How to Maintain a Happy Life Dee S Knight #positive #romance #spotlight


In the Spotlight with Dee S Knight talking about how to maintain a happy life, positivity and her new book pOnly a Good Man Will Do.

Hello Dee! How do you deal with all the negativity that surrounds us not only in our personal lives but writing lives as well?

There’s no doubt about it, we live in unsettling times. In fact, sometimes hubby and I avoid watching the evening news for fear of letting pervasive negativity take over our thinking. Instead, we tune into a repeat of Law and Order, which might be drama but at least it’s fiction.

Now I’m no Pollyanna, but I do think we can invite depressing, negative feelings, or we can make up our minds to be happy, no matter what else is happening in life. It’s worth a try, anyway.

I read somewhere that the way to maintain a happy life is to give thanks each night for seven things that went right for you that day. They don’t have to be big things. The first night I tried, I kind of had a hard time listing seven things. I mean, of course there’re a few easy things (“My presentation went well,” “I got an A on my test”), but beyond the easy stuff, I was fishing. And remember, the point is not to be grateful in a negative way (“I didn’t get fired today”), but to pick up on small, positive joys.

The exercise became easier each night. I found myself looking for little things during the day to reflect on at night. Believe me, for a natural pessimist like me, this was a revelation.

In my latest book, Only a Good Man Will Do, Daniel Goodman is horrified that his parents—who’d raised triplet boys without benefit of marriage—were now going to tie the knot in a very public wedding. This was bad because he was close to winning the position of headmaster in his very strict, very posh boys’ boarding school. And learning that was just the beginning of the disasters that populated his week. Daniel had a hard time seeing the positive things that flowed all around him. He could have used seven good items to think of each night!

My mom always told me that God helps those who help themselves. But like chicken soup, I believe prayer and living life thinking about the positives more than the negatives can’t hurt.

So, here are a few things I’ve recently found myself being grateful—and yes, happy—for: being the first to step out of the shower and onto a freshly washed, fluffy bathmat; the first night on clean sheets; a stranger telling me I’m a very good writer; someone saying they appreciate my advice (that’s not only cause for happiness, it’s rare); a new recipe that was delicious; a funny or exciting movie.

Will you share a positive, happy thing that took place in your life yesterday or today? Then we can all be happy together.

Only a Good Man Will Do
Book 1 of The Good Man series
Author: Dee S. Knight
Publisher: Black Velvet Seductions
Cover artist: Jessica Greeley
Genre: Erotic romance
Heat level: XX
Pages: 209 pages

Seriously ambitious man seeks woman to encourage his goals, support his (hopeful) position as Headmaster of Westover Academy, and be purer than Caesar’s wife. Good luck with that!

Daniel Goodman is a man on a mission. For years he has striven for perfection, fighting for the pinnacle achievement in his world of academia, Headmaster of Westover Academy. Westover, established before the American Revolution, is still one of the most prestigious schools in the country. They accept only boys whose parents fit a certain mold and only those teachers who hold to a stringent set of mores, on and off campus. His brother Jonah considers Daniel a prig. Daniel sees himself as doing his best to serve his students. How much better can he serve them as headmaster? That is what he seeks to find out.

Suddenly, into his cut and dried, strictly black and white life of moral and upright behavior, comes Eve Star, formerly one of Europe’s foremost exotic dancers. Her life is anything but cut and dried, black and white. Bad enough that she’s enrolled her son in Westover Academy under false pretenses. More, she runs the town’s most disreputable bar. Worst, much to Daniel’s dismay, he finds himself drawn to her like a kid to chocolate. Nothing good can come of this attraction. Or can it? He is after all, a good man.

You can buy it here:

Amazon: https://amzn.to/2q7ovi4

B&N https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/books/1129630612?ean=2940161770603

Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/898008

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/only-a-good-man-will-do

Daniel walked into the parlor of the headmaster’s house Saturday afternoon seeking first the food table and second, his friend, Stan Baxter. He spotted them both near the front window.

“You’re late,” Stan said.

“Lots of people wanted to chat.” Parents’ Weekend, when teachers sat in their classrooms to meet their students’ mothers and fathers, meant mandatory tea afterwards for all professionals at the Academy. Board members and parents attended at their own discretion, and the boys—the reason the school existed and they were all there—mostly stayed out of sight and hearing.

“Fortunately for me, a good many parents now have grabbed their progeny and left campus, so I have access to the snacks unimpeded,” Daniel said, examining the finger food on display before making his selections. The challenge was always how to load his plate while appearing to take a socially acceptable portion. “Did I miss anything?”

“Only an angel.” Stan turned toward the window. “Holy Mother! Look at that,” he muttered.

“What?” Daniel asked, fitting a cucumber sandwich beside the smoked salmon-topped cracker on his dessert plate. “Am I missing a table of fare? I swear, every year the offerings at these teas are more meager than the last.”

Stan chuckled and answered in the same low voice, “Is your stomach all you think about? I was talking about another kind of dish. One you can have fun eating in bed, if you catch my drift. And she just slipped out onto the lawn.”

“Is your libido all you think about?” Daniel bit a carrot stick in two and sighed. Only three more hours and he could order a pizza. With all of his charges gone from the dormitory for Parents’ Weekend, he had a rare, private, two-day holiday ahead of him. With the tiny plate full, he joined Stan at the large windows. “Where is this goddess?”

“There. In the red dress and hat.”

Daniel saw nothing but the shapely form of a woman walking away. Slender ankles topped three inch heels. A dress of some kind of lustrous material hit her mid-calf. The style was soft and feminine, and berry red. Not many women showed up at Westover in a color sure to make them the focus of attention. Not that most of them didn’t expect to be the focus—didn’t demand it, in fact—but they usually weren’t so obvious. The breeze at her back molded the material to the curves of her hips and ass, and fluttered the dress’s full sleeves. A wide-brimmed hat hid her hair, but based on what was visible, Daniel easily imagined a long column of neck designed for kissing.

“If the rest of her matches the back view, you’ve got reason to be drooling down the front of your gown.”

Frowning, Stan glanced down as though to make sure the drool comment was only facetious. “Can’t afford to drool on this. I had to use my tax refund to pay for the thing and show off my Master’s chevrons. I don’t know how you afforded to pay for your Ph.D. paraphernalia.”

“The new degree looks sharp on you. Now, why are you mooning over a woman you see at the headmaster’s tea, when you know she’s some student’s mother and off limits?”

“She looks young enough to be a sister, so it’s not a given she’s out of bounds.”

At that moment, a young boy wearing the school uniform and a big grin ran up to the woman. She bent to catch him in her arms. When she straightened, she ruffled the boy’s hair. His expression and his wagging finger showed that he chastised her, but then he laughed and finger-combed the mussed hair back into place. She took his hand and they walked toward the circle where most of the parents parked. Looking up at the woman, the boy’s lips moved the whole while, carrying on a steady monologue.

Something in her actions captured Daniel’s attention. They were artless, performed naturally and with unabashed love. The child fairly skipped beside her and the frequent turns of her head showed she looked at him as though hanging on every word he spoke.

“How wonderful,” Daniel murmured, impressed with her total attention to the boy. “Did you see that?”

“Oh, yeah. I didn’t think her hips would ever stop swaying, and it’s a crime they make hemlines so long.”

Daniel laughed. “You’re such a hedonist.”

“And proud of it. But you were right. Looks like she’s a student’s mother after all. Damn the luck.”

For once, Daniel agreed with his friend. But not just because of the woman’s obvious good figure. More because she seemed to love her son and didn’t care who knew it. He normally kept his distance from flashy women, as this one appeared to be, based on her dress color, but her easy manner with the boy would be enough to make him ignore his own inclination toward the conservative. If she weren’t also a patron of the school. Assuming the gods smiled on him and he became headmaster, he and the woman would be on business terms, and nothing good ever came from mixing business with pleasure. Pleasure is what every male instinct in him screamed she would be.

Meet Dee


Prior to writing her first fiction only a few years ago, Dee S. Knight lived a varied lifestyle. After college she married her high school sweetheart and they became house parents at a home for wards of the court. Thus, she went from newlywed to “mother” of a dozen teenage boys, in a month. 

Two years of living in one city proved to be enough, and she and her husband spent the next eight years as long-distance truckers. Swiftly following their trucking years, she became a computer consultant, high school and adult ed teacher, technical writer and novelist. More than thirty years later, she’s still married to her own hero and finds life infinitely interesting. They currently reside in the Midwest. 

Looking for something sweeter, meet Dee’s sister, www.AnneKrist.com

You can stalk Dee:

Website: https://nomadauthors.com

Blog: http://nomadauthors.com/blog

Twitter: http://twitter.com/DeeSKnight

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DeeSKnight2018

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/265222.Dee_S_Knight

Newsletter (sample): https://preview.mailerlite.com/o2g1i0?fbclid=IwAR0COlyuPY-Hu30KTBdT092j_GZeuN5z4pc1LtsvHTyr6IbiSpsGqeIgT90

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B079BGZNDN


8 responses to “How to Maintain a Happy Life Dee S Knight #positive #romance #spotlight”

  1. What a great post, Dee. This is so true – I was feeling a bit down this morning, there is so much uncertainty around at the moment. Then I remembered I had many things to be grateful for, and I thought of all the little things I loved that would cheer me up. A slice of cake. A glass of sparkling wine. A new book 🙂

  2. Ok Dee this will seem really silly. My rescue kitty, who I’ve had for a few years now, let me pet her paw for the first time today without pulling away. Usually, when I try to touch the top of her paw she tucks it away. I took that as a sign she has come to totally trust me. Silly to most, heartwarming to me.

  3. Really good advice Dee. Its so easy to see the downside and I’m guilty of doing just that. Thinking of the positives and life isn’t so bad after all.

  4. I’m a glass half full kind of person. As far as a special moment that was positive today, it waś to come home from a long trip to NC and have my husband say, “I missed you so much. I don’t know what would happen if you died on me first. For sure I need to die before you because I have to have you in my life.”
    Callie

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