Review of A Soldier's Promise by Cheryl Wyatt

The first time I met Cheryl Wyatt was through an email. She had put out a request for an accountability partner, someone who would encourage her to keep at her writing, meet her weekly word count goals, and complete a WIP within a reasonable length of time. I accepted her challenge.

We met face to face at the 2005 ACFW conference in Nashville for the first time. She was as sweet in person as her personality over the Internet implied. We met again at 2006 ACFW in Dallas, where Cheryl and I shared some private moments and she prayed with me, bringing me comfort over a personal issue that had been bothering me for a very long time.

With two published books and one more under contract, Cheryl is way beyond the point of needing a kick in the pants from me! Yet, despite her success, she has proven to be a loyal friend and source of support.

Cheryl is an inspiration to me. When I first began my Internet friendship with her, she was writing one day a week since she had little ones at home. Those one-day a week sittings at her computer proved very productive! I’m so proud of her.

I received A Soldier’s Promise as one of the books included in the LI book club I joined before I even knew Cheryl’s book was in print. I was so excited to see her name on the front cover. Let me tell you now my impressions of her book.

Pararescue jumper Joel Montgomery, despite reservations about returning to his home town, responds to a dying child's request. When he meets young Bradley's teacher, feelings are set in motion he had not anticipated.

Cheryl brings her characters to life by portraying the conflicting emotions in their daily lives that create stumbling blocks to their happiness. Past hurts, present struggles, and future dreams are all worked nicely into a tender and compelling love story.

One of the things I enjoyed most about the book was that the hero, Joel, has a unique and exciting profession. Despite the physical and emotional strength required to pursue such a career as pararescue work, Cheryl portrays his weaknesses, his fears, and his reconciliation with a past that has brought him a great deal of pain over the years.

The reader can’t help but fall in love with young Bradley, the sick little boy who has a battle of his own to fight. Despite the gravity of a child whose life is in danger, Cheryl injects enough humor to provide the reader a few laughs while traveling the roller coaster of Amber and Joel’s romance
.
Heroine Amber rounds out the story with her fierce compassion for her young, ailing student, her struggle to win Joel’s heart, and her unwavering faith in God, even when His answer to her prayers seems to be “no”.

Here’s wishing Cheryl lots more success with her future releases. Cheryl, thanks for being a friend!

Contest drawing: I will be giving away a free copy of Cheryl's book, A Soldier's Promise at the end of January. In order to enter, simply leave a comment for any of my January blog posts. Subscribe to my blog and your name will be entered twice, doubling your chances to win! Good luck.


Thanks for reading my blog.

Interview with Author Cheryl Wyatt

Welcome, Cheryl. I’m thrilled to interview you on my blog.

Thank you! I'm pleased to be here and appreciate you for hosting me. :-)

Tell us about your two releases, A Soldier’s Promise and A Soldier’s Family.

They are my debut novels and books 1 and 2 of my Wings of Refuge series from Steeple Hill Love Inspired. The series features a team of US Air Force Pararescue Jumpers (PJs for short) and the women who capture their hearts. Book 1 features Joel, the team leader. Book 2 features Manny. Blurbs can be found on Amazon, eharlequin, or any online bookseller. In addition, they have posted an excerpt of the first chapter of book 1.

Unusual occupations in novels are a pleasant surprise for the reader. What prompted you to write about an Air Force pararescue jumper?

I love to write about characters who have unique and different careers than the norm for romances. I see a lot of military authors writing about Navy SEALs, but not a lot about PJs, so I wanted to honor these Special Ops soldiers by featuring a team of them in a series. I'm so thankful Steeple Hill has given me that opportunity.

One of your main characters is a young child with a terminal illness. Have you had to deal with a similar situation in your own life?

I have had two friends lose daughters to aggressive forms of Leukemia. The courage both of those girls displayed, even up to the moments of their deaths, was astounding and touched everyone around them. I wanted to honor their courage, and the courage of their mothers, by writing the character of Bradley who is about the same age as the two girls were when they died. In one of my books, one of the PJs says about Bradley, "if courage could cure cancer, that child's faith and fight alone would have eradicated it from the earth." That is the same way I felt watching Makayla and Tierja as they battled valiantly.

Are there other books planned in the series?

Yes. For now, three out of seven have contracted. I am not certain about the other four books but my editor loves it when one of my PJs lands on her desk. So I'm hoping each guy will have his own story. So yes, there is a story for all seven guys on Joel Montgomery's (hero from A Soldier's Promise) team. Ben's story releases early 2009 and there are more PJ stores in the works. Plus, I have other series plotted out that are centered around the fictional town of Refuge, Ill.

When we first met, you told me your only day to write was on Saturdays. Have you been able to expand your writing schedule, or are you still confined to one day a week?

LOL! No, thankfully I have been able to expand thanks to more of my children starting school. I still have one at home but she loves to keep herself entertained so I am able to get several hours of writing time in every day during the week. I try not to write when my children are home because I want to focus on them and prevent Cyber-rivalry. LOL!

When did you realize that writing would be an integral part of your life?

I have always wanted to write since I was old enough to understand the concept. I received my first rejection in third grade from a popular, national children's magazine that is still in circulation today. My mother tells me I told stories before I could write and started scribbling them down the minute I learned to use a crayon.

Any parting advice for prepublished writers?

Seek God in all of it. Write as worship. Ask Him for the drive, the discipline and the determination to make it if that's what He wants for you. Stay as revisable as your manuscript. Be willing to hear hard things about your writing. Read! Read! Read! Write! Write! Write! Join a writing organization when you're able. http://www.acfw.com/ is a great one. There is also Romance Writers of America...who has many, many online and geographical chapters to join. ACFW is American Christian Fiction Writers and they are a wellspring of information and support if you are targeting a Christian bookseller.

Cheryl, that is excellent advice. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me about your intriguing stories. I wish you the best of success with these two releases and the rest of your series.

Contest drawing: I will be giving away a free copy of Cheryl's book, A Soldier's Promise at the end of January. In order to enter, simply leave a comment for any of my January blog posts. Subscribe to my blog and your name will be entered twice, doubling your chances to win! Good luck.

Thanks for reading my blog.

How Many Books?

I have often wondered how many books I could read in a year’s time, so this past year, I kept track. I totaled 75. Many of the books I read were paperback romances by ACFW authors. It is fun to read them because I know some of the authors personally. I can picture them sitting at their desks, carefully selecting the right words to make up their story. I find myself wondering how many times a certain scene was rewritten before it reached publication, or which character’s name was changed during the course of rewrites.

However, when I look over my list, it frustrates me to see how few books I read that others are talking about. Every time I read some of the loop emails, I gather another list of books I want to read “someday”. This last week, I ordered A Passion Most Pure by Julie Lesseman and the new book on writing romance that Gail Martin wrote. Then, I was introduced to Karen Kingsbury when I received the first book in her Redemption series as a Christmas gift. So, of course, after finishing the first one, I had to run to my local Christian bookstore and buy the next one in the series, Remember.

In the meantime, one of the ladies on our library board and a long time friend, not to mention former teacher to both of my kids back in the day, loaned me a book she thought I would like. I returned it to her after reading it and doesn’t she arrive at our next board meeting with two more books for me to read.

I joined the LI book club in August and they were sending me four books a month with frequent offers to get two “extra books” free if I do thus and so. I changed that one so now I am supposed to only receive four books every two months, but they still seem to arrive in the mal faster than I can read them.

I couldn’t resist the bargain table at Wal-mart the other day. What reader can resist a hardback novel for under three bucks, for goodness sake! I couldn’t settle for one, so I walked out with two. That totals close to a dozen books I have acquired over the past week.

Carla Stewart, in responding to a “tag game” on her blog, mentions several books I have heard of and wanted to read, but never have. Everywhere I go and everything I read seems to lead me to another book, another possible adventure, another “must read experience”.

Like most avid readers, I have stacks and stacks of books, some neatly organized on bookshelves, most piled up here and there on end tables, the coffee table, the wall unit. I know I need to weed out and get rid of some of them, but it’s like making a choice between old friends. How do you decide you will never want to look at one certain favorite book again over another? It is a daunting decision and one I am agonizing over as I struggle every day to get organized.

I look forward to all the great books I will read over the next twelve months and I will grieve the ones I give away out of necessity. Each one holds a hidden treasure of knowledge and adventure between its covers.

There are many things I believe about heaven, but these are for sure two. There will never be a limit on the amount of time we have to read and the selection of books we can choose from will be virtually immeasurable.

Interview with author Cheryl Wyatt coming soon!

Thanks for reading my blog.

Time is Already Flying By!

We are ten days into the New Year and already I am struggling with meeting my goals! How frustrating is that? Very! However, I need to take some of my own advice and reevaluate my plans.

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to speak at my Toastmasters meeting. I spoke on New Year’s resolutions and how they involve lifestyle change. There lies the key. It is so difficult to change, especially when you have been as disorganized as I all your life. Maybe I’m a bit ADD as well, because it seems I can’t ever stick to one project for any length of time. Well, I shouldn’t say that. I can do the things I like for hours at a time! Give me a good book and if I’m not interrupted, I could read it from cover to cover. Set me down at the computer and I can find things to do on it that keep me occupied for half a day.

Housekeeping chores are another thing entirely. I can only focus for a certain length of time on going through old mail or organizing my myriad collection of books. So, I’m going to set a goal of fifteen minutes once a day to do that sort of thing. Maybe that way, the wood on top of my computer desk and the spare desk in my bedroom will be visible by the end of 2008!

I received a critique of one of my WIPs from one of the members of my new critique group the other day. Even though these particular pages have been entered in the Genesis contest twice and scored in the nineties both years, she identifies a major flaw. This is good, because the same problem has been gnawing at the back of my mind for months. Still, I have decided to move forward with this manuscript and get if finished. Then I can go back and rework it. If I don’t, I will be forever working those first couple of chapters. Maybe if I finish the story, I will be able to better define my heroine in chapter one. Big change for me. I’m used to rewriting the same chapters over and over until I think they are right. All that rewriting, and still they are not.

Sometimes this whole writing thing is so exasperating! I work out great scenes in my mind, but when it comes to putting them on paper, they don’t sound near as exciting. I think of other writers I have spoken to, published authors, who say it never gets any easier. I derive some consolation from that, knowing there are dozens of you out there experiencing the same agony as me. Searching for the right word. Checking sentence structure. Researching facts. Dreaming great dreams of touching lives with words.

So, I will press on and hope that I see some success in 2008.

Thanks for reading my blog!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! I would like to wish everyone a healthy, prosperous, successful, and blessed 2008.

The beginning of a new year brings to mind the obligation of resolutions. It seems like the logical time to “sweep out the old, bring in the new”. Start over. Do “everything right”.

There are several definitions of the word “resolution”, but the one I like is “finding a solution to a problem”. I have learned over the course of my life that one does not find the solution to all of one’s problems somewhere between midnight December 31st and 12:01 AM January 1st of the subsequent year.

The solving of problems takes time. It also requires change, and change seldom occurs overnight. Change is a process that must be planned out, evaluated, implemented, and re-evaluated for its effectiveness.

Resolutions are usually broken within the first week. By the first of February, we are in despair over our failure to live a healthier lifestyle or make a dent in the to do list we promised to complete. Most of us still carry the burden of those bad habits we vowed to shake. Sometimes it seems that we remain at a standstill as time marches forward.

This year, I have decided to dispense with resolutions and set goals instead. Defined as “the result or achievement toward which effort is directed”, goals are friendly little things. They represent movement, progress, final arrival at a destination. If they are not achieved by a certain date, they can be moved a bit further along on the calendar without too much protest.

Goals can be broken down into pieces. A resolution is like cramming half a sandwich into one’s mouth all at once, forcing a person to choke it down. Goals can be achieved at a more leisurely pace, making them much more palatable.

A word of warning. Goals come with a companion that cannot be denied. Responsibility. If we do not hold ourselves accountable to our goals, they are as worthless as a paper sack with a hole in the bottom. We have to set up consequences for failure to meet our goals and exercise the self-discipline necessary to enforce them.

Be specific about the goals you wish to achieve and break them down into realistic possibilities. Rather than setting a goal of writing 500 words a day, aim for 2500 words a week. That gives you leeway when the grandkids stop by unexpectedly, you have meetings to attend, or life events just get in the way. This little padding can mean the difference between success and failure.

If you find you are consistently not meeting the goal, take the time to do an evaluation and find out why not. Is it too unrealistic for your life-style? Is it a matter of self-discipline? Are there other things in your life that need to take precedence right now, other goals that are more important?

If you find your goals are feasible, put those consequences in place. “If I have not written 2000 words by Friday, I need to skip that favorite Saturday evening TV show”. Be firm with yourself when you need to be and give yourself a break when it is warranted.

Throw out the resolutions that shatter like tinkling glass when they are broken. Set goals that are tangible, flexible, and rewarding when achieved. Move forward in 2008!

Thanks for reading my blog.