Once upon a manuscript…by Jina Bacarr
June 11, 2018 by Jina Bacarr in category Jina’s Book Chat, Writing tagged as books, chocolate, Cinderella, coffee, fairy tale, prince, writing
You know the drill. You write a wonderful story, pour your heart into it, and send it off.
Then you wait.
You drink coffee, refuse to let anyone come between you and your phone so you can check your email 24/7, you obsess, eat chocolate, exercise to work off said chocolate so you can eat more, then give up eating altogether because your throat is so tight from the stress, you binge watch everything you can on TV so you can forget the horror of waiting and wish you’d fall into a hundred years’ sleep so the pain will go away.
A major run-on sentence. But that’s life in the “waiting to hear back from the publisher who requested the full” in the manuscript world.
Okay, so what do you do?
Write another book.
You’ve heard it before and I agree, but it’s also important to take some “me” time. After all, you’ve been taking care of your characters, who can be quite demanding, keep you up at nights, make you cry and drink coffee nonstop, so now it’s time to put your feet up and relax.
Then work on another book.
Writers are not machines.
We need nurturing, healthy food, exercise, fresh air, and social interaction. So as I sit here writing this and waiting to hear back on my manuscript, I’m going to do just that.
I’m going for a walk to the nearby coffee shack, have a mocha coffee and, God help me, a warm croissant oozing with raspberries and melting chocolate chips.
And just breathe.
And yes, I’m bringing my phone with me.
Just in case the editor calls…
Jina
PS – I’ll update my post when I hear anything on my m/s – an Italian billionaire prince story and his Cinderella. 
My Endless Summer of Reading by Jina Bacarr
May 11, 2018 by Jina Bacarr in category Jina’s Book Chat, Writing tagged as author, books, friend, Library, May, prom, promposal, reading, SummerIt’s the reading month of May!
In case you didn’t know it, May is #GetCaughtReadingMonth, so I decided to challenge myself to do “a graphic a day with someone reading a book.”
I’m a third of my way through the month, and I’m hanging in there. So for this month’s blog, I’m going to post some of them for your viewing and reading pleasure.
First, here’s a graphic I really love because it says so much about how lucky we are to choose what we read.
Which brings me to my own version of the Endless Summer
When I was thirteen, I spent my free time in the old library by the beach with its dusty shelves and cracked, wooden floor. It was the summer I discovered boys and surfing.
And the library’s adult section.
Reading everything I could find there. Romance sagas in hardback, mysteries with provocative covers. Adventure stories girls weren’t supposed to read.
Until a lady wagged her finger at me and told me to go back to the kids’ section.
I didn’t.
Even then I knew I wanted to write, and to write what was in my heart, I needed the freedom to discover all kinds of writing.
Enjoy the freedom to choose what you want to read!
By the way, I didn’t listen to her and kept sticking my Irish nose wherever I smelled a good story…
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So for #GetCaughtReadingMonth, here are some of the graphics I’ve posted so far:
You can find all the #GetCaughtReadingMonth graphics I’ve done so far and check them out all this month of May on Twitter and my Facebook pages:
And finally, since it’s prom month:
Ever wanted to be Prom Queen?
Kaylee is tired of being bullied by the Duchess in Crystal Girl and sells her soul to get thin
Here’s the story of Kaylee and her promposal . . . from a hottie devil!
CRYSTAL GIRL: Kindle & KU: http://a.co/ipzidx8
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How far would you go to get thin? by Jina Bacarr
January 11, 2018 by Jina Bacarr in category Jina’s Book Chat tagged as books, dance., fantasy, gown, prom, teen paranormal, young adult
The holidays just ended and already I’m getting emails from a major department store telling me it’s not too early to prep for prom.
Seriously?
I took a look at the dresses offered and I have to admit, $445.00 is pretty pricey for a dress you may only wear once. Or twice.
If you’re lucky, you get to wear your prom dress to a college dance, but by then it will be so “yesterday.” Not to mention it won’t fit if you fall victim to the Freshman Fifteen.
But what if you’re not going to the prom because . . . well, you hate yourself because you’re not thin. Who’s gonna ask you?
It gets worse.
When your arch enemy, the Duchess, bullies you about your weight, you lose it. Announce to the universe you’re going to
run against her for prom queen and you’ll anything to get thin. Anything. Even sell your soul.
Uh-oh.
Guess who shows up…and is Luke the hottest, sexiest devil you’ve ever seen. He promises you that you’ll get thin if you do what he says…
Find what that is in CRYSTAL GIRL when Kaylee makes a deal with the devil to get thin and win Prom Queen.
Available in Kindle and Kindle UnLimited
With all the talk about how women are viewed in the workplace, let’s not forget appearance is also a key factor. Actresses have been “ordered” to lose weight to get a part. Models, it seems, live on lettuce. And the rest of us, well, we see these gorgeous ladies looking like celery stalks and get on ourselves because we don’t look like that.
Thank goodness people are talking about how much women are paid in the workforce compared to men, and how they have to struggle against unwanted advances from men in power.
But we’re also victims of ourselves. The obsession to be thin. It’s not a new problem. I’m doing research now for a story set in the Victorian era and I came across an “X-ray” drawing of a woman’s ribs from using a corset. Pushed, squeezed into an unnatural, skeleton structure. No wonder women turned green. Literally. It was called chlorosis.
That’s not to say we shouldn’t keep a healthy weight. Healthy is the keyword here.
So if you’ve ever uttered those words, “I’ll do anything to be thin,” check out Crystal Girl and find out the price Kaylee paid before she found her way back.
CRYSTAL GIRL is based on a play I wrote t
hat was produced at the Malibu Stage Company Theatre. It was very exciting to see my characters come alive on stage!! 
Thanks for listening,
Jina
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Royal Noel: This ain’t your mama’s Little Red Riding Hood by Jina Bacarr
December 11, 2017 by Jina Bacarr in category Jina’s Book Chat, WritingRoyal Noel: a fairy tale romance with a twist from Jina Bacarr on Vimeo.
What if Little Riding Hood had other plans than going to Grandma’s house . . . like a castle with a handsome duke?
It’s Christmas and what could be more fun than a new Twisted Tiara story in my Princesses with a Past series for the Kindle Worlds Royals of Monterra.
ROYAL NOEL is a sweet romance fairy tale with a heroine with a past . . . she’s an international jewel thief called The Princess.
Had so much fun writing this with Gennie and her duke . . . and there’s a royal baby, too!
This is Book 4 in my Twisted Tiaras series featuring the Risconti Family in Sariah Wilson‘s Royals of Monterra KW series.
Royal Noel http://a.co/65GYfHH on Kindle and now Kindle Unlimited!
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My princesses with a past in my Twister Tiaras series for the Royals of Monterra Kindle Worlds stories and how I got started writing them.
This month I have an “off script” interview I did re: how I started with The Royals of Monterra.
Jina’s Chat: How I started writing for the Royals of Monterra from Jina Bacarr on Vimeo.
0 0 Read moreVeterans Day: a soldier with PTSD finds his way home by way of a Christmas Piano Tree
November 11, 2017 by Jina Bacarr in category Jina’s Book Chat, Writing tagged as Army, Christmas, holidays, military romance, PTSD, soldier, tree, veteran, Veterans Day
Veterans Day is for healing…let’s not forget our wounded warriors who suffer not only the physical pains of war, but the mental as well.
PTSD was first talked about during the Civil War by physicians who described it as nostalgia, while others believed it was a disturbance of a soldier’s mental capabilities caused by severe trauma to the brain.
After World War II, John Huston directed a documentary called Let There Be Light, about the care of soldiers with mental disturbances suffered during wartime.
These are wounds you don’t see.
But they are very real to the soldier with PTSD.
In my holiday romance, “The Christmas Piano Tree,” the hero, Sgt. Jared Milano, is a wounded warrior suffering from PTSD from his last mission in Afghanistan:
“His brain went into freefall and he couldn’t stop it. No matter how hard he tried, how much he squeezed his mind, the memory stayed lost in a thick, suffocating fog swirling around in his head.
Lost.
Dead and forgotten.
Angry, frustrated, he tried to reach out and grab it, but whatever his buddy said to him before he died remained silent and still in his mind.
When would he remember? When?”
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“The Christmas Piano Tree” is the story of a pretty young war widow who re-discovers the magic of the holiday season with the help of a homeless vet and an old piano.
I’ll never forget the Christmas I spent stationed overseas in a small town in Italy. The hot chocolate and cookies I baked and gave to the soldiers who signed up for my Christmas Eve Midnight Mass tour. Off we went on that wintry night in an old military school bus…
We were a motley group of military and Special Services personnel attending the service in a medieval cathedral that was cold and damp, but filled with song and hope for a better future.
Many of those men had seen the horrors of combat and suffered from PTSD (what we called DSS–delayed-stress syndrome–back then). Their stories as they told them to me have stayed with me always…
Thank you for spending part of your Veterans Day here with me. We thank all those who have served for their courage and bravery in keeping us and our families safe. God bless you.
~Jina
The Christmas Piano Tree is available on Kindle and KindleUnlimited.
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