Stress is the Word of the Day with Guest Blogger: Tracy Farrell

Win a copy of The Uprising: Mated Hearts and meet author Tracy Farrell today at the Book Boost!

Here's what she had to say...


April is both humor month and stress awareness month. When I read this I wondered if it was done that way on purpose, everyone knows a good joke can release stress. Today I’d thought I’d talk a little bit about both.


Unfortunately, I’m not a good joke teller, my humor is on the dry side and my timing is always off but I tend to see the humor in the mundane and often frustrating things life sends my way. And I think that’s important for all of us to try and do, ‘cause let’s face it laughing at a situation is way better than getting angry.


Due to my humor deficiency, years ago, my son took it upon himself to add a little fun to our daily lives. Every morning he receives a word of the day from Webster’s dictionary and a joke of the day from where I’ve no idea. A post-it-note gets stuck to my dashboard with the word and the definition and our assignment as we drive to school is to come up with the silliest way to use it in a sentence. You’d be surprised how creative your kids can be and it sure beats morning crankiness.


April is a big month for me, my first published novel The Uprising: Mated Hearts is scheduled for release, woo, it’s also a busy month for me. Talk about stress. I’ve a holiday toward the end of the month that requires me to do the spring cleaning to end all spring cleaning, every closet, cupboard, and shelf needs to have all the stuff taken out of it and washed down all, basically the whole house needs to be scrubbed.


And as if that wasn’t enough I’m teaching two classes, doing final edits for the above mentioned book, writing multiple blog posting, giving interviews(blushing over that), putting in the garden, coordinating family visits, and cooking massive amounts of food for said company, all in addition to my normal day job of mom, chief cook and bottle washer.


When I looked at my calendar I thought how in the heck did this happen? Sigh, I’ve no one to blame but myself. Apparently, my brain went on holiday.


So how do I plan on dealing with my overloaded schedule?


Why laughing at myself and writing? For me writing is more than a refuge it is a something I have to do. If I don’t get those characters out of my head and onto paper then I get a bit nuts, okay, more nuts than usual.


If I can write I can deal.


On a practical level I’ll sit down at the beginning of the month and take a half hour, no more and maybe a lot less, and make sure I have everything written down into my calendar. Once that’s done I look ahead and break it down into weekly projects. It sounds like a lot, but most of our life is routine. I can count on the kids’ sports and volunteer activities to remain the same, mine and the hubbys’ schedules too. So that knocks out most of the thinking. Then I look at the extras and figure out where I can shoe horn them in. With that done I’ve an idea of where my month is heading.


Sunday afternoons or Monday mornings depending on my mood I check the trusty calendar to see what needs doing that week.


By now, I’m sure you think I’m a control freak with no room for spontaneity, not at all, my life is pure chaos on a daily basis but at least my calendar is neat.


How do you do to deal with stress? What’s your passion?

A Note from the Book Boost: Thanks for joining us today, Tracy. I like how you and your kids interact with the word of the day. What a great idea! Please tell us about your debut novel and CONGRATS on the release.

Blurb:


Five thousand years have passed since the Destroyer and his Disciples escaped a dying planet known as Earth. Humanity has become a force to be feared. One woman is all that stands between intergalactic war and peace.


Liandra never asked to be a leader. Unfortunately, the Mother and Father of All have plans for her—plans that include uniting Liandra with two very different men who will help her defeat the Destroyer.


Everything changes for Starke the day he feels the other half of his soul. When Liandra is kidnapped, nothing will stop the hardheaded warrior from freeing her, even if it means war.


Terral has lived as the Dark One for more than four decades, but a vision calls him to a new path. Determined to right the wrongs of his past, Terral raises an army to bring down the Destroyer-an army dedicated to serving one woman.


Liandra.


Excerpt:

The swish of the door caught her attention. Greedy for something else besides the pain and constant worry of the imminent crumbling of the alliances she’d worked so hard to create, Liandra concentrated on the direction the sound came from. Front, back, side, her ‘teachers’ never approached from the same passage.

A small scrap of a boot against the stone was all it took. “There you are.” Just to the back and left. Faster than she’d thought the footsteps stopped in front of her. She didn’t bother to look, no reason to let them see the exhaustion and pain written on her expression.

Warm hands thick with calluses stroked and cradled her face. Instinct had her pulling back. The restraints pulsed, communicating through the thin filaments that attached the device to her nervous system. Shards of pain speared through her. Steadying her with his hand and body, she heard him grunt and felt him absorb some of the pain, not once releasing his hold.

What? Who is he, a new teacher? Had to be, the others knew of her race’s need to be touched and had been careful to withhold physical contact.

The rough patches of skin, warrior’s hands she thought, caught against the smooth contour of her neck.

It felt so good, the heat of warm flesh. Goosebumps raced along her naked body. The pulse of life sank into her starved pores; Liandra leaned into him like a plant toward the sun. Though being half Andalian granted her more time than the rest of her people she was still bound to the living force of their planet and needed it along with physical contact to live. Deep in the cold dead stone wall of Drakar’s keep Liandra’s endurance had been put to the test.

Sensing her need he feed her more healing energy. Liandra’s jumbled brain began to settle and clear and her nerves, so rough and torn, smoothed.

She must have said something, because his voice like a dark sweet treat teased her senses.

“Shhh, I promise no more pain.”

Warnings shoved forward, the languid peace that had begun to settle inside her burned away. The Destroyer wasn’t known for his tolerance of fools and very few would live long enough to reach the level of inquisitor making this kind of error.

Duh, not an error, by the goddess her brain had gone to mush. They’d just switched tactics on her. They needed her cooperation to obtain a living sample of her blood, for some reason the samples they’d taken had all withered and rotted soon after extraction.

Liandra understood their desire for the location of the summit; the knowledge would let them take out the new leaders of the Coalition and end the revolt before it began. Why they wanted blood and tissue samples she had no idea. Yes, human’s were tinkers of flesh and bone but Andalian genetics would limit the space dwelling conquers not enhance, at least she thought it would. Tied as they were to their planet an Andalian couldn’t survive away from it for long.

“Sure, as long as I do what?”Liandra could hear the disdain in her voice. Her people were warriors they trained hard to hone their bodies. She’d little respect for these humans, these Disciples of the Destroyer as they called themselves.

“I've come to help.” His voice battle horse, quivered along her bare flesh. “You’ve nothing to fear.”

Magic trickled through his finger tips and into her tissue. Odd, she thought technology was the human’s god, not natural magic and inborn gifts.

He shifted, kneeling next to her. The hard sole of his boots scraped against the floor. The sound broke through the misty contentment his healing had infused in her.

Clicking shoes brought forward the memory of another voice its tone a sibilant hiss flooded her mind. Drakar’s parchment white face rose with the thoughts. Liandra allowed his image to fill her, used it to clear her mind. She lifted her head and studied the line of his uniform. The man was massive. This close her view was of his front but not his face. The muscles strained the seams pulling the fabric taunt over his flat abdomen. Thick thighs tapered down his lean body to his feet. Soft black boots encased his legs.

She pushed back, in tiny increments, not wanting to trigger the pain mechanism as quicker movements did. Liandra was almost laying flat to the ground before she could see his face and shoulders. By the Mother how tall is he?

The tempo of her heart sped to a gallop. He wasn’t a new teacher who failed to learn of her special needs nor was he here to help her. A hope she hadn’t known existed shriveled.

Wide shoulders glittered in hues of burnt orange and deep red. The symbol for Drakar’s elite troops stared back at her. No one looking to rescue Liandra would be stupid enough to swipe the uniform of a commander in the elite troops.

“What game are you playing?” The first fear she’d know upon being captured tumbled into her.

Want More Tracy?

Visit her website here: http://tracyfarrell.com/

Check out her book releasing this month! Click here.

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