Monday Giveaway

First up, congrats to the winner of Lies Beneath, Emma K. You should have received an e-mail from me.

And now this week's giveaway.....

A Midsummer's Nightmare by Kody Keplinger

Whitley Johnson's dream summer with her divorcé dad has turned into a nightmare. She's just met his new fiancée and her kids. The fiancée's son? Whitley's one-night stand from graduation night. Just freakin' great.

Worse, she totally doesn't fit in with her dad's perfect new country-club family. So Whitley acts out. She parties. Hard. So hard she doesn't even notice the good things right under her nose: a sweet little future stepsister who is just about the only person she's ever liked, a best friend (even though Whitley swears she doesn't "do" friends), and a smoking-hot guy who isn't her stepbrother...at least, not yet. It will take all three of them to help Whitley get through her anger and begin to put the pieces of her family together.

Filled with authenticity and raw emotion, Whitley is Kody Keplinger's most compelling character to date: a cynical Holden Caulfield-esque girl you will wholly care about

Ways to Enter...

+1 for accepting the terms and conditions

+2 for following this blog

+3 for following me on twitter @carrie716

+4 for leaving a blog comment

+5 for tweeting about the giveaway (you can do this once per day)

+10 for blogging about the giveaway

You must be at least 18 to enter (13+ with parental permission) and have a U.S. shipping address.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Road Trip Wednesday

It's another Road Trip Wednesday over at YA Highway, and this week's question is...

In preparation for our Bookmobile discussion of Kody Keplinger’s A MIDSUMMER’S NIGHTMARE, how did you spend/how will you spend the summer after graduation?

It's been a while since I graduated, so I have to really think back on this one...

Uh, no.

Not that long (although my kids seem to think it was).

It was more like this...

It was 1994 and the internet was still a baby. I didn't have an e-mail address, a cell phone, or a clue about what I was going to do.

I did, however, have an opportunity to go to Sweden thanks to my parent's generous graduation gift. But I was seventeen, stupid, and smitten with the current boyfriend. And to be honest, the idea leaving home terrified me. Getting on a plane and flying to another country terrified me. College terrified me.

So I stayed home to be with a boy who no longer matters. I worked two jobs, hung out with friends, and signed up for fall classes at the local community college.

In all of the summers of my life so far, the summer after graduation is hardly a memorable one. It was dull and boring and safe. I was still stuck in my shell, unable and unwilling to break free. If I only I'd been brave enough then...how different my life may have turned out.

I think this is why I'm drawn to YA so much. Because I can live vicariously through the tough, courageous characters.

The ones who would've gone to Sweden.

Monday Giveaway

First up, congrats to the winner of Of Poseidon, Krista R. You should have received an e-mail from me.

And now this week's giveaway.....

Lies Beneath by Anne Greenwood Brown

Calder White lives in the cold, clear waters of Lake Superior, the only brother in a family of murderous mermaids. To survive, Calder and his sisters prey on humans, killing them to absorb their energy. But this summer the underwater clan targets Jason Hancock out of pure revenge. They blame Hancock for their mother's death and have been waiting a long time for him to return to his family's homestead on the lake. Hancock has a fear of water, so to lure him in, Calder sets out to seduce Hancock's daughter, Lily. Easy enough—especially as Calder has lots of practice using his irresistable good looks and charm on ususpecting girls. Only this time Calder screws everything up: he falls for Lily—just as Lily starts to suspect that there's more to the monsters-in-the-lake legends than she ever imagined. And just as his sisters are losing patience with him.

Ways to Enter...

+1 for accepting the terms and conditions

+2 for following this blog

+3 for following me on twitter @carrie716

+4 for leaving a blog comment

+5 for tweeting about the giveaway (you can do this once per day)

+10 for blogging about the giveaway

You must be at least 18 to enter (13+ with parental permission) and have a U.S. shipping address.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

This Is How I Write...

Just a few weeks ago, I was in the midst of finishing yet another draft of my current WIP.

I was pulling out my hair, rubbing my eyeballs, chewing off fingernails. And groaning. Lots of groaning.

And I was hating it. Hating writing.


I begged and pleaded with myself...Let me dream up ideas and characters and new problems. Let me create worlds and outlines and pages of notes. Let me revise - turn bad words into shiny ones. Move around scenes and characters. Slay adverbs and kill my darlings.

But please, please don't make me write.

But I had no choice. There's no shortcut, no detour, no way around the 'writing part'. But I fought it. Most of my writing sessions ended up going like this...

1. Write fifteen words. Erase fourteen.
2. Text CP about how bad I suck.
3. Write another word. Erase it.
4. CP texts back to tell me how awesome I am. Love that CP!
5. Write twenty words. Erase eighteen.
6. Check Facebook.
7. Write another word.
8. Refresh Facebook.
9. Delete word.
10. Refresh Facebook. Nothing. Go check Twitter.
11. Write 140 character Tweet.
12. Refresh Twitter.
13. Refresh Twitter.
14. Follow link to blog and another blog and another blog.
15. Remember I'm supposed to be writing. Go write ten more words.
16. Send 'whiney' IM to CP.
17. CP says 'I'm awesome'. Yay!
18. Write 10 more words. Realize I hate my character.
19. Wonder if it's possible for character to survive a fall off a 75 foot cliff.
20. Google it. Read articles.
21. Start watching cliff jumping videos.
22. Google vacations in Bermuda.
23. Google Adam Levine.
24. Drool over pictures.
25. Remember I'm supposed to be writing. Go write ten more words. Delete them all.
26. Check Facebook. Check Twitter.
27. Make coffee. Drink coffee. Make more coffee.
28. Call CP. Whine for about thirty minutes until she tells me to 'Go Write'.
29. Write one word. Realize I'm now up to a word count of 14.
30. Repeat steps 1-29 approximately 3,571 more times.

Several times mid-draft I wondered why am I doing this. You may be wondering why am I doing this.

But then I hit step 31 and finished the draft. Followed by step 32, where I shoved it in a drawer for a week and caught up on all the books I haven't read and the critiques I haven't done. And the nail biter of  step 33, where I pulled it back out and read all of my words.

This past weekend, I reached step 34 (my favorite by the way). I realized how much work I have ahead of me. How many tweaks and shines and rips and tears it's going to take to get this mess of words to sparkle. But it's also the step where I stepped back in awe and wonder and truly saw it....

My book.

One little crazy idea...now existing outside of me—growing and breathing and alive.

And then I remembered...

This is why I write. This is why I love it.

Monday Giveaway: Of Poseidon by Anna Banks

Yay! A new giveaway... Of Poseidon by Anna Banks.

Galen, a Syrena prince, searches land for a girl he's heard can communicate with fish. It’s while Emma is on vacation at the beach that she meets Galen. Although their connection is immediate and powerful, Galen's not fully convinced that Emma's the one he's been looking for. That is, until a deadly encounter with a shark proves  that Emma and her Gift may be the only thing that can save his kingdom. He needs her help--no matter what the risk.


Ways to Enter...

+1 for accepting the terms and conditions

+2 for following this blog

+3 for following me on twitter @carrie716

+4 for leaving a blog comment

+5 for tweeting about the giveaway (you can do this once per day)

+10 for blogging about the giveaway

You must be at least 18 to enter (13+ with parental permission) and have a U.S. shipping address.


a Rafflecopter giveaway

So I've been rather quiet...

Eeeek! So I've been a little absent here on the blog lately. April and May got busy...some things I had planned, some not planned, and I barely blink and it's June.

June!!!

Wow...where is this year going?

Despite my lack of wordiness here, I did manage to complete yet another draft of WIP. Yay! So I did write a lot of words...just not blog words.

But I'm back now, with new posts including a new giveaway starting next Monday. (And congrats to the winner of In Honor, Krista R.)

No giveaway here this week, but in celebration of Laura B Writer's Blogoversary, you can win a copy of All These Lives by Sarah Wylie along with tons of other fabulous prizes at her blog.

Also Amber is giving away A Million Suns by Beth Revis this week. Also check out her first vlog for a chance to win another book.

Yay! Glad to be back and looking forward to catching up with everybody!