I’m featured on COFFEE TIME ROMANCE today talking about risk taking in life and writing. Here’s the link: Drop on by and leave some of your own wisdom
http://coffeetimeromance.com/CoffeeThoughts/taking-risksin-writing-and-in-life/
Category Archives: Romance
Taking risks
Filed under Author, Contemporary Romance, Romance, Romance Books, Skater's Waltz, Strong Women
A relaxing retirement??
Most of you know I retired from my job of almost 20 years in April of this year to devote myself full-time to writing. I wanted to give you a little view into what my daily schedule now looks like. This is what I did on wednesday:
Wrote:
- 2 blog entires for my own website to be held in storage until needed
- 3 blog entries for sites I will be visiting soon
Edited:
- final edits in a novella to be published next february
- final edits in the third MacQuire Women series book, First Impressions, release date sometime later this year
- final edits in current WIP ( writing work in progress)
Updated my website; continued Twitter marketing campaign for current book giveaway; answered “reader”emails, emailed my amazing Editor to discuss edits mentioned above.
Sent in two blog entries/release promos to websites I will be visiting this week and next
Registered for the New Jersey RWA chapter conference in October
This was all before 2 p.m., mind you – sometimes it pays to have chronic insomnia.
When my fingers got tired from typing, I did the stuff that needed to be done: grocery shopped, went to the bank, went to the recycling center to drop off, well, recyclables, went to Target, Michaels Craft store and Hallmark ( numerous graduations this month!) I did three loads of laundry, ironed, vacuumed and painted.
This is retirement?? I should go back to work, it was less exhausting!
Filed under Author, Contemporary Romance, Romance, Romance Books, RWA
A visit with Clair Brett
Hey all! I’ve chatting with NHRWA sistah Clair Brett today about falling in love in a love story. Stop on by and share your thoughts.
Filed under Author, Contemporary Romance, New Hampshire, NHRWA, Romance, Romance Books, RWA
Something new…
You all know I loathe self-promotion and marketing. I like the end results of it, but I’m still very uncomfortable trying to convince people to buy my books. Because of that basic insecurity, I’ve tried to find other ways to engage readers to purchase my work.
One of those ways is a giveaway on Goodreads. So, from May 19 ( my birthday!) until June 3, if you click on the following link you can enter to win a signed copy of my newest book THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME. It doesn’t cost anything to enter and hey, you may win!!
Please support this humble writer!
https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/138470-there-s-no-place-like-home
THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME< book 2 in The MacQuire Women Series
Blurb:
Symphony pianist Moira Cleary comes home after four years of touring, exhausted, sick, and spiritually broken. Emotional and psychological abuse at the hands of someone she trusted has left her gaunt, anxious, and at a crossroads both professionally and personally.
Moira’s best friend, veterinarian Quentin Stapleton, wants nothing more than to help Moira get well. Can his natural healing skills make it possible for her to open her heart again? And can he convince her she’s meant to stay home now with the family that loves her – and with him – forever?
Excerpt:
“Remember when your cousin Tiffany got married in the backyard here?”
Confused, Moira nodded.
Quentin rubbed her bottom lip with the pad of his thumb. “When the Reverend told Cole ‘you can kiss your bride,’ and he swooped her off the ground, spun her around and kissed her silly? Remember what you said?”
“I think I said it was the most romantic thing I’d ever seen.”
He nodded. “The exact quote was, ‘I hope someone kisses me like that some day.’”
Her grin was quick at the memory. “Pat snorted and said I’d better be satisfied with licks from the horses and Rob Roy because no guy was ever gonna kiss me.”
“He wasn’t known for tact back then.” He rubbed a hand down her back as he held her. “Remember what happened later on behind the barn?”
Because she did, she couldn’t stop the heat from spreading up her face like wildfire. When she nodded again, he said, “You wanted to know what it felt like to be kissed like that and since I was your best friend, you thought I should be the one to do it, because you – quote – felt safe with me – unquote.”
“What was I? Eleven?”
“Thirteen. And I was more than willing. Almost broke my heart in two when you said afterward, ‘I don’t see what all the fuss is about.’”
“Q—”
“Hush.” He kissed her forehead. “Ever since that day, all I’ve wanted is a second chance. Now,” he pulled her body closer, wrapped both arms around her small waist, his hands resting just above the dent in her spine. “We’re both a little older, a little more mature. Some of us are much more experienced—”
“And conceited.”
“Experienced,” he said, the laugh in his voice quiet and seductive, “and things can be so much better.”
Barnes and Noble ;http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/theres-no-place-like-home-peggy-jaeger/1121798145?ean=2940151238489
The WIld Rose Press:http://www.wildrosepublishing.com/maincatalog_v151/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=191&products_id=6237
The Pressure of Opening Lines.
Recently, during a weekly on-line author chat with the publisher and editors of The Wild Rose Press, the topic up for discussion was how to hook a reader from the very first line/page of your book. It’s important to establish this hook because the reader spends on average 3 seconds deciding whether or not to buy the book. If you’ve only got 3 seconds – or less (Egads!) – you need something that’s got WOW FACTOR all over it – be it a great opening line or paragraph. You must engage the reader and compel them by doing so to purchase the book. I know for myself I have picked books up at the bookstore, read the back blurb and been intrigued enough to read the first few lines. Many times I have not purchased the book because the hype in the back didn’t translate to the story on the page. The hook was more a jab ( heehee) and didn’t land well with me.
Can you tell I watched Rocky last night? Sheesh!
Anyway…this got me to thinking: what are some of the most memorable lines in books?
Google and Wikipedia are quick, fun tools that have lists compiled for every conceivable thing. So I typed into a search, Best Opening Lines in Books and was virtually assaulted (get it?!) with book lines.
Here are some I recognized:
- “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”—Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
- “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” – Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
- Call me Ishmael – Herman Melville, Moby-Dick 1851
- It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen – George Orwell, 1984 ( 1949)
- Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself. – Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway ( 1925)
- It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York. – Sylvia Plath, the Bell Jar ( 1963)
- In the town, there were two mutes and they were always together, – Carson McCullers, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter ( 1940)
- As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous verminous bug. – Franz Kafka, Metamorphosis ( 1915)
Everyone of these opening sentences immediately draws the reader into the story by giving them something to think about and a question or two to ask.
In the case of Moby-Dick, Call me Ishmael are three of the most recognized words in literature. Who is Ishmael? Why are we to call him that – does he really have another name but just wants to use Ishmael? Who is he talking to? These natural queries make you want to get answers to satisfy your curiosity. And the way to satisfy that curiosity is to…read the book!
In the 1984 line…. the clocks were striking thirteen… the reader immediately knows something is off because clocks DON’T ( as a rule) strike thirteen. Why are they doing so in this story? And what is the significance of them striking thirteen times? Is something going to happen? Or did it already and the thirteen is the announcement of it? Inquiring minds want to know.
Thinking back on the first lines I’ve written, I know in my heart some of them haven’t been filled with the wow factor – something I will work on arduously in 2015. With the plethora of books to choose from on-line, in bookstores and the library, a writer has to stake their claim on the reader’s attention IMMEDIATELY. No small task, but a worthwhile endeavor. And the payoff is a memorable book ( and a sale!)
Here’s the first line of my new release THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME, available right now!!
Moira Cleary paid the taxi driver and took her first full breath in over twenty-four hours.
To find out WHY– buy the book! Here are the links:
The Wild Rose PRess: http://www.wildrosepublishing.com/maincatalog_v151/index.php?main_page=index&manufacturers_id=1235
Barnes and Nobel :http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/theres-no-place-like-home-peggy-jaeger/1121798145?ean=2940151238489
Filed under Characters, Contemporary Romance, Literary characters, Romance, Romance Books
Old hat at this…I think not
So, tomorrow my newest addition to the MacQuire Women Series, THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME is released. It is a scant two months since book 1, SKATER’S WALTZ went out into the book reading universe and you might think I am still basking in the wonderful-ness of the first release and that this new one is sort of taking a back burner to it.
Yeah, NO!
I feel as excited and giddy today as I did on March 3. ANY book, any work, any story I have sent into the world for public consumption has thrilled me. To know that tomorrow people will be reading about Quentin and Moira and how they fell in love is beyond exciting for me. The personal responses I have received from people who have read the first book is humbling and mind blowing. Even my father in law read it and I know he did because he was able to discuss things that happened in the book!!!
I remember my mother in law once told me she loved my husband ( her firstborn) so much she didn’t know if she had any love left over for another child. But when her first daughter was born, she realized a mother’s love knows no bounds or limits. She loved each child equally and thoroughly.
That’s the way I feel about my new release. I love the story and the people in it as much as I loved the first one.
So, I hope if you read There’s No Place like Home you will feel the same way I do.
Here’s a snippet to whet your appetite:
“Remember when your cousin Tiffany got married in the backyard here?”
Confused, Moira nodded.
Quentin rubbed her bottom lip with the pad of his thumb. “When the Reverend told Cole ‘you can kiss your bride,’ and he swooped her off the ground, spun her around and kissed her silly? Remember what you said?”
“I think I said it was the most romantic thing I’d ever seen.”
He nodded. “The exact quote was, ‘I hope someone kisses me like that some day.’”
Her grin was quick at the memory. “Pat snorted and said I’d better be satisfied with licks from the horses and Rob Roy because no guy was ever gonna kiss me.”
“He wasn’t known for tact back then.” He rubbed a hand down her back as he held her. “Remember what happened later on behind the barn?”
Because she did, she couldn’t stop the heat from spreading up her face like wildfire. When she nodded again, he said, “You wanted to know what it felt like to be kissed like that and since I was your best friend, you thought I should be the one to do it, because you – quote – felt safe with me – unquote.”
“What was I? Eleven?”
“Thirteen. And I was more than willing. Almost broke my heart in two when you said afterward, ‘I don’t see what all the fuss is about.’”
“Q—”
“Hush.” He kissed her forehead. “Ever since that day, all I’ve wanted is a second chance. Now,” he pulled her body closer, wrapped both arms around her small waist, his hands resting just above the dent in her spine. “We’re both a little older, a little more mature. Some of us are much more experienced—”
“And conceited.”
“Experienced,” he said, the laugh in his voice quiet and seductive, “and things can be so much better.”
Get your copy here or order it at your local bookstore:
Buy Links for THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME
Amazon: http://amzn.to/1J1f3OZ
The Wild Rose Press: http://bit.ly/1GmM1Je
Barnes and Noble Nook : http://bit.ly/1JjMUG7
Challenges…
I love a writing challenge. That’s why I participate in NANOWRIMO every year, and whenever my local chapter of RWA holds a writing challenge, I am raring to go.
Personal challenges are another thing entirely.
Backstory. Last Spring I attended a fund raiser for Project Graduation titled DANCING WITH THE KEENE STARS. It was exactly like it sounds – the television show DWTS, just a local edition with people in my community as the “celebrities” or Stars. Everyone with me, including me, had an absolute blast. It was such a fun evening, that I volunteered to be a contestant the following year if they held it again.
Yeah, so. Be careful what you ask for.
I was asked, I said “Yes,” and I was thrilled.
Then the real work started. I am not a dancer. I barely have enough rhythm to keep upright when I walk (as evidenced by the fact I fall a lot. A lot.) It looks so easy SO EASY on television. The dancers get up, do a few steps, and there you have it.
Yeah, NO! I haven’t sweated, thought, or worked so hard at something in a very long time. I actually think the last thing I did that was as mentally and physically challenging was childbirth. And my daughter is 25!
Anyway, the real purpose of this entry was to say that challenges come in all forms, and in order to grow and thrive as humans, we need to take them up from time to time. Learning how to dance the cha-cha has been an enervating and exhausting thing for someone as sedentary (both in mind and body) as myself. I have to think logically, count ( not my strong suit!) and concentrate on so many aspects – head up, don’t look down, keep your shoulders square, smile. It’s a lot for someone like me who basically hibernates in a solitary writing room.
But having said all that, it is a challenge that I willing took on and I don’t have ANY regrets. I have learned a great deal about myself these past two months and wouldn’t change anything I’ve gone through. Well, maybe I’d lose a little more weight before starting, but that’s it! By challenging myself personally, I feel I’ve grown more as a person and a writer, because I have a million story ideas now concerning dancing. Ooo, baby!
If you’re in the neighborhood, here’s the link to get tix. Maybe I’ll see you there. Just don’t throw any tomatoes at me!!
Filed under Author, Contemporary Romance, Life challenges, Romance, Romance Books, Strong Women
The Power of Friends
I don’t have many friends, but the ones I do have are keepers for life.
Oh, I have friends on Facebook, and followers on Twitter and Pinterest. People, even follow this blog ( thanks so much for doing so!) But real honest to goodness, give you a kidney if you needed it friends are few and far between.
But that’s okay. Like I said, the one’s I have are keepers.
As an only child, I grew up mostly alone. Parents at work all day and into the evening, I spent a great deal of time at the local library after school. The head librarian knew more about me than my family did. Books became my true friends. Trixie Beldon, Nancy Drew, even Miss Marple where the people I shared my life with. It sounds sad, but it wasn’t. I loved being in the library surrounded by words. It was so much better than being in school surrounded by bullies who taunted and tortured me verbally because I looked different, was different, had a different last name than my mother ( this was the 60′ and 70’s – not too many divorces yet among the populous). Books were my friends, their characters my peers and teachers.
Okay, so maybe it was a little sad, but believe me, I never felt like it was.
When I got older and my outer shell of protection hardened, it was easier. I was still different than most, but I started to discover people who were similar in their own differences to me. Book readers; smart kids; creative kids. Kids who didn’t care what people thought about them. Kids who would stand up for me, and me for them, against the bullies and clique’y kids. All the knowledge I’d gleaned from those books I’d been surrounded with helped me discover the person I truly was. The kid on the inside who lived on the outside and wanted nothing else but to belong.
In a word, me.
No longer did I wait until people sought me out – I started pursuing them. I started actually making friends, putting myself out there and trusting that I wouldn’t get hurt. And if I did, well, then, I’d chalk it up to life experience.
I’m still that same kid on the inside. Still know I’m different from most, think differently than the norm. But the people who are close to me now, the ones who truly are friends in every sense of the word, are the ones who are most precious to me. They share my highs and my lows, give me strength and receive it from me when they need it, and they celebrate the person I am, differences and all.
It’s been said that words have power. My power comes from within, but also from my friends. And they make me feel very powerful indeed.
Filed under Author, Contemporary Romance, female friends, Friends, Romance, Strong Women
Freebies!!
Just a reminder: I’ve doing a GOODREADS giveaway this month of paperback copies of SKATER’S WALTZ in celebration of my May 6 release of THERE’S NO PLAC LIKE HOME, Here’s the link and remember: you gotta be in it to win it! Good luck. More on There’s no Place Like home to come!’
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24872836-skater-s-waltz-the-macquire-women-1
Peggy Jaeger, Author 