Sample Sunday: This Time for Keeps

Remember that Saturday Night Live skit with Rob Morrow, where he's sitting with some friends, and always seems to lag five subjects behind the conversation?  Here's the clip:

Five Subjects Behind - SNL: Rob Morrow

Anyway, when it comes to digital media and marketing, I feel like Rob Morrow as he enters the bathroom: on the verge of an entire new world of possibilities!

Like many writers who struggle to fit writing into an already overflowing schedule (day job, family, keeping the fridge stocked and the bills paid), I need to prioritize how to spend my time.  Do I work on my next book or market the ones that are already out?  Do I tweet, post on Facebook, or blog?  And how about promotion?  So many services!  Blink, and a new one pops up.  Which are worth the investment of time and money?

I don't know what the right mix is, and would be happy to hear from more experienced writers about their thoughts.

In the meantime, I'll continue to fly by the seat of my pants.  Always a little behind.  Always trying to catch up.  Bear with me, and I promise to eventually get it right!

Today, I'm trying something new.  Sample Sunday - where a writer puts up a sample of her latest work for readers to enjoy.  It's Sunday night (actually, 1:28 am Monday morning--do you sense a theme here?), and this excerpt is from This Time for Keeps (Doctors of Rittenhouse Square, Book 3).  Each book in this series can be read as a stand-alone, though some characters do overlap.

And now, without further ado...

This Time for Keeps

(Doctors of Rittenhouse Square, Book 3)

By

Jill Blake

A random act of violence...

When a senseless act of violence shatters her perfect world, Dr. Isabelle DiStefano struggles to rebuild: 

new life, new job, new man.

A second chance at love...

But sometimes the past can be hard to let go of, especially when old flame Luca Santoro reappears in her life and decides he wants to start over

...this time, for keeps.

The wait is almost over...

This Time for Keeps 

(Doctors of Rittenhouse Square, Book 3)

A random act of violence...

When a senseless act of violence shatters her perfect world, Dr. Isabelle DiStefano struggles to rebuild: new life, new job, new man.

A second chance at love...

But sometimes the past can be hard to let go of, especially when old flame Luca Santoro reappears in her life and decides he wants to start over...this time, for keeps.

Coming in February to Amazon Kindle!

Also available on Amazon, Doctors of Rittenhouse Square Books 1 and 2:
Pursued by the Playboy - Kate & Marc's story
Taking a Chance - Samantha & Alex's story 

Stay tuned for the cover reveal...

Procrastination 101

in case you're looking for ideas...

1. Keep multiple calendars. Wall calendar at home.  Another at work.  Appointments calendar on your iPhone. Google calendar on your laptop (because you're not loyal to Apple, and your 5-year-old ThinkPad works just fine).  Monthly dry-erase calendar for each of your children (except the youngest, who can't read yet). Write on these in permanent marker, as otherwise the boys would wipe each other's entries off "accidentally on purpose"; better some rubbing alcohol, roll of paper towels, and lots of elbow grease once a month than having to play referee yet again on a daily basis.
2. Update said calendars regularly.
3. Read your email.  Especially the multiple posts from Barr. Phillip Butulezi, an attorney of law to a deceased client who left behind Fifteen Million one hundred thousand united states dollars (US$15,100,000.00)-- money that is unclaimed, and YOU are the only person who can help gain access to this fortune.  
4. Troll the entertainment websites to get the latest on Miley Cyrus and her tongue, Kate and Will et al., and Jennifer Aniston's hair (yep, it's in the news again).
5. Flip from book to book to book.  You've got that TBR stack on your bedside, not to mention the virtual one on your e-reader of choice -- and really, how and when else are you to get through it?
6. Pick the most complicated DIY Halloween costumes for all three kids, and get started on them.  Even though next Halloween is still eleven months away.  
7. Browse through Overstock.com for all those knick-knacks which you're never going to need.  Add them to your basket.  Then delete.
8. Answer the phone, every time it rings.  Especially when it's the Affordable Care Act robo-caller telling you about the wonderful new website you can visit to enroll for medical insurance.  Go to said website, and try to enroll.  Keep at it!  It's bound to work eventually.
9. Turn on the TV.  Or Tivo.  Or Hulu.  Or (fill in your viewing medium of choice).
10. Return to #1.  Repeat.

Social...what?

My kids are growing up in a brave new world dominated by social media. 

Me, I’m still trying to figure out what this whole hash-tag thing is about.  I don’t have a twitter account.  Or rather, I do, but I’ve forgotten how to access it.  The only time I used it was back in ’09 when I got incredibly frustrated over bad customer service at an airline that shall remain nameless (you know, the one that “breaks guitars”).  They managed to lose my luggage on a one-hour direct flight, and every time I called them to try to resolve the issue, I ended up getting transferred, or put on hold, or disconnected.  Finally I got through to a real live person, who denied all knowledge of any lost luggage claim (though I filled out the paperwork in triplicate before leaving the airport).  So what’s a girl to do at 5 a.m. but open a Twitter account and tweet her outrage into the world wide web?  (By the way, it worked:  within an hour of that tweet, I got a call from the airline that they’d miraculously recovered my luggage and would deliver it that day!) 

After that, I got caught up in other things:  work, kids, real life.

But the virtual world just wouldn’t go away.  Friends kept bugging me to open a Facebook account.  Email is passé, they said.  IM—what’s that?  You can still text, but what you really need is photos, videos, check-ins.  Right.  Do these people not know about all the criminals out there, monitoring FB and Tumblr and Meetup to know when you’re not at home so they can burglarize your empty house?!?

Alas, I am alone in my paranoia.  And truth to tell, some of my reluctance to join the digital revolution is fueled by the fact that I am an idiot when it comes to computers.  I never quite got over the trauma of having to learn how to program in FORTRAN.  (For those of you who were born into a world of smartphones and swipe-screens, FORTRAN is a long-dead computer language from post-IBM, pre-Apple days.  It’s what Latin is to the Romance languages that grew out of it.  Do they even teach Latin in public school anymore?)

What’s more, I actually like communicating the old fashioned way.  I enjoy talking with people face to face.  And I especially love writing letters long-hand, putting them in an envelope, sticking on a stamp, and dropping them off at the corner post-office.   I grew up reading volumes of correspondence between Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald (sigh!), Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf, Shelby Foote and Walker Percy.  Really, how can Twitter or Facebook compare with that?

In quantum physics, there is the law: “like attracts like.”  This principle applies to relationships, too.  We self-select our social network—both online and in the real world.  As a result, I am marooned on an island of similar-minded Luddites.  In our world, “going viral” still refers to a constellation of symptoms including fever, cough, and congestion. 

So, until my kids are old enough to clue me in, I will likely remain a social networking illiterate.  I will not be plugging my books on a bazillion-and-one online sites.  I will continue writing slowly, laboriously, in longhand (at least sometimes).  And I hope that the content of what I write will be interesting enough to sell a few books. 

Taking a Chance - now available on Amazon Kindle!

I do not multi-task.  It's not that I can't (when you've got kids, multi-tasking is a basic survival skill).  But when it comes to being productive--whether at work or while writing--I simply choose not to.  For me, concentrating on one thing at a time is the key to getting that one thing done.

So, you may have noticed I took a long hiatus from this blog.  That's because I was busy writing the second book in my "Doctors of Rittenhouse Square" trilogy.  Taking a Chance is now done, edited, and uploaded to Amazon Kindle!  Check it out, and let me know what you think.

(Book one, Pursued by the Playboy, is also available.)

Taking a Chance

by Jill Blake

                                                                                       

City girl…

When Samantha Winters’ career as a big-city doctor leads to major burnout, she applies for a temporary position at a small clinic in central Pennsylvania.   She’s as out of place in the town of Oakridge as a pair of high heels in a cow pasture, but that won’t stop her from going after what she wants.  And what she wants most—after rediscovering her passion for medicine—is a family of her own:  a loving husband and kids.

…meets country boy

Alex Kane is the local boy who made good.  He’s spent years building his computer start-up into the biggest employer in Oakridge.  Between that, and raising his sister’s orphaned kids, he’s ready for a break.  What he really wants is to cut loose and have some fun.  Too bad the new doc in town isn’t interested…. Or is she?