Of Pens and Swords - #newbooks

I'm excited to have RENA ROCFORD visiting today as her latest book, OF PENS AND SWORDS just came out. It's a wonderful modernized YA from a cherished classic. AND she's taking over the blog with some great advice about making your Somedays into Todays. Here's Rena!

Thanks for letting me invade the blog today, Tara!

For years I’ve struggled with the somedays. You know them: Someday I’ll have my house perfect. Someday I’ll have all of my laundry done before the start of the week. Someday I’ll do a better job of making all the lunches so everyone has something to eat all week long and I don’t have to feel like a failure when I make the family eat mac and cheese for dinner (with hotdogs). Someday, I’ll finish writing this novel. Someday, I’ll finish this marketing campaign. Someday, I’ll really really be able to entertain my friends and family in my nicely landscaped backyard.

I’ve been living in the somedays for most of my life. Really, we all have. Isn’t it silly how much stress we give ourselves over laundry and housework? Like many people, I have a full time job and a gig as a writer, and you know what I don’t have? Somedays.

source: twitter

If I waited for my Somedays, I wouldn’t get to anything. There’s now and there’s tomorrow. It’s taken me a long time to really view my time like money. If you ever thought about how much time you spend on Facebook or instagram as money, or a fee per minute, you’d use it differently, right? I know I would. If FB cost a dollar a minute, I’d never hang out there. It doesn’t so we spend all the time we want there. It’s free, even. Except for one part: Facebook and instagram and pintrest and twitter aren’t free. They still cost one minute per minute.

And sometimes, I need a cat video because the real world sucks sometimes. Social media is good for that part of life—the getting away from the real world—but in the end, the only way to get to the somedays is to pick some of them and do them in the today.

But how do you pick which to pursue?

This is where you need peace. You need to make peace with the fact that some of your somedays will live in someday for a very long time (I just finished unpacking the boxes in my library, and we moved in a year ago). That doesn’t always mean they will stay somedays forever, but it’s not looking good for my getting into gymnastics if you know what I mean. Something happened last week, and my someday of weed whacking the front yard had to be put off for a full week. Somedays are just like that, and you need to make peace with it before you can move down that someday list. 

Of Pens and Swords

By Rena Rocford

Seventeen-year-old Cyra Berque wants two things in life: a date with Rochan and a chance to fence at the Olympics. But people with one hand don’t normally fence, and girls with big thighs don’t get the boy. Knowing that she wants to make the Olympics, Cyra’s coach sets her up with another coach, one who could take her all the way to the top, but the new coach costs more. Feeling her dreams slipping out of reach, Cyra agrees to tutor a ballerina with a rich father and a D minus in English. It’s triple the pay and triple the pain. The ballerina isn’t interested in passing classes―she wants Rochan, and she’s promised she’ll turn her D minus into a full-fledged F if Cyra doesn’t help her win the heart of Rochan. 

Buy it now on Amazon!

When Rena Rocford isn’t taking over the world one book at a time, she can be found living out her mild-mannered life, wearing out dance shoes, raising a herd of pets, and enjoying her time with her family in beautiful Northern California.

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