Hi Clare, thanks for having me here.
I’m so thrilled at the moment because something new and exciting happened last Thursday. I was able to tick off one of my career goals. I sold one of my books on a partial (the three chapters and a synopsis). So a big tick to that.
I thought I’d chat a bit about goals. Whether personal or career goals. My personal opinion is that I think we humans need goals. It could be as simple as getting out of bed each morning before 7a.m., exercising, or as challenging as learning to walk again.
These are goals I have set myself over the years through various life challenges. Some took grit and determination (and a lot of pain) but others were as simple as not ignoring the alarm when it went off. But though some of these goals are small they each give us a huge boost internally. They say silently – you can do it – you can achieve – and when those goals are reached, even if it is the exercising, or getting out of bed before the sun’s up, then that repetition has to do wonders for your personal and external self-esteem.
Most writers would agree that writing can be a lonely life. We’re locked away in our little writing caves for hours on end – case in point - all Easter I was writing/working – I did 12 hour days each day – but I had a goal in mind – I had set myself some work to get done before Easter Monday. I worked hard – actually I worked my butt of (LOL), but I did it, and the sense of achievement was huge.
By achieving our goals, whatever their size it also gives us a sense of achievement and satisfaction.
When you set a goal I think you have to ask yourself – how much do I really want this – sure I may want to lose weight – but am I prepared to work hard at it?
The question writers must ask themselves. – How much do you want this career? How much are you prepared to give up for it?
Many years ago I spent months in and out of hospital and was on crutches for over a year, physio daily. I remember setting myself a goal. By such and such a date I would be down to one crutch, by another date down to a walking stick and eventually walking unaided.
For any goal you want to achieve, big or small, I really believe you need grit and determination – and writers need this in abundance – it’s a hard haul, full of rejections, but joy and wonderful friendships too.
It’s easy to turn the alarm off and roll over and go back to sleep.
But it takes a strong determination to see it through. In fact don’t’ they say something about 21 days to make a new habit?
Goals are not the prerogative of the New Year. You can make them any time.
What goals are you going to make today, so that this time next week, next month, or next year, you can say I HAVE DONE IT!
Happy days everyone
Jane Beckenham
Don't Forget To Check Out Her Hot Romance- He's The One
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Blurb:
Virginity is overrated.
Taylor Sullivan doesn’t trust Cupid, but she plays one for a living. As a successful wedding consultant, she creates a couple’s ultimate fantasy—even though she’s never managed to create her own. And when her clients start asking her for wedding night advice, she’s sensible enough to know when to enlist help.
Cade Harper knows two things about women. They either abandon him, or use him as a walking bank. He doesn’t do commitment, and marriage is a dirty word—witness the string of broken hearts he’s left in his wake. Yet Taylor’s business proposition intrigues him. In exchange for one night of no-strings passion, she’ll develop a promotional plan for his business. Who could say no?
Never one to buy anything sight unseen, Taylor tests the waters with a kiss. In an instant she has the only answer she’s ever wanted—that Cade is the one she wants.
As business starts tumbling into pleasure, Cade finds himself falling hard and fast.
It’s a fantasy come true—if they can turn heartache into forever…
And here's a bonus Sneak Peek
The moment Cade turned, everything changed.
Cade Harper. Bad boy. One sexy guy.
Taylor’s voice stalled in her throat, and she knew, when his smiling eyes captured hers, she was in way over her head.
Cade wiped his hands on a cloth and again Taylor’s gaze followed. Long, lean fingers. Fingers that would touch… Oh, boy!
He smiled. “You wanted to see me?”
She nodded and felt herself drowning in that smile. His dark eyes twinkled, a swirl of gold and chocolate brown. Just like Hershey Kisses.
Kisses!
Yep. She was definitely going under.
“Lady, I don’t mean to be rude, but I’ve got a bar to run,” he said, grabbing a knife and cutting a lemon into wafer-thin slices.
Taylor shook herself. Okay. Come on. Just say it. “I’ve got a favor to ask.”
“Ask away then,” he said, not looking up.
Taylor burned and eyed the milling crowd. “Actually, it’s a proposition.”
He definitely looked then, and his gaze focused on her. He placed the razor-sharp knife on the cutting board. His mouth quirked at one corner, smiling, gaze assessing. “Sounds intriguing.”
Sounds stupid.
He leant forward and rested both hands on the bar, the flex and tension in his forearms a powerful tease. Taylor swallowed hard.
“Is there anywhere we can talk—privately?”
“Out back in the den.” He flicked a hand toward a door behind the bar.
“More like going into the lion’s den,” she muttered.
“You say something?”
“Ah…no.” She dropped her gaze. Damn. Why hadn’t she chosen a different career? One where her clients didn’t ask about sex?
Holding herself stiff and feeling as if all eyes followed her movements, she walked behind the bar. As she brushed past him, the musky scent of his cologne teased her senses. Taylor willed the butterflies dancing a tango in her stomach to abate. They didn’t listen.
No more than a storeroom with boxes piled high along three of its four walls and a desk barely visible beneath a pile of papers and computer sheets, this room wore many different hats.
Every word Taylor had practiced dissolved from her memory as Cade closed the door behind him. The soft click of the latch echoed a thousand-fold. She spun around. He leant against the door, arms folded across his formidable chest, his gaze candid. He looked dangerous—but very delicious.
He spoke first. “Do I know you?”
“Not really.” Not yet.
“Shame.” He gave another of his long, lingering smiles, the kind that emphasized the dimples on either side of his sexy mouth. It set her toes curling and her body pulsing. Her internal temperature gauge hit the jackpot. Oh, Lordy, she was out of her depth. But here goes.
“I’m Taylor Sullivan. We didn’t meet, exactly, at Brianna Bennett’s wedding. I was her planner.” She jerked out her hand. Cade took it in his. Warm, strong fingers enveloped hers. The tips were slightly calloused, and the friction sent goose bumps skittering across her heated skin. She willed herself not to yank her hand from his and held herself in check.
“You touting for another wedding to plan?” Cade pushed away from the door, dwarfing the room. He shoved his hands deep into the pockets of jeans that skimmed his long, muscular thighs. “If you are,” he said, with a shrug, “you’re out of luck. Marriage and I don’t mix.”
Taylor tightened her grip on her bag, desperate to silence the slamming of her heartbeat. “So I heard.”
“You’ve heard more about me than I have of you,” he replied.
A hint of a smile tipped the corners of her mouth. “You’re quite well known, Mr. Harper. Successful and entrepreneurial.”
“I work hard.”
“And play hard, so the papers say.”
“Gossip and innuendo,” he countered, his steely gaze sizing her up.
A bead of sweat trickled between her breasts. Cade hadn’t taken his eyes off her since they’d entered the back room.
That has to be a good thing. Shows he’s interested, her subconscious reminded her. Taylor shifted from foot to foot.
It’s now or never, Sullivan.
With a deep breath that really didn’t soothe her chaotic thoughts, she pulled herself to her full five-foot-ten height and dived in. “I want you to have sex with me.”
Cade’s dark eyes bolted wide. “Whoa.”
Heat suffused Taylor’s cheeks. “Oh, hell, this is stupid.” How dumb could she be? She reached for her bag, but the over-laden carryall slid from her fingers and upended, scattering its contents across the floor.
Taylor gasped and, for one long, drawn-out second, simply stared. Her breath strangulated in her throat, and a furious heat burned behind her eyes. There, right at Cade’s feet, lay her box of condoms.
Blinking back tears, she dropped to her knees and gathered everything as fast as she could. “Stupid, stupid.”
Then worse worsened.
Cade reached the condoms the second before she did.
“You must be a good Girl Scout,” he said and passed the box to her.
Their fingers touched.
Their eyes met.
Held.
All the oxygen seemed to be sucked from her lungs. She pulled away, shaking her head, struggling for a semblance of practicality.
“Always be prepared. Isn’t that their motto?” Cade chuckled.
This was bad. Really bad. Mortified, Taylor refused to look at him and kept her lips firmly closed. She shoved the box into her bag and zipped it closed with a firm tug.
Open up again, she warned silently, and you’ll be in the rubbish bin.
She straightened, walked to the door and opened it. Strains of Dr. Hook’s “Sexy Eyes” wafted into the small room. How appropriate. Cade’s dark eyes were just that, downright sinful and sexy.
“Wait,” he said.
“Why?”
“You’ve just proposed something way out there and I want to know why.”
Her hand fell from the door.
“You intrigue me.”
Cade’s seductive gaze traveled her length, lighting a trail of heat to the tips of her toes.
“Are you going to tell me why you walked in here and offered yourself? Sex is a serious game.”
Taylor searched for the right words, unsure if there were any right ones. “In my business, I need experience.”
“You plan weddings. You don’t have to sleep with the grooms.”
Taylor gasped, but not one single word came out. Cade wanted an answer. Deserved one. She clutched her bag, kneading the leather. “I…get asked questions,” she finally managed to whisper.
“What sort of questions?”
“Damn it, Cade, do I have to spell it out?”
“Seems so,” he said with a hint of amusement glittering in his way-too-sexy eyes.
“You’re enjoying this.”
“Sure,” he said, not even denying it. He gave another of his smiles, the ones that got her all hot and bothered. And right now, she was very bothered.
“I get asked questions—about sex. S-E-X. Got it?” Taylor looked everywhere but at Cade.
“Got it.”
She thought he’d laugh, joke, something, but not do this…not be gentle. Cade caught her chin in his fingers, turning her so she had to look at him. “So why not answer them?”
Oh, man. Where were those damned red shoes of Dorothy’s when she needed them? Kansas looked pretty appealing right now.
“I can’t answer them.”
“Can’t?”
The tip of her tongue slid along her teeth. “Look, I realize this is on the edge of weird.”
“True,” he agreed, much to her chagrin. “I don’t have a beautiful lady come into my bar every day and ask for sex.”
He didn’t? Taylor’s brows knitted. Why not? Cade was hunk material. He made her forget—everything.
“Questions, you said,” he prompted.
Oh, God, there was no way out. Not even an earthquake could save her now. “The questions are something that goes with the territory of being a wedding planner. Brides get anxious,” she said, hugging her bag to her chest. “They may be experienced, even living with their partners, but sometimes, as the wedding draws near, they get skittery. They ask, um…questions—about sex. Questions I can’t answer, because…”
“Because you’re a virgin?”
Oh, where was that earthquake when a girl wanted it? “That’s right.” Heat burned her face. Her scalp. Everywhere. She speared Cade with a direct glare. Don’t you dare laugh! Don’t you make me feel any worse than I do, she silently challenged.
But he didn’t laugh. He didn’t smile. What he did was worse. Much worse. He closed the gap between them. Taylor’s body erupted into high alert, nipples pebbling beneath her lacy bra. She could deal with him at a distance. But close up, everything changed. Body heat got in the way.
Multi-published author Jane Beckenham discovered dreams and hope, stories that inspired in her a love of romance and happy ever after. Years later, after a blind date, Jane found her own true love and married him eleven months later.
Life has been a series of ‘dreams’ for Jane. Dreaming of learning to walk again after spending years in hospital. Dreaming of raising a family and subsequently flying to Russia to bring home her two adopted daughters. And of course, dreaming of writing.
Writing has become Jane’s addiction - and it sure beats housework.
Visit Jane’s web site www.janebeckenham.com
Email neiljane@ihug.co.nz
Twitter @JaneBeckenham
Facebook www.facebook.com/JaneBeckenham
I’m so thrilled at the moment because something new and exciting happened last Thursday. I was able to tick off one of my career goals. I sold one of my books on a partial (the three chapters and a synopsis). So a big tick to that.
I thought I’d chat a bit about goals. Whether personal or career goals. My personal opinion is that I think we humans need goals. It could be as simple as getting out of bed each morning before 7a.m., exercising, or as challenging as learning to walk again.
These are goals I have set myself over the years through various life challenges. Some took grit and determination (and a lot of pain) but others were as simple as not ignoring the alarm when it went off. But though some of these goals are small they each give us a huge boost internally. They say silently – you can do it – you can achieve – and when those goals are reached, even if it is the exercising, or getting out of bed before the sun’s up, then that repetition has to do wonders for your personal and external self-esteem.
Most writers would agree that writing can be a lonely life. We’re locked away in our little writing caves for hours on end – case in point - all Easter I was writing/working – I did 12 hour days each day – but I had a goal in mind – I had set myself some work to get done before Easter Monday. I worked hard – actually I worked my butt of (LOL), but I did it, and the sense of achievement was huge.
By achieving our goals, whatever their size it also gives us a sense of achievement and satisfaction.
When you set a goal I think you have to ask yourself – how much do I really want this – sure I may want to lose weight – but am I prepared to work hard at it?
The question writers must ask themselves. – How much do you want this career? How much are you prepared to give up for it?
Many years ago I spent months in and out of hospital and was on crutches for over a year, physio daily. I remember setting myself a goal. By such and such a date I would be down to one crutch, by another date down to a walking stick and eventually walking unaided.
For any goal you want to achieve, big or small, I really believe you need grit and determination – and writers need this in abundance – it’s a hard haul, full of rejections, but joy and wonderful friendships too.
It’s easy to turn the alarm off and roll over and go back to sleep.
But it takes a strong determination to see it through. In fact don’t’ they say something about 21 days to make a new habit?
Goals are not the prerogative of the New Year. You can make them any time.
What goals are you going to make today, so that this time next week, next month, or next year, you can say I HAVE DONE IT!
Happy days everyone
Jane Beckenham
Don't Forget To Check Out Her Hot Romance- He's The One
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Blurb:
Virginity is overrated.
Taylor Sullivan doesn’t trust Cupid, but she plays one for a living. As a successful wedding consultant, she creates a couple’s ultimate fantasy—even though she’s never managed to create her own. And when her clients start asking her for wedding night advice, she’s sensible enough to know when to enlist help.
Cade Harper knows two things about women. They either abandon him, or use him as a walking bank. He doesn’t do commitment, and marriage is a dirty word—witness the string of broken hearts he’s left in his wake. Yet Taylor’s business proposition intrigues him. In exchange for one night of no-strings passion, she’ll develop a promotional plan for his business. Who could say no?
Never one to buy anything sight unseen, Taylor tests the waters with a kiss. In an instant she has the only answer she’s ever wanted—that Cade is the one she wants.
As business starts tumbling into pleasure, Cade finds himself falling hard and fast.
It’s a fantasy come true—if they can turn heartache into forever…
And here's a bonus Sneak Peek
The moment Cade turned, everything changed.
Cade Harper. Bad boy. One sexy guy.
Taylor’s voice stalled in her throat, and she knew, when his smiling eyes captured hers, she was in way over her head.
Cade wiped his hands on a cloth and again Taylor’s gaze followed. Long, lean fingers. Fingers that would touch… Oh, boy!
He smiled. “You wanted to see me?”
She nodded and felt herself drowning in that smile. His dark eyes twinkled, a swirl of gold and chocolate brown. Just like Hershey Kisses.
Kisses!
Yep. She was definitely going under.
“Lady, I don’t mean to be rude, but I’ve got a bar to run,” he said, grabbing a knife and cutting a lemon into wafer-thin slices.
Taylor shook herself. Okay. Come on. Just say it. “I’ve got a favor to ask.”
“Ask away then,” he said, not looking up.
Taylor burned and eyed the milling crowd. “Actually, it’s a proposition.”
He definitely looked then, and his gaze focused on her. He placed the razor-sharp knife on the cutting board. His mouth quirked at one corner, smiling, gaze assessing. “Sounds intriguing.”
Sounds stupid.
He leant forward and rested both hands on the bar, the flex and tension in his forearms a powerful tease. Taylor swallowed hard.
“Is there anywhere we can talk—privately?”
“Out back in the den.” He flicked a hand toward a door behind the bar.
“More like going into the lion’s den,” she muttered.
“You say something?”
“Ah…no.” She dropped her gaze. Damn. Why hadn’t she chosen a different career? One where her clients didn’t ask about sex?
Holding herself stiff and feeling as if all eyes followed her movements, she walked behind the bar. As she brushed past him, the musky scent of his cologne teased her senses. Taylor willed the butterflies dancing a tango in her stomach to abate. They didn’t listen.
No more than a storeroom with boxes piled high along three of its four walls and a desk barely visible beneath a pile of papers and computer sheets, this room wore many different hats.
Every word Taylor had practiced dissolved from her memory as Cade closed the door behind him. The soft click of the latch echoed a thousand-fold. She spun around. He leant against the door, arms folded across his formidable chest, his gaze candid. He looked dangerous—but very delicious.
He spoke first. “Do I know you?”
“Not really.” Not yet.
“Shame.” He gave another of his long, lingering smiles, the kind that emphasized the dimples on either side of his sexy mouth. It set her toes curling and her body pulsing. Her internal temperature gauge hit the jackpot. Oh, Lordy, she was out of her depth. But here goes.
“I’m Taylor Sullivan. We didn’t meet, exactly, at Brianna Bennett’s wedding. I was her planner.” She jerked out her hand. Cade took it in his. Warm, strong fingers enveloped hers. The tips were slightly calloused, and the friction sent goose bumps skittering across her heated skin. She willed herself not to yank her hand from his and held herself in check.
“You touting for another wedding to plan?” Cade pushed away from the door, dwarfing the room. He shoved his hands deep into the pockets of jeans that skimmed his long, muscular thighs. “If you are,” he said, with a shrug, “you’re out of luck. Marriage and I don’t mix.”
Taylor tightened her grip on her bag, desperate to silence the slamming of her heartbeat. “So I heard.”
“You’ve heard more about me than I have of you,” he replied.
A hint of a smile tipped the corners of her mouth. “You’re quite well known, Mr. Harper. Successful and entrepreneurial.”
“I work hard.”
“And play hard, so the papers say.”
“Gossip and innuendo,” he countered, his steely gaze sizing her up.
A bead of sweat trickled between her breasts. Cade hadn’t taken his eyes off her since they’d entered the back room.
That has to be a good thing. Shows he’s interested, her subconscious reminded her. Taylor shifted from foot to foot.
It’s now or never, Sullivan.
With a deep breath that really didn’t soothe her chaotic thoughts, she pulled herself to her full five-foot-ten height and dived in. “I want you to have sex with me.”
Cade’s dark eyes bolted wide. “Whoa.”
Heat suffused Taylor’s cheeks. “Oh, hell, this is stupid.” How dumb could she be? She reached for her bag, but the over-laden carryall slid from her fingers and upended, scattering its contents across the floor.
Taylor gasped and, for one long, drawn-out second, simply stared. Her breath strangulated in her throat, and a furious heat burned behind her eyes. There, right at Cade’s feet, lay her box of condoms.
Blinking back tears, she dropped to her knees and gathered everything as fast as she could. “Stupid, stupid.”
Then worse worsened.
Cade reached the condoms the second before she did.
“You must be a good Girl Scout,” he said and passed the box to her.
Their fingers touched.
Their eyes met.
Held.
All the oxygen seemed to be sucked from her lungs. She pulled away, shaking her head, struggling for a semblance of practicality.
“Always be prepared. Isn’t that their motto?” Cade chuckled.
This was bad. Really bad. Mortified, Taylor refused to look at him and kept her lips firmly closed. She shoved the box into her bag and zipped it closed with a firm tug.
Open up again, she warned silently, and you’ll be in the rubbish bin.
She straightened, walked to the door and opened it. Strains of Dr. Hook’s “Sexy Eyes” wafted into the small room. How appropriate. Cade’s dark eyes were just that, downright sinful and sexy.
“Wait,” he said.
“Why?”
“You’ve just proposed something way out there and I want to know why.”
Her hand fell from the door.
“You intrigue me.”
Cade’s seductive gaze traveled her length, lighting a trail of heat to the tips of her toes.
“Are you going to tell me why you walked in here and offered yourself? Sex is a serious game.”
Taylor searched for the right words, unsure if there were any right ones. “In my business, I need experience.”
“You plan weddings. You don’t have to sleep with the grooms.”
Taylor gasped, but not one single word came out. Cade wanted an answer. Deserved one. She clutched her bag, kneading the leather. “I…get asked questions,” she finally managed to whisper.
“What sort of questions?”
“Damn it, Cade, do I have to spell it out?”
“Seems so,” he said with a hint of amusement glittering in his way-too-sexy eyes.
“You’re enjoying this.”
“Sure,” he said, not even denying it. He gave another of his smiles, the ones that got her all hot and bothered. And right now, she was very bothered.
“I get asked questions—about sex. S-E-X. Got it?” Taylor looked everywhere but at Cade.
“Got it.”
She thought he’d laugh, joke, something, but not do this…not be gentle. Cade caught her chin in his fingers, turning her so she had to look at him. “So why not answer them?”
Oh, man. Where were those damned red shoes of Dorothy’s when she needed them? Kansas looked pretty appealing right now.
“I can’t answer them.”
“Can’t?”
The tip of her tongue slid along her teeth. “Look, I realize this is on the edge of weird.”
“True,” he agreed, much to her chagrin. “I don’t have a beautiful lady come into my bar every day and ask for sex.”
He didn’t? Taylor’s brows knitted. Why not? Cade was hunk material. He made her forget—everything.
“Questions, you said,” he prompted.
Oh, God, there was no way out. Not even an earthquake could save her now. “The questions are something that goes with the territory of being a wedding planner. Brides get anxious,” she said, hugging her bag to her chest. “They may be experienced, even living with their partners, but sometimes, as the wedding draws near, they get skittery. They ask, um…questions—about sex. Questions I can’t answer, because…”
“Because you’re a virgin?”
Oh, where was that earthquake when a girl wanted it? “That’s right.” Heat burned her face. Her scalp. Everywhere. She speared Cade with a direct glare. Don’t you dare laugh! Don’t you make me feel any worse than I do, she silently challenged.
But he didn’t laugh. He didn’t smile. What he did was worse. Much worse. He closed the gap between them. Taylor’s body erupted into high alert, nipples pebbling beneath her lacy bra. She could deal with him at a distance. But close up, everything changed. Body heat got in the way.
Multi-published author Jane Beckenham discovered dreams and hope, stories that inspired in her a love of romance and happy ever after. Years later, after a blind date, Jane found her own true love and married him eleven months later.
Life has been a series of ‘dreams’ for Jane. Dreaming of learning to walk again after spending years in hospital. Dreaming of raising a family and subsequently flying to Russia to bring home her two adopted daughters. And of course, dreaming of writing.
Writing has become Jane’s addiction - and it sure beats housework.
Visit Jane’s web site www.janebeckenham.com
Email neiljane@ihug.co.nz
Twitter @JaneBeckenham
Facebook www.facebook.com/JaneBeckenham
