Once Upon A Kiss Celebration Week - Day Four

When one of my books comes out, I traditionally do a sex tally. Here are how the numbers fall for Once Upon A Kiss:

Number of sex scenes - NINE. Wow. I think that's a record for me.
Percentage of sex in the book - 8%
Longest sex scene - 1,418 words
Shortest sex scene - 175 words

I'm wondering what the shortest sex scene you could write would be... Maybe, if you really used your imagination it could be one word.

Yes.

Can you write a sex scene in ten or less words? Give it a try and get a chance to win a free book. (Winner to be announced Wednesday, August 25, the day Once Upon A Kiss comes out.

Once Upon A Kiss Celebration Week - Day Two

I hope you liked yesterday's excerpt. I also hope you commented. Every comment is a chance to win a copy of any of my backlist.

Today I'm going to focus on the concept of wishes. Wishes are fun to think about. They're like the ultimate hypothetical. In the Be-Wished world that I created, you can't just wish for world peace. The Universal Wish Federation avoids "granting wishes that could affect the economy, the environment, or health on a global scale."

All three friends in my series find true love as a result of their wishes, even if they didn't technically wish for love. So, I'm posing a few choices to you. What would you wish for...?

Love or money?
X-ray vision or invisibility?
A lifetime supply of McDonalds or Pizza Hut?
To be the ideal weight or in excellent health?

Chime in to win a free book. Drawing to be held Wednesday, August 25.

Leap of Faith Celebration - Day 4

The Incan civilization was grand. Although, I learned a lot researching for this story, I took some creative liberties, especially concerning the punishment for defiling a Sun Virgin. But hopefully the result justifies the tweaking of historical fact.

I was going to make up a trivia quiz for today's blog entry, but saw that there are many perfectly good quizzes already out there. Why reinvent the wheel (which the Incans didn't have, by the way)?

Take this quiz if you want. If you'd like the chance to win a free e-book from my backlist, to to the comment section and let me know something you learned about the Incas that you didn't know before.

My score: 40% (How embarrassing!) The quiz was hard!

If you'd like to purchase the book in which those creative liberties were taken, go here. :)

Leap of Faith Celebration - Day 1

It's release day! Leap of Faith is now available for purchase. I'm going to be celebrating all week. Make a comment any day this week and I'll enter your name in a drawing to win any electronic title from my backlist. If 10 people comment, I'll pull five names. If 12 people comment, I'll pull six names. I suck at math, but I think that might mean you have a 50% chance of getting a free book.

Let's do a Mad Libs sort of thing today.

Think of:

• a period of time
• a name
• a verb
• four nouns
• an adjective

Put your answers in the comments and I'll insert them into the mini-blurb for Leap of Faith and post the (hopefully hilarious) results tomorrow.

Get All Fifty!

Do you know your United States geography? I thought I did. This site proved me wrong.

http://jimspages.com/States.htm

After a couple of tries, I got 92%, largely because I got some key states first and was able to use those to orient others whose locations I was more fuzzy on.

Have fun!

And don't forget about my Writing for Woman's World Magazine blog. A new story analysis is up there.

Romance Divas' Excerpt Monday

A bunch of Romance Divas participate in Excerpt Monday and I decided to join in. The deal is we all post a little snippet of something we've written and read everyone else's. It sounded like fun, so here I go.

This is from my work in progress, Asking For It. It's the third book in my Be-Wished series about three friends who get their wishes granted by Davina, a wish fairy.

Set up: It's raining. It's nighttime. This excerpt is PG.

***Begin Excerpt***

A glass coffin appeared not six feet away on Livvy's front lawn.

Holy shit!

Livvy stared at it for a moment or two, disbelieving, because the person sleeping inside of it was not Snow White. It was her sexy neighbor.

At least, she thought he was sleeping.

She waited for the prickly feeling of a Flash in the Pan enchantment. She prayed for it. Please let it be an FIP. Unfortunately, she felt nothing. Maybe she had to be closer.

Warily, she went outside. Through the wet glass of the coffin she saw that he was breathing, thank goodness. She also saw that he wasn’t wearing a shirt. Just some gym shorts. And man, he was ripped. Like Rambo ripped. He had a buzz cut, he needed a shave and he had a wicked awesome tat of butterflies on his bicep.

Keeping one eye on him, she dialed Davina.

“Livvy,” the fairy said. “I’m in the middle of something.”

“Well, so am I! A glass coffin just showed up in my yard with my new neighbor sleeping inside it.”

“Pfft! And you’re calling me because…?"

“I need you to tell me what to do!”

“Give me a break, Livvy. Bet he moved in after you made your wish…”

“Yes, he did, but—“

“Well, it’s obvious what you should do.”

Livvy gasped. “You mean…” She glanced again at the man who’d inspired her armored tank fantasy and swallowed hard. “You mean kiss him?”

“It is a guy, isn’t it?”

“Yes…definitely.”

Livvy could almost hear the fairy smile. “Bet he’s cute.”

“Well, yes. Actually, really cute.”

“Then of course you’re supposed to kiss him! He must be the one. The magic is working just like I told you it would. Now, stop lollygagging and go kiss him. He’ll wake up. And after that, well, do what comes naturally.” A snorting laugh came over the line, then dead air.

“Davina? Davina?” But the fairy had hung up.

Kiss him. Livvy stared at the man in the coffin and frowned. Easy for her to say.
Just the thought of kissing this man awake got her heart beating triple time for a couple of different reasons, and this was what she’d been waiting for, damn it. The goal had been to find her true love, a wonderful man to share her life with, and according to Davina, here he was.

And he did have nice lips.

*** End Excerpt***

Here are links to the other people participating. Check out their snips, too.

Maureen McCarrie
Vivienne Westlake
Jeannie Lin
Kinsey Holley
Becca Sheridan-Furrow
Kirsten Saell
M. Berthier
Ella Drake
Evie Byrne
Eden Bradley
Gina Ardito
R.F. Long
Bria Quinlan
Stephanie Adkins
Rose London
Lynn Chandler
B.E. Sanderson
Babette James
Amber Gilchrist
T. Sue VerSteeg


Thanks for stopping by!

Words Per Minute

As a writer, I've become a pretty fast typist. I was curious to see just how fast I was, so I took a test. 89 WPM. Not bad. I kind of remember it being about 40 or 50 when I was in high school. I still can't type the numbers without looking, though.

If you're curious, here's the test I took. What's your speed? :)