#ProjectPurseDump - Week 14 - A Demon Hunter's Purse by Juliette Cross (@Juliette__Cross) - #WritersLife

As you all know, I have a weakness for kick-ass gals and their innovative array of weapons. When romance author Juliette Cross gave me the scoop on the purse of a bona fide demon hunter, how could I say no?  Without further ado, here's the final installment of Project Purse Dump for 2015. Our voyeuristic saga continues the second week of January. 

A Demon Hunter's Purse 

by Juliette Cross

Hi, everyone! So, my purse is ultra boring. Nothing but piles of receipts, my wallet, phone, sunglasses, and my reading glasses which I can never seem to find. Instead, my character Genevieve Drake from the Vessel series will share with you what’s in her purse. FYI, Gen is a college co-ed turned demon hunter in New Orleans. Take it away, Gen!

1. Tommy Girl Hand Lotion—My hands get chapped, and a girl’s gotta smell nice, right?
2. Chocolate—Always have some stashed in my purse. Helps me in all kinds of emotional emergencies.
3. A Benchmade Knife—My dad’s first present to me when I moved out of the house into an apartment with my bestie, Mindy. (Check out the closeup! It’s got the cutest butterfly.) And Jude almost cracked a smile when he saw me carrying it. Almost.
4. Mindy’s Ferrari-red Lipstick—Mindy has way more fashion sense than I do and insists I wear it when we go out.
5. Pony Tail Holders—Gotta have ‘em.
6. Celtic Bracelet—I bought this in the French Market because it reminded me of my mother and her artwork. She always loved Celtic scrollwork and interlacing. Jude gets a sort of sad look on his face when I wear it, so I usually just stick it back in my purse.
7. Vincent Van Gogh Sticky Notes—Couldn’t pass these up when I saw them at the NOMA souvenir shop. You always need sticky notes. Why not have some classy ones?
8. Matches—I don’t smoke, but I pick up matches wherever I go. These are from the Cigar Factory on Decatur, Pat O’Brien’s in the Quarter, and Commander’s Palace on Canal from the last time Dad took me.
9. Pens—You always need a pen. Be prepared.
10. Dickinson Pocket Poetry—Though I’ve had to set my English studies aside for more noble pursuits, like hunting demons with Jude, I can’t give up my favorite book of pocket poetry. Emily inspires me. When life gets tough, I always go to these lines, “Hope is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul, and sings the tune without the words, and never stops—at all.”

About Juliette Cross

Multi-published author of paranormal and urban fantasy romance with Samhain and Kensington Publishing, Juliette calls lush, moss-laden Louisiana, home where the landscape curls into her imagination, creating mystical settings for her stories. From the moment she read JANE EYRE as a teenager, she fell in love with the Gothic romance--brooding characters, mysterious settings, persevering heroines, and dark, sexy heroes. Even then, she not only longed to read more books set in Gothic worlds, she wanted to create her own. 

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#ProjectPurseDump - Week 13 - Confessions of a Minimalist Author by KaLyn Cooper (@KaLynCooperbook) - #WritersLife

It's always nice to find I have unexpected things in common with a fellow romance author. While I do not "carry," I'm rather fond of unembellished Coach purses myself ( both of mine are flea market finds). However, being a permanent member of the Girlie Girl Club, I rarely leave home with just a wallet. I wonder what else we romantic suspense writers share. 

Confessions of a Minimalist Author

by KaLyn Cooper

I should probably be thrown out of the Girlie Girl Club because I don’t carry much in my purse. Given the opportunity, I don’t even carry one. I often stuff cash in a front pocket with a Chapstick or lipstick on the other side and I carry a very small, leather pouch for credit cards.

Years of long distance traveling has taught me that a purse can get stolen so quickly and weighs you down. By the end of the day, your shoulders ache. I also have a tendency to leave it hanging on the back of a chair so more than once I’ve revisited a restaurant in search of the darn thing. Fortunately, I’ve only lost it once. So I often don’t take one with me when I leave the house.

Unless I’m carrying.

Yes, I have been known to carry a gun in my purse. And yes, I have a Handgun Carry Permit. And yes, I know how to use it. I hope I wouldn’t hesitate to do so if a life-threatening situation should arise. I am a shooter and can often be found on the range. To see a picture of the gun I carry, visit my blog site listed below.

So, on to the contents of my purse:

Let’s talk about the purse itself. I only buy unembellished Coach leather purses. I have some that are over twenty years old that still look good and function well. I rotate them out summer and winter, thus the dark brown one currently in use.

Two leather-bound checkbooks. Although I do more banking online than with a written check, sometimes you simply need to write a check. After the second move, Macho Marine and I decided we needed a stable bank account for his direct deposit but in those days, a local bank was always necessary. Thus the one has been in existence for over thirty-five years and the local account.

That non-descript medicine bottle contains: at least two migraine pills for Macho Marine, he can never find his when he needs them; two daily meds for Favorite (only) Son, just in case; and a few mega Motrin for me. The Tylenol is also for MM because he forgets his all too often when we travel. Is there a picture of our family dynamic forming here?

Business cards. You never know when you’ll run into a Romance reader.

Pens and a small pad of paper. Even though I most often use the app on my phone, I never know when I’ll need to write a note or make a list. I love office supply stores the way MM loves old hardware stores. I could spend hours looking at all the pretty paper, interesting office gadgets and pens that I might need and all too often purchase. They have to be ultrafine point and pretty as well as functional. But never pink or purple and never ever write in those colors. See, I could so easily lose that Girlie Girl card.

Glasses case and lens cleaner. I wore contacts for years and still do on occasion but prefer my glasses these days. I switch to prescription sunglasses when I go outside. Maybe I should try transitional lenses.

Wallet. Again Coach because they last so long and again leather. I guess I’m a natural materials person when it comes right down to it.

Not pictured but should be mentioned: Sometimes I will also have a receipt or two that I stuff into the back compartment but not today. Writing is a business and it keeps my CPA happy when I have the receipt from lunch with my author friends. I also shove my cell phone into the exterior pocket but I needed it to take the picture.

Pretty boring stuff for the most part.

But there is one more item I often carry. It’s deadly and I didn’t want it plastered all over the Internet. To see what it is, please visit my blog https://kalyncooper.wordpress.com/. 

ABOUT KALYN COOPER

KaLyn Cooper’s romances blend fact and fiction with blazing heat and heart-pounding suspense. Twenty-two years as a military wife has shown her the world, and more than thirty years in PR taught her that fact can be stranger than fiction. She leaves it up to the reader to separate truth from imagination. She, her husband, and bird dog live in Tennessee on a micro-plantation filled with gardens, cattle, and quail. When she’s not writing, she’s at the shooting range or paddling on the river. 

Be sure to check out her book Christmas in Cancun and two upcoming releases Captivated in Cancun December 28th and Claimed by a SEAL Kindle Worlds Hot SEAL Cancun Crossover Novella releasing January 26th. For all books by KaLyn Cooper, please visit her website www.KaLynCooper.com.

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Email: KaLyn@KaLynCooper.co

#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.

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