All About the Writing

Top Pick for I Do. . . or Die

Here is the very first review for I Do. . .or Die, from Lexxie at Risque Reviews. She gave it 4.5 stars, earning it a Top Pick award. You'll just have to get used to this smile on my face--it's never leaving now!

I love when I can make a reader laugh, so it was fun to see which parts made her laugh out loud. I especially loved that she plans to put all my books on her TBR pile. Which means I better get back to working on some of these WIPs!

While you're checking out that review, you can also see Lexxie's review of Summer Lovin'. I definitely won the "review lottery" this week!

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Review: I Do... Or Die - Donna Cummings

Six Sentence Sunday: I Do. . .or Die #13

As you can see, I have a cover for I Do. . .or Die. I love the wedding theme, and the pics of the hero and heroine, and I definitely like the turquoise and hot pink letters. It's a fun cover and I'm completely thrilled.

In last week's snippet, Shelby helped "subdue" an assassin by hitting his prone form with a dried-out evergreen branch. In this next part, Ryan is getting ready to pat the guy down, and he gives Shelby his gun to hold:

Ryan handed the gun to me, butt end first, and I grasped it between my thumb and forefinger. He started to show me the proper way to hold it, but the bad guy on the ground decided to use the opportunity to try to wriggle away.

“Stop, or I’ll blow you to smithereens!”

Both my hands were on the gun now, my arms outstretched toward him, my legs spread out in what I just knew was a sexy Bond girl pose. I was all business right then, and he knew it, since he stopped immediately.

Of course, Ryan had his foot parked on the guy’s back, so that probably made a big difference too.

In addition to the excitement of seeing the cover for the first time, it was exhilarating to view the pre-order links on Amazon and iTunes. But wait, there's more! There's also the very first review, on Goodreads (4.5 stars!). Thanks for letting me share all the good news with you. You sixies are the best!

Oh, one last thing: Summer Lovin' is finally free on Amazon, so if you want a Kindle copy, it's available now.

Have a great Six Sentence Sunday! I'm looking forward to reading all of your snippets this week.

Black Friday Blog Hop

I get to experience Black Friday a little differently, since I work in retail, meaning I'm on the other side of the cash register. It can get wild and crazy during the holiday season. But it's also fun to see everyone excited about what they're buying, and it's great knowing a present I helped them pick out is going to make somebody's holiday even happier.

So, as one of Santa's honorary elves, I have a few things that might brighten your holiday:

• Summer Lovin', my romantic comedy novella, complete with a hunky chef and a mischievous matchmaking puppy, is FREE on iTunes, Kobo, Smashwords, and Amazon UK (still waiting for Barnes & Noble and Amazon US to catch up!) (Edited to add: Amazon US just made it free! Click HERE.)

• I Do. . .or Die, my upcoming romantic comedy/mystery, is available for pre-order at iTunes and Amazon. Amazon has it for 20% off, and who knows how long that will last? Maybe just until release day, which is December 10th.

• Lastly, I will be giving away a $5 gift card (Amazon, B&N, Kobo, or iTunes) to one lucky commenter, picked at random. Just tell me about your favorite Black Friday bargain, past or present.

Leaving your name and email below also enters you in to the Black Friday Blog Hop grand prize giveaway. Make sure you visit the other blogs participating in the hop, because commenting will increase your chances of winning these and other prizes!

1st Grand Prize: A Kindle Fire or Nook Tablet

2nd Grand Prize: A $75 Amazon or B&N Gift Card

3rd Grand Prize: A Swag Pack that contains paperbacks, ebooks, 50+ bookmarks, cover flats, magnets, pens, coffee cozies, and more!

You can find all the other blogs participating here: http://carrieannbloghops.blogspot.com/

 

The Cover for I Do. . .or Die

I can't even tell you how exciting it is to see the cover for this book. I know, I know -- I'm a writer. I should have plenty of words. All I can say is I've been grinning all day, finding reasons to check my email so I could look at the cover one more time.

The best part is this means it won't be long before Shelby and Ryan will be out there, hopefully entertaining you. I'm usually not in a hurry for December to arrive, but now, December 10th can't get here fast enough!

Six Sentence Sunday: I Do. . .or Die #12

Sometimes it seems unreal that I Do. . .or Die will be releasing in less than a month, on December 10th. I'm getting really excited about it, and I'm glad I get to share some of it with you each Sunday.

Shelby, the commitment-shy bridesmaid, has had to dodge bullets on several occasions--the first time at a wedding. This time it looks like Detective Nichols has apprehended the shooter, and Shelby is ready to punish the guy:

“I can’t believe what you’ve put me through!”

I wanted to hit the assassin with something, but I’d flown out of the house without grabbing any hitting implements. I glanced wildly around the yard, knowing there had to be something I could use. I pounced on the first branch I saw, and came back to the shooter laying prostrate on the ground.

I gave him a good whack, but it was an old evergreen branch that felt lighter than day-old cotton candy, so all I really managed was to spray the guy with a bunch of desiccated pine needles.

At least he’d smell really fresh while sitting in jail tonight.

I'm sorry I didn't get to read more Six Sentence Sunday snippets last week. I had to work 11 hours last Sunday, so I didn't have a chance to go to everyone's blogs after work like I usually do. I plan to double up this week though, because I don't want to miss all these great stories!

Oh, for those of you who would like a FREE copy of my contemporary novella, Summer Lovin', it is available right now on iTunes and Kobo and Amazon UK for the great price of FREE!

The Playground of My Mind

My mind is always filled to overflowing with stories. However, ideas tend to get crammed into the nooks and crannies of my brain, or stacked in a pile as they wait to be filed away in the correct mental file cabinet.

To make things even more challenging, I have characters that roam around up there. Some of them tiptoe through the mayhem and try not to gape. But others are a lot more nosy. They have to poke a stick at something that catches their interest, which makes something else topple over, which crashes into yet another pile of ideas. . .

It's a good thing. I think. I'm pretty sure. I mean, that's how crazy notions manage to get their start. Although I do wonder what it would be like if I had a brain that was neat and tidy, with row after row of labeled, organized ideas, and scenes, and heck, whole manuscripts in their proper place.

Actually it might frighten me to see it like that. It wouldn't feel like me. It would definitely seem like I'd been transplanted into someone else's brain. (You can see another story idea forming, can't you?)

I envy non-writers, since I imagine their brains are wide open and spacious, with plenty of room for new stuff to be imported. The best I can do to achieve that status is to keep pouring my stories out, in an attempt to make room for new ones.

Unfortunately, with new stories comes new secondary characters, and they move in with no plan to move back out. And somehow they have friends I didn't know about when I said, "Sure, stay for a few days. There's plenty of room."

Next thing you know I'm running a day care center for stray characters. And all their baggage, and everything they need to go through to stretch and grow and move on to their HEA.

It's a giant playground up there, filled with a multitude of fascinating heroes and heroines. I don't want to be a cranky hall monitor, so they've learned to keep the noise down while I'm sleeping. But as soon as I'm awake, it's fair game. Unless they have other plans of course, which they frequently do, and I'm the last to know about it.

Still, I wouldn't have it any other way. I've grown accustomed to wandering through my brain, shushing one batch of characters, and drawing out another group that is unnecessarily quiet. When I write their stories, it ends up being a veritable scrapbook of where they've been, and where their hopes and dreams led them.

Too soon, before I'm quite ready, they're gone, and it's difficult to get used to the silence they've left behind.

All of a sudden I'm thinking, "You know, if I move that idea over there, and stack this with these others, there would be plenty of room for that new group of characters. . ."

Six Sentence Sunday #11: I Do . . .or Die

It's now less than one month until I Do. . .or Die releases, and I'm filled to the brim with excitement and nervousness. Kind of like my heroine here. . .

In this scene, there's someone with a gun outside Ryan's house. Shelby is scared, clinging to Ryan like a human backpack, and he's trying to distract her from panicking by chatting about other things:

"Maybe I just told you that about the boxer briefs," he said, creeping forward, his back muscles flexing against my chest, "so you wouldn’t be thinking of me going commando."

My heart lurched to a halt for what felt like fourteen minutes. Which was great, because it gave me time to learn how to breathe again.

Then my heart began pounding so hard I felt like I was going to go deaf. Which was fine, because I wouldn’t have to hear myself wheezing as I remembered how to pull oxygen into my lungs.

I was dizzy, and faint, and just about dying from a lust that needed some major, major slaking.

Thanks for coming by for Six Sentence Sunday. I appreciate your comments, and I always look forward to reading everyone else's posts. It's my favorite day of the week, so I can't even think about not doing this anymore!

Oh, and I wanted to share some news that made me smile this week. Another book that I've shared here, Lord Midnight, won the Chapter One contest for October at Cheryl Bradshaw's blog. There were 50 entries, and she chose mine as the winner! She said some lovely things about my chapter, and she interviewed me too. So check it out if you have a chance!

Lord Midnight: Chapter One Contest Winner

Last week Hurricane Sandy knocked out my power for four days, and it won't come as a surprise to anyone when I say I am not a camping kind of gal. I especially don't like camping in my own house!

Fortunately there were bright spots. One of them was reading the end of Mae Clair's Weathering Rock on my Nook, in the dark, via flashlight. (I had to keep that whole camping theme going, and I wasn't about to let darkness keep me from finding out what happened in this story. It was so worth it. And yes, I sniffled a little bit at the end.)

Another bright spot was learning Lord Midnight had won the Chapter One contest that author Cheryl Bradshaw has on her blog each month. There are 50 entries, and she selects the best first chapter as the winner. I was flabbergasted when I got Cheryl's email with this great news. Please check out her wonderful compliments, as well as the interview she did with me. While you're doing that, I'm just going to stand here and grin.

Another fun thing that made me forget the bumpy spots from last week: I got the galley of I Do. . .or Die, which is a PDF of the book to send out to reviewers. It was exciting to see my story in an ebook format. I should also be getting the cover in the next week or so. This book is going to be released on December 10th, which seems so close now!

On top of all that, it is my birthday month, and it's been so much fun already. I got my electricity back on the first day of November, and it feels like things have been shining brightly ever since.

Six Sentence Sunday: I Do. . .or Die #10

I'm really excited about I Do. . .or Die releasing next month. On December 10th, to be exact. It was posted on Goodreads this week, so if you'd like, you can add it to your "Want to Read" list.

It's been a while since I've posted anything from this book, so a little reminder is probably in order. Shelby is commitment-shy (she likes to say she's had colds last longer than her relationships). But when gunfire erupts at the latest wedding she’s in, it ends up being the best thing to happen to her love life. Detective Ryan Nichols becomes her 24-hour bodyguard and she discovers she's developing feelings for him.

In this scene, Shelby is trying to find out from Ryan's partner, Detective Joseph, if Ryan might have similar feelings for her:

There wasn't anything typical about this situation--I knew that--but there were things I needed to know. 

"Does Ryan—is he—I mean, when someone, like me—well, does he—"

Detective Joseph watched me flail around trying to ask my question without actually asking it. He never once gave me a hint he was going to help me out though. His lips were twitching, but he kept his eyes trained on my mouth, fascinated, as if trying to figure out what my next words might be.

Hell, I didn’t even know what they were going to be.

Thanks for stopping by each week. It's always fun to share my snippets with you, and I love reading what each of you post each Sunday. Even better, this week we get an extra hour for Six Sentence Sunday!