Every Day Should Be Mother's Day

I know it's the day after, but I think we all need to pay more attention to the women in our lives.

When I first started writing, I wrote a romcom with four kids at home. They inspired me. I put four kids in a book and someone said, "You can't put kids in romantic comedy." I laughed because I'd just sold a book with five kids. So many of my stories have mothers and their kids. All the how-to-write books say write what you know. I have four kids so...well, let's just say I've got kids in many, many of my books!

But I also write powerful moms in their stories. I've been lucky to have so many strong women in my life. My daughters, my mother, my mother-in-law, my grandmother, my friends and my readers. They've shared so much with me—from fortitude, to resilience, to unconditional love. They've allowed me to be a part of their stories, and they've shared their stories that came before me. Stories of their lives—some where happy, some not so much, but all of those stories taught me—are teaching me—who I want to be.  These amazing women were mothers, grandmothers, friends, Rosie Riveters, secretaries, teachers, nurses, pharmacists, cooks and comics...  

I know how lucky I am to have my live to have lived a life with so many amazing women populating it.  They're each why I love writing moms, grandmas and strong women!

If you're a mom, I hope you had a wonderful day (if you're not a mom, I hope you had a wonderful one, too)! And if you're looking for a new story (whether or not your a mother), I have a few Mom books for you!

Thanks, as always, for letting me a part of your stories!

Holly

Friends Don't Let Friends Write Alone!

      One of the most amazing things about the romance writing community is the friendships and support there. Yes, technically we are all competitors, but I think the message was best said by Harlen Coben at a workshop I attended years ago -- 'no one has to fail for me to succeed.'  And, in the romance community more than in any other, there's not just acceptance of other writers, but also the offering of help and support every step of the way. 

     So, along the way, I've found a number of writing friends who have been there for me when I need them and sometimes when I don't even realize that I do! Large groups like the Harlequin (Historical) Hussies - lots and lots of authors who write the amazing stories in the HH line-- as well as smaller groups like the Hermits. The Hermits are the group of authors who gathered each November at a beach house in Charleston to write and brainstorm and chat and drink wine (and watch Dancing With The Stars and Castle). Let me tell you that those women have saved my sanity more than once over the years!

    One of the other groups I've found is one of authors in the southeastern PA/northern DE area...and me - I'm from NJ. We've known each other for years and about two or so years ago, we began getting together on a regular monthly basis. We started calling ourselves Writers-Who-Lunch and spent the first couple of lunches chatting about all sorts of things including writing and publishing and news and kids. But then someone said - 'hey, we're writers, we should write something together!' 
 
     Within a month or two, we'd gathered for a brainstorming session, chosen a family name (the Blackwoods)  and common history (a Jacobite rebel is transported to Pennsylvania after the Rising in 1715), driven all over Chester County looking at horse farms and stone houses and decided the theme of the first collection - brides! We each picked our time period and generation and planned out our stories -- all the while meeting each month and making sure it all worked together. There were genealogy charts and time lines and historical research on indentured servitude and so much more. One of the original authors had to step out and another friend stepped in. It was so exciting and invigorating and inspiring to work with authors with different voices and stories and yet see everything fall in place. 
 
     Yesterday we held the first print copy of the anthology in our hands and I admit it - there were tears! The author who joined us midway has never been published before so this is her debut and it was so special to watch her face as she held that book in her hands. 

     It is a special moment in an author's career and it was even more special to be part of it and to share this project with these other women....it's just what writers do for other writers. 




 
 Brandywine Brides - A Blackwood Legacy Anthology will be released on April 25 in digital and print editions across retailers. The digital edition is now 99¢  - a special pre-order and first week price! 


Kindle        Nook       iBooks      Kobo     

Writers Who Lunch

  
   Writing can be an isolated profession. Most of what we need to do happens somewhere between our heads and our fingers and most of the talking we do is with the characters who inhabit our heads and our stories.We can spend hours, days, even weeks in our writing spaces creating our works and never actually speaking to another human being. Sometimes, when we do interact, it's hard to remember we must speak our words to them and not just think them! LOL! 

   To combat this separation from reality and people, many writers I know have little support groups, or even critique groups with whom they can talk - about writing or stories or just about life. Since most people in real life don't understand the emotional process of creativity, sometimes it's just nice to have peeps who do. 

  I'm part of a little group that we call simply 'Writers Who Lunch'. We meet up - some or all of us - monthly and have a nice visit -- talking about writings, publishing, editing, children, grandchildren and lots of other things. But, for us the focus is on writing and the issues of a writer's life and work. It is so great to breathe the same air as the wonderfully talented authors in my little group. Oh, we're a mixed bunch - from actively published authors to former writers to indie authors and all in between. The common ground, it turns out, is not the writing, but the struggle to continue to write and create among all of our other worldly challenges and commitments. 

I know we're not alone in this need. I know hundreds of other authors who do the same kind of thing. But I also know there are lots of these little groups in every walk of life -- my coworker's husband has a group called the ROMEOs -- retired old men eating out! It may sound silly but those men are each facing the same challenges of dealing with the changes in their lives because they've retired. So, I understand how these 'eating out' men are getting more out of their encounters than just food.

 I've heard of crocheting/knitting groups, women CEO groups, mothers-of-twins groups and more. How about you? Do you have a 'writers-who-lunch' group in your life? Who's in it? And, more importantly, what do you get from it?  Please share it with me -- and I've got a little trinket/giftie from my trip to Ireland for one commentor! 

Terri is currently working on book 3 - BLAZING EARTH - in her new Novels of the Stone Circles series from Signet. She'll be doing some events and signings to celebrate book 2's - RAGING SEA - release in October. Stop by her website for lots of info! Or friend her on FB or her FB page to keep up-to-date!
 

Failure To Communicate by Jenny Gardiner

A while back I made the deliberate choice to take some alone time, which is how I ended up traveling on my own hiking in Switzerland and Italy a few months back. Those days during which I walked exclusively for hours on end reaffirmed something I already knew quite well: I'm sort of a people person, and get sick of being by myself pretty quickly. Which certainly begs the question: well, then, why did you go off alone? Don't ask. But being on my own made me very much appreciate the gift of being with others, something I'm afraid so many of us take for granted nowadays. I realized this yet again the other day when my husband and I were having breakfast. Nearby sat a couple with two elementary school-aged kids. As I spied on them (sorry, the writer in me compels me to snoop sometimes) I felt sad, because no one in that family appeared to make much of an effort to communicate. The parents sat in silence, faces aimed downward, typing away on their smart phones. The kids were glued to theirs as well, barely coming up for air, let alone conversation. The family couldn't have been less together had they been in separate corners of the restaurant. This was something I noticed so often while in Italy. I was fairly starved for communication with someone familiar, having been walking for sometimes up to eight hours during the day without seeing another person. As it is, my family occasionally cringes at my tendency to strike up conversation with complete strangers (yes, even in elevators), and that's when I'm not craving human contact. They couldn't imagine the lengths to which I about went to speak with people — in another language, no less — when deprived of normal discourse for even a few days. I got to the point that I'd chat up anyone who would listen to me (and put up with my rusty Italian at that). When I ended up in larger cities and found English speakers? Jackpot for me. Poor English-speaking tourists who sat next to me during a meal! Who knew just hearing someone else speak my language would be such music to my ears? That concept of quiet self-reflection and alone-time upon which my trip was intended must've jumped right out the window. Yet wherever I went, I noticed that so many other people gathered together never seemed very together anyhow. I would see a table full of people, with everyone transfixed by their mobile phones, the cool glow of the lit screen reflecting off their faces, completely ignoring each other. I felt such a pang of jealousy for them being able to be with friends and family — yes, even though I'd made the deliberate choice to not be with mine. Here they had people right there, yet they chose instead to hone in on the digital brain in their hands, that whole other world hidden in their smart phones. Now don't get me wrong. I spend far more time than I ought to online. Between the unlimited accessibility to information that the Evil Genius Google provides, and the non-stop chat-a-thons available via Facebook, Twitter, or far too many other social media to even list, I often allow the Great Time Suck to get the better of me despite my good intentions to the contrary. I can be like a heroin junkie, seeking just one more fix. I follow a link to a compelling story which leads me to a link to another compelling story and so on, and the next thing I know I've frittered away hours on nothing other than added fuel for my brain full of useless Jeopardy factoids which I'll never use anyhow. It was a huge gift for me to be a stranger in a strange land on my own and appreciate how wonderful it is to be able to be with those you love. And to give me some time to break away from that electronic addiction to which most of us are enslaved these days. I befriended an Australian woman who just completed walking the entire length (about 1300 miles) of the pilgrimage route on which I hiked. She's been walking since late August from Canterbury England, and arrived in Rome a few days ago. She claims to be an introvert, yet reading her blog daily, I can see that she has been, nevertheless, desperately lonely. It's hard to walk alone for hours on end, often seeing no one, then arrive in a town, have to find a place to sleep, while hoping to find a restaurant or bar in which to find some food, and with any luck, maybe some human contact. You find yourself going out of your way to talk to anyone when you have no one there. If given enough time I'd likely have been known as the strange babbling woman, frankly. One of those mad-professor types with a crazed glint in her eyes, rambling ceaselessly. I don't think I'd have it in me to have walked alone for three straight months for the sheer lack of engagement with loved ones with which I'd be missing out. Clearly I'm not one for the lone pursuit experience for very long. I know I took for granted the ability to be with those I love and care for. As I reflect during the holidays time, I'm all the more grateful for those who have made my life more interesting, engaging, and exciting. For those who have shared their love, their hearts, and themselves with me. And for my not having to follow link upon link to find them; rather to know that they've been right here all along.



Slim to None

Anywhere But Here

Winging It: A Memoir of Caring for a Vengeful Parrot Who's Determined to Kill Me

Accidentally on Purpose (written as Erin Delany)

Compromising Positions (written as Erin Delany)

I'm Not the Biggest Bitch in this Relationship (I'm a contributor)

And these shorts:
Idol Worship: A Lost Week with the Weirdos and Wannabes at American Idol Auditions

The Gall of It All: And None of the Three F's Rhymes with Duck

Naked Man On Main Street

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