THE WHISPER OF BALANCE— AMANDA USEN

Please welcome romance author, Amanda Usen, to Over Coffee. Amanda is a writer, chef, and a romantic. She even brought us some fancy cappuccino to share with us. Isn’t that cup of cappuccino pretty—you almost want to frame rather than drink it, lol!

I love her thoughts on attitude and balance—a writer needs both to be successful.  Balance tells you when to step away and refill your creative well and the need to stay connected to your life. Most writers I know are balancing jobs, family, and writing. Balance keeps you from burning out. It helps when you have your own personal hero (who is also a talented chef) whispering balance in your ear.

Sia has been talking a lot of good sense about attitude lately. I don’t think an hour of the day goes by that I don’t ponder some form of that concept myself. In fact, in a recent e-mail to my agent, I typed, “Writing is such a head game!” It all comes from within. If, like me, you depend on outward signs of success to help you feel positive and triumphant, you might be in serious trouble if you want to be a professional writer. In fact, as my high school BFF told me last week, “I think if you wanted easy, you picked the wrong profession.” She also quoted Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird, to me – a great book to read for writing inspiration.

How do you stay chained to that intangible creative force in the face of reviews, promotion, day jobs, demanding children and partners, edits, rejection and days when there are no words in your head? Coffee helps.  J  Some days it feels like too much pressure. I think that’s why Olivia, my heroine in Luscious, came into being the way she did. I am a hardcore pantser; my stories create themselves on the screen of my subconscious as I write. Olivia has reached her limit. Her marriage is over. She hates her job. Her two best friends have fallen in love with each other. She decides to quit, to give up on her current life, to go to Verona and tell her parents she doesn’t want to run the family restaurant anymore and to figure out how to pick up the pieces after she has a nice, wet meltdown in Italy.

Of course, it’s a romance – so her meltdown doesn’t proceed exactly as she plans. Also, I’m a romantic, so she has to rediscover her mojo with the help of one sweetheart of a hero, her divorce lawyer Sean. I depend a lot upon my own hero, my husband, to keep me from flying apart, too. He is the one whispering balance in my ear when I’ve been sitting in front of the computer for three days straight, trying to finish a story. Yes, you have to show up every day, but you also have to know when to take a break and fill the well. You can’t write when you’re tapped out. At least, I can’t. And it becomes progressively harder to break out of the chair the longer I’ve been sitting there.

The urge to check e-mail, check stats and rankings, tweet, Facebook or tackle the next item on the to-do list is nearly overwhelming…until I get away from it for a while. I get into the kitchen and start cooking. I go to yoga and reconnect with non-mental muscles. Recently, I went to LA to celebrate 40^th birthdays with the friend I mentioned above. We ate and drank our way through her city, and I returned home full of positive energy for writing. Sometimes I have to get away from work to remember why I want to write in the first place. I can’t chuck it all and start over, like my Luscious character Olivia does, but I can force myself to take breaks from the pressure. The work isn’t going to go anywhere while I’m gone, and it is vital to my creative core to remind myself that there is more to my life than putting words on the page. I crave the pages, the external signs of progress and success, but when I lose sight of the other things that make up my life—cooking, children, exercise, reading, loving, sunlight—the words slow down, then stop. Balance, my hero whispers. Balance.

AMAZON, B&N, BAM

Luscious 

by Amanda Usen

Eat, play, love

Plain old ice cream just isn't going to cut it. To beat these blues, chef Olivia Marconi needs the good stuff: rich, creamy tiramisu gelato. And no place better to get it than Italy. 

But a fresh start is nearly impossible with Sean Kindred dogging her every move. She's been burned by his too-hot-to-handle antics before. Though there's no denying the man can still get her all fired up. 

Could a weeklong affair finally turn into something more lasting...or will it all go up in flames? 

Excerpt chapter

Since I never forgot what they taught me in school, I write what I know. Here is an excerpt from one of my favorite scenes in Luscious, where Olivia gets her groove back in the kitchen 
Excerpt 2 


There are so many things in life that can pull our focus from positivity.

• Have you ever lost your mojo? Your balance? Your groove? How? 
• And what did you do to get it back? 

Leave a comment below, for the chance to win a copy of Luscious.

Thanks for having me on the blog today, Sia. I always enjoy sharing a cup of coffee with a fellow attitude adjuster! J

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Amanda Usen knows two things for certain: chocolate cheesecake is good for breakfast and a hot chef can steal your heart. Her husband stole hers on the first day of class at the Culinary Institute of America. They married after graduation in a lovely French Quarter restaurant in New Orleans. After enjoying the food and the fun in the Big Easy for a few years, they returned to Western New York to raise a family.

Amanda spends her days teaching pastry arts classes at a local community college and her nights writing romance. She’s a member of the Romance Writers of America ® and theWestern New York Romance Writers. When she’s not writing, teaching or baking, she can usually be found chasing the kids around the yard with her very own scrumptious husband.


You can find Amanda: Facebook, Website--be sure to check out her recipe page!

The Wide, Wide World

It’s my pleasure to have debut author, Liz Michalski, visiting with us Over Coffee. According to Liz, in her previous life, she wrangled with ill-tempered horses and over sized show dogs. These days she chases after small children and a medium-sized mutt.

Anyone who has wrangled “oversized” show dogs, even a medium sized mutt, is okay with me. I wonder how she does with Great Danes? Oh, wait, she’s wrangled horses too, so she’s already been trained. I plan on calling her the next time I have to give a bath to my pack, lol!

 Liz is a wife, mom, critter owner, and freelance writer and has written hundreds of articles. If that's not enough to make your head spin she has now embarked on a career as an author. Her book is set in rural Connecticut with dogs and cats, a bit of heartbreak, love, and a ghost.

Liz is very familiar with sitting in front of a computer screen for hours. She shares how she balances the butt in the chair times with things that recharge and refresh her for yet more work.



Most days I worship at the altar of the electronic god. I sit, glued to my laptop, waiting for the next e-mail to come in, typing out a few pages of my manuscript, surfing the internet to see what my fellow writers are doing. I bathe in the glow of the screen from early morning until late at night. Of course, I do other things: I make breakfast, do housework, read, feed the dog, volunteer, visit with family and friends. But because I'm a writer who works at home, the computer has somehow taken on a central importance. It has become my boss, my colleague, my electronic water cooler all in one.

I live in New England, and it's been a long, cold winter this year. In some places, the snow drifts in my neighborhood are well over my head. (Granted, I'm only 5'2, but still.) The computer has served as a particular life line this year, my portal to the outside world when the view outside my window is unyielding white.

But still.

Too much time in front of the screen makes me feel vaguely claustrophobic, as if this World Wide Web is actually shrinking my domain. I know others feel the same -- I've read about resolutions to cut down on screen time this year, to use software to lock out the internet so real work can get done, to banish the computer to another room for a time out.

For me, these strategies aren't enough. To counteract the computer's spell, I need time outside, in the real world. So at least twice a week I bundle up and head for a hiking trail. I take the dog and sometimes a friend and tromp through the snow, which oftentimes has come up over my knees. (I keep meaning to invest in snowshoes....) Because my chances to do this are limited, I go no matter what the weather. In snowstorms, it's often so quiet I can hear the hiss of the snow as it falls against my jacket. Last week, it was freezing rain, and I debated staying home, but the dog looked so woe-begotten I pulled up my hood and we set off. Deep on the trail, the rain fell more softly, blocked by the trees. It was both a peaceful and a strenuous walk and when I'd finished I was glad I'd gone.

I've seen deer on these hikes, rabbits, even an owl, perched at the top of the tree like a lump of wood. He turned his head a few times, blinked sleepily, then closed his eyes against the racket we were making. I've seen the dog bounding in snow so deep it looked as if he were swimming. I've had thoughtful conversations with friends about the lives we live now and the lives we once imagined, about our families and our dreams and goals, conversations that would be impossible in e-mails or IMs. Mostly, though, I've listened to the silence and appreciated the view around me. On my favorite walk, there's a bend where the pine trees tower overhead like the ceiling on a cathedral. The path turns sharply, so you can't see what's ahead or much of what's behind. There's only this space, so small but yet so immense at the same time, and each time I come across it I stand still for a moment and try to impress it upon my memory so that when I'm back in front of the computer I can recall it and remind myself that the world really is wider than my 15-inch monitor.

• How do you recharge after spending time in front of the computer?  

Buy: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Books.a.Million, Borders, Indiebound 

EVENFALL Blurb:
That's what they say in Hartman, Connecticut, where the Murphy women are known for their beauty, willfulness, and disastrous luck with men. No one knows the truth of this saying better than Frank Wildermuth. Fifty years ago, he fell in love with Gert Murphy, but through fate and bad timing wound up married to her sister. He spent the rest of his life quietly regretting his mistake. Now Frank's dead -- but not quite gone—and it's time to do some haunting of his own.

All Andie Murphy ever wanted was to get out of town. But she’s back to settle Evenfall, her Uncle Frank’s estate, where some things never change -- and some things have changed a lot. Aunt Gert, for example, still drives her crazy. On the other hand, Cort, the wide-eyed farmboy she used to babysit, is all grown up -- with a whole new definition for the word sleepover.

But if you're a Murphy woman, love never goes smoothly. As Andie struggles with her feelings, Frank sees a chance for redemption -- one that could cost his niece dearly. They'll both need to decide --

Is true love really everlasting? Is home just an address, or a place you carry in your heart? And if you truly regret your mistakes, can the long-buried dreams of your youth come alive again? Excerpt 

She's been a reporter, an editor, a freelance writer, and has written hundreds of articles for newspapers, magazines, and private corporations.

In her previous life, she wrangled with ill-tempered horses and over sized show dogs. These days she chases after small children and a medium-sized mutt.

She likes dark chocolate caramels, champagne, and licorice tea (preferably not all served at once). In summer you'll find her visiting farmers' markets and trying to talk her family out of making her swim at the Connecticut shore.

The rest of the year she's home in Massachusetts with her husband, daughter, and son, hard at work on her next novel.

You can find Liz: Website,  Facebook, and Goodreads