Laura Bradford, a National Bestselling Author of more than 35 books. Her latest titles include; the women’s fiction novel, Piece by Piece, and the cozy mystery, A Killer Carol. Her first women’s fiction novel, Portrait of a Sister, was a July 2018 Book Club Pick for Delilah of Delilah Radio and a Summer Book Club pick for Southern Lady Magazine. 

Tracy:  Hey there. Welcome to another episode of Buggy Talk. I'm your host, Tracy Fredrychowski, and each week I bring you the story behind the stories, along with the storytellers. For this week's episode, we have Laura Bradford and National Bestselling Author of more than 35 books. Her latest title includes the women's fiction novel Piece by Piece and the cozy mystery A Killer Carol. Her first women's fiction novel Portrait of a Sister was a July 2018 Book Club Pick for Delilah of Delilah Radio and a Summer Book Club Pick for Southern Lady Magazine.

Wow. What a lineup, Laura? How are you this morning? And thank you for joining us.

Laura:  Well, thanks for having me, and I'm doing wonderfully. Thank you.

Tracy:  Good. I know we're going to talk about Piece by Piece today, and we're going to talk about your contribution to the Amish Christmas Miracles Collection. But before we dig into some of your projects, I love to talk to my authors about their writing career. 

You know, our readers are so interested in our personal life, they get a big kick to learn just a little bit about you personally. So, let's start with, how do you research your books?

Laura: Well, for my books. I like to spend upwards of about three or four days in Amish country and Lancaster Amish country. I travel the countryside, and I do the back roads, and I slow down and look at people out in their fields, or I take a tourist that allows me to get inside their homes. And it's usually during that process, that's something I see. It might be just a little nugget, gives me an idea that I then springboard into a story that happens a lot with my Amish mysteries, but it also happens with my, my women's fiction novels as well.

Tracy: Oh, I know research is one of my favorite things to do, gives me an excuse to be in the areas of the country that I love the most. 

So, tell us what success means to you?

Laura: Success to me, being happy is a big one. And those moments where I get a message in an inbox on my website that says that a book I wrote touched a reader or help the reader through a difficult time, or they felt some comfort in the pages of something that I've written to me. That's a success even more so than the number of books sold while that's wonderful. I just like to know that something I touched the reader or help the reader through a difficult time or made a reader smile.

Tracy: Oh, that's wonderful. You know, because it's really not about the number of books you sell. It's, it's God's story that we're telling through, you know, our little brain or whatever. So, I believe, just like you believe, it's more about how our stories impact the lives of our readers. 

On a typical day, tell us about how much time you spend writing actively working on a book.

Laura: I do everything in the morning. That's when I'm freshest by about two or three o'clock in the afternoon, I'm kind of done, and I'll switch to marketing, but for the actual writing, I like to write, my goal is always about 2000 words a d