ERIN LEIGH CRISP

I just wanted to thank all the awesome blog tour hosts that helped me promote my blog tour last week. It was a super-successful tour and I'm currently planning another one so look out for future tour dates. If you're looking for a tour company to promote your next book, I would recommend Pump Up Your Book. #blogtour #author

Today is the day. Blog Tour Day. #blogtour #author

I've got stories swirling in my head again. Characters are carrying on conversations, titles are popping up out of nowhere and the Christmas spirit is revealing itself in story lines, concepts and character traits. It's time to write. Now I just have to convince my real life of the fact. #author #theotherlife

My deadline for returning the re-written manuscript is three days away. Am I ready? Um, no. Not even close. Ugh. And, currently, I am very tired of my own writing, and all I can think about is chocolate. This is really not good. But I am determined. (At least, I am trying to be.) So... today I will finish the first draft of the re-write. Then I will print the whole thing again and tomorrow and Wednesday, I will push through the final edits (along with about a million other th

It's a diffcult idea for me. I like my book. I like the way it ends. I like the way the characters develop. I like it. It's finished. I don't want to rewrite it. Period. But the publisher asks for sweeping changes. . . before they'll read it. Sigh. There is good news here. I mean, they read the entire proposal (including that dreaded synopsis) and they didn't throw the whole thing in the trash (which might have been one of my biggest fears). They even read the first few chapt

One day, I'm going to laugh over all the mistakes I made on my road to publishing. I'll share it with new writers and they will laugh. I'll confess it to my agent and he will chuckle. One day, it will be hilarious. Today, it's not. Tonight, it's tears and "What was I thinking?" But, one day... #author #agents #fear

Sometimes, the best chapters I write are written during a time of chaos. Don't get me wrong, chaos is a constant for me. Screaming, giggling, football in the house, pinatas, six baths, six plates (3 times a day), six times the laundry. Things are crazy here. Always. And it usually takes peace and quiet and a few hours in my favorite coffee shop to get my best writing done. But sometimes--once in a precious while--I write something absolutely fantastic in the middle of chaos.

Our last pastor always said that God has special grace for his children. There is baby-birthing grace. And dying-day grace. There is parenting-teenagers grace. Losing-your-job grace. No-money grace. The-roof-is-leaking-again grace. You name it. God has enough grace for it. I believe that. Every day I need special grace for something. Every day I ask. The Lord has blessed me in innumerable ways, and one of them is believing in a big God. A God big enough to handle all my littl

How do I boil a 60k word manuscript down to 6 pages? The answer is: Not very well. This is new for me and there is a learning curve. Everyone keeps saying that. I was the girl that busted every grading curve in college. I was the only female student that dared to take Greek. I graduated Summa Cum Laude in 3.5 years. I birthed four children and have taught three of them to read and write on my own. I taught myself professional photography, hand-made quilting, and how to write

(It is totally okay if the lyrics to that song just popped into your head. I'm humming it while I type.) In seven days I will email my first full manuscript to a literary agent who is interested in it. November first. It is a self-imposed deadline, but a deadline none-the-less. So one more week of over-zealous editing, tears, and no clean dishes. One more week of hoping I'm good enough and fearing I'm not. And then I quit. Kidding. But I am going to take a few days off. And n