Author Post: Heather Hummel ~ Whispers from the Heart

 Enter my giveaway for Deep Blue Secret - ends November 1st.

I am so excited to have Heather Hummel visiting The Book Bag today! She is the author of Whispers from the Heart, one of the books in her Journals from the Heart Series. Her book Whispers... is currently on a Chick Lit Plus Blog Tour

I read her book and posted my thoughts yesterday. I loved this story and can't wait to read her other Journals from the Heart book, Write from the Heart.

So Heather ~~ I have heard other authors say that they 'hear voices in their head' and that is how they write their books, the characters are telling their stories. I think that is a very interesting concept. 

When some people hear voices, we get them medical attention, others become writers. How do you come up with your stories?

The Voices

This is true! Characters have the tendency to crawl inside an author’s head, set up shop and not leave until the book is complete. Then there are the unexpected guests. The ones who decide to ring the doorbell of your brain in chapter, oh six or seven. Phil in Whispers from the Heart, did just that to me in chapter seven. I was writing along quite merrily with Madison, Michael and Olivia leading the way, telling me just how each chapter would all go down, when suddenly, in chapter seven, on a Friday night while they’re out at a pub, a dashing oceanographer friend of Olivia’s boyfriend (Gregory) shows up! The discussion over their beers on tap is now about Phil’s upcoming trip to California due to a grant he received to study elephant seals. Little did I know when this handsome stranger appeared that he would play a pivotal and very important role in Madison’s life; as such he ended up being a most welcome character.

There are task driven authors who outline their chapters, create character descriptions that can go on for pages (or often as Post-It-Notes stuck to their four walls), and draft chapter summaries, all before writing their book. And then there are authors like me who count on their muse, mine is cycling, to develop a plot, storyline and characters. A good portion of my best ideas about a book’s concept, characters, or a line in a chapter have often come to me while cycling. The trick to having a muse that sets in when you’re anywhere from two to ten miles from your laptop is to remember what you thought of so when you do arrive home, you can jot it down. I’ve trained myself to really think a thought through once an idea pops into my head. That way I’m more likely to remember it an hour or so later. 

I have been invited to ride my bike with groups of other cyclists, and 99% of the time I decline. People think I’m riding alone, but in actuality, and as you suggest in your question, I am not alone! I can have as few as one or as many as three or four sidekicks as I pedal. Except, they’re inside my head…telling me how it’s all going to go down in the chapter I’d be writing that evening.

When the chatter of characters stop, that is when I’ll need the medical attention. In the mean time, they are quite welcome and have become some of my most favorite people.

Thanks Heather - you shared some very interesting insights into your writing. People, this is a great book - you need to read it! 

Heather Hummel is the author of the Journals from the Heart Series. She is an award winning author and celebrity ghostwriter. 

Her published works include:
Journals from the Heart Series: Whispers from the Heart (2011 eBook) and Write from the Heart (2011 eBook)
 

Nonfiction: GO BIKE & Other Signs from the Universe (2011 eBook) and  Gracefully: Looking and Being Your Best at Any Age (McGraw Hill, 2008), - Merit Award of the 2009 Mature Media Awards,

Heather's books have appeared in newspapers such as: Publishers Weekly, USA Today and the Washington Post; and in magazines that include: Body & Soul, First, and Spry Living, a combined circulation of nearly 15 million. 

Visit Heather’s website at http://www.heatherhummel.net/

Follow Heather on Twitter @HeatherHummel
"Like" Heather's Fan Page http://www.facebook.com/HeatherHummelFanPage