Taryn Raye's #sixsunday What are you doing?

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(Check out more by looking up hashtag #sixsunday on Twitter)

Welcome Sixers.

As always, for those who might not know here's what 6 Sentence Sunday is all about-

Pick six (6) sentences from anything you like (it can be from a Work in Progress (WiP), something you recently sold, something you hope to sell or even something already under contract and available for purchase – and don’t worry, Six Sentence Sunday is for published AND unpublished writers). Then post them on your blog on Sunday. That’s all there is to it!

You can add yours link to their official list by signing up before midnight the Saturday beforehand.

Heading back into my currently unpublished contemporary romance, Love by Design.

Love by Design

Jasmine Galloway sees beauty in all things but it’s not a thing of beauty when she meets Derrek Martin, a shallow, arrogant playboy celebrity. When her sister Juniper, a blockbuster actress, recommends her interior design business, Décor Dreams, to Derrek, it’s sure to be a disaster. Jasmine is uncertain she can hold her tongue and get the job done, but she takes it, never one to let her opinions of others stand in the way of professional success and she’s not about to let some pretty boy win her over whose ego is as big as his blockbuster movies. It isn’t long before Derrek’s gentle, affectionate manner and country boy charm gets the better of her. She curses herself for allowing the tabloid fodder to contaminate her impression of a man who might well put his designs on her heart.

Derrek Martin counts himself lucky his acting career took off shortly after his arrival in California. Even more since his parents’ deaths left him the guardian of his little sister. The new house is nice, but it needs a woman’s touch before he brings Paige out from Indiana to live with him. He knows his reputation in the tabloids depicts him far from who he really is, but he has never met with a more chilly reception than the moment he meets Jasmine Galloway, Interior Designer to the Stars. He’s sure she has read everything bad ever published about him and disregards all the good. His private life is simply that, private. Derrek intends to keep it that way—until he meets Jasmine.

Her blatant dislike for him pushes a button no one else ever has and Derrek finds he’s desperate to prove that he isn’t what the tabloids make him out to be. More than that, he’s determined to make her his leading lady, but will an ex with a secret steal the spotlight away?

****

The sudden intensity in Derrek’s eyes startled her. Pinpricks of awareness danced across her skin and the aching desire she had fought over the past couple of days gave way to a heart-thumping response to his tender embrace. She swallowed hard and tilted her head back to look him in the eye, the fight gone right out of her.

Soft music played on the radio. A romantic song made for lovemaking.

“What are you doing, Derrek?”

If you missed previous Six Sunday posts from Love by Design and would like to check them out, look at the top of the page in my pink tabs for SSS Posts where you can easily find links to each previous post. 

#SCENTsational Saturdays Through the Years~These Moments

I discovered this perfume when I was probably in my late teens at the good ol' Rite Aid and instantly loved it. It was definitely a more mature scent than the other fragrances I wore at the time- Exclamation, Electric Youth, Tribe. They were bold, funky young scents, but this one made me feel like I was growing up and coming into my own as a woman. It had sensual tones and floral notes that made me think of mature love.

I remember using every last drop in the bottle and then when I went back to buy more, it was gone, as though it never existed. I'm sure I could find some sort of knock off or old bottle of it nowadays, but I prefer to remember it simply as a fragrance I "grew up" on.

The perfume came out in 1991, so I'm going to share a couple of songs I really loved back then. ;)

Have a SCENTsational Saturday!

Taryn Raye Spotlights Bluegrass Bountiful by Lozi Hart #TMPress @FictionWitches

Graham McCullough never forgot his first Kentucky Derby or the dark-haired beauty who stole his heart that weekend twenty-five years ago. He’d gone home to Scotland after the Derby intending to return to Louisville to ask the woman to be his wife. But a family crises sent him to the wilds of the Amazon Rain Forest for the next six months and when he finally did make it back, she had vanished without a trace.

Mary Claire Beaumont lived each day with a reminder of the weekend she’d spent with Graham McCullough, oh so long ago, before he’d disappeared from the face of the earth. She’d gone home to her mother and father prepared to face life as a single parent with an illegitimate child—until her mother forced her marriage to old boyfriend, John Beaumont. Now twenty-five years later, her daughter grown, a widowed Mary Claire is ready to live her own life, until fate throws Graham McCullough straight into her path again.

You can check out Bluegrass Bountiful by clicking on the image above to go to the Amazon Kindle page! It's only $2.99!

You can find out more about Lozi Hart on her website HERE.

Thursdays with Taryn~ Halfway There #NaNoWriMo

Are we about ready for Thanksgiving next week, peeps?

Already, today marks the 1/2 mark of NaNoWriMo- Day 15- on which, if you go by the minimum amount of words required to write 50K words by Day 30, you should be sitting somewhere around 25,000 words. Simple and it makes sense, eh? I have just a little under 27,000.

Yesterday was not a very productive writing day. I awoke feeling like my throat was doing this "allergic reaction" thing I've had happen in the past- where my uvula (punchy bag) elongates and hangs lower, nearly sitting on the back of my tongue. It's probably not life threatening, but it can be scary when it happens. I have trouble breathing past it because it wants to swing forward and causes me to gag, but when I swallow, it feels like a lump, like I'm going to swallow my uvula and choke to death on it because it falls back and covers the windpipe.

I never quite figured out exactly what caused it to happen the first time when I was in my early twenties, but after seeing a doctor about it, I was given corticosteroids for it and advised me to keep Benedryl on hand as well. It took about 2-3 days to clear up. He said it appeared to be some sort of "allergic reaction" to something I'd come in contact around that time and perhaps it was something I never had used/eaten/etc. I avoided certain things- such as Herbal Essence shampoos, Baby Ruth Candy bars, Rally's burgers and fries. I was a smoker at the time though, too, and I often wondered if I might have smoked one too many cigarettes the night before in the cool night air, but who knows. I'm not a smoker anymore though, so that would not explain it away now. I've also since given Baby Ruth the benefit of the doubt and didn't have trouble with it, but as for the other things- I typically avoid them.

That's not to say it's never happened again, as yesterday morning proved. From time to time I have had a flare up and I simply attribute it to allergies of some sort and pop a Benedryl capsule. That usually does the trick, but therein lay my problems with writing yesterday- between the intense grogginess and my eyes being itchy and blurry, I also had the urge to curl up in a ball and go to sleep beside the cat. I'm sure she wouldn't have minded at all, but I fought to stay awake so I could write and then still couldn't fight my way through the haze that fogged my thoughts. It sucks so bad when I can't seem to compose a coherent thought or put down more than a few mediocre sentences.

I definitely need to get more writing done. This weekend and into the following week I have cookies and treats to prepare for family and friends I will see around Thanksgiving. I have travel and hopefully the weekend after Turkey Day, I will have the energy to decorate my Christmas tree and hopefully get the outdoor decorations up as well.

I also have some really exciting plans in the coming weeks- some really cool holiday surprises that might include something like autographed print copies of Castaway Hearts and a few special gifts as we get further into the festive spirit of the holidays. You'll want to stick around to find out more about my upcoming

Christmas with Catherine & Dawson Giveaways

So definitely stay tuned for news about that!

Here's to getting some writing done today.

Happy Writing fellow NaNovelists!

Happy Reading fellow Bookworms!