Bloggiesta

Yep. It's that time. Bloggiesta is here, and here is my to do list.

1. Get Networked Blogs
2. Get Linky Follwoers
3. Set up an e-mail subscription
4. Mini-challenge to be Book Depository Affiliate
5. Mini-challenge to replace Google reader
6. Mini-challenge to meet a new blogger.
7. Start setting up A-Z posts.

Last year it took me eight months to complete my bloggiesta list. Hopefully, this year is smoother. Oh--I'm looking for book bloggers to promote during A-Z, so if you're a book blogger and want to be featured let me know.

Follow Friday

Follow Friday is hosted by Alison and Parajunkee.

Q: What is your guilty pleasure as far as reading? Is it a genre, or is it a certain type of book? 

Probably re-reads. 

 

Haunted at 17

In honor of my friend Nova Ren Summa's book 17 & Gone which released today,  she has asked other authors to talk about what haunted them at 17. So here is my attempt.

Seventeen was a hard year for me for a lot of reasons, and it was marked by a significant beginning. I turned 17 on 9/11/01. Yep. I was grounded for having a car wreck two weeks earlier(stupid, because grounding me didn't help me drive) but my mother ungrounded me for my birthday. It didn't matter. The whole town shut down. My one friend and I found a solitary fast food burrito joint open, grabbed a burrito, and took it to a park. Just being out felt spooky. On a normal day, the place I grew up feels like a ghost town. On this day, there was literally no one around anywhere. I took it in stride though. It's just one day. My dad didn't call for my birthday, even though someone flew planes into buildings. My mom was happy to point out my dad didn't call on my birthday, in spite of the terrorist attack.

In Payton's Place, you pay for your sin and the sins of anyone you might know. School was so bad for me, I'd already put myself in home school. I worked days at a fast food restaurant to pay for it, and took my classes online at night. I contemplated graduating early and getting on with my life because things weren't much better at home. But I didn't really have money to move away, or a plan for when I did it. I knew I wanted to go to college. I had no idea how to pay for it. Then it happened. The decision maker. I don't even remember what the fight was over, but something set my step dad off. He hit me. If you know me, you know I have a temper like the devil. At the time, I was small. I was nearly 100 lbs. lighter back then, and I don't think I stood 5'2. But he hit me in the face, so I balled up my fist and I hit that six foot man in the chest--couldn't reach his face--as hard as I could. What happened next is a blur, but I remember being knocked into the back door, and my mom screaming not to touch her kid again or she'd leave. She wouldn't. He stormed out, and she blamed me. I shouldn't have said/did whatever I said or did. Looking back on it with the perspective of eleven years, whatever I said did not cause his reaction. He was soley responsible for that, and she should know that.

Anyhow, four months after my 17th birthday, I moved to the city and started college. But the year didn't get better. I involved myself with many guys--lots of them bad--that I shouldn't have. I screwed up relationships that could have potentially been good, and put everything I had into people who were toxic. I was so afraid of being alone--of being unlovable that I contributed to my own pain. So there it is. It took me all these words to find the truth. I really didn't know the one word answer to what haunted me, but I've found it. The fear of being unlovable. The fear that the adults in my life were right about my lack of worth.

Show Days #1

As promised back in January, I'm learning to "show," and in doing so, I'm providing a six week series on just that. I've talked to so many people trying to figure out the best way to learn to show and how to do a series on it. Even people who are very good at this had a hard time telling someone else how to improve it. So school doesn't start until August, but I emailed the director of my MFA program and asked him please tell me how to show! When you ask a teacher for homework, you usually get it. So here is how we're going to do this. The first three weeks I'm going to write a paragraph putting a character in a random situation, and not tell you who the character is or where they are at. In the comments you tell me who you think the character is (age, title, however you want to do this) and where they are. The next 3 weeks, I'll post a paragraph from a book and discuss how it shows. So here goes:

"What's wrong, sweetheart?" Dad asks musing a hand through my hair. I shirk away from him. I'm not a kid anymore.
"B.J., behave," Mom scolds. "You weren't supposed to make plans this weekend anyhow. You know that."
I roll my eyes at her.
"B.J." Dad starts but the waitress comes to the table and slaps three drink drinks down.
"Can I take your order?" she asks.
"Yeah. Can I get a new life? Is that possible?" She touches her pen to the pad she's holding but pauses and looks to each of my parents confused.
"I'm sorry," Dad says. "Could you come back?" She walks away, and my dad's eyes follow her to the other end of the restaurant.
"Michael, could you make it a little less obvious?"
"What?" Dad asks her. Mom stands up and pecks my head. "I'll see you on Sunday."
I glare at her.
"You know not to make plans on his weekends. I'm sorry."
I clap my hands together in front of my chest and give a fake grin. "Yep, I totally knew he'd decide not to work this weekend."
Dad sighs and twirls his straw around in his soda. "You don't have to come, if you don't want to."
Mom stalls. "She should go."
"Yeah, Dad! I should come! It's not fair. Mom has to put up with me the whole rest of the month. If you don't take me today, she'll miss her chance to party hard! Hey, I've got an idea. I'm totally capable of making my own sandwiches and I'm a black belt in karate. Why don't you just put me up in a midtown hotel, and I can have my own life too! Then neither of you have to worry about me."

Okay, you tell me. Who is the main character? What's the situation? And where are we at?

4 Things On A Tuesday

1. Okay, so I had all these brilliant post ideas to schedule on Sunday night, then I got food poisoning Saturday. I spent the rest of Saturday, and all of Sun and Mon alternating between hugging the ceramic god in the bathroom, sleeping, and trying to keep things on my stomach. No brilliant posts this week.

2. I'm still looking for book bloggers to promote for A-Z. If you're interested, let me know.

3. I'm looking for writers to promote too. I'll promote anything PG-13, so if you'd like to do a guest post, put up an excerpt, answer interview questions, or anything else you had in mind just shoot me an email.

4. Also, there are still a few slots open in my blurb writing class. You can register here, and if you're interested, I recommend you do. It's filling up. I'll be teaching you the same blurb writing technique I used when I queried with a 50% full request rate.

Follow Friday

Follow Friday is hosted by Alison and Parajunkee.

Reminder I'm still looking for book bloggers to promote during A-Z. You can get the details here.

Q: Activity! Hopefully warm weather for most of us is here soon…so tell us about your favorite outdoor reading spot. Or take a picture.

Sadly since we came to  WI, I don't have an outdoor reading spot. When we were in Texas, I used to love to read outside on my patio and could do it most of the year. Here lots of days in the summer(June) it's still under 70 degrees sometimes as low as 40. I'm not a fan of the WI.

Dark Summer

This weekend, Lizzy Ford announced the re-release of "Dark Summer" (#1, Witchling Series), her groundbreaking debut young adult paranormal romance, now available from Amazon, Amazon UK</ a> and Barnes and Noble. Originally released in August 2012, "Dark Summer" soared to the top of the Amazon charts this winter. Evatopia Entertainment recently optioned the publishing and TV/multimedia rights and worked with Lizzy to revise and add depth to the first two books in the series. The revised version includes the integrated novelette ("Summer Night") in addition to new scenes that add deeper insight into the boarding school and characters. Lizzy estimates about 40% was added to the book to provide depth to the fascinating world of the Witchlings. Lizzy has extended an offer of providing free review copies to anyone who is able to leave a review on Amazon. If interested, please fill out the form at this URL with your email address! [URL: http://eepurl.com/v7xUL]

Dark Summer (#1, Witchling Series)

A school for Witchlings... The ultimate choice between Light and Dark... Where the price of a mistake...is your soul. Sixteen-year-old Summer doesn’t expect her new boarding school to be any different than the rest: a temporary stay, until her uncontrollable magic gets her thrown out again. In her mind, there’s no point in getting too friendly with anyone. That is, until she notices Decker, the boy who will become the Master of Night and Fire on his eighteenth birthday. When she learns that this special school has attracted others with magic in their blood, she is hopeful that this time around, things may be different. Besides, she can’t deny her interest in Decker, and when he rescues her one night from the dark forests of the Rocky Mountains, their connection is instant. Yet a relationship with Decker may prove to be Summer’s downfall, forcing her to choose between Light and Dark, life and death, love – and their souls. One choice. One soul. One price. Available from Amazon, Amazon UK and Barnes and Noble