Category Archives: #throwbackthursday

May 30, 2024 · 12:26 am

#throwbackthursday 5.30.24

from 2019…

THE WORK NEVER ENDS…AND I’M HAPPY IT DOESN’T

I am currently editing the final galley copy of the above book for Wild Rose Press. It’s the first in a three book series called A PRIDE OF BROTHERS. For those of you who read my WILL COOK FOR LOVE SERIES, this is the story of Abigail Laine and Rick Bannerman. These two are both alphas and boy do they annoy each other. And by annoy I mean – YOWZA!

As soon as I have a release date and a cover, you’ll see it. Promise!

Until then, only 6 more sleeps until IT’S A TRUST THING releases exclusively in Kindle and KU. Have you reordered your copy yet???

Nell Newbery has trust issues. It’s hard to trust when you’re the daughter of a fallen financial scion who bilked people out of billions. Nell’s done everything in her power to keep away from men who see her as their ticket to fortune and fame. All she wants to do is run her ultra-successful business, HELPFUL HUNKS, in peace.
But it wouldn’t hurt to find a guy who doesn’t know a thing about her father’s felonious past; one she can give her heart to and trust it won’t come back to her battered, bruised, and broken.
Is Charlie Churchill that guy? On the surface he seems perfect, all polished manners and quiet mirth. Nell’s convinced he knows nothing about her, other than she likes superhero movies and views junk food as a food group.
Can she trust him to be what he appears to be? Or is he just pretending?
For Nell, trust is everything in life…and in love.

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May 23, 2024 · 12:35 am

#tbt #tbThursday 5.23.24

this one is from 2018 which seems like a lifetime ago…

Week 4 of the #MFRWauthor 52 Week blog challenge brings us a topic that should be fairly easy to write about, because most of us didn’t spring from the womb with a pen in our hands and a publishing contract in our arms, but had other lives and occupations before being published. At least, I think we all did!! Maybe I should just speak for myself. Hee hee.

Anyhoo…

If I wasn’t devoting myself full-time to writing, I imagine I’d still be employed as a Nurse, or a Contact Lens technician. But I’d like to take that thought a little bit further. If I couldn’t write AND I wasn’t a nurse/CLT/ what would I be doing? I think I’ve mentioned before how nosy I am. Several times, in fact. So nosy that I’ll talk to a rock. And the nice thing is that people never seem to mind my obvious inquisitiveness, especially when I preface a question with, “Now, I’m only asking because I’m nosy so don’t think you have to answer me if you don’t want to…”

Yup. They answer me. Every time!

So I think if I wasn’t a writer, I’d be a perfect Private Investigator.

I can see it now… Me, in a well-tailored black trench coat ( because Khaki washes me out!), thigh-high leather boots under the coat, and over them a large men’s white tailored shirt cinched in at the waist and that comes to mid-thigh. I can even see myself with a fedora atop my golden (Bottle blonde) hair, looking uber sexy and all mysterious as I grill bad guys and follow suspicious perps in cars with my own hot, fast, ride.

Everyone would, of course, talk to me. After all, I’m charmingly nosy. And sexy!

Neither does Mrs. Peel.

I’d be the chick who discovers the identity of the master jewel thief, or where the hidden treasure is kept. I’d help the police solve the unsolvable cold case, or figure out who killed Major Barret in the solarium with a gun…oh, wait, that’s something else!

Hee hee.

I think I’d make a pretty cool P.I.

Now, I just have to find a trench coat on sale…..

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May 16, 2024 · 12:46 am

#tbt #tbthursday 5.16.2024

This one is from June 10, 2019. My, how much has changed…and yet, hasn’t!

The title of this piece is IN A WORLD OF FOLLOWERS, I’D LIKE TO BE AN INFLUENCER – and just as an aside, I wrote a book called INFLUENCE in 2023 about— you guessed it — a social media influencer. LOL.

I’m going to bet if you know what the above icon is, you’ll understand the title of this blog.

First, a little backstory.

When I was a kid, roughly 175 years ago, my third-grade teacher, Mrs. Karen Sinclair, said something to me one day that has stayed with me all these millennia later. I was an overweight, thick glasses-wearing, curly-haired, shy kid prone to impulse control issues when it came to talking in class. I was bullied – horribly – by both girls and boys. At that age, there really is no division along sex lines with bullying. One day, after an especially verbally vicious attack on the recess playground, I came back into the classroom, sullen and non-communicative. When class ended for the day, Mrs. Sinclair asked me to stay after. She wormed out of me what had been said on the playground. When I cried that all I wanted to do was fit in, be like everyone else, but couldn’t because 1. my clothes were wrong, 2. my hair was wrong, 3. I was ugly, 4. I was fat…etc…. (you get the picture) she took my hand and told me this: “Don’t be a follower.  Don’t be like everyone else. You were born to be a leader, Margaret, to be yourself. There’s only one you. Don’t settle for less.”

Yeah, she was my favorite teacher of all time.

Fast forward 165 years to the present.

The above symbol is the INSTAGRAM logo. Since I started my writing journey, I’ve been attempting to get people to read my books through various marketing methods, one of them, posting on Instagram. Recently, I came across a phrase that “called” to me: Influencer. Apparently, there are people (millennials, mostly) who have huge Insta-followers and who get paid for taking pictures of themselves with products. The companies who manufacture the products pay these kids for simply posting a picture. People see the picture and are Influenced to buy the product because they want to be like the cool person they are following.

Can you spell BRILLIANT!!

I have a decent amount of Instagram followers and I’m gonna work on getting more, but for now, here’s me at my new job, taking a picture with a product I’d like to tell people about so they can buy it and be cool like me. I’m an Influencer:

Hee hee

Sorry the book is backward – this whole Influencer thing is gonna take time to perfect. 🙂 But you get the idea.

~until next time ~ Peg

And just FYI: The book’s on sale for 99cents right now until june 21~~ Get yours here:

DEARLY BELOVED

Amazon

Nook

Apple books

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May 9, 2024 · 12:50 am

#TBT #TBThursday 5.9.2024

This post appeared in ROMANCING THE GENRES on July 24, 2020 and is still one of my favorite pieces ( and characters!)

So in deciding who my favorite villain is in literature, the only name that consistently showed up in my head really isn’t a villain, according to the book reading world. It’s a person whose actions are so wonderfully vile and self-serving, though, that she really must be declared a villain.
If you know anything about me you’ve probably already guessed I’m talking about Scarlett O’Hara.

She of the original resting bitch face, Scarlett O’Hara, is supposed to be the heroine of Gone With The Wind, but in my mind she holds a dichotomous role as pure villain.
According to Webster’s Dictionary, a villain is:  a character whose evil actions or motives are important to the plot.
Everything Scarlett does in GWTW is crucial to moving the plot line of the book forward. And everything she does can be interpreted as evil.
Cases in point:
She agrees to marry one man just to make Ashley Wilkes jealous.
Then she marries another just to spite her sister ( because the sister loves him)
Then she goes after Ashley again and lets everybody knows it.
She tries to trick Rhett into giving her money while he is in jail.
She runs a business using convicts as cheap labor and doesn’t care about them just so she can never be poor again.
She blames Rhett for the death of their daughter and once again goes after Ashley after his wife dies.
Everything she does is self-serving. She tries to convince herself it’s because she wants to protect her home, Tara, and her family, but, in reality, she is a narcissistic, egomaniacal, conniving, blatant manipulator who has been spoiled since birth and wants everyone to dance a jig at her feet.
If that isn’t the offshoot definition of a villain, I don’t know what is.
Yes, her life is tragic. Yes, she suffers loss in the most grievous of ways. And yes, she is a victim of circumstances.
But…it’s how she handles and deals with all those events that make her a villain in my eyes.
And she is such a delicious one, too.

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April 25, 2024 · 12:32 am

#throwbackthursday

This little ditty is from June, 2020 and describes my life perfectly at the time!

TITLE: When you’ve got nothing, do you punt or…go home?

I’m chockful of weird and wacky blog titles this week, eh?? Hee Hee

What it boils down to is that I’ve been living a very boring life of late, self-isolating and writing/editing my next indie book, and reading other books for review on Netgalley. In addition to taking care of home and hearth and my parents. And their home and hearth.

I have no new news, no witty stories, no personal revelations with which to fill this blog up. I even missed the last two Long and Short Reviews Wednesday Blogging challenges because I was immersed in writing.

If you open the dictionary and find the definition of “pathetic lifestyle” you will see my picture.

Not kidding. Not even a little.

So…do I try and make something up that will delight and titillate you? Do I – once again – try to get you to buy any of my books by putting up snippets to intrigue you? Do I comment on current events? I am truly at a loss for what to write today.

I could tell you about the DIY wasp traps my husband discovered on the Internet to fight our growing wasp problem, and which he made all by himself. I’m truly happy all my empty liter Diet Mountain Dew bottles didn’t die in vain. Nothing in the traps yet, though.

I could tell you about my wonderful summer vacation plans….but I don’t have any.

I could share how I’ve started yet another diet in the attempt to fit into my dress for my daughter’s wedding – the one she has had to postpone twice now due to the pandemic – and how I’m literally starving most of the day. I might even admit that I bought two boxes of Girl Scout cookies in the grocery store yesterday and WHAM!!! Gained 6 pounds by the time I got home. But that seems too…depressing and self-revelatory.

I could share how happy I was when I finally – after 12 weeks – got my hair colored last week. But then I wonder: did you know I color my hair? Did I just ruin your opinion of me??

Truthfully,  when I read all of those things back they are really pretty pathetic and boring….

Kinda like me.

So, I guess I’ll go do some more editing and then maybe take a walk…on the treadmill of course,  because…you know….social distancing and the pandemic.

Le sigh…

Until next time, peeps, when I sincerely hope I have something to write about  ~ Peg

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March 28, 2024 · 12:34 am

#TBT

All year long I’m taking a look back on some of the blogs I wrote when I first started this writing project. It’s fun to see how far I’ve come in my writing and in my philosophizing, lol! This one is from September 2017

I’ve mentioned before that I’m blessed and lucky to be retired so I can write whenever I want, for how ever long at a stretch I want. This usually adds up to 5-9 hours daily, depending on everything else in life that needs to be taken care of: laundry, grocery shopping, exercise.

But….there was a time not too long ago when that wasn’t the case. I worked outside my home at a job I detested, so writing was relegated to the back burner. During that time I’d sneak a few minutes before getting ready for the day to jot down a few lines of dialogue. Or I’d bring my laptop to work with me and take a solitary lunch so I could finish a scene. My menopause insomnia ( don’t laugh. It’s a real thing!) was good for one thing and one thing only: I used my inability to sleep to write in the middle of the night when everyone else was dreaming. My first book, SKATER’S WALTZ, was completely written between the hours of 1 and 3 am.

My husband worked, my daughter was out of the house, so it should have been easy to eek time out of the day to write. But it wasn’t because, you know….life.

Balance is a hard job for some people and for me it’s one of the most difficult concepts to accomplish. I never felt like I was giving my all to anyone or anything when I was working and writing. I am in awe of writers who have small children, volunteer at their school, plus work and have husbands/wives they need to care, in addition to homes that need to be tended. And by tended, I mean cleaned! Those writers truly have superpowers that I do not possess. They can write a book, bake cookies for the school fundraiser, prepare nutritious meals for dinner, and everyone has clothes to wear, even on laundry day.

These writers have found their inner balance between writing and life.

I never did. It was only when I retired from that despised job that I was able to finally devote the time necessary to each part of my day and not feel as if I was cheating some aspect of it along the way.

So the title of this piece is Managing my writing time. I’m doing pretty well now that I don’t have any place to be during the daylight hours – and by that I mean I don’t have to go to a job location. All my friends still work, so there is no one I can get into Thelma and Louise trouble with during the day and the last time I went out to lunch on a weekday was way back in the beginning of the summer. I have no life, really, and I think I’m doing just fine!

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March 21, 2024 · 12:04 am

#tbt 3.21.24

So this year, on Thursdays, I’m taking a look at some of my older blogs to see if they have any relevance today. Here’s one about reviews.

Published July 3, 2020.

title: WORDS HURT and REVIEWS can be Crushing…

I really have had some weird – but exact – blog titles lately, haven’t I? Hee Hee

I’ve talked about book reviews here many times – the good, the bad, the mean. Today I’m going to add confusing to that short list.

WOKE released the other day to good (mostly – 95%)  to excellent reviews. I’ve come to realize that the people whom I know personally are always kind even if they don’t like one book more than another, they always say kind words in their reviews. But I know a book is good if reviewers I don’t know from Adam ( or Eve) say something wonderful.

For an example, this review was put up on Bookbub and Amazon by a reader I don’t know:

Drugged at her 21st birthday party, Aurora nearly died, then spent 10 years in a coma. She moves forward after waking, thanks to her devoted mother and their housekeeper, to the point of training to run the NYC marathon, and meeting and dating someone she met at a fundraiser. AJ, as she’s now known, wants to know what happened, and goes in search of someone who can help her. I’ve read two other books from this author, both very nice romances. But holy crapoly – I had no idea that Ms. Jaeger could write such a captivating and suspenseful romance. This story roped me in at the beginning, and never let up. The romance is wonderful. Cade and AJ are just perfect together, until he omits something that she might think to be important. Her mother is a bit overprotective at times, but considering all that AJ went through, fairly understandable, and Mom is supportive. Maeve, their housekeeper, has worked for the family since she came to the US, and she’s so much more than just “the help” – she gave up her chance at forever to take care of AJ when she was comatose. Nick, the detective who worked her case, is a really great guy, and I love AJ’s matchmaking attempt. Best quote in the book: “Forgiveness is a gift, according to Maeve, that should be doled out often, and without incurring interest.” She gave it 5 stars

Great review, right? I think so and it made me feel I’d done my job as a writer well.

Then there are the confusing ones. The reviews that makes no sense to me, like this one, for example:

The plot had its engaging moments, the characters were interesting and their secrets were gradually relieved throughout the story.
It had mystery and twists, single pov, nicely paced.
Regarding the solution of how and why was Aurora poisoned, it was neither brilliant nor mind-blowing. It was far-fetched and spoiled whatever my mood was.
Is there a part two??? Where was the epilogue???? Where was the hea???? There was a hea, but for a secondary character!!! I was left dumbfounded, looking for an epilogue that never appeared and I could not believe how abrupt the story ended!!! 😲She gave it 2.5 stars.

I didn’t promote this book as a romance because, to me, it really wasn’t one. It was more a woman coming to grips with the hand of cards she was dealt in life and trying to learn how to grow from it. The book ended when it was appropriate to end. It didn’t need an epilogue and why does this reader think it does??? See? Confusing.

There certainly are days when I wonder why I ever wanted to be a professional, published writer, that’s for sure…

Oh well. Today I start writing Book 2 in my Pride of Brothers series. Different genre, different voices. I’d better just concentrate on that and forget about the confusing world of reviews for the moment.

Happy 4th, American peeps. Until next time ~ Peg

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February 15, 2024 · 12:28 am

#throwbackthursday 2.15.2024

This little gem is from June, 2017…

Recently on Facebook, I saw a post that was shared hundreds of times called THE DECLUTTER CHALLENGE,  a 30-day challenge to get rid of clutter and stuff in your life. A random sampling of the days’ tasks includes: purging 2 kitchen cabinets (day 7); cleaning out your wallet (day 9) and your purse ( day 10); cleaning out the freezer ( day 18); donating unused toys ( day 25). The challenge ends on day thirty with the simple task of CLEAN. I guess what you clean is up to you, but I took it to mean, clean your house.

This challenge, naturally, got me to thinking about how I could declutter my writing.  All writers have catch words or phrases they like to use, especially when writing dialogue. If we actually wrote how we spoke, the readers would be bored out of their gourds. For instance, would you seriously want to spend money on a book where every dialogue started like this:

#1. Hey, Bill. How are you?

#2. Fine, Jim. How are you?

#3. Can’t complain. How’s the family?

#4. Doing well. Yours?

#5. Same, same. So how, about those Red Sox?…

you get the idea. This is drivel. We may speak like this in real life, but in fiction, it’s a death knoll.

So that’s one way to declutter your work: check the dialogue. Can you get the idea across without all the folderol of “hi, how you doing’s?”

Another way I know I personally clutter up my writing is by using too many extraneous words to convey my thoughts. A quick search of my current work in progress yielded this:

the use of THAT – 89 times

the use of To her/to him/ for her/for him -56 times

the use of adverbs ( the bane of my writing existence) 91 times. EEK!

I really need to work on decluttering these words, don’t I! Hee hee

Other things that writers should declutter are phrases like “seemed to,” “tried to,” “began to.” Writing is much stronger and moves quicker when sentences are declarations and use an active tense.

For example: Her natural, spicy scent seemed to surround her body.

Better example: Her natural, spicy scent of ginger and peach, surrounded her.

Other words that can probably be eliminated a fair amount of time and still allow the sentence to convey what it needs to are:

move, push, reach, bring, pull, went, brought, press and came( to denote going  or coming from somewhere)

It’s a good practice to utilize the SEARCH for options in your word processing program to nit pick and eliminate words you use excessively after your first draft is written. This will make the editing process more about the story line and capturing what you intended to say instead of needing to remove excess words.

Oh, about that 30-day Declutter challenge. yeah, I survived for three days. Then I was exhausted. Maybe I should develop a 12 month declutter challenge. You know…do one thing a month instead of 30 in 30 days? Thoughts? LOL

When I’m not decluttering my life and my writing, you can find me here:

Tweet Me//Read Me// Visit Me//Picture Me//Pin Me//Friend Me//Google+Me// Triberr

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February 8, 2024 · 12:44 am

#tbt 2.8.2024

Each Thursday I’ve been revisiting a blog post I did back in the day.

Today’s #TBT is one of the top 5 days of my life. Read on and you’ll find out why….

From August 7, 2017

At 57 years old, you’d think I’d be beyond hyperventilating when I see a “celebrity.” Yeah…not so much.

My very first RWA in 2014 I actually burst into tears when I met and spoke with Nora Roberts. Not one of my finest, adult moments, but there was truly so much emotion stored up in me concerning her that when I actually got the chance to speak to her, I lost it. Like a two-year-old. She was gracious, lovely, and held my hand. I don’t think I washed it for 2 whole days!!!, but that might not be true because I blacked out after meeting her! and have no memory of the rest of the day!!

You can just make out the tears still wet on my cheeks in this picture her lovely assistant, Laura, took.

Anyway.

Fangirling. Yeah, it’s a thing.  A real thing. Even though I’ve been to 4 RWA conferences and 1 RT, I still get a little queasy butterfly feeling in my tummy when I see my writing idols casually walking around a hotel as if they were, well, normal people, not romance icons. Here are just a few of my absolute meet-favorites from this year. And I’ll tell you honestly, I really struggled not to cry when I met each of them.

First, one of my newest favs, Lauren Layne.

If you haven’t read any of her Wedding Belles series, or any of the Stiletto books, get yourself over to Amazon and get a bunch. You will not be disappointed.

Next, the amazeballs, uber-talented Jennifer Probst. I actually carted her book WRITE NAKED with me to Orlando because I knew she was going to be there and I simply had to meet her to autograph it.

I sat in on one of her workshops as well, but don’t ask me what she said. I was too busy pinching myself because I was sitting in the same room with her!

And look what she wrote to me!!!!!!

Okay, this next picture makes me giggle every time I see it! The incredible, sweet, absolutely lovely and funny Jill Shalvis was sososososos gracious when I basically interrupted her from eating at the Rita’s and begged – yes begged – for a picture.

 Can you see how giddy I am??!!!

And at the Literacy signing I bothered, er, spoke, to her again when she was with another of my favs, and Jill’s BFF, RaeAnne Thayne. Honestly, these two women are graciousness incarnate!!

last but certainly not least, I was able to “hang” with another of my favorite authors, Marianne Rice, who was attending her first RWA. We were having a good natured contest between us to see how many “big names” we could get to take selfies with us. Marianne WON, hands down!!! She got the fabulous Rachel Gibson!!!!  And Susan Elizabeth Phillips!!! Le sigh….maybe next year.

So, don’t ever be upset or embarrassed if you’re a fan girl, because we’ve all been there!! Some of us still are, despite our —ahem--senior ages!

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January 25, 2024 · 12:39 am

#throwbackThursday 1.25.2024

So today’s blog throwback is from 2017. I was going to be presenting my first workshop for my local chapter of RWA and I was…to say the least…a basket case about it!

So this past Saturday I gave my first ever PowerPoint presentation to my local chapter of RWA.

To say I was nervous would be to do a disservice to the knocking in my knees and the way my heart was shooting extra beats.

I’ve spoken publically before, — hell, I use to teach Nursing to undergrads! – but I haven’t spoken publically in a very long time. In fact, I haven’t done anything publically in a very long time, not since I retired and started writing full time.

I think I was nervous because  I didn’t want to screw up, be boring, or deliver a topic that didn’t appeal to the audience. I didn’t eat anything all day because I was terrified I’d hurl!

I’m sitting here to report (1) I did not hurl, (2) I was absolutely starving the minute the presentation ended! (3) my audience laughed, repeatedly and freely in all the appropriate spots (4) there was discussion about the topic – a lot of discussion, so YAY!, and (5) my audience seemed to genuinely like the presentation.

So, again, YAY!!!

Now I just have to get my nerve up again, because I’m giving this presentation again next month to another group.

But I’ll think about that…tomorrow. After all, tomorrow is another day.

When I’m not being overly dramatic, you can find me here:

Tweet Me//Read Me// Visit Me//Picture Me//Pin Me//Friend Me//Google+Me// Triberr

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