Category: writing

Three Kids is Not for the Faint of Heart

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Please let me preface this entire post with the clear and unabashed statement that I love my children. They are amazing gifts and I cannot imagine my life without them.

Well, I can, and it’s a horrible existance to imagine. I know this because I spent YEARS dealing with infertility while desperately wanting children.

With that being said, I am here to tell you that life with my three wonderful children, all of whom are in vastly different stages of child development, is also one of the greatest challenges I have right now.

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Getting through our crazy days takes a lot of prayer, a lot of patience (which is in short supply sometimes), and a lot of tears some days. I know I’m luckier than a lot of people because my Romantic Hero of a Husband is a great dad and I have my mom here, and I also have the privilege of not needing to work right now. So I don’t want to come off as whiny or ungrateful.

I had great aspirations of carving out dedicated time to work on my writing once the school year started back up. Babycakes is obviously school age, Sugarpie goes to preschool three days a week, and Little Bro is finally on a solid two-nap schedule. HOWEVER, Little Bro’s favorite place to nap, still, is ON ME. Heck, his favorite place to sleep, period, is on me. Which has meant little to no time to take care of household business when he’s napping, let alone writing. And night time? Whoooo boy, I’m happy if I get a two hour stretch where he’s in the crib instead of in our bed, because if he’s in our bed, I don’t really sleep.

Add two almost back-to-back trips, visits with and from family, two colds and a nice round of RSV in the mix, well…

Let’s just say I’ve been literally trying to find time to properly write a blog post since July.

I haven’t even been able to commit to more freelancing hours, which stinks because I was bringing in some nice extra pocket change with freelancing the past couple years.

Anyway, I am determined to produce SOMETHING with my pen before we close out 2023. Stay tuned, and hopefully I’ll have an announcement to share soon! (Here’s a little hint!)

Wassail

Emerging (a little late) from the Fourth Trimester

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The past four months have flown by in a whirlwind of adjusting to a new baby, school activities, one illness after another (at least three colds per child, including the baby, the stomach bug for everyone EXCEPT the baby, strep for Babycakes that manifested as scarlet fever, and two ear infections (one double) for Sugarpie), family visits, potty training, Easter, and Little Bro’s baptism.

Add in the normal “newborns only sleep in arms and want to nurse 24/7” situation, and any and all aspirations I had to do anything remotely close to writing have just not happened. Which is disappointing, as I had a couple projects I’d hoped to complete this spring.

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Also, Sugarpie has officially dropped her nap. So that’s been…fun.

In seriousness, things have actually been going well with the addition of our new little guy. He’s happy and content, playful, and generally sleeps well given his age (various colds that resulted in yucky phlegm notwithstanding). He also is a champ at eating, so he’s now the size of a Thanksgiving turkey.

So what’s up for me going forward? I’ve been able to take on some small freelancing projects this month. While no actual writing has happened, I do have a outline for a sweet historical Christmas romance that I hope to finish up this summer or fall. I’m still planning to submit the post-Civil War historical romance, once I have a minute to finish some minor edits and get my submission materials together (ugh, synopses and blurbs). I also have some work I want to do to expand “Let Me Call You Sweetheart”, my sweet historical romance short story that appeared in Love in the Lowcountry, Volume 2: A Winter Holiday Collection.

And then there’s continuing work on the spinoff trilogy that ties into THE ONE I’M WITH, which has been in limbo for over a year.

In other news, Soul Mate Publishing has graciously extended my contract for Sweet Somethings, which means it will continue to be available for Kindle in its current iteration for another two years or so. Keep an eye out for news about how to get a print copy, if you’re interested.

So I think that’s all the important updates from me! Hopefully as Little Bro settles into more of a predictible schedule (and naps in the crib, not on me, with regularity), more actual writing will get done and I’ll have lots more to share in the near-ish future!

My Goals for 2020

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2020 is upon us, and with it the obligitory Yearly Goal Setting Post.

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This year, I’m piggybacking onto the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge, hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

So what’s on tap for me this year? I’m trying to be conscious of the fact that I have a new baby, which obviously changes a lot in terms of how much time I have for any sort of goal setting. But here goes.

Writing

Obviously I want to try and do more writing this year. This includes submitting the historical romance that placed 2nd in three 2018 contests (yes, I know that was a goal last year, too). I also need to return to the first installment in my Sweet Somethings spinoff trilogy, which has sat in First Draft Limbo since last February.

This also incorporates freelancing. I had several excellent freelance writing gigs the past couple years and I want to keep that up, in addition to my independent contractor work with Newsela.

As an extension, I would love to finally set up a copyediting business as well. This has been sitting on my chairside table for over a year. I should probably start perusing it:

Ultimately I would love if I can make enough with my pen, so to speak, to cover Babycakes’s school expenses and maybe a little extra.

Reading More Books

Or just reading books.

More on that later.

Cooking

I love to cook and bake, but haven’t had time to do much of either since I went back to work in 2015.

Okay, since Babycakes was born and then we moved to Charlotte and most of my kitchen stuff stayed in boxes for almost a year.

Being a stay-at-home-mom again for a while will, eventually, give me time to cook and bake again like I used to. For now, it helps that I am now the owner of an Instant Pot:

Apparently I can make yogurt with it? I’m also interested in the fact that I can also apparently sterilze baby bottles with it.

Being Mommy

Of course this year, I want to focus once again on being Mommy. I am officially on maternity leave for the rest of the school year, and then we have to reevaluate our plans beyond that. But I have a 5 year old in kindergarten, and I want to volunteer at her school. And of course, Sugarpie is here.

I also hope to not only finish filling out Babycakes’s baby book, but also keeping up with Sugarpie’s.

what are your big goals for 2020?

It’s Good to Have a Group

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Before I started seriously pursuing a writing career (translation: actively crafting specific stories with the aim of publication, instead of just puttering around on various projects), I was operating in something of a vacuum.

I was lucky to find an online community or two, and then sort of by chance I discovered that there was a local RWA chapter practically in my backyard. Honestly, if not for the support, guidance, and general cheerleading by the wonderful people who make up the Central New York Romance Writers, I may never have heard of Soul Mate Publishing, let alone mustered the guts to actually SUBMIT something.

After moving to North Carolina, I reentered the vacuum again, so to speak. My local chapter wasn’t local to me anymore, and I sharply felt the lack of community that comes from being part of a writer’s group. When we first moved, I was way too consumed with juggling life in a new place, stay at home mommyhood, then the rapid return to work and becoming a working mom, to manage much more than my own writing time.

I desperately missed being around other writers, talking about writerly things. Then finally, FINALLY, thing settled down, and I have once again found a community. This past weekend, I officially joined the Carolina Romance Writers, and I’m so thrilled to have a local chapter to call my own once more.

You see, writing, by nature, tends to be a solitary pursuit. Authors spend the majority of their free time having conversations with imaginary people, after all.

And sometimes it feels like you’re doing this thing, this great big thing that is so much of yourself, and you’re doing it all alone.

Except we’re not.

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No matter what you write, there are communities out there for you. Some are connected to national (or international organizations) like RWA. Some operate as critique groups. Others operate simply as meetups for local writers who want to get together and, well, be around other writers. Finding and joining these communities gives you a sense of belonging, that you aren’t just writing in a little bubble of your own.

There are others like you. And they’ll support you. You’ll support them.

The actual act of writing will never cease to be a solitary pursuit in some manner. But writer’s groups and communities give a definite sense of belonging.

Maybe it’s because we all are sitting there, having conversations with imaginary people.

Romance Writers Gone Wild

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I’m very excited to announce that I’ll be participating in Romance Writers Gone Wild, a week-long Facebook event that will spotlight 130+ romance authors in genres ranging from contemporary to historical to paranormal and suspense (and just about everything in between).

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The event runs November 14th-November 18th. In addition to finding some great new authors, readers have the chance to enter to win a slew of great prizes including:

  • Gift Cards to iTunes, Barnes & Noble, or Amazon
  • A variety of book related prizes given away by authors themselves (think ebooks and print books!)
  • And one grand prize winner will walk away with a Kindle Paperwhite (to read all those new ebooks on, of course)

The Facebook event page is open and anyone can join the party! The week before the event, authors will begin introducing themselves, so be sure to check everyone out.