Today’s virtual tour brings me to the Mixed Book Bag. Drop by and see the five places I’d love to travel to learn about the native cuisine.
Category Archives: Uncategorized
The end is in sight, #GoddessFishBlogTour
#99centsale; Escape from Behruz
One of my Wild Rose Press sistahs is having a book sale! For a limited time ESCAPE FROM BEHRUZ by Judy Meadows is available for just 99 cents.Rashid will help Olivia and the baby she’s been caring for escape the violence in Behruz, but he must guard his heart. He can’t risk being hurt by her again. Olivia has her own reasons for keeping her distance from Rashid. If Rashid learns that the baby is actually hers—and his—the sultan of Behruz will make sure she loses everything that matters to her. Their escape involves traveling with a group of nomads across the mountains into Iran. As they trek together by day and sleep beside each other in a nomad tent at night, the attraction that has always drawn them to each other grows ever stronger, Can Olivia survive the trip without revealing her secrets and without losing her heart to Rashid once again?
On sale now for just 99cents.
Amazon // Wild Rose Press
A little about Judy:
Judy grew up and went to college in Minnesota. She and her husband Jim now live in a small town in Oregon. When not writing (well, she’s nearly always writing), she likes to read, travel, swim, garden, and spend time with her grandchildren.
Judy’s first career was designing computer software. Since retiring from that field, she’s worked as a childbirth educator, doula, and now, writer.
Published under the name, Judy Gabriel, a non-fiction book: Touching Bellies, Touching Lives, Midwives of Southern Mexico Tell Their Stories
YOu can find Judy here:
Website // Facebook
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#MFRWAuthors week 41…My Blogging Inspiration
Another week…another topic that could go a couple of ways. I’m going to take the easy route ( for me) and tell you what my blogging inspiration is.
Ready?
You. The Reader. The one who clicks on the link to my blog every day through WordPress or Google+ or Goodreads and actually READS it.
You, dear reader, are my inspiration.
Why, you ask? Well, I’m gonna tell ya.
You read what I write.
You make a thoughtful choice, everyday, to click on and see if I’ve uploaded a new blog with a new topic.
If it weren’t FOR you there would be no ME writing a BLOG.
Of course I could write it. But if it weren’t for YOU it wouldn’t be read and shared and retweeted and “Hearted” (I couldn’t find the heart emoji for Instagram!!!)
You inspire me to keep writing my blog everyday. Whenever I see the blog post shared, or liked, or whatever I know I am effecting someone’s life, either positively, negatively ( egads!), informationally, or spiritually.
So, based on this, I will continue to be inspired daily to write for you.
Now, that’s my take on this blog. I’m sure the other MFRW authors have different opinions, so why don’t you click on their links and see how they interpreted this little bit of blogging inspiration….
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#GoddessFishBlog tour Week 3…are you sick of me yet?? #LOL
Haha. A valid question!!! I’ve got 2 weeks more to go on my book tour and today I’m doing a little author Q&A over at Independent Authors. Stop by and leave love. Also, take a chance on the $25.00 Amazon gift card. And don’t forget: Order your copy of A SHOT AT LOVE today!!! Here’s the buy link for that ( shameless promo!)
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#GoddessFishBlogtour…. day: I have no idea!!!
I’m not kidding with the title! I’ve lost track of all the stops I’ve made so far and I have 2 more weeks to go!!! Today I am over on Fabulous and Brunette and Two Ends of the Pen talking about. Stop by and take a chance at a $25 Amazon GC when the tour ends.
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#GoddessFishBlogtour….more stops along the way!
The fun never ends. Today I’m on fellow author Nandy Fraser’s blog with a cute Q&A sessions. Stop by. Leave love. Take a chance to win an AMAZON gc! Oh and come meet Nancy and me and 40 other authors at the Fall In Love With New England Readers conference next weekend. Click for details.
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And the #GoddessFishBlogTour continues
Holy Holy! What a busy release day! Did you get your copy of A SHOT AT LOVE? ( Well why not, I ask, humbly! Hee hee)
Today, I’m featured on Hearts and Scribbles and Nickie’s Views and Interviews. Stop by. Leave love! Take a chance of a $ 25 GC to Amazon once the tour completes.
When I’m not touring you can find me here:Tweet Me//Read Me// Visit Me//Picture Me//Pin Me//Friend Me//Google+Me// Triberr
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A day in my life….is not for sissies!!
I retired in 2015 when I got a book contract. I’d worked for about 150 years as a nurse in varying specialties, then as a contact lens technician. By the time I left the nursing profession I was dog tired, emotionally wrung out, and psychological drained. Having a full time job that could be at the same time uplifiting and soul-sucking was difficult. I figured retirement – and the oppportunity to write full time – would be much more relaxing and enjoyable.
What’s that old saying? You make plans and God laughs?
yeah…story of my life.
I figured writing full time would be a cake walk. Hey, I didn’t have to get dressed in professional clothes everyday any more, do my makeup, hair, and coordinate my wardrobe. I could stay in my pj’s all day and not even put on deodorant if I didn’t want to. ( I do, just for full disclosure here!)
That easy, carefree life of a writer I imagined? yeah..not so much. A few months ago I did a blog piece about a simple question my husband asks me every day at dinner: “So, what did you do today.” My usual response? “Worked.”
One night I figured he really needed to hear what I actually do under the definition of “work,” so here’s what I told him.
4am, Finally got out of bed after lying there for an hour, wide awake.
405am – 530 am Checked email, answered 16 messages. Wrote 2 blogs, uploaded one then posted on social media outlets and HootSuite for the day. Social media sites included uploads of blog on twitter, Triberr, Tumblr, Linked in, Goodreads, google+ and Pinterest. Hootsuites were posted for every 2 hours.
530-6. Got hubby up, ate breakfast. Got ready for the day. Made bed.
630-930 am Gym, followed by grocery shopping for the week, Target, the post office and the bank. Got gas and went to the dump.
930-1030am put the groceries away then started laundry, vacuumed bedrooms and living area. Started dishwasher.
1030-1pm wrote in current wip; worked on Copyedits just received for Book 3 in new cooking series.
1pm-130pm ate lunch then answered emails and checked social media sites. Changed laundry and started another load.
130-500 worked on wip; and worked on Copy edits for book 3 in new cooking series, plus plotted out book 4. ) Folded dried laundry and put it away. Ironed shirts.
5-545 walked on treadmill and read current NetGalley book for review. Folded the remainder of done laundry, put it away.
545-630 cooked dinner, cleaned up the kitchen, set table, worked on copy edits.
630-7pm dinner and conversation ( questions!) with Hubby. Cleaned up the dinner dishes.
7-830 worked on wip, answered email, worked on blog posting for the morning. Did a few pages of the copy edits for book 3
830-10 read Netgalley again
10pm-midnight. Slept
Midnight-2 am. wide awake in bed, reliving yesterday, planning today.
Now, mind you: I have no children at home who need to be tended to, ferried places, or shown love and attention. I don’t currently, have a pet. My friends all work at full-time jobs out side of the home, so ladies who lunch is not on my menu. I don’t get manicures, pedicures, or have spa days. The last time I went to a mall my daughter was in college and I had a panic attack from the crowds. I simply write all day long.
But there’s nothing simple about a day in my life.
So, how do you think the other authors in this blog challenge spend their days? Find out by clicking on the links below
The Declutter Challenge…
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
Filed under Author, Contemporary Romance, Dialogue, Life challenges, Pet Peeves, Strong Women, Uncategorized
A #WonderWoman fan…
For all of you who read my blog the other day about the men who were bashing WonderWomen female only movie showings, this man is NOT one of those guys.
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Peggy Jaeger, Author 