I’m tired. Are you? Hee hee. This has been a world wind tour, that’s for sure. Today I’m 2 places at once. ( Didn’t know I was magical, did you?!) I’m over on Read Your Writes Book Reviews and Rachel Brimble’s Romance blog. Stop by both – you get 2 chances at that Amazon GC if you comment on each. Leave me some encouragement and love, though, too!
Today’s stop takes me to IT’S RAINING BOOKS. Love the name of this blog!!!! Stop by. Leave love. PLEASE!!!!! There’s a question I ask readers at the end of the interview that I’d like to get some answers to. Thanks, in advance!
Day: somewhere in the 3rd week
Stop: author K.T. Castle’s blog
Subject: 10 things every kitchen needs
Drop by…leave love….take a chance at a $25.oo Amazon card.
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!)
Filed under Uncategorized
Just in case you missed any of the tour stops for week 2, here’s a listing with links. Be sure to drop by, leave some love, and be entered for a chance to win an Amazon GC at the end of the tour.
Monday, October 2 Danita Minnis
Tuesday, October 3 Up ’til Dawn Book Blog
Wednesday, October 4 Hearts and Scribbles and Nickie’s Reviews and Interviews
Thursday, October 5 Nancy Fraser
Friday, October 6 Fabulous, and Brunette and Two Ends of the Pen
Before I answer that, let me explain something.
Most of you probably know by now ( because I’ve mentioned it ad nauseum!) I’m the only child of divorced parents. My parents separated when I was an infant and quickly divorced, each realizing the mistake they’d made. Too bad they didn’t realize it before a child came into the mix, but that’s just my anger speaking.
Any way…
Mom worked full time and I rarely – if ever – saw my father. On the occasions I did, the day usually ended with tears.
Fast forward to my teen years. Suddenly and without warning, my father wanted to be a presence in my life. I was an overweight, myopic, shy, and wicked smart girl ( which earned me no points with my peers!) who had no friends. So when my father wanted to be a part of my life, actually asked to spend time with me, I was, to say the very least, thrilled. Our weekend visits became more frequent, and I spent an entire summer at his home with him and my step-mother ( a truly lovely woman). For the first time in my life, I felt like someone wanted me around; wanted to spend time with me. Me.
Fast forward to the college years. My decision to go to nursing school instead of into medicine drove a bit of a wedge between our relationship. To this day I feel the only reason my father wanted me to go to med school was because he wanted to brag about “my daughter the doctor.” To an uneducated, never having graduated high school man, this was, apparently, a big ego boost to him and I’d shot an arrow into his happiness bubble by refusing to be a physician. Our time spent together turned infrequent again. He claimed it was because he was working hard. He may have been. But I knew the real reason.
More years go by and it’s time for me to get married. What should have been the happiest time of my life…wasn’t. Let’s just be truthful here and say when your parents are divorced and they need to be together at an event supporting you, there is a great deal of tension in the air. The tension at my wedding and during the time leading up to it was so thick even a Roncomatic knife wouldn’t have been able to cut through it.
I didn’t see my father for almost 4 years after I married. Then I had a baby. You’d think that as the only grandchild my father would have been all over this child like white on rice. He probably would have if I hadn’t been the mom.
My daughter is now 28 and I haven’t seen my father since she was 8 years old.
Why did I tell you all this? The title of this MFRW blog piece today is supposed to be 5 ways to win my heart. For me, there is really only one way to win, claim, and keep my heart. And that’s to give me the precious gift of your time. Time is so fleeting, that any amount of it we can spend with, and give to, the people we love most in the world, is a good thing. All I ever wanted was someone to think of me enough, love me enough, to want to spend time with me.
So, the way to my heart? Yeah. It’s a straight road if you only take…the time.
This piece was a little depressing even for me, but I bet the other authors in this blog hop have happier tales to tell. Why don’t you hop on over and see what they have to say?
Filed under #Mfrwauthors, Author, love, Strong Women
I read an interesting writers blog the other day which questioned how much of ourselves we should and should not put out there on social media sites. Here’s the link: http://www.brendamoguez.com/manic-modays/how-much-is-too-much-to-confess/
I’ve questioned myself numerous times over the past 10 months since I decided to make this writing career the next chapter in my life. In order to have a solid career in writing you need a following; a fan base; readers. Although I’m well-known in my town, I need more than the local peeps to build this base, so I’ve entered the social media realm.
I started with a website, then branched over to Facebook and Twitter. I’m LinkedIn and tumble on Tumblr. I pin on Pinterest and Googleplus myself into a frenzy. Keeping up with all these sites is a lot of work, and it got me to thinking: When is publicly divulging too much information about yourself, well, too much?
My blog has an About Me page that lists 10 things you may or may not know about me – or let’s face it – you may not even care to know about me! There are ten millions more things I could have listed on there, but didn’t. Things such as, I read every Agatha Christie book published before I was 12; I didn’t go on a date until I was 21 and didn’t know at the time he was married. Married! (The jerk!) I didn’t go to prom in high school because I was so fat and so unpopular, no one asked me. I started going gray at 16 because of a genetic link that causes premature graying. While this stuff may be interesting to the people who love me, is it really interesting to the general book buying public?
There are things about us which we all have that we really don’t want people to know about because they’re a little too revealing. And let’s face it: a little too close to deflating that precious ego we all have.
I’ve read twitterfeeds that detail everything the tweeter is doing, from going to work, to arriving, to getting a coffee, to the stomach cramps they have from not eating. And my question is always “Who the heck cares?” Who cares if I’m stuck in traffic? Who cares if I have a dentist appointment? Really, is this information ANYONE- except maybe a stalker – would want to know?
I tend to keep a lot of information close to the vest. That’s just me. I don’t need to know everything about a person when I meet them. I enjoy finding about them as the relationship progresses. And truly, isn’t there something written somewhere about how being mysterious is intriguing and beguiling? I certainly think that’s true.
So the question of when is too much personal info too much is just that: personal. We each decide how much or how little of ourselves we want “out there.”
For me, I prefer to divulge a little at a time, and give away nothing I would be embarrassed to get parroted back to me. Well, that one thing about dating the married man may have been too much to tell. But really, he was a jerk and we only went on two dates. That was one way too many in hindsight.
Filed under Author, Contemporary Romance, female friends, Life challenges, Romance, Romance Books, RWA, Strong Women
Peggy Jaeger, Author 