Tag Archives: #Writinglife
Photo of the day, day 263
Filed under year in photos
Photo of the day, day 216
And here’s the rest of the tease….hee hee. Have you preordered CHANCE yet? Let me help you with that:
Chance Miller, divorce lawyer extraordinaire, knows the whole happily ever after dream is an urban myth. He deals with miserable and wedded warring couples every day and swears staying single keeps him sane and happy. His friends and family consider him the last single man standing and fear he’ll never find someone and settle down. But Chance relishes his carefree status and unencumbered lifestyle and has no plans to change anything.
If only his relatives would stop trying to set him up with their version of the perfect woman.
Fredrika Poole already experienced her one great love, and the widow can’t read any future romance in her tea leaves. She’s content to bake, run her business, and care for her daughter.
When Chance meets Freddie and discovers her marriage thoughts run on the same road his do, he realizes she’s the answer to his prayer for keeping the relatives at bay. But the pixie barista has a way of making Chance question everything he’s always thought about love, marriage, and wedded bliss.
Will his last man standing status go unchallenged? Or will Freddie be the one woman he wants…but can never have?
Filed under Last Man Standing
#RWAClasses Writing the Second Acts Romance #seasonedromance
Do you like a good second acts romance to read? Don’t know what that is? It’s a romance with the hero and heroine and supporting characters 35+ in age. Many of you may have heard of the romance genre LATER IN LIFE or Seasoned romance. That’s was a second acts romance is. Romance for people in the second, or even third act, of their lives!
Most of my books these days involve characters 35+ and I’ve had a good deal of success writing about and for this age group.
So, if you’re a writer and want to learn the basics for writing this type of romance, this is the class for you. You can register here ( and you don’t have to be an RWA member!) Writing the seasoned romance
Hope to see ya there ~ Peg
Filed under Writing
Photo of the day, day 95
Really getting into the promotion part of the career this year.
Filed under year in photos
Photo of the day, day 94
I treated myself to a new bag. Cute, no?? And very apropos.
Filed under year in photos
Romance Writers: I’ve got a class for you!
I am tickled pink to announce that on March 26, I will be teaching an online course through RWA titled KINDLE VELLA FOR BEGINNERS.
Since I’ve had such success with this new Amazon platform I was asked by the President of the RWA to give a workshop to other Romance Writers on the topic. I was humbled to be asked, believe me.
The cost of the class is $25.00 ( the price may be higher for non-RWA members) and here’s what we’ll be covering in the two hours:
•What Kindle Vella is
•How it works
•The kind of content is allowed
•How do you start a story and publish it
•How authors get paid
•How readers use it
If this looks like something of interest to you, here’s the registration. Just Scroll down until you see my listing – it’s the third one. VELLA FOR BEGINNERS
Registration is open now until March 25th and ANY WRITER may attend – whether you are an RWA member or not.
Filed under kindle vella
Photo of the day, day 59
Took Maple up to the dam. She’s confused…where are the birds and why is the water hard??
Poor puppy….
Filed under year in photos
Looking back, looking ahead. 2021 in review and a glimpse at the future.
2021 was, for me, a weird year. Personal losses, professional highlights, and a mix of mental and physical ailments marked 365 days that should have brought us out of the pandemic and back into normalcy.
Nope.
As I sit here in my office writing this, I think reflecting on the past year is one way to plan for the next, so here goes.
2021 in review.
Professional stuff:
wrote and published 4 full-length books and one prequel/novella
won 2 writing awards
got a new contract for 5 books with a new publisher
entered the Kindle Vella world and am kicking it!!
Attended my first writing conference/book signing since 2019, the Fall in Love New England conference
Had two book signings in my local Toadstool Bookshop for new releases.
Personal stuff:
lost 22 pounds ( of the 50 I need to lose)
welcomed my first grandson
saw my nephew married
kept my parents covid-free and healthy
had a negative mammogram but a positive melanoma biopsy that resulted in 1 Mohs surgery on my face and one excision on my shoulder. ( not fun!)
Lost my father-in-law to a myriad of medical issues.
For the first time since I started doing it, I was unable to complete the Goodreads reading challenge this year. Time, as they say, just flew.
I turned 61. Unbelievable.
Not bad. Not great, either, when you consider I could have written a lot more since I’m home for the pandemic and retirement.
So, looking toward 2022
First and foremost I have to lose the rest of the 50 pounds for my daughter’s big – 3 times delayed – super wedding reception in May.
I have 7 books on the docket to write for 2022 and am seriously hunkering down to start them in January
I have 3 conference/book signings booked for the year starting in July.
I am going on a family cruise (covid-permitting)
I want to be a better person in every way so I am going to start meditating daily
I want to be around for my grandson’s life so I am eating healthier.
I want to grow my book sales, online presence, and reader loyalty.
Some of these are lofty goals, some are not. Either way, I sincerely hope 2022 is better than 2019/2020/2021 has been. We need a break. I need a break.
Happy New Year, peeps.
~Peg
Filed under Writing
Author Liz Flaherty looks out of the Window Over the Desk…
“Some of the joys in being a septuagenarian are unexpected. Google is one—how else did you think I knew how to spell septuagenarian? Dressing however you want is another. It’s especially fun to wear what a blonde twenty-something on Facebook assures you is completely wrong for you.” – Liz Flaherty, Window Over the Desk
Getting romance novels published is hard for me these days—not so much because I’m the age I am, I guess, or because I look the age I am, but because I sound the age I am. The editors I’ve worked with in past years are kind in their assessments, but they either say no or they edit my work to the point that it really doesn’t look so much like my work anymore.
That’s hard. I won’t deny that. But publishing a book of essays that have previously appeared in newspapers and blog posts and magazines—that’s “dressing how you want.” And the age you are. No one who reads the Window books ever mentions that I sound old.
Let me know. Do I?
In 2020, I released the first collection of Window Over the Sink columns. It was for my family, really, and to give my own ego a boost. (Any writer who says she doesn’t need that now and then is lying, by the way.)
It was so much fun.
Which is why I decided to open the Window Over the Desk. My view out this particular window is a favorite—even today, when I’m drying…things…on the clothesline. Also today, the hay bales in the field that have given me pleasure for several weeks have been gathered and stored for the long winter.
I hope the essays in this book give you some pleasant reading time over that winter. I hope they make you remember things, laugh sometimes, and refill your cup and sit down and read “just one more.”
As I mention way more often than is necessary, I’m kind of old. The years have dimmed some reflections through the window, brightened others, and changed a whole bunch of them. What a trip it’s been.
Thanks—again—for joining me on the journey.
The Woman in the Mirror
Do you ever feel as if you lost yourself somewhere along the way? If you’ve had a bad time or an extraordinarily good one, do you ever look in the mirror and wonder exactly who’s looking back at you? Because you’ve changed, and you’re not sure what to do with the person who’s there.
I’m feeling thoughty here—can you tell? I’m always, always whining about how much I hate change, yet when I look back—over bad times and extraordinarily good ones, it’s an ongoing cycle, isn’t it? It’s what keeps life new and interesting. And, yeah, sometimes awful.
But if it weren’t for change, and my kicking-and-screaming caving to it, I would:
Never have changed jobs and I’d have been stuck with working one I hated.
Never have married the man I did because he wasn’t the first person I loved.
I’d never have had a third child.
I’d have given up the first time a publisher said Nope.
Or maybe the second.
For sure by the twenty-third.
I’d have kept my hair short.
And let it go gray.
I’d still be writing longhand on lined paper and thinking I wasn’t good enough.
For anything,
So, no, I don’t always know the woman in the mirror, or, for that matter, the man I’m married to. I don’t always like either of us. There are days when I do feel like I’ve lost the person I was. Because I have. Because every re-invention in every time of life is change, it’s often hard, and it’s always necessary. I think maybe I like it.
Buy Links
https://books2read.com/u/m2lDzo
Retired from the post office, Liz Flaherty spends non-writing time sewing, quilting, and wanting to travel. The author of 20-some books and her husband Duane share an old farmhouse in North Central Indiana that they talk about leaving. However, that would require clearing baseball trophies from the attic and dusting the pictures of the Magnificent Seven, their grandchildren, so they’ll probably stay where they are. Liz can be reached at lizkflaherty@gmail.com or found at http://lizflaherty.net
https://www.facebook.com/lizkflaherty/
https://www.facebook.com/authorlizflaherty
Filed under Uncategorized, Writing
Happy November and welcome back to NaNoWriMo!
Yes, it’s that time of year when authors of all ilks, walks of life, and publishing status attempt the annual NANOWRIMO ritual of penning 50,000 words ( or more ) in the 30 days of this month. For the seventh year running, I am a participant.
This can be a grueling endeavor for many writers, especially those who don’t have writing full time presently as their career choice. Writing between the office and home, at kids soccer practices, when at the dentist’s office waiting for an appointment are all the norm to most writers who still need to work at alternate jobs to keep food on the table. But even writers who work full time from home can find the prospect of writing a minimum of 1670 words a day – every day – daunting.
The first time I participated in NaNo I was still working full time. Writing that amount every day wasn’t something I’d ever done before. But I accepted the challenge and…did it! I wrote later at night, early in the morning, on lunch break, while dinner cooked. I wrote marathon sessions on the weekends. And it all paid off because at the end of the month I had the rough draft of a 75,000 word novel.
These days I’m afforded the luxury of writing all the time,but I still like the challenge of NaNo because it focuses me and makes me hone in on a specific and measurable word count goal every single day for a month.
Psychological theory tells us it takes about 21 days of consistent behavior to make a habit. Well in 30 that habit should be ingrained.
Writers write. That’s what we do. And making it a habitual part ofyour daily life is beneficial for so many reasons, not the least of which you can be more productive with product, namely, books.
Are NaNoWriMo-ing this year! Good luck if you are.
Go forth and write! ~ Peg
Peggy Jaeger, Author 