Frank and RaeLea Hurt, Fantasy Authors

Genuine Modern Fantasy set in North Dakota

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Dressing Our Newborn For The First Time

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This must be what it feels like when a mother and father dress their newborn baby in clothes for the first time. Though I probably should clarify that I’ve never had any human children–and I’ve not yet been tempted to try dressing up our cats.

RaeLea and I are so excited to share this with you! It’s been an involved, educational process, but at last the finishing touches are being made to the book cover for our first novel, Fog Over Mandaree.

Here’s a teaser image–a tightly cropped portion of the full cover:

Fog Over Mandaree cover teaser

I expect to have the final art files from our illustrator tomorrow, after which I’ll be adding the title text and revealing the cover. So be sure to check back!

 

February 2017 Project Update

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We’re working every day to bring our stories to life for you! Here’s a quick project update for you, dear fan.

My project board (photo below) is clogged with chapters for two novels in various beginning and end stages, as our debut novel Fog Over Mandaree is undergoing Test Reader review. I continue working on the follow-up novel, Alora: Playing God and the protagonist, Alora Bayn, is really starting to take shape. I think she’s going to be pretty kick-ass, if I do say so.

RaeLea is meanwhile spearheading the fantasy romance series, “Magic City Chronicles.” She has the Beta Draft for Spark of Justice finished, and is currently outlining the second book in the series, which she’s dubbed Investigator’s Creed.

Our current plan is to release the Alora Bayn series first (hopefully late Spring 2017), while continuing to bank up the Magic City Chronicles books to be released sometime this summer. In this way, we can focus our marketing efforts (and dollars) on one lineup at a time, applying lessons learned to the second series when it launches.

We intend on updating you regularly and sharing some teasers for these stories. As always, let us know what you want, and we will see what we can do to deliver on those expectations!

Novel writing project board

5 questions I ask myself each year

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Now is when many of us set goals for the coming year.  Setting goals is easy.  Assessing ourselves–really holding that mirror up–is not so easy.

These are five questions I ask myself every year:

  1. What did I accomplish this past year?
  2. What do I hope to accomplish this coming year?
  3. What do I wish to become in five years?
  4. What am I doing to make that dream a reality?
  5. What is in my way? (most of the time, it’s my own inaction which proves to be the great hurdle)
mirror held over face
(photo credit)

I then assign myself specific, measurable goals for each month of the coming year.  If a goal can’t be measured, then it is not a goal so much as wishful thinking.

I confess that I have yet to reach more than half of my self-assigned goals for any given year.  Maybe that means I am expecting too much of myself, or that I am merely too lazy.  I like to think that the real success story is in persisting and not giving up, whatever the outcome.

Don’t let anyone criticize you for being goal-oriented;  if you do not set goals for yourself, you will be doomed to live life as an unprepared, aimless wanderer.  Maybe that appeals to some folks, but not me!

Being prepared means taking action today to influence what you will be tomorrow.

Best of luck in your own self-assessment.  Here’s to a productive new year!