Welcome, Peggy!

When did your writing journey begin?

For my eighth birthday I was gifted with one of those old-fashioned lock and key diaries. The maiden aunt who gave it to me told me to write all my secret thoughts and desires down in the book and then when I grew up, I could read them back to see how my life had changed.

Yeah, that wasn’t gonna happen. My mother was the biggest snoop in the world and there was no way I wanted her reading about my “secret hopes and desires.” Even though at 8 that mostly meant Shaun Cassidy and Oreo cookies.

Instead, I started writing about a girl who longed for a “normal family” and who went on fabulous adventures all over the world helping kids who were disenfranchised, bullied, and lonely.

What’s that saying? Write what you know?

Yup.

I filled that diary up in less than two months and then graduated to spiral notebooks and never looked back.

I’ve been writing fictional stories since that tender age of 8 and from the moment I finished the very first one, I knew what I wanted to do with the rest of my life: write.

 What do genres you write?

I have a tendency to be long in the tooth as my grandmother would say, so most of my books are 90,000 words + novels. I have written 3 romcom novellas that came in under 40,000 but I always feel as if they are not fully finished!

Tell us about your experience with the publishing process.

The way I found my traditional press was a little quirky. I entered a contest that asked for 3 chapters of your current Romance WIP. I submitted and miraculously won my division. Rhonda Penders was the judge and the publisher of Wild Rose Press. She emailed me after the contest and asked if I had a completed manuscript and if I did could I send it along. I did and the rest, as the kids say, is history. I got my first publishing contract. After 17 trad pubbed books I decided to do one independently so you can now say I’m a hybrid ( an author, not a car!)

Words of advice for fellow writers in the trenches:

I hate giving advice because I’m not fond of getting it, but if I could tell fledglings one thing it’s this: If you have a book ( or 100) in your soul that has to come out, write it. Don’t listen to anyone who plants negative things in your head like you can’t write a book, you don’t have the time to, you don’t have the talent. I was 55 years old when my very first romance was printed. Four years and 18 books later and I’m now being interviewed. DON’T EVER GIVE UP ON A DREAM!!!

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Excerpt

“Right there.” She aimed her fork at him as if it were a spear. “Perfect example. You know I hate being called Abigail. I’ve lost count of the hundreds of times I’ve told you and you still do it, knowing it pisses me off. And”—she cut him off before he could speak— “your usual response is to lift your hands and say ‘and still’ when you’re called on it. Who does that? What kind of person persistently and purposefully annoys people?”

“So you’re saying I’m intentionally annoying?”

“Persistently, so. Yes. Makes the lawyer in me wonder why.”

Just the lawyer? “Any answers come to mind?”

“Plenty.”

“Care to share?”

She placed her fork down next to her plate and regarded him across the table. “You really want to hear this? Because if you know anything about me, you know I’m truthful. I don’t hold back.”

Oh, he was sure she didn’t. And wouldn’t. Her tenacity was one of the things he’d first been drawn to.

That and her fabulous ass.

“I’m a big boy,” he said with a grin. “I can take it.

She took a sip of water first, her eyes trained on him the entire time. “Okay. If you really want to hear this.”

He waved his hand for her to continue.

“I think you use your cocky, aren’t-I-simply-too- witty attitude to keep people at a distance.”

Speed Round with Peggy…

Peggy Jaeger is a contemporary romance writer who writes Romantic Comedies about strong women, the families who support them, and the men who can’t live without them. If she can make you cry on one page and bring you out of tears rolling with laughter the next, she’s done her job as a writer!

Family and food play huge roles in Peggy’s stories because she believes there is nothing that holds a family structure together like sharing a meal…or two…or ten. Dotted with humor and characters that are as real as they are loving, she brings all topics of daily life into her stories: life, death, sibling rivalry, illness and the desire for everyone to find their own happily ever after. Growing up the only child of divorced parents she longed for sisters, brothers and a family that vowed to stick together no matter what came their way. Through her books, she’s created the families she wanted as that lonely child.

When she’s not writing Peggy is usually painting, crafting, scrapbooking or decoupaging old steamer trunks she finds at rummage stores and garage sales.

A lifelong and avid romance reader and writer, Peggy is a member of RWA and her local New Hampshire RWA Chapter.

As a lifelong diarist, she caught the blogging bug early on, and you can visit her at peggyjaeger.com where she blogs daily about life, writing, and stuff that makes her go "What??!"

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