The Joyous Misfortune of Working at Home

By Nancy Adams (Guest Blogger)

Thanks for having me today, Lisabet.

Sooo, I work from home. The work in question, would be my writing and taking care of my kids. It’s not always easy and it has its times where it is a thankless job, but other times it is fantastic. The up side… I can stay in my warm p.j’s on cold days, take my laptop outside to work on warm days and I don’t have to choke down the crappy coffee that every company enjoys torturing its employees with.

The down side… I’m on call 24/7, 52 weeks a year. I deal with snotty noses, fights, and scraped knees. Growing eyes in the back of my head and the ability to read minds may sound quite freakish but it’s a necessary part of the job. However, not all the ups and downs happen when my demon oops!...My bad! I mean when my CHILDREN are home. The small window of freedom I have during the day has its own set of problems.

The day I received an email from Lisabet telling me the date my blog would be posted, I was sooo excited. This was Lisabet's blog, have you read her stories...HOT! Anyways, I immediately pulled up a blank page in Word and…got up to make myself a coffee. I had already taken my kids to school, walked, and fed the dogs but I had yet to eat breakfast myself or have my traditional cup of Colombian goodness and I would need that both to get my ideas pounded out. My goal was to send the blog and info on my up coming release to Lisabet early so I wouldn’t have to worry about it over the Christmas holiday.

Breakfast eaten and coffee in hand, I sat back down, took a sip, and…checked my emails. Might as well get anything pressing out of the way first, then I can focus solely on Lisabet’s blog. After 75 minutes of reading news feeds, checking and updating my Facebook Page, I finally checked my hotmail account. That done, I got back to it and once again pulled up the blank Word page. First step, a title. Okay no problem. Could I think of one…no. No I couldn’t. I was too busy trying to get my dogs to stop barking, so I booted them out into the backyard for some peace. On my way back to the computer, I saw the mountain of clothes I had asked my nine year old to bring down so I could wash them. Okay. I’ll quickly through them in the washer, then start my blog.

After starting my sons’ laundry and tidying up the mud/laundry room. I passed through the kitchen and decided a quick clean up was in order. I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on writing it I knew the kitchen was a mess. I quickly straighten it up and feeling my stomach growl for lunch, I grabbed a bite to eat. I was just settling back down at my computer only to have the phone ring next to me. My husband was on the other end asking about my day and what I wanted for dinner and if there was anything I needed him to pick up on his way home. After a lengthy discussion about food, I hung up and heard the buzzer on the washer go off. I hopped up and transferred the wet clothes into the dryer and was heading back to my computer for a third time when the dogs started barking…again. I let them back in the house and after getting, them calmed down I sat down once again at my computer.

Staring at the blank screen I suddenly had an idea for my current WIP and quickly pulled up the file and pounded out the idea. An hour and a half later, I saved my progress and switched back over to my blank blog. I still hadn’t even typed a title for it and it was -- I looked at the time-- 3:45pm. I sighed…"Shit!” It was time to get the kids from school. Ok, so my day of pounding out a blog was over and once the kidlets enter the house, I wouldn’t get any writing done.

But no problem! I still had more then two months until my blog was to be posted. I would just pound it out tomorrow.

Yeah, that was back in December and it is now the beginning of February!

So much for the ‘I’ll get to it tomorrow’ way of thinking. I can’t count how many days I had like that one, where every time you turn around something had to be done or was waiting to be started. A couple of times I just said to hell with everything and focused on my writing, which wasn’t a walk in the park because I get distracted quite easily. (I bet that’s a shocker!) And during the whole time there was that little voice saying ‘you need to vacuum up the dog hair, Nancy’ or ‘you need to put the kids clean clothes away’ or ‘let’s go get a pedicure’.

Argh! I used to have such great discipline when we lived out in Edmonton. Then again, my kids weren’t in school full-time like they are now and my free time was those sacred hours in the afternoon during Pre-school or after they went to bed at night. I used my time wisely when at home, cooking, cleaning, or whatever, with one or sometimes two little shadows following behind me. When that precious ‘Me Time’ finally rolled around, I spent it at my local library. It was a wonderful building and not your typical library. It was busy and noisy and it was incredible how much work I got done in that short amount of time. I still don’t understand how I was able to work there and not in my own home. Crazy!

Do I need to get back on track and organize my time better? Totally! I also need to cut ties to the outside world. Facebook, emails, surfing the web (unless it for research), are all way too distracting. What I need to do is to take pointers from Meghan Kennedy; she’s the heroine in my latest release The Bannockburn Spell. Meghan works for a small publishing house out of Toronto and even though she is forced to leave her work and life and flee to the safety of Little Glen, Scotland, she is still able to focus on her job when the time calls for it. Of course, that changes when hotty ex-SBS soldier, Will Mackenzie, watches her with those hypnotic eyes and warms her with his hard body. Everything vanishes then even the memory of their little love bet...and the 800-year-old marriage contract that he threatened her with and then there is the spell. Oh! Did I forget to mention the spell? Yeah...Meghan has had a spell cast on her too. 

Yet despite all of these distractions, Meghan can some how concentrate when she has too. Well…most of the time, anyways. I wonder where I can get some willpower like that? 

Blurb – The Bannockburn Spell

With the help of a bet, an eight-hundred-year-old marriage contract and a spell, ex-SBS soldier Will might just have enough in his arsenal to capture Meghan’s heart.

Since arriving in Little Glen, Scotland, Meghan Kennedy’s life has got decidedly more interesting. She enters into a bet with hunky ex-SBS soldier, William MacKenzie, discovers an ancient marriage contract and to top it all off, she learns that she had a spell cast on her…eight hundred years before she was even born. None of it matters, because she refuses to make the same mistake twice. Will’s hard body and sexy grin don’t matter, his beautiful hypnotic eyes don’t matter, and it doesn’t matter that every time they kiss her body calls out for his, as though denied of his touch for hundreds of years.

Ex-SBS soldier William MacKenzie is disciplined, trained to be an efficient soldier and he takes the same approach with his life as he does his business. Then Meghan arrives, with her fiery temper and hair to match, all he can think about is Meghan. Her feisty temper bemuses him, her beauty astounds him and her stubbornness annoys the hell out of him. Lucky for him, he doesn’t know how to quit, he can be just as stubborn and occasionally ruthless, and he will use any means necessary to get her. Of course the ‘means’ at his disposal just happen to be a bet, a marriage contract and an ancient spell, but if in the end Meghan belongs to him, who is he to argue?

Excerpt

“There is no way this contract is—”

“Possible?” Will supplied, looking down at her finger. “Oh, it’s possible and it will happen.” She was a brave lady to be poking him in the chest, the last person to poke him in the chest had ended up getting a few broken fingers for his effort. Except this wasn’t anyone, this was Meghan and he loved her feisty temper, it made him want to pin her to the wall and do wicked things to her. He focused on her mouth as he continued, “But how it happens is up to you.”
   
“How it happens? What do you mean how it happens? Nothing is going to happen,” she yelled, throwing her hands in the air.

He raised an eyebrow at her remark. This wasn’t how this was supposed to turn out, but the time had come for Meghan to understand that he never gave up, or gave in, to anything in his life and he wasn’t about to start now. He would get what he wanted, and at that moment, he knew with complete certainty that he wanted Meghan.

“Yes, it will.” He laced the words with smooth confidence. “You can come to the realisation on your own and agree, or you will be told to. The choice is yours. I would rather you realised it on your own, but I have no problem with the alternative. Either way, I win.”
   
She threw a hip out to the side and placed her hand on it, daring him, “If you think this piece of paper will make me do anything, you are living in a dream world, but I’d like to see you try.”

He expected nothing less. “Are you sure that’s what you want?”

“I told you I like to gamble. Give it your best shot.”

God, she was beautiful when she was mad, her passion was overwhelming. The sudden image of him riding her against a tree in the forest appeared before him. Her red hair was long, longer than she wore it now and it was hanging down her bare back as she clung to his neck. Her dress was gathered around her waist and her lovely legs were wrapped around him as he pounded into her again and again, her wet core squeezing him. His cock jerked to life as Meghan came back into focus.

What had just happened? He blinked, fighting his body. What had they been talking about? Gambling. “That’s right, you like to gamble, then how about a little wager?”

“A bet?” She narrowed her eyes. “What kind of bet?”

He crossed his arms. “I bet that you fall in love with me.”

“Yeah,” she snorted. “Like that’s going to happen.”

“Well, then this should be easy for you.”

She clicked her tongue.

“Not scared, are you?” He gave her pride a nudge.

She mimicked his stance. “What are the stakes?”

He smothered a smile. “If you win, you’re free from the contract. But if I win…” He lowered his head until they were nose to nose. “I get you.”

Will saw the doubt cross her face. “Think you can win?” Straightening to his full height, he held out his hand to her.

She eyed his hand suspiciously, then slid her smaller hand into his. “You bet I can.”

He held fast as she tried to pull back, running his thumb over the back of her hand. The skin was so soft and smooth and for some reason he already knew what it tasted like. His mouth watered. “Good.” He drew in her lavender scent. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t wish you luck. I don’t want you to win.”

***

Bio: Nancy’s addiction for a good trash novel began in her late-teens when her grandmother gave her a bag of Harlequin Romance books. She was hooked and spent the next few years lurking in the dark corners of used bookstores searching for her next fix. Until, one marriage and two kids later, her own ideas had her jumping up at 3 am (much to her husband’s annoyance) and typing them into her laptop. Beside her husband and children, Nancy has three passions, rearranging furniture, buying bed linens and, of course, writing. Nancy lives in Eastern Ontario with her family and two over sized lap dogs.

Links

Blog - http://fancynancyadams.blogspot.ca/

Website - http://fancynancyadams.wix.com/erotic-nancy-adams

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/NancyAdams.scribblingseduction?ref=hl

Buy Links:

Total-E-Bound – http://www.total-e-bound.com/product.asp?strParents=&CAT_ID=&P_ID=1927

Amazon.com – http://www.amazon.com/The-Bannockburn-Spell-ebook/dp/B00AY1ABBS/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1360173362&sr=1-1&keywords=the+bannockburn+spell

Kobo – http://www.kobobooks.com/ebook/The-Bannockburn-Spell/book-CkaSk-3Mz0mx4cPIX7XhvQ/page1.html?s=-Dxl86zZ2EuTFW8AvcWlHg&r=1

All Romance Ebooks – https://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-thebannockburnspell-1039690-143.html

Barnes & Noble - http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-bannockburn-spell-nancy-adams/1114077085?ean=9781781841785