Jenyfer Matthews

HERE TO STAY was released nearly six months ago but I never get tired of collecting good reviews:

HERE TO STAY is a sweet, yet suspenseful tale of reunited lovers and unanswered questions. Jenyfer Matthews has crafted a story that really has you wondering whodunit and why. The answers aren’t as clear cut as you’d think. [...] I loved watching them work things out, and I kept wondering if this time it would last. You’ve got to read this one to find out.

Heather M. Riley, Romance Junkies
4.5/5 blue ribbons

What are you waiting for? Buy the book already!

Only 13 more school days to go – 13 more quiet mornings – and my inner voice is stubbornly silent. Figures, huh? I did some research for the next little bit of my story over the weekend so now I’m just letting it…simmer.

In the meantime, I had an interesting email over the weekend from another romance author who also lives in Egypt. She’s the editor for a local expat magazine and would like to run an interview with me in their October issue – perfect timing for the release of my next book ONE CRAZY SUMMER. I’m both thrilled and excited but now comes the hard part.

Answering the questions in a way that actually makes ME sound witty and INTERESTING. I was working on it this morning and it’s not as easy as it might seem. (I know, hard to believe, isn’t it?) There’s a reason I don’t write paranormal/fantasy/sci-fi. My feet are firmly planted on the ground and even wrapped in the cloak of my alter ego, it’s still just me. I haven’t created a whole separate fully-developed super-persona – it’s just me with a different name. And it’s still difficult to find ways to sing my own praises without feeling like a jerk.

But “just” writing a great story isn’t enough – you have to find ways to connect with potential readers. Why should they read your book when there are so many others out there to choose from? How can you make yourself stand out in the proverbial crowd? Maybe they see an interview published in a magazine and think “Wow! What a (witty / intelligent / insightful / dull / moronic) person this is! I should (never ever) read their book!”

It’s a lot of pressure.

If I tell someone that I live in Cairo and write romance novels their first reaction might be “Oh! How interesting!” But really, dig a little deeper and my life is pretty average and normal. I get up in the morning and dash through making breakfast and packing lunches for the kids. I do my own grocery shopping and cooking, laundry, housework – in short all the usual dull details of regular life. Jackie Collins I am not.

Even the Cairo angle might even seem less interesting when presented to a group of people who themselves have also lived abroad for many years – and in many cases in more exotic locales yet.

I’ll have to give it some thought – it’s not every day that such an opportunity falls in my lap. Hmmm… I suppose I could lie…em…I mean accentuate the positives. I am a writer after all….

Been a little restless and out of sorts lately. I tend to get that way when I feel like I’m spinning my wheels and not being very productive. And I haven’t been able to settle down and work in part because I’m anticipating my annual vacation. You know how it is the day before a long weekend, you just sort of blow things off because, well, what’s the point in getting started on something new?

Only I have a month before I go. You can get a lot done in a month.

I decided to get busy this morning. It’s too hot here at present to think about making bread. Instead, I made some gazpacho with the pile of fresh tomatoes I had in the fridge. And I watered all the plants on my balcony and gave them a shower as well (I could almost hear them gasp in relief – they get awfully dusty out there), all while singing my heart out to a favorite CD. After I got all that done, I practiced a little BICHOK (butt-in-chair-hands-on-keyboard for newcomers)

I got 1700 words written, give or take. Not a bad result. I feel better already.

And I’m really looking forward to the gazpacho…

I really really planned to sit down and do some writing yesterday and today, but you know what they say about the best laid plans. Yesterday? I have no real excuse except that I found it hard to get back in the mood after taking the weekend off. I was having far too much fun playing around on other people’s blogs to stop and do some work of my own.

Today was another matter. You know how it is – you keep putting off all the little chores that you need to do until “later” and then suddenly “later” arrives! My son’s passport will expire in the fall just after his birthday and I suddenly remembered that there are rules about traveling when your passport is within 6 months of expiring. We could have let it go since we will be traveling in and out of the US this summer and apparently that isn’t a problem, but we decided to go ahead and take care of it now. Which meant gathering lots of different paperwork, forms of identification, and a progression of baby pictures proving that this is indeed the same child as the one in the infant photo in his current passport and making a trip down to the embassy.

I don’t know why, but I get unaccountably uptight when I come into contact with bureaucrats. I read instructions and follow them, but I always worry that I’ll have missed *something* and that *something* will cause problems or delays. And because I’m uptight and worried I over-think and hesitate when answering simple questions – which makes me seem suspicious. Which is not something you want to be labeled when in a US embassy (or a border crossing – yes, border patrol officers, customs agents, courthouse clerks – they all affect me the same way)

This morning wasn’t too bad. I had downloaded the application off of the website and had it all ready to go with my other supporting documents in a folder, ready for inspection. Except then we had to wait for about fifteen minutes for our turn and while we were waiting I started to worry that maybe they would give me a hard time because my application form wasn’t actually ORANGE like the ones they had in the rack near the door. What if they turned me away because it wasn’t orange? Would they let me fill out a new one while I stood there or would it have been a wasted trip?

They took my application and I didn’t end up getting frisked or otherwise detained. The new passport should be ready in 10 days, in plenty of time for our vacation travel.

Traveling with two kids under ten – now THAT will be an excuse for not writing!

I spent the morning at Blogthings when I should have been working – sue me. It didn’t seem worthwhile getting too carried away writing when I was going to have to quit early and go to a performance at my son’s preschool (that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it!) Besides, I love taking quizzes and blogthings is addictive. Since I didn’t do anything truly productive the least I can do it share my test results with you. It’s kind of strange how accurate these things can be:

You Are Internal – Realist – Powerful

You feel your life is controlled internally. If you want something, you make it happen. You don’t wait around for things to go your way. You value your independence and don’t like others to have control.You are a realist when it comes to luck. You don’t attribute everything to luck, but you do know some things are random. You don’t beat yourself up when bad things happen to you… But you do your best to try to make your own luck. When it comes to who’s in charge, it’s you. Life is a kingdom, and you’re the grand ruler. You don’t care much about what others think. But they better care what you think!

The Three Dimension Luck and Power Test

It has not been a terribly productive week. I’ve had a cold dragging me down and have been too exhausted to do much beyond lay in bed and doze. I have lots of ideas dancing around in my head and no energy to get them down on paper.

There’s another topic. There are days when I wish I could write my stories out longhand on paper and skip the computer entirely. Our computer required some maintenance this week and it should have been an easy fix. All it needed was a new power supply (fan died) and to have Windows reloaded. We threw in a RAM upgrade for kicks. That was when the fun started.

I was once enrolled in a computer program because I thought that I wanted to be a computer tech. I like using computers and I like teaching others how to use computers. I do not however like to fix computers. I swear there are gremlins inside them – you fix one problem and four more appear.

Have you ever tried to work on a computer that just cuts off and restarts itself at random intervals? It’s not easy. After several hours wasted reloading device drivers and other software, we finally determined that it was the new RAM chip causing the problems. The computer was rejecting it – sort of like an organ transplant, it wasn’t totally compatible. We had the chip switched out and everything seems to be functioning again.

Now, if only the cold would go away…

My neighbor came up to my place a couple of days ago to discuss a quilt she wants to commission from me and while we were talking she asked me a question about making jam — because of my “Martha Stewart ways”.

Those were her exact words.

More appalling than the fact that she was seriously comparing me to Martha Stewart, I actually knew the answer to her question.

I suppose it’s no wonder she sees me as a domestic goddess between the quilting, bread making and now home canning, but I wonder if she’d see me the same way if I gave her a copy of my book? Or would that just reinforce the image since we all know that only sad-sack desperate housewives and other lonely types like romance?

Obviously I’m being sarcastic but it does go to show why it’s tough to live an image down. People see and interpret things how they want to, making things fit the image that they already hold. Even if I did (get drunk enough to) pierce my nose, the likelihood is I wouldn’t be seen as a trendy Bohemian — I’d just be seen as some pathetic middle-aged woman desperately trying to hold on to my youth.

(I’m vain enough to add that I’m not quite middle aged just yet)

Oh well. At the end of the day, I know who I am and what I am about. And at least that lets me off the hook for piercing my nose…

Garlic!!

(But only if you’re both eating it!)

Who needs oysters? Dinner last night was fresh homemade pesto pizza, topped with calamata olives, sweet red pepper and mozarella cheese. Fresh sweet corn on the side. Nothing like an excellent dinner and little wine to put you in the mood…

I read a book on the plane this week (one and a half times actually – don’t you love delays?) called “Wife Living Dangerously” by Debra Kent. Here’s the blurb:

As a perfect suburban wife and mother, Julia Flanagan has played by the rules, done what she’s told and put her family first for as long as she can remember. If she’s honest, she’d like a bit more excitement in her life – but wouldn’t everyone?

Then her best friends dare her to break the rules just for once. Taking on their challenge proves easier than she could have imagined: first she’s mixing recyclable glass with plastic; then she’s passing off shop-bought cakes as her own.

But when she meets the sexiest man she’s ever seen, and their work throws them together, she learns the true meaning of what it’s like to be a wife living dangerously. Now she faces the dilemma of how far she should go. And, more importantly, what she has got to lose.

I enjoyed this book tremendously – I would have reread it even if I hadn’t been trapped on a plane with no other entertainment options. It was extremely well written, and since it was done in first person, it had a very intimate feel – as if you were sharing the experience with a friend.
The situations and emotions described were very vivid and alive – and some of the observations on married life struck extremely close to home. Either the author herself had firsthand experience or she’d done her research well.

Reading this book made me think about the nature of romance in fiction. This book was not a romance book – I suppose it would be labeled “chick lit”, it was a bit too light for “women’s fiction – and yet the relationships that Julia had with her husband and with her temptation were the main story. The entire process of the other man wooing her, the agony and obsession she feels as she falls for him, the highs and the lows, her final decision and the satisfying conclusion (sorry, no spoilers!). This was more a slice of real life than the clean HEA a reader gets in a classic romance novel, and yet there were many parallels. I was actually glad I was on a plane when I started it because once I picked it up I simply didn’t want to put it down. I was gripped – as I am in any love story.

And really, isn’t that what romance is all about?