Blog Giveaways!

Happy Halloween all. I wanted to throw out that I've just joined Twitter, so please follow me and I'll follow right back!

Looks like a few blogs out there are starting off the week with giveaways so I just wanted to shout out a few:

Steph Sinkhorn at Maybe Genius is giving away several SIGNED books including Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor and the Leviathan trilogy by Scott Westerfeld. Check out her blog for a chance to win some books as well as critiques.

Theresa Milstein is hosting a Halloween Haunting where you can advertise yourself a little and maybe pickup critique partners/blog followers. You can also win a copy of the Fangtales anthology.

And lastly, Shelli at Market my Words is also giving away books and giving bloggers and opportunity to network so be sure to check it out.

Casting Call bloghop: Meet the Characters

First up, since I had two books to give away I decided to split them, so using a random number generator, the winner of the signed copy of Dearly, Departed is: Shanella! And the winner of Across the Universe (unsigned) is Saavylistener! I'll be sure to get your books out to you. Hopefully in the future I'll have more signed books to offer.



Today also kicks off the Casting Call bloghop where we get to visually introduce our characters. I did a group image of the main characters of my last novel, so here goes:



I wanted to have a colored, finished piece but I lacked the time, so if I do get around to it this week I'll post it. (UPDATE: Managed to get the coloring done, I thought it'd be cool to have them all wear the same color, so I chose shades of red.)

I don't want to give away too much info on my characters, but I will say that we have one human, one witch, and two demons. And here are some other vague facts:

• One of them discovers something about them that irrevocably links them to another one.
• One of them betrays another in a big way.
• One of them makes an ultimate sacrifice to save another.
  
• One of them is definitely not what they seem in a major way.

Maybe you can figure out who is who =) Looking forward to seeing everyone else's character visions.

Writing Week & an Award

This has been a crazy week for me so I did not get much done in the ways of editing my latest book. I did however enter a few writing contests, and am gearing up for a blogfest or two, so the busy-ness will continue. Still toying with the idea of doing NaNo this year, but it all comes down to whether or not I can churn out an outline in time.

Anyway, I received an award from Elizabeth Varadan (thanks a lot!), which is very cool, be sure to check her blog out.



The rules are to thank the person who gave you the award and pass it on to fifteen recently discovered blogs. I've decided to pass it on to my most recent followers:
1. Something to Write About
2. Reading, Writing, and Lovin' it!
3. Cheryl Reif
4. Jenny Kaczorowski
5. Mind Writer
6. KT Hanna
7. Can't Fight the Write

3rd Campainger Challenge

For our third challenge from Rach Writes, we have to write a blog post, any format, in 300 words or less, showing a man or woman on the beach, bored, with something that stinks behind them, and that at the end something surprising happens. For fun we could try to include all the senses and use the made up words wastopaneer, synbatec, and tacise. Here's my piece, entry 64:

Bitter Paradise

The horizon belched up the morning sun like it was a candy that had suddenly become bitter. As it made its slow ascent to the sky, I envied the monotonous cycle the sun followed; it seemed better than having to figure out where to lay my next footstep, or what shape the words out my mouth should take. I sighed, wishing my head wasn’t full of thoughts of him, and my eyes caught sight of a tacise crab that was doing its sideways dance in front of me, carrying bits of bark and broken shells and leaving them near a coconut tree. Maybe it was building a love nest to seduce a lady crab; I’d heard there was a species of bird, the Wastopaneer, that did that. Maybe the crab was trying to seduce me; it almost seemed like he put an extra swing in his claws when he passed by. Laughter tried to rise at the thought, but it died before ever reaching my lips.

Behind me, I felt like the synbatec poison of an abandoned life was trying to seep into my soul. It was a rotten, putrid thing that I refused to ever face again. What reason did I have to be a functioning part of this world when I was just the smallest, most forgettable part of it?

A wind that didn’t yet know if it wanted to be cool or warm picked up, tickling my bare legs. When I looked down though, it wasn’t the wind that had touched me. The tiny crab had crawled onto my knee and seemed to be staring straight into my eyes as it held up a small, white, perfectly whole seashell that glinted in the sunlight. I stared at it for a long, long time. Then, I smiled.

Reminder: you can win a singed copy of Lia Habel's debut novel, Dearly, Departed, as well as a copy of Across the Universe by Beth Revis by commenting on my blog post here.

Comic Con wrap up & Book Giveaway (incl. author autographed copy)

Comic Con was fun and exhausting, so exhausting that I only went Friday and Saturday and let myself recover on Sunday. I had no idea that going to a convention could be so tiring! My body was literally aching...which was due to the fact that both days I lugged around a heavy swag bag. Saturday I went to dinner with friends after and had no choice but to bring the bag and it of course decided to rip...by the handles no less, so I had to hug it like a baby to take it home. And it was rainy. Which was fun. But I digress. Overall it was a fun experience. Massive crowds of self proclaimed geeks, lots of booths on the showroom floor, lots of interesting panels. I attended a panel on the new NBC show Once Upon a Time where they screened the first episode and I thought it was really good, definitely looking forward to adding that show to my roster.

There were also a lot of book stalls, publishers like Penguin and Carina press were there, and it was actually the books that weighed my swag bag down and subsequently broke my shoulder. I got a signed ARC of Lia Habel's debut novel Dearly, Departed, and I also got C.E. Murphey's autograph. I wanted badly to get Tamora Pierce's but her signing clashed with a panel for one of my favorite shows, Nikita, so I had to make a tough choice there. The Nikita panel was also a highlight, the stars Shane West and Maggie Q were there. Another highlight was getting to chat briefly with James Marsters (Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer). And of course there were tons of great, not so great, and kooky costumes around. Here's an example of not so great:

(one of many)

Anyhow, I'd like to share a bit of the wealth I scored, so I am doing a Book Giveaway! I have a signed copy of Dearly, Departed by Lia Habel, as well as a copy of Across the Universe by Beth Revis (this is not signed), that I will give to a random commenter. Comment by the end of the week if you'd like these books! (if you want to share the giveaway info please do, but only followers will be eligible). I will ship anywhere in the U.S.

This and That and Comic Con

Although I made some good headway with editing round 2 I probably won't be doing a lot of book editing this weekend because I'll be at Comic Con Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I've never been, so I'm excited to go. Along with tons of comic book, anime, movie, T.V., and video game related things there will several things to interest writers like panels with authors including Patricia Briggs, Marjorie M. Liu, Jeaniene Frost, and Kim Harrison. Definitely looking forward to that, hopefully I'll have lots of pictures to share about the experience.

I know that NanoWrimo is coming up and although I've just finished a book I have been thinking about doing it this year, though of the course the issue will be having a book I want to write. I grouped up all the viable book ideas I made note of and came away with eight possibilities, which is good, but the hard part will be choosing one and seeing if I can plot out a book, since I need an outline to get me started. Anyway, we'll see, if I don't do Nano I'll at least have my last book to keep me busy. Anyone planning to do Nano?

If you aren't aware of the 2nd annual Baker's Dozen Agent Auction hosted by Miss Snark's First Victim then definitely check it out. Next week submissions for adult fiction open. It's a great opportunity to have agents looking at and bidding on your work.

Have a great weekend all!

From Writing to Editing

Last week I finished my WIP, and I've also completed editing round one. The first edit it always the easiest for me because it's not much more than me reading the book from start to finish and picking up on all the inconsistencies, gaps, etc that need to be fixed. Edits 2 and 3 are where most of the hard work comes in, where things will actually start to make cohesive sense. By edit 4 and 5 I'm usually in a happier place with the novel (but also sort of sick of looking at it). So for the next few weeks I'll be in editing world, which I actually enjoy because it's rather satisfying making things clean up and look right.

Also, I want to share again about Lisa L. Regan's Hook for Your Book contest that's being judged by her agent Jeanie Pantelakis of Sullivan Maxx agency. The contest runs from today (Oct 10th) to Oct 17th and is open to fantasy novels, the prize being a full manuscript read and possible representation by Sullivan Maxx. To enter the contest you need to post a 50 word pitch for your book. It's a great opportunity, so check it out!

Something else that Lisa L. Regan is a part of, along with Melodie Wright at Forever Rewrighting and Carrie Butler at So You're a Writer is the Casting Call Character bloghop, which sounds like it's a lot of fun because we get to showcase our WIP characters the way we see them. Check out their blogs for more info.