Six Sentence Sunday

I had so much fun picking last week’s Six Sentence Sunday that I decided to do it again.

This week, I’m sharing a few sentences from the scene where Dave meets his daughter. Enjoy!

He looked down at the girl, who’d plastered herself to her mamma’s leg and was watching him with wide eyes —gulp — hazel eyes that looked a lot like his. He crouched down so he was on her level, hoping to put her at ease. “Hi, Tara. That’s a beautiful name.”

“Thank you.”  She popped her thumb in her mouth.

“You know who I am?”

 

My first Six Sentence Sunday

This is a week for firsts — first guest blog post, first three-minute-straight run (as part of the Couch to 5K program). I might as well add another one to the list: My first Six Sentence Sunday post.

In my WIP, “Diva in the Dugout,” Dave and Mel had one wild night together before she snuck out in the gray light of morning while he was still sleeping. Since she insisted she didn’t want to know his name, she had no way to let him know she ended up pregnant — until they bump into each other at Dave’s baseball game five years later. This is the moment Mel confirms Dave’s suspicions about his fatherhood.

Enjoy the six sentences below:

Her daughter’s father arched an eyebrow. “Cat’s got your tongue, eh?”

Get it together, Mel, this isn’t brain surgery. She offered him her widest, flirtiest smile. Maybe the charms he’d fallen for once before would soften the blow of the bomb she was about to drop. “Welcome back to Texas, Daddy.”

P.S. I just want to say, it’s a lot harder to pick out six sentences than I thought it’d be.

Spreading more link love

Thanks to everyone who stopped by yesterday to make Love & Laughter’s first guest blogger feel welcome. With 60-plus page views, I’d call Keri Ford’s  visit a success. (Keri, please don’t tell me you were the visitor 50 of those 60 times.)

I’ve been adding to the list of articles I find intriguing, motivational or all-around hilarious. It’s time to spread the link love, so here are a few of my recent favorites. Enjoy!

— If you’re in need of a little motivation to get BICHOK (Butt in Chair, Hands on Keyboard), try these instant motivation tips from The Writer magazine. They’re drawn from recent research in neurology and psychology, so you know you’re getting some top-notch advice. My favorite part? I was already doing many of these things.

— Jody Hedlund’s posts are always chock-full of great information. Such is the case with her recent missive on why writers should be on Pinterest. I was one of those on the fence about having one more social media site to eat away at writing time … but I finally took the plunge a few months ago. (Find me here, under Arlene Hittle.) I don’t spend a whole lot of time there … yet. But I have a few boards up and running. It’s fun to look at all the pretty photos — and someday, hopefully soon, I’ll be able to add my own novel to my “books I want to read” board. Wait — I should probably file it under “books I’ve read and loved” instead.

— From Chuck Wendig of Terrible Minds: 25 reasons I hate your main character. Gulp. Sure hope my main characters don’t fit any of those molds. I mean, I like them all. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be telling their stories … but I fear some of them may whine a little, or react instead of act, or have muddy motivation. So many sins. Is it even possible to avoid every single one?

— Way back in March, Kristin Lamb wrote a fantastic post on failure. (Let’s not talk about how I failed to read it until now, shall we?) My favorite line: “If we aren’t failing, then we aren’t doing anything interesting.” She also argues that failure makes us stronger. Since I have a huge fear of failure, I’m not sure I like that … but I can still see her point. She’s not the only one who feels that way, either. One of the things Bob Mayer said at his Desert Dreams workshop was something along the lines of “we need to do the thing we fear most” to succeed.

— Ready for a good laugh? Christina Dodd shared a link to this blog post on a terrible used cookbook from the ’70s called “Be Bold with Bananas.” Yes, the pictures are as terrible as you might imagine. I just hope it didn’t come from my mother’s cookbook shelf!

My first guest post: Keri Ford

I can’t remember how I first “met” Keri Ford. I think I found her through Twitter first, then picked up “On the Fence.” It doesn’t matter, though: Between her sometimes hilarious tweets and engaging, steamy stories, I’m hooked.

That’s why, when Keri was looking for stops to add to her Roughnecks Blog Tour, my virtual hand shot high in the air.

Welcome to Love & Laughter, Keri. I’m honored to have you be my first guest blogger. Take it away.

Arlene, thank you so much for letting me crash at your place today! I’m excited to tell everyone a little about Lane and Gretchen from my latest release, Rough Ride.

If you could take a classic soccer type mom who had no children, that would be Gretchen. She’s down home. She keeps a tidy house, she keeps a tidy yard. She loves to bake and cook. She’s there for her friends when they need her. Even her best friend admits that if she were a lesbian, she’d be all over Gretchen because she is one awesometastic gal. She’s by no means perfect, but when it comes to that down-home, southern lady, you can’t find a better description than Gretchen.

And Lane sees this in her. And he WANTS. Boy does he want. But Lane isn’t staying in town. So the idea of getting a fling going with this very obvious roots woman and then leaving the small town behind where his brother will be living? Yeah…not such a great idea.

As Lane is tempted by Gretchen, he constantly has to remind himself of the sweet kind of person she is. I mean, she even makes homemade pine cone bird feeders! So today, I’ve got a treat for you.

An instructional video on pine cone bird feeders. This was my first attempt at this and I realized something quickly—I am so not cool with sharing my peanut butter with a bunch of birds who just poop all over my car. I scarified. This time. They better not get used to it.

(Note from Arlene: My techno-challenged self can’t get the embedded video to work here. The link above should take you right to it, though.)

What was the last craft project you did? Leave me a comment and the winner will get their pick from my good friend and Inspirational Author, Winnie Griggs! Print Book and open internationally! Thank you Winnie so much for donating! See more about Winnie at her website http://winniegriggs.com/books.html Facebook http://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=821533857

 

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Keri Ford writes Sexy Country Contemporary Romances. See her website for more information about her books and The Roughnecks Blog Tour with all the giveaway, sneak peeks and blog stops: http://bit.ly/Hb1hwS

Blurb for “Rough Ride”

You do for family, no matter what. Lane Iverson knows that better than anyone. Harboring a secret about his mother’s death, Lane is counting the days until he finishes helping his brothers with some work and can head back to his hiding hole hours away. As long as he doesn’t have to face his three brothers every day, the guilt is easier to carry.

There is only one thing that can risk his plan. All of five foot tall with these deep eyes and a voice that shudders through him. The completely addicting, Gretchen Jones. She’s been watching him the entire time he’s been in town. With courage from her friends behind her, she confronts what she wants. To her surprise, that’s the easy part. Keeping her heart protected when she knows he’ll be leaving? Not so easy, but her only choice.
Read Chapter One http://bit.ly/H0azIz

Amazon http://amzn.to/IQiTz8

Barnes & Noble http://bit.ly/J9Rzth
AllRomance Ebooks http://bit.ly/JN35rh

TMP http://bit.ly/JrZkK1

Goodreads http://bit.ly/KgZbaL

Find Keri at
Website http://bit.ly/Heo4Vr
Twitter http://bit.ly/HRgGgu
Facebook http://on.fb.me/HenzL0

Come back Wednesday for my first guest post

I’m super excited to have my very first guest blog post scheduled for tomorrow, May 23. Keri Ford, whose Uninhibited in Apple Trail series kept me from getting much sleep on my overnight flight to NYC for RWA Nationals last summer, will be stopping by as part of her Roughnecks Blog Tour.

She even has a giveaway.

Be sure to come say hello.

Mother’s Day and the power of laughter

My four-legged fur children have no clue what day it is and my Mom died nearly a decade ago, so Mother’s Day is just another Sunday for me.

But this year, as I was looking for a card for the Boyfriend’s mother, I saw one that made me think of Mom and laugh.

Front
Inside

I’d like to thank the makers of this card, because they get it. They know that not all mothers need sappy sentiment. My Mom would have assumed I was ill had I given her one of those “wishing you all the happiness in the world” cards.

In my family, laughter truly is the best medicine. We even told stories and laughed during visiting hours before my parents’ funerals.

Whether you laugh until it hurts or laugh to keep from crying, it’s good to throw back your head and have a good chortle every so often.

After all, you have to have a sense of humor to get through this joke we call life, right?

Rediscovering the joy of reading

Everyone says writers need to read anything and everything they can get their hands on.

I’m sure they’re right. When I was younger, my nose was always buried in a book. Reading was my favorite free-time activity.

Nowadays, with a full-time job and a Boyfriend, I have a lot less free time. The time I do have tends to be devoted to things like cooking, eating or playing online. Most of my reading is confined to blogs. A few of them deal with writing, but since I’m still trying to lose about 50 pounds, the majority are healthy living blogs.

As a result, I know about 500 workout tips and 1,002 different ways to make oatmeal — good for my diet/health, but it doesn’t do much for my creativity.

The precious little time I have left after working and taking care of the business of life, I tend to want to spend writing my own books, not reading someone else’s. Sure, I tweet my #FridayReads when I think about it — but if you’re paying attention, you’ll notice I often  tweet the same book several weeks straight.

But with so many of my Starcatcher sisters’ stories hitting the market, there are a lot of great new reads I don’t want to miss. I’d start naming some of them, but I’m afraid I’d miss too many. We’re a talented group.

With e-readers putting books at my fingertips 24/7, there’s no excuse not to read them. I already own a Nook, and I finally broke down and put the Kindle app on my phone, too. Now I can download some of the free books tweeted by some of the authors I follow.

Since downloading the Kindle app, I’ve devoured GH winner Laurie Kellogg’s “A Little Bit of Deja Vu” and am more than halfway through Juli Alexander’s “My Life as the Ugly Stepsister.”

I’ve been sneaking a few pages while standing in line at the grocery store and bank, or while I’m in the bathroom at work. (Shh … don’t tell.)

Now that I’m reading books as often as blogs, I look forward to crossing a lot more titles off my TBR list. You can follow my reads — and my progress on the 2012 reading challenge — on Goodreads. (I originally set a goal of 26 books for the year, but now that I’ve rediscovered the joy of reading, I hope to read a lot more than that.)

Desert Dreamin’

My first Desert Dreams Conference won’t be my last.

It’s over now, and I just settled into my favorite spot at the Starbucks in Camp Verde (near the outlet, naturally). The plan is to sneak in a little writing time before I crash.

Am I nuts? Why not skip the attempt to work and crash right away? How much will I really get done?

Of course I’m nuts. Aren’t all writers a little off-kilter? The thing is, even though I’m physically exhausted, my mind is racing. I have thoughts I need to get down before I forget every last one of them. Plus, I have a synopsis I need to rewrite — and fast — so I can ship requested material.

Every day of the conference was jam-packed with learning, laughter and inspiration.

Here are a few of the gems I walked away with from the weekend:

— Never talk badly about yourself. There are enough other people willing to do that for you. (Bob Mayer, Friday afternoon workshop)

— All writers wrestle with self-doubt. To reach your goals, you have to slay the doubt demons. (Allison Brennan, Saturday keynote speech)

— The way you structure your writing space can help your subconscious mind — and your muse — realize it’s time to work. (Tawny Weber, Saturday workshop)

— Not every sex scene needs to be mind-blowingly perfect. In real life, first times are often awkward. (Elizabeth Hoyt, Saturday workshop)

— In both dialogue and description, word choices set the mood and will vary depending on the character doing the speaking/observing. (Laurie Schnebly Campbell, Saturday workshop)

— Don’t give away all the details about a character’s backstory at once. Curiosity about why a character is doing what he’s doing pulls the reader into the story. (Martha Alderson, Sunday workshop)

The view from the tables in front of the conference center.

There was so much fantastic information to be gleaned from the presentations that I’ll never remember it all. The conference center hotel was great, with a gorgeous courtyard and two pools. (Next time, I’ll remember to pack a bathing suit.) Late April is the perfect time to be in Phoenix, because it’s not yet hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk.

The conference couldn’t have come at a better time, either. My Golden Heart score sheets came back on Friday and one of my two entries earned not one but two 3s. Ouch.

Luckily, I had plenty of positive support from my chaptermates who were also at the conference. Even better, I was too busy to dwell on those sucky scores. Until now, that is. Maybe I’ll get lucky and crash before I start to think too much about ’em.

Desert Dreams only happens every two years, but it’s definitely worth the short drive from Flagstaff. I’m already making plans to save up for the next one … or I will be as soon as I come back from RWA Nationals in Anaheim this summer.

Still standing

Long time no hear from me, eh? I might not be blogging very much these days, but I’m still writing, writing, writing my free time away.

All that hard work is starting to pay off, though. I have a completely revised/hopefully ready for submission version of “Operation Snag Mike Brad” out with two beta readers, now that my CP’s done with it.

I’m also headed to the Desert Dreams conference down in Phoenix tomorrow. It’s my first one, even though I’ve lived in northern Arizona since 1999. I’m looking forward to that experience — even if I haven’t quite finished my packing yet. I’d best get on that. I just wish it didn’t involve searching my car — in the pouring rain — for my sandals. Think I’ll move the car into the garage before I start the search.

Also on this morning’s too-exciting agenda before I head into the office for an 8+-hour day? A haircut, possibly a trip to Target for new sandals, and writing time at Starbucks. Yep. Still busy as all get-out.

I set a new deadline for myself: Finish a new, improved draft on “Diva in the Dugout” in time to submit it to Avon Impulse by May 30. Hey, if they’re looking for stories featuring ballplayers (among other things), I have the perfect story for them.

That vacation week I had to burn in May is starting to look more and more fortuitous. I’ve worked at the Daily Sun so long that I have four weeks of vacation time … and nowhere to go for all but one. So we just put me on the schedule for a random week in May.

Now I know how I’ll be spending that week of vacation!

It’s too quiet around here. What are you up to these days?

You tell me: Fifty Shades of Grey

Twitter is abuzz. Bloggers are raving. Last night I read a story on a mainstream wire service talking it up. (I’m debating whether I can get away with running it on our books page without causing an uproar.)

What has everyone so hot and bothered? “Fifty Shades of Grey.”

I enjoy a good, steamy story as much as the next gal. And the article did an excellent job of making the book sound intriguing.

However, I’ve also heard/read that it got its start as “Twilight” fan fiction. Since I couldn’t get through any of the “Twilight” books, that makes me leery.

Hold onto your rotten tomatoes, please, and save your breath. You’ll never change my mind about Bella and company.

But I will take your advice, writer friends, about “Fifty Shades of Grey.” What say you? Should I spend valuable free time reading it or give it (and its sequels) a miss?