Jeri Smith-Ready

SHADE/SHIFT in audio book!

2009-12-03T16:55:00.006-05:00

Coming soon to an earbud (or car speaker) near you...

I've been dying to spread this news ever since I found out, and now it's official. Audible has bought the audio rights to Shade and its 2011 sequel Shift and will make them into audio books!

I an insanely thrilled about this. This will be my first audio book, the first time I get to hear my words read by a professional (i.e., someone other than myself). Back when my daily commute was longer than a walk down the hall, I scarfed up audio books from the local library like crazy. So to have my own works in this format will be pretty amazing.

Audible is the world's largest publisher of downloadable books, and they have a special relationship (not sure if that's the technical term) with iTunes to make their books easily found and downloaded from there, as well as on Amazon, etc.

Also, the audio books will be distributed in "physical copy" by Brilliance. (CDs, I assume, or whatever newfangled technology is being used--back in my day it was books on tape, and we got whatever mangled, abridged, chopped up version was available, and we liked it! Except when Cassette #10 out of 12 was all garbled, or when our favorite book ever (The Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub) had a narrator who read every sentence like THIS. So that the emphasis was on the very last WORD. No matter how it was WRITTEN. Until we wanted to throw it out the WINDOW. But we couldn't because it belonged to the LIBRARY. So we got very ANGRY. And are now venting publicly about it for the first TIME. And it feels GOOD. (See how annoying that is?--I mean, see how annoying that IS?)

So if you prefer to hold the Shade audio book in your hands, you'll be able to do that, too. Just don't try to turn the pages.

I don't have an official release date yet, but I would presume the audio books will come out at the same time or shortly after the release of the hardcover.

Which is...

everyone say it with me...

MAY 18, 2010

Okay, it's back to the rewrite dungeon for me. Have a great weekend!

Girlfriends' Cyber Circuit Tour - Debbie Rigaud

2009-12-02T00:11:00.002-05:00

I'm super excited about this week's Girlfriend Cyber Circuit guest, Debbie Rigaud, for a couple of reasons.

1) It's her first novel! Go Debbie!
2) It's a Simon Pulse Romantic Comedy, which I love (full disclosure here: Pulse is one of my publishers, but the pure fact is, I love rom coms and am eternally grateful that someone is publishing them). They also publish Jennifer Echols, one of my favorite authors and a recent Blogtober-guest.

Debbie's novel Perfect Shot was just released yesterday. Here's what it's about:

Perfect Shot

London Abram’s first love is volleyball, so why does she enter an online modeling competition? Answer: superhottie Brent St. John. London spots Brent signing in contestants at a store, and she gets in line simply to say hi. But she never dreams she’ll make it into the competition!

London’s now up against fourteen hungry fashionistas willing to do whatever it takes to win. All she wants to win is Brent’s heart…but the money prize couldn’t hurt. If London plays this right, she can win the contest, the boy, and the cash. GAME ON!

A few more notable facts about Perfect Shot:

• First book in the Simon Pulse Romantic Comedies series to feature an African-American protagonist
• First book in the Simon Pulse Romantic Comedies series to be written by an African-American
• Features a multicultural cast of characters in a contemporary setting

And now, my sometimes silly questions for Debbie:

1. If you could inhabit the life of any of your characters, enter their world and deal with it as that person, which one would you choose?

London, the main character in PERFECT SHOT. She approaches life with a courage and determination that I admire. These are traits that were largely shaped on the volleyball court. I believe that a lot of athletes are go-getters. Being sporty encourages London to act on her instincts and be unafraid of confrontation or competition. To me, that's very cool.

2. On the flip side, which of your characters would you most like to bring to life in our world (as a friend or a little bit more ;-) ?

London's best friend Pam. I would be a devotee of Pam?s style blog. Lord knows I could a personal stylist.

4. Let's say there's a TV show, movie, or recording artist that has a cult of you. Which is it? (i.e., what do you like that no one else you know likes)?

"Ghost Whisperer." That show gets on my nerves, yet I still watch it. I vowed to stop watching after Melinda's (Jennifer Love Hewitt) husband was killed off. The show truly jumped the shark at that point, yet there I remain in front of the tube when it comes on.

5. What's your earliest memory?

I was in a moving truck with my mother and godmother, traveling from our home in Brooklyn to our new house in East Orange, NJ. I was around two years old.

6. Do you have any phobias?

As far as a quirky phobia, I?d say it?s fear of falling. I took a crazy spill on sidewalk ice one winter and that freaked me out. At least my cousin, who was with me at the time, made sure I was okay before he started cracking up.

Author Bio

Debbie Rigaud began her writing career covering news and entertainment for magazines. She’s interviewed celebs, politicians, social figures and “real” girls. Her wide-ranging articles have appeared in YSB, Entertainment Weekly, Seventeen, The Source, Trace, Twist, Essence, J-14, Heart & Soul, Inside TV, CosmoGIRL!, and Vibe Vixen.

Her first work of YA fiction, a novella titled “Double Act,” was featured in the anthology HALLWAY DIARIES/Kimani Tru. PERFECT SHOT/Simon & Schuster, her first standalone book, was released December 1, 2009.

Debbie’s extensive experience with young readers has led her to staff editor positions at Seventeen and Twist and to freelance editing/writing work for seventeen.com, CosmoGIRL!, American Eagle Outfitters and publishing company Just Us Books. She’s written advice columns, inspiring real-life stories, entertainment reports and countless personality quizzes for this audience.

Beyond YA, Debbie recently became a finalist in Bermuda Dramatist Society’s annual playwright contest. “All in the Same Boat,” her short play, was selected by professional New York playwrights and produced on stage in Bermuda.

Debbie's Website
Debbie's Blog

Congrats again to Debbie on the release of her first novel!

Class of 2K10 official launch!

2009-12-01T08:24:00.007-05:00

Poking my head out of the Deadline Cave for a few minutes:

As I might have mentioned, I’m a member of the Class of 2K10, a group of 2010 debut young adult and middle-grade authors. Even though I have six published novels as an adult author (writing for adults, that is, not that I’m a true adult myself, because most people would dispute that), they were nice enough to let me in, since Shade will be my first YA novel.

Anyway, the class is holding a huge graduation party for its predecessor (named, not surprisingly, the class of 2K9) all month. We're giving away a copy of each debut novel by this talented group of authors. Visit our blog for details.

In case you're feeling too lazy to click over to our site, check out our trailer, and maybe you'll change your mind:

For a shortcut to a list to all our books and release dates (with convenient purchase links--ha!), check out our Amazon Listmania compilation.

I have another Girlfriends' Cyber Circuit tour coming up tomorrow, and then some thrilling Shade news on Thursday, so stay tuned!

But for now, back to my regularly scheduled hermitage.

Music and the Muse - Wicked Game playlist

2009-11-24T00:37:00.007-05:00

A few weeks ago several authors got together (online, of course--it's our usual habitat) and decided to do simultaneous blog posts on the topic of "Music and the Muse," inspired by the article of the same name in a recent issue of RWA's member magazine. We were supposed to show how music intersects with our writing.

I didn't know where to start. All of my contemporary fantasy books are built around music. It's an obsession of mine. So asking me to blog about music and writing is like asking Oliver Stone to blog about the 1960s.

For example, the creation of my first published novel, Requiem for the Devil, was sparked by a performance of Verdi's Requiem. In the book, Lucifer is (among other things) a virtuoso on the piano and violin, and his girlfriend Gianna is the guitarist for a Washington, DC riot grrl band called Public Humiliation. (My friend Greg helped me write the lyrics for their hit, "Dick for Day," the ultimate penis envy song.)

In my upcoming YA novel, Shade, the main character's boyfriend is the frontman for an up-and-coming Celtic-flavored punk band, the Keeley Brothers. When Logan dies and becomes a ghost, his love of music lives on (as does his craving for fame, and hey, who's more famous than a dead rock star?).

Then there are the vampire DJs. The WVMP Radio series was inspired by a song on the radio ("Bad Company," which was the original title for Wicked Game), and music is woven into the text, both in the background and as plot points.

Soooooo, what to blog about? I know! Last week at a book club meeting I received a question that's also been asked in several interviews:

In WICKED GAME, which came first, the playlist or the story?

A bit of background for new visitors (welcome, by the way!): In the front of Wicked Game, you'll find a list of songs called a "Playlist." This is not the kind of playlist you see on a lot of authors' sites, where they share the music that helped inspire the story, or that they listened to while they were writing it, or even that they imagine the characters would love and that would resonate with particular scenes. All of that is extremely cool, but it's not what I did.

The Wicked Game playlist is, rather, a list of songs that are mentioned in the actual text. My publisher asked me to compile it, and I was thrilled at the chance to spotlight some spectacular music.

The cool thing was, in several scenes I hadn't specified a song, only the artist. I might have written that Shane played a Led Zeppelin song on the guitar for Ciara during their romantic platonic picnic. But for the playlist I had to figure out which song would fit the scene and character best ("The Rain Song," which also has the advantage of being very playable on acoustic guitar, according to my husband).

The even cooler thing? I got this request during the copyedit stage, when I still had a chance to go back and change the text. So I actually added a song or two to give some scenes more texture.

For example, in one scene Ciara comes home to find Shane in her apartment, sorting her CDs (it's a thing for him). He's playing one of her (and my) favorite CDs, Liz Phair's Exile in Guyville, and the song in particular, "Flower," fits exactly with the way she feels about him, much to her chagrin. For readers familiar with the song, it adds another layer of subtext and maybe even a wee chuckle. (But I must warn you if you decide to Google the lyrics--they are not for the easily shocked.)

So by giving me the opportunity to share the playlist, my publisher allowed me to add some subtle finishing touches (to "decorate" the story, you might say) with a dab of this or that mood. Readers who want a deeper experience of the book can look up the songs (or better yet, visit the WVMP Music page and listen to the playlist themselves).

Oh, look, here it is, for your enjoyment (but you should still check out the WVMP Music page for the three other playlists. Just sayin'.):

Other Music & the Muse bloggers:

Bryan Bliss
R.R. Smythe
Marley DeLarose
Tara Kelly
Stephanie Kuehnert
Jennifer Linforth

What does music inspire you to do? Write? Paint? Dance? Kiss? Spend money on more, more, MORE music? Talk to me. I'll be traveling all day Tuesday, but I'll try to respond on Wednesday to any comments.

----------------
Now playing: White Zombie - More Human than Human

Final Blogtoberfest & SHADE winner - You snooze, you lose edition

2009-11-23T10:17:00.002-05:00

A couple weeks ago, I announced winners for two of the final Blogtoberfest prizes, an ARC of Shade and the grand mega-normous-zilla prize, a copy of every book in the Blogtoberfest (or more precisely, one book by each author, since one author gave away five books).

Sadly, the winners did not respond, so in accordance with the ~~prophecy~~ rules, I drew two more names.

The winner of an Advance Review Copy of Shade is...Lori! And the new lucky winner of the grand prize is...Cindy, aka I Heart Book Gossip!

Thanks AGAIN to the 25 participating authors, and the guests who left over 1,200 comments throughout the month.

Tonight I'm attending the Authors & Editors Reception put on by the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America at Planet Hollywood in NYC. Then tomorrow morning I go to Rockefeller Center to meet with some wonderful folks from Simon Pulse to talk about plans for Shade. I'm a little nervous, but mostly excited--I've never had an official meeting with anyone besides my editors and agent, so I feel pretty lucky.

Cross your fingers I don't make a fool out of myself!

Girlfriends' Cyber Circuit Tour - Laurie Stolarz

2009-11-16T22:34:00.005-05:00

Hey, I'm back from Chicago! Windycon was awesome as always. My panels and reading and signing were nice, but the real purpose of going was so that my husband, official toastmaster Christian Ready, could give three thoroughly amazing, standing room only, ooh- and ahh-producing talks on the Hubble Space Telescope.

Recently I joined the Girlfriends' Cyber Circuit, a group of wonderful women writers (WWW, if you will) who offer up "cyber-tours" for each others' book releases. So scarcely two weeks after the Blogtoberfest, here I am bringing you another author. You're welcome!

First a little bit of introduction from this week's author, Laurie Stolarz, here to talk about her new books, Black is for Beginnings (a graphic novel) and Deadly Little Lies.

* * * *

Thanks so much for inviting me to talk here about BLACK IS FOR BEGINNINGS and DEADLY LITTLE LIES.

BLACK IS FOR BEGINNINGS is a companion book to the BLUE IS FOR NIGHTMARES series. When my editor approached me with the idea of writing a graphic novel, I was very intrigued because it gave me the opportunity to not only try something new, but to really picture the book as a movie. I have a background in screenwriting and wrote BLACK IS FOR BEGINNINGS in screenplay format, adding in ideas for illustrations and sidebars. It was an absolute thrill to write – to have the opportunity to work with an illustrator, and to see my work come to life in this way. BLACK IS FOR BEGINNINGS does not take the place of a regular prose novel in the series. It is a companion piece, complimenting the entire series as a whole. It picks up where RED IS FOR REMEMBRANCE left off, and also shows some fan-favorite scenes from the entire series.

DEADLY LITTLE LIES is the sequel to DEADLY LITTLE SECRET, (the first book in the TOUCH series). I’m really excited about it, because I think it has even more suspense, romance, and twists than the first book. It starts up a few months after Ben’s departure at the end of DEADLY LITTLE SECRET. Camelia’s spent those months researching everything she can find on psychometry (the ability to sense things through touch). See the full description below.

I’m launching the release of DEADLY LITTLE LIES with a really exciting contest; be sure to check out the details below. Also below, you’ll find Stacey Brown’s courage sachet spell, Camelia’s favorite psychometry links, and some tips Camelia has to develop your own psychometric powers. I’m also including some random facts about me.

Lastly, the paperback of DEADLY LITTLE SECRET is out as well. For a limited time Barnes & Noble is offering an exclusive edition that has bonus excerpts from Ben’s secret blog.

Many thanks again for this opportunity to chat!

All best,
Laurie Stolarz

ABOUT BLACK IS FOR BEGINNINGS:

The BLUE IS FOR NIGHTMARES series that put a spell on more than half a million readers continues – in graphic novel format! Prophetic nightmares. Near-brushes with death. Killers pursuing her and her friends. Stacey Brown knows that being a hereditary witch isn’t all it's cracked up to be.

All she really wants to do is work things out with Jacob and figure out what to do with the rest of her life. But before Stacey and Jacob can have a future, they must face their pasts. BLACK IS FOR BEGINNINGS reveals the never-before-seen backstory - and what lies ahead - for the young, spellcasting lovers.

BLACK continues the harrowing adventures of Stacey and Jacob in the wake of Jacob's brush with death. Ever since he lost his memory, Jacob hasn't been able to remember Stacey - his own soul mate. He leaves Massachusetts, returning to his childhood home in Colorado, hoping to jog his memory. What he remembers is Kira, his ex-girlfriend. As Jacob works to piece together his past, will there be room for Stacey in his future?

REVIEWS:

"The half-million readers of Laurie Faria Stolarz’s paranormal mystery series will be happy with this shift to graphic style, offering as it does the pleasure of putting faces on characters, its visualized eeriness and vibrant displays of emotion...The graphic style allows Stolarz to distill the story while simultaneously dropping hints about Stacey and Jacob’s supernatural talents, luring new readers to the series." - Kirkus Reviews

"Taking Stolarz’s Blue Is for Nightmares series into the graphic-novel realm is a bold idea, and it pays off in this morbidly entertaining and surprisingly romantic page-turner." - Booklist

“This scary and romantic story, with its larger-than-life emotions and darkly twisting plot, lends itself well to the graphic novel format. The teenage characters, their dialogue, and their interactions are well imagined and ably captured. And when you are not enjoying the great dialogue or fantastic artwork, it is fun to pore over the little details…BLACK IS FOR BEGINNINGS serves both to draw new teen readers to the series and to supply existing fans with interesting additional background and never-before-seen details. A winning formula!” – TeenReads

ABOUT DEADLY LITTLE LIES

Last fall, sixteen-year-old Camelia fell for Ben, a new boy at school who had a very mysterious gift – psychometry, the ability to sense the future through touch. But just as Camelia and Ben's romance began to heat up, he abruptly left town. Brokenhearted, Camelia has spent the last few months studying everything she can about psychometry and experiencing strange brushes with premonition. Camelia wonders if Ben's abilities have somehow been transferred to her.

Ben returns to school, but he remains aloof, and Camelia can't get close enough to share her secret with him. Camelia makes the painful decision to let him go and move on. Adam, the hot new guy at Knead, seems good for her in ways Ben wasn't. But when Camelia and Adam start dating, a surprising love triangle results. A chilling sequence of events uncovers secrets from Ben’s past – and Adam's. Someone is lying, and it's up to Camelia to figure out who – before it's too late.

Stacey Brown's Courage Sachet

Purpose: To help conquer your biggest fears.

Ingredients: swatch of cheesecloth, dried thyme, small piece of paper, black ball-point pen, piece of string.
1. On the piece of paper, using the black ball-point pen, write whatever it is you fear.
2. Fold this paper up, as tight as you can get it, imagining your fear becoming smaller and weaker with each crease.
3. Lay the cheesecloth open in front of you and drop the folded paper ball into the middle. 4. Sprinkle the dried thyme atop it.
5. Gather the ends of the cheesecloth and tie closed with the piece of string.
6. Hold the sachet and repeat the following chant three times: I fear you now but not for long for with my courage you will be gone.
7. Keep this courage sachet with you whenever you need to remind yourself that you are much stronger than your fears.

For more spells, go here: http://www.llewellyn.com/spell.php

Camelia’s Favorite Links About Psychometry:
http://paranormal.about.com/cs/espinformation/a/aa063003.htm
http://freespace.virgin.net/russel.steward/psychome.htm
http://www.powerful-psychic-reading.com/psychometry.html

Directions on how to bring your own psychometric senses to fruition

1. Make yourself comfortable in a place that feels “sacred” to you. For some it’s outside, surrounded by nature; for others it’s a favorite chair or surrounded by candles; for me, it’s wherever I’m doing pottery.
2. Close your eyes and concentrate on your breath, letting go of any stray or nervous thoughts.
3. Now, take an object in your hand. A good idea is to have someone give you something they’ve owned for a long time, i.e. a favorite bracelet or a set of keys.
4. Close your eyes again and concentrate on this object. Be aware of any thoughts or feelings that come about as a result of holding this object. Talk those ideas through, even if they seem silly or insignificant, but never make information up.
Remember, this takes practice and a bit of experimenting. The goal is to begin tuning in to your own inner awareness and your ability of perception. What works for me is saying a question aloud in my head, and then sculpting out the answer – using my power of touch in a creative and organic way.

TOUCH SERIES CONTEST

You will need to read a copy of DEADLY LITTLE LIES to enter this contest. The grand prize winner of the contest will have a minor character in DEADLY LITTLE GAME, the third book in the TOUCH series named after him or her. OFFICIAL RULES for this contest are listed on my website, under NEWS.

* * * *

Jeri again here! And now, Laurie will answer my Five Questions, which some of you might recognize from my Mostly Debut Author interview series.

What's the weirdest tidbit of research you've ever incorporated into a book?
I once chewed a glob of Play Doh for research.

Let's say there's a TV show, movie, or recording artist that has a cult of you. Which is it? (i.e., what do you like that no one else you know likes)?
Rock of Love and (really blushing now) Daisy of Love.

What's your earliest memory?
I got my favorite doll when I was two-and-a-half. It was Christmas and I named her Cindyretta, because my best friend had already taken the name Cinderella.

Do you have any phobias?
I fear driving when its pouring out. One time, I got caught in it – all of a sudden it just started torrential-down-pouring – and I lost control of my car, and it started floating away.

Which author, living or dead, would you most love to collaborate with?
I’d love to collaborate with Francesca Lia Block. I think I could learn a lot from her. She has an amazing talent for putting words together in a unique and artful way. Her descriptions are truly vivid and beautiful.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Laurie Faria Stolarz is the author of several popular young adult novels, including Deadly Little Secret, Deadly Little Lies, Project 17, Bleed, and the bestselling BLUE IS FOR NIGHTMARES series, which has sold over 500,000 copies worldwide. Stolarz's titles have been part of the Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers list, the Top Ten Teen Pick list, and YALSA's Popular Paperback list, all through the American Library Association. Born and raised in Salem, Massachusetts, Stolarz attended Merrimack College and received an MFA in creative writing from Emerson College in Boston. For more information, visit Laurie's website at www.lauriestolarz.com.

Thanks to Laurie for stopping by!

Windycon schedule

2009-11-11T08:21:00.005-05:00

Here's my official schedule for this weekend's Windycon 36, at the Westin in Lombard, Illinois (Chicago area). Windy is my all-time favorite science fiction/fantasy convention, and I'm so psyched to be going back, along with my husband Christian Ready, the Toastmaster and Man from H.U.B.B.L.E, who's been putting together three amazing Hubble Telescope-related talks. If you're in the area, I highly recommend stopping by.

The theme of this year's Windycon is Steampunk, and the Author Guest of Honor is James P. Blaylock. The official charity is People's Resource Center, who does good stuff for DuPage County folks in need.

1pm Saturday, Junior Ballroom B: Getting Worlds Right
You have a map, a river and some mountains. Think that's enough planning for your world? No way. Think about weather, growing seasons and migratory animals. Our panelists discuss who got it right and who missed it in their favorite books, films, etc.
With Michael D'Ambrosio, John Helfers, P.C. Hodgell, and Ross Martinek

3pm Saturday, Hallway: Autographing

5pm Saturday, Walnut Room: Reading

I'll be reading (out loud, even!) from Wicked Game and Shade, and possibly Bad to the Bone on request. Heck, I'll read anything. Bring your pocket copy of the U.S. Constitution, and I'll make it riveting!

10am Sunday, Lilac C: Rowling and Meyer

What are our kids reading now? Is there truly a young adult revival of speculative fiction or are these anomalies? Are our kids reading more SF or still playing it on the Wii? Find out from our panelists.
With Merrie Haskell, Jim Hines, and Rachel Neumeier

1pm Sunday, Lilac BD: What Our Things Say About Us
If an alien invaded your room, what could it tell from your stuff? What do our things reveal about their owners? Can anyone tell? See what our panelists think.
With Roland J. Green, Rachel Neumeier, and Jody Lynn Nye

Hermit day

2009-11-10T10:30:00.003-05:00

Just got page proofs for Shade (yay! pretty fonts!) and still hammering away at the Bring on the Night rewrite (at least two days behind schedule), so today is an offline day.

Tomorrow I'll post my final schedule for Windycon, which starts this Friday. See you then!

Final Blogtoberfest winners!

2009-11-09T09:08:00.004-05:00

By the end of this blog post, there will be three happy people, one of them much happier than the others (if happiness can be measured in books, which I think it can).

The winner of a signed Advance Review Copy of Shade (the FIRST Advance Review Copy, I might add) is...Leah! Leah, I don't have a way to contact you, so please send your mailing address to me in the next week. The ARC will go out later this month as soon as it gets into my grubby little hands.

The winner of their choice of a signed copy of Rachel Vincent's My Soul to Take or My Soul to Save is...Belly!

AND NOW...

THE WINNER OF THE GRAND PRIZE...

WHICH IS...

A COPY OF ALL 25 BOOKS GIVEN AWAY DURING BLOGTOBERFEST...

WHICH IS...

A REALLY COOL PRIZE...

IS...

First of all, I'd like to take a moment to thank all the--just kidding! The winner is emmad. Please send me your mailing address within the next week so I can put in the order for all those sweet books!

OK, now I'll take a moment to once again thank all the participants who were so generous with their time and books. Some of them didn't even know me personally, but they were willing to help make this a great party. I know from experience that writing a good guest blog post can take several hours and sometimes a considerable amount of hair-pulling when the first few drafts come out lame. Or maybe that's just me.

And thanks to everyone who came to the party! I hope many of you will stick around and see what kind of stuff I babble about on a daily basis. Mostly books, often food or music, and sometimes cats and dogs.

Have a great week, and congrats again to all the winners!

Winner of TEMPTED and speaking of beautiful books

2009-11-06T08:03:00.005-05:00

The winner of a signed copy of PC Cast and Kristin Cast's TEMPTED is...Patti! Congrats!

Thanks to everyone who commented, and a special thanks to PC who popped it during her whirlwind book tour to say hi.

We have two more Blogtoberfest contests still open:

Jeri Smith-Ready and an ARC of Shade
Rachel Vincent and My Soul to Take or My Soul to Save (winner's choice)

I'll announce the final two regular prize winners on Monday, along with the super-mega-jackapotamus grand prize winner.

My own copy of Tempted arrived the other day, along with Scott Westerfeld's new YA steampunk novel, Leviathan. They're both deliciously gorgeous, inside and out. Tempted's book jacket has beautiful artwork on the inside--which I'd never seen before her last book, Hunted--as well as artwork on the hardcover face itself (under the jacket)--which I haven't seen since I was a kid.

Inside jacket art of Hunted:

Speaking of things I haven't seen since I was a kid, Leviathan has illustrations! I remember growing up, reaching the point where my chapter books had no pictures and feeling quite cheated. So I can't wait to dig into this one.

It's also a bit heavier than other books its size, and together with the illustrations and the metallic embossing of the cover art, the whole effect is classic, old-fashioned quality. Which makes sense, considering it's steampunk and meant to evoke an earlier age.

Here are a couple of fascinating interviews on Tor.com about the illustrations, one with Scott Westerfeld and one with artist Keith Thompson. There's also a blog about the gorgeous Grand Map, which is printed inside the front and back covers.

The problem is, I can't take these books traveling with me, and November is full of travels (yes, during a rewrite--madness, I tell you!). Not only do hardcovers provide extra weight, but their beauty could get marred.

I learned this lesson the hard way. I once loaned my hardcover of one of my favorite books, Michael Chabon's Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, to someone who took it with them every day on the subway. It got some ugly damage, and what's worse, the person didn't even like the book! (It later won the Pulitzer, so there.)

Luckily, I have a couple dozen mass market paperbacks I haven't read yet, in a pile so high I literally can't reach the top to add another. And with paperbacks, I actually prefer them a little worn out--it shows I've loved them well.

Do you treat your books differently based on the format? Coddle your hardcovers and abuse your paperbacks? If a hardcover book has particularly amazing artwork, are you more likely to buy it rather than waiting for the cheaper paperback, or do you base that decisions solely on the book itself and how much you need it now Now NOW?

Whatever your preferred form of book, be it hard or soft or electronic, I hope you have a happy weekend of reading!

Winner of THE EX-GAMES and the rundown on rewrites

2009-11-05T13:14:00.005-05:00

The winner of Jennifer Echols's The Ex-Games is...van_pham!

There are still three remaining open Blogtoberfest contests, to win signed copies of:

PC Cast and Tempted (for a few more hours!)
Jeri Smith-Ready and an ARC of Shade
Rachel Vincent and My Soul to Take or My Soul to Save (winner's choice)

* * * *

As I mentioned earlier this week, I've started rewriting the third book in the vampire series, Bring on the Night, due November 30.

Okay, it's technically due December 7, BUT if I don't begin writing Book 4 on December 1, the entire house of cards that is my upcoming deadline schedule starts to collapse. Don't believe me? Here it is:

December-January: write rough draft of WVMP #4 (tentatively titled Lust for Life)
February: finish rough draft of Shift (the sequel to Shade)
March: write second draft of Lust for Life, due April 1
April-May: write second draft of Shift, due June 1 (oh, and launch a brand new series with a whole new audience, which will involve a lot of travel and interviews and guest blogs and the usual utterly delicious craziness)

So. November 30 it is.

Which makes explaining my rewrite process very neat, because it involves four separate stages:

Week One - Analysis/Planning

Goal: Figure out what's wrong with the book and how to make it right

Tools:

-Hard copy of manuscript
-Pen (color irrelevant)
-Books on making novels kick ass, including Writing the Breakout Novel and Fire in Fiction by Donald Maass, and Plot and Structure by James Scott Bell
-Loads o' pondering time.

NOTE: pondering can often bear an eerie resemblance to one of the following:
1) walking the dog
2) showering
3) staring into space
4) napping

Week Two - The Rewrite
Goal: Fix big issues, like:

-subplot makes no sense
-other subplot makes no sense
-my editor, my beta readers, and I all hate one of the main characters with the venom of a 1,001 vipers

While all three applied to an early version of Bad to the Bone (buy me a drink one day and I'll tell you about Gwendolyn Huff the half-pookha *shakes head with disgust*), none of these is the case with Bring on the Night.

So I can relax next week, right? Wing off to Windycon for a long weekend of hobnobbing and poker-playing?

No, because as solid as the story is, it could still be better. It could be bigger. The villain could be much less mustache-twirly (not saying the villain has a mustache, regardless of gender) and actually feel deep conflict over his or her dastardly deeds.

Good enough is never good enough. I repeat, with bold italic fancy-fonted spectacle, GOOD ENOUGH IS NEVER GOOD ENOUGH. (OK, I don't actually have any fancy fonts for this blog.)

Tools:

- Marked-up manuscript
- Notebook full of unorganized blatherings, pages dog-eared until I've entered the scribbles into a file with some semblance of order
- Laptop disconnected from internet
- Coffee

Notice that showers are not mentioned here.

Week 3 - Revisions
Goal: Picking up the pieces

The previous week, many new scenes were written and many old scenes were cut. So Week 3 begins with a read-through to see if it all hangs together. Usually there are some rough transitions that need to be smoothed out, or I'll wake up in the middle of the night realizing that a really important question was raised in Chapter 24, and then the characters just sort of...forgot about it.

Tools:
-same as rewrite, but with more coffee

Also note lack of showers.

Week 4 - Final polish
Goal: make the prose shine, so that every sentence skewers the reader's eyeball and bursts inside their brain with the brilliance of a six-pack of supernovae

Tools:
-highlighters in the following colors: blue, yellow, green, pink
-red rollerball pen
-part of brain that if unleashed every day would have me medicated for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

What's with all the different colors? I once took an online workshop with author/trainer/psychologist Margie Lawson called Deep Editing. Part of the process is to break down the different elements of one's writing: dialogue, actions, description, interior thoughts, and visceral gut feelings. Each one gets its own color, so you can look at a page at a glance and figure out what's missing. (You can also work on each element separately--I do this especially with actions, which tend to be repetitive in early drafts.)

Margie thinks my class work paid off, because she used a few samples from Wicked Game to illustrate some Deep Edits principles. To me, there was no greater compliment.

So that's what I'll be doing the week of Thanksgiving. I'll probably have to shower at some point for the holiday.

Whew! There you have it. Of course, this is just how I work. Others I'm sure do it differently, and there's no right or wrong way. But I like to learn about other people's processes (unless they're really quick and easy, and then I just want to maim them), because I can often find new tips and tricks within.

I should also note that usually Stages One and Two take much longer than a week, but usually (as in every book since Voice of Crow in early 2006) the story is a complete mess.

Not this time. I have no idea why. Maybe it was because I've been thinking about this book, the central piece in the WVMP Radio series, since the first day I started writing what became Wicked Game. Maybe it was because I spent a full month outlining Bring on the Night and Lust for Life for the proposal to my publisher. I'll have to ponder the reasons why at some point.

But first, I must ponder the book itself! Off to stare into space, maybe eat some pistachios.

----------------
Now playing: Noah and the Whale - 2 Bodies 1 Heart

Winner of CAPTIVATE and a blog about blogging

2009-11-04T20:40:00.006-05:00

The winner of a signed Advance Review Copy of Carrie Jones's Captivate is...Bella! Bella, please send your mailing address to jeri AT jerismithready DOT com within the next week.

Remaining open Blogtoberfest contests:

Jennifer Echols and The Ex-Games (for the next few hours only!)
PC Cast and Tempted
Jeri Smith-Ready and an ARC of Shade
Rachel Vincent and My Soul to Take or My Soul to Save (winner's choice)

I really loved doing the Blogtoberfest. It reminded me how much I enjoy daily babbling--I mean, blogging. It's a great way to connect with other people using more than 140 characters (a la Twitter). Assuming I can still communicate using more than 140 characters.

So my plan going forward is to blog more often. Hopefully every weekday, although probably not as much over the holidays and near deadlines (which this month is the same thing--fun for the whole family!).

To help me keep up the habit, the blog posts won't always be long (remember, I've lost stamina due to Twitter), and they will no longer be copied and pasted to LiveJournal and MySpace (if you're reading this here, you're obviously cool with that part). And unlike during Blogtoberfest, they won't always involve free stuff (unless you count words, which hey, aren't always free, right?).

But the posts will always, always, ALWAYS include at least two parentheses (if a set of parentheses counts as two, and probably even if it doesn't).

And they will often include random crap that cracks me up, like this video (hat tip to Curtis Brown agent Nathan Bransford:

See you back here tomorrow, when I talk about my typical rewriting process and how I'm applying it to Bring on the Night!

----------------
Now playing: Dave Sasscer - Quiet Mind

Winner of BoS & and an auction for "marked up" WICKED GAME

2009-11-03T09:17:00.005-05:00

The lucky winner of a signed copy of Stephanie Kuehnert's BALLADS OF SUBURBIA is...tetewa! tetewa, please send your mailing address to me at jeri AT jerismithready DOT com in the next week. As always, only I and the author sending the prize will see the address.

Thanks to everyone who commented--now go read this fabulous book! :-)

Remaining open Blogtoberfest contests:

Carrie Jones and an ARC of Captivate
Jennifer Echols and The Ex-Games
PC Cast and Tempted
Jeri Smith-Ready and an ARC of Shade
Rachel Vincent and My Soul to Take or My Soul to Save (winner's choice)

There's a very exciting series of online charity auctions going on now through the end of December at Leave a Mark, and this week's offering is the first in my WVMP series, Wicked Game.

"Leave a Mark" is a unique opportunity to see behind the scenes of a book. Authors mark up their books with little tidbits about the scenes, what was on their mind when they wrote it, maybe how it changed from the original version. Think of it as a written "director's commentary."

All the proceeds of Leave a Mark go to First Book, an organization that provides new books to needy children. Kudos to Lauren and Chelsea, the book bloggers who set this up!

In the Wicked Game markup, you can find out things like:

which scene I wrote while obsessively listening to the Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me soundtrack
which real-life bully the character of Jolene was based on
which scene, as originally written, set off my editor's "cheese-o-meter"

Bids will run until Sunday night.

Wicked Game was drastically reworked between submission and publication, so I might tuck a deleted scene or two into the book. Maybe even the one with Shane and Ciara in a supply closet. *whistles innocently*

Because my handwriting is so bad, the marks will probably be typed on labels stuck to Post-It notes on each page, with page numbers on each note in case they fall out. I'll also throw in an extra, non-marked up copy if you want to read the "theatrical version" first.

Bottom line: you can't get this anywhere else. If you're the least bit interested in how an author writes a book, you should check out these auctions. If you remember what it was like as a kid to have your very own books you could read again and again and again, you should definitely check out these auctions and help a worthy cause.

----------------
Now playing: Cake - Open Book
via FoxyTunes

Winner of BALLAD and a chance to win a Kindle

2009-11-02T09:01:00.004-05:00

The winner of Maggie Stiefvater's Ballad is...Sylvia! Congrats!

There are still six open Blogtoberfest contests, so check them out:

Stephanie Kuehnert and Ballads of Suburbia
Carrie Jones and an ARC of Captivate
Jennifer Echols and The Ex-Games
PC Cast and Tempted
Jeri Smith-Ready and an ARC of Shade
Rachel Vincent and My Soul to Take or My Soul to Save (winner's choice)

Speaking of giveaways, the Fangs Fur and Fey urban fantasy community (of which I am a member) just celebrated its three-year Blog-iversary. To share the joy, we're giving away $700 worth of prizes, including twenty-two $20 gift cards to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders, Books-A-Million, or Powell's (winner's choice).

The grand prize is a Kindle reader (retail value $259)!

So go visit Fangs Fur & Fey to find out how to win. It's almost criminally easy to do. Deadline is November 13.

And speaking of FFF, I'm doing my usual Monday Topic of the Week today, and this week's topic is the Grim Reaper. Only not-so-Grim, not-so-Reapy sometimes.

Off to start the rewrite for Bring on the Night. I'm sad to leave the YA books behind for a few months, but dying to get me some Ciara and Shane action again!

----------------
Now playing: Snow Patrol - How to Be Dead

Blogtoberfest Day 25 - Rachel Vincent

2009-10-31T08:00:00.004-04:00

Happy Halloween, everyone! I can't believe Blogtoberfest has come to an end. I hope you've had as much fun as I've had reading all the entries and comments. We've had such a great variety of posts, thanks to the imaginative authors.

The drawings will continue throughout the week, which means you can still enter all the open contests. I'll announce the winners at the beginning of each day's blog post.

The final drawing for the super-ultimo-grand prize will be Saturday, November 7, 11:59pm, and the winner will be announced in a blog post on Monday, November 9.

Speaking of drawings, the winner of a signed copy of Simone Elkeles's Perfect Chemistry is...HeatherMarie!

Our final Blogtoberguest is New York Times-bestselling author Rachel Vincent, who writes two of my favorite series, the Shifters adult urban fantasy, and the Soul Screamers young adult series. Her heroines are strong, but so easy to relate to, they feel like the younger sisters I never had (Mom, if you're reading this, it's okay--I never wanted a real little sister).

I'm thrilled Rachel was able to join us this month and share her funniest/saddest/scariest Halloween moment, depending how you look at it:

* * * *

I don’t have a lot of luck with Halloween. Don’t get me wrong, I love it. It’s one of my favorite holidays. But my track record so far is less than stunning, and the memory that sticks out the most is this:

I started wearing glasses when I was in second grade, when the teacher noticed me squinting. It turned out that I wasn’t just a little bit nearsighted. I was practically blind and badly astigmatic. In fact, the eye doctor told my mother that I’d probably have to have eye surgery before I finished high school. Fortunately, that turned out to be unnecessary. But the glasses did not. By junior high, I couldn’t see to put on makeup without my glasses unless I was literally three inches from the mirror.

What does this have to do with Halloween? My glasses (with lenses so thick the edges had to be shaved to make them fit the frames) meant that all masks were out, and face paint never looked right. Ever. And my mother was a bit of an artist, so both my sisters and my step-brothers always had awesome face paint.

The year I was ten (I think), I decided I’d had enough of the glasses. I could go without them for a couple of hours. So my mother painted my face (Oddly enough, I can’t remember what my costume was. That may have been the year I was a hobo clown.), and I squinted into the mirror, trying to make some sense out of the bright colors. Then she drove all five of us to the nearest big subdivision.

Every year, we would walk from house to house, and my mom would follow in her van. That year, she gave my middle sister (we’ll call her B) specific instructions to look out for me. I couldn’t see the ground, so steps and yard decorations were perils I’d never even notice until it was too late.

For the first few houses, B was a loyal aid to the nearly-blind. But then she made a particularly big haul and got excited. And left me. I tried to follow, but other kids got in my way, and I couldn’t tell who I was following anymore. They were all dark blurs.

Then, I took one wrong step and landed face first in a ditch. Seriously. A wet ditch. In my costume. I came up dripping and covered in leaves, and half of my candy was soaked. My mom couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry with me.

I wasn’t mad—for long, anyway. My sister was barely nine years old, and candy can have a profound influence on a third grader. But I’ve never let her live it down, either. ;-)

* * * *

To enter to win a signed copy of My Soul to Take or My Soul to Save (winner's choice), leave a comment below. And remember, each comment automatically enters you in the drawing for the grand prize package: all 25 books!

For complete rules, read the introductory post.

Deadline for entry: Saturday, November 7, 11:59pm Eastern. NOTE: THIS CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED. The winner is Belly!

Other open contests:

Maggie Stiefvater and Ballad
Stephanie Kuehnert and Ballads of Suburbia
Carrie Jones and an ARC of Captivate
Jennifer Echols and The Ex-Games
PC Cast and Tempted
Jeri Smith-Ready and an ARC of Shade

Thanks to Rachel for being our grand finale, and thanks to everyone, both authors and readers, who have made this such a fun blog-iversary!

Blogtoberfest Day 24 - Jeri Smith-Ready

2009-10-30T07:30:00.003-04:00

The winner of Tricia Mills's Heartbreak River is...ddurance! Deirdre, I don't have a way to reach you, so please send your mailing address to jeri AT jerismithready DOT com in the next week. Congrats!

Today's Blogtoberguest is, uh, me. I scheduled myself toward the end of the month because:

a) I'm a procrastinator.
b) I hoped by this point I'd have cover art for Shade.

As you can see, I have cover art! It's not final--they'll add a tagline and a cover quote--but this is the basic image. If you want to see Aura's face, check out the full wrap-around hardcover jacket near the end of this post. I love all my covers, but I am rabidly excited about this one. Aura looks like Aura and everything!

I'm still waiting for a trailer and back-cover copy, so I'll tell you about Shade in my own, non-marketing-professional words:

16-year-old Aura can see ghosts. Then again, so can everyone around the world who was born after her. In fact, they have a word for the moment of her birth: the Shift. Aura suspects that the Shift might be connected to her missing mystery dad and an event that happened at Newgrange tomb in Ireland a year before her birth.

Ghosts can be annoying at their best. At their worst, as dark, powerful "shades," they can be deadly. So Aura's major goal in life is to undo the Shift and make the ghosts go away.

And then, her boyfriend dies and becomes a ghost.

Release date: May 18, 2010, from Simon Pulse

So you'd think that because I write the spooky, I'd do a Halloween post. But Aura mentions in Shade that she and Logan went to Chiapparelli's before the Homecoming dance a few weeks before he died, so I decided to find out what happened on their last big date:

* * * *
SHADE prequel scene (not an excerpt from the book), in honor of Blogtoberfest

“I got us a ghost-free table,” Logan said. “At least, I hope I did.”

The hostess led us through the restaurant’s candlelit foyer, past the autographed photos of Frank Sinatra and Marlon Brando, into the brighter back room.

“If they're here, at least I won't be able to see them. Much.” I shivered as Logan peeled off my coat, his fingers brushing my bare shoulders and the wisps of dark brown hair cascading from my up-do.

He gave the gawking couple at the next table a muted version of his magnetic smile. They looked away with matching grimaces. Maybe they worried their two little boys would grow up to pierce their own brows, or dye their own hair bleached blond with black streaks.

As soon as the hostess left, Logan’s animated blue eyes peeped at me over the top of his menu. “Then again,” he said, “your dress could scare off every ghost in Baltimore.”

My face warmed—okay, not just my face. The way he looked at me brought up thoughts of Thursday and the thing we weren’t talking about.

As for the dress, I always wore a lot of red—ghosts hated the color—but never to any place important. No one born before me could see ghosts, including Logan, who was two months and three days older. So a red outfit was like a neon sign reading, “Hey, I’m only sixteen!” But when I saw the Faviana cocktail dress (new-with-tags) on eBay for $45.99, I knew it was destiny.

Red didn’t always deter ghosts. The only foolproof spirit stopper was the expensive BlackBox technology, where charged obsidian was built into the walls. Only the big chain restaurants could afford it, and we were not about to waste Homecoming night on a lame-ass piece of Generica.

Logan gave the menu a quick glance, then tossed it aside. “Penne vodka.”

“The alcohol burns off when they cook the sauce,” I told him.

After a brief pause, he said, “I knew that.” But he picked up the menu again.

When we ordered, the waiter nodded approvingly at my pronunciation of manicotti (mani-GOT, as taught by my Italian grandmom) and winced at Logan’s mangling of “Spaghetti Bolognese.”

“How was rehearsal today?” I asked Logan, before he could wonder out loud why the menu didn’t just say “Spaghetti and Meat Sauce.”

He brightened at the sound of his favorite topic. “It was awesome. Mickey and I worked out Siobhan’s fiddle part on ‘Ghost in Green.’ The transposition was a bitch, but by the next gig the song’ll be perfect.”

My gut tightened with sympathy nerves at the thought of their big show on Logan’s seventeenth birthday. “It’ll be perfect if Brian can stay sober.”

“Yeah. Pretty big if.” Logan stirred the ice in his soda glass. “I know I get pretty wasted sometimes, but I never let it affect the band.”

True. Unlike their drummer, Logan saved his binges for after the gigs.

He grew still as he focused on the bubbly brown depths of his soda. “So. About what happened Thursday.”

I looked down at my hands and fought the usual urge to pick at the ebony nail polish. “You mean what didn’t happen. I’m sorry I chickened out.”

“It’s not your fault. It’s my fault.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” I felt suddenly cold, so I wrapped my black pashmina shawl over my bare shoulders, covering the top of my dress.

“Aura—”

“Instead, let’s just try it again.” I dropped my voice to a whisper. “No, I mean—not try. Do.” Great, now I sounded like Yoda. “Tonight.”

“Aura, I’ve been thinking.” He set his elbows on the table and folded his hands together. “We’ve gotten really wrapped up in this do-we-or-don’t-we thing. Maybe we should take a break.”

A break? Icy fingers climbed the ladder of my rib cage. Is he ending us? On Homecoming night? We hadn't even gotten our appetizers.

“A break?” I choked out. “From each other?”

His eyes widened. “No! God, no. I meant take a break from thinking about sex.” He shifted his weight in the chair. “Okay, that’s not really possible for, like, two seconds in a row, but let’s stop obsessing about when and where. If it happens, it happens, and if not, that’s cool, too.”

I took as deep a breath as possible in the tight dress. “Really?”

“We’ll just put it away for a while.” He mimed opening a drawer and dropping something in. “We’ll have more fun together without all the pressure. Like we used to.” Logan closed the imaginary drawer.

“He’s lying,” said a voice behind me.

I turned to see the faint violet shimmer of a ghost, almost invisible under the recessed ceiling light. Her voice held a bitter, million-and-one-cigarettes edge.

“That boy’s not giving up on sex, hon,” she said. “He’s just giving up on sex with you.”

At the next table, the kid in the booster seat started to cry, his gaze fixed on the source of the voice. The baby in the high chair pointed and giggled, too young to know that ghosts were supposed to be scary (or at least annoying).

“He’ll find someone else,” the dead lady sneered. “With his looks—and did I hear right, he’s in a band?—it’ll take him about thirty seconds, if that.”

I clutched the edge of the table, refusing to react. Not that ignoring them made them go away or anything.

Logan looked at the kids, then at me. “There’s a ghost here?”

“Don’t worry about it,” I told him.

“You’re all pissed off. What’s it saying?”

“I said, don’t worry about it.”

He turned to the other table, where the mother was comforting the toddler. The father muttered, “So much for family-friendly dining. Karen, I told you we should’ve gone to the Cheesecake Factory.”

The ghost’s voice came close to my ear. “I bet he already has groupies.”

“Do you want to leave?” Logan asked.

“No,” I snapped. “This is my favorite restaurant. I’m not letting her chase me away.”

The ghost laughed. “He’ll go through those girls like a bag of potato chips. You know what they say, after all. You can’t eat just one.”

“Shut up!” I stood and whipped off my wrap, revealing the scarlet dress beneath. “Mind your own damn business!”

The ghost hissed as if she’d been burned. The little kid screamed louder, and the baby stopped giggling. Everyone else in the room just stared.

The dead woman slunk away, her slim, wispy form brightening in the shadows near the bar.

“I have no damn business,” she said in a forlorn voice. “No business at all.”

I smothered a pang of sympathy and sat down just as the waiter delivered our basket of fresh-baked bread. I reached for a slice.

“Hey.” Logan covered my hand with his. The warmth of the bread beneath my palm sent shivers up my arm. “What did it say to you?” he whispered.

I tried to tell him, tried to trust him. When he turned that gaze on me, I felt like we were the only two people in the world. But I knew that when he looked out into a screaming crowd, each person felt that same way.

Everyone said Logan would be a star before he turned eighteen. Not the kind of star I wanted to study in college—the kind that burned light-years away, glistening cold in the night sky. He’d be the kind that burned here, blazing in the eyes of those who would worship him. Who would come to possess him, piece by tiny piece, until there was nothing of him left for me.

I pulled out the bread loaf and tore off two slices. Handing one to Logan, I said, “She was in the wrong restaurant. She thought she was a walking fortune cookie.”

He took a pat of butter as I poured myself some olive oil. “You think the fortune’ll come true?” he asked.

I smiled at him around my bite of warm, soft bread, pretending my full mouth was what kept me from answering.

It'll never come true, I vowed. Not if I can help it.

* * * *

To enter to win a signed ARC of Shade (mailing in November), leave a comment below. And remember, each comment automatically enters you in the drawing for the grand prize package: all 25 books!

For complete rules, read the introductory post.

Deadline for entry: Friday, November 6, 11:59pm Eastern. NOTE: THIS CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED. The winner is Leah!

Other open contests:

Simone Elkeles and Perfect Chemistry
Maggie Stiefvater and Ballad
Stephanie Kuehnert and Ballads of Suburbia
Carrie Jones and an ARC of Captivate
Jennifer Echols and The Ex-Games
PC Cast and Tempted

If you're wondering, Aura's dress can be found, among other places, here (sadly, not the bargain she found on eBay). Or visit the designer's website for more drool-worthy dresses.

Come back tomorrow for our final guest, Rachel Vincent!

Blogtoberfest Day 23 - PC Cast

2009-10-29T08:00:00.005-04:00

The winner of Christine Marciniak's When Mike Kissed Emma is...yabooknerd! Congrats, and thanks to everyone who welcomed Christine's debut!

A real quick Grand Prize FAQ:

Q. Will the books in the uber-mega-califragilistic grand prize package be signed?
A. Nope, the books--all 25 of them, worth over $300--will come directly from Amazon, ordered by yours truly in one lump sale. Some authors (including me) offer signed bookplates you can stick in your copy of the book, but you'll have to contact them individually.

And when I say "you," I mean you. No, don't look over your shoulder. I'm talking to you. The winner. But you probably want to come back on November 9, just to be sure.

Q. What about books that aren't out yet, like the ones being given away as ARCs in the daily contests?
A. Good question! Those will be pre-ordered for you, which means that over the next six to eight months, you'll get surprises in the mail as each book is released. Sweet, huh?

Enough with the business--let's welcome today's Blogtoberguest, PC Cast! She's one of my all-time favorite authors, and also a dear friend (FWIW, we started loving each other's books--well, book, singular, in my case--long before we met). I've probably read more of her novels than those of any other writer, and I've read all five in her New York Times-bestselling House of Night series, which she writes with her daughter Kristin Cast. The sixth one, Tempted, is on its way to my house. *taps foot, glares at mailman*

Anyone who knows me well would say that's about four more books than I usually read in a series. Short attention span, I haz it.

Where was I? PC rocks. Here's the trailer for Tempted:

And now, the Babe herself, PC Cast!

* * * *

I love Halloween! Mostly because it’s the only nationally recognized holiday that’s for girls, or as I like to think of it, a girliday. I mean, come on – we get to dress up in costumes (girl stuff), we get to eat chocolate. Lots of chocolate (again, a girl candy). And we get to party while we costume and eat chocolate and basically debouch until the wee hours of the morning.

Waaaaiiiitttt…maybe I am a vampyre…

Soooo, my favorite Halloween was not long ago. One of my girlfriends had an amazing house in a part of Tulsa called Reservoir Hills. Her place was super cool – a white stucco 1920’s movie star mansion complete with koi pond and an amazing balcony. Well, she had a par-tay. Which means the entire neighborhood, made up of an eclectic group of equally cool houses/people, went full out. They made graveyards in their front yards – strung lights everywhere – hired zombies to prowl – got a dry ice/fog machine. I swear you couldn’t walk a yard without getting totally stickied by one of those giant fake spiderweb thingies. Everyone dressed up, from the kids to the cats. There was food and music and dancing in the streets.

But you know what was coolest about it (outside of my excellent vamp costume)? It was the coming together of the entire neighborhood to make it a great time. I love that when it happens, and I also love that Halloween still brings kids and their (sometimes badly) dressed up parents out to go from door to door trick or treating.

So this Halloween how about starting an annual block party? Better yet – theme it! Make it a House of Night Party! If you do I wish you lovely tattoos, a brilliant moon, and the blessings of Nyx.

Oh, and on October 30th, if you’re in the San Francisco area come by and see Kristin and me for our Halloween tour party at Books Inc., 855 El Camino Real #74, Palo Alto, CA 94304, 7:00pm. Yes! Costumes are always encouraged!

XXXOOO
PC Cast

* * * *

To enter to win a signed copy of Tempted, leave a comment below. And remember, each comment automatically enters you in the drawing for the grand prize package: all 25 books!

For complete rules, read the introductory post.

Deadline for entry: Thursday, November 5, 11:59pm Eastern. NOTE: THIS CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED. The winner is Patti!

Other open contests:

Tricia Mills and Heartbreak River
Simone Elkeles and Perfect Chemistry
Maggie Stiefvater and Ballad
Stephanie Kuehnert and Ballads of Suburbia
Carrie Jones and an ARC of Captivate
Jennifer Echols and The Ex-Games

Thanks again to PC for taking time out of her busy book touring schedule to pay us a visit! Mmmm-wahh!!

Blogtoberfest Day 22 - Jennifer Echols

2009-10-28T08:00:00.002-04:00

The winner of Sydney Salter's My Big Nose and Other Natural Disasters is...Sheila Deeth! If you've been paying attention, you might be thinking, heyyyyyy, Sheila already won another book. But I never stated in the rules that someone couldn't win twice. Random is random. One time at Atlantic City I saw a roulette wheel that had come up Number 5 four times in a row! This is much less weird than that.

Lesson learned, as they say in the military? You can (and should!) come back every day, especially since each time you comment, you're automatically entered into the humongo-jackpot-sweetness grand prize: a copy of every single YA book being given away this month. So come on back, now, y'hear?

Today's Blogtoberguest is Jennifer Echols, whose July 2009 release, Going Too Far, I just finished reading. It was phenomenal, one of the most emotionally honest books I've read in a long time. It made me think a lot about my own teenage years and why I did the things I did. (I don't have as good an excuse for my misbehavior as Jenn's protagonist, because real life just isn't as well justified as fiction. That's my story, and I'm stickin' to it. *whistles innocently*).

And I just read today that MTV Books and our brilliant mutual editor Jennifer Heddle has bought two more Echols romantic dramas, including July 2010's Forget You. Congrats, Jenn! (Both Jen(n)s, actually.)

Today Jennifer (Echols) is giving away a signed copy of her latest romantic comedy from Simon Pulse, The Ex-Games. But first, she wants to tell you about her not-so-little nekkid friend.

* * * *

Home Butt Heartsick

In 2000 I stopped writing. The rejections for manuscript #7 felt particularly harsh because I was pregnant and hormonal, and I just couldn’t do it for a while.

In 2001 my husband and I bought an older house in Birmingham, put our sweat and love into restoring every inch of it, and had the baby. We loved our neighborhood and our city, and we were thrilled to start our little family here. And then my husband got laid off.

In 2002 we moved to Atlanta, where he found another job. I was born in Atlanta and I’d spent some time there since. Certain parts of the city are great. Unfortunately, we were not living in the cool part. We were living in the burgeoning suburban hell part, where the houses are made of plastic and your neighbors move out every six months. My husband managed the night shift at a factory and slept during the day. So it was mostly me and the toddler and his temper tantrums, trying to be quiet so as not to wake the husband, alone, with no family or friends for support, in vinyl siding wasteland.

In 2003 I began writing again. The hormones had subsided and the self-doubt along with them. I wrote manuscript #8 and sent that out.

In 2004, I started manuscript #9. The Dixie Chicks’ CDs were being burned because they’d expressed a dissenting opinion against President Bush, and Tim McGraw had just gotten arrested for stealing a horse. Those events inspired Your Cheatin’ Heart, an adult romantic comedy about a wildly popular country band, The Cheatin’ Hearts, and the record company marketing expert sent down from New York to tame their public relations disaster of a lead singer--who turns out to be a lot smarter and savvier than he lets on. Briefly I thought about setting this book in a place I love, Key West. But I knew I’d hit on the right idea when I set it back in Birmingham.

At the climax of the book, the Cheatin’ Hearts play a Nationally Televised Holiday Concert Event on the Fourth of July at the base of the statue of Vulcan, an enormous iron statue that presides over downtown. Birmingham originated as a steel town, and Vulcan is the Roman god of the forge. That’s all fitting and proper...except that this version of Vulcan is wearing a smithy apron that does not wrap all the way around him. From downtown you see him in his smithy apron. From the back you see his naked booty mooning one of the most conservative states in the nation. Is it just me or is this hilarious? Somebody should write a romantic comedy about that! So I did. The whole book is a love letter to the quirky town I was homesick for.

In 2005, we moved back to Birmingham--thank goodness! Your Cheatin’ Heart never sold, but it did get me an agent, and that agent sold my first published novel, Major Crush, later that year. My road to publication was long and hard, and I never, ever take my success for granted. But it’s hard to let go of what might have been, and of all my unsold manuscripts, Your Cheatin’ Heart is the one I lament. I still think it’s my best work.

It’s on my mind today because I just took my son (now 8 years old and lovely with no temper tantrums in sight) to a concert at the base of the statue of Vulcan. I’m a huge Nickel Creek fan, and the chick from that band, Sara Watkins, has a new solo album out. I thoroughly enjoyed her performance and the beautiful fall afternoon, but it did begin to feel bittersweet when the band members exchanged comments all but ripped from my poor dead novel:

Bass player: You probably get asked this a lot by people who aren’t from Birmingham, but is that god wearing pants?

Crowd: Noooooooo!

Sara Watkins: If you were a god, would you wear pants?

* * * *

To enter to win a signed copy of The Ex-Games, leave a comment below. And remember, each comment automatically enters you in the drawing for the grand prize package: all 25 books!

For complete rules, read the introductory post.

Deadline for entry: Wednesday, November 4, 11:59pm Eastern. NOTE: THIS CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED. The winner is van_pham!

Christine Marciniak and When Mike Kissed Emma
Tricia Mills and Heartbreak River
Simone Elkeles and Perfect Chemistry
Maggie Stiefvater and Ballad
Stephanie Kuehnert and Ballads of Suburbia
Carrie Jones and an ARC of Captivate

Thanks again to Jenn for sharing her personal story of coming home. I hope one day we all get to read Your Cheatin' Heart!

Blogtoberfest Day 21 - Carrie Jones

2009-10-27T09:00:00.004-04:00

The winner of Melissa Walker's Lovestruck Summer is...Marie Carlson!

Apologies for the slight schedule change, but Sunday found us at the vet ER with a sick Misha cat (he is home and doing well, don't worry!), so I didn't have time to post Rachel Vincent's blog at a decent hour. Rachel has graciously agreed to do her guest blog this coming Saturday instead, so she'll be closing out our Blogtoberfest.

I can't believe it's almost over! But there are still six open drawings, plus five more to come, including Jennifer Echols (tomorrow), PC Cast (Thursday), me (Friday) and Rachel on Saturday. And then--AND THEN, the grand prize, featuring over $300 worth of YA novels (i.e., the books the authors are giving away).

But first! Today's Blogtoberguest is Carrie Jones, author of several YA books, including 2008's Need (which I shamelessly gushed over last year when I interviewed Carrie). The sequel, Captivate, will be coming out in January 2010. She'll be giving away an Advance Review Copy of Captivate right here.

Carrie recently announced that her publisher has bought two more books in this series. Hooray for pixies! No, wait, pixies are evil. But hooray for books about pixies!

Carrie starts off her post from the point of view of Zara, the heroine of Need and Captivate:

* * * *

TOP TEN REASONS TO GO TRICK OR TREATING WITH A WEREWOLF

1. Canines aren’t supposed to eat chocolate, so you get all the treats.

2. If you get lost in the woods you don’t have to worry about the Big Bad Wolf coming because you are already with the sexy, hot wolf.

3. He wags his tail in both human and wolf form.

4. He doesn’t mind if you wag your tail either.

5. He runs around naked.

6. He isn’t afraid to howl.

7. Did I mention the whole dogs/wolves-no-chocolate thing?

8. He’s really good at begging at the door.

9. He doesn’t mind if you drool, because let’s face it: he drools too.

10. Body heat.

* * * *

And now a bit from Carrie herself...

* * * *

HORRIBLE HALLOWEEN SOB STORY FROM CARRIE’S PAST

I grew up in Bedford, NH. I was the poor kid. This was really super obvious on Halloween. Actually, it was super obvious all year because people would always be like, “Do you live in that creepy brown house on the hill?”

And I was too stupid to lie so I’d always go, “Um….yes.”

Everyone else had clothes from The Gap. Everyone else had cable. Everyone else had a computer. I had a word processor. I had no cable for a really long time. I had clothes from Kmart and eventually the thrift store, because I could at least be sort of cool if I shopped there because it seemed like a choice, you know?

So, I was the quiet girl with the K-Mart clothes with the creepy brown ranch house in a town of colonial houses in cute subdivisions. OH! And my dad was a truck driver. Everyone else’s dad worked for Digital or designed space shuttle parts for NASA.

Anways, I wanted to LOVE Halloween. I wanted to have one of those awesome frilly costumes. I wanted to be a princess or a fairy or a deck of cards or something cool. But, my mom who is awesome is not very crafty. She doesn’t know how to work a glue gun. And we were poor.

So every year I was the same thing.

This thing was not a fairy princess.

This thing was not a deck of cards.

This thing was not a cat or a pumpkin or a sexy she-devil.

This thing was a private investigator. Year after year I would wear my mom’s trench coat and my dad’s dorky brown hat with the feather in it and be a private investigator. And every year nobody knew what I was. Don’t get me wrong. People would guess….

You’re a person on a rainy day….

You’re a teacher….

You’re someone in a trench coat…

But my favorite guess? Yeah, that one was golden. It was announced by Scott Quinn during our school’s Halloween parade where each class would do a circuit around the perimeter of the gym and the other classes would watch.

What did Scott Quinn yell?

You’re a flasher! Carrie’s a flasher!

Yeah. It scared me. Just a bit.

* * * *

To enter to win a signed ARC of Captivate, leave a comment below. And remember, each comment automatically enters you in the drawing for the grand prize package: all 25 books!

For complete rules, read the introductory post.

Deadline for entry: Tuesday, November 3, 11:59pm Eastern. NOTE: THIS CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED. The winner is Bella!

Sydney Salter and My Big Nose and Other Natural Disasters
Christine Marciniak and When Mike Kissed Emma
Tricia Mills and Heartbreak River
Simone Elkeles and Perfect Chemistry
Maggie Stiefvater and Ballad
Stephanie Kuehnert and Ballads of Suburbia (believe it or not, I didn't intentionally book these two similarly-titled-but-way-different novels back-to-back--just got lucky)

Thanks so much to Carrie for reminding us why we adore her!

Blogtoberfest Day 20 - Stephanie Kuehnert

2009-10-26T00:01:00.004-04:00

Today's Blogtoberguest is Stephanie Kuehnert, who (whom?) you know I adore. You can read my thoughts on her first novel, I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone, and my unworthy blatherings on her latest brilliant work, Ballads of Suburbia, which she'll be giving away today.

Since I've already said so much about how much I love Steph's books, I'm going to hop aside and let her do the talking instead of hogging up the bandwidth like I usually do.

* * * *

Halloween, Homecoming, Ballads of Suburbia & Me

My book Ballads of Suburbia could be like a Halloween costume for my own teenage years. It’s not autobiographical, but it is set in the town I grew up in during the time I grew up and in a way I took my own feelings and struggles and blew them up into a story. Jeri asked me a bunch of different questions about Halloween and Homecoming and the experiences that I had and the characters from Ballads of Suburbia had. One of the most poignant ones she asked was “For some, Halloween is an opportunity to safely tame their fears, using imagination to turn the dark side of life into something manageable and maybe even fun. Does writing fiction serve that same purpose for you? What monsters has BALLADS OF SUBURBIA allowed you to tame?”

And the short answer is yes. Fiction is catharsis. Fiction is dressing up and exploring some of the issues I faced and seeing how things would have been different if I’d made different decisions or done different things. I was an angry, lonely, and depressed teenage girl. I went through a lot to try to figure myself out. But I don’t know if I really did until ten years later, when I started to tell Kara’s story. In getting to know Kara, I came to understand myself. So in honor of Jeri’s fabulous Blogtoberfest (and thank you, Jeri, for inviting me to take part and share your blog with all these fabulous writers!), here’s a reflection about Homecoming and Halloween that should tell you a little bit about the teenager I was and my character Kara and her story, BALLADS OF SUBURBIA.

I never went to homecoming. I wasn’t that kind of girl. Freshman year, I thought about it a little bit. There was still a tug of war inside of me between “be the girl that fits” and “be the girl I am.” There was a pep rally during the last period of school the day before homecoming. It was required. I was still being good so I went. And the next day, my best friend at the time convinced me we should walk by the big game just, you know, in case people we knew were there. In case it was, like, a place to be seen. I didn’t like football, never have, so I didn’t want to stay and watch. Most of the girls we knew weren’t there because they were getting ready for the dance. We didn’t have dates. We still had crushes on the guys we liked in junior high. We’d been too shy to ask them to the 8th grade dance and we were still too shy. And the guy I liked, now he was dating a new friend of mine. She was on drill team, which means basically she was a cheerleader. But she was a cheerleader who wore Doc Martens and introduced me to PJ Harvey and she was the girl I smoked pot with for the first time. And I never told her that I’d been totally in love with her boyfriend for like a year. I just let her have him. They went to homecoming together. I stayed home and probably watched MTV. Yeah, Kara does a lot of that her freshman year of high school too.

The only high school dance I went to was a Morp. Yeah, that’s prom spelled backwards. Real creative folks at my alma mater, huh? *rolls eyes* We had morps a couple times per semester. They were supposed to be casual proms. Again my best friend and I went because we thought we were supposed to in order to fit in or something. We went to the first one of the year our freshman year. It got so rowdy that the school cancelled the next one. It seemed like everyone was high or drunk. It was the nineties, grunge had suddenly broken. So instead of like our eighth grade dance where it was all slow jams, Boys II Men and that sort of thing, there was Nirvana and people were moshing. It was kind of cool except that music was ours and there were the jocks and the bitchy girls that made fun of us moshing, stealing our scene. And the whole thing was so crazed and crowded.

But there was a moment which I stole for Ballads of Suburbia where my friend and I were hiding out in a corner, kind of overwhelmed by the insanity and this strange boy came up to us and grabbed my friend’s crystal necklace. He held it up between their faces and shouted, “Penial Augmentation!” Then he ran off and we were left laughing, going what the hell was that?

That was the highlight of my night, but mostly I just felt sick to my stomach, hating the crowd at the Morp, hating the feeling that I didn’t fit anywhere. Much like Kara.

And like Kara, my life changed sophomore year when I finally found my place: Scoville Park and I slowly became more confortable with who I was and I didn’t try to force myself to fit into some sort of high school mold. I ditched the pep assemblies and smoked cigarettes or pot in the park or someone’s garage. I didn’t even think about dances because none of my friends were going so it didn’t matter.

Senior year, instead of prom or morp or homecoming or king of hearts, we decided to have our own dance right in Scoville Park. My guy friends got all dressed up in thrift store tuxs or leather jackets with tuxedo tees and the girls wore their favorite dresses. We brought a boombox and blasted ska and punk songs, we slamdanced and skanked. We laughed and smoked cigarettes and swigged booze out of paper bags and hidden flasks. Eventually the cops came and kicked us out of the park, so we went to Jedi’s Garden, one of our favorite diners. We almost blended in with our post-homecoming peers except we had much better outfits.

That’s the only kind of homecoming I could see Kara attending, one right there in Scoville Park wearing a vintage dress, fishnets, and combat boots like I did. I kind of wish I’d thought of this memory earlier because I would have stolen it for the book.

But there is a Halloween scene in Ballads of Suburbia. There are Halloween scenes in both of my books because Halloween is definitely my thing, big time. I think I dress up my teenage characters because I neglected Halloween myself as a teen. As much as I loved it, I only remember dressing up for it my junior year because a couple of my friend had French foreign exchange students staying with them and they’d never been trick or treating. So we all came up with last minute costumes and took them. (And we found out that the people of Oak Park were not very keen on teenagers trick or treating.) I went as Sid Vicious’s infamous girlfriend Nancy Spungen, partially because all I needed was a blond wig, I already had plenty of clothes like Nancy’s and partially because everyone had me pegged as her. I was the crazy, self-destructive punk girl. There were rumors that my ex boyfriend and I were junkies. So that night I played the part I’d been assigned. It’s hard to explain it, but it was a release in a way, being this extreme version of me.

In Ballads, Kara dresses up as a punk rock Cinderella and I think that reflected who she wanted to be in a lot of ways. She wanted to be herself with her blue hair and crazy thrift store dresses, but she also wanted to find her Prince Charming. And who would it be, Christian or Adrian? Both of whom were too cool to dress up of course. But like a lot of teenagers both of them are hiding their true selves behind a tough facade. It’s like every day is Halloween in high school. Playing dress up, playing cool, trying to figure out what’s real, what’s fake, and who the hell you really are. That is basically what Ballads is about.

Wanna find out more? Enter to win the book!

* * * *

To enter to win a signed copy of Ballads of Suburbia, leave a comment below. And remember, each comment automatically enters you in the drawing for the grand prize package: all 25 books!

For complete rules, read the introductory post.

Deadline for entry: Monday, November 2, 11:59pm Eastern. NOTE: THIS CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED. The winner is tetewa!

Melissa Walker and Lovestruck Summer
Sydney Salter and My Big Nose and Other Natural Disasters
Christine Marciniak and When Mike Kissed Emma
Tricia Mills and Heartbreak River
Simone Elkeles and Perfect Chemistry
Maggie Stiefvater and Ballad

Thanks so much to Stephanie for sharing her always insightful and inspiring thoughts!

Blogtoberfest Day 19 - Maggie Stiefvater

2009-10-24T08:59:00.006-04:00

The winner of the ARC of OF ALL THE STUPID THINGS by Alexandra Diaz is...Karen! Karen, I don't have your e-mail, so please send your mailing address to jeri AT jerismithready DOT com. Thanks to everyone who commented, for their enthusiastic support of this debut author!

Today's Blogtoberguest is NY Times-bestselling author Maggie Stiefvater (pronounced like "Steve-Otter"), who is not only an amazing and lyrical novelist, but is also a visual artist and a musician (music is always important in her books, which makes me heart them so).

Her latest novel, Ballad, is a stand-alone sequel to her debut Lament (click the links to learn more about them). Within the treasure trove that is her website, I found this amazing animated storybook for Ballad, created by Maggie herself.

Today Maggie's here to give away a copy of Ballad and talk about what Halloween means to her.

* * * *

For me, it’s not Halloween until it’s evening. One of my sisters loves the pageantry—the costumes, the candy, the movies. Halloween for her doesn’t just last all day, it lasts all week. All month. But for me, this is Halloween: darkness. I don’t mind the costumes and revelry. I don’t mind that my son is dressed as a race car driver and my daughter as a monkey—no, princess!—no, baby kitten!

But to me, it’s not really Halloween. I like the old bits about Halloween. The fact that it’s transitional, and it’s about the end of the year, and the end of life, and the end of the day. That’s why Halloween happens in evening for me. It’s when things start to change. To darken. To shift into other things. Everything starts dying in October, so that other things can come to life later.

I set my latest novel, BALLAD, around Halloween, for that reason. Not only is the year changing and transitioning but so are my characters as they come head to head with the faeries. It’s disgustingly exciting to write about as an author; such a dynamic thing to watch. In folklore, it’s always the transitions and edges that are most dangerous. The shift from one season to another. The shift from day to night. The place where water meets the sand. The pause between one frenzied song to another.

So bring it on, Halloween. While the rest of the world curls up with the 16th Saw movie or whatever they’re up to, I’m going to be hunkering down and waiting until the world gets dark, and feeling that chill crawl up my spine as the world changes from minute to minute. I love it.

* * * *

To enter to win a signed copy of Ballad, leave a comment below. And remember, each comment automatically enters you in the drawing for the grand prize package: all 25 books!

For complete rules, read the introductory post.

Deadline for entry: Saturday, October 31 (appropriately enough), 11:59pm Eastern. NOTE: THIS CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED. The winner is Sylvia!

Melissa Walker and Lovestruck Summer
Sydney Salter and My Big Nose and Other Natural Disasters
Christine Marciniak and When Mike Kissed Emma
Tricia Mills and Heartbreak River
Simone Elkeles and Perfect Chemistry

Thanks so much to Maggie for sharing her thoughts on Halloween (with which I completely agree)!

Blogtoberfest Day 18 - Simone Elkeles

2009-10-23T08:00:00.002-04:00

The winner of Linda Gerber's Death by Denim is...Dawn M.! Also, I had to pick another name for Megan Crewe's Give Up the Ghost because the first winner did not respond, and the lucky new person is...Sheila Deeth! Congrats to both of you, and thanks to everyone for their enthusiastic comments. It always makes the authors feel at home.

Announcing a late addition to the schedule: Rachel Vincent will be joining us on Sunday, giving away her first YA, My Soul to Take (which I read, and it's wonderful and original!).

Today's Blogtoberguest is Simone Elkeles, whom I met this summer at the American Library Association national conference and then hung out with later that week at RWA Nationals (where she may or may not have been my date to a certain publisher's party, thus making it even more fun than usual!).

Simone is the author of Perfect Chemistry, which just happens to be the last book I finished. It was amazing, a truly beautiful love story of Brittany and Alex, who come from opposite sides of the tracks in a Chicago suburb. Their relationship is hot-and-cold, complicated, and absolutely against all odds. I loved every word.

She also has one of the best book trailers I've ever seen. Not just a commercial with stock images and music, but an actual rap music video, complete with characters from the book. It's a hilarious little parody, so check it out!

Simone will be giving away a signed copy of Perfect Chemistry to one lucky commenter. She's here today to talk about...

The Scary House

Halloween is fun for kids, but do you remember “the scary house?” You know, the one you and your friends were afraid to go ring the doorbell because they might actually make you close your eyes and reach into a bowl of “eyeballs” in order to get your “treat?”

We had one of those houses in my neighborhood where I grew up. I can’t say I ever had the nerve to actually ring the doorbell. I just stood by the sidewalk all bug-eyed hearing the nervous chatter and fear coming from the kids who were brave enough to venture to the door and say “trick or treat” without knowing what was to come next.

I like my candy to come easy. Go to door, say, “Trick or treat!”, reach inside a huge bowl and pick my favorite choice. Then say, “Thank you!” and I’m on to the next house. It’s the no-hassle, no-fear Halloween for me.

Now that I’m a mom myself, I take my kids trick-or-treating in my neighborhood every year. Lo and behold, we have “the scary house” in my neighborhood, too. (it’s even dubbed “the scary house” all year long by every kid in school). But my neighbors (who I don’t know personally) have taken scary to the next level. The adults recruit their friends and they all dress up in scary costumes. They stand or lay down scattered on the lawn…one is laying inside an open casket (you don’t know he’s alive until you get close and he suddenly reaches out for you and freaks you out)…one is dressed as the Grim Reaper with a very real-looking weapon…one with fake blood dripping down his face with a real chainsaw buzzing.

I laugh when the young kids clutch their parents on the sidewalk. Most trick-or-treaters actually cross the street to avoid “the scary house”. Then you get “the brave trick-or treaters” - the older kids who puff up their chest and mock these dressed-up adults. They say these parents can’t scare them with a ten foot pole no matter how scary they look…well, until The Grim Reaper and Chainsaw Guy slowly start following them to the next house, and the next…those “fearless” kids run like heck away, screaming and laughing because they truly are scared…and they know next year they’ll try again.

If you’re brave enough to reach the front door (after passing yet another “corpse” who reaches out at you or witch who says you’re the perfect specimen for her next stew – they do have a big black pot of boiling water with smoke coming out of it), they have a plethora of great candy in a bowl to choose from since few people actually reach the front door.

I never went up to the scary house in my neighborhood when I was a kid. Now I’m older and know better. Nobody is going to hurt me. Nobody is going to hurt my kids. I laugh at the other scared trick-or-treaters…of course I do it at a very safe distance on the other side of the street.

Do you have “the scary house” in your neighborhood? Are you living in “the scary house?” Got any pictures to share?

~Simone Elkeles

www.simoneelkeles.net

* * * *

To enter to win a signed copy of Perfect Chemistry, leave a comment below. And remember, each comment automatically enters you in the drawing for the grand prize package: all 25 books!

For complete rules, read the introductory post.

Deadline for entry: Friday, October 30, 11:59pm Eastern. NOTE: THIS CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED. The winner is HeatherMarie!

Alexandra Diaz and an ARC of Of All the Stupid Things
Melissa Walker and Lovestruck Summer
Sydney Salter and My Big Nose and Other Natural Disasters
Christine Marciniak and When Mike Kissed Emma
Tricia Mills and Heartbreak River

Thanks so much to Simone for sharing her Halloween memories! (I would've been too scared to go to that house, too.)

Blogtoberfest Day 17 - Trish Milburn aka Tricia Mills

2009-10-22T08:00:00.003-04:00

The winner of Linda Joy Singleton's Dead Girl in Love is...Jamie! Congrats!

Today's guest at the Halloween and Homecoming Blogtoberfest (ha, you thought I was going to say "Blogtoberguest" again, didn't you? I'm such a rebel.) is Trish Milburn, who writes YA fiction as Tricia Mills.

In addition to writing two different series, this year Tricia also launched the fabulous Healthy Writer blog, which offers great tips for authors or anyone else who spends a lot of time on his or her butt. I was particularly intrigued by the post on Energy Zappers, and particularly the part about multitasking. For instance, right now I'm trying to write this blog post, check e-mail, and "watch" a baseball game on GameCast, and I can attest that I feel zapped. (But I'd feel great if the Dodgers had pulled off that comeback. Just sayin'.)

Trish/Tricia had her YA debut this past April with Heartbreak River:

Alexandra Landon once loved running the Grayton River through the Colorado canyons near her home and couldn’t imagine doing anything else with her life but continuing the family’s river rafting business. But that was before her father died in a rafting accident and she developed a full-fledged fear of drowning. It’s been nearly a year since her father’s death, and the arrival of another summer means Alex has to face the river, the question of whether she can ever recapture her love of rafting, and the return of co-worker and former boyfriend Sean Kenley. One way or the other, this summer is going to change Alex’s life forever.

* * * *

The Past and Present Collide
By Trish Milburn

Earlier this month, I attended my first high school reunion -- the 20th. No matter how many times I see that number, it doesn't seem possible that it's been 20 years since I marched into my high school gym to the tune of "Pomp and Circumstance." A lot has happened since then. I got a college degree, I worked for many years full time in the journalism field, I got married, I moved to a different state, I traveled to or through 41 states, and I've managed to get three of my books published so far. Despite all the accomplishments, part of my less confident younger self emerged in the days leading up to the reunion. I was looking forward to it, to seeing friends I hadn't seen in awhile, but I wondered how people would react to each other. Would they pick up where they left off? Would they naturally gravitate toward who they'd been friends with in high school? Would the people who were at odds then still be that way?

I needn't have worried. Yes, we naturally gravitated toward the people we'd been closest to in high school, but that makes sense. While I spent time with most people there and really enjoyed the fact that the whole clique thing seemed to have faded, I hung out most with my closest friends from back then. In fact, I'm still in contact with them 20 years after we took our diplomas and left our small hometown.

The reunion was actually three days of activities. On Friday night, we were supposed to tailgate at the high school homecoming football game. But since the game was canceled because the other team had to forfeit, we ended up having a cookout and eating in our old high school cafeteria. I don't think I'd been in that room since the night I graduated. Some people were easily recognizable as they walked in; others not so much. I kept having to ask my friend Kim who people were. We took a tour of the school. Some things looked the same; even one of the teachers is still there. But there was a new annex, which included a very nice computer lab with big Mac computers. Way better than the Commodore 64 computers we had back in the day. :) There was also a new arena where the basketball games are played, though we did walk through the old gym. Still smelled the same as it did 20 years ago. LOL! And it was funny to see the kids of classmates playing with each other just like their parents did years ago.

The next night was the official dinner at the country club. At one point, we all introduced ourselves, told what we did for a living, if we were married, how many kids, etc. It was interesting to hear what people ended up doing -- teachers, chemical plant workers, lots of nurses, a prison guard, a state trooper, and a variety of other occupations. Only three of us didn't have any kids. The rest had anywhere from one to four. We sat around until midnight, catching up and recounting stories from those days of big hair, ‘80s music playing on the iPod speakers.

Sunday morning, one of our classmates who is now a minister preached a service, but I headed home instead of driving back into town for it since I was staying in the next county. I heard it was a nice service though.

Even though the reunion is behind me now, I still can't believe it's been 20 years. I hope the next 20 years don't fly by quite so quickly.

So, have you ever been to a high school reunion? What was it like? Were people the same? Different?

* * * *

To enter to win a signed copy of Heartbreak River, leave a comment below. And remember, each comment automatically enters you in the drawing for the grand prize package: all 25 books!

For complete rules, read the introductory post.

Deadline for entry: Thursday, October 29, 11:59pm Eastern. NOTE: THIS CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED. The winner is ddurance!

Linda Gerber and Death by Denim
Alexandra Diaz and an ARC of Of All the Stupid Things
Melissa Walker and Lovestruck Summer
Sydney Salter and My Big Nose and Other Natural Disasters
Christine Marciniak and When Mike Kissed Emma

Thanks to Trish for going to her high school reunion, so I didn't have to!

Blogtoberfest Day 16 - Christine Marciniak

2009-10-21T08:00:00.003-04:00

The winner of Shana Norris's Troy High is...cait045! Congrats!

Today's Blogtoberguest is Christine Marciniak, whose debut YA novel, When Mike Kissed Emma, came out recently from Climbing Roses, the YA imprint of Wild Rose Press.

Emma Landon has a plan: she's going to be in the high school musical and sing the most romantic song possible to her boyfriend. She's not looking for the lead, just a decent part where she and Trevor can dance together on stage. The plan starts to unravel when she gets the starring role, and playing opposite her is not her perfect boyfriend, but the school loner, Biker Mike. When Mike kisses Emma at the school dance, everything changes. Emma must figure out what is more important—the way things look or something deeper.

I can totally relate. In my wilder days (don't laugh), I used to do theatre and had a tendency to fall for my co-stars, due to my inability to distinguish between fiction and reality. I quit theatre when I met my husband (but we wouldn't have met if it weren't for a play, so there).

Christine is giving away a signed copy of When Mike Kissed Emma to one lucky commenter, so give a warm welcome to this fabulous debut author!

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First I want to thank Jeri for letting me share in her blog birthday celebration.

I’ve been trying to figure out the best way to write a Halloween-inspired post. Because, you see, the thing you need to know about me is that I am a complete wuss when it comes to scary things. The commercials for horror movies would give me nightmares. Remember the movie Edward Scissorhands? I don’t think that was supposed to be a particularly scary movie. I can’t be sure because I never saw the movie. I had nightmares for months just from the commercials. So, the scarier aspects of Halloween: I don’t do them. I do like the candy though.

So, now that we’ve established what a wimp I am regarding scary things, let me tell you a ghost story.

We lived in an old dorm in college. It had character. It had squeaky pipes and hidden corners. It had stories.

One cold and rainy night we were hanging out in the hallway eating pizza, because that’s what we did. (We tried to get a pizza delivered to the hallway once, but they made us give an actual room number.) So we were eating pizza, and joking around and moving out of the way for anyone who might want to actually walk down the hall, when Mike said: “You know, this dorm is haunted.”

“Haunted!” Lisa and I exchanged nervous glances. “What do you mean?” I asked.

“There was a girl who died here like twenty-five years ago.”

“That’s true,” I said. “My mom’s friend knew her. She lived in this dorm.”

“They say she committed suicide.” Mike said. “Hung herself.”

“In what room?” Lisa asked.

Mike shrugged. “Could have been any of them.” But none of us knew for certain.

AJ lit a cigarette and continued the story. “They say she walks the halls at night.”

“No way,” I said.

“It’s true,” Bob picked up the story from there, “And one time she unscrewed one of the light fixtures and it fell on top of someone.”

“I bet it was the light she hung herself from,” AJ said.

“Did that really happen?” Lisa asked, bumming a cigarette off of AJ.

“Absolutely.” Mike said. “Fish’s older brother knew the person the light fell on.”

Who could argue with a source like Fish’s older brother?

But there are no such things as ghosts. I knew that. I wasn’t worried about the ghost of student-past coming and haunting me in this dorm. Talk moved on to other things. We finished the pizza, people started drifting off to finish homework or watch something on TV. Lisa and I, both with early classes, headed down to the communal bathroom to get ready for bed.

“You don’t believe in ghosts, do you?” I asked her as we lathered soap on our faces.

“I don’t know,” she answered, which wasn’t the complete denial I’d been looking for.

Just then something squeaked. Was it a screw turning in the light fixture? We both looked up. Everything seemed in place. “Why’d you look up?” Lisa demanded.

“You did, too!” I answered.

Another squeak and hearts thumping we looked back at the light again.

“Don’t look up!” Lisa insisted.

One more squeak and we ran, screaming out of the bathroom, our faces covered in soap.

The hallway was empty and once we were standing there we looked at each other. “Heh heh” we sort of laughed and slunk back into the bathroom before anyone could see us. The light never fell off the ceiling, but the heater continued to squeak and thump as it always did on cold days.

Christine's Blogs:
The Simple and the Ordinary
Simply Put: The Writing Blog of Christine Marciniak

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To enter to win a signed copy of When Mike Kissed Emma, leave a comment below. And remember, each comment automatically enters you in the drawing for the grand prize package: all 25 books!

For complete rules, read the introductory post.

Deadline for entry: Wednesday, October 28, 11:59pm Eastern. NOTE: THIS CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED. The winner is yabooknerd!

Linda Joy Singleton and Dead Girl in Love
Linda Gerber and Death by Denim
Alexandra Diaz and an ARC of Of All the Stupid Things
Melissa Walker and Lovestruck Summer
Sydney Salter and My Big Nose and Other Natural Disasters

Thanks so much to Christine for sharing her "ghost" story!

Blogtoberfest Day 15 - Sydney Salter

2009-10-20T10:00:00.002-04:00

The winner of Amanda Ashby's Zombie Queen of Newbury High is...Cara King! Cara, please send your mailing address to jeri AT jerismithready DOT com in the next week.

Today's Blogtoberguest is Sydney Salter, author of My Big Nose and Other Natural Disasters as well as two more books to come in the next year.

Sydney and I have something very important in common. According to her website, she refused to wear her glasses in school and therefore couldn't see the board. I'm glad to know I wasn't the only one!

Sydney's not only giving away a copy of My Big Nose and Other Disasters (the cover of which I adore), she's also sharing with us a Halloween memory guaranteed to make you go, "Awwwwww."

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A Halloween Love Story (Mine!)
Based on a true diary account.

The week before Halloween, a group of girls from my freshman dorm went to see a hilarious unknown comedian named Jerry Seinfeld. After the show, we walked across campus with a group of Sigma Chi guys who invited us to stop by their house later (one of them was Mike--the cute guy in my biology class!).

A bunch of girls crowded the dance floor, but an hour later it was just me and Mike. Right as I was about to leave—it was three in the morning—he asked me to the Sigma Chi Pledge Dance the following Saturday. So many girls liked him—but he asked me!

And then he let his friend walk me home.

Events the following week only added to my doubts about him possibly liking me. On Sunday he watched me play sorority flag football and witnessed three Kappas crunching me to the ground. He didn’t say anything about the dance so I convinced myself that he’d forgotten that he’d invited me.

On Monday night, Mike came to my dorm to talk about the dance. But I was wearing my LL Bean “Laura Ingalls” nightgown (my dorm mates teased me a lot about this flannel atrocity, but, hey, it was comfy!).* I wanted to die! I convinced myself that he only asked me out because he was such a nice guy—and pitied me.

He wasn’t in biology on Tuesday, but he called me later. Turns out we were supposed to wear pajamas to the dance. I needed better pajamas ASAP!

On Wednesday, Mike came into the library while I was studying and I experienced that getting weak in the knees feeling for the first time in my life. Scared me to death! I’d never liked someone that much—and I started freaking out about our first date.

Thursday, my Halloween costume finally arrived! My mom shipped me her sexy Dracula’s Bride outfit just in the nick of time. Phew!

My sorority trick-or-treated for local charities on Halloween, giving me the excuse to collect free chocolate into my twenties. Our first stop: The Sigma Chi house. Mike joined us—dressed as Dracula!

By this point, I’d made more than one phone call to my mom freaking out about not being ready for a serious relationship. “It’s only a date,” she’d say. But here we were, married via Halloween costume.

We trick-or-treated all over the neighborhood, prompting more than one person to say, “My! You’re getting bigger every year!” ** Afterwards we went dancing, until Mike left to go win the costume contest (I was too shy, too freaked out about being bride to his Dracula to join him). If I could, I’d go back and revise that part of the story.

We had a great time at the Pledge Dance the next night. And pretty much every night since then. So while we both count November 1st as our first date anniversary and we always celebrate our June wedding, Halloween will always hold an extra special place in my heart. I honor it with lots of chocolate!

*His fondness for The Little House On The Prairie did not manifest itself until much later in our relationship.

**Note to teenage or older trick-or-treaters: come to my house. I will give you extra candy!

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To enter to win a signed copy of My Big Nose and Other Natural Disasters, leave a comment below. And remember, each comment automatically enters you in the drawing for the grand prize package: all 25 books!

For complete rules, read the introductory post.

Deadline for entry: Tuesday, October 27, 11:59pm Eastern. NOTE: THIS CONTEST IS CLOSED TO ENTRIES. The winner is Sheila Deeth!

Shana Norris and Troy High
Linda Joy Singleton and Dead Girl in Love
Linda Gerber and Death by Denim
Alexandra Diaz and an ARC of Of All the Stupid Things
Melissa Walker and Lovestruck Summer

Thanks again to Sydney for sharing her favorite Halloween memory! (I assume it's the favorite--if not, I'd really like to hear the favorite, hee-hee.)