Day Eleven - All About Ditched: A Love Story + Giveaway

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Book Profile

Name - Ditched: A Love Story ( Goodreads )

Author - Robin Mellom

Genre - Contemporary

Release Date - January 10th 2012

Available - The Book Depository

High school senior Justina Griffith was never the girl who dreamed of going to prom. Designer dresses and strappy heels? Not her thing. So she never expected her best friend, Ian Clark, to ask her.

Ian, who always passed her the baseball bat handle first.

Ian, who knew exactly when she needed red licorice.

Ian, who promised her the most amazing night at prom.

And then ditched her.

Now, as the sun rises over her small town, and with only the help of some opinionated ladies at the 7-Eleven, Justina must piece together — stain by stain on her thrift-store dress — exactly how she ended up dateless. A three-legged Chihuahua was involved. Along with a demolition derby-ready Cadillac. And there was that incident at the tattoo parlor. Plus the flying leap from Brian Sontag's moving car...

But to get the whole story, Justina will have to face the boy who ditched her. And discover if losing out at prom can ultimately lead to true love.

The Insider's Scoop

I’m going to pull back the curtain and tell you a little bit about how the events in DITCHED came to mind. (Hint: strangely)

The story involves a girl, Justina, re-telling the events of the night to a couple of opinionated ladies at the 7-Eleven. Justina breaks the story down by going through each stain or mark or rip or tattoo to get to the final part of her story: how and why she ended up in that ditch.

For this book, I didn’t outline or map out the events or even put much thought into how it was all going to unfold. I only knew the ending. But honestly, I would have outlined if, you know…a plot had come to mind! But the details weren’t coming—I had no idea how I was going to get to this ending that was so crystal clear. (The only thing that was clear!)  So here’s what I did: I gave myself a challenge…think of five totally random things and try to build a story around them.

I am not a model writer.

But writing is better than not writing so that’s what I did.  And on one particular afternoon, here were the five most random items I could come up with:

A broken safety pin

In-n-Out Burger

A Tinker Bell tattoo

The Hampton Inn

A three-legged Chihuahua

Aaaaaand, go! Seriously, that’s how this book came to be. Not the best way to write a book, but the challenge of trying to make these things fit somewhere in the story made the writing of this an absolute BLAST. And the items ended up giving me a framework and became huge plot points. (Whew.)

Even though I outline the snot out my novels now, I still make sure I have a list of random things—stuff that makes me laugh or feel good—and I include them somewhere in the story, just to amuse myself.

So, in my next book, just know you will find a family of dolphins, a Bettie Boop t-shirt and Robert Downey, Jr. somewhere in the story.

~Giveaway~

To end Robin's feature with a bang, she has kindly offered you lucky viewers an ARC of Ditched + some super duper awesome ( and really CUTE) Ditched swag! Unfortunately this giveaway is only open to readers is US/CAN! Please support the event and Robin by leaving a comment and spreading the word! Please fill out the form below : 

Rule of Entry -

- US/CAN

- Ends 11th of February

- Must be 13 or older

- Optional Entries :

   * Leaving comment on either of Robin's posts +1 each

   * Tweeting Giveaway +1

   * Putting Giveaway on Sidebar +2

   * Follow Badass Bookie +2

   * Placing 2012 Debutante Event Button on blog +3

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