I Came Late to Instagram

Instagram has been around since 2010. I joined last year at the urging of one the other artists in the painting workshop I attend. She has--at last count--1351 followers on Instagram. I have 270. Clearly, I'm not quite getting the hang of this wildly popular app, though I do enjoy it. I am fascinated by the gorgeous photos and while I find the proliferation of hashtags annoying, there are some people who actually write lovely prose or poetry to go along with their pictures, but those folks are rare. Mostly, it's photos and hashtags.

Nevertheless, if there were no hashtags, finding anything on Instagram would be impossible. And, as it turns out, hashtags can help when it comes to attracting new followers. I discovered this fact at http://www.wikihow.com/Get-1k-Followers-on-Instagram, which is a good place to learn how to work Instagram. I am studying it carefully and intend to become more daring with hashtags.

I doubt whether getting more followers on Instagram will help me sell books. Selling books is tough. Still, to me the one big advantage of Instagram is the ability to share a photo from there to Twitter and Facebook at the same time. In the case of Twitter that is a huge plus because it is nearly impossible for me to stick to 140 characters. I am, after all, a romance writer.

If you're on Instagram, please follow me @marzecpenelope and like some of my pictures. I'll do the same for you. :-)

Memorial Day

Boots and Bugle
Painting by Irene S. Kierce

Both of my grandfathers served in World War I--one in Europe and the other on the Mexican border. They both came home. My mother and her five brothers served in World War II and the Korean War. They all came home. My father and his brother served in World War II. My father came home, but his brother did not. My brother served during the Vietnam era. He was a navigator/bombardier in an F-111 which was being tested in New Mexico. His plane crashed. He and the pilot died.

Memorial Day isn't about the beach or a great sale at the store. It's about the cost of our freedom. Please don't forget that.

KISS OF BLARNEY Print Edition Uploaded!

Being a glutton for punishment, I decided to put out a print edition of Kiss of Blarney. I am aware that very few people will buy the print version. Why should they when the digital edition is only $0.99? Nevertheless, it is nice to have a physical book to put on the table when I go to a booksigning event. So I struggled with Word to make the correct size page with mirror image pages. Then I uploaded the file to Createspace. I looked at the preview and realized I had forgotten page numbers. I had to redo the file with numbers and upload it again. It made my brain hurt.

While it is possible to proof the book online, I have found that buying a genuine paper copy is the best method. When the paper copy arrived, I found ERRORS. I hate that. The mistakes were small, but they still annoyed me.

So I went back and fixed the errors and uploaded the book AGAIN. The inexpensive paper version should be available shortly--though there are more expensive Crescent Moon Press editions still floating around. I set my own paper edition at $5.50. I won't make much money on it, but I don't mind. Selling books is not easy. Selling high priced books is impossible--unless  you're already a celebrity.

Kiss of Blarney is a short read. The new print version is 85 pages long. Don't you want to read about an Irish princess hidden in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey?

Read some of the reviews on Amazon. (CLICK HERE FOR REVIEWS) It's a fun book. 

Nostalgia

I've always enjoyed the music of Emmy Lou Harris. "Back When We Were Beautiful" is from the Old Yellow Moon album with Rodney Crowell. I listen to it frequently. This video on YouTube accompanies the song with photos the World War II era. Lovely, but bittersweet.

Evening Primroses

My sister--the one with the Masters in Horticulture, who is also a Master Gardener--gave me these primoses. She was pretty sure I could not kill them. The plants grow like weeds. They spread all by themselves. Deer don't eat them. Their abundant yellow flowers look really nice in the yard and they bloom for several weeks in June.

I sure wish all flowers were as easy to grow as these!

Gaining a Future

This is an anniversary for my father. Seventy-three years ago, he walked into a recruiting station. I am here because he did not die in combat, though his brother did. My father wrote this short article about his experience. In the photo below, he is on the right.

Gaining a Future

by Raymond Kierce 

Seventy-three years ago on May 8th, I was a twenty-year old novice journalist and college freshman, but there was a war going on. I knew that if I was drafted I would not have a choice in which branch of the service I would serve. So I caught a bus from my parents' Jersey City home and went to a military recruiting facility. I passed the physical and enlisted in the Army Air Force.

After training at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, and a golf course in Miami Beach, my fellow recruits and I were shipped to San Francisco where we boarded an ocean liner and sneaked out of port.

Racing across the vast Pacific with only dolphins as our escorts, we celebrated the Crossing the Line with King Neptune when we crossed the equator.

I soon found myself with the Fifth Bomber Command on the other side of the world in New Guinea. The Japanese government gave us an explosive welcome with an air raid by 100 bombers. It was quite a sight as our P38 fighters tore among them.

The Japs owned most of New Guinea at that point. American and Australian soldiers stopped their advance 17 miles from Port Moresby. Port Moresby is only 530 miles from Australia. Australia came very close to being overrun by Japanese forces.

For the next three years, the Allies pushed ever closer to Japan, seizing back territory, island by island.

In August, 1945, to my surprise, I was given a leave home to Jersey and ordered to return to Clark Field, Manila, in thirty days.

I learned many years later that President Harry Truman had ordered plans drawn for Operation Olympic (attacking the southern island of Kyūshū) and set November 1, 1945, for the invasion of Japan.

More than 40% of all servicemen still in uniform in 1945 would have been assigned to two amphibious assaults. At that time, it was estimated that American casualties would have totaled one million during that invasion.

Since I would have been back in the Philippines in September, there is no doubt in my mind that I would have been assigned to the invasion of Japan.

When the two atomic bombs were dropped to end the war, millions of servicemen gained a future, including me.

Sandy, a Little Irene Story

Little Irene 

Ever since my mother passed away, I find it difficult to walk into a card shop to buy cards for Mother's Day. It reminds me of how much I miss Mom. She was a very special woman. Fortunately, she left behind many lovely paintings and a wealth of stories. My sisters and I called the reminisces of our mother's young life the Little Irene Stories. Two years ago, I posted one of her memories on her birthday at http://penelopemarzec.blogspot.com/2013/11/a-story-my-mother-told-me.html

Mom grew up in western Pennsylvania. Her father was a coal miner and she was one of seven children. Today, I thought I post another of her stories, the one she titled "Sandy."

When I was eleven years old, my sister and I started to go to religious classes at St. Mary's so that we could be confirmed. I decided to choose Sandra, or Sandy, as my confirmation name. My sister, Grace, loved the name Allison. Unfortunately, we both had to walk many miles to go to the classes and as a result wore out our shoes. My father put new soles on using rubber tires but even those didn't last. He told us we couldn't go to the classes any longer.

"You're wearing out the shoes," he said.

It was heartbreaking that we could not complete the requirements for confirmation. Nevertheless, I decided to keep my middle name as Sandy. It seemed to fit me somehow, young and full of energy as I was at that time.

I loved the rolling hills of Pennsylvania and our small farming town. To me, it was a magical, exciting place. I learned to save shoe leather by roller-skating or cycling to my friends' homes at neighboring farms.

I used to enjoy visiting one special friend whose mother was a herbalist. The mother would show me different herbs and list the magical powers of each. Since that was more than 60 years ago, she was ahead of her time. She always wore black clothes and a dark babushka (scarf) and could be rather frightening.

She scared me when she began to recite tales of people with horrible ailments that she cured with her herbs. She seemed to relish going into great detail about their illnesses. It alarmed me to listen to her and soon I stopped visiting.

Her daughter, who had porcelain-like skin, went on to become a teacher in the local school.

I played baseball with my brothers, walked in the woods and dreamed of becoming a famous artist.

Later on, after I married, Sandy seemed like a childish name for a woman with a husband and children. Still, I had promised the priest who married my husband and I that I would be confirmed and so when my older children were ready to received the sacrament, I finally made my name Sandra official by being confirmed as well. I did not wear a gown like my daughter with a red beanie for the ceremony. I wore a light blue suit and sat in the back of the church with other adults who were being confirmed. The weather that day held all the blustery misery that March can dish out. It had snowed and then rained, so that we all had to step through nearly a foot of slush as we picked our way through the parking lot to the church.

One of our neighbors was my sponsor. I felt good about finally receiving the sacrament of confirmation, even though I had been married for about fifteen years at that point. Nevertheless, I did keep my promise to the priest.

Even so, I used my given name of Irene, which means peach in Greek. With a growing family, I wasn't the carefree Sandy I had once been.

Persistence or Talent?

Writing takes time--large quantities of it, in which the author is all alone...well, not really because there's an entire cast of characters inside his or her head and they're all arguing and carrying on because they have a problem which must be solved. Then comes the black moment when all hope is lost and the author gets all choked up and wipes away tears, trying not to get any in the keyboard since the story must be typed out letter by letter, word by word.

Once the problem is solved and the happy ending is accomplished, the writer has to go back to the very beginning of the story and fix it. Then the manuscript gets fixed again--and again. And again.

Besides all that, there's the synopsis to write, and the back cover blurb, and the art form to fill out. This takes hours and hours--and often there's no guarantee the writer will make any appreciable amount of money to compensate for all the  effort.

Talent is a very wonderful thing, but for me--and for most writers I know--persistence is what it takes to be an author.

Writers get rejections, but they don't give up. They have publishers who close up shop, editors who quit, and agents who die. Despite all of that, writers keep writing. They have more stories to tell since that cast of characters inside their heads really don't take many breaks and are rather fond of getting into terrible trouble. Sometimes, it's a calamity of monstrous proportions and takes all of 90,000 words or more to resolve the difficulty.

Writers are tenacious. They refuse to quit. Talent only goes so far. If you want to be an author, you need grit as well. Take a tip from Samuel Johnson. :-)

A Ghost, A Curse, A Deadly Portal

I am happy to announce that THE COMPANY YOU KEEP is once again available as an ebook. I uploaded it to Kindle as well as Smashwords and All Romance Ebooks. It may take a while to show up on iBooks, Nook, and Kobo but it shouldn't be too long. The book was initially published by New Concepts Publishing and then by Crescent Moon Press. Now it's mine again. :-)

This full length novel contains over 83,000 words. One of the characters is a ghost, Abigail. There's an arrogant billionaire and there's Jennifer Brant, the heroine--also known as the Iron Lady of Marlpit. She has to be strong because she has a rather dreadful secret. 

Here's the very short blurb:

Within Jennifer’s farm lies a deadly gateway for lost souls, a secret that she will do anything to protect. She doesn’t realize that someone else knows the truth she so desperately tries to hide, and is willing to kill for it....

If you like your romance with a touch of horror, this is the book for you. 

It has garnered good reviews. Diane Tugman of The Romance Studio said, "With each chapter you’ll be drawn into a tangled web of the supernatural. I loved Jennifer and Nathan’s characters. The way they’re constantly at each other throats gives more realism to the story. Penelope Marzec has written a story that will make you forget the laundry and dishes until you’ve read the last page." 

Cherokee from Coffee Time Romance said, "The suspense spills along the way, and keeps the reader engaged and on the edge-of-the-seat. With each page, I was taken deeper and deeper into this driven read."

Warning: This book has two very sensual scenes. 

Here's the book trailer!


Buy it at AMAZON!
Buy it at SMASHWORDS!
Buy it at All Romance Ebooks!

Working Hard

That's my Dad! He's been working hard in rehab since his stroke in October. Today is the last day of rehab for him--according to Medicare. His physical therapist has been wonderful and he wants to hand her a bouquet today. :-)

He's made considerable progress for someone who is ninety-three. Kudos to Dad. But don't stop exercising.

Two Months From Today

In two more months, PATRIOT'S PRIDE will be released. It's the sequel to PATRIOT'S HEART, and from the moment the idea for Agnes's story came to me, I knew I had to tell Margaret's story as well.

Agnes and Margaret are sisters. Agnes took over her father's blacksmith shop, but Margaret is a baker of local renown in the little town where she grew up. Though there are six years between them, they are close. I know not all sisters find a best friend in their sibling, but it can happen. Though there may be squabbles and arguments, some sisters grow up to appreciate each other.

Agnes's story is set in 1778, right after the Battle of Monmouth. Margaret's story takes place immediately following the war when she sets off for England in a sailing ship much like the one pictured above.

I went to England once, but I flew over three thousand miles of ocean--it was a lot quicker. It's difficult to imagine the hardships travelers endured on a long voyage in the old days on a sailing ship.  When hubby and I went on a cruise to the Bahamas, we enjoyed six meals a day. The food was fantastic, but back in the late 1700s there was no refrigeration. Travelers had no vegetables. Meat and fish were preserved in brine. (Very salty!) There were grains--like oats. It doesn't sound like a varied and interesting menu.

If you haven't read PATRIOT'S HEART, now would be a good time to start. Then you'll be ready to read PATRIOT'S PRIDE when it's released. You can journey across the ocean with Margaret to England without leaving you house and you'll be able to eat vegetables and other delicacies requiring refrigeration. It's a great way to travel. :-)

Buy it now at

Amazon

Unanswered

Since I write romances, I enjoy listening to other couples' love stories--how they met and how they fell in love. Most people are more than willing to divulge the details concerning their courtship.

But I do not know how my paternal grandparents met and fell in love. My grandfather is on the right in the photo above and my grandmother is happily putting a new coat on me. This picture was taken at Christmas in 1955.

I know my grandmother's parents owned a chicken farm in Pennington, New Jersey. My grandfather was a milkman in Jersey City. My grandmother was a Presbyterian and my grandfather was Catholic. They were married in the vestibule of the Catholic church, because in those days non-Catholics weren't allowed to marry at the altar. (Fortunately, that rule changed.)

My grandmother died about eight years after this picture was taken. I was thirteen then. I never got to talk to her much at all.

My grandfather died about sixteen years after my grandmother. While I had the opportunity to talk to him quite a bit, I never asked him how he and his sweetheart met. Why didn't I think of it? Why didn't someone else think of it?

Now we'll never know. :-(

Sticker Fun with Facebook Messenger

Sometimes, I'm a bit slow to catch onto new things. I like Facebook's messenger app. I've been using it since it came out. It is a handy tool for contacting people with private messages. However, I knew nothing about the amazing array of stickers available to add to my personal notes.

Daughter #1 gave me a lesson on Saturday when I asked. I am now fairly fluent in stickers. Using them adds another dimension to my short missives. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words. So why not use a cute little picture? There's quite a variety for every occasion. They are fun!

Do you see the plus sign (+) on the right in the image above? When you are in the Messenger app, click on that and it will bring you to the Sticker Store, where even more stickers are available for you to download for FREE.

You can add Snoopy dancing to your note or add a little picture of Hello Kitty watering a tulip. Try out the stickers. Make your messages memorable. 

The Best Tuna Mac Casserole

Daughter #2 is visiting with us this week. Yesterday, I asked what she would like for supper and, as usual, she asked for my Tuna Mac Casserole. When it comes to decadent, calorie-laden dishes, this one tops the list. I developed the recipe over the years to suit my taste buds. Obviously, it suits hers, too. :-)

Cook one box of of whole wheat pasta. (Daughter #2 likes rotini, but shells are good, too.) Drain the pasta.

Spray a 13x9 baking dish with PAM.

Put the drained pasta into the baking dish. Add 2 cans of drained, solid white albacore tuna (packed in water). Mix pasta and tuna together.

Then make this SAUCE:

1/2 cup of butter (8 tablespoons)
8 tablespoons of flour
1tablespoon of turmeric (this makes the casserole very, very yellow)
2 teaspoons onion powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup of extra sharp cheddar, grated
4 cups of milk

Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the flour and stir until smooth. Add the turmeric, onion powder, and salt. Stir. Add the milk and stir over medium heat until it thickens. (A spatula is good for this job.) Add the grated cheddar cheese. Stir until it's melted.

Pour the sauce over the pasta and tuna in the baking pan. Stir until everything is mixed evenly.

Next take two tablespoons of butter and work it into a cup of bread crumbs. Sprinkle this over the rest of the ingredients in the pan.

Bake at 375 degrees for 20 minutes until the sauce is bubbling.

Scrumptious!

Third Time's the Charm

My mother always told me the third time is the charm. I'm hoping she was right because for the third time KISS OF BLARNEY is available in a digital edition. I reissued it myself last night. :-) It was published first by New Concepts Publishing. When that publisher returned the rights to me, Crescent Moon Press published it. But now it's mine again and I am offering it to the world at the bargain price of $0.99.

I uploaded it to Smashwords, too, which will make it available for iBooks, Nook, Kobo, and several other ebook distributors. For Smashwords I had to compose a very short blurb:

An Irish princess, raised in secrecy, and destined to rule the Enchanted Island must save her companion from an evil Druid. She enlists the aid of a dog, but the owner of the animal is not about to let her steal his dog--even if by doing so he puts his own life in peril.

The new long blurb is this:

Prophecy says Ula, an Irish princess, is destined to rule the Enchanted Island with a black-eyed prince. For safety, she hides in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey with a druidess for a companion. Ula knows nothing of the modern world. She has no friends and never saw a man. When her druidess is kidnapped by the evil Balor, she leaves her hidden cottage to borrow a dog who can aid her in finding her companion. 

Shay is a descendent of Irish kings given specific rules to follow since birth. If he breaks his sacred code misfortune or even death could result. He doesn’t think those principles make sense in the modern world. Then he meets Ula. She walks into a pub during a blizzard and causes a melee. He wants nothing to do with her, especially when he realizes she's out to steal his dog but if he turns her out into the snow, he’ll break his sacred code. Though Ula spouts nonsense, she tempts him to abandon every principle his father gave him. 

Ula’s love for Shay is forbidden, for he has blue eyes, but the powerful emotions that draw her to him cannot be denied. Still, she is bound to rescue her druidess and for that she must take Shay’s dog, even if Shay breaks her heart and winds up hating her forever.

Warning: This book does have one very sensual scene.

A book video is available on YouTube, too. Have a look!

Go to the Amazon link for the book HERE!

Leftover Peeps

My northern sister, who is much more of a comedian than I am, came up with several recipe ideas for leftover Peeps. She took these photos and labeled them. :-)

Peeps S'more before microwaving



Peeps S'more after microwaving, also known as a Peeps No more.



Hot Peeps Cocoa



Enjoy your Peeps!

Do You Want to Be Happier?

See that smile? That's someone who reads. Do you want to be happier? Do you want to improve your life? Do you want a bigger vocabulary? Do you want to be a better writer?

Turn off the television, pick up a book, and read it. There's scientific evidence to prove you can have a better life if you read books.

Click on the link below for all the facts!

http://www.buzzfeed.com/erinlarosa/12-scientific-ways-reading-can-actually-improve-your-life#.es1WMwlQd

Guest Post: Nancy S. Brandt, Author of PIGSTY PRINCESS

I met Nancy S. Brandt a long time ago when she was a member of the New Jersey Romance Writers, but then she moved.  :-( She now has a terrific new book with an awesome cover and I am thrilled to present her as my guest today. Please welcome her to my blog!

Nancy S. Brandt is a stay-at-home mother of two children, a daughter, 25, who is an appointment's clerk at an orthopedic clinic and an editor and book reviewer; and a son, 12, who studies karate, and wants to be either an historian or an artist. Nancy's husband, Steven, is also an author and an adjunct professor of computer science at Louisiana State University.

In about sixth grade, an English teacher gave an assignment to write a descriptive essay. Nancy's was all about a wonderful cave filled with diamonds, emeralds and other precious gems. From that experience, she walked into every English class hoping to get to write something, and she learned three things:

1. The difference between stalactite and stalagmite,
2. That fantasy was probably the genre she should concentrate on, and
3. Never end a story with "It was all a dream."

Nancy is a kidney transplant recipient (her husband was her living donor), a thyroid cancer survivor, and an Army veteran. She is currently working on the sequel to Pigsty Princess, called Questionable Queen. 

The Back Cover Blurb for Pigsty Princess

In a country where Elemental Sensitivities determine a person's place in society, Mariana, fourth child of King Jonathan and Queen Alexandria, was born an Insensitive. She is given the made up title of Progenna, because she can't be in line for the throne and therefore, can't be a Princess. All her life, she is reminded that she isn't quite good enough. When her father decides she is to marry Pir Leo Valentine, an eighty-four year old man with a scar across his face that took his eye and only one hand, she runs away from the palace.

Orlando of Talla is a pig farmer and former soldier who served the King until he watched his Sovereign burn an entire harbor town rather than lose a battle. Now he tries to live a quiet life while leading a band of rebels who steal from the nobility to bring prisoners home from that war.

Orlando is also the bastard son of a nobleman, and therefore, he has a Sensitivity, one of Blood that allows him to feel the Sensitivities of others.

He finds the injured Progenna in the forest and immediately realizes that the stories about Mariana aren't true. Rather than being an Insensitive, Mariana may be the most powerful Sensitive in Valborough.

Excerpt:

Mariana sniffled. “He said I was a commoner, and that I’m not Father’s daughter by blood.”

Ramone sighed and shook his head. “Gossip only. Not even worthy of the servants, and for it to come out of the mouth of a Rieravo and a Presumptive…I am surprised he would suggest that  out loud to you.”

She adjusted herself so she was off her brother’s lap and faced him. “Ramone, what if what Darius said is right? What if Father isn’t…my father? No nobleman will ever want to marry me if that’s true.”

“First of all, it’s not true, and second, even if it were, Father has claimed you as his daughter. He will take care of you.”

It didn’t make her feel any better.

“You mean he’ll force someone into marrying me.” She got off the loveseat and went over to sit at her mother’s writing desk. Picking up one of the quills, she glanced at her brother in the mirror.

“It might not be like that,” he said after a moment of silence. “There must be some man who doesn’t care about bonding. Someone who will be content with having only his own magic.”

She spun around to stare at him. “Name one person you have ever heard of, male or female, who was willing to throw away the potential power of their Sensitivities to bond to someone with nothing. What do your history and peerage books say about that?”

He said nothing, but he didn’t meet her eyes.

Mariana nodded. “Just as I thought. I was stupid to think being a Proge…the daughter of the King would be enough. No one with any Sensitivities wants to wed someone they can’t bond with. I wish Mother and Father would have prepared me for this.”

“What could they have done, Mariana?” He walked over to her and, taking her hands, brought her to her feet. “You are special, one of a kind. You are my beautiful baby sister.”

“But I’m not like the rest of you. Father and Mother are strong Sensitives. By definition, Father is the strongest in the kingdom. You, Liliana, and Ursula have sensitivities in three areas. Me? You know what the Abilities Master said when I finished my testing.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Do you remember? Father came out of his meeting with Kylan and said, ‘It is as we thought.’ Mother cried.”

He took her in his arms. “She loves you. She was crying because she knew your life would be harder because of this.”

“Was that it?” she asked. “Did Mother cry because I don’t have any Sensitivities or because Father found out about my true parentage? I have to know if I am a Princess in truth or just the result of some mistake Mother made."

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

You can find out more about Nancy if you visit her Social Media Links:

Website:  www.nancysbrandt.com

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/NancySBrandtfantasyauthor

Twitter:  @NancySBrandt

Instagram: nancysbrandt

Pinterest:  nancy_s_brandt

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/NancySBrandt

Buy Links:

CleanReads: http://cleanreads.com/index.php/pigsty-princess.html

Amazon - http://amzn.com/B00RUYRAB6

Barnes & Noble - http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/pigsty-princess-nancy-s-brandt/1121192304

Kobo - http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/pigsty-princess

Smashwords - http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/510325

Itunes - http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/pigsty-princess/id957929093