How to Stay Merry while Meeting Your Word Count! My schedule has been crazy the last few months. I’ve turned in SILENCED, book #4 in my Alaskan Courage series, then completed the revisions and line edits, started the first draft of the final book in the series, planned my oldest daughter’s wedding, and continued homeschooling my youngest, all while marketing book #3, and squeezing in Thanksgiving. I imagine your schedule doesn’t look much different—scores of to-do’s on your list, and only so many hours each day to get them done—especially now, during the holidays. I wish everything stopped in December, but as writers, many of us still have deadlines to meet during these busy weeks. So, in celebration of you, my fellow word warriors, I’ve put together my top five ways to use your senses to survive the season, keep your sanity, and meet your word count: 1. Sound: Need a quick reprieve from the hustle and bustle? Find a place of calm while you write with the soothing sound of waves or birdsong on SoundDrown. Hot writer tip: Another good way to get in the writing zone is to play your story soundtrack (if you’ve compiled one), or use…
Do you remember the old Gothic novels by Phyllis Whitney and Victoria Holt? If you do, you probably can list those special ingredients these authors’ books contained. These novels, some of them written a good fifty years ago and more, usually featured a young woman alone in meager circumstances. She may or may not be an orphan, but is usually penniless, or a reluctant heiress. She finds herself in a creaky old house, a drafty manor, or in some similar location. Said young woman might encounter helpers along the way as well as adversaries. But the biggest element of these Gothic romances was the “big secret,” besides the feeling that the heroine would always be looking over her shoulder. There’s a darkly brooding hero, who usually has a tortured past and even darker secrets. The attraction between said hero and heroine practically sizzles. I remember reading books like this when I was much younger, and even then, the books were considered old. I loved shivering during the parts when the heroine and hero were together and I could feel the attraction between them—usually forbidden love. I remember turning page after page as the heroine alternately fled and faced an unseen…
Happy Holidays Everyone! Join us in celebrating Entangled Teen’s 12 Days of Kick-ass Christmas Event! This event is going to be a blast! Our authors are joining together to share some exclusive content with you all! There will be 2 teams: The Smart-Ass Team will post a good or swoon-worthy deleted scene or an excerpt and The Bad-Ass Team will post a villainous deleted scene or excerpt. And the coolest part about this celebration of all things “Kick-Ass” is that the authors will be posting on each other’s blogs! The party starts on December 2nd and goes all the way to December 13th! We will wrap up the event with our monthly Twitter party on December 13th at 9 PM EST/6 PM PST. Each day of the Kick-Ass event will feature 2 posts from our amazing Entangled Teen Authors, along with an EPIC giveaway! So, “How do I join in?” you ask? It’s easy! Just follow along with the tour and find the hidden word (it will be highlighted) in each post, and then fill out the Rafflecopter form. “What can I win?” you ask. So many things. You can win one of 2 Kindles (each valued at $69, US…
Wonderful reviews are coming in for my new culinary mystery Billionaire Blend. Kirkus honored it with a Starred Review, RT Book Reviews named it a Top Pick among December’s Mysteries and Thrillers, and Publishers Weekly called it “a highly satisfying mystery.” But what matters now is what you think. (Read the First Chapter by clicking here.) As the book opens, single-mom Clare Cosi is working hard to keep her landmark coffeehouse running smoothly. She’s still struggling in a difficult economy to make ends meet, hold on to her employees, and keep her historic Greenwich Village shop from falling apart. Then boom! Her shop really falls apart. Some nut sets off a car bomb on the street outside, badly damaging the century-old coffeehouse. Forced to close and lay off her beloved employees, Clare is devastated and makes a wish for her problems to be magically solved. But she soon finds out… Some wishes come with a price. When that car bomb ripped through her shop, Clare saved the life of an anonymous customer, one who turned out to be billionaire tech-whiz Eric Thorner, the most successful developer of smartphone and game Apps in the world. After Eric recovers from his wounds,…
Who likes their men tall, dark, and…British? Or, as I’ve seen floating around Facebook: I like my men like I like my tea. Hot and British. Okay then. Might I suggest UNDRESSING MR. DARCY published by Berkley, Penguin just released this week. Did I mention ‘undressing?’ And guess what? Just for fun I tossed a pirate into the book, too, who happens to look strikingly like Johnny Depp… She’s all plugged into her cell phone and laptop. He’s a hard-cover book reader and writes with a quill pen–a ‘Mr. Darcy’ reenactor from England. Can he claim her heart without so much as a GPS? It’ll take three festivals filled with Austen fans, a trip to England, an old frenemy and a flirtatious pirate from Hero Con to find out… ‘…a fun adventure…Doornebos crafts a clever tale that blends the beauty of Regency England with a modern-day romance between a woman who is never far from her social media accounts and a Mr. Darcy reenactor who is adorably old-fashioned in every way…’ — 4 Stars, RT Book Reviews Like so many of you, I fell for Mr. Darcy all the way back in high school. Little did I know back then…
My new series, Shadow Warriors, has been five years in the making. Because I held a Secret clearance in the US Navy, I’m more familiar with black ops than most simply because of the area I worked in. I took three years and read every book on SEALs written by SEALs to grasp their mindset. Because there is one and I did not want to stereotype them. Later, I branched out into Rangers, Delta Force and Special Forces. I’m well known for my thorough research and I like my books vetted by someone in the area I’m writing. I have long been a proponent of women volunteering to go into combat. Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, changed all of it in March, 2013. He opened all the doors to combat slots if military women wanted to take that career path. No longer were their any doors closed to women, as they were in my day. I know women who could easily fit into that slot. The downside is that women have weaker upper body strength than a man. As a volunteer firefighter for three years 1980 to 1983, with the West Point Volunteer Fire Department, West Point, Ohio, I was…