All Photos: ©Mary J. Dressel
It’s time I get back to the 52-Week Blog Challenge after a brief hiatus. I’ve been finalizing two books to come out this year, and I wrote the end to another book also coming out in 2019, but that has nothing to do with this blog hop other than I’ve been busy, busy, busy! ❤ #WritersLife
This week’s topic sounds like a similar topic from the last two years:
I can only answer for me and whether life exists outside of my writing world. This answer is twofold. Putting words to paper took the back burner for a lot of years while I grew from a child to a teen to a young adult to a wife. I raised a family and worked outside of the home. These were happy times, but the need to write was always there.
Through the years, I always scribbled down words be it a poem or a short story, and I knew one day I’d write books. It just wasn’t the right time back then because I had a life outside of writing. What I didn’t know was how important it would become one day. Or how much time it would take to keep up with the business side.
Moving forward many years when everything about my life changed. Kids live their own lives, but I still receive much joy from spending time with them. Retirement allowed me to write full time, so nowadays, creating stories is my life, and no, I don’t have much of a life outside of this career, but I do make sure to find a balance that works for me.
I still have friends that I had when I was young and raising a family, plus new friends. They know of my dreams. We still go out to walk together, take little day trips, socialize, and continue to talk about my writing and books. However, I don’t do as much with them as they’d like.
Family and most friends understand that this is how I roll these days. Still, they would prefer I had an equal balance of life and career. I do keep my heart and soul in harmony. If I won the lotto or sold hundreds of books a day, I’d be happy to give the same amount of time to work and life–maybe even more to LIFE.
What about other authors? Participants in this blog challenge will tell you by visiting the 52-Week Blog Challenge blog for links to their blogs.
I appreciate your visit today. Enjoy what’s left of summer. It goes by too fast.
And now, I’m going for one of those walks.
The BALANCE sign is made of metal and hangs on my refrigerator by magnets on the back. While shopping with my son and daughter-in-law, I purchased this at a quaint little store in a small town nearby. As soon as I saw it, I had to have it! ❤
Balancing rocks credit: Pixabay
TODAY I’M POSTING something completely different from a regular Friday post. Writing books—romance books—featuring mature couples because I have a book coming up with a mature heroine. I suggest pouring a beverage if you plan to stick around. This is long. I wrote this post at least a month ago to fill in for a Friday post. Today is the day.
If this was a 52-Week Blog Challenge post, the topic this week is: Bucket List Have or Have Not, so it’s a variation of a previous topic. I’ve posted my Bucket List in a previous year.
When I say “couple” as female and male in this post or on my blog, I do so because it is what I write so it fits my blog. We all know romance and falling in love can happen to anyone and everyone no matter who you love.
I’ve been researching the genre called Seasoned Romance. Here’s an example.
Some websites write that the characters in this genre/sub-genre are over forty and up. Some even say thirties.
If thirty is the case, all of my books are Seasoned Romances because none of my main characters have been under thirty except for Natale in Christmas at Love House, A Bittersweet Interlude.
She isn’t really a main character but an important secondary character because the story is partially about her too.
Now, at this point in my multiple series, the heroines and heroes are in their mid-thirties and beyond. My brand-new upcoming series hero in book one is forty. His sister is older than him by two years. There are three younger brothers.
In searching Amazon, numerous books came up under Seasoned Romance. I noticed some “sponsored products” or “advertised products” showed a short description specifying the main characters as forty in those books.
I guess I write seasoned romance. Who knew? Ha-ha.
I’m mentioning this because my upcoming heroine is in her sixty’s. That’s right Double Dutch Ranch readers. Through the progress of the series, Judy Carlson has slipped into a new decade and a few years beyond. She’s far from old. To avoid the idea that she may be lonely, she distracts herself with her grandkids, the horses, and the ranch because she still pines for her first love, Bill Carlson.
Nonetheless, Judy discovers much about herself while rediscovering what she’s missed for well over a decade. This lady is not beyond eyeing a hard body, or a worn ranch foreman’s strong arms from tossing bales of hay for a lifetime, or sexy eyes on a distinguished looking man with salt and pepper hair.
My goodness, she isn’t dead! Once accepting it, she’s thrilled about her new internal and external revelations.
My debacle is in questioning whether I can call this book a Seasoned Romance because my cowboys get a say throughout the story in their POVs.
I can’t write her story, this story, without letting her family talk and share their own thoughts, and they have many. It’s because of their ages and their role in the story, that made me think I couldn’t call this book a Seasoned Romance.
Research has told me it’s okay.
This one is about Judy as the main character, but they all have their own little stories with updates about their lives going on—in their words.
However, I don’t consider my other books to be Seasoned Romance and haven’t promoted them as such. Maybe I should.
A year ago or more, when I mentioned writing this book to a woman some years younger than me, but still a senior, she told me she could never read about an older couple and especially an older couple having sex, so she wouldn’t buy a book in my character’s age group—my sixty-some-year-old heroine. She’s an author of steamy romance, so she isn’t against reading or writing love scenes, but this thing called Seasoned Romance would not appeal to her. I bet she isn’t alone in her thinking.
Let me tell you…
Like Judy, I had become a dating senior woman with two men younger than me, and then I became a wife. Honey, I’m not dead or blind, either.
No, I didn’t date them at the same time! One relationship lasted for five years. The other one I married six months after meeting. I’ve lived through my own seasoned romances.
Regroup. Ah, there we go…
I can’t speak for all, but women in Judy’s age group and older, still crave passion and desire and have a lot to give in that department. Match that up with a lifetime of experience while still having the ability to keep on learning. I learned some new things. Whew! We’ll stop there.
I hope this leaves you–dear Double Dutch Ranch reader and new readers–curious as to how I handled sensuality in the book—referring to Judy, of course. I wondered how I’d write it too. Once I followed the characters wants and needs, I had no problem.
Her sons are still hot-blooded-sexy and their heroines are sexual and sensual even in their late thirties and forties. This doesn’t change in my upcoming book within their POVs. I can’t believe I said “even” in their late thirties and forties. To me, that age group is not…uh, um…for lack of a better word, senior.
I use the words steamy, sexy, sexual, and sensual, but I don’t write erotic romance.
To some, my books are more sensual than they’d like. To others, it isn’t enough. So, I write what is right for me and my characters.
Most of you following my blog don’t read romance, or my romance, I should say. For those of you who do read romance whether sweet, steamy, or anything in between, would you read a romance about a couple in their sixties and beyond? Maybe, like me, you wouldn’t know until you read one.
Any thoughts?
Yes, even though I do LOVE COWBOYS and the whole western environment, I’ll read other books. Most of my Kindle and iPad books are western unless I have purchased books by fellow author friends who write different genres of contemporary romance.
I, as a writer, still need to slip into other worlds now and then.
At the time I read those books, I never gave a thought to writing a seasoned romance until readers asked me to write about older couples. It wasn’t called seasoned then. Maybe mature romance? Unfortunately, in a search for mature romance, what came up wasn’t what I had expected. <eye roll>
You might find this website interesting. It features Author Nan Reinhardt. Is Seasoned Romance a Real Thing? Coincidentally, Jacquie Biggar, hosted Nan Reinhardt on her blog today.
I have read a couple of Nan Reinhardt’s books and thoroughly enjoyed them.
A couple of the authors at these links might be members of Marketing for Romance Writers group, but we’ve never corresponded. I came across these links while searching the topic of seasoned romance and recognized names, but I didn’t post the links because of recognizing them, but because it gave you a couple sites to take a peek at if you’re curious. Maybe you’ll take a chance on reading a seasoned romance with mature couples.
Maybe when Judy’s book comes out, you’ll take a chance on reading one of mine.
I have covers for my other two upcoming books coming in 2019, but I’m not revealing them yet. I don’t have a cover yet for Judy’s book.
Thanks for sitting through this. Enjoy your weekend. 💙
Images from Pixabay.
Learn more at Visit California.
It isn’t me in the picture above, but my Facebook Page image is at Burney Falls.
Howdy! It’s a record-breaking heat wave where I am along with much of the country. 🔥 We’re used to heat but not this high. Stay cool! I don’t remember if I ever experienced 107 degree temps before, but once while visiting Sacramento, CA, it was 104. I noticed! We had a storm roll through last night and many are out of power. They need prayers to get it connected. Another one is expected today. Recently I told my oldest who lives in California that I’d probably move there in a couple years. I guess Mother Nature is breaking me in and preparing me for the summer temps.
THIS MONTH, I’m featuring Whispers of Forever: Mending Christmas, a Second Chance Romance—the first book in the Spin Off to the Double Dutch Ranch Series: Love at First Sight. Wow, a featured book I haven’t mentioned yet this month. Shame on me. Bad blogger!
I’ll change that today.
It isn’t necessary to save Whispers of Forever for Christmastime reading because it doesn’t only revolve around the holiday. It revolves around two people and a young boy getting a second chance.
I love this book, but where did I get the idea?
Simple answer. From a song that interrupted that “almost asleep” stage. I grabbed my phone and jotted down the idea, but once I started writing, it went in a different direction.
Who doesn’t deserve a second chance?
Beth and Jake do. Especially when it should’ve been them all along. Against their will, they had been ripped apart from each other. Thirteen years later, Beth moves back to Canyon Junction, our small-town setting. Jake never left, except for those few years after Beth moved—the times he doesn’t like to remember—the times when he attempted to drown himself in a bottle or kill himself as a reckless cowboy with a passion for saddle bronc riding.
The snippet doesn’t feature Beth, but in the book, by now, they had unexpectedly come face-to-face since she had returned. This short piece deals with Jake and his child.
After feeding and watering their horses, they came in from the barn. Trace got a bath. Then Jake took a shower while his boy ate ice cream in front of the TV. He stood at the mirror in the small bathroom downstairs about to put shaving cream on his face.
A shattering scream ripped from Trace’s throat, “Daddy! Daddy? Dad…”
What the hell? Jake dropped his razor and rushed into the living room. “What’s the matter? Why are you watching the news, bud?” He glanced at the screen. Breaking News. “What happened?”
Trace stood in front of the TV pointing. He didn’t say anything more, but his chin dimpled and quivered.
Jake’s feet had been knocked out from under him, and he dropped to the sofa. Blood drained from his face, and it all dropped to his feet. His head spun, and he was unable to believe what he saw. Oh, my God. “Come here, T.J.” He reached out to bring him close, to hold him, to embrace him.
“A plane crash. Is it Austin’s plane?” he asked, close to hysteria. “It is his! Dad?” He read out loud, “Piper PA32,” as information scrolled across the bottom of the report. Trace turned toward his dad, his face wet with tears, his body trembling.
“Here, let’s change the channel.” Jake’s phone rang before he got the remote. He lost all focus, but his gaze couldn’t leave the TV screen. What was left of the plane looked like the one in the picture he had held in his hand earlier, and he let the phone ring.
Trace answered before Jake could grab it, “Mommy, is it you?” He held the phone out to his dad with a terrified blankness in his eyes. “Grandpa Bill wants to talk to you.”
Jake took the phone. Everything moved in slow motion from that point on. “Hello…”
End of excerpt.
Sorry for the cliffhanger ending here. 😁 You’ll never find a cliffhanger ending at the end of one of my books.
Description
What can stand in their way this time?
Second Chance Romance
Rancher Jake Lawton never expects to become a single dad to his nine-year-old overnight. However, one last malicious act his wife had done before leaving them, could affect both he and his son’s lives. By chance, he runs into his high school sweetheart, never expecting the same old yearnings to return with one “How are ya?” embrace. Has their unanticipated meeting arrived at the perfect time, or has years apart put an end to what should’ve been years ago?
Beth Marconi arrives home to help care for her ailing father. In town, she inadvertently runs into her first love—the cowboy she nearly married after graduation. Sparks ignite before they say hello, but how do they start over when life has left them so bruised? When her ex comes to town, she’s forced to explain the secret surrounding her short-lived marriage. Is Jake the kind of man who will understand, or will he revert to the hell-raiser he had become when Beth left thirteen years ago?
Filled with both anguish and hope, a young boy and two lonely hearts pursue a second chance.
Canyon Junction: Hearts in Love Series
A Double Dutch Ranch Series Spin off novel.
Check out this book and the other spin off series books HERE.
Thank you for visiting!
I’m late with posting to the blog hop, but here I am now with a 52-Week Blog Challenge post. Taking part this late means I missed the Linky Sign up deadline.
Let’s begin:
This topic came around a year or two ago, but I can’t find the post referring to it.
No, I don’t put me, the actual person into my stories. Nope. Not as “myself,” but events in my life and more, aspects of my personality, or the way I think about things–negatively and positively, have turned up in many of them.
I admit, some aspects of my personality do come out in my story. How can it not? I know myself so well.
This happened outside of the book and in the interim between books four and five, so readers never experience the event. Readers will find glimpses of the aftermath through the eyes of the Carlson family. I’m sure this will move avid readers of the series and make them ask “why?” Because:
These are some ways I add similarities to events I’ve experienced either first-hand or how I saw it through the eyes of someone else, but I tend to keep a lot of me hidden. To the best of my knowledge, my heroines are more themselves than me, because a girl can’t give away all her secrets.
As always, we can find the other participants at this Linky Link on the main Marketing for Romance Writers Blog. #MFRWauthor
Thanks for reading!
October 2019!
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