Holiday Holidays and Hiatus

I've got so much going on holiday related that I'm finding it hard to get blog posts put together and posted so I've decided to take a hiatus from doing blog posts beginning today through the beginning of the new year. I'll be back with a new post on Monday, January 6th.

                         I hope you and your families have a wonderful holiday season.

This I know for sure...

One of the things I like best about the Christmas season is the music. I love Christmas music from the old time classics by Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, and Andy Williams to "new" classics by Mariah Carey and Vince Vance and the Valiants and more. I would listen to this type of music all year long if people wouldn't think I was crazy.

What's Up Wednesday

This week...

My Current WIP (Work in Progress): I am done with the manuscript I was revising/editing. Whew! It took me long enough. I'm taking a hiatus from writing until the start of the new year. 

Quote of the Week: "You don't win because you do one thing right or two things right. You win because you do 1,000 little things right throughout the year." ~ Susan Butcher

What I'm Reading: I started reading "A Highlander Walks into a Bar" by Laura Trentham. It's the first book in her new Highland Georgia Series

Random Thoughts: Back in October when my mom and I discussed what we were going to do for Christmas this year, we decided we were going to cut back on our cookie baking. Well, that went out the window. My mom is making 5 different types of cookies and I am making 6 different types.Random Thoughts:Rand

Random Photo of the Week:

 

Please Welcome My Guest...

Please welcome my guest Peggy Jaeger.

Peggy is a contemporary romance writer who writes Romantic Comedies about strong women, the families who support them, and the men who can’t live without them. If she can make you cry on one page and bring you out of tears rolling with laughter the next, she’s done her job as a writer!

Family and food play huge roles in Peggy’s stories because she believes there is nothing that holds a family structure together like sharing a meal…or two…or ten. Dotted with humor and characters that are as real as they are loving, she brings all topics of daily life into her stories: life, death, sibling rivalry, illness and the desire for everyone to find their own happily ever after. Growing up the only child of divorced parents she longed for sisters, brothers and a family that vowed to stick together no matter what came their way. Through her books, she’s created the families she wanted as that lonely child.

When she’s not writing Peggy is usually painting, crafting, scrapbooking or decoupaging old steamer trunks she finds at rummage stores and garage sales.

A lifelong and avid romance reader and writer, Peggy is a member of RWA and her local New Hampshire RWA Chapter.

As a lifelong diarist, she caught the blogging bug early on, and you can visit her at peggyjaeger.com where she blogs daily about life, writing, and stuff that makes her go "What??!"

Tell us something about yourself both writing and non-writing related.

Writing related is easy. Even though I’ve been writing since I was 8 years old and had a wee bit of success as a non-fiction writer in my Nursing career, I only had my first fictional work published in 2015 when I was already 55 years old. I came to the life of a professional writer late, but I haven’t looked back once! In a non-writing capacity, I’m an only child of divorced parents, so I know a lot about trying to find self worth and self acceptance in a dysfunctional family dynamic.

Do you have a writing routine or ritual that you do before you start writing?

My ritual is that I write every single day. No matter what. Even when I’ve been sick with the flu, or traveling, I always manage to get a blog piece or something written in my WIP on any given day. I have a word counter attached to my writing program and last year I totaled over 1 million words written for the year. The year!  It’s no wonder my report cards in school always noted that I never could keep quiet!! Apparently, I’ve got a lot to say (and write!) Hee Hee.

One million words in a year is quite an accomplishment. Why do you write in the genre/sub-genre that you do? Any plans in the future to write in a different one?

I’m a here and now kind of girl. I like contemporary romances about modern day heroes and heroines, so since that’s what I like to read, I like to write it, too. But I also love RomComs and screwball comedies, like those 1930’s black and white Hollywood movies, so my romantic comedies are becoming more prevalent as my writing go-to’s. I have taken a detour recently and in January 2020 I will have my first romantic suspense published by Wild Rose. It’s the first in a three book series titled A PRIDE OF BROTHERS about a private investigations company run by brothers.

How do you stay motivated when writer’s block hits or your muse won’t cooperate?

Writers – don’t hate me. I never have writer’s block. Never have, not once. My brain doesn’t shut down, which is why I suffer from chronic insomnia. I’ll be in a deep sleep and my brain will wake me up with a new plot twist for my WIP or a storyline that I need to write down right away. Since I write every single day and I’m an intrepid plotter, I never suffer from having no idea of where to go in a story.

What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever done in the name of research?

When I was writing my WILL COOK FOR LOVE series, the second book, A SHOT AT LOVE, concerned sister Gemma Laine. Gemma was my first bad-ass heroine. She could do many things, and among them, she was a crack shot. I knew nothing about shooting since I’m a city girl born and bred. The only guns I ever saw were in action movies. So, my husband and I decided to take shooting lessons from a local gunsmith. It was a great deal of fun, absolutely terrifying, and served me well in getting the feel for how to write about someone from a holding gun perspective to what happens to your body when you fire a gun.

What’s the best writing advice you were ever given?

I heard Nora Roberts say this at an RWA Chat with Nora workshop once and it has stayed with me ever since: “A writer never finds the time to write. A writer makes it. If you don’t have the drive, the discipline, and the desire, then you can have all the talent in the world, and you aren’t going to finish a book.” Truer words…

Great advice. What do you like to do in your leisure time?

Read. Watch The Housewives of anywhere and everywhere on Bravo. Read. Take long walks. Read.

Tell us about your current or upcoming release in a couple of sentences.

TODAY, TOMORROW, ALWAYS ( A Match Made in Heaven book 2) is oldest O’Dowd sister, Cathleen’s, story. She’s a military wife, widowed after almost 20 years of marriage, childless, and the town lawyer in Heaven, NH. She’s at the point in her life where she’s re-evaluating her past choices and the events that shaped her. She wants to find a life partner, have the children she never did before it’s too late, and be able to enjoy living in a relationship. Mac Frayne is a writer who’s come to town to do a book on the town’s founder. He’s a loner who suffered a horrible family tragedy and isn’t looking for anything in his life except to get through every day. When these two are forced to work together on the book project, they begin to wonder if the other person is who and what they need to start living again.

 

Can you tell us a little about your next project?

I have a brand new series starting with a January 13, 2020 release titled A PRIDE OF BROTHERS. The first book is called RICK and the books are romantic suspense stories about brothers who run a private investigation company. This is an offshoot of my WILL COOK FOR LOVE SERIES and readers will recognize many of the secondary characters from those books.

Anything else you’d like readers to know?

Just that I firmly believe every single person on the planet deserves their own Happily Ever After, which is why I lovelovelove writing romances and will never stop!

  

Blurb:

Lawyer Cathleen O'Dowd wants to break free from her boring image. Widowed young, she's toed the good-girl line but now wants a little fun and laughter in her days…and nights. Living in a small town, though, she can't do anything that would tarnish her professional reputation.

Mac Frayne's tragic past has turned him into a sullen loner. In town to write a book on the city's founder, his plan is to get it done, then head home to his solitary existence.

When circumstances force them to work together, their opposing personalities clash, but the sexual attraction between them is palpable.

Can a simple affair with an end date be just the thing to brighten up their lives?

Excerpt:

His expression changed from wide-eyed with excitement to something entirely different. Something deep and dark and—gulp—wild.

He repeated my name, and before I could blink, a pair of strong arms wrapped around my waist and a torso I knew was as solid and defined as a redwood tree flattened against the front of me.

He dipped his head, those dreamy eyes dark now with desire, and zeroed in on my own like a laser pointer. Hypnotized by the naked need facing me, I took a breath—a physical and a mental one—and pushed up on my unshod toes until my lips pressed against his.

For a nanosecond, Frayne stilled. The notion that he didn’t want this blew across my mind. A beat later and the thought died as his arms tightened and he pulled me fully against his body.

And then kissed me back.                                                               

                                                            ******

Today, Tomorrow, Always is available in Ebook and POD (print on demand). 

Buy Links: 

Amazon : https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B081DRSKHB 

Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/today-tomorrow-always-peggy-jaeger/1134913671?ean=9781509229345 

Apple books: https://books.apple.com/us/book/today-tomorrow-always/id1488239952 

Peggy's Social Media links:

Website/Blog: http://peggyjaeger.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/peggy_jaeger

Amazon Author page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00T8E5LN0

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Peggy-Jaeger-Author/825914814095072?ref=bookmarks

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/peggyjaeger/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/13478796.Peggy_Jaeger

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/peggyjaeger_author/

BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/peggy-jaeger

You-Tube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDR8RRIlssIyS0FYZWeGqsg/videos?view_as=subscriber