Wednesday, 03 March 2010

• Currently Love Medicine By Jane Toombs see related

  Woman-in-Charge: Jane Toombs

  Meet Jane Toombs
  
  

  Like many women I'm a multi-person  female.  A mother, a stepmother. a grandmother and a great grandmother.  Also now the life partner of the Viking from my past.  In addition, a part-time cook and  housekeeper, duties I share with the Viking.  In the past I worked as a Registered Nurse in many different positions in various hospitals and also taught nursing procedures to nurse assistants. I became a nurse because the patriotism during WWII was amazing.  Since every boy in my graduating  class was either drafted or enlisted, I, too wanted to help the war effort.  But, since I graduated at 16, I wasn't old enough to do so.  After a year of college, that summer I reached seventeen and a half, the minimum age to join the Cadet Nurses, the only military position I was old enough for.
  
  From childhood, though,  my dream was to be a writer and in 1973 the dream came through.  TULE WITCH, my first novel , a never-more-than-a-kiss-or-two Gothic, sold to Avon.
  
  As most writers will confess, I write because I'm compelled to.  During the years I worked as a nurse, characters carried on long conversations in my head, sometimes distracting me. My first husband called my writing "trash", not understanding it was a part of me. That, after five kids, eventually lead to divorce.  I certainly never planned to marry again; but in the same writing class where I wrote  my first book, the Gothic that sold,  I met another writer, a widower.  Eventually we married, adding two stepchildren to my five--though by then only three were still at home. He  told me if I could sell a book, he could.  A year later he did.  Our agent hooked us up with packagers and soon I was too busy to work more than part-time as a nurse. He finally retired so he could write full time.   He died suddenly in 1994, before we completed a book about WWI we were both working on .. 
  
  These many years later, I finally finished that book, NIGHTINGALE MAN, recently  published by Champagne Books. Quite a departure from what I usually write, which ranges from historical to paranormal romance, such as my most recent more-than-a-single-kiss Gothic, NULL AND VOID,  published by Red Rose Publishing,  and soon to be in paperback as well as electronic.  In contrast the WWI book is not a romance, though it does contain a few romantic scenes .  In addition to writing, I've come to enjoy helping aspiring writers learn the do-s and don't-s of getting published.  I should be  no surprise , since everyone in my family was a teacher, going back several generations. I never wanted to teach children, but I find I enjoy helping adults. 
  
  A writer friend, Janet Lane Walters  and I, winding down after a busy conference day, took advantage of the hotel's one free drink--which turned out to be a rather stiff one.  Feeling no pain, we decided we'd write a non-fiction book about writing and suggested funny chapter titles to each other, which I wrote down on a napkin.  The conference ended  and she returned to New York State and I came back to  Michigan's Upper Peninsula.  Months later I opened my email one morning and found  the first chapter from her.  Not to be outdone, I wrote a chapter myself and sent it back.  This went on for a year, both of us editing each others work until what had started out merely as a challenge to see who could think up the zaniest title for a chapter, became an actual book.  We were happy when Zumaya snapped it up and published it, then  thrilled when BECOMING YOUR OWN CRITIQUE PARTNER  won an Eppie Award for best non-fiction book. 
  
  

  All my  recent books are available either at the publishers,  Fictionwise, Amazon, etc.
  
  Or you can click on a buy button at my website.
  www.JaneToombs.com
  

  
  
  
  

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