An Interview with Author Debra Clopton

1) How long were you writing before your first publication? How many manuscripts had you written

by that time? Have you published any of your early works since? Do you plan to?

It took me 13 years to get published. But for 3 of those years, I wasn’t writing, instead I took a break to enjoy time with my 2 sons and my first husband. So technically it was 10 years of writing and submitting. During that time I finished 7 novels and have never gone back and revised them to sell—I thought about it but then realized I had too many new stories waiting to write to go back.

Tweet: Betting on Hope with author, Debra Clopton.

2) Are you a morning person? A night owl? How do you arrange your schedule to allow the most efficient, productive time for writing?

I’m BOTH! I love early morning and am almost always up and working by 6:30. But I love nighttime, too, and usually work past midnight. The truth is, I don’t actually sleep a lot and not by choice always. Five hours is a lot for me—I’ve always had a mind that just doesn’t like to shut down and so I have trouble sleeping. When I’m really hard on a deadline, it’s even harder for me to sleep so you never know what hours I’ll be sitting in my laptop working. 

3) What aspect of being a writer is the most challenging for you? Why is this difficult, and what steps have you taken to overcome this hurdle?

Most challenging is when your heart is heavy with sorrow for something in my own life or my family’s or friends’ I still have to get up and write. That is really hard to do.

4) Do you read your reviews? Have you ever replied to one? Do you find they influence your writing when you work on subsequent books?

Yes, I do read them! I hear a lot of authors talk about not reading them but I can’t seem to help myself J. But I don’t let them get me down if they aren’t what I hoped for—I know everyone has their own opinion. I try really hard to write the best book that I can and I pray as I’m working on the story that God will lead me to write the words that someone needs. If I feel like I’ve done the best of my ability then I’m satisfied that is all I could have done. I can truly say that I’ve been blessed with far more happy reader reviews than unhappy. 

5) If you’re a plotter, have you ever tried pantsing it? If you’re a pantser, have you ever given plotting a try? Can you swing both ways, or are you a confirmed devotee of one of these methods?

I’m a combination of both though I’m heavier on the pantser side. I create a very loose synopsis but never hold myself tightly to the proposed book. I have found that the best most creative aspects of my stories happen as my fingers are on the keys. I see true plotters doing these intricate synopsis and I think that is so cool and their work is amazing, but it would drive me crazy and my books would be far less interesting because it just doesn’t work that way. It is so wonderful how God created each of us uniquely; I find it fascinating. 

6) Does your best writing flow? Or are you most satisfied with the work that you’ve labored over, sweating and groaning?

My writing NEVER flows… is there such a thing? I always, always suffer through a book and always about two thirds of the way through, I am convinced that it is the worst book ever and what was I thinking! My husband ignores me now but I truly believe it when I’m in that spot. It makes me cling to God more and really seek His guidance. I’ve come to accept it as part of my process. In the end if the book makes someone smile then I’m happy. When it truly helps someone in a deeper way, I feel completely humbled and blessed that God led me and was able to use me through my words. And that is why I do what I do.

Debra Clopton is a multi-award winning novelist and has written more than 22 novels. Along with writing, Debra helps her husband teach the youth at their local Cowboy Church. Debra's goal is to shine a light toward God while she entertains readers with her words.

Learn more about Debra on her blog, and follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

Purchase her latest release, Betting on Hope, on Amazon.

 

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Author Debra Clopton: Giving It to God

The timing of this blog is hard. 

To be honest, I’ve avoided this post all week because my heart has been too heavy. Burdened with what I knew was coming…my dear and sweet friend is losing her daughter as I write this. 

She’s twenty. She’s been fighting cancer for the last 3 years. She’s fought a long and hard battle, and God has worked mightily through her as she and her family have chosen to shine glory on God through this entire journey they have been on. 

For me, I walked through my own journey when I lost my first husband 11 years ago. Losing my husband was hard, but I chose, as my friends have, to look at the blessings that God had given me and my two sons during the time instead of blaming God and doubting Him. 

Faith isn’t something that should be lost or doubted during the bad times. For me that solid assurance that God is with me and in control is what gets me through everything I do. Do I get angry sometimes? Yes I do! Do I wish things could be different sometimes? Oh yes indeed I do. But God understands that and knowing this helps me to be real and honest and able to express myself with him. To help me cope, I go to the source of solace and answers -- I go to the Bible. Even more than that, I go to prayer.


This post was supposed to be about how I have overcome something personal with God’s grace. And this is how I do it -- by trusting God. I pray His will be done and I focus on the blessings in He has given me. 

Yes, when I lost my first husband, Wayne, I mourned. I mourned long and hard and I gave myself permission to do so for as long as I needed and not according to anyone else’s timetable or view on how I should mourn. Oddly enough, I received 2 letters in the mail from church friends on how I, as a Christian, should mourn … those letters went directly into the trash! I had to mourn my way and I clung to the knowledge that with God’s help, I would be okay. If you are going through a hardship, I pray you hold on to God and give yourself grace to mourn as you need to mourn, not as someone else deems you should.

John 16: 33 Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble but take heart! I have overcome the world.”

I’m a writer who likes exclamation points, and I like that there is one used in this verse. Jesus’s words convey one well, and we can believe what he is telling us…take heart! Whatever you are going through, He has gone before you and HE has overcome the world. Walk with Him, and he’ll take you through the fog you may be in right now from grief or anything else you are going through. That is what He does for me. He knows the path, and I strive to let Him lead me.

He knows yours too. Give it to Him. He can handle it! And with His help so can you!

In my new release, Betting On Hope, my hero and heroine both have issues that they are working through, and each are doing it in their own way. But I love my main character Maggie Hope … she writes her advice column using the experiences she’s had in her own background to try and help others and always with a hopeful heart. I strive in my way to do this through my books. 

My hope is that something in my books will touch someone who needs it, even if it’s just to make you smile. Knowing this is my purpose and striving for that helps me move forward too. I know God’s always going to use even the bad things in my life for good somehow down the road and I like that.



Debra Clopton is a multi-award winning novelist and has written more than 22 novels. Along with writing, Debra helps her husband teach the youth at their local Cowboy Church. Debra's goal is to shine a light toward God while she entertains readers with her words.

Learn more about Debra on her blog, and follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

Purchase Betting on Hope on Amazon.

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Behind the Scenes of A COWBOY FOR KATIE, by Debra Clopton

This week The Borrowed Book is spotlighting Four Weddings and a Kiss, a collection of new Western Bride novellas by Margaret Brownley, Debra Clopton, Mary Conneally, and Robin Lee Hatcher. Today, Debra Clopton talks to us about her contribution to the work.

Writing this novella, A COWBOY FOR KATIE, was such a joy. I absolutely fell in love with Crazy Katie Pearl’s fighting spirit after the tragedy of being trapped beneath her home after a tornado destroys it and kills her Pa. She had me hooked from the first moment as I began her story. And Treb Rayburn was such a hero to me as he developed through the story. This is only my second historical western but this and my other novella An Ever After Summer were both such delights to write that I’m sure I’ll be doing more of them when I find time between deadlines writing my contemporary novels.

Katie Pearl came to me as a full blown character. She popped into my head talking to herself and her old horse Myrtle May. And the fact that she was thinking about shooting a cowboy if she needed to totally had my fingers flying across the keyboard because I had to find out why she was acting and thinking the way she was. I don’t want to give too much away about the story and hope you’ll grab a copy and join in on the journey Crazy Katie Pearl took me on through this novella. Deciding to write about a crazy heroine was a challenge for me, but like I said, she came to me the instant I decided to do just that.

                 

I’m a pantser. That means I pretty much create the story as I go, literally my brain and imagination become one with my fingers when my fingertips touch the keyboard. This also means that the creation of the story is as much an adventure for me as it is for you as you read it. I do guide the story as I learn more and more about my hero and heroine and their past, so I do take control of the story at a point. This enables me to create more conflict for the characters which produces the sparks that I love to create between my hero and heroine and the conflict that drives the story forward.

What I knew going into this story was that I needed a bride who would be considered an unlikely bride.  I had gone through my possible reasons why a bride would be considered unlikely and being too independent hit me instantly. But then I thought of Crazy Cora from the movie Quigley Down Under. Now, I have always loved that movie and both Cora’s character and Tom Selleck’s character. Thinking about it I knew I wanted to write a story with a heroine who everyone believed was crazy…even she believes it to some degree. That’s when Katie came to me and took over. I believe everyone would be really shaken up if they went through what she had gone through and that it would take a while to regain their bearings. Katie turned out to be one of the most courageous characters I’ve ever written.

                 

So that was a sneak peek at the behind the scenes of A COWBOY FOR KATIE. It was a delight to write and I so hope readers will embrace it and love it too.   

Debra Clopton is an award winning author of sweet, heartfelt, western romance that face life with a smile. With over 2 million books in print, Debra's first book-to-movie aired on ABC Family and starred LeAnn Rimes.

Make sure you stop by tomorrow, when you can enter to win a free copy of Four Weddings and a Kiss!

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