Author Archives: Peggy Jaeger

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About Peggy Jaeger

I've been many things in my life,but the most consistent is WRITER.
August 10, 2014 · 5:11 pm

Settling in, kinda

I’m finally coming down off cloud 9, where I’ve been for the past week since I heard my book is going to be published by The Wild Rose Press. It’s been a loco week with family, friends and writing friends Facebooking and Tweeting me. Can you make Facebook a verb? I think I just did.

Anyway.

I’m not sitting back and enjoying this 24/7. I’ve been concentrating on pulling together several other stories I’ve written in the hopes of getting them into print as well. I’ve logged a lot of typing miles on my laptop this past week and I’ve got a lot of work to show for it.

This got me thinking: I have two real jobs now – the one I get paid for every two weeks and now this writing/publishing hat I’ve put on.  Where am I going to get the time to do both jobs well, plus maintain my life? How am I going to be able to  budget the time to do all of this: life’s dream and the reality of still pulling in a paycheck. Not to mention laundry, housework, cooking, seeing friends and family and being a great wife?

It’s a little mind boggling when you think about it.

I can usually multitask well – or at least it was well until I hit menopause. Now, I’m scattered at times and not easily able to get it all back on track. There are only so many workable hours in the day, and even though I don’t sleep well – or a lot – it’s still going to be a major adjustment to find the time that  I will need to devote to edits, when they arrive, and then do all the marketing and publicity necessary in order to actually sell a few books.

Or a million.

I need a plan. Any ideas? I appreciate any and all responses no matter how trite or intricate they seem to be. And thanks in advance.

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Filed under Author, Contemporary Romance, Life challenges, love, MacQuire Women, Romance, Romance Books, Skater's Waltz

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August 7, 2014 · 2:59 pm

Goals, deadlines and summer…oh my!

My big news of the past 24 hours is out. If you haven’t heard it yet, my novel SKATER’S WALTZ has been contracted for publication by The Wild Rose Press. To say I am over the moon is such an inadequate descriptor for what I am feeling right now.

What I am  feeling is: overwhelmed, not worthy, scared, fretful, fearful, impatient, shocked,uncertain, uneasy and worried. That’s 10 kinda negative emotions.

So here are ten positive ones – and these are definitely positive emotions: amazed, elated, gleeful, giddy, relieved, reborn, speechless (really!!??), flabbergasted, dumfounded and blown away.

Note to self: never ask a writer to describe something.

That sound you just heard was me falling on the floor. When I pick myself back up I have to start putting together a marketing plan. Books don’t sell themselves. You have to have a fully realized marketing and publicity plan in place before the book is even out.

I think I’ll stay on the floor a few more minutes and just bask in my glee.

More to come on this great news when I have it to share.

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Filed under Author, Contemporary Romance, Family Saga, love, MacQuire Women, Romance, Romance Books, Skater's Waltz, Strong Women

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August 5, 2014 · 9:28 am

I’m a Writer…or am I?

I had this discussion with a woman today who isn’t a writer and never wants to be one. She asked if someone wasn’t published commercially, or getting paid to write, could they actually call themselves “a Writer?”  When my jaw came up off the floor, I resisted the impulse to hit her because I thought educating her might be the better way to go – plus, I didn’t feel like spending the afternoon in jail. To her ridiculous question, I asked one of my own: “Why is getting paid your benchmark for calling a person a writer?” She just stared at me. I could see the rusty cogs twirling in her head as she tried to formulate an answer. When she just shrugged, I knew victory was mine.

I gave her several examples to back up my assertion that getting paid for something  isn’t the end all be all of defining what a person does in life. Example number 1: Actors. I think  the statistic is something like 1 in 5000 people who put the profession ACTOR on their taxes, actually makes any or enough money to support themselves. But they are still actors. They train, educate themselves about their craft, go on job interviews ( called Auditions), do preparatory work on their bodies like keep in shape, and on their faces to keep looking good. They may not be getting the salary George Clooney is getting for their acting work – or any money at all for it – but they still define themselves a actors.

Example number 2: Artists – the painting and drawing kind. I can give all the same reasoning as in the above paragraph, and these individuals still call themselves artists.

Now, to writers, I told her. By now she was rolling her eyes and I could see she had regrets about ever asking me the question. I have been writing for almost 45 years. Of those 45 years, I can truly say I have never been able to support myself financially with my chosen profession. I have had a lot – A LOT – of stuff published. Some paid for, most not. The fact that I could not live on what I did make writing has not for one scintilla of a second ever prevented me from calling myself a writer.

I write. Every day.

It’s that simple.

I write this blog. I write romantic fiction. I write murder mysteries.

If I never, ever get a publishing contract, I will still write.

I write, therefore I AM a writer.

I don’t think she’ll be asking me that question again anytime soon.

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August 3, 2014 · 4:50 pm

Exercise your writing muscles…

At the recent RWA 2014 conference, Nora Roberts made a statement that resonated with me as writer who currently has a different, full time,  paying job. When asked if she ever took a vacation or time off from writing, her response was, “Writing, to me, is like exercising your body. If you go a few days without doing it, your muscles start to get weak and break down and then you need to start building up again to where they were when you left off.”

Wow.

Read that statement again. It’s such a simple declaration, but it makes so much sense.

Because I can’t write all day everyday due to my work obligations, there are sometimes days that go by where I won’t write anything more than a few emails. On the days I can devote to my writing, I find I need to reread and edit what I’ve done before I can go forward. This is because I’ve gotten out of the habit of writing the story. Life intervened, work took over, and my time was not my own to devote to what I love.

Several years ago I broke my ankle and wasn’t able to go to the gym for 8 weeks. When I finally did get back there, all the progress I had made in my arm and stomach muscles before the accident, went the way of the dinosaur and I was a hot flabby mess again. I needed six weeks to get back to the point I was at before my ankle sidelined me.

Not being able to write in a timely fashion does the exact same thing. I loose the progress I’ve made and need to refresh my writing muscles – and my brain and creativity – in order to move forward.

I always knew Nora Roberts was my writing mentor – even though she doesn’t know it – and this point drove home just why she is such a special woman. Not to mention an AMAZEBALLS writer!

My goal for the next month is to write something everyday in my WIP no matter how much time I can devote to it. 30 minutes or 8 hours. Anything is better than letting my writing muscles go slack.

If this resonates with you, drop me a line and let me know. Visit my new page on Facebook : Peggy Jaeger, Author too.

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August 2, 2014 · 10:14 pm

Recuperating and rehashing…

I’ve been home from my conference for almost a week and I’m still flying on an intellectual, writing high from all fabulous writers I met and all the great courses I took.My mind has been spinning, running plot lines, searching for point of view continuity, trying to weed out the tells from the shows. For my first time, the conference was an amazing introduction to the world of romance writing and publishing,

But…

Back to reality. I still have to pound out those pages in order to actually give flesh to my characters and ideas.  Nora Roberts calls her writing ethic  “Sit your ass down in a chair and type!” This is my new motto and mantra.

In the Cindy Ratzlaff vein as well, I have developed a new Facebook page titled Peggy Jaeger, Author. You can click here and visit me. And I’m actually going to do a wee bit of begging and ask that you LIKE the page when you visit. I’ll be putting the majority of my writing stuff up on that page from now on.

And here’s a little tease just because…in the next few days -to-a-week, I’ll be putting  a MAJOR announcement of the site. No other hints. You have to keep gong back to my page to see it.

HeeHee. I just love intrigue.

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July 30, 2014 · 11:31 pm

Say it isn’t so…

One of the workshops I attended while at RWA 2014 was one on writing dialogue, taught by fabulous Julia  Quinn. Julia writes mainly historical romantic fiction and does very well at it, thank you very much. She’s appeared on the New York Times Bestseller list over 18 times and has a very faithful fan base. Her class on how to write effective dialogue was a goodie.

I realized ten minutes into the class that I had been doing a lot of things incorrectly with regards to my dialogue tags and beats. She showed, through simple placing of breaks, beats, and tags, how to establish a dialogue chain and keep it fresh and moving on the page without the reader having to go back a few lines or pages to see who, in fact, was speaking. By the use of  well placed TAGLINES, those little informative lines or words that indicate who is speaking, other than the standard “he said, she said” ones, you can keep the dialogue moving across the page at a pace that is easy for the reader to follow and comprehend. Remember, reading is not a visual  media, like watching television or a movie is, where you can visualize ( read, see) who is doing the speaking. Your reader must have total comprehension each time a line or chunk of dialogue is spoken in order to know to whom to attribute the words to.

ACTION TAGS are simply that. Little snippets of description that let you show the reader the tone of the character’s voice, the movement he/she is making and even how another character perceives him/her. Action tags always allow you to show rather than tell what your character is thinking and doing.

EMOTIONAL TAGS are again easily defined. They show what your character is feeling, or how your character is reacting to something in the scene. Showing character emotion is an excellent way of letting the reader know what is in the character’s head, why he is reacting the way he is, and what he is thinking. When interspersed with action tags and attributes, this allows the reader to fully comprehend the scene and understand the subtext in the dialogue you are writing.

Another great part of Julia’s workshop was the nuts and guts part of writing dialogue, such as where to place the punctuation, the correct way to do it, and the tricks you can use to convey a visual scene in a non-visual media.

All in all, the class could have gone on for hours, there was so much useful  and professional information in it. Maybe at the next RWA conference she can do a master class and give us more than an hour of her wisdom. I actually wrote that request on the course survey.

Let’s see if the powers-that-be listen to me!

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July 29, 2014 · 10:25 am

Branding and Marketing for Authors

At RWA 2014, one of the signature breakfast speakers this year was the marvelous Cindy Ratzlaff of Brand New, Brand You. She discussed – in vivid detail – her Social Book Marketing Strategy. Of course, I’m not going to go into extensive detail and list everything she said – you should click on the above link to get her full strategy – but I will hit the high points that resonated with me.

The most important aspect of this strategy is recognizing that you, the author, are the BRAND. You want to promote YOU. You are the creator of your books, but by promoting yourself as a brand, you capture reader and follower loyalty and get recognized by your name. Name recognition, like word of mouth, is a powerful product motivator for people to purchase what you are selling – namely, your books.

By utilizing FACEBOOK as a marketing tool you can develop what Cindy calls  “your ideal Tribe,” or the people who want to follow you.  Right now I have a regular Facebook page. I have “friends,” personal photos, etc, all the things you are supposed to have on the site to be socially connected with your friends and family. But, if you are a professional author and your name is your brand, you should have a professional Facebook page, devoted to you, the brand. Using myself, I would have a secondary page titled Peggy Jaeger, Author. On this page I would have all the information regarding my books – the ones that are currently out and in print and the ones that are coming up for publication ( Dearest God, are you listening to this?) Links to my blog, and my other sites would also be on this page so that anyone can find me and find out about me, the brand of Peggy Jaeger, Author. Apparently, Facebook is the number 1 social networking site, still. But your branding advertising isn’t isolated to just this site. Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Google+ even using You Tube, are all ways you can promote your brand.

Cindy’s lecture was fascinating. She described the scope and power the internet has in promoting yourself in ways that I don’t think I ever even considered, much less knew I could do.

Like everything else that I attended  at RWA 2014, Cindy Ratzlaff’s session will stick in my mind for years to come.

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July 28, 2014 · 11:16 am

Post RWA 2014 Update

So, I had really lousy internet in the hotel sand I didn’t get to blog for over three days.

Three days!

To say that I learned a great deal at the RWA 2014 conference would be a gross understatement. I literally learned something new in every class I took, from craft, to marketing, to publicity.

The speakers were amazing and all highly entertaining – they are romance writers after all. From Jayne Ann Krentz and Susan Elizabeth Phillips I learned things they wished they had known when just starting out and things they were glad they didn’t know. From Nora Roberts ( sigh!) I learned to write the book I want and not the book that I think will sell, or the one that an agent or an editor wants. No. Write the book I want . ( And I will!)

The fabulous Holly Jacobs taught me how to be a fan favorite just by being herself – warm, witty and funny. The girl could make a stoic laugh, I swear.

From the other attendees I learned quite a bit as well. For one thing, we are all in this boat together and as such we should all be helpful, respectful, and open to one another. The first night I was in the lobby, waiting to meet up with some of my NH chapter-mates, Shirley Jump approached me to ask if I was having a good time and were people being helpful to me. Shirley Jump! She is a current board member and a PAN liason and saw that my name badge indicated I was a first time attendee. She went out of her way to make sure I was doing okay and being taken care of. Amazing.

The courses I took were varied in scope and concept. Everything from how to instill conflict in a romantic situation, to how to write hot sex. That was the actual name of the course: How to write hot sex.

I can truly say that this was the best spent money I have ever spent on a conference. It wasn’t cheap –not by a long shot- but it was worth the expense and time.

To be in the presence of such a wide array of published and commercially successful authors in a genre that has not been accepted by the mainstream publishing community to the level it should, was uplifting spiritually, and as an artist.

I can safely say that I came away from this conference with much more than when I went in and that as a writer, I have grown.

I can’t wait until RWA 2015. It’s in NYC!!

 

 

 

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July 25, 2014 · 1:32 am

Conference Chatter and Advice

Today was a chock-full day of information, advice, and networking.

In one session I  learned several tricks and tips for being a faster, more effective writer in a limited time span. This was a great class for me because I am not afforded the pleasure of being able to write full time yet. I still work away from the laptop at another job and my sitting at the desk writing time is limited. This class gave me some techniques for getting more words on the page at a faster rate and during unusual time frames that I wouldn’t have thought of, such as on lunch hours from work.

At another session with a behavioral psychologist, I was introduced to a concept called dialogue cues. These are useful, powerful words and phrasing that gives your writing emotional punch and gets it to the next level necessary for publication.

I attended a character class with writer Susan Elizabeth Phillips, in which we were taught how to describe our plots by using our characters and showing how their personalities relate to the plot and story line. This was a very good class for getting me to think about the show don’t tell aspect of writing that is relentlessly drilled into writers.

But the best part of the day? A chat with Nora Roberts. For an hour she fielded questions from the audience, and she actually called on me twice!! I was in heaven. Literally. Literary heaven.

I go to sleep tonight full of new techniques to employ for my writing, and ideas just swimming around in my head.

Tomorrow is another full day.

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July 24, 2014 · 10:27 am

Dreams do come true…

Yesterday, I had a dream come true. It was a small one, comparative to others, and might even be categorized as a bucket list item. I met NORA ROBERTS.

I know.

I not only met her, I spoke with her. And she was lovely. Absolutely lovely. I was shaking and sweating and as nervous as could be, but she was, just, lovely.

Meeting her alone was worth the cost of this trip to RWA 2014.

I also had the pleasure of meeting Jill Shalvis, Catherine Coulter, and the amazing Holly Jacobs.

But that wasn’t the only reason for the trip. Today the fun work starts. Beginning at 8:30 and and going straight up until tonight, I’ve got workshops planned on the crafting, marketing, and selling of Romance books. I am tired already, but I think it is just because I am coming down  my from exhilarating meeting. One of those workshops is with…wait for it… Nora.

Can this trip get any better?

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