Scent of Persuasion by Nikki Duncan

Hey, there’s a contest involved here, people, so check it out and email Nikki for a chance to win!

Oh, Jubilee!

We talk about your work, how your boss is a jerk.
We talk about your church and your head when it hurts.
We talk about the troubles you’ve been havin’ with your brother, ‘bout your daddy and your mother and your crazy ex-loovvver.
I like talkin’ about you you you you you, Jubilee, but occasionally I wanna talk about me!

Okay, I left a few of Toby Keith’s lyrics out, but how often do you feel like that? How often does it feel like life is spinning faster and faster and faster while you’re stuck in the middle with mounting pressure and demands? We get so wrapped up in the day-to-day of life we forget about us.

Demanding “Me Time” is not selfish. Leaving the kids and job behind for a day, a weekend, or a week so you can escape alone or with a spouse is not selfish. Rather, it’s necessary.

I write about couples falling in love, about the journey that happens from the first meeting to the I-want-to-spend-my-life-with-you moment. With every story I am reminded of why love is important, but I have to admit I do little to share that reminder with my loved ones. I get wrapped up in one project and then move to the next and then the next. People and emotions get pushed aside. I forget to show my appreciation for people and things they’ve done for me or my family.

I hadn’t realized how deep into the spin I’d gotten until this last weekend. CIS (hubby) won a 4 day paid trip from work, so we went to California together. Long walks on a beach with no demands and grueling kayaking which requires you to be in sync for success has a way of slapping you back a bit. Talking on the beach is easy, until you tackle complicated subjects. Kayaking and calling out the moves you think are needed isn’t difficult, until you realize some of your communication skills have gotten lost in that spin cycle called life.

I fall in love with CIS every time I write a story because every time I am reminded in one way or another how great he is. I fall in love with him each time I read a romance because there’s always a grain of truth in a hero worthy of commitment and love that I know to be true in CIS. In the span of the book, the hero and heroine take time for themselves. They take time to get to know each other. To know why they’re in love.

We can’t all be as self-sacrificing as Kami from SCENT OF PERSUASION, releasing next Tuesday from Samhain, but why does it seem that when we’ve found our someone special we so often become complacent and lose some of our emotional contact with them? Why is it we sometimes turn into the Jubilee in the song and think more about ourselves than others? And how do you think it is the people who don’t fall into this trap over and over stay out of it?

So let’s play the “Avoid Being Jubilee” game. I’ll kick it off by saying I’ve vowed to take more “me time” but also to demand more “we time” with hubby away from the kids and work.

Chat it up to be entered into a drawing I will be having for a copy of SCENT OF PERSUASION Kami will announce the winner Monday, May 3 (at 7:00 Central Time) on my website during a live chat. If you can’t make the chat, email me at contests@NikkiDuncan.com with Kami in the subject line. Be sure to include your preferred eBook format in case you win.