“Our lives revolved around electronic devices, Zoom and FaceTime, during the pandemic in 2020, but I think that was one of the pluses to staying connected with people,” Natalie says. “Being able to remain on social media and be able to communicate through FaceTime and video chats to keep people updated. … That was one of the best ways for me as an author to remain connected with readers.”

The post How Natalie Walters Stays Connected (Episode 54) first appeared on Author Sarah Hamaker.

“I tend to write a lot of Navy SEALs, CIA type books, so basing them in DC, Virginia Beach, Virginia is often a favorite for me, but the characters being in the military or CIA are from everywhere,” Traci said. “So living in Virginia for so many years but being from the West is great. For example, if you’re talking about Virginia, one of the most common freeways is I-95, but if you’re in Utah, it’s the 15, with the in front of the number. Little things like that you wouldn’t know unless you’ve lived in different places.”

The post How Traci Hunter Abramson’s Travels Authenticates Her Books (Episode 53) first appeared on Author Sarah Hamaker.

“What I wanted to do as a career as a child was archeology,” Sally Jo says. “Writing also has got that concept of digging, you have to dig into your subject and your topic and your characters and what’s going happen. Archeology fascinated me, finding the tombs and treasures… and writing fits that whole concept of discovery because as a writer I do that daily.”

The post The Archeology of Writing With Sally Jo Pitts (Episode 52) first appeared on Author Sarah Hamaker.

“I was inspired by author Deborah White Smith, who did some updated versions or modern-day tellings of some Jane Austen books,” Melanie says. “I loved her books and I love Jane Austen, and thought, ‘I could do this’ with one of my favorite classics, Jane Eyre. … I love the whole gothic suspense thing that goes on in Jane Eyre and that could easily be reset to today.”

The post The Gothic World Melanie Jeschke Loves (Episode 51) first appeared on Author Sarah Hamaker.

“I don’t write in crayon anymore but I do have a closet door with a map going up on the wall that some artist family members are building a mural of Miller’s Creek, which is where most of my books’ settings are just so I can keep track of the roads and who lives in what house,” Mindy says. “So they’re allowed to draw on the walls of my office for that.”

The post Why Mindy Allows Crayons on Her Walls (Episode 50) first appeared on Author Sarah Hamaker.

“As a younger man, I was really interested in filmmaking,” Andy says. “When I’m writing a scene, I may [visualize it as a movie]. In my Shepherd suspense series, there are scenes in each of the books that play out as if I were watching a movie in advance of me writing it. … I take that and start diving into how do I turn this into a written scene.”

The post How Andrew Huff Visualizes Writing (Episode 49) first appeared on Author Sarah Hamaker.

“When I started blogging over 10 years ago, I decided that divine detour sums up my writing and life in general,” Kathy says. “Sometimes God takes us on a crooked path to the right thing. … We can’t always assume how God plans to get us to our calling and [divine detour] kind of sums that up for all of us.”

The post Take a Divine Detour With Kathy Harris (Episode 48) first appeared on Author Sarah Hamaker.

“It seems in these days, many people feel so hopeless and so helpless,” Liz says. “That's why I do what I do very intentionally to show that even in the most terrifying circumstances, … we're never truly alone in that. God has promised that he's going to walk through the fire with us. So no matter what happens, he's always going to be there. Then he promises that he works everything out to our good. There's that hope that I do bring to the stories and that I hope the readers will pick up on and we'll be uplifted by it. Even a romantic suspense can be an uplifting book when it's written from a Christian perspective.”

The post Liz Tolsma Infuses Hope in her Books (Episode 47) first appeared on Author Sarah Hamaker.

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“Sometimes our writing kind of tells us what to write,” says Jerusha Agen. “Writing suspense fits tendencies of my personality because I do tend to be a fearful person. … I have a hyperactive imagination. So I'm really always imagining worst-case scenarios and danger. In a way, I think writing romantic suspense gives me a healthy channel for the tendencies instead of just freaking myself out in my daily life. I can actually put it in a book, and have more control over it and have a positive lesson come out of it as well.”

The post Jerusha Agen’s Suspenseful Tendencies (Episode 46) first appeared on Author Sarah Hamaker.

<img width="1080" height="1080" data-tf-not-load src="https://sarahhamakerfiction.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Jennifer-Crosswhite-meme-1.png" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" srcset="https://sarahhamakerfiction.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Jennifer-Crosswhite-meme-1.png 1080w, https://sarahhamakerfiction.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Jennifer-Crosswhite-meme-1-300x300.png 300w, https://sarahhamakerfiction.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Jennifer-Crosswhite-meme-1-1024x1024.png 1024w, https://sarahhamakerfiction.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Jennifer-Crosswhite-meme-1-150x150.png 150w, https://sarahhamakerfiction.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Jennifer-Crosswhite-meme-1-768x768.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1080px) 100vw, 1080px" />

“You’re always sort of riding that fine line of believable, but pushing the edge of it,” Jennifer says. “You want to put people in really strange and difficult situations, and you want the stakes to escalate. You want things to get more challenging. … People have to get lost in the story world and feel like it can happen. … One of the questions we ask ourselves as writers is what's the worst thing that could happen right now?”

The post Jennifer Crosswhite’s Believability Ride (Episode 45) first appeared on Author Sarah Hamaker.