Welcome Sandra Byrd, author of To Die For

So thrilled to host author Sandra Byrd on my blog talking about her latest novel, To Die For.





Sandra, why did you write To Die For?

I am a lifelong Tudorphile, so writing books set in that era was a dream for me. I've always loved Anne Boleyn. From a faith point of view, those reformation years were critical to refinement and revival in Christianity. Yet I found that while Anne's faith, and the faith of her friends, was well covered in nonfiction, fiction often ignored or downplayed her convictions altogether, often though not always portraying her as either vixen or victim. I wanted to add some shading and nuance to the genre and telling it from Meg Wyatt's point of view allowed me to do that. The fact is, the Boleyns in general and Anne in particular were instrumental in the English Reformation. The Wyatt family, too, produced more than Thomas the poet, as much as I like him. Meg, and John Rogers, played what I think were much more significant roles.





Tell us a little bit about the book?

Meg Wyatt has been Anne Boleyn's closest friend ever since they grew up together on neighboring manors in Kent. So when twenty-five-year-old Anne's star begins to ascend, of course she takes Meg along for the ride.

Life in the court of Henry VIII is thrilling...at first. Meg is made mistress of Anne's wardrobe, and she enjoys the spoils of this privileged orbit and uses her influence for good. She is young and beautiful and in favor; everyone at court assumes that being close to her is being close to Anne.

But favor is fickle and envy is often laced with venom. As Anne falls, so does Meg, and it becomes nearly impossible for her to discern ally from enemy. Suddenly life's unwelcome surprises rub against court's sheen to reveal the tarnished brass of false affections and the bona fide gold of those are true. Both Anne and Meg may lose everything. When your best friend is married to fearsome Henry VIII, you may soon find yourself not only friendless but headless as well.

A rich alchemy of fact and fiction, To Die For chronicles the glittering court life, the sweeping romance, and the heartbreaking fall from grace of a forsaken queen and Meg, her closest companion, who was forgotten by the ages but who is destined to live on in our hearts forever.


What do you find most challenging about writing, Sandra?

Two things. Practically speaking, time. It takes much more time than ever before to author books. Time to research, to write, to edit, to connect with readers via the internet, to meet with people on social media and face to face. I love it all - just need four hands and two brains and forty hours in a day!

Secondly, writing books is a much more public profession than it used to be. People review your books and post their thoughts all over the web. It's so nice that people are reading, but it can be hard to wonder, every day, what people might be saying about you and your work.


How do you work through this challenge?


I'm trying to keep firm boundaries on my writing schedule, so that I am not online more than I need to be, and that I don't take on more projects than I can handle well. As for the reviews, I remind myself that I do my best to write good books and once I put the baby in the basket, as it were, it's out there to be discovered and commented upon by anyone. And that's okay.

Where can my readers find you on the web?


Please visit me online at my website http://www.sandrabyrd.com. You can also link to me on Facebook and Twitter from there. I hope your readers will also sign up for my e-postcards (where I am also giving away two Kindles) so I can keep in touch! If you’d like to visit some of the castles and palaces “virtually,” please visit the "Castles and Palaces" page on my website where there are lots of wonderful photos.


Thank you, Sandra, for joining us this week on "The Write Stuff." Much success with your novel, To Die For!

A Christian Writer's World ~~ Characters who grip your heart: CHOSEN ONES - Eileen Hinkle Rife - Free Book

A Christian Writer's World ~~ Characters who grip your heart: CHOSEN ONES - Eileen Hinkle Rife - Free Book: "Welcome, Eileen Tell us how much of yourself you write into your characters. Are we talking percentages? Hmm . . . hard to say, but a charac..."

Drip, Drip, Splat! by Guest Blogger, Jennifer Slattery

Have you ever had those nights when you turn off the lights and nestle into your pillow, assuming sleep will come easily, to be jolted by the most annoying sound?
Drip, drip, drip.

At first, you try to ignore it. You’ve just settled in. The last thing you want to do is get up. So you roll over and pull the pillow over your ears.
Drip, drip, drip.

How can such a soft sound be so infuriating? Your husband snores beside you, a steady, freight train type rumble that has become comforting over the years, presumably drowning out all other noise. Except that one. That faint, steady dripping that echoes from one of the numerous faucets in the house, drifting through the halls, and straight to your ears. About an hour into it, you realize you’ll never get any sleep until you find the source of your irritation. You check the master bath first. After all, it’s closest. A slight chill fills the air as your aching feet shuffle their way across the cold tile. You stand there, groggy-eyed in the dim light, straining your ears for that infuriating drip, drip, drip. Nothing! It’s stopped. And so, you crawl back into bed and nestle into the covers once again. But the minute your heavy eyes close and dreams begin to seep through your mind, it’s back.

Drip, drip, drip.

Once again, you try to ignore it. After all, you’ve slept through countless nights of your husband’s freight-train snoring. Surely you can ignore a light drizzling of water.

Drip, drip, drip.

The clock ticks. You roll on your side and once again cover your ears with a thick, fluffy pillow.

Drip, drip, drip.

A loud sigh escapes your lips. The frustration mounts until any hint of wariness is replaced by eye-opening, heart pounding, frustration. There’s no sense ignoring it anymore. Jumping out of your warm bed one more time, you resume your search. As you hurry down the hall towards bathroom number two, you catch a glimmer of yourself in the mirror. Your frustration reveals itself in a tired frown and dull, drooping eyes.
The next day, as you stand in front of your husband, hands planted firmly on your hips, your mouth flapping so quickly your lips are ready to take flight, the image that haunted you in the dim hall mirror is reflected in your husband’s eyes. You know the one I’m talking about. That look that says, “Maybe if I just sit here and nod my head, she’ll go away.” The one that tells you he hasn’t heard a word you’re saying. So what do you do? You move over a step so that your body blocks the entire television screen and raise your voice an octave, hoping to drown out the sports castor’s.

Drip, drip, drip.

“I just cleaned the bathroom. Your whiskers are everywhere. I asked you to clean them up, remember? When are you going to do it?”

Drip, drip, drip.

“I asked you to take the trash out an hour ago. All you ever do is sit in front of that television screen.”

Drip, drip, drip.

“You’re never home. You never talk to me. You never listen to me.”

Drip, drip, drip. SPLAT!

Finally, your husband can’t take it anymore. Gathering his things, he heads into the garage, pulls out the ladder and climbs his way, remote in hand, to the roof. You follow him out, your mouth moving even faster this time.

“Don’t walk away when I’m talking to you! You hear me?”

But he’s not listening. Closing his ears to the constant dripping of your voice, he’s nestled himself onto the corner of the roof. Ah, what bliss!

Proverbs 27:15-16 says, “A quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping on a rainy day; restraining her is like restraining the wind or grasping oil in the hand.”
I love the picture this paints. Have you ever tried to grab oil, or any liquid, with your hands? It can be rather frustrating. Just ask the BP guys. No matter how hard you concentrate, no matter how hard you grasp, the slippery stuff eludes you, blending into what would have been pure water. Eventually you give up and run for higher ground–or a rooftop.

And Proverbs 25:24 gets a giggle out of me every time, largely because I’ve seen my husband gaze longingly at our ladder more often than not. lol. “Better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife.”

Quarrelsome. Contentious. Brawling. Nagging. And about what? Dishes left on the counter? Whiskers on the sink? Dirty clothes that narrowly missed the hamper? Even though it would take us half a second to toss the clothes in the bin, we’ll go to great lengths to tell our husband all about it, even climbing up that ladder if we have to.

One evening while teaching about this very subject at a local study group, one of the ladies grew increasingly agitated. By the end of my message, she couldn’t contain herself anymore and told me, and whoever else would listen–

Drip, drip, drip.

–how appropriate it was for her to express herself, and her frustrations. “And if you’ve told them again and again,”–

Drip, drip, drip.

“And they still won’t listen”–

Drip, drip, drip.

So what had gotten her so upset? Was her husband coming home and pounding on her and the kids? Oh, no, much worse! Was he out boozing it up with a new lady on his arm every evening? Worse! So what was he doing that was so infuriating she couldn’t let it drop? What was that huge thorn in their marriage that absolutely had to be dealt with?

He was leaving his shoes piled in front of the doorway instead of placing them in the appropriate shoe holders. Now do you see why she just couldn’t let it go?
About a month ago, one of my writer friends sent out a research question. She wanted us to ask our spouses to name something we did that totally irritates them that they overlook out of love for us or an understanding that we can’t help it. It took quite a bit of prodding to get it out of my husband, but after assuring him that it would not hurt my feelings and that it would greatly help my friend, he bared all. My post-it notes, stuck to the dash of our car, the kitchen counter, mirrors, the desk, the sides of my computer screen–you name it, drove him nuts. Along with the “click, click,clicking” sound my nails make on the computer keyboard as I write. But regardless of what drove him nuts, what touched me was that I never, nope never, not once, heard about them. His reasoning, “I just figured it was more my issue than yours.” Translation: It wasn’t worth throwing garbage into our relationship. Ah, I can learn a lot from that man of mine!

Please don’t misunderstand this post. I’m not saying don’t be honest with your spouse. If something bothers you, please, bring it up. Once. Then let it go. Maybe your spouse will change that behavior. But if he doesn’t, ask yourself, “Is this really worth fighting over?”


~~

Jennifer Slattery writes for Christ to the World, the Christian Pulse, and Samie Sisters. She’s the marketing manager for the literary website, Clash of the Title, and works for Tiffany Colter the Writing Career Coach doing critiques and marketing. She’s written for numerous publications, websites, and E-zines and has placed in numerous contests. You can find out more about her and her writing at http://jenniferslatterylivesoutloud.com

About Staci Stallings, Guest Blogger on "The Write Stuff"

A stay-at-home mom with a husband, three kids and a writing addiction on the side, Staci Stallings has numerous titles for readers to choose from. Not content to stay in one genre and write it to death, Staci’s stories run the gamut from young adult to adult, from motivational and inspirational to full-out Christian and back again. Every title is a new adventure! That’s what keeps Staci writing and you reading. Although she lives in Amarillo, Texas and her main career right now is her family, Staci touches the lives of people across the globe every week with her various Internet endeavors including:
Books In Print, Kindle, & FREE on Spirit Light Works:
http://stacistallings.wordpress.com/

Spirit Light Books--The Blog
http://spiritlightbooks.wordpress.com/

And…

Staci’s website
http://www.stacistallings.com

Come on over for a visit…

You’ll feel better for the experience!

I'll Win it For You by Guest Bogger, Staci Stallings

The game was tight. Arch-rivals had faced off for three and a half periods in a seesaw battle that was going down to the wire. As the clock ticked down, the two sides traded the lead back and forth. Neither could be assured of victory because with the game so close, anything could happen.

From the sideline, the coach watched his team getting more and more apprehensive as the seconds ticked away. They were missing shots they never missed. They were missing opportunities they didn’t miss. Even their body language said, “This is bad. We might lose this one.”

With less than a minute left, the coach called a time out. Now he knew that every girl on that court had been over the plays a million times. They didn’t need elaborate help to set up a play for a last second win. They needed to calm down and play the way they knew how to play. So when they bent into that huddle, the coach told them something more than a little unconventional. “Go out there. Play the game. Have fun. Do your best, and I’ll win it for you.”

No pressure instructions. No you have to win this or we lose to our rivals. No anxiety-inducing strategy. Simply, “Go play, and I’ll win it for you.”
To my way of thinking, that was an audacious statement because in reality, it wouldn’t be the coach taking the shot that would win or lose the game. He would be standing on the sideline with no direct control whatsoever. However, this coach knew something about the training these girls had been through, and he knew without a doubt they could do it. The problem was they didn’t know they could do it, and so, he let them rely not on themselves for the win but on him.

The amazing thing to me when I really started thinking about this statement is that what that coach told his team is exactly what Jesus tells each one of us: “Go out there. Play the game. Have fun. Do your best, and I’ll win it for you.”

We think it’s all on us—that we have to get everything right, do everything perfectly, or our “win” will never materialize. In fact, we get sucked into this mentality that Heaven may be just out of our reach no matter what we do. However, I think the reality is that Jesus is the coach standing on the sideline having full faith that we can do everything He’s trained us to do. We can love just like He’s shown us. We can give; we can live—not because we can do it on our own but because He’s right there, and He has faith that we have been given everything we need to win through Him.

I’m sure you know the end of the story. When the buzzer sounded, the team who had just gone out, had fun, and done their best was victorious.

One day the final buzzer of your life will sound, and the question at that moment will be this: Did you allow Jesus to be your coach? Did you have faith that He would win the game for you—or are you still trying to win it yourself? It’s a question worth contemplating.

Staci Stallings (c) 2003