Sweet Saturday Sample

This is from my romantic suspense, Deception:

“Promise me you’ll do this my way,” he said, feathering his thumb on the sensitive skin under her jaw. She fought the tremor overtaking her insides. Fought the desire to lean in and kiss him. “Promise that we’ll work together to get this solved.” His eyes darkened even more and she bit her lip. “Stop arguing for once, Katherine, and promise. I know I lost your trust long ago, but trust me to get us out of this.”

“I trust you.”

His gaze searched her face, sliding over her chin and lips and cheeks until finally settling on her eyes. “Do you?”

“Yes.”

He opened his mouth to say more, then closed it on a sigh. The look in his eyes told her he was going to kiss her, but she was still unprepared for the light touch of his lips, for the zing of need racing through her and for her desperate desire to keep him just where he was.

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Lucky 7 Meme

So I’ve been tagged in this meme by Kate Meader. I’m not even sure what a meme is. My kids could tell me but if I ask then I’m showing how uncool I am so I’ll refrain from asking. I’m not much into sending chain letters or telling people if they don’t do something then bad luck will plague them for seven years. Apparently this is nothing like that. It’s just a way for writers to showcase their writing and to get others involved and to get readers to follow. So this time I’ll play.

The rules:

• Go to p. 77 of current WIP
• go to line 7
• copy down next 7 lines/sentences & post them as they’re written
• Tag 7 other authors
• Let them know

Since I’m only on page 56 of my current wip I’m going to use the last wip I finished (which, btw, will be released with Random House’s Loveswept line in February, 2013.).

From The Notorious Lady Anne:

Alphonse shrugged. “He’s lazy,” he warned.

Emmeline smiled at Shamus. “Not for long, he won’t be.”

“Fine.” Alphonse flicked a finger at Shamus. “Take him.”

Emmeline ordered Shamus to row them to the Delilah. Expression mutinous, his wary gaze darted from Emmeline to Phin as he rowed.

Emmeline ignored Shamus and watched Addison, who kept his head turned away, refusing to look at her, his shoulders straight, his chin high, his eyes frigid. Despite the torn and bloodied clothes and the mussed hair, something inside her stirred.

Here are the 7 authors I’m tagging:

Jerri Drennen

Margery Scott

Christine Warner

Sara Walter Ellwood

Allison Merritt

Brenda Dyer

Jennifer Lowery

Writing Yourself Into a Corner

There is a house by my husband’s childhood home that is completely round. It intrigues me, this house does. What does it look like inside? Is it broken up into rooms? And do the rooms have corners? We often joke that if you lived in that house you couldn’t put your children in the corner for being naughty.

I wish my stories lived in round houses because then I couldn’t write myself into a corner. Right now I’m stuck on my current work-in-progess. Stuck, stuck, stuck. Like those remote control cars that ram into a corner and keep backing up only to ram into it again. That’s me, banging my head against the corner over and over again, too stupid to realize the corner isn’t going to move, rather I’m going to have to move.

This happens to me, oh, at least half a dozen times while writing a book. Usually I can figure out right away where I went wrong, back up, hit the delete key and try again. But sometimes, like now, I can’t figure it out and it’s darn frustrating. Because I feel like I’m wasting valuable writing time. Yet I’m not really wasting valuable writing time because I’m constantly thinking of where I went wrong and what I need to do to fix it. I have to remind myself to take a step back and just think. Thinking is writing and it’s much better than throwing words on paper hoping something will stick. Now that’s wasting time.

So for the past few days I haven’t written one word on my story. I’m letting it sit, letting the characters talk to me and simply thinking.

What do you do when you write yourself into a corner?

Six Sentence Sunday

“Go inside, Madelaine. Before I change my mind.”

“Change your mind about what?”

“About taking you back to my place and making long, slow love to you.”

He waited, breath held, hoping she’d take him up on the offer. To his great disappointment, she unlocked the door to the building and stepped through, closing it
firmly behind her.

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Sweet Saturday Samples

Since the weather is so beautiful here in Ohio I thought I’d give you a snippet of Her Dark Knight, which also takes place in the spring. Enjoy and if you get a chance, follow the other authors’ Saturday Samples

He wasn’t going to be the one to tell her she didn’t get the job based on her resume but based on her eerie likeness to a dead countess. He steered her onto the entrance to the River Walk.
Normally Christien barely noted the changing of the seasons. When time held no meaning, seasons were inconsequential. He’d lived through hundreds of them but today he could feel spring in the air. The breeze was warm upon his face. The sun seemed brighter. He was aware that this new appreciation had nothing to do with Mother Nature but rather Madelaine at his side.

She brought new awareness to his life, an edge to a dull existence.
“I need this job more than anything. I have to succeed.”

“Why do you have to succeed?”

“Well. For the same reasons everyone wants to succeed.”

“Generally people want success for money or

power or to rise above bad situations. Which reason is yours?”

“Money,” she said softly.

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What I Learned This Week

I’m a firm believer that you can always learn something from every situation. This is what I learned this week:

– That rice will dry out electronic devices. In some cases. But not mine :-(. I accidentally washed my son’s iPod. My fault. Not his. I grabbed his clothes off his bedroom floor without warning him and didn’t check his pockets. Then the next day he dropped his cell phone in a puddle. It doesn’t work right either anymore 😦

– That I should peek outside the door before I run out to grab something from my car. In my jammies. Sporting a major case of bed head (sorry, neighbor!)

– Nine days without running water in your kitchen has surpassed “fun” and “adventurous” and has entered into “inconvenient” and “a pain in the posterior”

– I hate packing lunches. Hate it. Hate it. Hate it. Okay, that’s not something I learned this week. I’ve known that for years, but just felt the need to share because as soon as I write this post I have to pack lunches for tomorrow 😦

– The term “bereaved” comes from Scotland during the border wars. I learned this from Margery Scott, a fellow writer and Scotsman herself (or would that be Scotswoman), from this blog post.

– That Paris during the 18th century was a filthy place to live. That 96% of its population was pretty much destitute and that most of its population were immigrants from other French cities or Switzerland. (All this was discovered while researching my next historical).

What did you learn this week?

Luck ‘O the Irish Hop

Welcome to the Luck ‘O the Irish Blog Hop sponsored by Romance at Random–Random House’s romance site! Leave a comment on this post and you will be entered into a drawing to receive two (yes, TWO) downloads of your choice from my backlist. You will find all of my books on the tabs above. And then, when you’re finished commenting on my blog, go to Romance at Random where you will find other wonderful authors offering other wonderful prizes. And don’t forget the BIG PRIZE Romance at Random is giving away — three winners will receive one of three $20 Barnes and Nobles gift cards.

Click the image above to go to Random House’s site to find other participating authors and to enter the Random House contest

What I Learned This Week

I learned something very valuable this week–how to get melted wax out of carpet.

So, you ask, how did it come about that I had to learn how to get wax out of carpet? Well, that’s a funny story (and one my husband knows nothing about so shhhh). See, we have a potpourri burner that melts scented wax. Something like this –>

I thought it would be a good idea to change the wax in it (which is really easy to do. All you have to do is stick it in the freezer for an hour and out pops the old wax). Unbeknownst to me, the wax burner was on and the wax was already melted. When I pulled it off the shelf it… Well, let’s say wax went EVERYWHERE! On me. On the dog. On the carpet. On me.

Immediately I went to my good friend Google and did you know that all you need to get wax off carpet is an iron and paper towels? Neither did I.

You take your iron, turn it on to the lowest setting (I made mine increasingly hotter but only after I made sure it wasn’t melting my carpet fibers). Put a paper towel on top of the wax, put the iron on top of the paper towel (you only need one layer of paper towels. I doubled it up at first and it didn’t work as well) and set the iron on the paper towel. The most miraculous thing happens! The wax melts and the paper towel soaks it up.  It took me about a half an hour but the area with wax was…um…quite large. But I swear its all gone and I’m not telling my husband unless he notices the wax on the dog’s fur. Then I guess I have some ‘splainin’ to do as Ricky Ricardo would say.

What’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever done? Did you fix it? Were you able to keep it a secret?

Kitchen Remodel

This is completely off-topic of writing but I’m so excited and I can barely contain it. Since we got married my husband and I have always lived in older houses and therefore I’ve always had older kitchens. But not anymore! We decided something had to be done with our cabinets and pink (yes, pink!) counter tops. The cabinets literally fell apart every time we closed them. I’m not even kidding. The panels would pop out if we closed them too hard. They were chipped and so old that no amount of scrubbing would make them come clean. I’m almost embarrassed to say that even the contractor said it was in bad shape.

Last week my cabinets and counter tops were ripped out. YAY! Here are the before photos (pay special attention to the pink counters):

 

After day one:

We’re now at day 4 with no running water in the kitchen. It’s a pain but will be worth it. Of course we have to eat out a lot which makes my frugal husband twitch, but I’m not minding at all. No cooking!

Sunday Six

From Wherever You Are, which released in paperback this week. Enjoy! And click here for other Sunday Sixes.

“I didn’t set fire to your ship.”

His head tilted, the thoughtful expression deepening. “Didn’t you?”

She shook her head, unable to tear her gaze from his. That whole sense of the unreal descended on her, numbing her. More seconds passed–seconds in which the large man stared at her with eyes that seemed to pick at her thoughts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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