My Favorite Trips

 Hi, I’m Judith Ashley, author of The Sacred Women’s Circle series, soul nourishing romantic women’s fiction with light paranormal elements. My stories show you what life could be like if you had a place like The Circle where you are unconditionally accepted, supported and loved. And where, with this support, you make choices to overcome the darkest nights and choose love and light.

Welcome to July! We’re now officially half way through 2022. If you live south of the equator, your days will begin to get longer. Here, north of the equator, ours begin to get shorter. Unlike many of my friends and family, I’m not a summer person. The sun is too bright, the temperatures are too hot and traffic increases as people head out on vacations.

Not to be too curmudgeonly and because our monthly theme is Vacation Trips and Bucket Lists, I’m going to share my favorite trips. I’ve had the pleasure of adding on a few vacation days to more business oriented trips than taking an actual vacation.

Because of my involvement with The William Glasser Institute International and Glasser Institute for Choice Theory-US, I’ve visited places I heard and read about and never dreamed I’d see in person – both in North American and elsewhere!

Here in the U.S.

I’ve attended conferences in

Houston and San Antonio, TX;
Copper Mountain and Colorado Springs, CO;
Boston, MA;
Hollywood and Orlando, FL;

Vacationed in Cayman Islands after
Hollywood, FL Conference where
my friend and I went to Hell!

Kansas City (twice);

Cincinnati, OH;

Chicago, IL,

New Orleans, LA;

Phoenix, AZ,

Albuquerque, NM;

Los Angeles, CA;

Seattle, WA (twice);

Portland, OR;

Jersey City, NJ with views of the New York skyline and

Philadelphia, PA. Oh and

Nashville, TN in 2010!

One of both of my granddaughters attended the conferences in italics.

In addition conferences were held in Canada (Montreal and Vancouver, B.C.). I missed the one in Toronto.

So that’s North America!

Where Else Have I Been?

Dublin, Ireland

Sidney, Australia
Edinburgh, Scotland

A typical planting of flowers. This one is in Dublin.

Edinburgh, Scotland

And as a bonus, my involvement also ended in 2 trips to the Balkans. Croatia and Slovenia which meant I spent time in Switzerland and Italy.

Bled, Slovenia - we spent a few days here to debrief
after being ordered to leave Croatia during the
Balkan Wars

What has also been a blessing is that I’ve had the opportunity to take one or both of my granddaughters on several of these trips. The Big One was the Edinburgh, Scotland trip with a week in London and sightseeing (Dover, Stonehenge, Glastonbury as well as a London tour).

Why did I, at times, take my granddaughters?

Because in the past, the organization held a “Kids Institute” so the conference was more family oriented and people could plan a vacation around it. Through the Kids Institute, my granddaughters had their own adventures while I was in workshops or giving my own presentation. 

2010 at Stonehenge

They had the opportunity to meet and interact with kids from around the world (Japan, Korea, Australia, Europe, South America as well as various parts of the U.S.A.). I believed then and believe now that when we meet and get to know people from other places in the world, our lives are enriched and we have an opportunity to see how we are similar, what we have in common and that creates a positive impact in our lives.

Bucket list? I used to think I wanted to visit Scandinavia or various places in the Orient. Japan was high on my list because in 7^th and 8^th grade I had a Japanese pen pal.

However, at this point in my life I think my long distance traveling (think international or at least outside North America) is less likely to happen. It isn’t just Covid or cost although they are a factor.

I love my house and my yard. I’m less than 2 hours from the Pacific Ocean although my favorite spot is closer to 3. I’m about the same distance from Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood and only 20 – 30 minutes from the Columbia River Gorge and waterfalls. A five minute walk and on a clear day I can see Mt. Hood.

Mt. Hood as seen over the trees on
the Rose City Golf Course

I’m not saying “never” to long distance traveling. Who knows what the future may bring. What I am saying is that at this point, as I sit here at my computer with my larch tree’s limbs blowing in a breeze, the geraniums and salvia adding cheerful color, the hummingbirds stopping by for a snack, I’ve no particular plans to go anywhere.

Come fall when the weather cools and, hopefully, the traffic eases, I may head off on the 2 – 3 hour drive and spend a few days along the Oregon Coast. As I’m rather weak-willed, the probability of my taking another dozen or so pictures of the waves crashing on the rocks is high. And I will remind myself of the saying we never stand in the same river…thus these will be different waves from the multiple thousands if not millions I’ve watched over the decades.

Number 1,002,010(?)

One of the additional blessing of my trips is creating believable settings in my books. Much of Elizabeth: The Lady and The Sacred Grove takes place in Ireland. The scene at the Ashford Castle? Yep, I did stay there in 1994 when I traveled there for the Dublin Conference.

Fremont, OR is loosely based on my hometown, Portland, OR. The little house you first see in Lily: The Dragon and The Great Horned Owl  is based on my own home. Some of Diana: The Queen of Swords and The Knight of Pentacles as well as Gabriella: Chaos to Symmetry take place in Italy. I spent a short amount of time in Milan and Venice but over a week along the Aegean Sea in Croatia and Slovenia. Those views are similar to the ones along the west coast of Italy.

The places I’ve seen, the people I’ve met, the lessons I’ve learned along the pathway of my life, I’ve used as inspiration and fact in my books.

You can read my Sacred Women’s Circle series to learn more about every day women and the struggles and challenges they overcome to find unconditional love.

My Staying Sane in a Crazy World, provides you with a template to create your Personal Staying Sane Plan to help you through the challenging times.

You can find all of my books at your favorite e-book vendor. Be sure to ask your local library if you’d prefer to read my books through that resource.

Learn more about Judith's The Sacred Women’s Circle series at JudithAshley.net

Follow Judith on Twitter: JudithAshley19

Check out Judith’s Windtree Press author page.

You can also find Judith on FB! 

© 2022 Judith Ashley

The Long & Winding Road - AKA Traditional Publishing

Hi everyone! I am YA, and now MG author Barbara Binns , writer of contemporary and realistic fiction for adolescents and teens. My tagline tells you what I am about - Stories of Real Boys Growing Into Real Men - and the people who love them. 


IT came in the mail on Monday. The galley for my new novel, Courage, all three hundred and fifty plus pages.

You can’t see me, but trust me, if you could you would view an older black woman who is somehow managing to do both a happy dance and heave a heavy sigh of dread.

Here’s the thing, I am a hybrid author. My first and now this, my fourth novels, were/are being traditionally published. My second and third were Indie published. I also have numerous short stories and flash fiction in magazines. (That reminds me, I have to finish off a new story for the Spring issue of the Arlington Almanac.) So I know things about different sides of the publishing spectrum. Which is why I signed a contract with Harper Collins and I am eagerly going Traditional with my new, Middle Grade novel, titled Courage.

For the next three weeks I will be rationing my time to be certain I finish this final look through of the three hundred and fifty plus pages of the novel I spent months writing, and then even more months revising. This is the last time I will go through my own words before publication. Since, in the words of the old jingle, “the quality goes in before the name goes on,” and I will be my name on book, I have responsibility for the final look-through of every page.

And then it’s off to the hell country know as promotion.

Having traversed both paths to publication, I know that traditional publication is a long, winding road. It’s not for the faint-hearted or for anyone unwilling to face a mountain of rejection. I finished this story in 2015. It was sold in 2016. I did not bother to count the rejection messages in between. Suffice it to say there were almost as many as I received for my first novel, PULL. But at least they were all nice comments.

I spent much of 2017 doing major revisions and edits. My wonderful editor at Harper Collins, Karen Chaplin, gave me great feedback and numerous suggestions. Some I took, others got the push back necessary to preserve my original artistic vision - buy me a drink sometime and maybe I'll tell you more. I will say the ending was re-written three times. (With the third re-write largely going back to the elements I put into the first re-write.) This was important, because while all authors know that the opening has to be the strong hook that pulls readers into your story and prepares them to stay with you for the long ride, the ending too is critical. That’s the part that has to leave a reader ready to say the ride was worth it. It should also have them want to take another journey with the author.

I have deliberately not re-read my manuscript in months. That’s part of the process, an author needs eyes as fresh as possible for this last step between herself and her readers. My heart thumps as I open that first page and read that

“Chlorine fills the air.” 

Maybe not the most perfect first line ever, but fitting for a boy who is about to stake a leap into the air and learn that even in the midst of something as bitter and unpleasant as the stench of chlorine, he can find the goodness of friends and family. That he needs to learn the lesson of the final line, that

“Everyone deserves forgiveness.” 

(Yeah, I know. Three complete re-writes of the two ending chapters to get to something that simple. So shoot me.)

Courage hits the shelves in the spring of 2018. This MG novel from Harper Collins is the story of six twelve and thirteen year old friends living on Chicago's South side, including T'Shawn, who finds himself living through a remake of the prodigal son drama when his older brother returns from prison. His friends set out to save him, and their neighborhood.

Now, on to promotion, one of those aspects of my profession that I have always abhorred. See, I even bring out the big words just to show how awful I think it is. Promotion is a requirement, whether you are Indie or Traditionally published. I just finished having a consultation with a marketing manager to gain some pointers.

Hey, maybe more about that next month.

ENTANGLED PUBLISHING'S Baby It's Cold Outside Anthology and Holiday In Crimson by Patricia Rosemoor

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 We asked the authors of Entangled Publishing's holiday anthology what they enjoyed most about contributing to Baby, It's Cold Outside - and we asked them for blurbs of their stories.

Their answers follow, and then our Entangled Holiday Weekend ends with a post by Patricia Rosemoor about her holiday novel, Holiday in Crimson. Enjoy!

 

Aimee Carson

Aimee Carson

The BEST thing about writing for this anthology was tossing around ideas with my fabulous fellow authors, Amy Andrews, Heidi Rice, and Kate Hardy. Writing is such a solitary endeavor and it was an absolute pleasure to have company along the way!

Tis the Season to be Tempted

After the worst year ever, including divorcing her cheating, rock star of a husband, free-spirited Evie Lee rings in the New Year alone, swearing off men forever. With her parent’s upcoming thirtieth wedding anniversary, on New Year’s Day she has no choice but to battle her fear of flying and climb on a plane to travel home.  Things get complicated when her brother’s childhood friend, the perfect man with the perfect life, Wes Campbell, winds up on the same plane. She’s determined to ignore him. He’s determined not to take her seriously.  But when a snowstorm traps them at the airport with no way to finish their commute, his perfect body is tempting her to break her vow and expand her horizons—if only for one hot night!

Wes Campbell is famous for always doing the right thing. His years of sacrifice have earned him an enormously successful business, a divorce, and a past that included resisting his fascination with his best friend’s little sister. After ten years running into Evie Lee again is torture. He’s determined to continue his hands-off attitude. But with only one hotel room left, chivalry demands he offer Evie a place to crash for the night. Unfortunately, he wasn’t counting on the little hellion’s infectious smile, her killer body, and the hint of vulnerability in her eyes. Worst of all, she appears determined to change his mind about her. And, for the first time in his life, Wes is tempted to do the wrong thing…

Amy Andrews

Amy Andrews

The best thing about writing this holiday anthology for Entangled (apart from working with my three fab co-authors) has been the complete novelty of a snowy Christmas. You see, in my part of the world, Christmas is very different to log fires and sleigh bells. Here, in Australia, it’s usually stinking hot and we spend all day either indoors with the air-con set to freeze or lolling around the pool trying to stay afloat with three kilos of turkey and a hefty dose of pudding weighing us down!

When I was a kid – well actually even as an adult – my favourite Christmas cards were the ones with snowy scenes. Fields sprinkled with powdery white, gingerbread houses dripping thick coats of snow from the eves, a sleigh being pulled by liveried horses tinkling their away across a frosty frozen lake. Sigh…to a girl from the tropics those scenes could have been set on Mars they were so removed from my life experience. But, as a writer, I get to go to different worlds and it was fun being in that Vermont cabin with the snow bucketing down, drinking eggnog and hearing the crackle and pop of the fire in the hearth.

I shall think of it with fondness as I dive into my pool this Christmas Day!

Tis The Season to be Kissed

Thirty year old Tamara Green unexpectedly finds herself snowed in at her friend’s family cabin in Vermont on NYE. Depressed and freezing, she puts on all the clothes in her bag and tucks into the eggnog to keep warm. When she attacks an intruder with a golf club she has no idea it’s her friend’s younger brother - Sgt Luke Jackson – who’s on his way back home from his second tour of Afghanistan.  Slightly inebriated at nine in the morning Tamara is mortified. But with loosened lips she not only goes on to confess the sad state of her love life and her self-enforced year-long celibacy but strips off most of her clothes as Luke gets the fire going. 

Things start to hot up - in more ways than one.  Luke is attracted to the cute little pixie rugged up like an Eskimo who defended his family’s cabin and he’s determined that their NYE shouldn’t go to waste. Perhaps he could steal a NYE kiss? But Tamara has a 10 date rule before she allows such liberties so with 15 hours to go before the ball drops Luke sets out to woo her with a range of dates from a trip to Hawaii to a game of strip scrabble.

And when the clock strikes midnight, Luke and Tamara set off some fireworks of their own!

Kate Hardy

Kate Hardy 
I think the best thing about writing a holiday-themed novella had to be liaising with three other authors who are good friends, brainstorming the ideas and planning who was going to do what. It's such fun working as a team. And, as I'm a bit of a Method Author, I also had great fun making the gingerbread from my novella (and my family definitely enjoyed eating it!).

Tis the Season to Kiss Santa

 With the help of a sprig of mistletoe and some snow angels, a recently single pastry chef teaches a highly successful and sexy Scrooge the true meaning of the holidays on a snowy Christmas Eve that quickly heats up.

Heidi Rice

Heidi Rice

Easily the best thing about writing Tis the Season to Go Shopping was getting to brainstorm with my three fabulous writing friends Amy Andrews, Aimee Carson and Kate Hardy. We pinged emails back and forth between Oz, the US and the UK coming up with the snowed-in theme together then had a ball trying out story ideas, thinking up titles and then pitching it to Entangled. And the icing on the cake? Reading the other stories in the anthology and getting that lovely sexy, seasonal, snowed-in feeling in August! I am so ahead-of-the-game with Christmas this year now. That said, I haven't done my Christmas shopping yet. Ironic, huh?

Tis the Season to Go Shopping

Unlucky-in-love department store marketing manager Kate Braithwaite really doesn’t think her Christmas could get any suckier after being dumped via email on Christmas Eve. Until a trip into work on Christmas Day leaves her snowbound in the deserted Fifth Avenue department store with her boss’s far-too-tempting playboy son Ryder Sinclair. 

Ryder’s rugged, reckless and none too pleased to be stuck in a place he hates with an uptight workaholic like Kate. But as the night draws on, the lights go out and the temperature rises, until they’re both wondering is this the season to get lucky?

You can find Baby It's Cold Outside at Entangled Publishing

Holiday In Crimson by Patricia Rosemoor

Patricia Rosemoor

As a child, I lived in the far reaches of the city, then in the suburbs of Chicago. I didn’t know much about the downtown area, nearly twenty miles away by electric train, except that I always looked forward to my infrequent trips there. My mom treated me every holiday, taking me downtown to see the Christmas windows of the department stores. My favorites were always the windows of the iconic Marshall Field’s (now Macys) on State Street.

That’s why I used Marshall Fields as the model for Westbrook, the main setting for HOLIDAY IN CRIMSON and NIGHTMARE IN CRIMSON, the related holiday romantic suspense novels from Entangled Publishing for their Dead Sexy line.

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About HOLIDAY IN CRIMSON:

Westbrook Department Store's Christmas party wasn't that wild--until, that is, Santa ended up dead. Now window designer Shelby Corbin is the prime suspect in his murder, and the holidays are anything but festive. If Shelby doesn't figure out who killed Santa, she'll be ringing in the new year behind bars.

Westbrook's impossibly sexy co-owner and CEO Rand McNabb's romantic attentions both thrill and frighten Shelby. But is he really helping her search for the truth about that fatal night? Or does Rand have a deadlier motive for courting the only possible witness to the crime...?

In thinking about a holiday romantic mystery, I knew I wanted to use a department store like the one I loved as a child. I wanted to involve the Christmas windows. And I wanted the murder victim to be Santa Claus. No, wait! Not the realSanta. The department store one. Rather the one dressed as Santa for the annual Christmas party. Okay, so I have a bizarre sense of humor.

Part of me is in my heroine Shelby. TheYay! It’s Christmas! part. From the time I moved out on my own until we learned my late husband was ill, I had an annual Christmas tree-trimming party. I made dozens and dozens of Christmas cookies and gave most of them away I collected a new special Christmas ornament every year, just as Shelby does, so I could experience my holiday history every time I looked at the tree.

Because I always loved Christmas, I enjoyed creating this intricately plotted romantic mystery. A fun task, and a fun story, one I hope readers will make readers smile.

With more than 90 novels and seven million books in print, Patricia Rosemoor is fascinated with "dangerous love" – combining romance with danger. She has written various forms of romantic and paranormal romantic thrillers, even romantic horror, bringing a different mix of thrills and chills. Patricia has won a Golden Heart from Romance Writers of America and two Reviewers Choice and two Career Achievement Awards from RT BOOKreviews, and in her other life, she teaches Popular Fiction and Suspense-Thriller Writing, credit courses at Columbia College Chicago.

You'll find Holiday in Crimson at Amazon and Barnes and Noble

You’ll find Patricia at http://PatriciaRosemoor.com   

or on FACEBOOK