#ProjectPurseDump - Week 12 - A Mobile Command Center by Sarah Hegger (@SarahHegger) - #WritersLife

Today's spotlight shines on an author who is ready for anything. Be it bills to pay, a teen or note-taking emergency, or a broken iPhone, her treasure trove of wonders can solve all. Without further ado, I present (the purse of) romance writer Sarah Hegger.

A Mobile Command Center

by Sarah Hegger

So, it’s my turn to dump the contents of my purse and tell you all about them. I must say, this feels akin to opening my underwear drawer and letting everyone poke about.

My purse functions as the mobile command center for my family.

I see my sunglasses are missing from the picture, but I never go anywhere without them. Someone told me years ago, when I was still in my teens, that they’re the best form of wrinkle protection, and I stick by that. The effectiveness of this method is a topic for another blog post altogether.

Now let me explain myself, items one through thirteen

1. A collection of invoices that I’ll need within the next week or so. In this case, the invoice for my new glasses and beneath it for kitchen stools I’m waiting to be delivered. Pieces of paper get lost in my house, so my purse is the best place to keep them.
2. Um, it got nothing. These are receipts from grocery shopping, and I routinely get rid of them. Typically when I can’t find stuff in my purse anymore.
3. Two teenage girls. ‘Nuff said.
4. The pencils and pens I never have when I need one, but are always lurking around the bowel of my purse.
5. I hate grocery shopping with a passion, and if I don’t have a list I end up not getting everything I need.
6. The trusty wallet. Probably filled with even more receipts I’ve kept for some reason or other, and will get rid of when they bug me.
7. The dog tags I bought to put on my dogs, but haven’t been back to PetSmart to have them engraved with my dog’s name and a contact number. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ll get around to it.
8. The iPhone. And thank God I take out insurance because I have dropped these babies in a cup of tea, a dehumidifier bucket, down the stairs, had one stolen out of my car
9. Cheque books, because you never know when you’re going to need one. Not often, but damn when you need one, you need one.
10. Both our cars have keyless ignition, but you need to have the fob close to the car to open it. Why two of them? My husband routinely loses his, and I give him the one I have, and find the lost one and put it in my purse.
11. A collection of business cards that are too useful to throw away, but I can never find when I need.
12. Lip balm and gloss, both to prevent dry lips, which living in Colorado make a must have.
13. My business cards and bookmarks for those conversations that start with “What do you write?” It should be noted that since I started carrying these around, nobody has had that conversation with me. But we all know that once I take them out of my purse, I’ll have that conversation with the next person I run into.

There we go, the contents of my purse, and they don’t vary too much from day to day. When the girls were younger, it also used to be filled with nicely colored rocks, bits of toys, feathers, shells and other paraphernalia young children ‘need’ to keep.

About Sarah Hegger

Born British and raised in South Africa, Sarah Hegger suffers from an incurable case of wanderlust. Her match? A hot Canadian engineer, whose marriage proposal she accepted six short weeks after they first met. Together they’ve made homes in seven different cities across three different continents (and back again once or twice). If only it made her multilingual, but the best she can manage is idiosyncratic English, fluent Afrikaans, conversant Russian, pigeon Portuguese, even worse Zulu and enough French to get herself into trouble.

Mimicking her globe trotting adventures, Sarah’s career path began as a gainfully employed actress, drifted into public relations, settled a moment in advertising, and eventually took root in the fertile soil of her first love, writing. She also moonlights as a wife and mother.

She currently lives in Colorado with her teenage daughters, two Golden Retrievers and aforementioned husband. Part footloose buccaneer, part quixotic observer of life, Sarah’s restless heart is most content when reading or writing books.

Sarah is the recipient of the 2015 EPIC Award for Historical Romance.

She is represented my Nalini Akolekar of Spencerhill Associates.

Website

#WriteTip - VS Morgan (@vsmorgan1) Talks Characterization. Check out her @DecadentPub #LGBT #PNR

Some of you might have noticed my slight Pinterest addiction. As such, I'm a huge proponent of this writing tip from fellow Decadent Publishing author V.S. Morgan. Not only does her new release feature an interracial couple, it also includes not one, but two hot men. 

Details Make the Character

by V.S. Morgan 

Create a detailed background of your main characters and any key secondary characters. What they look like, their hobbies,  family situation, quirks, strengths, and weaknesses, etc.  I even find photos on stock photo sites as inspiration. This allows the characters to become 'real' for me, which translates into characters who don't seem like cardboard cutouts. Knowing your characters on a deeper level can also drive your story to places you may not have originally expected but are thrilled they did.

Buy on Amazon

AllRomance

Rex's Mate

V.S. Morgan

Former assassin Rex realizes retirement isn’t all it’s cracked up to be without someone to share it with. He longs for the kind of connection his friends Hunter and Casey have. Tired of meaningless hookups, Rex and his wolf are ready to find their mate. But what if his mate is the human-were bunny shifter his former boss placed in his care? Can he win the heart of this fierce and beautiful man?

Abducted and genetically altered against his will, Aaron is thrust into a world he’d thought was only make-believe. Under the protection of a Minnesota wolf pack, he struggles with his new abilities as a rabbit shifter and his growing attraction for his cocky protector. Can he trust the former assassin to keep him safe and find his brother still being held captive by the evil group responsible for changing his life forever?

Excerpt

Something tickled his ear, and teeth nipped the lobe. Oh, he liked it a bit rough.

“Oh yeah, baby. Bite me again. Harder.” Rex opened his eyes, finding himself on his side, face-to-face with the rabbit.

“Screw that!” He scrambled back, landing bare-assed on the floor.

Screw bunny?

His wolf’s puzzled response had him crab walking toward the door. How the hell had it gotten in bed with him? Hunter. That shithead.

Leaving the rabbit there, Rex shoved onto his feet and stormed upstairs to their room. He opened the door with so much force it slammed against the wall, causing Priss to bark at the end of the bed.

His righteous indignation diminished slightly with Hunter’s Glock trained on him. Maybe he needed to rethink how soft the former assassin had gotten. His friend lowered the gun and glared at him.

“What the hell, Hunter?” He planted his hands on his hips, more confident without a gun pointed at his face.

Casey sat up and rubbed his eyes, his reddish-blond hair standing on end. “What’s the naked, crazy man yelling about?”

Hunter covered the little wolf’s eyes. Shifters weren’t prudes, but he was one possessive dude now he had a mate. “What’s your damage? And go put some clothes on. Casey doesn’t need to see your man bits.”

“As if you didn’t know. I moved here, froze my balls off last winter, and how do you repay that friendship? By putting a rabbit on my bed. That wasn’t funny. I could have eaten him.” His stomach churned even though his wolf huffed in denial, insulted by the accusation.

No eat. Wolf like bunny.

Yeah, probably too much, you dumb wolf.

About V.S. Morgan

V.S. Morgan has lived all over the US but calls Minnesota her home now. Her family includes her hubby, son, and a menagerie of pets. 

She's been writing stories since she could hold a pencil and dreams of happily-ever-afters - even for two hot men - because love knows no boundaries. V.S. writes IRMC contemporary, paranormal, and suspense m/m and m/f with heart. 

 V.S. is a GLBT ally and a lifetime contributor of The Trevor Project.

Website | Twitter | Facebook | GoodReads | Amazon Author

#ProjectPurseDump - Week 11 - Confessions of a Pen Thief by Paula Tiberius (@ptiberius) - #WritersLife

Today, I've got a pen thief in the hot seat. Now, as an occasional accidental pen thief myself, I can sympathize with her predicament. However, I would have gone after one of the big banks instead of a a credit union. Without further ado, I present Paula Tiberius.

Confessions of a Pen Thief

by Paula Tiberius

I never used to carry a purse. While my high school, then university compadres mooned over their new Coach bags and fished around for keys for half an hour, I always had cash in my front right pocket, one slim key in my left back pocket, and whatever lipstick I had on when I left the house was good enough for the night.

Now?

1. My wallet – a freakin’ wallet, people. I’m a grown-up.
2. Sunscreen. I live in Los Angeles and my husband Richard has had five skin cancers removed so far. This is the only kind that doesn’t feel oily. If you’re reading this, Neutrogena, I am looking for sponsors on my blog.
3. Rice Krispies treat – this is “for Violet” (my 7 year old daughter) when “she” gets cranky in the car.
4. Two pens stolen from my credit union, an over-sized My-Pal pencil (because sometimes you just don’t want the finality of a pen), a Sharpie (because sometimes things can’t be indelible enough),one pen from The Pleasure Chest (because I cover sex seminars there for Sexpert.com), and a pen from an Australian hotel – that’s right, I went to Australia. I’m a grown up with a purse.
5. TWO travel tissue packs, because one would leave me quite insecure.
6. A GO train receipt from my visit to Toronto in June. It’s now September.
7. A red button. Thinking, thinking….it’ll come to me.
8. A metal mesh turtle pendant without a chain. Don’t you have one in your purse?
9. Migraine meds. I used to leave them at home thinking that it was bad juju to carry headache medicine when you don’t have a headache. But then I kept getting headaches while out in the world with my giant purse that had no medication in it.
10. A one-time-use-only toothbrush. I know I’m married with a kid, but I might still have a one-night-stand at some point. You never know. Actually I stole it from a spa in Palm Springs last weekend.
11. Two plastic stencil sheets. I picked them out from a counter full of crap to redeem points at an arcade. My daughter Violet was dead set against them, but I remain certain that she will change her mind. Stencils rock.
12. A green feather from the boa Violet wore at her rock and roll camp performance this summer. She borrowed it from her father who wears it in our band Fame Whore. Yes, we’re setting an excellent example.
13. Ear buds. You can’t talk on the phone without them in your car, and I’m always in my car.
14. Red lip gloss that my friend Tara gave me about six months ago when I was feeling really, really shitty and broke, overworked and underpaid. She told me that it was the “lip gloss of abundance,” which seems to have worked, actually. Now I’m afraid to throw it out even though its fuzzy wand is drying up.
15. An Always mini-pad. I pay extra for the black box kind because I like to have stylish cardboard in my bathroom cabinet.
16. A tester tube of double-helix water cream, given to me by a medical intuitive who channels angels. He is awesome and so is this cream. I’m putting it on my C-section scar to see if it helps it disappear.
17. Matches. I don’t smoke, but my husband does. Also, I used to be a pyromaniac.
18. A packet of salt. Don’t listen to people who say salt is bad for you. It makes everything better.
19. Pink and red paper clips tied together in a chain. I grabbed them for a parent teacher board meeting and did not use them.
20. Orange bauble hair tie. I used to hate this kind when I was a kid. I wonder if Violet hates them too? I should ask her.
21. Big black hair clip. That’s the shit you want.
22. A coupon for a free cupcake at Barnes & Noble – now expired.

About Paula Tiberius

Paula Tiberius is an author, blogger, screenwriter, filmmaker, musician and mom living in North Hollywood, California with her husband, daughter, and their German Shepherd. Paula wrote and directed the award-winning feature film Goldirocks which is available on Netflix, distributed by R Squared Films. She is currently writing and recording a kids' album called Be Who You Are with music and spoken word pieces to empower kids. Please read more at www.paulatiberius.com. The Cowboy Singer is her first novel.

Website | Twitter