A new start for Jessica Goodwin...plus a book giveaway

We're pleased to welcome Jessica Goodwin back to CLC today. Her latest novel, Starting From Scratch, is now available and Jessica has five e-book copies to give away! 

Jessica Goodwin is an author, blogger, and freelance writer who lives in the Washington, D.C. area. Since 2010, she has written six books and hundreds of articles. Two of Jessica’s books, Here We Go and The One Who Got Away, have appeared on the Amazon Kindle bestseller list.

​As a Mother Hustle panelist, Jessica writes about balancing her time, interests, and priorities as a mother, student, and writer. Her writing has also appeared on several parenting sites such as Scary Mommy, Mamalode, Hyland’s, and Tribe Magazine. Additionally, she has written articles for the Atlanta Journal Constitution and the Falls Church News Press. For fun, she blogs about her family’s adventures at Go With The Goodwins. (Bio courtesy of Jessica's website.)

Visit Jessica online:
Website * Facebook * Twitter * Instagram * Pinterest

Synopsis:
Cookie Walker has lost the love of her life, but she knows life must go on. She just doesn't know where to get started.

After getting booted from the PTA, she decides there’s no better time than the present to make some big changes. Her family is dealing with change, too. Her three children must adjust to life without their father, her sister is struggling to get pregnant, and her parents' business is failing.

Even with all that going on around her, Cookie starts spending a lot of time with Dylan Cooper, a friend of the family who is in the middle of a nasty divorce. While Cookie is glad to have found someone who understands her feelings of loss, she’s completely oblivious to the fact that Cooper has developed romantic feelings for her.

The small-town gossips, however, are already talking. Is Cookie moving too fast? Can she juggle three kids, a new business, and a possible new romance? (Courtesy of Amazon.)

What is something you learned from writing your previous novels that you applied to Starting From Scratch?
That the only way a novel (or an article, or a blog post, or whatever) is going to get written is if you sit your butt down on the chair and get to work. Whenever I get an idea for a story, it tends to build and build in my head so that it’s all I can think about, and then I toss and turn in bed at night, imagining the characters and different scenes. I can't sleep, and that’s when I know I need to get to work. It doesn't matter what else is going on - other projects, housework, school work, whatever... That idea needs to work its way out of my head. Once I start plotting out my ideas and writing, I can finally sleep again!

In what ways do you feel connected with Cookie?
I first started writing Cookie’s story in the fall of 2016. The idea was all there, I just had to get it out. In December of that year, my family lost our home to a fire. We had to move to a temporary apartment while our house was rebuilt. We were dealing with so much loss and devastation that I couldn’t write Cookie’s story – her story of starting over – until we finally got our situation squared away. I wanted so badly to lose myself in a story, but we had the insurance company and contractors to deal with, plus a two year old… and then finally, I just said to heck with it and jumped back in. Like Cookie, I’d had enough grieving and feeling sorry for myself and just had to get busy.

If Starting From Scratch were made into a movie, who would you cast in the lead roles?
I love, love, love Jenna Fischer. I know she’s well-known for playing Pam on The Office, but I absolutely adore her as Lena on the show Splitting Up Together. As for Cooper, I keep picturing somebody like Justin Hartley (Kevin from This is Us) or Scott Michael Foster (Nathaniel from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.) One of those guys in a sheriff’s uniform? Yes, please!

What is the last book you read that you would recommend?
I just recently finished Big Magic by Liz Gilbert, the author of Eat Pray Love. She has a lot of great things to say about being open to inspiration and not being afraid of your ideas. A must-read read for anybody interested in writing, art, or other creative pursuits!

What is the strangest thing residing in your purse/handbag?
Play-Doh. I’m a mom, so I usually have all kinds of kid stuff in my bag. The kid’s four now, so I’ve been able to scale back, but I usually have snacks, lollipops, hand wipes, the usual mom-emergency kinda stuff.

What was the last cooking disaster you experienced?
I’ve been pretty lucky in that I haven’t had any major disasters recently. A couple close calls, though! The worst thing I can think of is that we had some friends visiting from out of town and I attempted to cook breakfast for 8 of us… It was one of those meals where NOTHING finished cooking at the same time. The eggs took forever to cook, the bacon was nearly burned, the toast was cold so the butter didn’t melt, you know what I mean? It was like the ONE meal where we didn’t go out somewhere to eat and it was a mess. I felt so bad. I like to think I’m a pretty decent cook, but that was not my best showing! I can pull off a near-flawless Thanksgiving dinner with all the fixings, but that morning, I felt like couldn’t even scramble eggs correctly! From now on, when we have guests, we just get donuts or go out for breakfast! LOL!

Thanks to Jessica for chatting with us and for sharing her book with our readers.

How to win: Use Rafflecopter to enter the giveaway. If you have any questions, feel free to contact us. If you have trouble using Rafflecopter on our blog, enter the giveaway here. 

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Giveaway ends April 30th at midnight EST.