What's Your Snack? -- Kandy Shepherd

Is it because I’m trying to lose weight that I keep thinking about favorite snacks? Not the delicious, low-fat meals I am enjoying and that, to be honest, are so filling I'm not hungry. Rather those delicious morsels that don’t seem to have a lot to do with hunger but with stress, want, and—yes—just plain greed!

On my Californian road trip this past July, I treated myself to a variety of toothsome snacks, some very difficult to get in Australia, where I live. First to be eaten with a great deal of pleasure was a double pack of Nestle Butterfinger, probably my very favorite of American candy bars.

Some swear by peanut butter cups--these are my peanut butter addiction.

 Next was a pack of Poppycock. I adore this sweet, nutty popcorn. I usually nibble on a pack—or two, or three—with my friend, author Cathleen Ross, when we share a room at the Romance Writers of America national convention. Sadly, Cathleen wasn’t able to come to Anaheim this year, so I bought a pack of Poppycock to take back home to her. Well, that was the intention. Greedy me succumbed to temptation on the plane home. But when I came back through Customs in Australia and declared I had some snacks, they specifically asked me if I had popcorn. If I hadn't eaten that pack, it would have been confiscated. What a waste that would have been!

I wonder if they put something addictive in this to  make me like it so much?

 Most of my snack passions tend to be sweet. But I was introduced to a new savory treat at a roadhouse in Burney, California. I thought I was ordering a side of fried zucchini but got served this amazing appetizer of crumbed zucchini sticks served with ranch dressing. How I love ranch dressing—and IMHO it doesn’t taste as good anywhere outside of the US.

I'm going to have to find a recipe to make this.

However, for all those scrumptious American treats, I have to say that the sweetest and most appreciated of all was the handful of blackberries gathered for me by my favorite little boys who live in northern California. “Eat them slowly, Kandy,” they admonished me, before they risked scratched arms and legs to go back for their own handfuls.

Picked and given with love--what a special treat.

And back home in Australia? Lovely Cathleen Ross just came back from a writer’s retreat with a gift for me of a pack of musk pencils. These are a hard version of the popular sweet, musk sticks, available only, to my knowledge in Australia and New Zealand. They’re mega sweet, have a floral type of flavor and a lurid color that probably isn’t very good for us at all! (And thanks, Cathleen, for not eating them on the plane before they got a chance to get to me.)

How to explain the appeal of such a sugary, brightly colored treat?

Of course the heroines I write in my novels also have a penchant for snacks. Cristy in  The Castaway Bride is stranded with a handsome stranger on a tropical island, their emergency food supply comprising chocolate bars. She thinks she’ll never eat chocolate again, but when things go wrong with Matt later in the novel what does she turn to? The chocolate in the hotel mini-bar. Allison in Something About Joe also turns to candy bars in times of stress. Heroines after my own heart (and sweet tooth)!

What about you? Do you have a favorite snack or treat? One that, perhaps, brings back happy childhood memories. Or one that you never want to eat again? I’d love to hear about it!

Please leave a comment to be in the draw to win a Love is a Four-Legged Word T-shirt.  Be sure to leave your email address with your comment if you want to be in the draw.

Kandy Shepherd writes fun, feel-good fiction. Her books include The Castaway Bride, Something About Joe, Love is a Four-Legged Word and Home Is Where the Bark Is –they’re even better than a chocolate snack to relax with!

Visit Kandy at her website

 www.kandyshepherd.com

Kandy Shepherd - Setting the Scene

How important is setting to you in a novel? As a reader, I’ve always enjoyed books set in different parts of the world. I’ve probably learned more from novels than I have from geography or history lessons!

I love to travel, and visiting places I’ve read about in books is one of my favorite things to do. Visiting new places also inspires my own writing—and helps me get the details of the setting right. How lucky we writers are to be able to travel and count it as research!

What kind of hero or heroine would live in a house in this amazing setting? Mendocino, California.

 I just returned from a trip to California, that turned into a fact-finding mission for my stories. We started off in Anaheim for the Romance Writers of America national convention, which was as fabulous as always.

An artistic water stop outside the Mountainsong Galleries in dog-friendly Carmel-By-The-Sea.  I like writing dogs in my stories--could this inspire a scene?

Then we set off on the road trip. We visited Santa Barbara (what a beautiful town!); the quaint Danish village of Solvang; charming Cambria; Carmel (my third visit); then drove north to visit friends in Shasta County via San Francisco.

The car he or she drives can help define a character. I love this one parked at Carmel-By-The-Sea. 

We drove on  the coast-hugging Highway 1 to make the most of the awe-inspiring scenery (when it wasn’t shrouded in fog, that is!) Point Reyes, Elk, and Mendocino were highlights.

This was the view from our room at the Greenwood Pier Inn at Elk, California.  I'm sure I'm not the first writer to be inspired by this delightful place with its magnificent views and beautiful gardens.

 It always amazes me the things can catch the writerly imagination—from the house a character might live in, to the work they do, to the pets they might have, or quirky details that can add life to a story.

This pony grazing in a field of daisies in the Fall River Valley, California, might be just the horsey character I need for one of my stories.

On this trip, I found just what I needed for the story I am currently writing—but I won’t jinx myself by telling you about it just yet. I also found a whole lot of inspiration for new characters and new stories.

This tells me the person who set this scene near their front door has a warm and welcoming heart - the kind of heroine I want to write.

We finished up in the beautiful Fall River Valley to stay with our friends who farm wild rice. They also produce a delicious chocolate bar made with puffed wild rice and Belgian chocolate. The crunch and flavor the wild rice adds to the chocolate truly is a taste sensation.

Wild rice growing in the Fall River Valley, CA. I love wild rice whichever way it's cooked but its particularly toothsome added to chocolate!

 Is there a setting you particularly like in a book, movie or TV show? Or one you don’t like? Have you visited a place you’ll never forget? I'd love to hear from you!

My friends produce this chocolate from the wild rice grown in their valley. I'm hoarding my bar, but I don't know how much long I can hold out until I eat it!

Please leave a comment to be in the draw to win one of three bars of Fall River Wild Rice Dark Belgian Chocolate that retail for $4.50 each. I'm sorry, but this prize can only be sent to addresses in the USA. Be sure to leave your email address with your comment.

Kandy Shepherd writes fun, feel-good fiction. She is the author of The Castaway Bride (set on a tropical island in the Pacific); Something About Joe, (set on the harbor in Sydney, Australia); Love is a Four-Legged Word and Home Is Where the Bark Is (both set in San Francisco.)

Visit Kandy at her website

www.kandyshepherd.com

'Tis the season to shiver - Kandy Shepherd

How important is weather to you in a novel?

As I shiver through a cold, wet winter Down Under (yes, I know it’s meant to be eternal summer here but not where I live!) I realize I have never written a story set in anything but warm weather.

Whether my stories are set in spring, summer or fall, it’s always pleasant weather. Cool enough, perhaps, for a heroine to shrug on a hero’s chivalrously offered leather jacket on a spring evening, but most of my characters wear nothing warmer than a T-shirt. In The Castaway Bride, my hero and heroine don’t wear clothes much at all. If you were cast away on a blissfully perfect tropical island alone with a hot hunk, would you?

The perfect setting for romance!

A book set in a wonderful snowy location (trapped in a cozy, snowed-in mountain cabin with a hot hunk maybe) might be in my writing future, who knows? But not right now.

Toby is a picture of equine misery--despite his expensive new rug

They say to write about what you know, but there’s also writing about what you wish for. The scenarios I’ve chosen up ’til now force me to admit blue skies and a kindly sun feature strongly in my fantasies. Yes, the three stories I’m working on right now are all set in summer!

Miss Molly models her cosy coat

It isn’t only me who suffers in the cold weather, my animals too don’t seem to happy with the cold and wet winter we’re having.

There's nothing as contrary as a cat like Cindy who insists on sitting out in the rain

I have quite the menagerie of pets who are all complaining about the conditions.  Forget me getting a new coat for the winter—the horses and dog have priority.

I’m lucky, though, as I’m escaping to the Romance Writers of America convention in Anaheim in just a few weeks. Bring on that Californian weather!

Do have a season you enjoy more than the others? Do you notice the weather in a novel? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Leave a comment to win a free download of my e-book Something About Joe, or a voucher for a copy of The Castaway Bride from Amazon. Be sure to include your email address.

Something About Joe is available for just $0.99c at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords and other e-retailers. The Castaway Bride is exclusive to Amazon.

Kandy Shepherd writes fun, feel-good fiction.

www.kandyshepherd.com

The power of a smile--Kandy Shepherd

You probably know that smiling lifts your spirits by releasing feel-good hormones into your bloodstream. But did you know forcing a fake smile also has a similar effect?

I was told this by a migraine specialist when I sought treatment for debilitating migraines. He told me when I felt a headache coming on to make myself smile—even if that was the last thing I felt like doing. He explained that the very act of the muscles lifting into a smile triggered the brain to release endorphins and serotonin into the bloodstream which led to an easing of the headache.

I'M EATING YOUR ROSES, SO WHY ARE YOU LAUGHING? (BANJO, MY DAUGHTER'S PONY)

Ultimately my migraines were treated with medication but the smile therapy still helps. Consequently, I find myself appreciating anything that makes me smile spontaneously rather than forcing an inane grin in front of the mirror!

Smiling isn’t just good for preventing headaches, of course. Experts say smiling makes you feel more relaxed and boosts your immune system. Smiling helps social interaction too. Different cultures may bow, shake hands, kiss or rub noses, but a smile is a human signal of good intent that crosses all cultural barriers.

What makes you smile? The antics of my animals often bring a smile to my face--dog, cats, horses, even the chickens. Babies and children (even teenagers!) make me smile. Comedians like Robin Williams are guaranteed to make me laugh and a good episode of a television show like The Big Bang Theory, Community or Mike and Molly can make me ROFLOL (roll on floor, laughing out loud.)

Books too, can bring a smile to my face, with authors like Jennifer Crusie and British chicklit author Jennifer Colgan coming to mind for laugh-out-loud humor.

When I started to write, I tried angst and drama but my characters just wouldn’t let me take them that seriously. When I got feedback from editors praising my “comedic voice” I realized angst might not be my forte. Readers too, responded to my lighter tone of voice. One reader tells me that when she feels down she rereads my contemporary romance Love is a Four-Legged Word to lift her spirits. Even Something About Joe, which deals with some serious family issues, also makes readers laugh.

I’m with Jane Austen when she said: “Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery.”

What brings a smile to your face? Humor is so subjective, I’d love to hear your thoughts!


Leave a comment to win a free download of my e-book Something About Joe. Be sure to include your email address.

Something About Joe is available for just $0.99c at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords and other e-retailers.

Kandy Shepherd writes fun, feel-good fiction.

www.kandyshepherd.com
  
   

Knitting versus reading--Kandy Shepherd

Knitting—that was the topic of conversation when I met with friends last week for lunch.

They’d all taken it up—some after many years. Not for fashion or economy—the hand-knitted garments would cost more in yarn than a purchased one. No. My friends are all knitting for pleasure and relaxation.

I can knit—after a fashion. Simple combinations of plain and purl on large needles are within my skill range—though I freak at the thought of a cable! Years ago, bedridden recuperating from an operation, I found knitting a therapeutic way to pass the time. A very nice sweater resulted.

But I haven’t knitted for years. No time! And I haven’t learned to embroider or cross-stitch either—skills I greatly admire and would love to master. My mother and grandmother were expert at both. In fact I see needlework and knitting as examples of womanly arts that have survived generation after generation.

But not inherited by me. I can sew using a machine. And I love to cook. But if I have any spare time I want to read.

Reading is my pleasure and relaxation. I want to read books—both traditional and e-books—magazines, newspapers, journals, even the back of cereal packets if all else fails. Fiction, non-fiction—I just want to read!

How about you? Do you manage to juggle a reading addiction with another hobby or craft? Or are you like me? Please share your story!

Leave a comment to win a free download of my e-book Something About Joe. Be sure to include your email address.

 Something About Joe is available for just $0.99c at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords and other e-retailers.

Kandy Shepherd writes fun, feel-good fiction.

www.kandyshepherd.com

IMAGE CREDITS

Knitting

© Shcheglov | Stock Free Images & Dreamstime Stock Photos ; Old books © Mietitore | Stock Free Images & Dreamstime Stock Photos;

Reading in bath 

© Duey | Stock Free Images & Dreamstime Stock Photos

Call it coincidence – by Kandy Shepherd

Coincidence? Wish fulfillment? Who knows—but fictional incidents I create for my novels have a habit of actually happening in my own life!

DREAM HOUSE COME TRUE

In my contemporary romance, Something About Joe, my heroine Allison Bradley lives in a charming little terrace house (row house) in McMahons Point, a harborside suburb of Sydney, Australia, ten minutes from the city center where she works.

At the time I wrote the story, I lived in an outer suburb, considerably more than ten minutes from where I worked. In fact, to get into the city for my “day job”, I had to get up at the crack of dawn (I’m an “owl” and loathe getting up early) and dress my daughter while she was still asleep to get her to daycare and me to the office on time.

I wove my yearning for a closer-to-town home into the story, living it vicariously through the house I created for Allison. Who would have imagined some years later we would find a decrepit, uninhabitable little house in McMahons Point, spend several years renovating it, and move in.

A house something like the one I created for Allison in SOMETHING ABOUT JOE

Yes, it was every bit as convenient to live there for me as it was for Alison.

No, a hot handsome hunk of a babysitter like my hero Joe Martin never came knocking on my door!

(If there are any more dream houses going to come true for me, there’s the most perfect house in Sausalito, California, I created for my hero in Home Is Where the Bark Is… )

HARBORSIDE PLAYGROUND

In Something About Joe, two pivotal scenes take place in a small harborside park in McMahon’s Point. There’s a park bench there and in my mind’s eye, I can see my fictional characters Joe and Allison sitting there together.

The view of Sydney Harbour Joe and Allison see from the park

Long after the book was written I found myself spending happy hours right near that bench teaching my daughter to jump rope (or skipping rope as it’s called in Australia) with magnificent Sydney Harbour as our backdrop and backyard substitute. I could never have imagined that! 

MORE NIGHTMARE THAN DREAM

Spoiler alert! There’s a scene in Something About Joe where Allison’s eighteen-month old son Mitchell suffers a febrile convulsion and ends up in the emergency room at the local hospital.

I thoroughly researched the symptoms and the hospital procedure. Lucky I did, because several years after writing the scene with Mitchell, a high fever triggered a terrifying series of convulsions in my daughter (long after the age my research told me was usual) and I knew exactly what to do. I also got all the details of what happens at the hospital right, though to tell you the truth I wasn't thinking about my story when I was there with my daughter! (She was fine, with no after effects at all, thank heaven.)

No febrile convulsions for this happy baby!

Has anything quite unexpectedly come true for you? Something you dreamed about, longed for, read in a book or saw in a movie, heard about from someone else?

Leave a comment to win a free download of my new e-book Something About Joe. Be sure to include your email address.

Something About Joe is available for just $0.99c at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords and other e-retailers.

Kandy Shepherd writes fun, feel-good fiction.
www.kandyshepherd.com

Sydney Harbour Bridge photo © Deb22 http://www.stockfreeimages.com

Baby photo © Melkinghttp://www.stockfreeimages.com

Babes in the book

Do you like babies in your romance novels? For me, the reality of living with babies dictates their level of involvement in the story.

 In something very steamy, where the characters want to make spontaneous, uninterrupted (key word!) love at any opportunity, a baby character might not work as well (though, of course, such passionate love scenes could result in the creation of a baby character.) A sweet, community-based love story practically cries out for babies. And the way the hero and heroine interact with a baby in a book can reveal so much about their personalities.

In my new e-book release Something About Joe my baby character, eighteen-month-old Mitchell, is pivotal to the story. He brings hero, hot biker nanny Joe Martin, and heroine, single mom banker Allison Bradley, together—and also keeps them apart. It is her passionate love for her child that makes Allison fight her attraction to Joe, as she must make life decisions based on Mitchell’s happiness as well as her own. And Joe’s feelings on fatherhood present a stumbling block that he has to work to overcome.

I chose to make Mitchell eighteen months old as he is old enough to have a strong, vibrant personality, say enough words to communicate his feelings about Joe—but young enough to sleep through important scenes between Joe and Allison!

Something About Joe is a reissue of my first published novel Mitchell’s Nanny, and was written at a time when my daughter was still young enough for me to remember her baby behavior and write it into Mitchell. I don’t know why I wrote about a little boy with red hair—maybe a subconscious yearning for the second child I was not destined to have? Whatever, I loved creating this cute little boy and he seems very real to me!

I’ve heard people say they won’t buy a book with a child on the cover—others that will pick it up just because there’s a baby on board. I’d love to know your thoughts about babies in books—or on TV and in movies.Personally, I have a weakness for “secret baby” plots—I love the tension that the secret brings to the story.

Leave a comment to win a free download of my new e-book Something About Joe. Be sure to include your email address.


Something About Joe is available for just $0.99c at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords and other e-retailers.

Kandy Shepherd writes fun, feel-good fiction. 

http://www.kandyshepherd.com

(Baby photos courtesy of www.stockvault.net)

That special first time

That very first time—why is it so special? Not the second time, or the third time, or the hundredth time. But that special, special first time. It’s new, it’s exciting, nothing will ever feel quite like it.  (I’m not just talking about first-time sex when, let’s be honest, the first time might not always be the most memorable time!)

However, there’s no getting away from the fact that first-time love is the standout. Who can fail to be moved by the beautiful lyrics of the Roberta Flack classic, “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face”?  No matter who sings that song, it turns this romance writer to the mushiest of mush!

Apart from those momentous first love moments, there are a few “first-times”  that stand out in my memory.

FIRST TIME I met my husband is a given—I thought he was heart-stoppingly attractive, but also liked him so much I knew we would have been friends under whatever circumstances we met.

FIRST TIME I saw my baby’s face after all those months of pregnancy, imagining what she might look like.

FIRST TIME I traveled around England and visited the settings of so many books I had read.

FIRST TIME I saw kittens being born—I was only eight years old but I’ll never forget the awe that overwhelmed me.

FIRST TIME payment for my writing—a check for the first short story I had published at age twenty.

But the moment an author holds a copy of her first book—for the very first time—that’s a very special kind of first-time thrill.

My first book to be published in the US was my romantic comedy Love Is a Four-Legged Word. And when the advance copies arrived from Berkley, with that beautiful cover, I danced my husband around the room.

But before that, published in Australia by a small, independent publisher, was my very first novel entitled Mitchell’s Nanny.  It was a small, green book and when I got an advance copy in my hands, I couldn't stop looking at it, and turning the pages, and smelling it and hugging it—you get the picture!

Even years after, readers let me know how much they loved that story of a stressed out single mom who falls in love with her toddler’s new nanny—a hot hunk on a Harley who roars into her heart. When a copy went for a surprising sum at a charity auction at a romance reader's convention, I began to wonder if Joe and Allison's story might reach a wider, new audience.

First thing I did when I decided to indie publish it as an e-book, was to change the title from Mitchell's Nanny (an author often doesn’t have a choice of their book title) to Something About Joe. The second was to commission a lovely cover from the mega-talented designer Kim Killion at Hot Damn Designs . The third was to update some of the details in the book to make it sit happily in 2012.

Something About Joe has just gone live at Amazon and Smashwords, for the special price of $0.99c. Other e-retailers will follow.

And you know what? This second time of seeing my first-ever book baby in electronic format is quite a thrill!

What about you? Any memorable “first times” you'd like to share? I’d love to hear about them!

Leave a comment to win a free download of my new e-book Something About Joe. Be sure to include your email address.

 Kandy Shepherd writes fun, feel-good fiction. 

http://www.kandyshepherd.com


(Kitten photo courtesy of www.stockvault.net)