Jennifer Sivec's Blog, page 3

As I continue introducing you to my favorite creatives, I definitely wanted to make sure you got to meet this one!

The first time I ever met JA Hensley, I felt like I had known her all my life. She’s a wife, mother, professional, as well as an author and a owner/blogger at Babu’s Bookshelf. She’s funny, smart, and kind, and even though I don’t get to see her very often, she’s someone I’ve grown to admire and respect quite a bit!

JA answered my questions like a champ and I’m so happy to introduce her to you, in case you haven’t met her already.

1. Dog or cat person?

I’m a cat person but I own a dog right now. My family is allergic to cats and that makes me really sad.

2. What are three interesting/unique/fun truths about you?

I went to boarding school for my last 2 years of high school.
I make all my own swag and some for other authors as well.
I teach at a community college and my most popular class is Human Sexuality.

3. What is the single most guiding principle in your, life and how does that impact your role in the publishing world?

I want to always be true to myself and do what I feel is right. As far as the publishing world, I write what I want and try not to let trends or others sway what I publish or promote.

4. What is one big thing about yourself that you would change and what have you done about it?

One thing that I’ve been working hard on is to be less shy around new people.

5. What do you do in the publishing world? 

I started out as a blogger and then, with the help of my BFF, I started writing. Now I’ve published 4 Contemporary Romance novels and I’m working on something new.

6. What is one thing you want people to know about you?

I love to read and discover new books and authors. I hope people find me approachable and likable. I love talking about books too!

 

Go and check JA out at any of her links and make sure you add her to your TBR list! She’s wonderful, amazing, and you won’t regret reading and following this wonderful author!

With the holidays coming up, I’m going to skip a couple of weeks but will resume after the New Year! Have a wonderful Christmas and New Year to all of my Loves. I wish you all the best!

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In my last post, I featured the beautiful and amazing CD Bradley, and in this one I want to introduce to you to JC Wing.  JC is a wife, mother, author, and editor, and an overall incredible person. She’s my editor and has become a good friend and someone I consider a soul sister!  She has an amazing work ethic, is incredibly positive, is a talented storyteller, and I absolutely adore her.

I’m sure you’ll love her as much as I do!!

Dog or cat person? I’m both. I have a seventeen-pound cat named Mouse. He acts as the logo for my imprint, Black Cat Press. I also have two chocolate lab puppies named Phoebe and Ursula. They make sure I step away from the computer and get a little bit of exercise throughout the day.

 

What are three interesting/unique/fun truths about you? Many (oh so many) years ago, I was a competitive ice skater. I got to live in Germany for two years – and absolutely loved it. I also collect baseball caps. It’s more fun to wear caps from places I’ve visited, but some of my favorites have come from places I’ve never been.

 

What is the single most guiding principle in your life, and how does that impact your role in the publishing world? I try to show my family and my friends that I’m honest, and that if I say I’ll do something, I will follow through. I work hard to be dependable. I believe in showing respect for people, to try to find out who they are, what’s important to them and to act accordingly. I think these things impact my role in the publishing world a lot. I’m an author myself, so when I edit for someone, I’m only interested in making changes that will make their work grammatically sound. Every writer has their own style, their own voice, and keeping that intact is very important to me.

 

What is one big thing about yourself that you would change and what have you done about it? I think I probably try to take on too much. Sometimes I think I should change this, but ultimately, I don’t think I ever will. I love being asked to do things. I’m a pro at multi-tasking, and I usually have ten different projects going on at once. I’ve heard many times that I should try to do less, but I’m very happy being busy, so I doubt I’ll try very hard to be different.

 

What do you do in the publishing world? I’m an author. I’ve written and self-published four novels: The Color of Thunder, Alabama Skye, A Skye Full of Stars and Dead Beat Dates & Deities. I also own an editing company called Wing Family Editing. I work primarily with indie authors, but I’ve had the opportunity to edit content for some websites as well. I’m a blogger, and I run a writing group on Facebook called Writing Challenge Warriors.

 

What is one thing you want people to know about you? I’m probably the biggest dork you’ll ever meet. I’m annoyingly optimistic and I smile and laugh a lot, but I’m serious about the things that matter.

 

Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/J.-C.-Wing/e/B00AZXVS1W

Wing Family Editing website: http://jcwing.wixsite.com/wingfamilyediting

Author Blog: http://jcwingandthegoddess.blogspot.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jcwing.novelist

Writing Challenge Warriors: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1638083136502522/

If you haven’t already, read one of JC’s books. You’ll be so happy that you did.

 

As an author, I’m so fortunate to get to met so many unbelievably amazing people: artists, designers, editors, readers, and of course, other authors! I want to share some of these people with you because it truly feels selfish to keep them to myself!!

The first person I want to  introduce you to is Author C.D. Bradley. I had the pleasure of being her table-mate that the wonderful Rebels & Readers Author Event hosted by Amy McGlone and Tonya Nagle. I LOVED this event and meeting C.D. She was fun, kind, and during in between meeting fantastic readers, we had fun getting to know one another. She is the author of the Stark Trilogy, which features Author BT Urruela on the covers.

I asked C.D. six questions and I absolutely loved her answers. I’m sure you will too.

Q.  Dog or cat person?

A. All animal person. I live on a farm with 2 dogs ( one Australian Shepherd named Jack and an Old English Sheep Dog named Lollie. We have a rescue cat named Little John, 42 chickens, and 2 ducks. A very large bear named Samson a host of turkeys and deer and one very annoying bobcat.

Q. What are three interesting/unique/fun truths about you?

A. Eeep um well I am a terrible farmer but I am learning. Every day is an adventure here and I just laugh at my self and go on. We have recently learned that I am unable to kill anything. This does not go well if you raise livestock. We had to “cull” roosters the other day and I literally cried.

I am very ADD and usually have three or four projects going at once.. Currently I work, homeschool, write books, bake wedding cakes and love my animals ( farm creatures)

Q. What is the single most guiding principle in your, life and how does that impact your role in the publishing world?

A. Guiding principle has always been pursue your dreams as if limits to your abilities do not exist…. just go for it with out trepidation. Don’t hold back in anyway. If you think of a long jumper or a pole vaulter if they hold back in any way they will fail before they even leave the ground. Put your whole self in to what you want to achieve.

Q. What is one big thing about yourself that you would change and what have you done about it?

A. Biggest thing that I would change is that I need to be more organized. I am working now to declutter and get rid of excess so that life with five kiddos is more manageable.

Q. What do you do in the publishing world?

A. I am a writer. So far I have written two books in the Stark Trilogy and I am working on the third and final which will release New Years Eve at midnight. This series is about a military doctor who is fresh out of school and a special forces sergeant. Their journey will entrance you, and then take you places you never imagined. I have really enjoyed writing this series. This final book is bitter sweet because I have spent so much time with Stark and Kira, writing that final The End may kill me.

Q. What is one thing you want people to know about you?

A.  Something to know about me …Hmmm I really enjoy meeting all the fans at each author event.  Though I am shy so its hard for me to engage people I don’t know, I love hearing about you and your lives and what you are excited about or frustrated by.

 

 

You can click on C.D.’s picture to follow her on Facebook! You’re not going to want to miss out on this wonderful author. Click on her book images to catch her books on Amazon!

Question…

When do you give up?

What is your breaking point in life? How do you know when enough is enough and that its time to say that you’ve  done all you can do but you can’t do it any longer?

Does anyone ever know? Is it when you’ve almost lost everything? Is it when someone else tells you that it’s enough?

Life is funny this way because there is never a clear answer and isn’t it different for all of us?  This journey that we’re on doesn’t come with a guidebook or a set of rules. We make them up as we go and often we’re just flying by the seat of our pants. As much as we might want to believe that we are governed and guided by the same principles in life, aren’t they different for everyone? Who gets to decide when we’ve reached our potential? Who gets to say that we will never go any further than where we are, right now? When do we face reality? When do we face our mortality? When do we raise the white flag and say that this isn’t working any longer, and that its time to give up on our dreams?

Who gets to say when we’re too old to try and that we’ve reached our full potential in life?

Are the people who tell us that we’ve done enough and that we should give up our friends or our foes? Or  are the people who are feeding our empty dreams and the belief that we can reach deeper and go farther, the real enemy? Are we sabotaging ourselves by continuing to believe in our purpose?

How do you ever know? Are we foolish and stubborn not to listen, or do we follow our hearts, and pray that we aren’t wrong?

When do we give up on it all and face reality? When do we stop believing?

Does anyone know?

 

 

I rarely wax politics for many reasons and I won’t in this post either, but this election has been painstakingly brutal.

Isn’t a large part of what makes America great the ability to have and speak your own opinions … Freedom? Isn’t that what this great country was built upon?

But this election and the world we have come to live in, disturbs me greatly. It has become a country where nobody can voice an opinion, and viciously attacking individuals or entire groups for having a differing one, has become accepted and even expected.

I wasn’t born in America and was naturalized when I was as three. I was born in South Korea, an unpopular girl-child left to survive on her own. Though the specific circumstances that brought me here will remain unknown, I am grateful and always have been for the journey that gave me what I have today. I have always been deeply appreciative that I was allowed to become an American. 

I became the daughter of a blue-collar union worker and a stay-at-home mother, and began working when I was fifteen years-old. I was an Asian-American who didn’t look like anyone else and was a minority in every setting, my entire life. I was ridiculed, made fun of, and called names by school-mates. I even had a great aunt who wondered if “they could fix my eyes.” 

I accepted that I was different at a very young age because I had no choice, but instead of allowing it to weaken me, it galvanized me. I didn’t allow it to define me, or destroy my potential for a wonderful life.  Instead, I embraced it and appreciated that I lived in a country that gave me the opportunity to thrive and work for a successful life. As much as it hurt, it didn’t matter. I was an American and that’s all that mattered.

Having children in 2016 America is a huge challenge because everyone walks around on eggshells and is afraid of the PC police. I want my children to be compassionate, kind, and strong young men, but I also want them to have a sense of humor and levity. While one of them is going to be handsome, dark, mysterious, and classically good-looking, the other will be impish, unavoidably irresistible, and adorable. But one of them looks more Asian than the other, and has already had to deal with racism and the ugliness of the human spirit. While my heart aches for him, I truly understand what he has experienced. Yet, while he has been hurt, he has also been helped by his friends who have defended and protected him, which is by far an even greater lesson and he has learned that he is beautiful.

The magic of America is that we all get to be different, have differing opinions, beliefs, religion and customs. But there are also processes, rules, laws, and accountability that come with living in our great country, and this sense of entitlement and expectation is frustrating and degrading. This lack of respect for process & procedure and for each other, is disheartening on many levels.

What truly breaks my heart is the nastiness, the name-calling, and the venomous vitriol that is spewed when there are disagreements. The violence and anger are dangerous and frightening, and encouraged by a society that doesn’t respect or appreciate that two sides can find value and common ground. There’s nothing wrong with having a different opinion, there’s nothing wrong with agreeing to disagree. Isn’t that what makes this such a wonderful country?

Let’s face it, there was no perfect candidate in this election! This election lacked a true leader with undeniable integrity or even a smidgen of likeabilty, which was incredibly disappointing.

But the democratic system operated regardless, and now we need to come together to figure things out to make the world better for our children and our future. Attacking friends, family, coworkers, and strangers because we aren’t happy with their opinions and views just makes us a bunch of dicks. 

We’ve become a country of A-holes who’ve been hating, unfollowing, defriending, and ridiculing the people we are supposed to love the most because they think differently than we do. We’ve become social communists. 

In truth, name-calling, bullying, and nastiness are playground tactics that will never get us anywhere. Never.

Aren’t we the ones who make America great? Aren’t we the ones who make up the fabric of this country? When we’re brutally attacking others, we are the ones muddying up and destroying our country. Now we need to stop, breathe, and realize that we have a lot of work to do. Not one side is completely right or wrong. If we can figure out how to work together, we can do this. But it has to start with us and how we treat one another daily. 

Watching the fallout of the election has been truly heartbreaking and disgusting. I hope we can look within and realize that the only people we are hurting with our vicious attacks, on both sides, is ourselves. I hope we can come together and listen to one another, appreciate and show compassion for each other like we did on 9/11.m

 We are a country that is capable and strong, but we’ve forgotten who we are, and what we can do when we stand together. I truly hope that we find ourselves again before it’s too late, before we’ve become so divided that we implode from within.

We are better than this. 

We are Americans.

I’ve been sorely irresponsible when it comes to this challenge, and I could make a million excuses but I won’t. Instead I’ll just jump in when I can and since I love potty humor, I figured this would be an excellent place to begin.

My bathroom is not my favorite room in the house! 

We’ve been looking at houses for about three years because our bathroom and our kitchen are often the source of much profanity in our house as our boys are on the cusp of becoming much bigger teenage, adult-sized people. Our master bathroom is the size of a closet, and even though we have two and a half baths, I would kill for a Jack and Jill sink and a beautiful big bathroom with a huge bathtub that had jets and room to read in. I would seriously never leave my house.

The trade off is that we love our home, our land, and our privacy. Even though the bathroom and kitchen is small, we STILL love our home. If we could move our home and yard, blow off the back of our house to make the kitchen and bathrooms bigger, it would be a complete win for all involved!

That’s my potty story and I’m sticking to it! 

I’ve been a busy little bee lately  in my personal life, professional life, and author life. I can’t remember a time when I haven’t been crazy busy, but it’s how I like it.

It drives my husband nuts because I can’t even sit still to watch television which has been that way most of my adult life. My mind is always racing with a thousand things to do, which makes it increasingly difficult to settle down. I usually move from one thing to the next, until I fall into bed exhausted.

As the boys get ready to go back to school, the shopping is done, and the summer is winding down, I am excited to get to focus on some of the author life things that have been neglected. Summers are an impossible time to finish and edit books, work on projects, and even focus on any marketing. I’ve decided that I’ll try and take at least one weekday this year, to try and focus on my author life because the buzz of too many unfinished things is enough to make feel stabby.

I also find that not having time to write also makes me extremely cranky, as well. When I’m writing, I am at peace and I need the time in my head to cope with the outside world, at times.

I have been able to finish a couple of things recently. I rewrote and added some chapters to The Forgotten, my fantasy series about how the selfish actions of one creature creates a world where the children have been abandoned and forgotten. It’s the first book in The Lost Children series. I loved the story about Jakob and Kell, but felt that it needed to be more robust and added some backstory to make it more interesting. This story is near and dear to my hear because the main characters were inspired by my boys and many of the children bear names of children I know. The next step for the Lost Children is to publish it in paperback.

I’m also in process of editing the third book in my women’s fiction series, Saving Eva. I’ve been hesitant as I finish it, afraid of disappointing fans of the series, but early beta readers love it. I do know that I’ll be adding a surprise ending to it, so you’ll have to stay tuned for that. (Sorry Elizabeth and Heather)

The first book in the series, Leaving Eva, has been reworked and is ready to be rerelease with Evatopia with a beautiful new cover. Eva’s powerful and emotional story will be available to new readers and will have the potential to reach a broad new audience, which is incredibly exciting!

I’m also working on a super-secret project that I’ll reveal soon. It’s something that I’m terrified of writing, but I’m doing it for that very reason.

 

I’ll be sending out more information about my super-secret project in my newsletter, so if you’d like to know about it, sign up here! I’m only revealing the secret in my newsletter, so you’re not going to want to miss out!

 

I thought about this post a lot and am a day late, but wanted to write it anyway. 

I didn’t date a lot growing up or even as a young adult. I usually had one relationship and then stuck to it until I didn’t any longer. 

I don’t have things that I would say in a public post, to someone specific. But if I had a chance to say anything to anyone I dated, it would be the following:

I’m happy for the time we had together. It was worthwhile and I appreciate what you brought to my life and I don’t regret it.
I wasn’t ready for you. I wasn’t an entire person when I was with you and even still struggle to be a good partner. I’m sure that means that I didn’t treat you as well as you deserved. 
I didn’t understand it until I was much older, but I had commitment issues even at a young age. That affected my ability to care about you.
Life has turned out exactly how it was meant to and I’m happy for the life I have and hope that you are happy too.

Life is too short to live in regret. I don’t look back and wish I had done things differently, because this path has led me to my two wonderful boys and my husband of nearly thirteen years. 

Could I have made better decisions along the way? Absolutely!

Did I love with all of my heart when I should have? No! 

Have I learned how to be a better person along the way? I hope so.

I don’t lack closure in my life from lost love anymore. There have been opportunities lost and things that should or should not have been said. But, when I look into the big dark eyes of my beautiful boys, I know that the love I have now, is the love I was always meant to. 

Before I begin, I have to say that I have such mad respect for my fellow writers, JC Wing and AK Lawrence who tackled a very difficult topic yesterday about a family member they dislike. To lay it all out, with so much raw emotion is what beautiful writing is all about. I wimped out and that’s all I’ll say about that, but some serious mad props to both of them for their beauty, strength, and honesty. (Both posts are linked to their names).

Today’s post is about things I miss. 

I don’t miss much in my life. I’m a live-in-the-now kind of girl. I try and enjoy the path that I’m currently on so that it doesn’t pass me by. 

But if I had to choose a few things I would say that I miss the following:

My grandmother’s hands. They were soft and pretty. When I was little I used to play with her rings, twirling them around her fingers, enjoying her closeness. I used to straighten them up so that they all lined up perfectly, and then would have to re-do it when they turned again. I wear her original wedding band, now. And every morning when I put it on I think of her,  her soft hands, her good heart, and how much I miss having her in my life. 
The unbridled happiness of my children when they were toddlers. They found joy in everything and had tears for nothing. They had no need to be sad, lonely, or worried. As they grow, I know that fear and unhappiness becomes a part of life, but I miss the days when they had no concerns, upsets, or worries.
Silence and solitude. My youngest is a lot like me in this way. He likes to be alone for hours on end and always has. I believe that I could go days in silence if I could, without speaking or sound. I miss the quietness that comes with solitude, which may come as a great surprise to many. I do tend to be an extrovert and I also love social interaction. But I also need to recharge and be alone with my thoughts, which doesn’t happen nearly as often as I would like, but I also understand that being needed is a good thing, and I’m not complaining. 

Those would be the three things I miss the most in life. I could also say that I miss being able to eat whatever I want, whenever I want.

There’s nothing too exciting here, I’m afraid. I’ll lay it out for you as quickly and painlessly as possible. 

Wake up at 5:30 am because I’ve convinced myself that I’m working out today. 
Roll back over and the  hit snooze  until 6:10 am
Check email before I even roll out of bed 
Shower
Let the dogs out
Make sure the Hubby is up
Make an entire pot of coffee that I won’t drink and might possibly even forget because every single coffee cup lid is missing!