Sara Daniel Romance Author: New Year's resolution
Showing posts with label New Year's resolution. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New Year's resolution. Show all posts

Thursday, January 2, 2014

New Release from @AlexaBourne and @DecadentPub #romanticsuspense

Guest Post
by Alexa Bourne

Happy New Year! I hope your celebration was happy and uneventful. I took it easy. Yesterday I had dinner with family and I said goodbye to my old lifestyle of eating what I want, how much I want, when I want. I’m like a kazillion other people who plan to “diet” as part of my New Year’s Resolutions. I, unlike so many others however, will succeed. Why? Because when I set my mind to something I make it happen. In the end, I know I’ll be healthier and happier with a better approach to eating and exercising.

The heroine of my new book, LIAR, LIAR, is a lot like me. Devin sets her mind to something and she makes sure it gets done. Sometimes she gets a one-track mind about it, which can cause trouble for her, but in the end she meets her goal. In the long run that is extremely important since she works with and for abused women and children.

The hero of the book is not like either of us. Grady is very laid back, very much the one to “see how things go” before he makes any type of decision. Yes, he does follow through with his work, which is good since he’s a bounty hunter, but outside of his job Grady doesn’t really make plans or goals that far out. (Unless it’s getting to a Red Sox baseball game. He’s fanatical about his favorite team.)

So, what about you? Do you make resolutions? If you do, do you stick to them? Or are you the type to say, “What’s the point?” since so many people “fall off the wagon” before February is over? Whatever you do, Devin, Grady and I wish you a Happy 2014!

Bio: Alexa Bourne is a teacher by day and a romance writer by nights, weekends, and all school holidays. She also teaches online classes for writers throughout the year. She writes romantic suspense and contemporary romance and is thrilled to have the chance to share her stories with readers everywhere.
When she’s not concocting sinister plots and steamy love scenes or traveling and exploring new cultures, Alexa spends her time reading, watching brainless TV, and thinking about exercising. Okay, she also spends way too much time interacting with readers and writers on social media sites. But don’t tell her editors! Find out more about her and her books on her website, www.alexabourne.com.

Blurb:
Unable to protect her mother from her father as a child, Devin McQueen has made it her mission as an adult to protect as many abused women and children as she can. The rare moments she’s not consumed with work as a victims’ advocate, she limits her involvements to safe, predictable men….until she meets bounty hunter Grady Cooper. He is big, bold, brash, and has no problem speaking his mind.

Growing up in a broken home, Grady realized early on that good deeds had a price.  To survive, he learned to weigh every decision by what he could gain. Unfortunately, the successful, solitary life he’s worked so hard to create spins out of control when demons from his past shake his confidence. His boss has given him one last chance—bring in Devin’s latest client quickly, and quietly and maybe he’ll still have a job. It didn’t sound unreasonable until he met Devin.

Suddenly, Grady must make a decision: save his career or follow his heart?

Excerpt:
If Grady Cooper had any hope of salvaging his professional reputation, he needed to charm Devin McQueen into giving him what she’d never given any other man.
He tucked his keys into his cargo shorts, stared up at the five-story office building and cursed the humidity.
And his dilemma.
Needing anyone was bad enough. Being forced to rely on a complete stranger to help prove he wasn’t a menace to society was as appealing as the Red Sox using his head for batting practice. If she refused to help him, he’d lose his job for sure.
“That’s not going to happen,” he whispered. He’d do whatever he had to, promise her the world even, to get himself out of this mess and restore his reputation. By the time she realized he had no intention of honoring his pledge, he’d be a free man and he could get back to chasing the bad guys instead of being labeled one.
Whatever it took.
He pushed the glass door open and flew up the stairs two at a time to the third floor. As he walked down the hallway, he glanced at the business names on the doors: law offices, non-profit offices, save the bleeding heart offices. Rooms of people he’d probably chased a bail jumper for at one time or another.
Loud thumps filtered into the hallway from somewhere up ahead.
The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. Trade rule number one: Always expect the worst. Still, the noises could have been any number of things: a fallen chair, a muffled voicemail message, boxes of printer paper being dropped. It could have been nothing connected to this woman.
As he got closer to the door with Soul Survivors carved on it, the name of McQueen’s business, the noises got louder. Glass shattered. A series of thumps passed from behind the door. A woman’s voice flew through the walls like a high-pitched war cry.
What if someone wanted Devin McQueen even more than Grady did?
Too bad. He had to put his own needs first.
Adrenaline pushed him. He turned the doorknob.
Damn it. Locked.
He shoved his shoulder against the wooden door. It budged. Barely. Inside, more glass broke. A male voice growled through a string of swear words.
Whoever stood on the other side of this door could not have her.
Grady gritted his teeth and jammed his shoulder against the door again. This time, it flew open and hurled him into the office.
Silence reigned across the room. With his shoulder throbbing, he scanned the scene. One upended chair, one thug cradling his nuts, the other, older one, bleeding from his nose and one wild-eyed woman in the center of it all. The bleeding man had his arms wrapped around the woman’s chest, crushing her…assets under his forearms.
Grady bit back a grin. If this was Devin McQueen, then some of the rumors were true. She could hold her own. But now she didn’t need to. “What’s the matter, guys? Couldn’t find anyone your own size to pick on?”



Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Tuesday Toolbox - Goals

I’m starting a weekly feature called Tuesday Toolbox, where I’ll post about something essential to the writer’s “toolbox.” Since I’m starting on New Year’s Day when everyone’s making their New Year’s resolutions, it’s only fitting that I make today’s post about goals.

I am a huge fan of creating writing goals. Goals keep me on track and focused on where I’m headed. Does that mean I meet all my goals? No. Does that mean I can’t deviate once I’ve made a plan? No.

My vision for what I want is always evolving, sometimes as soon as I commit my goals into writing. I don’t sweat it. I simply revisit and revise my goals and, most of all, try to understand why they’ve changed. Because of a new writing project a publisher has offered me? Excellent. Because family life intrudes? It happens. Because I’ve been spending all my time on Facebook? Time to reevaluate my priorities.

I have a spreadsheet where I make monthly goals. I list which books I want/need to draft, edit, promote, brainstorm, write a synopsis, etc. Then I have daily goals that I sometimes write in a calendar, sometimes keep in my head. If I’m writing a draft, my goal is usually to write a minimum of 2,000 words each weekday. If my editor is expecting edits, I need to set other projects aside to work on those.

Goals can be as elaborate or as simple as you like. You can shout them to the world or keep them just for you. I tend to keep these things private, but I’m also internally motivated. If you need external motivations and deadlines to keep you accountable, share your goals with people you know will come back and ask you if you made your goal.

Here’s another idea: My local writing group has a “goals bag,” where each person writes a goal for the month and paperclips a dollar to it. If you don’t make your goal, you automatically lose your dollar. If you made your goal, your name goes in a hat with the names of all the other people who also made their goal, and one name is pulled out who win all the dollars for that month. Band together with a group of local writer friends, and give it a try!

Do you set goals, and do you have any tricks for keeping yourself accountable? I’d love to hear them.