The Good One-New Release

So … I did a thing.

I released my seventh book and my first one of 2018! Shortly after The Missing Piece Anthology was released, I published The Good One.

There wasn’t a lot of fanfare or even a great big plan, because that’s just how I roll sometimes. I was on a mission to get this book published by April 10th and I made it by the skin of my teeth.

I have a confession to make… This was a tough one to write for a number of reasons.

As a working mother who is also an author, it can be difficult to juggle the writing life with my everyday life. Writing is something I do because I need to, for my soul. I do it for me alone and I’ve been fortunate to find a few beautiful people who love to read the words I put on the page.

Like many Mom-needs, the need to write often gets put on the back burner because homework, packing lunches, doctor appointments, and that other thing I love called my full-time gig, takes precedent. Believe me, I’m not complaining. All of those things mean that I have people who love me and a place that I get to go to that pays me for a job that I love to do. (I’m a pretty lucky girl

Still, finding time to write can be a struggle. With this book came a deadline because it was part of a series that joins me with other writers, and other books, in a place called the Happy Endings Resort. Being included in this has been such a privilege and a challenge because I don’t often write to a deadline. The challenge was awesome and stressful, but I loved it and would do it again in a second.

In an effort to streamline my productivity, I wrote much of the first draft using dictation. Ugh! While I was able to get more words on the page, the page was probably wondering what in the hell I was doing most of the time. Words were garbled, sentences were butchered, and my main character’s name was wrong (Livvie) about seventy-five percent of the time. In addition, the story went in about fifteen different directions because I was speaking it instead of seeing it. I can barely remember what I had for breakfast, let alone what color my main character’s eyes (brown) were half the time because I can’t remember anything.

Often I felt as though dictation was an experiment gone wrong so I was waiting for my laptop to explode because of how horrible the story was. Thank goodness, after moving chapters around, deleting so many words (soooo many words), and then reworking the story multiple times, it finally came together.

Finally.

Or at least hopefully. The only person who’s read it so far has been my editor and she said not to worry because it was good. I didn’t even have time to give it to my trusted beta readers. So, I worry because all writers worry when others are reading our stories. We are crippled with self-doubt every time a new book come out, a new story is created, and new characters are borne. It’s in our nature and whether I have seven books or fifty, I’ll always worry.

This is me, writing the synopsis. Omg!

Here’s the synopsis and if you’d like to join my review team, I’d love to have you! Just sign up here!

The Good One

Olivia and her sister Molly grew up in a trailer park in a small resort town called Happy Endings, but their life together was far from happy.

When the unthinkable happens, Olivia must learn how to live without the person she loves the most and she is forced to keep secrets that she buries deep within.

Thirteen years later, an accidental collision gives Olivia the chance to finally experience love with Danny, who promises to always protect her. As Olivia and Danny build a life together she is suddenly forced to face a past she has struggled to forget.

Can Olivia find the strength within to save herself or will she lose everything, in Part One of The Good One?

Goodreads link-Check out The Good One: Part One by Jennifer Sivec

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39794604

The Whisper that Began the Eva Series

For me, every book idea begins with one tiny whisper.

It may be so quiet at first that I don’t hear it, but then it works it’s way deep down inside until I can’t stop thinking about it. This is what happened with the Eva Series.

The story of Eva began as the whisper about a little girl who was abandoned and completely alone. Frightened and afraid, I couldn’t get her out of my mind. I thought about her incessantly until I had no choice but to write her story. When it was all finally there on the page, for the first time in my entire life, there was a part of me that was free. The story of Eva was born … and in many ways, her story was my own. Like Eva, I was also abandoned at around the age of two. While I don’t remember any of it, and the circumstances were completely different, the little girl left in a puddle lost and alone made me believe that I had to feel the same. As heartbreaking as her story is, there’s always been that part of me that kept it buried deep down, telling myself that it didn’t matter and it didn’t hurt anymore.

The truth is, it didn’t hurt at all until I had children of my own and I finally knew what true, honest, pure, undeniable love felt like. The pain I had been carrying around inside suddenly exploded without warning until I couldn’t imagine anything worse.

Writing Eva’s story was a way to exorcise my own demons and heal my own deepest wounds. I wrote it at a time in my life when I was the most alone and lost. While writing Leaving Eva helped to heal the past, it was also a distraction from the present because I had been deeply struggling with life on many levels. The only time I could find any normalcy was when I was writing because I was able to focus on the story instead of on my life, which was a train wreck. Throughout the years, getting married, having children, and building a career, I had forgotten how much writing had meant to me. It had been my own form of therapy when I was younger, and I had needed it.

Once I began writing,  it was impossible to stop, and though Eva’s story took many twists and turns that were not autobiographical, there are many elements that are. While I know that leaves much untold, the moments that are true are recognizable for those who can see it, and it’s best that way.

Eventually the series took on a life of its own and with healing, also came a renewed vision and creativity. What began as the story of a girl abandoned and alone became the story of a woman who was far stronger and more resilient than she ever imagined she could be. Her life and circumstances veered far from my own, and while Eva’s story will always be close to my heart, the story that remains the closest to my own, is only the first one.

I’m happy that I wrote it because it became far more than I ever imagined it to be, opening doors to friendships and people that I never realized would mean so much. What began as a whisper, became an orchestra of beautiful music and a world that has brought me more joy and happiness that I ever knew could be possible.

For that one tiny whisper and for Eva, I will forever be grateful.