At 12:00, I decided perhaps I’d blog about NaNoWriMo, and the challenge of fitting in 1,500 words a day while trying to work full time, parent my kids, be a wife to my hubby, and maintain the house.

At 3:00, I thought it would be interesting to see what kind of books were on the all time best seller list for 2009, and how a research project at work showed me the changes in our society, from diet, to money management, to very few romance novels – most by Jodi Picoult or Nora Roberts.

Now, it’s 4:20, the kids and hubby are on the way home from the park, and DD#2 just managed to step on his last straw, and crush it to the ground.

She’s my baby. She’s my bundle of joy. My surprise package, when we were grateful to have ONE child. She’s also my biggest challenge. Yes, this fair haired, curly headed, wide-blue-eyed child is the joy of my heart, my bubble, and most days, the bane of my existence. (Shouldn’t surprise you — she was after all, a naughty skeleton for Halloween.)

At four years old, she’s testing every boundary like a good four year old should. And, in doing so, she’s constantly in “Time Out.” But when does time out not do enough? When is it essential to leave her in her room, screaming, kicking, fit-pitching beyond all imagination?

Apparently, that would be today. She is the queen of the poor choices. Miss Not Listening, 2009. And she almost got herself hurt in the worst way imaginable. The story went like this. I had work to finish, so hubby took them to the park. She’s tired, she’s been sick, but she really wanted to go play. So, off they went.

I had fingertips poised to write the next thousand words on Mammoth Secrets, my NaNoWriMo project. WHEN SUDDENLY, the call came. She’d almost run, with the dog, into the street – after repeatedly being told not to do such a crazy thing. Pell mell, she runs, and almost gets hit by a car. *GASP.*

Unable to listen, the child almost gets hit by a car.

*breathe.*

Okay, so now, she’s screaming in her room “I Don’t Want to be ALONE!!!”

I’m not writing in my story, I’m writing to you. My fellow writer mamas, who chances are—have been dealt this very hand at one time or another. This is when we have to breathe. To be parents. To just sit here and manage the clock, so they know that it’s our way or the highway, because if we don’t, they’ll never learn.

Spanking wouldn’t get through to her. She’d just tell me it didn’t hurt.

Time outs don’t work, not anywhere she can be near her toys, or see other people.

Nothing works except isolation.

And my heart hurts. My head hurts. My stomach hurts. My husband is downstairs watching a ball game. Her sister wants to help, and keeps trying to come upstairs, ferrying everyone glasses of water. And me, guardian at the gate, am watching the clock until 4 minutes of complete isolation have passed. At which time we’ll discuss why listening the FIRST Time we say something is of utmost importance.

SO, thanks for hanging with me while I parent. Discipline. And here’s to hoping next time she thinks of making such a poor choice, she’ll think twice.

In writing, we know the rules well enough to break them when it serves our purposes. But, in life, sometimes rules exist for a reason. And, we all have to learn the hard way.

What is the hardest lesson you’ve had to teach your children? or the characters in your stories?

Excuse me, I need to go kiss some tears away and lay down the law. The mommy way.

Her recent release, LORD OF THE HIGHLANDS, released just last week, and she offered to be with us today, amid the craziness of release time.   And deadline time.  And copy-edits time.  And Mommy-has-to-do-what-this-morning??? time.

She’s giving away a copy of her latest release, LORD OF THE HIGHLANDS to one lucky commentor.

So please help us welcome Veronica Wolff!

Contemplating today’s blog topic came on the heels of one of my Worst Weeks Ever.

I’d felt much like Jack Bauer on 24, except my terrors are around 4’ tall and, instead of bullets, I raced around dodging things like spilled milk, pencil shavings, and various animal excreta.

The following events took place the week of October 31, 2009.

1.     Mommy eyes 11/1 deadline with wary confidence.

2.     Decidedly un-crafty Mommy stays up late sewing “Headless Horseman” costume for seven-year old son.

3.     Informed the next morning that costume does not resemble “Scooby Doo Headless Horseman” and therefore doesn’t count as valid costume.

4.     Mommy eyes 11/1 deadline with wary…wariness.

5.     Mommy whisks daughter to ER after bizarre playground accident.  (Daughter all better now.  Mommy decides new gray hairs will look dignified.)

6.     Page proofs arrive.  “Yay!  Love seeing the proofs!” quickly followed by “Doh!  That means two deadlines this week…”

7.     Mommy eyes 11/1 deadline with fear.

8.     Mommy re-tackles “Headless Horseman” despite urging from friends and family that task is impossible.

9.     New book about to hit shelves!  Another “SQUEE/doh” moment as realization hits…there is a book signing the night of 10/29, overdue interviews, and one upcoming talk to prepare for…

10. Mommy keeps son home from school with cough that won’t go away.

11. Phone call from school!  Mommy forgot daughter’s field trip permission slip; bus is about to leave; daughter is sobbing in office; can Mommy get there in five minutes before bus pulls out?

12. Mommy now looking at deadline with twitchy eye.

13. Book, proofs, costumes…DONE!  So what that one of the above morphed into The Hunchback of Notre Dame by the end of it all?

14. Mommy caps off week with a bottle of wine and an appalling number of bite-size Butterfingers.

15. Lather, rinse, repeat.

My dear fellow Mommies, I know I really should ask you some serene and reflective questions like: What do you do to keep focused amidst the chaos?  Or, how do you manage to find balance in your busy life?

But you know what? Screw that!!  Jack Bauer wouldn’t reflect.  Jack Bauer would VENT!

So have at it—tell me about one of your craziest times!

Week One: 5K per day
Week Two: 3K per day
Week Three: 2K per day

By the end of week three, I should have my 50K. Week one went well until Friday, when I came down with a cough that wouldn’t quit. But I did manage to make up the lost wordcount on Sunday, so I started this week (week two) right on track with 25,153 words. All good, right?

Yes, except that this week (today, to be exact) I have a new release. This is my sixth release this year, and I still have one to go next month. Not that I’m complaining ;).  But right now I’m supposed to be writing up blog posts, promoting on loops, jumping through all those pre-release and post-release hoops. When can I possibly get my 3K per day in?

I’m one of those people who feels like a big ol’ loser when I don’t meet my self-imposed goals.  I need to get my 3K per day in, even if it’s crap.  And it may very well be ;).  But that’s the whole point of NaNo.  As NaNo Founder Chris Baty says, “Don’t get it right.  Get it written.”  He’s right — I can fix it later, as long as there’s something to fix.   Even Nora Roberts says, “I can fix anything but a blank page.”

So keep writing, everyone!  And when you’re ready for a break, check out my new release, Slow and Wet, at Ellora’s Cave!

Deep breath. It’s times like these that I have to remember to relax. But how? How do you do it? I’ve learned there are a few things that help me unwind. And, believe me, unwinding is very important for all mamas, whether you’re a writer or not.

Here are some ideas:

1.      Push back away from your work and give yourself permission to take a break.

2.      Take the dog for a walk around the block or get in your car and drive. Blast the radio and sing along. Who cares what that woman in the car next to you thinks?

3.      Make a lunch date with a friend or with your hubby. This is especially important for moms who work from home or stay home with the little ones.

4.      Cry. Or laugh hysterically for no reason in particular. Make weird noises. Jog around the house singing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” Turn on Oprah and let the tears flow. Seriously. The world won’t end if you let yourself crumble for a few moments.

5.      Remember that you’re human. Superwoman is a fictitious character. And so are super models, by the way.

6.      Forgive yourself for the mistakes you’ve made and are going to make. Nobody is perfect.

7.      Get one task done and out of the way. I find it discouraging to work on multiple tasks at the same time only to leave them all unfinished at the end of the day. I have an easier time patting myself on the back if I complete one task fully. Like writing a certain number of words for the day or completing edits for a certain number of pages.

8.      Clean. I know, I hate cleaning too. I wish the housecleaning fairies would sweep in daily and make the clutter go away. But, sadly, reality doesn’t work that way. Sometimes I need to see that the house is in decent shape before I can relax.

9.      Take up a hobby or a craft. I’ve found that making book thongs is very therapeutic.

10. Read a book. For fun!! What a concept. Allow yourself to escape into a good book and don’t study or criticize the pace, word choice, plot, editing or lack thereof, or…well, you know what I’m talking about. Fall in love with reading. Fall in love with the characters. And let your mind go on a journey.

There. The blog is complete and I have one thing done and out of the way. *Patting my back*

So, tell me what do you to get out of your head?

Viola

www.violaestrella.com

Bewitching You

Available now in eBook and paperback from www.thewildrosepress.com

Also available from www.amazon.com, www.barnesandnoble.com and www.booksamillion.com

I’m sitting here drinking my mocha latte, enjoying the sensation of being awake, and the sweet and smooth taste of chocolate in the morning.  I’m looking forward to this afternoon when I might have a couple of minutes to myself.   Well of course, the mind is working, the cranks turning (caffeine doing its job) and its gotten me to thinking about what women do for fun, which then of course led me to fantasies… and so you’ll find today’s post is a mixture of both.  Fantasy is fun!

So I did what I always do when I start thinking and wanting to share, I called my BFF.  She’s got two small children and works full time.  We started talking about how to relax, what we do for fun and how hard it is to actually do those things when you have small kids and work full time.  She’s always known I was a reader, and she is one of my biggest supporters as an author.  Then they came, the words I’d been praying would fall from her lips since we were twelve years old…  She says, “I think I might want to start reading books.”  Cue the bell chimes and celestial music. Someone help me I’ve floated to the ceiling. 

We’ve known each other since we were kids and she’s never been a big reader for pleasure.  Sure she’d read books for school, but to go to the bookstore and pick up a book to read for pleasure wasn’t something she chose to do. That’s not to say she didn’t like fiction, quite the opposite in fact.  Her and I had a running comedic Scottish medieval series we wrote.  We wrote comics too.  It was so exciting, we’d come into school, probably 8^th – 10^th grade, every few days with the next chapters to exchange.  We didn’t share it with anyone, just ourselves, it was hilarious.  We also wrote a continuation to Anne Franks diary, which was quite an emotional experience.  I would tell her about books that I was reading, so in detail in fact that when she asked me to tell her the story of Jane Eyre she wrote a paper on it and got an A.

So naturally I was quite excited that she wanted to start reading for fun.  I’ve heard that a lot of women start reading for pleasure later in their lives, and romance especially.  I don’t know if its because with kids, work and chores, our own personal relationships get put on the back burner and we crave the romantic high we get from reading, or if its because when we get older and reality hits we start to crave the fairy tale.  I don’t know what it is, but I do know that reading romance gives us an escape, a dream, a high. 

Then again, there is always the fact that I love, love.  Romance has always been a favorite part of my life from the time I first watched Cinderella, or The Sound of Music, or my mom read me a fairy tale. 

Heck lets face it, when your day comprises of poopie diapers, making lunch for 5, doing a dozen loads of laundry, trying to get your a** to look like it did when you were 18, and hoping your hubby will take a quick smooch and pat on the back as “making love” for the night (or is that just me after having a baby?), you may find an alternate world is just the thing! 

Don’t get me wrong, I love my husband dearly, in fact our anniversary is next week and I’m looking forward to our date night this weekend!!!  YAY!!!  We actually laughed this morning about how we weren’t sure when the last time we went out to dinner alone was.  It may have been last year on our anniversary.  We make a point of “date night” at home, watching movies together, reading together, or having a drink on our deck after the kids go to bed, but it isn’t very often we get to LEAVE.  Even more funny to us was how at the tender age of twenty-something when we got married we thought every night would be date night, lots of “playing” in bed, traveling, doing whatever we wanted…  Reality Check! We consoled ourselves that in about 18 years we’ll get to do all that, lol.  It’s our prize for raising the little cherubs up into functioning responsible sweet citizens.

So in the meantime I get my fantasies….we all have ours.  When you’re reading a romance, how many of you don’t imagine yourself as the heroine?  Come on, admit it, I know I’m not the only one. 

Author friend Kimberly Killion was Santa for me this year and gave me an early present, a night with Gerry!  Yes, Gerard Butler.  See our pic? J  So what did I do with one Scottish hunk of pure male sexiness?  Well a girl doesn’t kiss and tell, but I will say this, whatever I asked, the Butler did it.

So let’s hear it mamas!  When did you start reading romance? Why do you read romance? And do you have a crush on Gerry too?

****

Eliza Knight is the author of sizzling historical romance and erotic time travel Highlander romance. Eliza is the author of the award-winning blog, History Undressed and has published numerous articles on writing craft and history. She is a freelance copy editor, professional critiquer, President of the Celtic Hearts Romance Writers signature chapter of the RWA and Contest Chair for Hearts Through History. She presents workshops on history, researching techniques and writing craft, to writing groups online. For more information on Eliza, please visit http://www.elizaknight.com/ or http://www.historyundressed.blogspot.com/.

Upcoming Workshops:

December:
~ Edit Your Book in a Month
~ The Hapsburg Dynasty

England, 1152: After seventeen years of civil war, things are about to change...

…About the fact that you write &/or are published in romance fiction.

I admit to being a bit of a voyeur when I ask this.   I want to hear other people’s stories about their moms, because my mom passed away just before everything I’d been working towards came true.   Just before I got an agent, which was just before I finaled in the Golden Heart, which was just before I sold in a 2 book contract to Kensington, in the spring of 2008.   She missed it all.

I know I am blessed.   I have family, I have friends. I have my gorgeous son and my devoted husband.  I have health, and a home, and the opportunity to do what I love and get paid for it.  I have my step-father, a terrific family through my husband, and . . . I wish my mom were here.

I think, if my mom had been alive, she may have been the first person I called with the news.  And I think she would have squealed.  Actually, she would have screamed.  A lot, I suspect.

She would have sent emails to everyone she knew, bragging to others about her daughter.  She would have sent me newspapers clippings of every romance-related topic (from publishing related news to Dear Abby-type articles) which her local newspaper had published.

She would have told all her friends and her bridge club and her old colleagues.   She would have told her mail delivery person, the vet, the gentleman who did her hair for thirty years and and the guy who does her brakes.

She certainly would have bought a lot of copies of my book, from whatever vendor I asked her to, not that I ever would have.  She’d have given some away, and left the rest out for public viewing when people came over.

Nothing can stop him . . .

She would have come to the RWA National Conference in San Francisco to see if I won the Golden Heart Award.  And I’m certain she would have flown across the country to be at my first book signing a few weeks ago.  She would have done whatever I asked, and maybe a few things I wouldn’t have thought to ask, because she’s my mom.

Don’t get me wrong.  My mom and I…well, we had our Moments.  In fact, many of our moments were Moments.   We ‘missed’ each other a lot, like meteors do the earth, emotionally, psychically.

But we loved each other with a genuine, oh-I-wish-you-could-do-better-than-this-but-I’ll-take-you-as-you are kind of love.   The sort that gets you through all those years where, most days, most of the time, we both tried our hardest.

She’d have been my biggest fan.  Oh, hell.  She is my biggest fan.

And my mom would SO have done this: Click here to view the embedded video.

(Sorry that the end is an ad. Pretend it’s not.  Unless you want the book. Then allow it to be an ad. )

How about you?

And she’s giving away one of THREE COPIES of her debut novel to three people who comment!

UPDATE:

The three winners of Lori’s debut novel are:

Edie
JCP
Kathleen Bittner Roth

Make sure you’ve included a way to contact you (via email) from your comments, and congratulations!

My only child started kindergarten a few months ago. He’d been in preschool, but never gone to the extent he is now: all day, five days a week. But it would give me plenty of time to write. At least that’s what everyone kept telling me. And I believed them. A month before he started school we’d moved from Indiana to Georgia. I swore once we moved into our new home I was going to use one of the bedrooms as an office. It would be my gift to myself for getting published. So yes, with thoughts of an office and plenty of free hours…I’d be writing books like crazy!

I should have known better.

You see, I’m the kind of person who works best under pressure. But then again, I think all women are like that, it trains us for motherhood. In college, I was the person who waited until the night before to start my ten page term paper. Even though I have more free time than I’ve ever had, suddenly I’m writing less. When my husband comes home and I frantically tell him I need to write, he looks at me like I’m insane. “What did you do all day?” he’ll say. Of course I’m offended.

“Plenty!” I reply. Let’s see…

-Wake up and get the son ready for school.
-Check email
-Go walking with neighbor
-Eat breakfast
-Check email
-Wonder if the other kids are being nice to my son at recess
-Check email
-Eat lunch
-Watch shows I’ve taped the night before
-Check email
-Take dog outside, look for four leaf clovers. Don’t find any four leaf clovers. Wonder if maybe I’m just totally unlucky
-Check email
-Watch for mailman
-Wonder if my son misses me
-Check email
-Leave to pick up son

As you can see, I have a very, very full day. How can I possibly find time to write? Or clean? Or do laundry?

So here I am. We’ve lived in our new home about four months. I’ve yet to fix my office into an office and I’m writing less than before. That’s not the only problem. I’m a night owl and often found my muse late at night. Yet now that my son has to get up early for school, I do too. School ruins everything!

My writing schedule isn’t the only thing that’s changed. Since I’ve had my son, I often find children tiptoeing their way into my stories. In Wild Heart my heroine Ella was hired as a companion for a wealthy woman’s children. She basically became the live-in nanny. When she meets Leo, the hero, it’s because she’s been hired as a governess for what she believes is a child. But as she soon finds out, Leo is anything but a child.

That’s not the only instance when children come into play. In the excerpt below, Leo meets his niece for the first time.

“Hello,” a soft voice called out. Ella spun around to see a small, blonde girl in a bright blue frock. The child smiled, and dimples appeared on either side of her bow-shaped mouth. She held a book in her gloved hands as if just coming from lessons. What in the world was she doing here near this house?

“Good evening,” Ella replied.

The child’s large blue eyes focused on Leo. “Are you my cousin Leo?”

“Apparently so,” Leo replied.

She sat on the bench, her gaze pinned on him. “You don’t look like an animal.”

Ella managed to hold back her gasp.

As if sensing her shock, the child turned her attention to Ella. “Who are you?”

“Ella,” she got out.

“Oh, are you the woman hired to teach my cousin to be civilized?”

Ella didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Apparently. What’s your name?”

“Grace.”

“What a pretty name.”

“Yes, I know,” the girl replied, smoothing the skirt of her ruffled dress.

Ella hid her grin, feeling the insane desire to laugh. “What do you have there, Grace?”

The girl brought her book forward. “It’s for cousin.”

Leo didn’t bother to glance their way. He didn’t seem to hear them, almost as if he were oblivious to their presence. What held him so enthralled? Ella followed the line of his vision but noticed nothing in the garden.

“Here,” Ella said. “I’ll take it for him.”

“Well, all right. I guess so.” Reluctantly, Grace handed the book to Ella. “It was mine, but I thought maybe cousin Leo could use it. Father said it was a brilliant idea.”

Ella read the title, Proper Manners for Young Girls, and managed to get out, “It is very kind of you.”

She nodded, so sure of herself. “Father said I was to stay inside. But it’s much too nice this evening to be inside, do you not agree?”

“Yes,” Ella murmured, but her gaze remained focused on Leo. He turned, his brows furrowed, his gaze on the house. Then, as if not finding what he searched for, he turned again, this time to study the thicket of trees at the end of the garden.

“What is it, Leo?” Ella asked, heading toward him. Grace jumped from her seat and sidled up next to Ella, obviously not wanting to be left out.

Leo shook his head.

“Leo, what-”

“Get down!” he demanded. Before she had time to react, Leo wrapped his arms around her and Grace and pulled them to the ground.

I know some readers don’t like to have children in their books. It takes away the romance. And don’t we all understand that. But romances aren’t just about romance. They’re about real life, the ups and downs and fitting love into every day living.

As for my own writing dilemma, well, I told my husband that for my birthday I’d like him to paint the room that is supposed to be my office. Who knows, maybe a month from now, I’ll be holed up in my newly decorated office on my way to writing another series.

What about you? How do you motivate yourself to get things done? Leave a comment! Three people will win a copy of my debut book, Wild Heart!

And I’m not talking about housework, or cooking (because, really nothing would motivate me to do that other than a starving child. lol).  I’m talking about motivating yourself and forcing yourself to write when it’s not going as you hoped, when you aren’t certain about what you’re writing, or when your muse seemed to have left on vacation without telling you (Oh Fred! Where are you?)?   Because Mamas, that’s where I am.

I’m pretty sure Fred, my muse, has left for Tahiti.  My characters are suspiciously quiet and not giving me much to work with.   And though I have gotten some pages done in the last weeks, it hasn’t been many and I’m not really sure about what I DID get.

I know WHY I’m so verklempt (I love that word) right now. It’s not a matter of figuring out the reasons.  It’s a matter of forcing myself to write past them… to write bad pages, I guess.  Just to write something.

It’s not a problem to tell my three year old that he has to help Mama clean up his room before he can watch an episode of Handy Manny, but it is apparently a problem to kick my own you-know-what and write past the bad stuff.  Or peraps just give myself permission to write the bad stuff.  As the grand dame of romance Nora Roberts says, “You can’t fix a blank page.”

So let’s have it…give me your best Mama impressions… If I were your child, what would you say to me?

No matter what you’re doing, you could probably use some inspiration to keep going!

“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”
Mark Twain

“The difference between reality and fiction? Fiction has to make sense.”
Tom Clancy

“If a book is not alive in the writer’s mind, it is as dead as year-old horse-shit.”
Stephen King

“No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.”
Robert Frost

Keep on writing!  and if you have any inspiring words share them!

Cheers!

Eliza

www.elizaknight.com

I remember sitting at my laptop and laughing out loud as my characters bantered back and forth. And I remember writing a scene or two where tears burned my eyes because the emotions were so intense. Does that sound nuts? I’m sitting here writing this and wondering if people are going to think I’m a little off kilter.

Don’t worry. I usually write when there’s no one around. No one can hear me cackling away, punching at keys. No one sees me tearing up as I stare at my words on the screen.

At least I hope not. Maybe my family is storing away the straight jacket for the perfect moment when I’m not looking.

Seriously though, the one great thing about putting my heart into a book is that the reader will benefit from this. Hopefully, anyway. If I’m feeling the emotion as I write it, there’s a better chance the reader will feel the emotion as she’s reading it. If a scene is lacking emotion, then it’s too dry, too boring. Right?

So I guess there’s a method to my madness. Put away the straight jacket, guys. I’m acting nutty for a good reason. I’m bringing characters to life, creating a story people will be able to relate with.

I’m writing from the heart.

Today is the official release day for Bewitching You. It’s now available in eBook and paperback. AND today I’m giving away a free eBook copy to a random commenter over at http://www.liaslater.blogspot.com , if you want to check it out. I have an excerpt over there, as well. 18 & over, please!

Hope everyone has a safe and happy Halloween!

Viola

www.violaestrella.com

Bewitching You

Now available from The Wild Rose Press in eBook and paperback!

www.thewildrosepress.com

 Also available from www.amazon.com, www.barnesandnoble.com. and www.booksamillion.com