AUTHOR JOAN REEVES VISITS AND HOW TO BE HAPPY

Joan Reeves' log line is "It's never too late to live happily ever after!" She writes those fairy tale endings in romantic comedies with a dose of cheeky attitude. Her San Antone Two-Step series is a duet of romantic comedies set in San Antonio, Texas titled NOBODY'S CINDERELLA and CINDERELLA BLUE. Her latest book is SCENTS AND SENSUALITY, and I'm giving away an e-book copy to one person who comments here. Now here's Joan's insightful post:

LIFE RULES TO HELP YOU BE HAPPY 

by Joan Reeves 

I create characters in romance novels that have been popular with readers. By the end of each book, my characters have learned how to be happy.

That means that I spend a lot of time thinking about human nature. One thing that's true for fiction and real life is that most of us seem to make the same mistakes as we bumble our way along the road of life.

Want to be happier? Here are some "rules" I came up with that might help. See what you think of them.

1. Don't take advice from anyone who's more screwed up than you.

Everyone likes to give advice, but always ask yourself if the person dishing out the advice is living life more effectively with less hiccups than you. If not, smile and nod and feel free to ignore what they say. Unless what they tell you is based upon what they learned from their own bad experience of doing the opposite.

2. Do learn from others who have been where you want to go.

Model their behavior. Find out how they did it and adapt their method to your efforts.Unless the way they achieved it was dishonest and goes against your own beliefs and integrity. You can't model negative behavior without far-reaching consequences.

3. Do stop working so hard; learn how to work more effectively.

Unless you assess your efforts and realize you really aren't working hard - you're just giving lip service to the idea of working hard.

4. Do enjoy yourself more.

Unless you're already spending way too much time in the pursuit of pleasure. You have to have a good balance between hard, effective work and play.

5. Do change your attitude about work. 

Sometimes when we describe an activity as work -- even though it's something we truly adore doing -- the activity, in our mind, becomes linked to work equals unpleasantness. The more you enjoy something; the less it should seem like work. Unless you already view your work as play so much so that you have a slipshod attitude about what you do. Never forget you want to achieve something with the investment of your time, energy, and brain power.

Post Script

To feel like a success, figure out what success means to you.

JOAN'S LATEST BOOK, SCENTS AND SENSUALITY

This book took me longer to write than any book ever due to so many interruptions: planning and putting on a wedding, producing 7 audiobooks, remodeling a house, coping with several sinus infections, and just generally feeling exhausted all the time. At long last, it's published.

SCENTS AND SENSUALITY is on Kindle, Nook, Kobo, iTunes -- in fact, just about anywhere e-books are sold. 

In the meantime, let me tell you about my book in a little movie. I've gone completely nuts over making video book trailers. They're great fun to do and even more fun to watch. I've done 3 so far. You can see them all on YouTube. I hope you'll take a peek and click LIKE. Leave a comment and let me know what you think.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Joan Reeeves

Joan Reeves writes funny, sexy Contemporary Romance like SCENTS AND SENSUALITY, her new book. Her books are available at all major e-book sellers with audio editions available at Amazon, Audible, and iTunes. Joan publishes Writing Hacks, a free subscription newsletter for writers, and Wordplay, a free subscription newsletter for readers. Please visit http://www.JoanReeves.com or her blog http://SlingWords.blogspot.com for information. 

Here are Joan's words about herself:

I write funny romance novels. At the risk of sounding corny, I confess that I find joy in the written word – reading and writing them. Sharing the stories that spin around inside my head is my ultimate triumph.

I've been print published by the big dogs in New York. Been there; done that; got the tee shirt. That's about all I got. Now I've become an independent self-publishing author, or Indie Author as it's commonly called. 

I'm publishing my backlist and original fiction as ebooks. My books have all been on various bestseller lists. They're available at All Romance Ebooks, Amazon for Kindle, Barnes&Noble for Nook, Diesel Ebooks, iTunes Apple Bookstore, Kobo, OmniLit, Smashwords, Sony, and XinXii, the European Digital Publishing Platform.

Most of my books are romance. I love writing romance, especially romances that make you smile and sometimes laugh out loud. I love to tell the story of a man and a woman who were made for each other, but they just don't know it. Yet. Why? Because I think the the world needs more stories about the power of love to change people, and I like to tell those stories with passion and humor because the world can be a pretty grim place too much of the time. Love and laughter gets us through the hard times.

Indeed they do, Joan. Thank you for sharing with readers today. Best wishes for your continued success.

Thanks for stopping by!