Would you believe I’ve been in Poland? O.K., not really, just through Google maps.

I turned in my edits for Snow on the Tulips on Thursday night. What a great feeling to have those all done. Yes, the book is so much better for it. I’m thankful for editors who gently helped me to see the errors of my ways 😉 and have assisted me to be a better writer.

I turned right around and began to work on book 2. It is slow going. When you write a story that takes place in a real location in real time, all of your research must be meticulous. I have been working for days and days to find a way for my hero and heroine to meet. Yikes. I have scoured POW websites, stared at maps of Poland (then East Prussia and Pomerania – all part of Germany during WWII).

Today, I hit the jackpot. I FINALLY got my main characters to meet. Whew. My hero has some time to kill while he waits for the heroine to arrive, but I can work it out. He was going to be an American pilot, but that has to change. He will instead be a British soldier. Sorry, no Americans where my heroine was. They were all too far west. The picture is of British prisoners in Stalag XXB, in what is today Poland. This is where my hero has spent a good part of the war. In January 1945, everything changed. You’ll have to wait for the book to release to find out what happens! Can you make it until the spring of 2014??

This is the kind of detail that readers want. If they love historicals, they love to look up the places where these stories are set and learn more about those places and that time in history. Makes things challenging for us authors, but it is worth it. I want these stories to be told.

I am being stretched as an author and a person and that is such a good thing. I can feel God working in me right now, making me a better person and a better writer. All good things.

What has God used lately to stretch you?