Tag: Blogger

Self-worth in ‘Reunion of the Heart’

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 14 Comments

RotH-Cover

As part of the build up to my publication of Reunion of the Heart this Friday, I thought I’d share with you a little bit about one of the themes in the book.

Obviously as it’s a romance, love is the central theme. But there are others too and the one I wanted to mention is one of the lesser themes, though still important: self-worth.

It’s an issue that my MC Anna struggles with. During her school years she was dumpy and unattractive – or at least she thought she was. She was painfully shy and suffered from very low self-esteem.

I think a lot of us can relate to that. I had a terrible time at school and my self-esteem was basically zero. So when I was writing Reunion of the Heart, I definitely drew a little on my own experiences and channelled it into my portrayal of Anna.

The adult Anna, who we first meet when she’s just broken up with her boyfriend, is a lot more confident – at least superficially.  She’s still insecure about herself though and her self-worth is quite low.

At different points in the story her best friend Melissa tells Anna that she doesn’t realise how beautiful she is, and that men can’t make her out because she’s very attractive and yet so shy.

I think as regards the theme of self-worth in Reunion of the Heart, Anna’s self-worth – or lack of it – is one of the key aspects of the story.  It affects her writing (yes, in case you didn’t know she’s a successful published author!), her friendships and her relationships with men.

Anna doesn’t give herself enough credit for all that she’s achieved in her life – she’s not keen for people to know that she’s a published author for example and would rather hide behind her pseudonym.  She’s very close to Melissa and is constantly asking her for advice – she’s afraid to make decisions herself.

Again, that is a little like me!  I’m not great at making decisions (as my husband will tell you!) and so it was interesting for me to turn that aspect of my own personality into a character trait of my MC.

As for Anna’s progression in the story… well I’m not giving anything away!  But I will say that the story arc and Anna’s place within it are very much tied up with her feelings of self-worth.

I guess that’s true of a lot of us – the way we live our lives is closely linked to our sense of self-worth.  Seems to me that the greater your self-worth, the happier you’ll be.

So I hope you’ll pop over here for a chat on Friday as I publish Reunion of the Heart.  And maybe if you like the sound of the novel, check it out on Amazon…

Oh and one last thing: what are the lesser, but still important themes in your stories?  And do you find yourself growing in confidence as the years progress?

Until next time!

A sneak peek at ‘Reunion of the Heart’

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 11 Comments

RotH-Cover

Well the release of Reunion of the Heart is fast approaching. Only four days to go!!

Now I know most of you don’t take part in WIPpet Wednesday, so you won’t have read any of the excerpts from Reunion of the Heart that I shared.

So… I thought I’d share a spoiler-free excerpt from it with you.  To give you the lowdown on the story, Reunion of the Heart is a romance about Anna, a young woman who returns to her school for a reunion after her friend encourages her to go.  She’s reluctant to go because her school days weren’t her happiest.  But the reunion sets in motion a chain of events that lead Anna to realise her life will never be the same again.

In this excerpt Anna has arrived with her best friend Melissa at her old school for the reunion.  She’s feeling nervous…

Melissa’s voice brought Anna back to the present with a bump.  She’d been so distracted that she had hardly noticed the car slowing down.  Now she felt all unprepared.  As the school loomed up ahead and the car ground to a halt, Anna could feel all her previous anxiety about the event hit her like a blow to the chest.  Am I doing the right thing in going to this thing? she wondered.  It was as if the reunion was her own personal D-day.  

Seeing her old classmates, gauging their reactions to her and making a good impression – she had to get it right or the battle would be lost.  She hadn’t forgotten what Melissa had told her, but being relaxed about it all and keeping it on her terms was easier said than done.

‘Are you OK, Anna?’ Melissa asked her voice concerned.  ‘You’ve been very quiet since we started talking about your parents.  I’m sorry if I’ve brought it all back for you.’

Anna shook her head.  ‘It’s not your fault.  Sometimes I find it hard to face the fact that my parents haven’t been together for years and never will be again.’

Melissa nodded.  ‘So you’re happy to face the brood of vipers now?’

Anna pulled a face.  ‘You make it sound so pleasant.  But yes, I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.  Let’s go inside.’

 ******

 They got out of the car and headed for the entrance.  Anna shivered in the cold wind.  Although it was early March, winter was still clinging on and she was freezing.  Her fancy coat and winter dress weren’t as warm as her puffer jacket and fleeces, but she wanted to look good and so today fashion won out. 

Her long chestnut hair was pulled back into a neat ponytail which Melissa said really suited her.  Anna stumbled a little as she walked; she didn’t wear heels very often.  As they approached the school buildings, memories of being a pupil here flooded back to her.  It was hard to believe that she and her ex classmates were thirty one now.  She and Melissa walked through into the hallway where there was a large banner saying ‘Class of 98’.  A middle aged woman she didn’t recognise was standing there waiting to greet them.

‘Welcome to Mayfield Secondary “Class of 98 Reunion”,’ she said.  ‘In case you don’t remember, the sports hall where the event is being held is at the end of this corridor.  I hope you have a fun evening.’

Anna and Melissa smiled and nodded, though they didn’t need to be directed.  Anna felt as though she had the memory of this place engrained in her mind.  They walked down the corridor which was every bit as long as she remembered.  Loud music from the sports hall drifted towards them.  Melissa gave Anna’s hand a squeeze.

‘It’ll be OK,’ she said softly.  ‘Just remember what I said.  And if you’re really struggling imagine everyone’s naked!’

Anna snorted with laughter and then covered her mouth quickly.  ‘You are quite loopy, Mel,’ she said.

Melissa shrugged.  ‘It’s what a friend taught me once,’ she said.  ‘You’d be surprised how well it can make you feel more relaxed.’

I hope this has whetted your appetite!  I’ll be posting every day on this blog in the run up to the release on Friday.

As always any comments gratefully received! 🙂

A BIG thank you to my lovely cover reveal volunteers

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 2 Comments

I just wanted to do a quick post to thank the ten lovely people who took part in my cover reveal yesterday for my new novel Reunion of the Heart.  Drum roll please…

Adrian J Smith

Amy Leibowitz

Emily Witt

K. L. Schwengel

Kate Frost

Kate Sparkes

L. S. Engler

Mishka Jenkins

Only Books and Horses

Secret Lives of Fiction Lovers

Thank you all so much for your help in this.  I really appreciate it.

If you’re not on this list – or even if you are! – do please visit these great bloggers’ websites.  They’re fantastic and really worth a look. That’s it from me now.  Have a lovely weekend!

Cover reveal for ‘The Slayer Saga: Soulless’!

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 6 Comments

slayer saga soulless cover reveal

I’m pleased to be taking part in the cover reveal of my fellow indie author L. S. Engler as she promotes her soon-to-be-published novel The Slayer Saga: Soulless.  Here’s a little bit of info about the book:

The Slayer Saga: Soulless is the first book in a trilogy about a world that has been overrun by zombie-like creatures called Soulless.  The Slayer of the Soulless is a legendary figure who roams the earth, protecting the Untouched from these undead monsters.  There are a few safe havens in the world, but her latest visit to one reveals a dark plot to kill her and, suddenly, the safe havens are not so safe any more.
With a small band of survivors, she must find the elusive Queen, who floats over the land in a flying airship, seeking help and guidance about this new situation.  What the Slayer finds with the Queen, though, is an even bigger problem that may threaten the whole of humanity once and for all.
Described by one beta-reader as Buffy meets The Hobbit and by the author as Thundarr the Barbarian meets The Walking Dead, Soulless is a journey through a terrifying landscape of civilization on the brink of reinventing itself .
Here’s some more information about the author:
L. S. Engler has been writing for as long as she can remember and has previously published a collection of short stories entitled Bowlful of Bunnies.  The Slayer Saga: Soulless is her second book, first novel, and the start of a trilogy which will include books published in 2015 and 2016, as well. She blogs at lsengler.com and can be found on Twitter @lsengler
You may also be interested to learn more about the talented cover artist:
Ingrid Pomeroy is a mixed-media and digital collage artist who loves to work with anything old and beautiful.  She incorporates her passion for vintage photos, postcards, lace, buttons and ephemera into her art.

Ingrid has been featured in publications by Stampington & Company, including “Somerset Studio,” “Somerset Memories,” “Gallery,” “Home,” “Life,” “Apronology”, “Somerset Digital Studio”, “Green”, “Wedding,” and “Holidays & Celebrations.”  She has also been featured in “Shop, etc.”  Ingrid appeared in several episodes of HGTV’s show, “Curb Appeal,” designing and working with the families on decorative projects.

Ingrid sells her work in specialty shops in the Monterey and San Francisco Bay Areas and on http://www.anoriginalbyingrid.etsy.com.  Her work is also featured at the Oregon Shakespeare Tudor Guild in Ashland, Oregon, and Maribelle Chocolates in New York City and Kyoto, Japan.

 

That’s it from me.  Do keep an eye out for this author. 🙂

WIPpet Wednesday & call for cover reveal volunteers

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 18 Comments

Classroom

Welcome to the wonderful, weird world that is WIPpet Wednesday when we writers share our work. Today as well as sharing some of my writing with you, I wanted to ask if any of you would be willing to take part in my cover reveal for Reunion of the Heart.

I haven’t set a date for it as yet, I thought I’d see how many people would be willing to participate first. But it will be soon as I’m making the final touches to Reunion of the Heart and it won’t be long before I publish it. Yay!! I’m amazed, actually, that it’s come around so fast – I was expecting things to take a lot longer to prepare it for publication. But things have come along really well.

So anyway that’s that.  For my contribution to today’s WIPpet Wednesday, I’m being generous and sharing with you 30 sentences for the 30th July (see what I did there?  Genius!!).  OK so maybe not generous by some people’s standards… Anyway it’s another excerpt from my romance about a school teacher.

Before you ask, no I haven’t decided on a title yet.  It’s currently saved on my computer under the hugely original title of ‘school’.  I’m rubbish at thinking up titles for my novels and this one is no exception!  I’m completely stumped at the moment.

In the scene I’m sharing today, my teacher MC Rebecca has kept two of the boys in her class behind at school because they were messing around during the lesson.  They’re not too happy about being given a detention and Rebecca isn’t wildly thrilled at having to keep them there either…

As they’d been told, Daniel and Richard stayed behind at the end of the lesson.  As they were standing in front of Rebecca’s desk to learn their punishment, their faces were surly, their shoulders slumped.  Outside it was a beautiful afternoon, the sun was shining, the sky was blue – and it was a Friday.  Rebecca didn’t really want to be there herself, but it had to be done.  She couldn’t let this go; they needed to understand that rudeness and disrupting the class was unacceptable.

‘Daniel and Richard, I’ve decided in the next hour, you will both write me a two page essay on a book you’ve read which you enjoyed.’  She saw their scowls deepen and sighed inwardly.  This was going to be a long hour.  She watched as they took the paper she handed them and trudged back to their desks.

In spite of her better judgement, curiosity won out and Rebecca pulled out the piece of paper which she’d seized from Daniel from her desk drawer.  She glanced at him, hoping he hadn’t noticed her looking at it.  But Daniel’s head was bent in concentration over his writing.  Rebecca’s lips twitched as she read what was written on the piece of paper, and she had to purse her lips to stop herself smiling.   

It was a little poem about her – she assumed it was written by Daniel.  Not only did it rhyme perfectly, it had a clear rhythm as well.  It was cheeky, yet not offensive, although she did note the allusion to her looks.  But that didn’t bother her.  Rebecca knew what young men were like and she was aware that she wasn’t unattractive.  She stole another glance at Daniel; this time he was looking out of the window and while she had the chance, she quickly put the paper back in her drawer.

Looking at the clock, she saw that there was still ages to go until Daniel and Richard’s detention was up.  Resigned to her fate, Rebecca picked up the first in a large pile of exercise books to begin marking.  But the stories the year 8 pupils had written about their favourite weekends were engaging and often amusing.  She had to suppress a chuckle now and then.  Before she knew it, she looked at the clock and saw that the time was up.

‘All right then,’ she said to the two boys who were looking tired and fed up, ‘you can go.  Put the essays on my desk,’ she added as they approached, ‘and I’ll see you both tomorrow.  And I hope I won’t be seeing any of that misbehaviour again.’

Daniel and Richard shook their heads, clearly itching to be gone.  They turned to leave the room.  Then Rebecca thought.

Oh BTW I should say if you need to contact me re. the cover reveal my email address is: elaine (dot) jeremiah (at) gmail (dot) com

That’s it from me today.  If you’re reading this, but you’re not involved in WIPpet Wednesday and you think it’s something you’d like to get involved with, it’s easy to take part.  Just share on your blog anything you’ve been working on recently writing-wise.  Your excerpt should preferably relate in some way to the date.  Then once you’ve done your post, add your details here.

Thanks once more to K. L. Schwengel for hosting.

Struggling to keep it together

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 42 Comments

Depression

I’ve been working on character profiles for my WIP about a school teacher which I’ve been sharing with you. So while I’ve been doing that I haven’t been writing.

So I’m sharing with you something different today. It’s from a story I was working on some years ago, but never finished. It’s a highly personal tale – you could say it’s semi autobiographical. I would like to finish it one day and maybe publish it.

It’s about a girl of about 15 who’s struggling at school.  She has few friends and is very unhappy.  Then a new girl joins the school and she’s kind to my MC.  They become friends.  But unfortunately for my MC it doesn’t last.

I’m sharing with you 23 lines for the 23rd July:

I withdrew into myself, trying to talk to as few people as possible.  If Mum and Dad asked how I was, I put on a brave front, smiling and saying I was fine.  No one guessed how I was feeling.  At school, I tried to stay by myself as much as possible, not wanting to be seen.  At lunchtimes, I didn’t go out, I just stayed in the library, trying to absorb myself in a book, hoping that somehow a good story would make the pain go away.  Christine had been the only friend I had had in as long as I could remember, and now she was dead.  I couldn’t bear it.

   I stopped sleeping.  My nights were ones of restless tossing and turning, throwing the bed covers away from me, and then in turns gathering them towards me.  I was always very quiet, not wanting to wake my parents or Bryony.  Even so, Mum started to notice a change in me.  Whereas before I had answered her questions, be it monosyllabically, now I didn’t say anything.  When I went down to breakfast a couple of days after the announcement of Christine’s death, she was sitting at the breakfast table reading a newspaper.  Looking up at me with a serious expression on her face, she said,

   ‘There was something in the news this morning about a girl from your school who was killed in an accident.  It was Christine, wasn’t it?’

   I didn’t answer.  Mum sighed.

   ‘Kate, why didn’t you tell us?  Your dad and I wondered what was wrong with you.  Lately you haven’t been yourself.  We had no idea of what you were going through,’ she said, coming over to me and laying a hand on my shoulder.  ‘We want to help you in anyway we can,’ she added.

I’d love to know your thoughts on this so please comment. 🙂  And if you would like to take part in WIPpet Wednesday, all you have to do is post some of your writing (old or new) on your blog.  It should (ideally!) relate to the date.  Once you’ve posted it, add your details to this linky.

Thank you K. L. Schwengel for hosting.

Feeling misunderstood

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 35 Comments

Misunderstood

Hello one and all and welcome to this week’s WIPpet Wednesday here on my blog. Well technically it’s still Tuesday here, but I’m posting early again. 🙂 My apologies for being absent last week – though I did manage to comment on a few WIPpeteers’ posts, I didn’t do my own.

This was down to fatigue – I’m working quite hard at my day job and sometimes I just don’t have the energy for extras (for want of a better word), such as WIPpet Wednesday.

Anyway I read some good excerpts last week and I’m glad you’re all keeping up with your writing.  Which I am with mine, though not quite every day.  I did manage over 600 words on my WIP last night despite feeling shattered so I was happy with that.

For this week’s WIPpet,  I thought I’d share with you 11 sentences (9 for the day + 2 from 2014)  from my current WIP.  (I’m definitely gonna need to think of a title soon – I’ve done over 11,000 words now!) In this scene my MC Rebecca, a teacher, is talking with a colleague about the way her family and friends don’t seem to be able to understand the pressures of her new job:

‘That badly, eh?’ Jenny’s sympathetic tone forced Rebecca to be brighter.  She wasn’t going to have anyone feeling sorry for her.  That was one thing she wouldn’t be able to stand.

‘Actually no,’ she replied turning to Jenny and smiling with an effort.  ‘It’s just that teaching is a lot of hard work.  I knew it would be when I decided to train, but it’s made harder by my family and friends not really understanding that.’ She looked away again, remembering her spat with Michelle which she still hadn’t resolved.

Jenny was nodding.  ‘I completely understand.  When I first began teaching – well to be honest with you it led in part to the breakup of my marriage.’

If you would like to take part in WIPpet Wednesday, all you have to do is post an excerpt of your writing on your blog.  Only stipulation is that it must relate to the date in some way.  Then add your name here.

Thank you to the wonderful K. L. Schwengel for being our hostess with the mostess!

Unsure

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 19 Comments

Unsure

This is going to be a quick post as I haven’t got a lot of time this evening. But I just wanted to share with you a little about what’s been on my mind today.

As with many of my thoughts it’s to do with my writing and how it’s going.  To update you, I’m about to send my upcoming novel Reunion of the Heart to my proofreader. Once I have it back from her, I’ll start making the final preparations to publish it – hopefully by the end of the summer.

But it’s not Reunion of the Heart I’m stressing over – well not much anyway! 😉  It’s actually my new WIP, as yet untitled.  I’ve shared bits of it on WIPpet Wednesday; you can read this week’s excerpt here.

What I’m unsure about is the fact that it’s about a teacher (it’s a romance), a young woman, who works in a secondary school (11-16 yr olds), but I don’t know a huge amount about secondary schools in the 21st century – I haven’t been at a secondary school for the best part of 20 years.  I’m kind of feeling that I may be out of my depth.  I just don’t know enough about, for example, how technology is used in schools nowadays.  I’m sure it’s light years away from when I was there.

Also, although I’ve planned quite a lot for this story (I am DEFINITELY a plotter not a pantser!!), I feel that it’s still not clear in my head the way it should go in the middle.  I know the beginning and the end, I even know part of the middle, but it’s the in between scenes I’m trying to create now which are wearing me down.

So I was wondering… what do you guys do when you’re in a similar position to me?  Do you keep going and plugging away at it?  Or do you think ‘I’ll stop and do something else, or go back to the drawing board’?  And have you ever been writing something where you’re unsure you know enough about it?  If so, what do you do?

It’s  a lot of questions, I know.  But as always your thoughts are welcome. 🙂

Something new for WIPpet Wednesday

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 24 Comments

Hi all.  As the title of this blog post suggests, I decided to do something a bit different for my contribution to this week’s WIPpet Wednesday.  I haven’t actually written anything new for ages – I’d put my new WIP on hold while I was editing Reunion of the Heart.

Anyway, I decided that because I hadn’t done anything new I’d create something new.  What follows is something I’ve written in about half an hour.  I don’t know if it’s good, I don’t know if it’s bad, so as always your comments are welcome.

It doesn’t relate to the date, but hey you can’t have everything!  But it’s not too long either, so that’s a bonus!!  I won’t say anything else about it, so just enjoy. 🙂

What am I doing? she asked herself as she turned around and left him standing there in shock, his mouth hanging open, as though all the words he wanted to say had deserted him just as she had. 

But she kept walking on and didn’t look back; she couldn’t.  This was it.  She had to take a stand – she couldn’t do this anymore.  Her life had been one big lie for the past ten years.  If only she could make him understand.  It’s too late for that, the merciless voice in her head told her.  There’s nothing else you can do.

Tears pricked at her eyes as she thought of what might have been.  She blinked them away and trudged along, the one bag she was carrying heavy on her shoulder.  She half expected him to come running after her, to grab her arm and wrench her back into his life.  But she knew him better than that – the indifference he showed her that had threatened to engulf her.

Her mind carried her back to their wedding day, how happy they’d been.  The hopes and expectations that they and all their friends and family had had.   She remembered the smiles of her father, the happy tears of her mother, her own joy at celebrating this perfect day as she was marrying this wonderful man.  Was it really only ten years ago?  Somehow it felt a lot longer than that.

The road she was on, literally and metaphorically, was not one she would have chosen for herself.  It would be an uphill climb, and there would be no one to share her heavy load.  She stared at the narrow pavement she was walking along; it was the evening rush hour and vehicles of all shapes and sizes were rushing past her, some narrowly avoiding crashing into her, all oblivious to her presence, her pain.

Barely aware of the traffic, she soldiered on, remembering the clichéd saying: To thine own self be true.  Reaching the pedestrian crossing she’d used on multiple occasions, she pushed the button and waited for the signal of the green man.  Its beeping jolted her out of her reverie and she began to cross, never seeing the car, whose driver was talking on her mobile phone, until it was too late.

There you have it.  If you would like to take part in WIPpet Wednesday, it’s easy.  Simply post on your blog any piece of your writing that you want – preferably relating to the date – and then add your name to this.  Then you can read all the wonderful things that the other WIPpeteers have written.

Thank you K. L. Schwengel for being our hostess with the mostest!

How I’m blogging now

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 32 Comments

I just thought I’d continue on from what I was talking about the other day – blogging, gaining more followers on my blog and how to go about it.

Well I’ve signed up to follow a fair few more blogs in the hope that that may be a way to gain more followers myself.  And, of course, it’s interesting to read others’ blogs and see how they’re successful, what they do or don’t do that I could learn from.

I’m a bit flummoxed by one thing though.  For a long while I didn’t add tags to my blog posts as I wasn’t aware of how useful they could be.  I think I may have gained a number of followers through tagging my posts.

But the thing that’s puzzling me is this: when I Googled certain words that I use as tags in my blogging, intending to see if I could find other writers’ blogs, it came up with very little that was helpful i.e. hardly any relevant writers blogs at all.

So it got me thinking – how exactly do tags work?  Are they what other people use to find blogs to follow – do other people Google certain words to find a blog they might like to follow, or do other people know something I don’t about tags?

Anyway I’m confused by that.  Any info about that gratefully received.

To go back to the main point of this blog post, as well as working hard at blogging myself, it’s been interesting to see how various other bloggers go about… well blogging.  Some of them list targets they’re trying to achieve (I don’t find this particularly helpful, in fact it’s a bit boring!), others intersperse anecdotes about their non-writing lives (which I find fascinating) and then of course many blog about how their writing is going, their plans for releasing their novels, details of when their novels are being released etc.

I have found that the most successful blogs engage with their readers; they provide good content that others want to read; they ask questions and the blog itself is attractive and looks good.

As for my own blogging – well I’m trying to comment on others’ blogs as much as I can – though I do delete a number of posts as I haven’t got the time or energy to look at them all.  I’m only human!

With this blog, I’m trying to post more often, as obviously that is so important.  I also intend at some point to start linking more to other blog sites.  Some of the most effective blog sites have great links to helpful sites for writers.

Here are some that I enjoy:

Catherine, Caffeinated

Daily (w)rite

Shannon A Thompson

Joanne Phillips

I think I’ll leave it there for now.  But before I go, here’s a question for you.  Do you have a favourite blog that you keep returning to and why?  I’d love to hear your thoughts.