Today, I have Staci Stallings in for a visit.  I’m putting this up a day early because today, April 19, you can download Staci’s latest books, Deep In the Heart,  FREE.  Just go to Kindle before midnight, and you can download it at no charge.

 JRC:   I counted at least five books released in 2011.  How do you find time to write that many? 

 Staci:  Oh, boy.  🙂  Well, first off, I’ve been at this writing thing for 16 years.  I started in 1996.  Couple that with the fact that in high school, I was trained in speed writing through the Texas U.I.L. Journalism contests (had to write a whole news story in 30 minutes by hand and edited!).  Add to that having a secretarial minor in college (speed typing), and you’ve got someone who writes REALLY fast.  In a single week, I can write ten blog posts, a couple hundred tweets, countless emails, as well as editing others’ work, and writing new stuff for myself.

 JRC:  Maybe I should ask how many children you have?

 Staci:  I  have a husband, three kids who go to two different schools, all of their activities, my church where I teach Sunday School and direct VBS plays, two companies (my own and my husband’s), writing, publishing, marketing, blogging, our house, yard, laundry, dishes and all other “mom” stuff to take care of.  How do I do it?  One word:  God!  He is my sanity.

 JRC:   You really do have a writing addiction.  When did that start?  Did it start with a bang, or gradually grow into the addiction?  And how long did it take before you were published?

 Staci:  When I was four, I told my grandfather I was “anticipating” getting a ring when we went to town, so I think my fascination with words started pretty early.  Writing wasn’t too far behind.  In second grade, I wrote a story about Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.  My teacher at the time was a wonderful nun named Sr. Adrian.  She wrote on the top, “Great story! You are going to be a great writer!”  Well, Sr. Adrian knew everything, so that settled it, I was going to be a writer. 🙂

 The current incarnation of my writing addiction started in ’96 when I quit teaching English to stay home with my new baby daughter.  I went from 100 problems every day to me, at home, with a baby, all day long.  I couldn’t call my family because it was long distance, so I had no one to talk to and three channels on TV.  That’s when I went back to writing.  At first, I just wrote and wrote and wrote.  Then I gave some of my stories to a few friends after having the books printed at Kinkos.  Those copies quickly disappeared as this friend gave it to her mom who gave it to her sister… I was going broke printing copies of my books!  That’s when I started looking into publishing. That was in 2001.  It’s been quite the ride ever since.

 JRC:       So, just what is your writing schedule?

 Staci:  Haha!  That’s funny.  My writing “schedule” looks like this:  write 80 pages in 2 days, write nothing more on that story for months.  If I get REALLY lucky, I may write five sentences on a story, and then not pick it up for another two weeks.  In short, because of the craziness of my life, I literally have no schedule.  I pretty much get up and do as much as I can on the blogs and marketing, crafting covers, answering marketing questions from other authors, editing upcoming releases, and editing for friends while trying to keep the rest of my life in some semblance of order.  Every so often, like over Spring Break I get to write.  Then the stories just pour out of me.  Unfortunately for this season of my life, I don’t get the chance to write many stories–80 pages in 2 days followed by a month’s long draught is very typical these days.

 JRC:       Do you belong to a critique group? 

 Staci:  No, I don’t belong to a critique group.  I never have.  I’m not even sure I really believe in them unless they have a very strong writer who knows how to edit without trouncing on authors’ voices.  I have seen too many of them nearly destroy friends who then showed up at my doorstep one step away from quitting altogether.  I have seen those same friends, get off the critique treadmill and begin learning how to write in partnership with me.  That’s not a boast at all.  You see, I was a writing teacher, and I’m now an editor.  I know that good editing isn’t ripping someone’s story up and handing it back to them.  I know that it takes understanding writing and how to craft a story to teach someone to write.  Too often in critique groups, your work is at the mercy of other people who don’t know anymore or much more than you do, and that to me, is very dangerous.  The truth is it takes a concerted effort, over time, patiently teaching the writer how to mesh and understand the elements of writing while always, always staying true to their own voice to teach someone to write well.  That’s what my high school teacher did for me, and that’s what I try to pass on to those God puts in my path.

 JRC:       I must say, The Price of Silence is powerful.  Was there any special motivation to write that—some incident that prompted it?

 Staci:  Yes.  Unfortunately.  When I was student teaching, there was a gun brought to the classroom next door to me.  This was in 1991, long before Columbine and all the others.  Then the next year one of the first school shootings ever happened in a hallway that I would have been in had I been subbing there like I had the year before.  That really shook me up because how close had I come… twice?  Then my last year of teaching, unbeknownst to me, there was a gun actually brought to my classroom.  It was found the next period, and a young student who was a very good friend of mine was the one who saw it and told the school personnel about it.  The student who had reported the gun was threatened and had to leave school.  Gang graffiti popped up everywhere.  Two students were suspended–but not the instigator who had dared them to bring the gun and then threatened the one who stood up.  Two years later, the instigator was found guilty of killing his girlfriend and leaving her body on the railroad tracks. 

 It was about then that this story came to me–that of a high school girl, who moves to a big city school and uncovers the dangers of the gang operating within the school.  In trying to alert the administration, she puts herself in the line of fire.

 JRC:   Tell us a little about your latest book.

 Deep in the Heart is one of those books that is really near to my heart  It’s the story of Maggie Montgomery, a young lady just out of college who has been knocked down by life so often that all she has left in her possession is her faith.  On the advice of her college mentor, she applies for a job as the nanny to a Texas billionaire and his wife.  It is only upon accepting the job that Maggie begins to see that life on the other side of the dollar sign is not what she thought it would be.  The two precious kids she’s suddenly in charge of are way over-scheduled and hiding secrets even they can’t explain.  The parents are hands-off in the extreme.  And then she meets the handsome, rugged hired hand, and things really get out of control.

 JRC:  What lies next?  Another YA? An inspirational or maybe a motivational book? Romance?

 Staci:  Well, as you can probably guess by now, I’ve got lots of irons in the fire.  My next release in May is called “To Protect & Serve.”  It is the first book in a trilogy about a group of firemen and the women who love them.  I also have my line of Bible Studies “Living in the Light” that I will continue to put out throughout 2012.  I’m trying to find a little time to put together a new short story collection that’s written but not yet compiled.  And you know, at some point I would love to get back to writing that story I started over Spring Break–not to mention another one that I’m only about 30 pages from finishing!  Don’t ask.  I don’t understand my life either. 🙂

 JRC:  Any last words of advice to the writers who read  this?

 Staci:  Get really good at listening to your heart and doing what God is telling you to do whether that makes sense to the world or not.  When I first started writing, there was no such thing as Contemporary Christian Romance, but that’s what my heart led me to write, so that’s what I wrote.  Little could I have guessed the explosion that would take place in that genre over the next decade.  Then I was led, completely against the world’s advice, to self-publish for a decade.  It was difficult road and not very lucrative for a long, long time.  And yes, I did question God on that point many times.  Over and over though, my heart said that was the path He wanted me to be on, so that’s where I stayed.  Then in 2011, after 15 years of just taking the steps God asked me to take though often they made no sense, the final piece fell into place in the puzzle He had been carefully constructing… truly ever since I was a little girl.  Suddenly, I had two best sellers (“Cowboy” and “Coming Undone“), 15 ebooks, three blogs, a writer’s group, friends across the writing spectrum…  So listen to what God is telling you more than you listen to the world.  He has a plan.  It may not look like the plan He has for anyone else, but it will be the perfect plan for you. Guaranteed.

 Thanks so much for having me, Jim!  This has been great fun!

 Oh, and if you want to check out my books, read whole first chapters, excerpts, and reviews of every novel I have out, just go to:  http://ebookromancestories.com  It’s romance you’ll fall in love with over and over again!