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| Susanna Matthews |
Good morning, my Messy friends. This Saturday we are once again visited by a talented author I have no doubt you'll take a liking to after reading her post. Living in
Eastern Ontario, Canada, Susanne Matthews is a retired educator who enjoys writing romance
novels and reading them too. In the summer, she gardens and goes camping—in a
tent. In the winter, she hibernates in front of her computer or watches her
favorite television shows while sipping a glass of red wine. Married forty years (That's an amazing feat right there), she enjoys her three children and five grandchildren as much as possible. She sounds like someone the girls and I would enjoy hanging out with and we are looking forward to checking out her books. I hope you do as well. Just click on the titles to be taken to the Amazon page.
Today she is going to talk to us about bucket lists and I must admit I am looking forward to it. I've been slowly checking things off of mine as I grow older. It's exciting to see those checks being added. So, settle in with your morning coffee and enjoy a great read. Don't forget to say hello afterward.
Bucket Lists—Have You
Started Checking Items Off Yours?
A few years ago, there was
a great movie released called The Bucket
List. Shortly afterwards, the term “Bucket List” became synonymous with
things people wanted to do before they passed on. Like everyone else, I climbed on the
bandwagon and made a bucket list of things I wanted to do before I died. Most
of the items on my list were things involving travel around the world and
seeing some of the famous places like Stonehenge, the Great Pyramids, the Grand
Canyon… you get the idea. For many people, especially those with deep pockets,
my list seems superficial, but money has never been overly abundant in my life,
and those places might as well have been on the moon—now? Anything is possible.
Why? Because I filled the number one item on the list, and if I can do the
impossible, then anything else is a piece of cake.
What was the number one
item on my list? It was to become a published author. That might not seem like such a big deal to
many of you, but when you consider I started writing novels after I retired
from more than 30 years as an educator, you might look at it differently. Being
an author is my second career, the one I’ve wanted all my life, but living
interfered with my hopes and dreams. My husband of 42 years and I took the time
to raise three wonderful children, and I worked fulltime as a teacher. Writing
a book back then, the way I write them now, would have been impossible for me—no
computers, no Internet… you can imagine how much more time consuming and
difficult it would have been. As a teacher I spent hours poring through books
and encyclopedias for information for my teaching assignment. I didn’t have the
time to handwrite or type a manuscript, especially when I’m a two-finger
typist—I might use more than two now and then.
At the end of my teaching
career I had the opportunity to do some technical writing. I wrote curriculum
for online high school courses and I loved it. I learned to use the Internet
for research and countless other things and realized I was good at it. For the
curriculum, I’d even written a few short stories and that was my favorite part.
So, when I got a chance to write similar material, I jumped at it. I wrote
Sunday school curriculum, non-fiction articles for teacher sites, you name it.
In June 2010, I retired from teaching hoping to focus on this, but after one
more stint writing for the Ministry of Education that line of work dried up.
They wanted current teachers to do it and that made sense.
In September 2012, I got
an email that changed my life. It was an invitation to participate in a romance
writing contest. You wrote the first chapter and put it out there for others to
read. Scared? I was absolutely petrified! As the weeks crawled by and I worked
on my first novel, I came across other writing opportunities, among which was a
regular chat with other unpublished authors and a chance to pitch a book to a
publisher. A small group was formed from all of those on the boards, and we
decided to help one another by forming a smaller chat group. I was absolutely
devastated when my original idea was rejected in January, 2013. I figured,
“that’s it. You aren’t a writer and were never meant to be one.”
I thank God every day for
those writing friends who stuck by me and wouldn’t let me quit. One of them
encouraged me to pitch my book in a Twitter Pitch to Crimson Romance. I was
stunned when I got a revise and resubmit request from the editor. I made the
suggested changes and on February 13, 2013, I signed my first writing contract,
and since then I’ve signed 11 others. Fire Angel was released on April 29, 2013. After that came In Plain Sight, August 2013, The Captain’s Promise, September 2013, Holiday Magic, November 2013, and The Perfect Choice, December 2013.
Have I signed them all with the same publisher? No. I actually have four
publishers to date, and I’m hoping for more. Why different publishers? In this
day and age, I believe the more publishers I have, the wider my reading
audience will be. Each publisher has followers and the more followers I can
get, the more chance I have to sell all my books. Social media is the same. The
more people you reach the better.
So what do I write?
Romance of course. I write in a number of sub-genre—suspense, contemporary,
historical, and most recently paranormal/suspense. The one thing all my books
have in common is a happily ever after. I’m well aware of the fact that, in
real life happily ever after or even happy for now isn’t as easy to get as it
is within 100 to 300 pages of a romance novel, but books provide an escape from
the here and now, and that’s all they’re meant to do. The fact that I can take
people away, even for a little while is the most wonderful feeling in the
world, and I’m thrilled if you walk away from the book thinking “I enjoyed
that.”
I’ve grown as a writer in
the last year. I publish under my own name as well as coauthor under the name
Misty Matthews. Working with Misty has added a new dimension to my writing and
I’ll be forever grateful she’s agreed to work with me. Coming Home was released in September 2013 and Grand Slam in January 2014. Misty and I continue to collaborate.
On April 14, 2014, almost
a year after publishing my first book, I will be releasing through my original
publisher, Just For The Weekend, a
contemporary novel that is set at a sci-fi convention in Vegas. I was astounded
to hear about the problems that occur at those events. It seems people in
costumes can behave rather badly, something that doesn’t reflect well on us as
a race. The worst aspect of it, is that many people will turn a blind eye to
this behavior. Writing and researching the book was an eye opener, but despite
what I’ve learned, a trip to a sci-fi convention remains on my bucket list.
About Just For The Weekend:
Sometimes, you have to step out of the box.
Kindergarten teacher, Cleo James, needs a break. For the past three
years, she’s put her life on hold to help her father deal with grief, but now
she’s ready to move on. A weekend in Vegas at a sci-fi convention may be just
the place to start. She’ll be costumed as an alien and no one will recognize
her. What could go wrong? Things get complicated when she’s attracted to a
conventioneer whom she believes is a gorgeous Chippendale dancer. Can Cleo set her strict moral code aside and
enjoy what promises to be a once upon a time weekend?
Multimillionaire real estate developer, Sam Mason has sworn off serious
relationships. In Vegas to visit family and friends, he’s talked into attending
a sci-fi convention for the night. Dressed as an alien, he’s confident he can
elude the usual gold diggers looking to star in the role of Mrs. Sam Mason.
When he spots a beautiful woman dressed as a green-skinned slave girl, he’s
captivated by her and changes his plans to leave Vegas in the morning. The more
time he spends with her, the more he realizes she’s unlike any woman he’s
known. Fantastic sex and too much alcohol find him married to his alien siren,
but before he can tell her the truth about himself and see if they can make
their marriage work, the bride vanishes.
Finding her is going to be a challenge.
So what’s next? I have
four more books due out by the end of July, three of them romance/suspense, the
fourth my first venture into paranormal/suspense. I’m currently at work on a YA
mystery, another historical romance, and a romance/suspense. I hope to keep adding
items to my bucket list and checking them all off for years to come. What about
you? Do you have a bucket list?
You can follow Susanne or buy her books by checking out her website:
Website: http://www.mhsusannematthews.ca
Like and follow Susanne at:
Amazon author page: http://www.amazon.com/Susanne-Matthews/e/B00DJCKRP4/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0
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A quick thank you to Susanne for joining us at the Mess. It was great having you here and I hope you'll return and share more of your books and writing with us. You are always welcome.
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See what you've missed ~ There Is No Bedtime on Vacation
Thanks for visiting The Mess! Keep chasing your dreams!
Pick up a copy of one of my books today!
Thanks for having me, Robbie.
ReplyDeleteVery nice to meet you, Susanne. Our paths are very similar: retired teachers, kids and grandkids who are important, and a long-standing desire to write stories and books. Thanks for sharing on this blog. :-)
DeleteGlad you enjoyed it.
DeleteAlways a pleasure, Susanne :) Feel free to come back anytime.
Delete