Jen Twimom is featuring a snippet from Hippie Mermaid on her delightful blog, That’s What I’m Talking About.
Find out more here.
Author Archives: Joanne Guidoccio
Sharing Mermaid Humor
Book Blast: Seal Watch
I’m happy to welcome back multi-published author Petie McCarty. Today, Petie shares her new release, Seal Watch.
Blurb
Someone is watching Cory. She can feel it in her bones . . . but why?
Navy SEAL Sean MacKay’s teammate is murdered after stealing a deadly nerve gas formula from Syrian terrorists. Naval Intelligence believes MacKay’s teammate was a traitor and shipped the stolen formula to his sister in the States for safekeeping. MacKay is ordered to find the sister before the terrorists do and to recover the stolen formula at all costs.
Foreclosure looms for Cory Rigatero as she struggles to keep her rustic resort near Mt. St. Helens afloat after her brother abandoned her to join the SEAL Teams. Cory’s whole world plummets into a tailspin when Sean MacKay shows up at her resort with news of her brother’s death and the shocking suspicion that her brother sent her traitorous classified documents.
No way will Cory ever trust MacKay—the man who once seduced her and then vanished into the night without a trace.
Excerpt
Cory stopped in the kitchen on her way outside. “I thought I’d go out front and see if Vern needed any help.”
“He’s all done,” Cookie told her and handed Garth a dog biscuit from the jar on the counter. “He had a boy out front helping him when I peeked out the window a bit ago.”
“A boy? You mean Jasper?”
“No, I’ve never seen this one around here before.” Cookie went back to stirring her pot. “Handsome, though,” she added. “They headed for the barn.”
“I’d better go see who it is,” Cory said, already striding for the back door.
She called out as soon as she reached the open barn doors, and Vern hollered from the small office that doubled as his shop. Cory threaded her way through all the equipment in the back half of the barn. Cookie’s stranger stood up when she appeared in the doorway, and Cory froze. This was no boy. This was a man. All man. And he literally stole Cory’s breath away. She had read that in novels before. Never believed it to be possible.
Until now.
Shaggy hair and dark brown curls, perfectly teamed with a matching beard, were her first thought. Her second thought was broad—really broad—shoulders beneath his black flannel shirt, and hips so narrow that his black jeans sagged a smidge on his tall, muscular frame. His sleeves were rolled up, and those forearms and biceps belonged to a working man. Good grief! Stop staring, Cory!
She caught herself before she licked her lips and jerked her gaze back to his face. Blue eyes that snared her gaze like a predator traps unsuspecting prey. Those blue eyes sparkled with just enough mischief to send a wicked flutter through her belly. Blue eyes that looked startlingly familiar.
Maybe she just wanted them to look familiar, so she could already know this handsome man.
“Mac here is our new help.”
Author Bio and Links
Petie spent a majority of her career at Walt Disney World—”The Most Magical Place on Earth”— where she loved working in the land of fairy tales by day and crafting her own romantic fairy tales by night, including her series, The Cinderella Romances. She eventually said goodbye to her “day” job to focus on her stories full-time.
These days, Petie spends her time writing new tales for her Cinderella series, her new paranormal-romantic-suspense series, The Watchers, sequels to her Regency time-travel series, Lords in Time, and more standalones like Any Fin For Love and Ambush in the Everglades.
Petie shares her home on the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee with her horticulturist husband and an opinionated Nanday conure named Sassy, who makes a cameo appearance in Christmas Watch, Book 2 of The Watchers series.
Visit Petie at her website, http://www.petiemccarty.com, or her Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/petie.mccarty, to get to know her, learn about her current projects, and discover her other published works.
Website | Facebook | X | Goodreads | BookBub | Amazon Author Page |
Amazon Buy Link
Giveaway
Petie McCarty will be giving away a $10 Amazon/Barnes & Noble gift card. Find out more here.
Follow Petie on the rest of her Goddess Fish tour here.
Halfway There
On Wednesdays, I share posts, fables, songs, poems, quotations, TEDx Talks, cartoons, and books that have inspired and motivated me on my writing journey. I hope these posts will give writers, artists, and other creatives a mid-week boost.
Here’s a thought-provoking poem from Kate Baer:
Halfway There
Whatever happens,
you are free to go. Free
to peel off what’s left of this story and choose
another. It is not
too late
It is definitely worth the trouble.
Remember the story of the lion
lost without his courage.
Too scared, full of fury,
the great wizard
standing in the emerald tower
knowing the lion was already brave.
The Secret Ingredient to Finding Your Writing Voice
(Hint: It’s Not What You Think)
I’m happy to welcome author J.H. Jones. Today, she shares her experiences with writing groups and her recent release, From Draft to Craft.
Here’s J.H. Jones!
I’ve belonged to several writing groups over the years. With each group, I’ve been privileged to learn something important about the craft of writing or the business of being an author. But in 2024, the feedback process with my writing buddies dramatically shifted my work.
Let me be clear: there was no miraculous moment where violins played in the background and my fingers suddenly wrote perfect sentences and my brain came up with flawless plots. What happened was I developed my writing voice.
My writing voice reflects my unique personality, experiences, word choices and purpose. A writing voice isn’t something you learn from a book or in a webinar. Instead, it’s about gaining an understanding of your authentic self, coming to acceptance, and exposing it with intention on the page.
Before joining writing groups and online communities, I wrote sporadically in isolation, second-guessing every word, making assumptions about what people wanted to read, and trying to fit into certain story categories that I didn’t even like.
But something magical happened when I started sharing my work and reading the manuscripts of fellow writers. I realized what made a story interesting to me, and I learned what writing skills I was good at.
Through my writing buddies’ eyes, I saw patterns in my writing I’d never noticed before—the rhythms that felt natural to me, the subjects that made my stories come alive, the characters who tugged at my heart, the moments where my authentic self glowed. And just as importantly, I learned from their work. Even though my buddies’ styles differed from mine, each manuscript I read opened a new door, leading me to different approaches, varied techniques, and countless possibilities I’d never considered.
Thanks to my writing group, I started reading more widely instead of focusing on what I thought I should read. I also experimented with my writing. I tried new genres and formats, and tested various points of view. Some attempts fell flat, but others touched my writing buddies.
And to my delight, my jottings sparked something genuine inside myself, something that felt like me. With each experiment, I moved closer to discovering what I really wanted to say and how I wanted to say it—in other words, my writing voice.
Today, my writing voice is still a work in progress. Yet, my confidence is growing with every story I get down on paper. And I’ve learned an important lesson: the more I write, the clearer my voice becomes. It’s like tuning an instrument—each writing session brings me closer to the right pitch, the right tone, the authentic sound that is uniquely mine.
My writing buddies have been essential to me on this journey. They see potential in my work that I can’t always see myself, and they remind me to keep going when doubt creeps in.
If you’re searching for your writing voice, my advice is this: find your group or community and exchange your works-in-progress, write as often as you can, and be patient with yourself. Your voice is already there, waiting to be discovered. It just takes practice, some writing-buddy support, and your personal courage to keep showing up to the page.
J.H. Jones Bio
J.H. Jones (she/her) is the author of The Write Group, which helps writers tap into the power of writing groups, and From Draft to Craft: A New Writer’s Guide to Feedback which helps writers with the feedback process. For creative fiction, she experiments with dark gothic-vibe stories and paranormal romance, while she works on her debut gothic horrormance set in New York State in the 1850s. Visit her at www.jhjones-author.com and connect with her on Bluesky, Facebook and Instagram.
You can purchase her latest nonfiction ebook, From Draft to Craft, here:
Blurb Blitz: The Tomato Jam Murder
I’m happy to welcome award-winning author Meg Benjamin. Today, Meg shares her new release, The Tomato Jam Murder.
Blurb
Roxy’s spending her summer with burros and jam, but there’s a murderer in the mountains.
It’s burro racing season in the Rockies, and Roxy Constantine is all for it. Now if she can come up with a good recipe for tomato jam, her summer will be complete. But when Roxy finds a body on the burro race course, she’s suddenly plunged into a murder investigation. And when her innocent friend is accused of killing her ex, Roxy must challenge a corrupt police chief who wants to shut her up. Now she needs to find the real killer and save a neighboring town from a plot to ruin its mountain magic.
Excerpt
“Peggy Sue, don’t you dare!”
Peggy Sue turned soulful brown eyes on my friend Laurel Beacham, who was a few feet behind her. She looked like she really, really wanted to go through the gate leading to Laurel’s front yard.
“Peggy Sue, you listen to me.”
Peggy Sue took another tentative step forward. Clearly, she was weighing just how much trouble she’d be in if she kept going. The gate to the front yard of Laurel’s cabin was slightly ajar and Peggy Sue would likely be able to step through it in just a moment or two. On the other hand, based on her tone of voice, Laurel clearly meant business.
“Peggy Sue, I will lock you in the barn, so help me.”
Peggy Sue gave her another of those tragic looks that conveyed, How can you be considering something so cruel? So inhumane? All I want is some grass. And it’s just sitting there.
Laurel picked up her pace, but she was still a little far away from the gate. I, on the other hand, was right there. I quickly stepped forward just as Peggy Sue started to push the gate open. I gave it a quick shove so that the latch caught, and the gate snapped closed.
Peggy Sue stared up at me, eyes narrowing. I had no idea if donkeys bit people who annoyed them, and I didn’t want to find out. I stepped back. “Sorry, Peggy Sue, but I think you were about to get into a space where you aren’t allowed.”
Laurel moved forward and grabbed the burro’s halter. “Oh, she was definitely heading for a space where she isn’t allowed. And she knows it full well.” She pulled Peggy Sue away from the fence. Shaking her head, the burro gave my friend a look that should have broken the strongest heart. She had some of the longest eyelashes I’d ever seen, along with those great big brown eyes. Puppy eyes are nothing compared to burro eyes.
Author Bio and Links
Meg Benjamin is an award-winning author of romance and cozy mysteries. Meg’s cozy mystery series, Luscious Delights from Wild Rose Press, concerns a jam-making sleuth based in the mythical small town of Shavano, Colorado. Her Konigsburg series is set in the Texas Hill Country and her Salt Box and Brewing Love trilogies are set in the Colorado Rockies (all are available from Entangled Publishing and from Meg’s indie line). Along with romance and cozies, Meg is also the author of the paranormal Ramos Family trilogy from Berkley InterMix and the Folk trilogy from Meg’s indie line. Meg’s books have won numerous awards, including an EPIC Award, a Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award, the Holt Medallion from Virginia Romance Writers, the Beanpot Award from the New England Romance Writers, the Carly Crown Jewel of Books from the Mid-America Romance Authors, and the Award of Excellence from Colorado Romance Writers.
Personal Facebook | Author Facebook | Instagram | Threads | Bluesky | Goodreads | BookBub | Pinterest | Amazon | YouTube | Website | Amazon Buy Link
Giveaway
Meg Benjamin will be awarding a $15 Amazon/Barnes & Noble gift card to a randomly drawn winner. Find out more here
Follow Meg on the rest of her Goddess Fish tour here
Wicked x 2
Two wicked mermaids, a mother-and-daughter duo, are determined to make a lesser mermaid’s life even more difficult. And they’re well-positioned to do so: La Bella is the tribe’s elder, and Annabella is the elder-in-waiting.
You can read a “wicked” excerpt from my new release, Hippie Mermaid, on Brenda Whiteside’s blog.
Accepting Rejection
On Wednesdays, I share posts, fables, songs, poems, quotations, TEDx Talks, cartoons, and books that have inspired and motivated me on my writing journey. I hope these posts will give writers, artists, and other creatives a mid-week boost.
In a recent post on the Writer Unboxed blog, award-winning author Greer Macallister shared advice on accepting rejection. Here’s an excerpt from that post:
If you don’t learn to accept rejection gracefully early in your writing career, you’ll end up fighting a lot of unnecessary battles later. Which is bad for you on many different fronts.
Because while there are some battles worth fighting in publishing–fight for the right editor, for marketing, for the right cover and title–there are a lot more that you can only win by not fighting at all.
Editor doesn’t want your book? Accept it. A major bookstore isn’t stocking it? Accept it. Your friend’s book seems to be getting all the book clubs and TV options and buzzy-buzzy Most Anticipated coverage? Accept it, and wish them well. Bad Goodreads reviews? Accept them and move on (or don’t read them at all.)
Does this bent toward acceptance fly in the face of the wisdom that persistence is the writer’s most important trait? I’ve thought about it, and I don’t think so.
Persistence, after all, is not just pushing forward. It involves flexibility. Adaptation. Persistence doesn’t mean you send your first manuscript to 100 agents, and then another 100, then another 100. It means you query widely to agents you’ve researched, take a look at the responses, and decide how to move forward from there. Maybe you edit that first manuscript, or maybe you write a different one. Folded into that process is acceptance. You explore, you try, you fail, you accept, you adapt, you try again, and if everything comes together just right, you succeed.
Lest We Forget
I Couldn’t Do It Alone
When I retired in June 2008, I launched my second act as a writer. I started with articles and book reviews, slowly finding my footing as my work appeared in newspapers, magazines, and online publications.
Buoyed by this early success, I began to dream bigger. Why not a novel? My original plan was to write and edit the novel, find an agent or publisher, and surprise everyone with a grand reveal at my launch party.
That was the dream.
The reality was very different.
I quickly discovered that writing and publishing a novel was very different from writing articles and book reviews. The scale was larger, the doubts louder. I couldn’t do it alone. I needed help, guidance, and boatloads of encouragement.
Continue reading on J.H. Jones blog.
Joanne Guidoccio 