BLOG TOUR BEGINS TODAY: Undaunted Faith

The blog tour for my novel, Undaunted Faith, begins today. I'm excited about it. A blog tour is where bloggers from all around post an author interview or book review during the same time frame. My tour runs from now through Friday. Watch for contests and book give-aways.

Below is an interview that my friend, Lena Nelson Dooley, posted on her blog earlier this month. Have I revealed something here you never knew about me?

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1. God has really been moving in your writing life. What do you see on the horizon?

I just handed in the manuscript to my editors for a book called Threads of Hope. It’s book 1 in my new series called Fabric of Time.

2. Tell us a little about your family.

I’m married and have 3 grown sons, 1 daughter-in-law, and 4 grandchildren. I also have a fine church family.

3. Has your writing changed your reading habits? If so, how?

I’m afraid I don’t read as often as I’d like. With researching my historical novels and all the time spent writing them, I barely have time to clean my house and see the grandkids, let alone read. Still, I try to read a book every couple of months and I love to read my friends’ books. Right now I’m reading Louise Gouge’s At the Captain’s Command. Then I’ll begin Karen Witemeyer’s To Win Her Heart.


4. What are you working on right now?

I’m writing a short contemporary Christian romance novel and I’m hoping to get a proposal for it to my agent Steve Laube soon so he can shop it around.


5. What outside interests do you have?

I love to take walks. I recently underwent a total knee replacement and I’m healing up just great. I can’t wait to take regular walks outside come springtime. My husband and I also enjoy seeing our grandchildren. We make that a regular practice.


6. How do you choose your settings for each book?

Somehow certain areas just grab me, like the Arizona Territory in 1867. You’ll read about it in Undaunted Faith, Book 4 in my Seasons of Redemption series.


But I’m also interested in local history. Book 2 in my series takes place here in Milwaukee. Book 3 is set in Chicago and then in Milwaukee again. I love to research my hometown and my State. My next series, Fabric of Time, will take place in Wisconsin.

7. What is the one thing you wish you had known before you started writing novels?

I wish I would have learned more about self-editing. Sometimes I’m embarrassed to read my older works, even if they’re published. I suppose that means I’m growing as a writer – and that’s good!


8. What new lessons is the Lord teaching you right now?

God has shown Himself faithful in so many ways. He takes good care of me. One of the lessons I’m learning is that because my Heavenly Father is the King of kings and I am His child, then that makes me…a princess! So I ought to act like royalty, not in a snooty manner, but a manner in which I treat myself with respect and take care of myself. The Bible says that we should love others as ourselves. But if we don’t love and respect ourselves, we cannot love our neighbors.

So all you princesses out there – listen up! Do something wonderful for yourselves today – and then show some kindness to someone else.

9. What are the three best things you can tell other authors to do to be successful?

1) Don’t give up.
2) Learn all you can about writing and hone your skills
3) Trust God to open the doors to your success. Then don’t be afraid to walk through them.

(Note: I have to remind myself of these nuggets of wisdom every so often too!)


10. Tell us about the featured book?

Sure. Here is the back cover copy.

The McCabe brothers have their hands full. Trouble on the range and trouble in town. But they never expected their sweet schoolteacher, Bethany Stafford, to join in the mix of woe. When her reputation is unfairly tarnished, Pastor Luke McCabe is quick to propose marriage. But Bethany wants better than just a marriage of necessity to save her good name. Could Luke ever come to love a plain “little field mouse” like her?


Dr. Annetta Cavanaugh has her own questions about men and their intentions. While Pastor Jake McCabe seems sincere, she still has her doubts about him. But after he accompanies her on a medical call, she sees a whole new side of him and can't help but admit her attraction to the handsome pastor.


However, there’s evil brewing in town—a lawlessness that even the sheriff cannot tamp down. Finally, it comes face-to-face with both Luke and Jake and it threatens the lives of the women they love. Are the McCabe brothers ready for the fight of their lives?

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For reviews and to buy this book, click here

When It Hurts To Write

Writing a novel, article, blog post, devotional or even penning a journal entry isn’t always easy under the best of circumstances. But when a chronic illness is present, writing an be an excruciating activity.

Chronic illnesses like Lupus, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia, MS (Multiple Sclerosis), RA (Rheumatoid Arthritis), and many others, can sap an individual’s physical strength and also affect one’s mental and spiritual wellbeing. So how do authors cope? Do they push through these times when their debilitating conditions flare or take to their beds – which might be what their bodies are screaming for them to do?!

For myself, with Fibromyalgia and Small Fiber Neuropathy, I write in the mornings. I get up early and get right to work. About mid-morning, I take a break, eat breakfast, shower, dress, spend some time with the Lord, and then I try to get back into my project. In the afternoons, I try to accomplish some marketing things and answer email. However, by two o’clock, I’m shot for the rest of the day, except for minor things like unloading the dishwasher or running the vacuum around. I will admit that there are days when I can’t even accomplish that much. It gets depressing sometimes.

I asked some friends with chronic illnesses to tell me how they manage.

April Gardner states: I have RA. Doing good now, but a couple of years ago, I could barely care for myself. Still, I wrote. How? I look back and can only attribute it to God--and the sheer love writing. Poking away at the keyboard while my joints swelled and my tendons curled, I learned a lot about what I'm capable of. Pain is nothing in the face of almighty God and a little determination. RA will always be with me, but bless His name, so will God.

Thanks for the opportunity to share what He's done for me!


~April W Gardner
Sr. Editor, Clash of the Titles
http://www.aprilgardner.com/

Patty Hall states this: I live with chronic back pain from an attack I sustained when I was a nurse over 25 years ago. There are many times that I have to write lying flat on my back---I do this longhanded--sometimes with a regular pen, sometimes with a digital pen that can transcribe my writing into the Word program of my computer. I've written three books like this, the first to be released by Love Inspired Historical this summer.

Patty Smith Hall
www.pattysmithhall.com



Finally, Dr. Carrie Pagels states: First of all, thank you for writing about this Andrea, and again, I love reading your books and especially enjoy your voice, which is beautiful. As I write this, I am listening to CBN to Creflo Dollar and he is quoting scripture from Isiah. One day, God will free all of us from all pain and sickness. God makes healing available to us whether it is permanently in heaven or if for a short time on a particular day. In my faith walk, I have found that when God calls me to do something, He makes a way for me to do it.

While working as a psychologist, my rheumatoid (and other forms of) arthritis worsened and I was given every form of biologic treatment available (save one) to treat my severe symptoms. The last one, Rituxan, put me in the bed for twelve weeks last year with reactions to the biologic and with illnesses from my weakened immune system (Rituxan is a powerful immunosuppressant). But God enabled me to write during that time. Sometimes in the middle of the night for one hour. Sometimes for an hour and half in the day. An hour here and hour there to do writing related things when I could do nothing else, not shop, cook, nor do activities with my son. That was extreme. I no longer work as a psychologist and stopped with biologic treatment. It makes the pain, stiffness, and difficulties I still have seem minuscule by comparison.

So my bottom line is: Stay right with God, do what you need to do to get in line with His will for you, if He intends for you to write He will enable you to do so for however and whatever He needs you to do. Managing stress is important, but much stress comes from not doing His will to begin with!


Carrie Fancett Pagels, Ph.D.
Voices columnist, My Book Therapy e-zine http://voices.mybooktherapy.com/
http://shoutlife.com/cfpagels
http://cfpagels.blogspot.com

In her book The God of all Comfort, Judy Gann writes, “There are times when we loathe our portraits-in-progress. The dark tones of illness seem like blemishes on the canvas. We earn for the day when our portraits will be completed. Yet…God’s portraits will take our lifetimes to finish. Meanwhile we can trust in his promise to complete the spiritual masterpieces he is creating of our lives.”

Judy goes on to cite Philippians 1:6. Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. (KJV)

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As with anything in life, particularly with chronic illnesses, God’s promises are the only ones worth clinging to. No doctor can offer what The Great Physician can -- healing from the inside out. He has the miraculous ability to write His will upon our hearts, which is enough to sustain us in even the worst of times.

TODAY IS THE DAY

My latest novel, Undaunted Faith, releases today.

To purchase a copy, click here!
To watch the exciting video trailer, click here!

This is the 4th and final book in my Seasons of Redemption series. Other titles include:

Unwilling Warrior Book 1

Uncertain Heart Book 2

Unexpected Love Book 3

It's feels a bit sad to leave my characters behind and move on to a brand new historical series. I think that in the last year I spent more time with the McCabe family than I did my own, real-life family. While these titles had been previously published more than a decade ago, these latest books are expanded and revised with new plotlines and secondary characters.

I enjoyed researching my hometown of Milwaukee, WI and Chicago, IL in the year 1866 for books 2 and 3. This time period predates the Peshtigo & Great Chicago Fires and is Post-Civil War.

However, my first book, Unwilling Warrior, is set in New Orleans in 1862 (Actually, the story opens on New Year's Eve 1861). The Civil War had begun 5 months prior and the fighting was just really getting under way.

Undaunted Faith, book 4, is set in the Arizona Territory in 1867. Readers meet both Jake and Luke McCabe in books 1 and 2. As for the setting of Undaunted Faith, I've always had a fondness for the Southwest -- perhaps because Wisconsin winters are so cold and long!

I hope you enjoy this series and I'm looking forward to researching and writing my next series for Realms/Charisma Media. It's called Fabric of Time and the first book will release in 2012. (But I'll post more about that later!)

And keep checking back here on my blog because I plan to do some fabulous and far-out book give-aways!