October is my month for goofing off, so, I’m writing for fun with no hopes of profit.
That’s all I can say at this juncture. Subtle, huh?
Wishing my Canadian friends a very Happy Thanksgiving!
What are you up to this week?
Monday Mayhem – Exhale
I had two deadlines to start the month of October. Both have been met.
Sorry, couldn’t resist because…underpants.
So, anyway, now, I get to kick back and relax a little before NaNoWriMo starts in November.
My plan it to spend October working on…plans. I’ve got a new branding/marketing campaign to work out, the book I plan to write during NaNoWriMo to ponder, and goals to set for 2017 and beyond.
Yeah, that’s how I relax.
Oh, and this:
What’s on your agenda for October? If you aren’t already signed up for my newsletter, be sure to enter your email on the sidebar. This month, I’m giving away a signed paperback of A WILL AND A WAY.
Oh, and FLIP is on sale for only $0.99 this month.
And LOVE & ROCKETS is coming soon!
AND…I’m out. Happy Monday and Shana Tova to my friends celebrating a new year!
Monday Mayhem – Sprinting
It’s going to be a bust week!
First off…did you see this?
Pretty, huh? Mark your calendars for April 4, 2017 or pre-order now at your favorite e-tailer!
Secondly, FLIP THIS LOVE is on sale for $.99 this month!
Third – I’m giving away this adorable journal to one of my newsletter subscribers. If you aren’t on my list, enter your email address in the space on the sidebar >>>>>
FOURTH!!! I’m sprinting to hit deadlines this week. I’m polishing up RANSOMED HEART (Silver Foxes #2, 2018) and scrambling to complete a novella for submission. Wish me luck!
And fifth – If I’m not downing a fifth of something boozy by the end of the week, it’ll be a miracle.
How about you? What’s happening in your corner of the world?
Cover reveal!
It struck like A BOLT FROM THE BLUE! Here’s your first peek at the awesome cover art for my next Worth the Wait Romance coming in April 2017!
True love, like lightning, never strikes twice—or does it?
As a free-spirited young woman, Hope Elliot was desperate to escape her snobbish high society family. So she ran off to Paris, where she lived for twenty-five years. Now widowed, she’s come home to settle her family’s massive lakefront estate. But before she can put her mother’s house on the market, it needs a major renovation. Enter master electrician Mick McInnes, a traditional guy who’s about to turn her life upside down . . .
Aside from the fact that Mick is hopelessly attracted to his latest client, Hope represents everything he doesn’t want in a woman. She’s ridiculously rich and adventurous, yet she doesn’t seem to know much about the real world. Besides, his policy is to never get involved with clients. But he can’t seem to resist the Chicago heiress’s sizzling advances—and soon enough finds himself in her bed, feeling like a teenager once again. And like teenagers, the two of them will just have to convince their families that opposites can not only attract, but they can also make the perfect match . . .
A Bolt From the Blue – April 4, 2017, Kensington/Lyrical Press
Monday Mayhem – Back in the desk chair again
So…I swam with stingrays and survived. No, really. Check this out:
This is Frankie. She was very friendly. For a stingray.
Now we’re home and getting back into the groove. I’m deep in revisions on RANSOMED HEART (Silver Foxes #2, 2018). Before we went South, I approved the galley proof on A BOLT FROM THE BLUE (Worth the Wait #3, April 2017).
One of the best things about spending time on the Gulf Coast was stepping back into the Coastal Heat world. It got me all excited about the release of LOVE & ROCKETS in November.
Speaking of Coastal Heat, GOING DEEP is still on sale for $.99 and FLIP THIS LOVE will be on sale next month. If you haven’t read them yet, shop now!
For now, I’m revising and polishing my completed manuscripts, sorting out my goals for my 2017 business plan, and gearing up for NaNoWriMo in November.
So, yeah, I’m back in the desk chair again, but I’m still dreaming about the beach. How about you? What was the last trip you took?
Monday Mayhem – I can’t come to the blog right now…
I can’t come to the blog right now, I’m at the coast doing…research. Yeah, research.
Catch you next week!
Don’t forget, GOING DEEP is on SALE!
Monday Mayhem – Labor of Love Letter
Happy Labo(u)r Day to my American and Canadian friends!
First, you should know that I do plan to labor today, just not at the day job. I am within striking distance of typing The End on a novella and hope to hit it if I can.
Second, I’ve deemed September my month for evaluation, education, and planning the continuance of my quest for world domination into 2017. To aid in this, I’ve been taking part in This awesome Free to Focus seminar on productivity.
So, yeah, more work. But that’s okay, I’m a writer, I’m used to it.
Some people mistakenly think that writing is a purely creative process. It’s not. It’s labor-intensive work, and every day writers struggle with the biggest obstacles to getting that writing work done. Today, I want to take a moment to salute my fellow writers.
A lot of of us earn a living outside of writing. That means the majority of our hours are not our own. We are parents, grandparents, siblings, and friends, and as such have things we not only must do to fulfill those roles, but want to do. Most of the time, it beats sitting in front of a computer. I don’t believe in Muses, but I do have faith in inspiration.
I also know there are other forces at work each and every time we open a new document.
The inner demons. The ones that start whispering in your ear at about chapter five. They tell you that this story isn’t making any sense. They claim your characters are no better than cardboard cutouts, and that no reader will ever fall in love with them. They make a writer wonder why they are even bothering wasting what few free hours they have trying to craft a story, when the voices in their heads already know that they story is crap.
But we write it anyway.
Even the most successful writers must endure the pain of rejection. Ask J.K. Rowling about it. And the rejections don’t stop once you get a book published. In some ways, they become a little more personal.
Sometimes, our books release to great fanfare. More often, they creep quietly into the world, and try to carve out a little niche for themselves. We spend countless hours thinking about promotion (because we’re really on our own for that), searching for new audiences for our work (because we know they are out there), and sending up silent prayers that someone, anyone likes it enough to tell someone, anyone else about it.
So here’s to you, my fellow word-putting-into-sentence-doers. Without you, my to-be-read list would be far more manageable. And for a reader who is also a writer, there’s no worse fate.
xoxo
Mags
End of summer sale!
Going Deep by Maggie Wells
Available now for only $0.99!
MAKING HEADLINES
Brooke Hastings almost won a Pulitzer Prize for her hard-hitting reportage. Now she’s sitting on the story of a lifetime and wants to prove she’s not a one-hit-wonder. But in order to get the world to take notice, she’ll need the help of the one person she loves to hate—Brian Dalton.
Brian Dalton stumbled into celebrity when he landed a show on the Earth Channel. But the hunky marine biologist never forgot the serious, studious boy who left Mobile a decade before. Now back in Alabama, he’s looking for the quiet life he always wanted and hoping for a chance with the girl he always loved. When Brooke asks him to help expose some of the lingering effects of the Gulf oil disaster, Brian jumps at the chance to help preserve the place both call home…Buy now!
All Romance ~ Amazon ~ Apple ~ B&N ~ Google ~ Kensington ~ Kobo
Monday Mayhem – Food for thought
Confession time: I’m not a domestic goddess. I loathe housework. I have no craft/sewing skills at all. And…I’m not a good cook.
Seriously. I not only own this towel, but I have the matching mug.
It isn’t that my food is inedible. It’s just food prepared by someone who’d rather be doing something else. The same can be said for most of my homemaking skills. I do it if I have to, but given an alternative….
Once the kids grew up and moved out, we discovered what lazy slobs we actually are. Fodder and I can live with our own mess for a disturbingly long time. I think this is because our mess is mainly clutter and not actual filth.
At least, that’s what I tell myself.
Writing was once a hobby, but is now a profession. One that leaves me little time for fooling with hot glue guns. I avoid Pintrest as much as humanly possible. I don’t need someone else’s pleasure turning into my frustrating procrastination.
But I’ve been thinking about food a lot lately. Mostly because we’ve hit the end of summer rut-that dreaded time when cooking is out of the question and even a trip to one of our favorite eateries seems like a chore. Don’t get me wrong, I love to eat out. When asked my favorite thing to make for dinner, I will answer “reservations” without hesitation.
Unfortunately, eating out is not only expensive, it plays hell with the waistline.
I can come up with a half-dozen plausible reasons for the weight I’ve gained in the last two years, but I know that one of the largest factors has been my refusal to prepare my own food whenever possible.
But I’m slow and miserable and something has to change.
I spent most of Sunday in the kitchen prepping foods that can be easily converted into meals throughout the week. I’m not claiming any of these are low-fat, anti-carb, super-duper diet foods. I’m past self-denial and working more along the lines of control and moderation.
Little compromises.
We started the morning with the dreaded trip to the grocery store and rewarded our fortitude by having meatloaf for dinner. In an effort to make an effort, I used lean ground sirloin, and skipped the oven-roasted potatoes we usually have on the side. While it was baking, I poached chicken breasts to make stock for chicken and dumplings, and enough to experiment with a new chicken salad recipe. I also roasted natural almonds in a bit of olive oil to give them some snap.
I’m hoping the weather breaks in the next few weeks. I love crock pot season.
Don’t worry, I made words between all these activities. And, just so you know I haven’t been body snatched, I’d like to remind you all that we are coming into college football season. That means there’s fresh candy corn in the stores.
Bon appetite!
Monday Mayhem – MOAR!
I can’t come to the blog right now, I’m busy recovering (moping) after the end of a fabulous weekend spent with pals Julie and Laurie. Now that Laurie is just four hours to the north, we are luring our friends to the region with the promise of a two-fer. So far, we’ve scored big with the Canadians in the crowd.
You get MOAR, when you visit MO & AR!
As you can imagine, very little writing was done this weekend, but we did manage to eat our way through central Arkansas.
One of the (many) highlights was having the chance to go to the movies together. We saw Florence Foster Jenkins, which we all enjoyed a great deal.
Tell me, what’s the best thing you’ve seen in the theaters lately?