Category Archives: Skater’s Waltz

I must be a real author now!!

So I must be a REAL author because I have an author page on Amazon.com. The link to it is http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00T8E5LN0.

Come on over and leave me some love, FOLLOW me and check back in a week or so for the “buy link” for my March 4 release of Skater’s Waltz from the Wild Rose Press.

Now, I just have to figure out how to list myself on Goodreads!

 

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

Snowmageddon strikes as I write away…

21 inches of snow already here in the woods and the storm isn’t even half over. Isn’t it funny how a snow day  strikes the same happy chord in my adult heart as it did in my child one?

I’ve been up for hours due to the howling wind shaking against my weather treated windows, just watching it fall and writing. I’ve gotten 50 pages of edits under my belt, answered 18 emails, tweeted with 10 peeps, answered a few Facebook questions and am now blogging. Oh, and I made a batch of blueberry muffins for the hubman’s breakfast – who also has a snow day. His first in over 30 years of working! Can you think of a more fun thing for me to do than be snowbound with my laptop?? I can’t…well, I could if provoked, but I’d rather not!!

I got my official release date for my first book SKATER’S WALTZ. It’s March 4, 2015 so now I am embarking on the media junket. I have several blog tours already in the works but I need to get the press release to the local newspaper and then plot the rest of my media blitz. This is wicked time consuming,- but I will admit – fun! I know now, though, why multi-published authors with expense accounts opt to have publicists. I can see myself -someday- paying someone to do all this leg work. But for now, it’s lil’ole’ me doing it, so I am off to find more blogs to tour and presses to release to.

Stay warm, dry, safe and cozy where ever you are during this bit of winter wonder. Oh, and buy my book on March 4th!! I’ll put up the buy links when they are available. Shameless plug, wasn’t that?!

 

 

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

The waiting game…

I sent in my first round of edits on my soon to be published romance novel two weeks ago, and once again I am playing the waiting game.

I’ll just say this plainly: I HATE WAITING.

I am not a good wait-or. I don’t like standing in lines waiting for stuff; I hate when something needs to be delivered via snail mail; I break out in hives when I’m waiting for a phone call.  Pregnancy was torture for me. 9 months. 9 long, laborious, months. It might as well have been a lifetime.  It certainly felt like one.

The road to publication is not a short one. I knew that going in. What I didn’t know was that I’d be so stressed with the time frame. I almost wish I was on a time crunch deadline. THAT I can relate to and work through. Deadlines are my friends – always have been. I actually do some of my best work when I’m on a deadline.

I know my editor told me she would get back to me within 30 days. 15 have already gone by so that’s half way, right? Home stretch time, correct? I should be sitting back, just working on book three in the series ( I am, truthfully), and not worrying.

Not gonna happen. I’m a worse worrier than I am wait-or.

Waiting and worrying.

This is my life…..

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Filed under Author, Contemporary Romance, Editors, Romance, Romance Books, Skater's Waltz, Strong Women

The invasion of the edits….

I have been up to my eyebrows in my first professional edits for the past few days, so I have not been able to blog much. Oh, who am I kidding: I haven’t had a moment to pee, much less blog!

I want to get these done correctly, quickly and accurately, so to the exclusion of housework, laundry and grocery shopping – the milk for breakfast didn’t taste so great – I have been diligently editing. Page after page. Paragraph after paragraph.

Thankfully, I didn’t have to change any of the plot or story line. Just tweak some tenses, kill some commas, and omit some superfluous phrasing.

Ah, the pleasures of having a novel in pre-production.

Release date will be forthcoming, so stay tuned.

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Filed under Author, Contemporary Romance, Editors, MacQuire Women, Romance, Romance Books, Skater's Waltz, Strong Women

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

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 PressTo 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