Jan Scarbrough's Blog, page 19

My Writing Plans for 2014

I’ve already “plotted” my writing goals for 2014. I’ll be burning up the keyboard well into the summer months writing books that have 2014 release dates. So, what am I planning this year?

Early in the year (January or February, depending upon my editor and my husband formatter) I will self-publish Freely Given (Short Medieval Romances). This is a collection of short romances first written under the pen name Darby York. Poor old Darby retired (although I may make her a character in a book someday), and her stories are coming out under my name. I’ve also written a new short romance to go along with three already published ones. “The Novice” joins “The Troubadour,” “The Betrothed” and “The Duke” in this collection.

I have finished writing Brody, part of the Long Road Home series, with Maddie James. I’m waiting for edits. The four book series is due out in the summer. I have another book to write for the series called Mercer. This series is set on a Montana ranch and is about the siblings in one family.

Next on my list to write is one of the new books in the Return to Legend series. Mine is called Heart to Heart. My heroine is an animal communicator and the hero is an uptight businessman. It should be great fun to write!

My final contracted book for 2014 is Kentucky Blue Bloods, book eight of my Bluegrass Reunion series. I can’t wait to start it.

No time! I have no time! ARGH!

I have five RITA books to read before March too. My life is jam-packed, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

What about you? Have you set your goals for 2014?

 

Merry Christmas and God bless all of you

I’m blogging early this week to wish you a Merry Christmas.

I used this event in A Groovy Christmas which is part of the Legendary Christmas Pa st Boxed Set. My characters are moved as they watch it on an old-fashioned black-and-white TV set.

This content is courtesy of The American Patriot’s Almanac

Apollo 8’s Christmas Eve Broadcast

The year 1968 was one of the most discouraging in modern U.S. history. The Vietnam War dragged on. Despite major civil rights bills, many people feared the country was turning “increasingly separate and unequal.” The nation grieved over the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy. Riots filled city streets.

At the end of this dismal year, a Saturn 5 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral on mankind’s first attempt to reach the moon. On board were three Apollo 8 astronauts: Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders. Their mission was not to land on the moon, but to orbit it ten times. NASA told their wives that the men’s chances of making it back to earth alive were about 50–50.

On Christmas Eve millions of enthralled TV viewers watched as the astronauts transmitted a blurry but miraculous image of the lunar surface. Then they heard the voice of Bill Anders: “We are now approaching lunar sunrise and, for all the people back on Earth, the crew of Apollo 8 has a message that we would like to send to you. ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light, and there was light . . .’”

The astronauts took turns reading the first ten verses of Genesis. Then Frank Borman said, “And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you—all of you on the good Earth.”

After a year of death and destruction, the astronaut’s brave journey and healing gesture were like a balm in Gilead. Apollo 8 held the promise that a free people would not fail after all. Americans coming together could still achieve wonders.

 

 

 

 

Christmas festivities bring memories

My husband and I will have eight grandchildren around the tree on Sunday before Christmas, because the day is convenient for all our children and their families. We’ve moved the tree from our tiny living room to the bigger space in the basement in anticipation of the chaos to come.

 

In the past, we’ve tried to read Twas The Night Before Christmas to the assembled horde, but there’s so many of them, all little, that it hasn’t worked out too well. Daddy Bill’s lap can only fit a few at a time. And forget trying to get them to eat. Kids today seem to graze through meals. That’s why I’ll be making finger foods. No big meals for us this year.

 

And getting these kids to wait to watch each person open a gift is almost impossible. They are all into “me” and what gifts they will receive. They don’t want to wait. They don’t want to savor the joy of giving, which is my pleasure on this hectic day. But I’ve fooled them this year. All their gifts from us will be in a large duffle bag, also part of their gifts. It was my easiest wrapping year ever.

 

I remember hating to wrap gifts. My mom and I would sit around a card table and do the deed. My packages never looked very good. But I was a kid. What did I expect? And Santa Claus was always so slow, wasn’t he? It took forever for Christmas day to arrive. Not so today. We turn around, and it’s upon us. We’re running here and there frantically trying to decorate, buy the last gift, or mail the Christmas cards.

One year my father was one of the Three Wise Men in our church Christmas pageant. He walked down the center aisle singing We Three Kings. Later, as I learned the truth about Santa Claus, I also heard horror stories of my father assembling my gifts at night after I’d gone to bed. My father wasn’t the handiest man. But the stories were always told with laughter and love.

 

When my children were born, my parents always enjoyed spending Christmas Eve and Morning with us. Watching their grandchildren finding Santa’s gifts was probably even better than watching me discover mine. I’d give anything if my mom and dad could be with us Sunday watching their grandchildren tear into their packages.

 

You know, maybe they will be with us. In our hearts. The love never dies, does it?

 

I’m Touring

I’ve never been on a blog tour. For an author, the point is to visit several blog sites so that your name and your book or books can be “discovered” by more readers. Turns out, there are bloggers who can arrange these tours for you. After all, I should be spending my time writing the next book, not coming up with hostesses for a tour.

Next week, the Itching for Books Blog has planned my very first book tour. It’s for Timeless, my paranormal with romance elements. I’ve entered RWA’s RITA contest with it, did you know?

I’d really like more people to “discover” it, so I opted to hire a tour guide. I’m giving away a $25 Amazon gift certificate as part of the tour.

Here are my stops next week. Some will review the book. At others, I’ll be interviewed or blogging.

 

December 16

The enigma of herself 
Musings Of Immortals Guest Post

December 17

Alison J’s Book Blog 
Dreamer Guest Post
simplistic reviews Interview

December 18

The Book Town
Angee’s After Thoughts Interview

December 19

Vicky @ Deal Sharing Aunt
The Busy Bibliophile Guest Post
Whimsical Nature 

December 19

The Dragon Pedestal – Brutal Honesty
My favorite Things 

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

 

Anticipation—What? More Legend Stories?

It’s the calm before the storm. We’re expecting two bouts of winter weather this week after it was in the 60’s yesterday. I’ve been to the grocery store for “milk and bread.” And of course, the weather people make it sound as if it’s the end of the world.

It’s December, and I’m also anticipating Christmas. The tree is decorated, this time in our newly renovated basement. Most of the presents are purchased, but need to be wrapped. I know I need to write the Christmas newsletter to family and friends, a tradition started by my father. It’s harder now to anticipate Christmas than it was as a kid. I know all the preparations that go into it. As a kid, I just thought it would never get here. The waiting was the hard part then.

Finally, I’m anticipating writing the next manuscript. I had thought it would be another in my Bluegrass Reunion series that is planned for 2014. But no! Those pesky Ladies of Legend have put their plotting caps on and are running with four new stories set in Legend, Tennessee!

Turns out our boxed set of early Legend books Love in a Small Town has done so well at the Kindle Store and attracted so much interest that we have to bow to the demands of our growing audience.

So, stay tuned. The year 2014 should be an interesting one as usual!

Christmas Boxed Sets a Amazon

A Legendary Christmas Boxed Set 
A Legendary Christmas Past Boxed Set

 

Thanksgiving blessings

Like many women on this day, I am up making preparations for the family feast at four o’clock. Thanks to Paul’s Fruit Market who provided the bulk of the food. And thanks to my chef son who’s coming early to whip potatoes and make my mother’s banana pudding.

When thinking about a Thanksgiving Day blog, I thought about being creative, but the day doesn’t lend itself to that. What am I thankful for? My family, of course—four children and their spouses, eight grandchildren with one on the way, and of course my husband.

Once at a church service, each person in the congregation gave thanks out loud. My father said he was thankful for “health.” At the time (I was much younger), I didn’t understand it. Today I do, especially after the October we had this year. I’m thankful today for my health and my husband’s health. I’m thankful we joined Baptist/Milestone Wellness Center.

I’m also thankful I’m healthy enough to ride American Saddlebred horses. Premier Stables is so much fun, and I’m thankful they’ve let me ride champion horses this year. I’m thankful my granddaughter has discovered the love of riding at Zubrod Stables and that my daughter has rediscovered it at Showtime Stables. Most of all, I’m thankful for a job that provides the extra money for my “horse fix.”

Finally, I’m thankful for my writing buddies—you know who you are—and my ability to write, grow as a writer, and produce, I hope, quality romance novels. As the day begins, along with my other Ladies of Legend authors, we find our boxed set of Legend novels and novellas in the top 100 romance books at Amazon. Love in a Small Town has caught the imagination of readers who long for the simplicity of love and family.

 

 

 

 

Thanksgiving always brings thoughts of Christmas—oh, my!

The kids and their kids are coming for Thanksgiving dinner. I’m already thinking ahead and plan on cleaning my basement and buying food. But after next Thursday, I plan to put up the Christmas tree sometime during the weekend. And I’ve already started shopping for Christmas gifts. What about you?

Turquoise Morning Press, one of my publishers, has provided a digital Christmas gift for our readers this holiday season. We have two boxed sets of our Ladies of Legend Christmas stories.

My favorites are the two “historical” novellas in the Legendary Christmas Past Boxed Set. They were fun to write—Legend, Tennessee, in 1968 and 1969. I’d forgotten how much chaos we had during those years. Sort of like today, ya think? Maybe all history is chaos. We’re living through it and just don’t see it that way.

Recalling all three Ladies of Legend novellas that are my part of the box set, I realize that my characters are alone for Christmas. Their lives are in flux. Some are in turmoil, others melancholy. I’ve never been alone at Christmas. Have you?

But being romances, my heroines, of course, do not remain alone! Why should they when I love the hope of happy endings?

And that’s the beauty of a romance novel and the Christmas season….hope and love.

 

A LEGENDARY CHRISTMAS PAST BOXED SET

Six Christmas novellas set in Legend, Tennessee past.

If Only In My Dreams… Christmas 1944 and 1945 by Janet Eaves
A Groovy Christmas, 1968 and Not Quite Christmas, 1969 by Jan Scarbrough
Under The Mistletoe, 1975, and The Holly and the Ivy, 1978 by Magdalena Scott

My Novellas

Christmas 1968—a year where women are burning bras and men are burning draft cards. Can Kathleen Fields and Grant Winchester, from feuding families like the Hatfield’s and the McCoy’s, reconcile their differences and find love in Legend, Tennessee?

Christmas 1969—Accountant Frank Smith doesn’t want to go home for Christmas, not since he was dumped by his long-time girlfriend on Christmas Day a year ago. Avoiding Legend, Tennessee, is high on his priority list until he meets his mother’s houseguest—hippie chick Emmy Johnson, a girl with a past . . . . and maybe Frank’s future.

Excerpt from A Groovy Christmas by Jan Scarbrough

Kathleen ate the last bite of her sandwich and wadded up the plastic wrap. Grant took the trash from her and their fingers touched. They gazed at each other, not blinking, not breathing. In those brief seconds, his face hovered closer, and she knew he was going to kiss her. It wasn’t meant to happen, but it did.

Already dizzy from the wine, Kathleen’s senses spun. Grant tasted of peanut butter and Sauvignon Blanc. He smelled like the outdoors and male muskiness. His lips were warm, the finger that caressed her cheek, gentle and soft.

“I want to make love to you,” he said, watching her over the rims of his glasses.

She drew back, her eyes wide with surprise. “Love or sex?” Her voice cracked a little.

He cupped her cheek, his fingers cool on her flushed skin. “Love,” he said firmly. “I don’t have sex with women I don’t care about.”

Kathleen searched his face and saw sincerity in his eyes. She saw desire there too. “I don’t know.”

He removed his hand and sat back. “I forgot. You’re the good, small town girl.”

There was a moment of silence while she thought about it. Other girls did it. This was the sixties, for crying out loud! She had let the whole sexual revolution pass her by. She’d never even burned a bra.

“No commitment, if that’s what’s worrying you,” Grant said, reaching for her and wrapping her in his arms. She laid her cheek against his chest. He was warm. His heart beat strong and sure. “Let’s do it, Kate. Because we can. Because we’re young and healthy and free.”

Note: The town of Legend, Tennessee and its residents live in the imaginations of its authors. The town and all characters are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

The “history” of My Lord Raven

“Finish your unfinished manuscripts,” the psychic at the psychic fair told me several years ago. That was right after I’d been rejected again from a major New York publisher, a particularly disheartening rejection.

In the 90’s, I’d started two stories that continued to “collect dust” in my hard drive. In fact, after writing Tangled Memories, I put on my dream list that I wanted to write a medieval. My bookshelves of medieval history books testified to my seriousness. I’d finish “my medieval”—some day.

My medieval has been quite a process. I started it in 1995. It won the Wisconsin Romance Writers’ historical contest in 1997 where it garnered this quote from and editor, “The clean writing was a pure pleasure!”

In 1999 I queried Kensington editors, hoping to sell to Precious Gems Historicals. I’d “sold” by that time and hoped to translate those Kensington sales into another one. But the lines were full and my book wasn’t complete. You need a finished manuscript to market it to a publisher.

So my tale of a medieval knight and his fair lady was shoved aside for work on contemporary stories.

In 2004 I entered my medieval in a couple of contests, and won the Great Expectations Contest, North Texas RWA Chapter, and the Southern Heat Contest, East Texas RWA Chapter.

Still no complete manuscript. I had five finished chapters.

So, in the summer of 2005, I put butt in chair and began to write the rest of the novel. When I completed the novel in the fall of 2005, I sent it out to publishers and collected my share of rejections. Then in July of 2006, I queried an inspirational publisher who was starting a new line. When this project wasn’t “right” for the publisher, I refused to give up. In September, I submitted my first version to Resplendence Publishing and was delighted to receive “the call” via e-mail.

Today I’m celebrating persistence. My medieval, My Lord Raven, is an e-book and can be purchased in paperback at Amazon.com. In the next few months, I will be self-publishing short, medieval romances which were originally published under the pen name Darby York.

 

Cowboys can be from Kentucky too

Monday I was a guest at Authors & Appetizers, the blog that combines good food, good books and the latest from popular authors in all genres. Besides the blog post, which I am reposting below, you can find a picture of me riding a stuffed bull, my great-aunt’s recipe for cowboy cookies, and information about Kentucky Cowboy.

Here’s my blog post.

You’ll find several popular themes in romance novels—themes such as reunion stories, secret babies, twins, marriages of convenience, bad boys, and of course—cowboys. When I decided to write a cowboy hero, I began doing research. After all, I’m from Kentucky. I’ve been out West, for sure, but at the time, I didn’t feel qualified to set a story there.

One group I learned about during my research was the Professional Bull Riders, Inc., called simply the PBR. Check their website. You’ll learn what they are all about: “This is not a rodeo. We don’t rope calves, and we don’t chase barrels. This is bull riding, and the first rule is just to stay alive.”

It’s not “if” you get hurt in bull riding. It’s “when.” My husband says these cowboys are crazy. But he goes with me anyway to do firsthand research. We’ve driven to Nashville, Lexington, and watched PBR events several times in Louisville. I even had my picture taken riding a “stuffed” bull. Ha! Ha! Too cute!

Bull riders are from everywhere. The PBR website explains:

“More than 1,200 bull riders from the U.S., Australia, Brazil, Canada, and Mexico hold PBR memberships. They compete in more than 300 bull riding events per year on either the elite tour, which is the Built Ford Tough Series, the Touring Pro Division, or the PBR International circuits (PBR Australia, PBR Brazil, PBR Canada and PBR Mexico). The ultimate goal for PBR athletes each year is to qualify for the prestigious PBR World Finals in Las Vegas where the coveted title of PBR World Champion is decided.”

So, when I started to pull together ideas for Kentucky Cowboy, I thought why couldn’t my cowboy be from Kentucky? And why would he come home? Family, of course. And what if he meets his old girlfriend, the one who dumped him so many years ago?

That’s how stories start—with the “what if?”

In the book Folklore on the American Land, Duncan Emrich makes the point that the cowboy is “a symbol of what we as a people and nation have wished as our way of life. He is a projection of our hopes and desires, a projection of our best code of ethics, of our wished-for mores.”

Americans always been attracted to cowboys for what they represent: individualism, independence, freedom, courage, loyalty, and much more. Bull riders are gaining popularity. Why? The PBR website sums it up: “Professional bull riding is a fierce, rough, and grueling sport with roots deeply imbedded in American culture. It’s America’s original extreme sport.”

 

If it’s Thursday, I need to blog

Sure, it’s Halloween and festivities with the grandchildren are all messed up tonight because of bad weather. Plan B is trick-or-treating at the local mall.

Sometimes, well often, real life intervenes on my writing life. This week it’s been nerve-wracking—husband in the hospital, day job responsibilities. I returned from the Novelist Inc. conference in Myrtle Beach with a huge list of to-do’s for promotion. Not happening. Yesterday I did get out my paperback books of Tangled Memories to my three Goodreads contest winners.

The session last week with the most impact on me was Lisa Cron’s talk from her book Wired for Story. She urged us to forget about the Hero’s Journey and lists of plot points. We need to focus on the emotional heart of our story. Since I think I do that in my books, I felt validated.

With Halloween’s arrival, we’re heading into the “holiday season.” More things to think about—like decorating, buying gifts and wrapping them, and maybe, just maybe, cooking the holiday dinner. So take a deep breath. It will get done.

I keep telling myself that.