• awards,  Books,  Uncategorized,  writing

    Cheers to Romance!

     

    Happy new week! I can’t believe we’re now well into December, it’s feeling like the end of the year wants to go out on a quick flash instead of a slow burn. I wouldn’t mind a bit of a slow down right about now. Just to savor the end a little.

    I had a wonderful weekend, heading into the city to meet with my RWA NYC chapter for our annual end of year holiday brunch which, as always was lovely and so much fun to relax with my old and new writerly NYC friends.  Well, this year’s brunch will be one that I will always cherish and never forget as I got the shock of all shocks when our wonderful president, Maria Ferrer stood to handle end of year business, announce the new board and then to finally announce the chapter’s member of the year, which I almost fell over when the name was called and it was … ME!

    Talk about humbled and grateful. Writing is such a solitary career and for me to have found such a talented and supportive group of like minded friends and fellow colleagues that I can call on makes me feel truly blessed. I will cherish my RWA service pin always. Thank you RWA/NYC with all my heart!

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    And then to top it all off another fabulous thing happened this weekend when my 2nd book: Seduction’s Canvas was one of 12 Crimson Romance books picked as part of the Amazon Big Deal and are on sale from now until December 22nd for only $.99! Just click to the link on the right for Seduction!  Cheers to romance!

     

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    All the best,

    KMJ

  • writing,  writing life

    Oh yeah, I’m bad!

    Happy New Week and Happy December! I hope all who were celebrating had a great Thanksgiving and a Happy Hanukkah. My Thanksgiving was lovely and full of Turkey and fun, though also quite full of my book 3 edits which I’m happy to report after a grueling process are now done and sent off to my editor.

    This was a killer round that I times made me want to throw up my hands and throw in the towel. Thankfully I didn’t do that. I took that towel and cleaned my glasses with it, wiped my brow & rolled up my sleeves and got in there and got it done. Dreaming is easy but making it happen is gonna cost you.

    Go me! I’m giving myself a high five for that one.  Who knows what the next round of edits will bring, but at this point I’m living victory by victory. So whoo hoo!

    Tina Fey giving herself high five Liz Lemon Gives Herself a High Five

     

    And congrats to Roxy for her win in Lena Hart’s giveaway. Roxy please send me your info so Lena can send you your prize! Thanks to all who entered 🙂

     

    All the best,

    KMJ

     

    image from here

  • funnies,  videos,  writing life

    Business Time

    Happy Friday and Happy Weekend! Good for us making it through the week. Though you know me when I’m in deadline mode weekends mean nothing and it’s business time and not in the HA HA way, but in the get down to business and get these edits done way.

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    That’s ok. The weekend are for everyone and business is what you make of it. Enjoy!

     

    All the best,

    KMJ

     

    image from amandaonwriting.tumblr.com

     

  • my view,  writing,  writing life

    Flipping the Script

    I have gotten my edits back from my lovely editor on my final book in my Crimson trilogy and to say my head is spinning right now is a huge understatement. I have to keep cleaning my glasses to see the black left on the pages through all the red at this point (yes I know a necessary evil but still, WAAAA!). So to that I will be a little MIA for a bit while I clear the fog in my brain, try to flip colors and turn my frown upside down to bring some order and control back to this story. See you on the other side and I hope your week is fantastic.

    Mood Balloons

     

    All the best,

    KMJ

     

     

    Image from Amanda On Writing Tumblr

     

     

  • Knitting,  my view,  writing life

    Persistence

    Yesterday I met with my buddies, The Knitsters for the 1st time in a long time. It was wonderful to step  out of the Bat Cave and into the light for a few hours and it was also great to pick up the knitting needles again after being away from them for so long.

    In anticipation I bought some new heather gray yarn in order to start on shawl that I had been admiring my friend knitting with a beautiful open weave stitch that was a step up from my usual knit/purl action.

    I cast on the 97 stitches and got to the point where I needed some help so I got my friend to show me the steps in the stitch that I didn’t know. Here’s how it went: K1*yfwd, k3tog,yrn,P1,rep from*

    No you’d think I’d be able to count, pay attention, and get that pattern but, um, no. My 1st try and I ended up off by 20 stitches. My 2nd try and I ended up off by 3, my 3rd try and I was off by 1. Yes people it took me 4 tries and this was no small scarf, I was casting on 97 stitches with each go, but after 4 times I finally got the row right and was so pleased with myself.

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    I think this says something to my never give it spirit (or just shows I’m loopy). Now I have to turn this attitude back toward my writing but remember to move away from the keyboard at times and bring it back to the needles.

    Have a great weekend and I hope you try something new or an old fave this weekend.

     

    All the best,

    Kwana

     

  • my view,  writing,  writing life

    Scribing New

    After working in Word for all of my books (and all of my near books) I have long been jealous of my writing buds who smoothly tout the benefits of working with the writing program Scrivener. They talk about how they don’t have to writer linearly, how they divide and then compile their scenes, how they can color code their scenes however they want and outline their work right there on their computer and so much more. Yeah, I was mad jelly. But you see I had Scrivener on my computer and I tried the program, but my hard to retrain brain just couldn’t get around the program.

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    Well, last week my good friend, super talented writer and it turns out computer wiz, Laura K. Curtis came by to help take me out of the ‘Dummie’ stage in my long Scrivener quest.

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    After her patiently going over and over how to insert files, add new files, label postcards and explaining ‘The Inspector’ (what is that again?) I’m honestly nowhere near what you would call an expert…

    But maybe I can now call myself a Novice as opposed to a Dummie. Hey, as long as I remember to keep hitting save every few minutes and just keep writing I should be a Novice plus in about 2 years or 3 books. Whichever comes first.

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    Tell me are you trying to tackle learning anything new or have you done so after doing it the same old way for so long?

     

    All the best,

    KMJ

  • my view,  writing life

    Skunked!

    Good day peeps! Hope this hump day is treating you right. I’m starting off trying to get over a couple of humps. The 1st, the day before, of tripping over my laptop cord and watching that thing crash to the floor. Heart stopping there. And the lesson: Backup! Backup!! Backup!!

    The next is: a skunk must have gone by last night and had a spray storm right by our house. Ugh! The smell work me in the middle of the night and it still has me riled today. I’m hoping the smell of frying bacon is a worthy air freshener. In my mind it is.

    Oh well that said, I’m wishing you an easy way downhill from the hump. Watch those skunks.

    bacon 3

     

    All the best,

    KMJ

  • my view,  photography,  writing life

    They’re Closer Than You Think

    Now that I’ve finished book 3 and handed it in I’m left tapping my fingers until I get my editing notes and have to look at the final book in my Creative Hearts series for the big clean up to get it ready for production.

    In the meantime it’s time to face the fact that it’s time to move on and step into a new world of my own making. Now sure, I could very well add on and on and on to this series, but it really is time to start something now. There are new stories, new ideas and most importantly, new characters that are starting to take shape and voice in my head, while the old ones are enjoying their Happily Ever Afters or at least Happily for Nows off in the sunset. Yes, the time is now.

    You can’t live your life in the rearview mirror. All the while hitting the breaks and holding up traffic. There’s too much crash potential. As the warning heeds, the objects behind you are closer than you think.

     

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    All the best,

    KMJ

  • my view,  Through The Lens,  writing life

    What a Day!

    Yesterday was an amazing day! Like I said to a writer friend on twitter, “I feel like a seat filler at the Oscars.” Just how did I get invited to this party? It was just magical seeing my 1st published book, THROUGH THE LENS climb in the ranks and getting to hang out with all the cool kids. I was totally nerding out. Once again, I can’t thank all my FB, Twitter friends and Crimson Sisters enough for sharing, tweeting and doing what they could to spread the word on the Kindle Daily Deal yesterday. Once again it proved to me just how wonderful and giving the romance community is. I feel so lucky to be a part of it. And I’m so happy to announce that thanks to you all Through The Lens, as if this moment has made it to #1 in Multicultural and Interracial Romance.

     

    Oh and I’m guest blogging today over at my local RWA/NYC chapter blog today with an excerpt from THROUGH THE LENS. Check it out here. Thanks.

     

    I am so grateful and feel truly blessed. Love to you all.

     

     

    TTL #1c  multicultural 9-17

     

     

    paparazzi

     

    All the best,

    KMJ