My life as a left-hander and its trials and tribulations
What do you like about left-handed? Dislike?
I’ve been buried in making revisions for a requested Christmas m/s, but I can’t forget Left-Handers Day.
I’m left-handed.
It’s like living life looking through a mirror.
Everything is backward.
When I was a kid in ballet school, I got thrown out of the chorus because I always went right instead of left. I worked hard to get a solo gig so I wouldn’t run into anyone when I chasséd across the stage.
And I love Japan. They read from right to left and back to front (I was at the top of my Japanese language class since right to left is more natural to me).
Yes, it’s a pain, but I’ve learned to find the pot o’ gold in all this. Like a lot of left-handed people, I’m artistic. And I love to write. Create stories.
And therein lies the magic.
I walk through the looking glass every time I sit down to write and go off into a world only I can see. It can be funny, soulful, heart-wrenching, sad, but always romantic.
How about you? Any lefties out there?
Left-handed writers do it better . . . what that is, is up to your imagination!
#BookLoversDay: Travel anywhere with a book
Summer.
Hot, sticky. Airports crowded. Now where is that passport? Shoelaces in a knot. Can’t get your shoes off. Oops, you forgot to dump your bottled water before you checked in at the airport.
No aisle seats.
And no salty, decadent peanuts?
Is this any way to travel?
Why not take a break on Book Lovers Day and go anywhere you want to go?
Pick up a book.
And forget the hassle of missed flights and crowded tour buses.
Go anywhere in the world with your favorite book.
Works for me…
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Here’s my video of Venice book stores:
A gorgeous paperback warrior to stir your soul on #PaperbackBookDay
Dog-eared, coffeestained, pages falling out…
Nothing can take the place of a cherished paperback romance. For within those pages, you cried your eyes out, rooted for the heroine to get her man, and fell in love.
Handwritten notes, the scribbled number of a guy you crushed on when you were reading the story…your favorite scene marked with an old concert ticket…the scent of perfume clinging to the yellowed pages…
There ain’t no app for that.
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Who doesn’t love a gorgeous hero on the cover of a paperback book?
Check your nightstand.
Who knows what romantic adventures await you on Paperback Book Day?
~Jina
Lipstick Day! A sexy poem just for you . . . and the man in your life. Pucker up!
PS — In my WW 2 time travel story I just submitted, everybody wears red, red lipstick. What’s your favorite color?
A LIPSTICK Lover’s Poem
From pink to peach to jungle red
There’s little that hasn’t been said
About our favorite lipstick shade
That promises not to fade
But it’s not lipstick’s glam
Or its kickass hot damn
That seduces us to the lipstick counter
But the promise of a sexy encounter
With the hottie of our dreams
Who’s more than he seems
A man for all seasons
Who has his reasons
When he whispers, “I don’t mean to be rude…
“But I prefer you and your lipstick nude.”
She wore gray.
He wore blue.
But their love defied the boundaries of war.
And time.
Milk Chocolate Day and the Green Fairy
I wish they would make book covers made of chocolate…yummy!
Just think, you could enjoy a satisfying read while eating chocolate…oh, God, it doesn’t get better than that!
So until then, I’m waiting to hear back re: my Italian Billionaire Prince story…
My Wild Elevator Ride: Or why I shouldn’t say I write sexy novels
Writers get lonely. We need to socialize, talk. Discover there is a world beyond our computers. So I came up with this fun character who is a writer and what happens when she goes out into the world and goes on a wild elevator ride…
I hope you enjoy my short story.
~Jina
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My Wild Elevator Ride
I work in a cubicle surrounded by books, computers, and ideas.
I get lonely.
Very lonely. Hey, a girl can only fantasize so much about meeting a sexy guy who’ll knock her bunny slippers off. (I don’t wear shoes when I’m writing.)
So when I go out, which isn’t often when you’re trying to promote your work online and get through the quagmire of the first chapter in your next book, I get talkative.
Very talkative.
When my goddess gets her gab on, I can’t stop her. My therapist says it’s repressed speech syndrome ad finitum. Or something like that.
Anyway, I got in over my head when I walked into the elevator in my hotel. I was in town to speak at a writer’s group which always makes me a nervous wreck. I was going through my usual ritual to calm my nerves. A six-pack of diet soda and dark chocolate.
The only problem was, the soda was warm.
I like ice. Cold, numbing ice. Makes me forget I have to face a room of creative ladies who are probably way more talented than I am, but for some reason they think I’m cool. I just got lucky, I tell them, but yeah, I earned my stripes in this business. Writing, getting rejections for years, and working my butt off. I’m grateful to be where I am.
So what I didn’t need was a guy chatting me up about his hundred thousand dollar a year sales job and his black BMW. Nice enough, but I wasn’t looking for anything more than an ice machine that worked.
The one on my floor was broken.
Now I was stuck in an elevator with a sales guy who had obviously removed the wedding band from his left hand. His tan line blinked at me like a neon sign. Come on in, it seemed to say, the water’s fine.
I don’t swim with the sharks.
“You don’t want to drink alone,” he said, observing my ice bucket filled with chilled cubes.
“I have my laptop for company.” I smiled. “Besides, I have work to do.”
“Are you here with the software convention?” he asked warily.
“Well…” I wasn’t, but I decided to play along.
“No way…a pretty girl like you can’t be a techie.”
“Why not?” I shot back, perturbed. I hated guys who put down a girl’s ambition. “Can’t women use their brains to get ahead?”
“Not when they have natural attributes…” He eyed my chest. Mind you, I was wearing navy blue sweats and my pink bunny slippers with floppy ears. This guy was either desperate or he’d been on the road too long.
“Sorry to disappoint you,” I said, “but I’m a writer.”
“You’re kidding?” He seemed genuinely surprised, which didn’t help my ego. “What do you write?”
Ooh...I couldn’t resist shooting him the punchline.
“I write sexy novels.”
“Well, you are full of surprises,” he said, edging closer to me. “We should get to know each other better.”
The air in the elevator suddenly got stuffier and I prayed my deodorant didn’t work so he’d get the message. So far, no one else had gotten on the elevator and I had two more stops before we got to my floor.
“I don’t think that would be a good idea.” I wiggled the ears on my rabbit slippers, hoping to shoot down this guy’s sex-o-meter. That should have stopped him right there.
It didn’t.
“How about a nightcap in my room? My bottle of bourbon and your—” He paused, wetting his lips. “Ice cubes.”
“You mean do research for my books?”
“Oh, yeah…”
“I bet,” I said.
I shouldn’t have opened my mouth, but sometimes we writers just ache to act like our heroines and throw back those snappy remarks. I tried to discourage him, but when he started breathing in my face, I knew I was in over my head. I did what any romance heroine would do.
I dumped the bucket of melting ice on his pinstripe suit.
“Hey, what the—” he called out and thank God, the elevator door opened. It wasn’t my floor, but I didn’t care. One more minute with Mr. BMW and I would have ended up served on a chilled platter.
Before he could brush the ice off his shoulders, out I ran. Down the long corridor and then I jammed down the stairway to the next floor to my room.
I never looked back.
I spent the rest of the night drinking warm soda and giggling as I wrote this guy into my story. I bet he won’t forget me either.
I imagine that was the last time he tried to pick up a girl in an elevator wearing pink bunny slippers.
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If you love Civil War romance and time travel and TWO hunky military heroes, check out my Kindle Scout winner:
She wore gray.
He wore blue.
But their love defied the boundaries of war.
And time.
LOVE ME FOREVER is now available from Kindle Press at Amazon.com
Lollipop Lil to the Rescue: Or how I wrote a synopsis fast and sweet
I’ve been getting together my submissions after the Twitter pitch blast for two days — I had to write a synopsis for one book — but I’m nearly there.
Energy zapped a while ago, then I found out it’s Lollipop Day!
Sticky, fruity, yummy lollipops.
Like a kid again at the Jersey shore.
Meet Lollipop Lil
There once was a writer of sweet romance
Who when she wrote loved to dance
Then her energy sagged
Oh what a drag
Her book was due so she couldn’t stop
So on she wrote thanks to her lollipop
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She wore gray.
He wore blue.
But their love defied the boundaries of war.
And time.
You’ll meet both my heroines and both my heroes in the excerpt. It’s a saga of love and romance and war. Believe me, I walked every road, fought every battle with my characters, even walked around in a hoop skirt to “get it right.”
This is a book of the heart…any questions? Please ask!!
Thanks for stopping by.
~Jina
What if your first kiss was just plain awful? Virgin Kiss: a high school #MeToo story
What if your first kiss, and I mean your VIRGIN KISS was just plain awful?
Meet Riley Murphy — you won’t believe her high school kissing disaster in VIRGIN KISS
#FREE July 6-8, 2018 Friday through Sunday.
A very short #kissing story
I bet we all remember teenage angst…there’s nothing more angsty (if there is such a word) than that first kiss. Even worse is when it’s not your dream guy.
It’s the guy in the school play.
And boy, does he have ‘tude. Like, power play to the max.
Riley almost lets him get the best of her, then she does something that empowers her in front of the whole school. Find out what that is in VIRGIN KISS
I wrote this before the #MeToo movement, but it was never more true today as the heroine fights back against this snarky guy in a funny and humorous way. And with a Chekhov play, too!
Grab your FREE copy of VIRGIN KISS, a YA very short story.
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Meet Riley Murphy, a new student at Holywell High:
To overcome my shyness, my mom convinced me to try out for the Drama Club. Somehow I landed the leading role in a one-act Chekhov play. Yes, Chekhov. I played this mad, beautiful countess with passion and heart. I loved it. I came alive on stage. I could do anything, be anybody, say anything, I could—
—kiss the male lead?
A gangly sophomore named Luke Vanmeer with long greasy hair and an upper lip curled in a perpetual snarl? He was going to anoint my virgin lips with my first big kiss?
Forget the Altoids. I needed a stress pill.
I quit the play. They could find another dupe. Not me. I wasn’t going to let him use my lips for kissing practice.
Then I heard this little voice in my head telling me this was acting, right? Going through the motions at rehearsals and on stage didn’t count on the kissing scale. I could pucker up with him and still be a kissing virgin.
After that, I sailed through rehearsals, knowing my lines, and “connecting to my character,” according to the director, who insisted on method acting. That’s how the trouble started. We didn’t rehearse the kiss. He wanted a real kiss on stage, he said, not some phony smooch.
Find out what happens when Luke tries to embarrass Riley on stage in front of the whole school… VIRGIN KISS is FREE July 6-8, 2018 on Kindle!! VIRGIN KISS is a YA very short story,
And check out the video with Riley:
Virgin Kiss from Jina Bacarr on Vimeo.
Don’t forget VIRGIN KISS is FREE through Sunday!!
Based on a true story.
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If you love Civil War romance and time travel and TWO hunky military heroes, check out my Kindle Scout winner:
She wore gray.
He wore blue.
But their love defied the boundaries of war.
And time.
LOVE ME FOREVER is now available from Kindle Press at Amazon.com
Miss Cupcake and the Hottie: A July 4th Romance Poem
Miss Cupcake and the Hottie
There once was a girl named Cupcake
Who really, truly loved to bake
Up at six she’d rise …
Butter cake to devise
With eggs, sugar, and flour
She worked hard at this early hour
Adding golden rich butter and vanilla
Dreaming of a handsome fella
For she wanted to catch a man’s eye
Who would love her and make her sigh
Then one glorious Fourth
A handsome lad came forth
Who couldn’t get enough
Of her cupcake stuff
And whisked her away to the Land of Butter
Where there they were married and lived happily ever utter…
Happy Fourth of July!!
Jina
PS — I have two full m/s on submission!!
An Italian billionaire prince falls for a girl from Brooklyn . . .
and
A WW 2 Christmas time travel — a woman gets a second chance to save her fiance from being killed during the war.
Keep you posted . . .
***UPDATED***
An Italian Princess and an English Lord for International #BathDay
It’s International Bath Day!
I used to write travel articles — one of my favorites was a story I wrote about European bathrooms — and oh, the tubs I found in such exotic places as the shared bath in my pension in Paris near the Boulevard St. Germain . . .
Or the bath with the century-old pipes and no heat in Passau, Germany . . .
And the most fabulous bath I’ve ever seen in my hotel in Venice, Italy! The shower was a waterfall coming down from the ceiling. Bellisimo!
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I promised you an English lord in a bath, too, so here is Captain Lord Jack Blackthorn:
TITANIC and the Loo
Today April 10, 1912, the Titanic set sail from Southampton, England with a handsome gentleman gambler aboard. Here we meet Captain Lord Jack Blackthorn:
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A funny thing happened to my heroine, Katie O’Reilly, on the way to the loo when she boarded the Titanic. She couldn’t believe what she saw in the stateroom of Captain Lord Blackthorn (Jack):
“I’m still waiting for you to remove your clothes,” Jack said, agitated. She was not listening to him, marveling instead at the modern appointments in his elegantly furnished cabin. She seemed especially intrigued by the bathroom with its double sink and commode.
Ha
d the girl never seen an indoor toilet before?
I’m sure you’re wondering why his lordship asked Katie to remove her clothes. I’ll tell you this: it’s part of his plan to hide her from the captain and the ship’s officers during the crossing. Kate is reluctant to do what he asks:
“I’m leaving me homeland to be rid of such frippery and do fine and proper work.” Katie started putting her clothes back on. She wasn’t set on going to America all blushes and roses only to be pushed back into service. “No, me lord, I’ll take me chances with the captain.”
“Then you won’t change your mind?”
“No.”
“Too bad,” he said with a smug attitude. “The countess’s stateroom has its own private bathroom.”
Her eyes bugged out. “You wouldn’t be fooling me?”
What Katie is about to find out is that Titanic’s first class passengers enjoyed such luxuries as an electric heater in their bathroom, linoleum tiles and pure Vinolia Otto toilet soap smelling of lemon and spice. The captain enjoyed his bath with a choice of fresh or seawater, hot or cold.
Third class or steerage had plenty of lavatories, but they didn’t wash much if the number of tubs on board was any indication, as Katie found out:
He shook his head. “I hear there are only two tubs in steerage for seven hundred passengers.
“Two tubs for all them people?”
“Rather cozy, if you ask me.”
“And you call yourself a gentleman?” Katie said. A girl might be convinced to take off her clothes with that kind of talk. That and a private bathroom. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you were like them gents who took advantage of a lady and kissed her full on the mouth.”
He smirked. “The ladies I’ve met have never objected.”
Captain Lord Blackthorn is quite a rogue and finds Katie more than he can handle. Can this plucky Irish lass win the heart of a titled British gentleman?
Or is it just a shipboard romance he’s after? After all, he’s used to a life of privilege and entertaining the most beautiful aristocratic ladies.
Wealth came with its own set of rules and the first passengers played it for all it was worth…will Captain Lord Blackthorn see that his world is coming to an end before it’s too late?
Before he loses Katie?
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Check out my Titanic novel, “Titanic Rhapsody,” about a poor Irish girl who escapes the law for a crime she didn’t commit in a grand house in Ireland and becomes a countess aboard the Titanic…
Titanic Rhapsody is available on Amazon KINDLE & KINDLE UNLIMITED
*The Denver Times was the afternoon edition of the Rocky Mountain News, which ceased publishing in 2009.
Titanic Rhapsody from Jina Bacarr on Vimeo.
