It is such a thrill to welcome Jessica to The Blue Rose Writing Room today. A fellow Soul Mate Publishing author, she writes Regency too! Today she’s talking about the task of balancing life and writing.
Be sure to enter the Rafflecopter giveaway for a $50 gift card at the end of the post.
~ ~ ~
BUDGETS AND BODICES – BALANCING LIFE AND WRITING
How do you balance life and writing? When you figure it out, be sure and let me know.
I wake up each morning, exhausted by the all-nighters spent on critiquing, revisions, reading, and if I have time, actually writing. Somehow, I manage to get myself and my two children dressed. If I’m lucky, I manage to wake up in time to make them a breakfast consisting of frozen waffles and a Capri-Sun. Artificial coloring is a food group, right?
My job is fairly mundane. I was educated to be a nurse, but somehow that career has transformed itself into a role similar to a kind of quality consultant with some work in strategy. How did I go from IV’s and bedpans to this you ask? I’m still wondering that myself.
Of course, I always wanted to be a writer, but always the pragmatist; I switched majors to something a bit more predictable. Nursing seemed a good enough career – great income, flexible hours, and I got to wear jammies practically every day. Years later, my career in nursing had underwent the metamorphosis into what it is today. The hours – not so flexible, and the jammies have given way to button down blazers and pants with actual buttons. BUTTONS!
I come home, exhausted, and sometimes – I even pick the kids up from the babysitter on time. My mother was an accomplished homemaker, so I still believe it is my role in the family to provide a homemade dinner each night and keep a neat house. Some nights, I manage to succeed, but every time I prepare Hamburger Helper, I die a little inside.
By the children’s bedtime, I am exhausted. Of course, I want to see my husband a bit – I’m one of those rare types who still like my spouse after thirteen years. By the time I settle into write, it’s close to ten and I do my best to muster up my muse and get some quality writing done.
My day is a blur of budgets and bodices. At work during meetings with numbers, my mind wanders to the latest chapter I’m working on. At home, I worry about the emails I didn’t respond to and the meetings I need to prepare for the next day. Always I feel guilt for the time spent away from my children.
But I figure I must be doing something alright. I’m still married, and my children don’t have scurvy or any kind of issues that necessitate the involvement of a social worker. Much to my dismay, I’ve still not been fired from my day job, and fortunately my editor still responds to my email. The balancing act between budgets and bodices is a difficult one, but if you are determined enough, and ingest enough caffeine, then it might just be doable.
AUTHOR INFORMATION:
Jessica writes likes she speaks, which has a tendency to be fast paced and humorous. Jessica is heavily inspired by sweeping, historical romance novels, but aims to take those key emotional elements and inject a fresh blend of quick dialogue and comedy to transport the reader into a story they miss long after the last page is read. She invites you to visit her at jessicajefferson.com and read her random romance musings.
Follow me at https//twitter.com/authorJessicaJ
Now about Jessica’s fabulous Regency…
COMPROMISING MISS TISDALE
By
Jessica Jefferson
BLURB:
Ambrosia Tisdale is the very picture of propriety and the epitome of what a respectable young lady should be. Haunted by a memory and compelled by her family, she pursues perfection to a fault.
The Earl of Bristol, Duncan Maddox, has returned to London after years of familial imposed exile. As the second son, he has led a life filled with frivolity, leisure, and a healthy dose of debauchery. Now his older brother has died, leaving the family’s flailing legacy in Duncan’s unwilling arms.
At the behest of his uncle, Duncan is advised to do the one thing that could provide instant fortune and respectability – he must marry. But there is only one prospect who meets the unique requirements to solve all the Earl’s problems – the lovely Miss Ambrosia Tisdale. But securing the prudent daughter of a Viscount’s hand proves to be more challenging than this scandal ridden second son of an Earl has bargained for.
With scandal, extortion, treachery, and even love itself threatening to keep him from his goal, will Duncan succeed in compromising Miss Tisdale?
Excerpt:
She had stumbled upon the library. A fire in the hearth threw a faint glow over leather lined volumes that filled floor to ceiling book shelves. Lavishly upholstered plush arm chairs sat upon Aubusson rugs scattered throughout the room. A settee was positioned across from a giant stone faced fireplace where a shirtless man sat warming his hands.
Shirtless man?
Ambrosia blinked.
Certainly, her eyes were playing tricks on her.
Then the shirtless man turned his head, his eyes meeting hers.
It wasn’t a hallucination-he was real. She hadn’t been expecting to find a partially dressed man, and he obviously wasn’t expecting to be found. It was but a moment before the man’s expression began to soften and a wicked smile slowly crept across his lips.
A smile that stole the breath right from out of her.
Every gently bred fiber in her body screamed to turn around and run straight out the door. Hundreds of years of proper English rearing had produced a base instinct to flee when in the presence of an unknown male (especially one with so little clothing). But then he stood up, cautiously, the way one does as if not to startle a deer. Standing, he was clad in nothing but buckskin breeches, the dim light from the flames playing over the sculpted muscles and sinew of his shoulders and chest.
Breeding be damned, her feet simply refused to budge.
Be sure to follow the rest of Jessica’s tour for more chances to win!
ENTER HERE!
