Welcome! Author Sophie Jordan!

I'm delighted to welcome author, Sophie Jordan, to my blog and asked award-winning author, Sophie -to describe her writing day. Over to you, Sophie!

SOPHIE SHARES HER WRITING DAY...

My ideal writing day probably involves me at a quaint cottage in the English countryside. I’ll walk the countryside in the morning and take tea (and eat some delicious pastry where the calories don’t count) at an outdoor café in an equally quaint village with cobbled streets. I’ll return to my cottage and sit outdoors in the quintessential English garden as I write my daily page, and respond to a few emails. I’d knock my pages out in a few hours and have the rest of the day to do as I please … more walking, exploring (yes, there would be a nearby castle to investigate), probably shopping at a local outdoor farmer’s market for dinner (I love to cook!) – and the day would end with a lovely dinner with my family (in this dream I don’t have to consider where they’ve been up until now), some excellent wine, maybe a good movie. Now THAT would be a perfect day!

In reality, my life is much more chaotic. Definitely not something out of a Rosamunde Pilcher novel. The mornings are full of the demands of my children. Feeding them, dressing them, getting them ready for wherever it is I have to take them. School/preschool, if during the school year. Swim practice, gymnastics, soccer practice in the summer. Basically I do everything that your stay-at-home mom has to do, except I’m also a full-time writer – with multiple books to write/revise/edit a year. I also have several conferences and speaking engagements a year (sometimes monthly) to attend, and recently I’ve also begun book touring. And don’t let me get started on my inbox … All this I do among juggling children, chores, grocery shopping, cooking and never-ending laundry.

Essentially my day is a win if I get my latte, get in a good amount of pages written, and the family is content. Fortunately, at this point in my career, I do have an assistant to help me manage a lot of what I call the secretarial side of being a writer (the never ending emails, promotion, and constant flow of material to UPS, etc). And I must mention a supportive spouse helps more than I can say. We work as a team in this lovely madness that is my life.

Also, perhaps the greatest gift … is that I’m able to have it all. A family and the career I always wanted. I can be sitting outside a noisy gymnastics practice, but in my lap is my alphasmart and I’m escaping into this wonderful world I’ve created – like in my book Wicked In Your Arms, for instance … I am in the English countryside. With an exotic, battle-hardened prince! And a very saucy Jane Austen-ish heroine who’s going to challenge him beautifully. There’s adventure and romance. As a writer, I’m there – in it! That pretty much makes even my worst day ideal. J

BLURB for "Wicked in Your Arms."

(First in Forgotten Princesses series) Prince Sevastian Maksimi needs a wife. An heiress with the breeding and dowry to breathe life into his kingdom. After years of fighting a bloody civil war, Sev has wrested his country from revolutionaries and looks to England for a bride who will replenish both his royal coffers and the royal nursery. He knows what it’s like to put the needs of his country before his own desires. Only duty matters. Only the most acceptable female will do. Attraction does not signify … especially his vexing hunger for the bold and brazen Grier Hadley. While he cannot consider the unseemly female as a bride, the enticing chit is the only woman he wants in his bed.

The bastard daughter of a man renowned as the lord of the London underworld, Grier Hadley might possess one of the season’s plumpest dowries, but she’s a far cry from the pedigreed debutantes out to land a husband. A truth that becomes glaringly obvious when she overhears a certain prince mocking her lineage. What makes the handsome wretch think she would even want him for a husband anyway? He might, however, be the perfect candidate for an illicit liaison.