It's release day!!!!!

It’s been a long year of waiting, but the third and final book in the Say Everything series is here! I’m so excited to share For You & No One Else with y’all. Eliza and Beckham were such fun characters to write, and I’m going to miss living in that world with them (and Hollyn, Jasper, Andi, and Hill.) I hope you enjoy this last adventure!

Scroll down for an exclusive excerpt!

About the book:

She has the perfect life…and it’s a perfect lie.

Behind the careful façade, she’s struggling:

To feel like she fits in. To find her true voice.

Now, finally, she’s ready to start living her own story.

Eliza Catalano has the perfect life. So what if it actually looks nothing like the story she tells online?  As a therapist, it’s part of her job to look like she has all the answers, right? But when Eliza ends up as a viral “Worst Date Ever” meme, everything in her Instagram-filtered world begins to crumble. 

Enter the most obnoxiously attractive man she's ever met, and a bet she can't resist: if she swears off social media for six months, Beck Carter’ll teach her the wonders of surviving the "real world." No technology, no dating apps, no pretty filters, no BS.

It seems like the perfect deal—she can lay low until her sudden infamy passes, meet some interesting new people, and maybe even curate this experience into a how I quit the online dating racket book along the way. But something about Beck’s raw honesty speaks to Eliza in ways she never expected. She knows he’s supposed to be completely hands-off…but as complex feelings grow and walls come tumbling down, rough-around-the-edges Beck may be exactly what Eliza needs to finally, truly face herself—and decide who she really wants to be.

Buy: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Indiebound | iBooks | Book Depository | Books-A-Million

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Exclusive excerpt:

“What a loser,” Beckham said, disgusted. “He wanted the hot YouTube therapist and knew she was way the hell out of his league, so he stacked the deck in his favor.”

She smirked and dabbed at her mouth. “I am out of his league, aren’t I?”

He grinned. “Eli, he’s not even on the practice squad of your league.”

“And you were right, the dog wasn’t his.”

He snapped his fingers and pointed. “See? I could feel that. No dog would have him. He was definitely holding Fluffy hostage.”

She pressed her fingers to the spot between her eyes and shook her head, but a smile lingered on her lips. “Thanks, Beckham. You have an uncanny ability to show up when I’m at my worst and make me feel better. I promise I’m higher functioning than how I’ve appeared lately. People do pay me to help with their problems.”

He clasped his hands between his spread knees. “Who says you always have to be high-functioning?”

She gave him a droll look. “Um, everyone. I’m a therapist. My job depends on people believing I have it together at all times.”

He grunted. “Tough job requirement. Not allowed to be human?”

She tucked her hair behind her ear. “Not fully.”

“Well, I’ll keep your secret.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “That you’re not a robot.”

She stared at him for a moment and then gave him a sad smile. “Thanks.”

“No problem.”

“I’m feeling a little better. I’m going to go and let you get home.” She rubbed her palms along her skirt. “But before I do, can I ask you something?”

“Yeah, sure.”

She narrowed her eyes like she was concentrating and trying to find the right words. “I’m not sure how much booze I still have in my system and if I’m processing things correctly, but earlier…were you about to offer to be an FWB hookup?”

The question made tension rush through him and he got to his feet. He should say no, that she’d misconstrued what he’d said. He could back out now, no harm, no foul. She probably wouldn’t even remember half of their conversation tomorrow.

“Never mind.” She stood and wobbled a little.

On instinct, he put a hand to her elbow to steady her. Her skin was warm, silky. The truth fell out of him. “I was. I know that’s not what you’re looking for, but if you ever find the idea of a low-key hookup with a friend…interesting, or just want to have a little fun while you’re looking for the guy, I bet we could figure out some ways to entertain ourselves.”

Her brown eyes were more focused than they’d been all night, her gaze calculating, then a playful smile curved her lips. “Would you let me lick your tattoos?”

He laughed at the unexpected question even as heat rushed straight downward at the thought. “You’re definitely still a little drunk.”

“Maybe,” she murmured.

“But, Eli”—he bent close to her ear—“I’d let you lick whatever you want…as long as I got the same privilege afforded to me.”

She shuddered a little in his grip and exhaled slowly. “I’ll…keep that in mind.”

He leaned back, shaking his head. No way would she remember this conversation tomorrow.

Want another excerpt and to check out some hero inspiration pics? Click here.

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Reviews

Hope you enjoy the book! And if you do, please consider leaving a review on Amazon, a bookstore site, and/or Goodreads. Reviews help so much to get a book in front of more readers’ eyes. I often see my books called “undiscovered gems” by readers. Let’s get this one discovered! LOL.

via GIPHY

Thanks, y’all! (And thank you to all of you who have already left early reviews! <3

Stay-at-Home Tips & Apps for Maintaining (Some) Sanity

Hi. How are you doing? I hope you and yours are doing okay.

Here at the Loren household, we’re trying to stay cognizant of the fact that we are very lucky to be home and safe right now, that being “stuck” at home is a blessing. Hubs is in a service/entertainment industry that is shut down right now, so that is stressful, but in the grand scheme of things, we are okay. We have a place to live, are healthy right now, and have food to eat.

So, I try to take a moment every day to be grateful for those things and grateful for the people who are helping that happen (all the love to grocery store workers, delivery drivers, health care workers, police, firefighters, and everyone else who is on the front lines.)

However, having said all that, it doesn’t mean that being home non-stop with each other is without its difficulties—as I’m sure you’re all experiencing, too. Our routines have been annihilated. Our world is a completely different one than we knew for all of ours lives. It’s a lot.

So, in today’s post, I thought I would share some of the little things that are helping us get through right now in case any may be of help to you.

On Deciding What to Watch - Two Helpful Apps

Most of us are probably watching way more TV and many more movies than we normally would. Usually, it’s not a matter of trying to figure out what to watch but when to find time to watch all the great things people have recommended to you.

However, now that we may have more time to watch, we have new challenges. One of them being that many of us are home with children, so we can’t just put on anything. We have to watch things that are appropriate for the age-level of our kids.

I feel lucky that I only have a 12-year old at home. He’s gotten to an age where I can introduce him to a lot of movies I love because I don’t need to be as careful about curse words or mild sexual innuendo. But sometimes it’s still hard to tell if a movie is safe for him to watch or not. So, one of my favorite websites/apps that I have been using on a daily basis lately is Common Sense Media.

Common Sense Media

This website has a huge database of movies, and not only does it give age recommendations, it gives actual breakdowns of the levels of sex, violence, language, positive messages, etc. for each movie.

If you click on those ratings, it tells you the actual content from the movie that applies. So, for instance, if you click on the sex rating, it will say (as was the case when I looked up Nightmare on Elm Street the other night) specifically what is seen. So, in that movie, it was teens have sex and you hear sounds, but then only the end when they’re done is seen. No nudity. At another point, you see the side of a breast in shadow.

This is enormously helpful because you know your own kid and what you think they can handle or not handle. For instance, I know my son isn’t particularly scared by horror movies with supernatural stuff because he’s a logical guy who doesn’t believe in that stuff (which is SO unlike me as a kid, when I was definitely convinced my room was haunted.) So, a movie that would keep another kid up with nightmares, is usually fine for my kiddo. However, anything with nudity beyond a bare butt for comedy’s sake (like every Will Ferrell movie), I’m going to rule out.

In addition to all the ratings, they also include parent and kid reviews of the movies, which are super helpful not just for gauging content but to see if kids generally like the movie. I want to share a lot of my favorite 80s and 90s movies with my son. Some translate well. Some age badly. So seeing what other kids his age thought of the movie can help.

This website and the app are free, but I’d absolutely pay for this service. It’s fantastic.

Just Watch

The next app/website I find myself opening all the time is the Just Watch app. I am not one to scroll through my streaming services and choose what to watch. I tend to be someone who gets an idea of what movie or TV show I want to watch and then has to find it. As someone who subscribes to a lot of streaming services—Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Apple, Shudder, etc., that can be a lot of work to go in and search each one.

Just Watch saves you the trouble of figuring that out. All you need to do is type in what movie or show you’re looking for, and it will tell you where it is streaming and if it’s included in your subscription or if you have to rent or buy it. It also gives you movie info and things like the Rotten Tomato rating. Quick and easy.

With those two apps in my pocket, I’ve been able to be a pretty good movie curator over at our house. Here are some of the things we’ve watched lately that have been a thumbs up from the whole fam:

• Pitch Perfect

• The Wedding Singer

• Talladega Nights

• A League of Their Own

• Nightmare on Elm Street (but OMG the melodramatic early 80s horror movie acting)

• Wayne’s World

• Groundhog Day
  
  

On Trying to Focus When Working From Home

I work from home normally, but I’ve never had to work from home while everyone is here with me—a kid homeschooling, me cooking three meals a day, a husband popping in to ask questions or to get me to go on a walk. I have pretty high focus, in general, because I’ve worked over the years to hone that. However, this has knocked me for a loop. Constant interruption is tough. So here’s what I’m doing:

Focus @ Will

I’ve used Focus @ Will for years now, so that part is nothing new. But I’m having to use it in a different way. This website plays music meant for focus (so it’s different than just putting classical music on Spotify.) You can choose your theme. I pretty much live on the cinematic setting. You set your time for a session, there’s a Pavlovian style “ding” sound that indicates a session has started (and is embarrassingly effective at cueing me that it’s time to work) and then the music starts.

Usually, I just listen through my desktop, but since the stay-at-home order, I’ve figured out that I need to use it with headphones when other people are home. I can’t get into deep focus otherwise. So when it’s time to write (because I still have a book deadline coming up), I put on my headphones, hit play, and then try to have at least an hour of uninterrupted time. It’s effective. My son tapped my shoulder the other day when I was in deep work mode under headphones, and I nearly levitated out of my chair, lol. He thought it was hilarious.

Social Media Break

Right now, it’s hard not to get consumed by media in all its forms. There is a lot to know, but there is also a lot of noise. I realized that I was getting lost in the despair of social media and needed a break. I’ve done 30-Day social media breaks and such before, so I know they can work to quiet my mind.

So, last week I took the week off from social media. It helped a lot. I’m back on now but limiting my dose. I’m finding Instagram is generally uplifting right now, so I’m giving myself some time there. Facebook I’m limiting because it’s a mixed bag. I’m still avoiding Twitter because I find the amount of negative posts there far outweigh the positive ones. So, consider taking a break or curating which channels you check. We want to connect socially while stuck at home, but it doesn’t have to be in ways that make us feel bad or drained after using them.

On Trying to Sleep

Everyone at my house has been having trouble sleeping. All the anxiety, disruption of routine, and lack of energy expenditure have contributed. We’ve had some rough nights with kidlet knocking on our door because he couldn’t sleep or me tossing and turning until four a.m. And when we don’t get sleep, everyone suffers because we’re all in bad moods.

So this past week, we’ve been working on a few things, trying to see if it will help. I’m happy to report that we’ve found a couple of things that seem to be working.

Headspace & Meditation

I’ve tried meditation off and on through the years. I tend not to stick with it, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t found it helpful. This time, I decided to try it with kidlet because he was having so much trouble settling down at night. In the past, I’ve used the Calm app and liked it, but after researching, I found that Headspace had some kid options and was a bit more simplified. So I went with that one.

For the past few days, I’ve been doing a 5-10 minute meditation with kidlet before bed. Most of the ones we’ve done focus on breathing, on counting backward, on relaxing muscles, etc. So it’s been easy for him to follow. We’ve noticed a difference. The nights we’ve meditated, he hasn’t come knocking on our door in the middle of the night. And now he’s asking for it, “Can we meditate before bed, mom?” So I’m really happy with how it’s helping. I’ve done some sessions separately from him when it’s time for me to go to bed, and it has helped my racing thoughts. So two thumbs up on the meditation.

Not Watching the News at Night

This one is tough because with everything going on, we feel like we need to be constantly updated. However, I think part of the reason I wasn’t sleeping was because we were watching the nightly news right before we went to sleep. Even if we watched something funny or lighthearted, afterward, the effect lingered.

The past fews days I’ve avoided watching the news after the 6 o’ clock news, and it’s helped. I still watch Good Morning America when I wake up and then that 6pm news. That keeps me updated enough. I don’t leave the TV on in the background. I don’t watch the endless press conferences. I don’t need my brain in crisis mode 24/7. (I’ve talked about this before in this post: Self-Care for the Highly Sensitive Person - It’s Okay to Step Away From the News

On Keeping Spirits Up

One of the most important things right now is keeping our spirits up. Because if we don’t actively try to do this, it’s really easy to fall into a pit of despair. That does no one any good. So here are some of the things that are helping us keep our mood from crashing:

Sunlight & Walks

As someone who has suffered from a Vitamin D deficiency in the past, I’m a sunlight evangelist. (Also, I’d recommend still taking some Vitamin D in a pill because most of us don’t get enough naturally.) Sunlight gives us so many things—vitamin D, a mood lift, and help setting our body clocks. And especially right now, with all of us spending so much time inside, sunlight can feed the soul.

Now, you need to do this in a safe way. If you live in a tightly packed area, this might mean just going out on your balcony or standing in front of an open window. But if you have the ability and the space, going outside daily for walks in the sunshine or just to sit on your porch can be so helpful.

We’re very lucky that the new house we moved into is in a rural-ish area so we have lots of animals to see on our walks. But it’s nice just to see the grass and flowers sprouting for Spring, hear the birds singing. It’s a reminder for me that the world goes on. This too shall pass.

Here are some of our animal friends we’ve seen lately:

A To Do List & Routines

I’m a person who thrives on routines and To Do lists, so this is a given for me if I want to maintain sanity. But even for my kiddo and husband, who are more flexible than I am, need some kind of routine. Getting up in the morning and not having anything to do, no purpose to the day, can become depressing really quickly.

I’m currently in the position of having too much to do—book deadline, putting together a class, taking a different class, blogging, newslettering, etc. So my problem is opposite—how to fit it in while having everyone home. But my husband who is used to being crazy busy with his job doesn’t have that kind of list while his job is mostly on pause. So he’s had to make sure to set goals for the day, little things sometimes, but tasks he wants to get done. And my kiddo has homeschool and online music lessons, so he has some tasks going, but it’s been a challenge to impose new routines.

So, if you’re finding yourself feeling unmoored during the day, don’t rule out making an old fashioned To Do list. And it doesn’t have to be something practical like cleaning the kitchen. Maybe you want to reorganize your bookshelves by color of cover or you want to pick up a cookbook and learn some new recipes. It may mean that you want to make a list of shows you’ve been meaning to binge watch. Start a movie/TV journal to record your thoughts about what you’re watching or a book journal.

Find a project. It can do wonders.

A Treat to Look Forward To

Kidlet and I have been doing a lot of baking of desserts. Normally, we only have desserts in the house on special occasions because we’re trying not to eat too much sugar and all that. However, during this time, though you don’t want to go crazy with eating junk because that won’t make you feel very good, it can be really nice to have a treat to look forward to. Knowing that after dinner, we have a homemade dessert is a nice uplifting thing. And there’s no shame in using boxed mix (like this delicious cinnamon crumble cake below.)

And it may not be desserts for you. It may be an activity or a TV show or a book. But have something to look forward to each day, a little something that maybe you normally wouldn’t have if we weren’t in this situation, can really help.

Board Games

We need a break from all the screens sometimes, and board games are a great option. If you’re competitive like my family, it’s also a guaranteed way to take our focus off of what is happening in the world and getting lost in an activity together.

Some of our favorites lately have been Ticket to Ride and Ticket to Ride Nordic Countries (best for 3 players), Scattergories, Upwords, and Yahtzee. The latter three are good if you’re too tired to focus. The first two require more strategy.

Reading

I know I’m preaching to the choir here, but I wanted to bring this one up because I’ve noticed my reading habits have changed during this. I’m having more trouble focusing on reading, even though that’s something I normally do to relax. And just an observation, but it seems that people who normally aren’t voracious readers are reading more now, but those of us who are heavy readers are having more of a struggle. It’s almost like whatever is opposite our norm is what’s happening during this crisis.

So, if you happen to be one of those heavy readers who is having trouble reading, I encourage you to consider reading outside your normal zone. Shake up your routine a little. Maybe it’s a different genre or subgenre. Maybe it’s doing an audiobook instead of an ebook. (You can join my Read Wide challenge and get a list of different categories and genres to work through.) For me, I picked up a paranormal romance. I read those on occasion, but it’s not my main zone, and it seems to be engaging me more. I’m also reading a non-fiction book in between when I can’t focus on fiction.

Or, you may be the opposite and need to lean heavily into your reading comfort zone. Maybe that means re-reading old favorites because it gives you some stability to know what’s coming.

All I’m saying is that if your normal reading routine isn’t working, shake it up and see if you can come at it from another angle because I know, for most of us, reading is food for our soul and needed.

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All right. I know I’ve thrown a lot at you, but I hope you’ve found something in there that’s helpful. I’m sending you and your family love and well wishes. Be safe, y’all. Stay home. Stay sane. <3

—Roni

Seeking Balance: The Friday-Only Social Media Plan

In the past few months, I’ve been blogging a lot about my relationship with social media and figuring out how to manage distractions. Really, it’s been a topic on my mind for years, and I’ve come at it in a number of different ways.

If you missed those posts, here’s a quick recap. In February, I did a month with no social media or what Cal Newport calls a digital declutter. I went into my reasons in that initial post. I completed the month successfully and recapped what the experience was like, what I learned, and what I was going to try to do going forward. I also did a post about how I’ve retrained my brain for Deep Work over a two and a half year time period by limiting distractions. Then most recently, I blogged about how, after all this work to corral my own distractions, I didn’t want to be a distraction for you, so I wrote about what I would share and not share online going forward in my post I Am Not Here to Distract You.

See? Told you I’ve been a bit obsessed with this topic, lol. And that’s not even counting all my Device-Free Summer posts about my kidlet from years past.

So, here I am talking about it again because since that month without social media, I’ve been trying to figure out a way to recapture the benefits of that fast while still maintaining a social media presence—something that is a part of my job as a writer. In my post where I outlined what I hoped to do going forward to tame social media, I had high hopes. But I admit that I haven’t stuck to a big chunk of those plans (like only checking social media at lunch.) It’s frustrating.

One thing I’ve learned about myself is that in most habits I want to break, I tend to be an abstainer and not a moderator. (I got this terminology from Gretchen Rubin. See: Are You an Abstainer or a Moderator?) A moderator is a person who can just have a little of something (hence, moderate.) So they want to eat less sugar, but they don’t have to give it up completely. They have the personality that can have one cookie a week and move on.

In the past, I fancied myself a moderator. Because in some situations, I am. (I can make Halloween candy last months. But that’s because I only like candy a little bit.) However, in general, I’ve realized that I’m much more successful as an abstainer. It’s easier for me to have/do something none of the time than some of the time. For instance, about fifteen years ago I wanted to stop drinking soft drinks (diet or otherwise.) I failed at moderating. But once I said, no more, I am not a person who drinks soft drinks—then it was done. Fifteen years later, I still don’t drink them and I’m not tempted to. (This is coming from someone who used to drink like half a dozen Diet Mt. Dews a day.)

Abstaining takes the decision fatigue out of play. I just don’t do that, so there’s no debate to be had. That was why by the halfway point in the social media fast, I had this sense of ahh… I don’t have to think about that. The decision was made. I am not a person who does social media this month.

But, social media isn’t soft drinks. It’s a part of my job. It’s a part of life for most of us. It’s not as easy to just say no more ever. However, trying to moderate it hasn’t gone all that well for me. I’m not anywhere near where I was a few years ago or even pre-fast, but the impulse is still there, distracting me. Should I post? What should I post? I’m bored standing in line, let me look at Instagram. Did someone respond to my comment? How about now? Or now? (Note: I’m not making a moral judgement about social media. If you love it and it works for you, you do you. There are parts I love about it, too.)

So during this past month—which OMG May is trying to kill me with how busy it’s been with general life/family stuff—I’ve been trying to work through a very difficult block in the book I’m writing and finish up teaching my beginners romance writing course. Stress level has been high. I needed all my brain power to figure out the puzzle I’d written myself into and to be present for the students in my class. Posting on social media has mostly fallen by the wayside, but checking it…? Yeah, I’m reaching for it a lot because it’s a distraction from the hard things I’ve got to do.

This, of course, has got me thinking about how to find balance again. The next two months are going to be frenetic because I have a lot of writing to do, a family vacation, and then a trip to New York for RWA (which, of course, falls right before I’m supposed to turn in my book, arg.) I need to clear as much non-essential stuff off my plate as I can. Knowing all that made me want to do a summer-long social media break because: abstainer. But I know that’s not realistic for the long-term, so I’ve decided to try a variation.

I’m going to limit social media checking and posting to one day a week—Friday. This way, I don’t ignore people who have reached out to me and I can share/promote things if need be, but I don’t have a decision to make on a daily basis. I will only check it on Friday so that means every other day, the decision is already made. I’m hoping that will trick my abstainer brain into complying. ;)

I got the Friday idea from this post by Sol Orwell: How to Take Fridays “Off” (and still be insanely productive). The post isn’t about social media but more about how we tend to slack off on Fridays and a way to embrace that. So he reserves his Fridays for reading/learning for a few hours (he saves all the articles and such that he comes across during the week for this time) and also does networking on Fridays. That way, he’s still productive, but the things that could be distractions during the week have their place on his schedule. So taking a cue from him, I’m thinking my social networking can have a happy home on Fridays. I’ll also probably put “reply to non-urgent email” as a recurring task on that day as well. So then those things aren’t free-floating around in my head. They have a spot on the schedule and will be handled.

So starting tomorrow, I’m going to give this new plan a try and see how it goes. If it doesn’t work, it may be social media-free summer for me. But I’ll report back! And if you message me on social media and don’t get a reply for a little while, now you know why!

Have you found a great system to balance your social media or other distractions when you have a big project to work on?