This week I’m hosting Kimberly Rose Johnson with A Valentine for Kayla (US only), Alison Stone with Plain Peril, and Georgia Shaffer with her non-fiction title, 12 Smart Choices for Finding the Right Guy (US only). If you want to enter the drawings for the books, please leave a comment on your post with your email address. I will not enter you without an email address (my way to contact you if you win). If you don’t want to leave an email address, another way you can enter is to email me at margaretdaley@gmail.com. The drawings end Sunday (Mar. 1st) evening.
Interview with Georgia Shaffer, author of 12 Smart Choices for Finding the Right Guy:
1. What made you start writing?
I never wanted to be a writer or write a book, but life’s experiences had a way of changing me, my dreams, and my desires.
After the dust settled from my divorce and a bone marrow transplant for recurring breast cancer, I felt God calling me to write a book about restoring our lives after loss. There was one major problem. I couldn’t write, at least in a way that anyone would choose to read.
2. How long have you been writing? When did you sell your first book?
I have been writing for 25 years. It took ten years before I sold my first book. Attending writers conferences and consistently going to my writing critique group enabled me to polish my writing skills to the point I could get a contract with a publisher.
3. How do you handle rejections?
Too often a rejection feels like a rejection of me as a person instead of the project I’m proposing. I usually work through my discouragement by talking with my writer friends who encourage me to not give up.
4. Why do you write?
Writing for me is a calling and a ministry. Whether I’m sharing practical advice or encouraging writers to keep on keeping on, writing is one of the key ways I reach out to those who are hurting or struggling.
5. What would you be doing with your free time if you weren’t writing?
I would probably spend more time in my garden.
6. What are you working on right now?
I’m writing a devotional entitled Losing It and Gaining More: One Hundred Days to Seeing Past the Pain. My desire is that readers will gain new perspectives on the losses they experience and minimize the time they spend in discouragement and despair. My hope is that reading the devotionals will help hurting people grow, rather than just survive through tough times.
7. Do you put yourself into your books/characters?
Each book I’ve written has been based on my life experiences and what I’ve learned as a licensed psychologist in Pennsylvania and a life coach. Whether I’m writing about being a Christian single or about my emotional struggles in Taking Out Your Emotional Trash, I’ve first lived the book and then share what I learned.
8. Tell us about the book you have out right now.
My newly released book is for single women entitled 12 Smart Choices for Finding the Right Guy. It explores our relational blind spots and offers strategies for making wise dating choices.
9. Do you have any advice for other writers?
Don’t allow discouragement to set in. Keep that reader in mind who needs to hear your words and who will be positively changed by them.
10. How important is faith in your books?
Faith is a crucial part of my writing. That is where the real transformation occurs when people believe in a God who is bigger than themselves and they understand how much he loves them.
11. What themes do you like to write about?
Other than my book on Christian coaching, I write about emotional and spiritual growth, how to experience healthy relationships and how to handle adversity and times of suffering.
12. What is your favorite book you’ve written and why?
Probably 12 Smart Choices for Finding the Right Guy because of the emails and messages I receive from struggling singles who had settled for less than God’s best. They are often trapped in their negative thoughts and feelings and the belief that they can’t be in a healthy relationship. This book offers them hope that they can experience the emotional intimacy they desire.
13. What is your writing schedule like?
I write best from 7:00 to 10:00 a.m. and also from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. Even when I’m not under a book contract I have other writing projects to complete and try to write five days a week.
Check out 12 Smart Choices for Finding the Right Guy on Amazon
