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Archive for Kris Kennedy

Special Guest – Annette McCleave on ‘Single Authorhood’

Wednesday, May 12th, 2010
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MamaWriters are excited to have my friend and paranormal romance author Annette McCleave with us today!  Her second book, BOUND BY DARKNESS, has just released, and is garnering wonderful reviews. such as her 4 1/2 star Romantic Times review, which said, “An emotional read…full of suspense and danger…”

Please help us welcome Annette McCleave!

Single Authorhood

Being an author who is a single parent is both a blessing and a challenge. On one hand, working from home and having a flexible schedule means I can attend almost every band performance and school play.

On the other, it means when deadline time rolls around, my daughter is on her own for long stretches of time. Fortunately, my daughter is a young teen now and she can entertain herself. She’s also perfectly happy to eat take-out when mom doesn’t have time to cook.

Being a teen is hard. Between the raging hormones and the social issues, weathering the high school years can be tough. Finding your place in the world is overwhelming. But my decision to become an author has opened the door for a discussion with my teen that I wish my own parents had shared with me—the importance of holding on to your dreams.

I don’t know about you, but my parents lectured me repeatedly about getting a good job, being financially stable and setting goals that were achievable. Dreams never entered into the mix. But dreams sustain us—they are the underpinnings of hope.

My daughter has seen me give up a corporate career in favour of a less stable, lower-paying job, and she knows that chasing your dreams has a price. The flip side of that is she knows a well-paying job and a nice house don’t necessarily equate happiness. She’s also seen me work hard, persist, and eventually triumph. Dreams really can come true.

Because it’s just the two of us, she’s shared every part of the journey and the excitement.  Every time I release a new book, as I did last week, she’s right there with me, beaming at the cover on the shelf. She even invited me to speak to her class about being an author. Truth is, if the only lesson she learns from me is to never give up on her dreams, I’ll be one very happy single parent.

It’ll make up for all the guilt. :- )

My daughter’s favourite moms-on-deadline meal is Chinese food. Do you have a favorite emergency dinner in your family? What is it?
If you’re interested in learning more about the book I released last week, Bound by Darkness, stop by my website. I’m running a release contest until the end of May, so be sure to check out the details.

Categories : Career And Family, Coping, Family, Finding Balance, Kris Kennedy, MamaHood, special guests, Taking Care of Family, Teaching Your Children
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What If The Muse Is REALLY Gone This Time? (Or, The Best Creativity Video Ever)

Thursday, April 1st, 2010
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Nothing can stop him . . . June, 2010

Nothing can stop him . . . June, 2010

I’m currently in the pits of hell.

I mean, I’m stuck in my manuscript.  And have been.  For months.

Fortunately, I don’t have the luxury to loll about in my stuckness, as I have a deadline.  But I am still stuck, even if I’m determined.

I feel as though I’ve tried two dozen different strategies.  I’ve re-read my favorite books.  I’ve re-read craft books.  I’ve Googled “writers block” and ‘inspiration” and “fiction, raising the stakes.”  I’ve written cold, hard, un-pretty words, using Dr. Wicked Writer or Die.  I’ve plotted until my brain hurts, then gone to the other end of the continuum and written nonsense words without forethought.  I’ve upped my hero’s stakes, widened my heroine’s arc, intersected secondary characters’ goals, and made the clock tick down faster.  And I’m still stuck.

I’m sure some of it is working, but like a medication: the effects may take some time to show.  And if you stop too soon, well, you’ll never notice them at all.  But which do I keep doing, I wonder.

And of course, the worst wondering of it is: Have I lost it?  Is She (i.e. the Muse) gone forever?  Am I dried up, washed out, done in, dried up?  Have I tapped the well, smoked the pipe, struck out, gone the last mile, or otherwise lost lost what matters to my writing?

Have you ever felt like this?  It’s a really scary place.

Experience helps in grappling with this beast, though, as I know I’ve felt this way before.   There’s been times I was certain ‘it’ was gone.  I knew I’d never have another good idea, and that the best I could do was say “Boy Meets Girl, Girl Runs Screaming” and call it good.

But, no matter how badly I write, no matter how sad my ideas are, I know the cure: I keep writing.   As long as I keep showing up, I always get in again.

Skeptical?  Check this out:  (It’s 20 minutes, but so worth it.  Still, though, wait until you have 20 to spare.)

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What kinds of things do you do when you’re stuck with your writing?  And how do you keep the faith?

Kris Kennedy writes sexy, adventure-filled medieval romances for Kensington and Pocket Books.  Her debut book,THE CONQUEROR, came out May ‘09.  Her second, THE IRISH WARRIOR, winner of the 2008 Golden Heart Award for Best Historical Romance, releases June ‘10.  She loves hearing from readers–stop by her website , sign up for her newsletter , and say Hi!

Categories : 2 Hours A Day Challenge, Craft Topics, creativity, Encouragement, Kris Kennedy, Love/Loving
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Special Guest Historical Romance Author Beverly Kendall

Wednesday, March 31st, 2010
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MamaWriters are excited to have debut author Beverly Kendall here today!  Her debut romance, Sinful Surrender, released in January, and she also runs the new and highly-frequented blog and linked forum community The Season, sites designed for readers of historical romance.  Oh, and she’s also a mom.  :-)

Please help us welcome Beverly Kendall!

sinful surrender coverMy World As I Knew It

I could never have imagined that my life would change so utterly now that my son comes home at 2:30pm.


For years I had my days completely planned. My son went off to school in the morning and I picked him up from after school care at 5:30pm, right after work. It was a lovely routine. So lovely in fact, I took very little notice of how lucky I was. I worked from home, so I was able to get a lot of things done that I couldn’t if I had to hike to the office everyday (I worked 40+ miles away).


Then with the down economy, I was laid off. It made no sense to keep my son in after school care any longer, so out he went. The thing is I was busier than ever. I might no longer have a paying full-time job, but now in its place I added job hunting, writing, and web site mistress to the pool. And now this was consuming more than any full-time job ever had. I needed at least 6 additional hours in the day to get everything done. This all would have been manageable had my son started coming home 3 hours earlier than I was accustomed to.


Boy, who knew (though, seriously, I should have) what a difference those 3 hours would make to my day. What has suffered? Well housekeeping for sure. But it took a hit when I started writing, which was back in November 2006. The serious crime here is my writing started to suffer. I wasn’t get near the daily word count I would have liked and needed to get done.


I can’t write with the television on—especially if it’s a kids’ show. I can’t write if my son is tugging at any of my body parts. I can’t write if there are children (my son and nephew) chasing each other around the house. And I can’t write if my son is upstairs…and the place is terribly quiet—too quiet—because that means there’s trouble afoot.


What I’ve discovered is I have to write through, in, and around the madness, the noise, and the too quiet. I now force myself into that seat each day and tell myself, ‘You can’t get out of this chair until there are xxx number of words on the screen.’ I had to forcibly remove myself from Twitter, Facebook, and all the other—what can be—time-consuming sites and blogs. I had to focus like never before. This was the net result of my son coming home at 2:30.


What about you? What are some of the things that distract you from writing and how do you cope?

Categories : 2 Hours A Day Challenge, Career And Family, Coping, Encouragement, Finding Balance, Kris Kennedy, Love/Loving, MamaHood, special guests
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Special Guest – NY Times & USA Today Bestselling Author Alyssa Day

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010
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MamaWriters as thrilled to have Alyssa Day with us today!  Her Warriors of Poseidon books have been hitting the lists left and right, and her  latest release, ATLANTIS REDEEMED, another sexy suspenseful paranormal released just last week.  Alyssa does it all with two kids, a Navy warrior husband, and a great number of Pugs.

Please help us welcome Alyssa Day!

Number Two Pencils

alesiahollidayToday I spent the morning at my daughter’s school proctoring one of those state-mandated standardized tests for a fifth-grade class.  At each desk, next to the dreaded text booklet, sat two freshly sharpened number two pencils.

It brought back a lot of memories.

I was one of those dorky, nerdy, (though we didn’t call it that then) brainy kids who loved the annual trip to the school supply school. Pencils and notebooks represented all of the stories as yet unwritten; the ideas as yet undreamed.  Still today, I am like a kid in a candy shop in the office supply store.  I probably own more post-it notes and markers and pens and pencils and notepads, in more different colors (ooh! Shiny!) than the law allows.  Ask most writers, from what my friends tell me, and you’ll find the same.  We’re all entranced with new journals, and pens, and shiny little objects to fill up our bookshelves and desk drawers.

They’re tools, of course, weapons in the writer’s arsenal, but they’re more than that.  They’re the freshly sharpened means to a magical end—the wonderful worlds and fully developed characters and emotionally resonant stories we create in the fascinating nooks and crannies of our writers’ brains.  But since (unfortunately, how cool would that be??) we can’t dump our brain against a computer screen and have the stories appear, we sharpen our pencils, fire up the laptop, pull out a notebook, and get to work.

Creating the impossible. Dreaming the dream.  Writing the stories that shape our novels.  The act of creation should be the joy, too, not simply the satisfaction of writing THE END.  The journey, to go a little Zen writer on you, should be the thing.  Just you and the blank page and that freshly sharpened pencil.

So there I was.  Surrounded by all of those wonderful young minds, focusing so intently, writing frantically and chewing on the eraser tips when book_redeemed_150they paused.  What was a writer to do?  I picked up my own pencil and began a new story.  I didn’t use these exact words, but mine meant the very same thing:

Once upon a time . . .

May all your endings be happy, and all your number two pencils be freshly sharpened.

Hugs,

Alyssa

Alyssa Day is the RITA-award winning and New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Warriors of Poseidon series about a race of warriors from the lost continent of Atlantis who fall into a world-bending kind of love with human women with very special talents.  Her newest release, ATLANTIS REDEEMED, is in stores now:   When 2,000 years of lost emotion hit you all at once—do you fall in love or die?

Please visit Alyssa online at http://www.alyssaday.com for excerpts, a free short story, video interviews, and more.  Thank you!!
.

Categories : Celebration, creativity, Encouragement, Kris Kennedy, special guests, Writing and self-care
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The Way Of Growing Things

Thursday, March 4th, 2010
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Nothing can stop him . . . June, 2010

Nothing can stop him . . . June, 2010

It’s can be very hard for me when my progress is of the “2 Steps’ variety.  Whether it’s a manuscript, or being more patient (or whatever personal growth I’ve set out for myself) or a child mastering new emotional skills.  Some days, it’s hard to feel like there’s forward momentum.

On those days, I can feel discouraged, or disheartened, filled with anger-inducing thoughts like, ‘What’s the point?”  Or hopeless thoughts, like, “It’ll never happen.”

But I have to remind myself . . .  this is the way of growing things.

Much of the important work is done underground, where no one can see, in the dirt.  Little swirlings and pushings as the roots move out, learning what to do and how to do it, taking in what’s needed  to keep getting stronger and bigger and ‘better.’  And no one can see a thing.

Then, one day, a little tendril pushes up above the soil and people inclined to notice little things pause and say, “Oh, wow, look at what just happened!”  Although, of course, it didn’t ‘just happen.’  It’s been happening for weeks or months or years.  (Others, sadly, will never notice at all, even when it’s in full bloom, but that’s another topic.)

This is the way of growing things, be they skills or wisdom or living organisms.   Some of it happens naturally, like with the flowers (or weeds <g>) in the yard.  They are genetically programmed to do what they does.  We can add or remove certain elements and their growth can be enhanced or retarded, but the growth itself happens naturally.  Our bodies do the same, grow naturally, better or worse for what we give them or withhold.  For the rest of our growth, the skills sets, the emotional growth, the building of craftsmanship, etc, we human usually have to make choices to grow.  Set our minds to it.  But even still, the process is the same.

As writers, we’re growing our skills, developing in our craftsmanship.  As moms, we’re becoming better mothers.  Wife, friend, lover, partner, most usually, we’re trying to grow.

And our children . . . some days, they’re growing so much that with the right measuring instruments, scientists can hear their little brains cracking as new neural pathways gets formed and strengthened.

And on most days, you never see a thing.  Until you do.

This is the way of growing things.  They take time.

(And I apologize for taking this already slightly-corny metaphor to new heights. I’m helpless in the face of a corny-but-true metaphor.)

What about you?  Where are you growing but maybe don’t see the ‘proof’ yet?   And has this ever happened to you, the experience of one day, all of a sudden, you or your child “got it”?

Kris Kennedy writes sexy, adventure-filled medieval romances for Kensington and Pocket Books.  Her debut book,THE CONQUEROR, came out May ‘09.  Her second, THE IRISH WARRIOR, winner of the 2008 Golden Heart Award for Best Historical Romance, releases June ‘10.  She loves hearing from readers–stop by her website , sign up for her newsletter , and say Hi!

Categories : Career And Family, Coping, creativity, Encouragement, Finding Balance, Kris Kennedy, Similarities-Motherhood & Writing, Worry and Insecurity
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Hey, all Writing, motherhood, trying to do it all has shown me that sometimes plates have to drop, and marketing and support -- ESPECIALLY during the summer months, is the thing that slips. Just b/c I've been gone doesn't mean I don't think of you and often. HUGS to everyone... and keep writing! Ash
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played in the garden. Now to spend the day with kids sports and outside play.
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