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Showing posts from August, 2011

Look! She's Aliiiiiiiiiiive!

Whew! It's been a week since I blogged. Crickets were about to set up residence. Readers were lining up and it sounded a little something like this:



BUT, it turns out, I was this:



Why was I mostly dead? Because I was up to my eyeballs in my second round of edits on DEFIANCE. I turned them in on Friday, and then spent the next few days stuffing my brains back into my head. The entire process looked something like this:



















And that is why I haven't blogged in a week. *wanders off yelling BRAAAAAAIIIIINNNNZZZZZ!*
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Interview With Lisa Mantchev

I've been a loyal Lisa Mantchev fan since I met her on Twitter two years ago, a few months before her first book, EYES LIKE STARS, came out. I was fortunate enough to get an advanced copy of ELS, and I was WOWED. Smart, original, vivid, compelling, and addictive! Then, PERCHANCE TO DREAM came out, and I was thrown for a loop. I'd thought I was staunchly Team Nate, but ... PTD made me wonder if maybe I was really Team Ariel. Or both! Can I please have both?

So now, as the final book in the trilogy is released, I thought I'd have Lisa on the blog to introduce these fabulous books to my readers. (I won't tell you which team I finally decided to support! You'll have to read and decide for yourself!) Here's a sneak peek at SO SILVER BRIGHT:

Things are never easy for Beatrice Shakespeare Smith. Something's happened to the Théâtre Illuminata, putting the only home she's ever known in limbo. Her mother's sanity is fraying under the strain, her father has va…
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Winner of the Nocturne Necklace!

Thank you to all who entered the giveaway for the necklace inspired by Christine Johnson's NOCTURNE and designed by the fabulous Tashina Falene! As always, I used random.org to choose the winner. And the lucky winner is

Allison Mulder
Congratulations, Allison! I hope you love your new necklace. You'll be receiving a confimation email from me shortly.
If you didn't win this time, don't worry. Lisa Mantchev is being interviewed on the blog later today and is bringing an awesome giveaway with her!
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Top Five Ways to Prepare for the Zombie Goat Invasion

The hilarious and talented Christine Johnson is back this week with another giveaway and her sure-fire methods for preparing to face the Zombie Goat Invasion! Up for grabs is this gorgeous necklace designed just for Christine's books(CLAIRE DE LUNE and NOCTURNE) by the fabulous Tashina Falene.


To enter, simply fill out the Google doc below this post. Contest is open to North America and closes Sunday, August 21st at 8 p.m. Central time. But FIRST, find out what you need to do to ready yourself for the Zombie Goats. Oh, yeah. They're coming. Take it away, Christine.


1) Buy canned goods. Either you can eat them, or else you can lob the cans at the zombie goats. They'll either be injured or else distracted by the cans - goats are notorious for their willingness to eat cans, right?! Hmm. I'm beginning to worry about my odds of survival.


2) When the looting starts, FOR GOD'S SAKE HIT THE SPORTING GOODS STORE. Go to the shoe section first. It seems like almost all of the p…
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Where's The Beef?

Pardon the title. I saw an I Love The 80's Show recently and now, stuck like duct tape to my frontal lobe is THIS:



You're welcome.

I sort of wanted to title this post A Love Letter To My Editor, but she prefers me to show my love to her with baked goods and squeezable chickens. Which is fine. I prefer love via baked goods and squeezable chickens too. It's one of the many reasons we're a good match.

The true point of this post, though is this: Do you really need an editor?

I've seen both sides of the debate on this. There's the "Everyone needs a professional editor!" camp. And there's the "Editors take over your work and make it their own thereby stamping out all freedom of creativity!" camp. And plenty of people in between.

So, do YOU need an editor?

I can't answer that for you, any more than I could tell you if you need a literary agent, or if you should self-publish or hold out for a deal from a traditional publisher. Those are pe…
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Winner of CLAIRE DE LUNE and NOCTURNE!

Thanks to everyone who entered the giveaway for the signed set of a paperback CLAIRE DE LUNE and a hardback NOCTURNE from the hilarious Christine Johnson! As always, I used random.org to pick the winner. And the lucky winner is

Scott Stillwell
Congratulations, Scott! You will receive a confirmation email from me shortly. Didn't win this time? Don't worry! This Wednesday, Christine is back with her Top Five post and another giveaway. Until then, happy reading!
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Interview with Christine Johnson

I met Christine Johnson on Twitter several months ago and was immediately impressed. She exudes kindness and class. Plus, she's a ton of fun! So, when I learned she had NOCTURNE, the follow up to last year's gorgeous CLAIRE DE LUNE, coming out, I couldn't wait to have her on the blog. Not only did she agree to be interviewed, she offered to give away a signed set of both CLAIRE and NOCTURNE. Yay! Here's a peek at both books:
CLAIRE DE LUNE:
Hanover Falls hasn’t had a werewolf problem in over one hundred years. Seattle, Copenhagen, Osaka–they’ve had plenty of attacks. But when humans begin dying in Claire Benoit’s town, the panic spreads faster than a rumor at a pep rally. At Claire’s sixteenth birthday party, the gruesome killings are all anyone can talk about. But the big news in Claire’s mind is the fact that Matthew Engle–high-school soccer god and son of a world-renowned lycanthropy expert–notices her. And flirts with her. A lot… NOCTURNE:
After the tragic events of th…
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I Can Have Naps Now, Please?

1. The cat pictured above?

2. That was me all last week.

3. Why? Because poor Baby J was teething and that equalled five nights in a row of about 3 hours of sleep a night for me.

4. It killed my brain.

5. Killed it DEAD.

6. I'm still not 100% sure it's been fully revived, but I have way too much to do to wait around for something like coherent thought to arrive back on the scene.

7. Besides, it's sort of debatable whether I actually had that in the first place.

8. When I don't sleep for long stretches like that, two things happen. Well, three including the brain death thing, but I've already covered that.

9. First, my fibromyalgia decides to play havoc with my nerve endings, so pain has become a constant companion recently. It will subside soon.

10. Second, my (no longer coherent) thoughts run in very strange loops.

11. At one point last week (around 3 a.m.), I decided I had an amazing plot for a new book.

12. It involved ostriches with super powers.

13. You can s…
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You're Kind of a Big Deal

It's a funny thing, selling a book. From the inside, it looks like this:

But from the outside, it sort of looks like this:



It's been a strange thing, having people say things like Don't forget the little people or Now that you're a rock star. Those statements make me sad. There aren't any little people. And if there are rock stars in the publishing industry, it isn't the girl who got nothing but solid rejections for two years after signing with her agent and then finally wrote a book that sold.

I don't say that to put myself down. I say that because it's true. I wrote a book that garnered me my amazing agent. And it didn't sell. It went on submission a second time. And didn't sell. So, I sat down to write another. And guess what? That didn't sell either. I revised it and went out again. Still nothing. I can't tell you how many times I wondered when my agent would call and tell me we'd taken a good run at it, but it just wasn't wo…
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Happy Monday

1. How is it August already?

2. Not that I'm complaining. My boys go back to school in a week and a half.

3. And while that turns this week's To Do list into something that would make a weaker woman cry, it also heralds the return of structure and schedule.

4. I'm ready for that.

5. If you're reading this, and you're a writer, my monthly column is up today at Romance University. I discussed ten ways you can raise the stakes in your book and make your conflict matter to the reader.

6. I'm also hard at work writing a handbook for the querying process -- from the moment you start researching agents to the moment you receive a call from an agent wanting to discuss representation. I estimate releasing the handbook in e-book format in early October.

7. I've now spent eight hours doing back to school shopping, and I still have one kid left to take to the stores.

8. My loathing for back to school shopping is well documented.

9. All those crowds? All those people l…
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