Tag Archives: Home for the Holidays

WANA Wednesday: Just in time for the Holidays! plus ROW80 Update

by Jennette,

If you’re starting to think about the holidays, and need some little gifts for the readers in your life, look no further! Home for the Holidays has a little something for everyone who’s a little romantic. This anthology of holiday stories is the work of six authors who are members of the Ohio Valley Chapter of Romance Writers of America – five of my In Real Life writer friends, and me!

The stories in the anthology run from sweet to poignant, darkness-tinged to comedic, but in each one, people find the hope of love, and joy in the holidays. Stories feature married couples and those newly-met, some whose lessons lie in the past, and even vampires… all of whom find happiness and peace when they come Home for the Holidays.

Becke Martin‘s “Coventry Arcade” is where Ben Whitaker is determined to get his beloved Lily the best gift very little money can buy in this homage to O. Henry’s classic story “The Gift of the Magi.”

In “The Holly and the Ivey” by Sandy Pennington, Jon thought bells would be ringing a merry tune when he did a surprise Christmas visit but it turned out to be a Ho! Ho! Oh, no! instead.

Aileen is frustrated when she has difficulties communicating with her mentally challenged brother. But Dr. Lew Bard shows her it’s really just a matter of “Speaking the Language,” by Ann Gregory.

There’s magic in threes in Becke Martin’s “Triple Trouble for Christmas Eve.” With her dying breath, the triplets’ mother predicted they’d all find true love by midnight on Christmas Eve. Too bad Mom didn’t specify which Christmas Eve.

In “Merry and Bright” by Ann Gregory, Alex and D’Vee discover that a cup of spicy tea and a pair of fine brown eyes can both be inspiring. The Christmas season is the perfect time to kindle friendships and create possibilities.

Aiden Flynn is no Superman, but he does have a secret identity. And he just might be able to save Christmas for one young boy and his hardworking mom in “Silver and Gold,” by Becke Martin.

Stacy McKitrick’s vampire Katarina thought she was drawn to the mortal who refused her gift of immortality 45 years ago, but on her “Last Christmas Visit,” she discovers the truth.

Christmas can be murder when a trip back in time pits Taylor Gressman against a murderous street gang, but through a new friendship, she learns the greatest gift is in the giving in “Time’s Holiday” by Jennette Marie Powell.

In “No More Resolutions” by Dakota James, Stella despises holidays. Now she has to find a husband for bosszilla, deal with a stripper pole in her house and work with Simon, the guy she loves to hate. Or does she?

Oh yeah, and I designed the cover and did all the formatting, for both the print and ebook. 😀

The anthology is available in both print and ebook at Amazon.com; and in ebook from Smashwords, Kobo Books, and Sony. Coming soon to Barnes & Noble and  iTunes. All proceeds go directly to Ohio Valley Romance Writers of America, and help bring in educational programs for the whole chapter.

My story, “Time’s Holiday,” is also available as a standalone ebook for FREE! If you’ve thought about giving the Saturn Society series a try, this is a great way to see if it’s something you might like. Grab a copy of the ebook from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Kobo Books, Sony or iTunes.

What about you? Do you like holiday stories? Know of any good new releases this week? Or what the heck, what are your reading now?

Quick ROW80 Update: This month, my main focus is my NaNoWriMo novel. My weekly goal is to write 1,500 words four weeknights, and 3,000 words each on Saturday and Sunday. Sunday through Tuesday, I’ve written 6,000 words, bringing my total to 12,346 – right on track. So far so good!

In other ROW80 news, I solved my dilemma with things that won’t go away from the to-do list. This was not intentional. But disappear they did. I use Cozi Organizer for this, and its Remove menu consists of 1. Delete checked items, 2. Delete everything on this list and 3. Delete this list (IMO there’s not much difference between 2 and 3, but there they are). Well, with a slip of the mouse, I clicked the second item when I meant to click the first. So boom! Those pesky things hanging around on my to-do list were gone! I decided not to worry about it, and reconstructed what I knew I needed for the week. Who knew it could be so easy? 😀

What is WANA? It stands for We Are Not Alone, a guide to blogging, social media and networking for authors by Kristen Lamb. It’s writers helping writers, whether or not we’ve taken the course, and proving that we really are not alone!

Jennette Marie Powell writes stories about ordinary people in ordinary places, who do extraordinary things and learn that those ordinary places are anything but. In her Saturn Society novels, unwilling time travelers do what they must to make things right... and change more than they expect. You can find her books at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Kobo, iTunes, and more.

ROW80: Four Days In

by Jennette,

What do you do when there’s something on your to-do list that just won’t go away?

One solution, of course, is to ditch the to-do list. I tried that once, but every time I do, the darn thing keeps coming back.

In all seriousness, there’s no way I’d remember to do all the things I need and want to do without it. So the list stays. But that thing that keeps hanging on… in this case, it’s working through the exercises in Get It Together, an estate planning workbook. Not the most exciting stuff, so naturally, it gets shoved to the back of the priority line.

Sometimes, that’s what we have to do. When I started this round of ROW80, I’d thought I might do NaNoWriMo, but hadn’t committed to actually doing it. Well, now that I have, writing New Book takes precedence.

I will complete Get It Together… just not this month. Probably not this ROW80.

Fortunately, everything else went better. Here’s my progress for this past week:

  • 6,000 words on NaNoWriMo novel – Done! I even went to a local write-in, got 2,000 words written, and had a great time!
  • Review Home for the Holidays print proof, correct again if needed; otherwise OK it and make available for sale! – Done! Second proof came out right, so I OK’ed it, and it’s now available! More details coming Wednesday.
  • Physical activity 5x this week – Done! It helps that I am reading an awesome book on the treadmill this week.
  • Hangar 18 – review and markup Chapters 7-9 – Done, thanks to this section needing minimal revision.
  • Get it Together exercises 13 & 14 – No – see above.

Here are my overall goals for this round:

  • Format and release OVRWA holiday story anthology – Done and soon to be released!
  • Revise Hangar 18 – revisions/markup moving along nicely
  • Keep up with my exercise, five times a week – ongoing
  • Finish the Get It Together exercises – completed sections 3 – 12 – postponed until the next ROWnd
  • NEW: Win NaNoWriMo – on track with 6,300 words so far!
For this week, I’d like to:
  • 12,000 more words on NaNoWriMo novel, bringing its total up to 18,000
  • Physical activity 5x this week
  • Hangar 18 – review and markup Chapters 10 & 11

If you’re participating in ROW80, how are you doing so far? Are you doing NaNoWriMo? If so, look me up and let’s be writing buddies! And either way, how are you doing with whatever goals you may have made?

Jennette Marie Powell writes stories about ordinary people in ordinary places, who do extraordinary things and learn that those ordinary places are anything but. In her Saturn Society novels, unwilling time travelers do what they must to make things right... and change more than they expect. You can find her books at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Kobo, iTunes, and more.

ROW80: Jumping into NaNoWriMo

by Jennette,

I’ve decided…. I’m going to go for it this November. I’m going to do NaNoWriMo. I signed up last week, after being inspired by some of my ROW80 peeps, and I committed to it today by telling my daughter, her friend, and one of my best friends from college and her partner. It was at that point that I realized that not everyone knows what NaNoWriMo, even spelled out: National Novel Writing Month, is.

Basically, it’s a month of craziness: you commit to writing a 50,000 word novel in one month. If you write 50, 000 words, you “win,” even if your novel isn’t complete at that length.

That sounds like a lot, yet there are plenty of professional, full-time writers who regularly produce at this level or more. I did it once before, in 2009. And yes, I “won.” I never did finish that book, but I still plan to.

The rules of NaNoWriMo require that you start a new book in November – picking up one that’s already started doesn’t count, although a lot of people do just that. I’m doing NaNo because other than “Time’s Holiday,” I haven’t written any new material since I did NaNoWriMo. I need that extra kick in the seat.

I don’t know if I’ll publish the book I’m writing for NaNo – I want to get back into writing for fun, and it’s a big departure from what I usually write, so who knows how it’ll turn out. FUN is where it’s at this month. It’ll definitely be harder to “win” this time around, as I have a regular blog and other writing activities to do, including my revision on Hangar 18, that I don’t want to put off further.

Fortunately, we can do ROW80 and NaNoWriMo at the same time. So here’s my ROW80 progress for this past week:

  • Finish Home for the Holidays print book, and if proof received, correct if needed; otherwise OK it and make available for sale – the proof had some minor issues, so I reworked those, uploaded the corrections, and ordered another proof. Done!
  • Physical activity 5x this week – No. I had a bit of a cold earlier this week, and although it was a mild one (thank goodness!), I took it easy on the physical stuff this week. I’m better now, so I’m hoping to jump back in this week!
  • Hangar 18 – review and markup Chapters 4-6 – Done!
  • Get it Together exercises 13 & 14 – No
  • I got some more outlining done on my NaNoWriMo project.

Here are my overall goals for this round:

  • Format and release OVRWA holiday story anthology – Done and soon to be released!
  • Revise Hangar 18 – revisions/markup started
  • Keep up with my exercise, five times a week – ongoing
  • Finish the Get It Together exercises – completed sections 3 – 12
For this week, I’d like to:
  • 6,000 words on NaNoWriMo novel
  • Review Home for the Holidays print proof, correct again if needed; otherwise OK it and make available for sale!
  • Physical activity 5x this week
  • Hangar 18 – review and markup Chapters 7-9
  • Get it Together exercises 13 & 14

If you’re participating in ROW80, how are you doing so far? Are you doing NaNoWriMo? If so, look me up and let’s be writing buddies! And either way, how are you doing with whatever goals you may have made?

Jennette Marie Powell writes stories about ordinary people in ordinary places, who do extraordinary things and learn that those ordinary places are anything but. In her Saturn Society novels, unwilling time travelers do what they must to make things right... and change more than they expect. You can find her books at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Kobo, iTunes, and more.

ROW80: One Big Goal Down

by Jennette,

Three to go! It took awhile, and I ended up learning some new software, but that ended up being fun, and I got the holiday anthology formatted for both e-book and print, and the print proof on its way to me already. For my first two books, Word worked out just fine provided I proofed the whole book to make sure it wasn’t hyphenating words in stupid places (which it does). But this anthology was my first time using CreateSpace, which flagged a couple of graphics that Word had reduced quality of for file size – to a lower resolution than it should have. Therefore, I switched to Adobe InDesign, professional page layout software that my day job employer thoughtfully provided along with the web design components I regularly use. I’ve been mostly out of the graphic design field for fifteen years now, so I’d never used it. However, the overall functionality was much the same as what I used to use way back then, so it was more a matter of learning the specific commands of how to do a particular thing, like set up page headers that could be different for each story. And wow, did it do a much better job than Word!

Here’s my week’s progress in detail:

  • Format and upload Home for the Holidays anthology if all materials are received –  Done!
  • Physical activity 5x this week – Done!
  • Hangar 18 – review and markup Chapters 1-3 – Done!
  • Get it Together exercises 13 & 14 – No
  • I got some more outlining done on my “just for me” project.

Here are my overall goals for this round:

  • Format and release OVRWA holiday story anthology – Done and soon to be released!
  • Revise Hangar 18 – revisions/markup started
  • Keep up with my exercise, five times a week. – ongoing
  • Finish the Get It Together exercises (description of that here) – completed sections 3 – 12
For this week, I’d like to:
  • Finish Home for the Holidays print book, and if proof received, correct if needed; otherwise OK it and make available for sale!
  • Physical activity 5x this week
  • Hangar 18 – review and markup Chapters 4-6
  • Get it Together exercises 13 & 14

If you’re participating in ROW80, how are you doing so far? If not, how are you doing with whatever goals you may have made?

Jennette Marie Powell writes stories about ordinary people in ordinary places, who do extraordinary things and learn that those ordinary places are anything but. In her Saturn Society novels, unwilling time travelers do what they must to make things right... and change more than they expect. You can find her books at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Kobo, iTunes, and more.