Guest Post Our Little Secret by Merry Farmer

Title: Our Little Secrets
Author: Merry Farmer
Series: Montana Romance Series (Book 1)
Genre: Western/Historical/Romance
Publisher: Self Published
Release Date: Mar 15 2013
Edition/Formats Available In: eBook & Print
Synopsis:
Michael West swore he would never fall in love again. So when the beautiful and wily Charlotte steps off the train looking for a new life he jumps at the business opportunity she presents. Engaged forty-five minutes after meeting, married the next day, Michael thinks he’s found everything a respectable man should have. Except that Michael is as far from respectable as they come. They agreed not to ask questions about each other’s pasts, but when the past seeps into their present Michael suspects his passionate new wife is not who she says she is. Too bad he’s already fallen in love with her. Charlotte Baldwin has a secret. She fled Philadelphia to escape the sins of her past but someone is following her. What better way to hide than by marrying Michael West, Cold Springs, Montana’s enigmatic shopkeeper? A new name, a new life, and a passionate husband is exactly what she needs to leave her sins behind. But when it comes to keeping secrets Charlotte may have met her match in Michael. When a connection neither of them expects catches up with them, the shocking revelation means Charlotte may have run right into the arms of her enemy. No sin stays a secret forever….

Our Little Secrets is the first book in Merry Farmer's highly acclaimed, historical Montana Romance series. In Our Little Secrets, she writes about the sins, secrets, and the impossibility of keeping them apart...or quiet. "...a story that has you begging for more and has you searching for answers from the first page....The past haunts the present as two people try to move into the future. A quick marriage with no questions asked. A budding and growing love. And a past that refuses to stay under wraps. A great story that will keep you wanting to know more. With depth characters and a story line that is unique in its own but has all the strength to pull you in and not let you up for air."

Guest Post

Practical Advice for Beginning Writers

If you’re just starting out in this fascinating, challenging, exciting, heartbreaking world of writing, I have one piece of advice for you. It’s something you may have heard before. In fact, I’m sure you hear it all the time. The reason I’m telling you again is because it’s true:
Read as much as you can.
Yep. That’s my advice. But when I say read, I mean read as homework. There are so many things that you can learn from those who have come before you that can make the job you have to do that much easier. Pay attention as you read. Look closely at the way other authors paint their characters, the way they develop and explain back story, and the way they build the world of the book. How does the book you’re reading make you feel? Do you care about the characters? Could you see yourself visiting the setting? Do you sympathize with the situations that have been created? If so, why or why not?
Throughout this summer, I’ve been reading George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series. It’s a goldmine for any author looking to master certain aspect of the craft, particularly characters. Why does everyone get so upset at the number of characters he kills off? Because Martin has a way of making you care deeply about even the smallest characters. How does he do that? What details does he include that make you miss your favorite guy or girl when she’s gone? There are a hundred answers to that question, and the one you come up with is going to help you to construct characters that your readers will miss when they close the book.
I’ve also read some not so great books in the past few months. We’re talking books full of tired genre tropes with characters that fall flat in two-dimensional settings. But guess what? Those books are just as important to pay attention to as the great ones. I keep asking myself why. Why don’t I care about this character? Why does this world seem so flat? Is there a lack of detail? Is the character unlikable? Do I not have enough information about the larger world of the story or do I have too much? Maybe the prose itself is littered with errors. It could be a lot of things.
The key to reading in a way that improves your writing is to truly examine everything that causes a reaction in you as a reader. Chances are, if you get excited about something, other readers have gotten excited about it. If you dislike something, someone else did too. If you can pinpoint those things, you can keep those concepts in mind when you write your own books.
So read away! You’ll feel much better about everything if you do.

Merry Farmer is an award-winning author of Historical Romance and what she likes to call “Sci-Fi for Women.” She lives in suburban Philadelphia with her two cats and enough story ideas to keep her writing until she’s 132. Her second novel, The Faithful Heart, was a 2102 RONE Award finalist and her unpublished futuristic novel A Man’s World won first place in the Novel: Character category at the 2013 Philadelphia Writer’s Conference. She is out to prove that you can make a living as a self-published author and to help others to do the same. Find Merry Farmer on her Website, Facebook, Twitter, and Amazon Author Page.

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