages. Another trip to the Post Office.

And I’m not very good at organizing so all the piles seemed to somehow get mixed up and I would spend even more time trying to figure out what went where!  So the second step was to send out the requested sample.  At this point a lot of agents required exclusivity as they evaluated the submission.

So one submission at a time except for the few that didn’t require it.  Another trip to the Post Office.

Now it was time to wait again. This time it could be up to three months but sometimes it would take even longer.

And finally they would request the full manuscript and almost always by this time it would be exclusive.

Back to the Post Office and more waiting and waiting only to be told no thank you.

Now it was time to send to another agent/editor who’d expressed interest.

And so it went.

Like I said, a lot of paper and a lot of time! Again, my apologies to the trees that I killed!

Sometimes it could take the better part of a year for querying and moving through the required steps. But that’s the way it had to be done if you wanted to get a traditional contract from a traditional publishing company. And at that time, that was the only option I wanted to pursue.

How about you? Are you old enough to remember this time-consuming process or have you been blessed to only deal with email queries?

 

UNTIL NEXT TIME…GOD BLESS & GOOD READING!

 

My Writing Journey–Writing My First Novel

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Last week I brought you up to my light bulb moment of deciding I should try to write a novel.  (If you missed it, check it out in the archives.) I knew nothing about writing books except what I knew from reading books all my life soooo….I sat down at my computer. Yes, we really did have computers back then!

And I wrote my story. I didn’t tell anyone I was writing a novel, I just did it! It took me a full year to complete that first draft of my first novel–Stolen Memories.

When I was finished, I shared it with my Book Club. Mostly they were excited that I wrote it and had positive things to say. And a few pointed out ways for me to improve it. All in all, it was a positive experience, but I wanted to learn more about writing. That meant finding books about writing.

For the next few years, I read books and learned about writing techniques and I wrote and I wrote.. and I…you get my point.  Somewhere in that time I got bitten by the writing bug.  I loved creating stories and characters. At this point it never occurred to me to try to get the books I was wring  published. I simply enjoyed the writing and wanted to be good at it.

Now after writing for 19 years and having 9 books published, I look back at that first novel….and cringe! There were so many things I did wrong in that book. Here’s a few:

Started with a dream sequence. I’ve since learned this a BIG pet peeve of many agents and editors.

The main character had amnesia-another pet peeve of a lot of agents/editors.

I had no idea what POV was so head hopping was plentiful! (If you don’t know what this is check last week’s writing tips.)

As far as the quality of writing, I can’t really say since I haven’t read any of my early manuscripts since becoming a better writer. But I suspect that wasn’t all that good either. But I kept writing and kept studying books about writing. I wrote at least three more novels (all about the same character) and probably a few others.

One day as I was sitting at my computer, I had a thought–a very scary thought.

Maybe other people would like to read my stories!

Wow, I had no idea how scary that thought really was!

Writers, share one of your mistakes you made as you wrote your first novel.

Readers, tell us the truth now, would you like to be a writer? If so, why?

UNTIL NEXT TIME…GOD BLESS & GOOD READING!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My Writing Journey–How I Started Writing?

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OK, I admit I don’t really like talking about myself all the time. And that’s part of the reason I struggle to find things to put on this blog. I asked for advice over the weekend on Facebook about what my friends would like to see on any writer’s blog. And one of the answers was to write more about my own writing life.

DUH!  That makes a lot of sense. Why didn’t I think of it. So over the next few weeks or however long it takes,  I’ll share a little about my writing journey. PART ONE is today–How I Started Writing:

I’ve always loved books. Once I learned to read, I carried a book with me everywhere I went. And I do mean everywhere. To my aunt’s and uncle’s. To the doctor’s office. In the car when we were going some place. Even to the creeks and lakes where we went to fish. Of course, I didn’t fish. I read my books instead.

And yes, I was one of those kids who  tried to get away with  reading in class or even after I went to bed.

So the first step in my journey to become a writer was to read, read, and read some more!

As much as I loved books, it never really occurred to me to write books.

But I was a life-long fantasizer. And no I don’t mean sex fantasies!

As a child, I would make up characters in my head and create little lives for them. I would act them out with Barbie and Ken or Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head.

Even as an adult, I continued this little quirk.

Perhaps, the first inkling that I was meant to be a writer came when a friend of mine named Mary and I would read the same books and then critique them. And discuss how we could have made the book better by doing this or that.

The lightbulb moment came soon after I celebrated my 40th birthday. As many 40 year olds are prone to do I was searching for….something more in my life. (And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that my spiritual journey to reunite with God started at about the same time.)

Anyway…I was watching some TV show. I think it was Oprah. That talked about writing your own obituary. Not just any obituary but one that included all sorts of “fantastic” things that you hadn’t done. It seemed a little silly, but…I did it anyway!

At the same time, I was reading a book called SIMPLE ABUNDANCE. One segment of the book was about creativity and how we all yearn for creating something in our life. Made sense, but I didn’t consider myself creative.

Anyway…back to my obituary. In it, I wrote that I was a bestselling novelist!

Really? I had never written anything creatively but a few poems and hadn’t even done that for many years.

But as I read the words I’d written in that obituary something sparked inside me.

And a writer was born!

More about my writing journey next week.

HOW ABOUT YOU? HAVE YOU EVER WRITTEN YOUR OWN OBITUARY? WHAT CRAZY THINGS DID YOU PUT IN IT? DID IT CHANGE YOUR LIFE THE WAY IT DID MINE?

 

UNTIL NEXT TIME…GOD BLESS & GOOD READING!

They’re baaaack…

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Reggie and Dylan are back in my new release, UNTIL DEATH DO US PART.  We first met them in Pursued as they met, were chased by a crazed killer, and fell in love.  Now they’re married. Happily married you ask? Well….you’ll have to read the story to find the answer to that question. But I can tell you there are plenty of hold-your-breath moments as Reggie and Dylan live out their faith–meaning helping others who are in trouble.  And trouble they find!

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AMAZON LINK

 

 UNTIL DEATH DO US PART:

When Reggie vowed until death do us part, she had no idea how close she’d come.

Newlywed Reggie Monroe struggles to find her happily ever after. As much as she loves her husband, she finds life to be overwhelming as she attempts to be the perfect farmer’s wife in rural Ohio.

When Dylan receives a mysterious message from his best friend, he knows trouble is brewing. To keep Reggie safe, he encourages her to visit friends, but keeping secrets from Reggie is never a good idea. It only makes her more curious—and everyone knows that curiosity killed the cat!

Until Death Do Us Part becomes more than words as Reggie struggles to stay alive and reunite with her husband.

AMAZON LINK

UNTIL NEXT TIME…GOD BLESS & GOOD READING!

 

 

BUSY! BUSY! BUSY!

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Lots going on these days.  So an update is in order.

On the health front, I’m in a holding pattern as I wait for my second brain tumor to be officially declared dead. I’ve been off the steroids for a few months. I still have a few symptoms from them, but it’s getting better every day. More energy and less pain! Both good things!

I’m on a new treatment that will hopefully preserve what hearing I still have in my left ear.  I’m completely deaf in my right ear so it’s important to save what hearing I still have.  I also have severe balance problems that probably won’t go away unless God intervenes with a miracle.

AND I’M ALL FOR A MIRACLE!

On the publishing front, things are great. Even as I struggle with my health, God is blessing me in my writing career.

On Saturday, I submitted a new novel to a major publishing house.  So, I’m holding my breath and would appreciate prayers that the editor likes it. If that’s not enough I have 3 more books scheduled to be published this year. How awesome is that! UNTIL DEATH DO US PART will be out sometime this week and I’ll do a separate post on that one tomorrow.

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Then the first in my new mystery novella series will be released July 18. DEADLY COMMUNICATIONS features a crime-fighting speech pathologist! Have you ever heard of such a thing? Neither had I, but after more than 30 years of being a speech pathologist I thought it was time to meld my two passions together into one great story!

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And the last scheduled book (at least at this time) is REDEMPTION. It’s the third book in my Sisters By Choice Series. Don’t worry, you’ll hear much more about this one as the scheduled date of September 18 gets closer!  And last but not least is my last release, BETRAYED. It’s the second in the Sisters by Choice series so if you haven’t read it yet, you might want to before REDEMPTION is released.

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UNTIL NEXT TIME…GOD BLESS & GOOD READING!

What’s Your Purpose?

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I’ve been gone for awhile, but I’m back! Or so I hope. Because of my health issues, I only have so much energy in a day. And most of that energy is focused on writing my fictional stories. That means some things take a back seat–actually a lot, especially house work!  And I don’t feel a bit guilty about that. Writing is my ministry. It’s my service and my gift to God.

Miriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary defines ministry as something used to achieve an end. That definition works for me. For a Christian, the end is glorifying God by adding to His kingdom, both in heaven and on earth. Some of us may think of ministries as church activities and only church activities. They include preaching, singing, teaching,  missionary work, and other church-related activities.

But this is a limiting view of ministry as far as I’m concerned. Any activity you choose to do on a regular basis that glorifies God in some way becomes your ministry.

If you grow a huge garden and share the food with others—that’s a ministry.

If you babysit for young parents so they can have a date—that’s a ministry.

If you volunteer at a school, a hospital, or whatever—that’s a ministry.

When you make a conscious choice to do something and do it for God’s glory, it becomes a ministry. Teaching in a public school can be your ministry if you do it in such a way to glorify God. Being a good neighbor can be your ministry. God gives each of us different passions and abilities and when we use them to glorify God, then that activity becomes a ministry.

I know some of you may disagree (and that’s OK). You feel that it’s only a legitimate ministry if it’s related to the church you attend, but good works are not limited to church activities. In fact, I would challenge you to say that more of us need to step out of the church building to do good works and to find our ministry.

Finding your purpose can change the way you live. It will give you the power to say no to activities that distract you from your purpose which is also God’s purpose.

Writing is my ministry–my gift to God. He’s not gifted me to be a great theological writer. Instead I tell stories. I tell stories that show Christian characters trying to do the best they can in whatever circumstances they find themselves. I write stories to entertain Christians and non-Christians alike, but I write those stories in such a way as to glorify God as well.

It took me many years to get published by a traditional publisher. And during those years, I spent countless hours at my computer writing. Each hour spent made me a better writer. To spend those hours writing, I had to say no to other activities and you may need to do the same–no matter what your ministry is.

This may not be easy and some people will not take kindly to you when you refuse to volunteer for whatever the next event may be, especially if you’re a pre-published writer. Now, I’m not saying to not participate and volunteer for SOME things. Of course, you should, but you also need the freedom to say no when it’s appropriate so you can follow the dream God’s put on your heart.

So, I’d love to hear from some of you. What’s your ministry? How has that ministry affected your life?