Music Monday

Today I'm talking tunes. And if you haven't heard . . .

All The Write Notes is live! *cheers*

ATWN is a  blog for people who love tunes. Started by writers who love and live music, it's going to be heaps of fun. And I'm honored to be a part of it! Today is the first post. The cool Jay C. Spencer is talking about the band The Rural Alberta Advantage, a band that inspired his current WIP, and there's a giveaway!

So go check it out! You might win--or just find some cool tunes.:)

Since ATWN today is talking about bands that have influenced us--and our writing--I'll share some of my faves. It's really hard to pick just one, but Snow Patrol tops my list. The lyrics, the melodies--I love it all. And having seen them in concert (twice), they're even more amazing live.

Other huge artists for me? It tends to change, but rounding out my top 5 of bands/artists I never tire of are: Jack Johnson, Silversun Pick-ups, 30 Seconds to Mars, and The XX.

The next timeless five? David Gray, Jack's Mannequin, The Smiths, and Depeche Mode. (I know, Depeche Mode screams ancient, but I still love them. Good times.:D)

Other artists I'm loving right now? Kasabian, Natalie Walker, Sia, Lana Del Ray, The Joy Formidable, and My Chemical Romance.

And the track playing on my iPod right now: Mirrorball by Elbow. Another great tune.

What have you been listening to lately?

And curious . . . *cue informal blog poll*  . . . I can't write without music. Seriously. It's like all that silence weirds me out and stops my mind from going to that creative place. What about you? If you're a writer, do you like music, or do you need silence?

**Okay, since posting, I realized my "next top five of timeless songs" only contained four...*doh* Nice. Math was never my strong point...LOL.:) So here's a 5th: Florence +The Machine. Happy Monday & thanks for stopping by!:)

Friday Five

It's FRIDAYYYYYYYYYY!

*breathes*

Here's my week wrap-up...a fast and furious Friday Five. The top five things on my radar this week:

5. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Here's my all-time favorite MLK, Jr. quote:

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."

Just--awesome.

4. Beta-reading for Lindsay Currie and Jay C. Spencer. Totally different manuscripts, each individually wonderful. And I can't wait to read Tonya Kuper's revisions on HAUTE MESS, which is a hilarious rom-com close to my heart.

3 & 2. Blogs!

Check out One Four Kid Lit, full of 2013 MG and YA debuts, and get to meet MG and YA authors debuting in 2014. So many great books ahead!

Coming next Monday...All The Write Notes, a blog for writers who love, and live, music. The first post is about The Rural Alberta Advantage, and Jay C. Spencer is giving away cool stuff. (I'd tell you but I'm sworn to secrecy. Well, not really, but it's SO COOL. You want it, trust me.)

I'm so stoked to be part of both of these blogs I can barely stand it.

1. NIL edits.

BOOM. Done. And it feels so good. I turned them in, on time, and I feel really, really good about them. I can't wait to see my cover...and to hold an ARC...and for 2014!

Soon I'll post a NIL playlist, but in the meantime, I leave you with this: Willie Moon's Yeah Yeah. I cranked this song when I finished, feeling it for me and for my manuscript. And if you haven't seen this video, then you're in for a treat. It rocks.

Enjoy.:)

The One Four Kid Lit Blog is LIVE!

Yay! The One Four Kid Lit blog is up and running, and it's packed with MG and YA authors debuting in 2014. I'm so honored to be a part of this talented group that I find myself smiling every single time I see the blog header.

Why? Because it's packed with AWESOME.

Like the GETTIN' LUCKY series, where One Fours interview MG & YA authors launching books in 2013, the Lucky '13's. First up? The talented Ellen Oh, author of PROPHECY, which debuted on January 2nd. Ellen's interview (way to go Natalie!) was fun and informative and made me want to read Ellen's novel RIGHT THIS MINUTE. :) (And when I finish my NIL edits, I will reward myself with a 2013 debut read-a-thon, beginning with PROPHECY. :D)

And there's more awesomeness to come!

More interviews, more book birthday celebrations . . . an entire year of book goodness as we gear up to 2014. Over the next few months, you'll find all the OneFours introducing themselves and their upcoming debuts.

Like . . . if you pop over right now, you can meet the amazing Corinne Duyvis, author of next year's OTHERBOUND. I love reading about how books are born, and OTHERBOUND is no exception. Go peek; I'll wait. :)

Hey, while you were there, did you meet Natalie C. Parker, author of the upcoming BEWARE THE WILD? Like Corinne's, Natalie's book belongs on everyone's TBR pile for sure. If you didn't meet Natalie, go back! You'll love her. And if you missed it, the One Fours kicked off the year with an introduction of the talented Annie Cardi, author of QUEEN OF THE AIR, another must-read. If you missed meeting Annie, no worries. Click here and say hello. She's another amazing, sweet author who has been really good to me when I joined the One Fours.

So go check out the One Fours, say hello, and join us in cheering on the Lucky 13's! Aren't new books the best? :)

Happy New Year!

Hello 2013!

To kick off the year, I joined a cool group of YA & MG authors debuting in 2014, One Four Kidlit. Yay! Feels like the perfect way to start today. Want to check out the blog-in-progress? Go here. :) There are so many awesome books coming out in 2014 from new authors, and I'm honored to be part of this group!

Ok, now for the promised 2012 wrap-up.

These kinds of summaries are hard for me; it's why I don't have a "family letter" inside our Christmas card (not that I sent cards this year...ran out of time LOL). But 2012 was amazing. Full of quiet moments and many highlights, writing-wise. Here's a few:

I found my agent, Jennifer Unter, who is made of awesome. Truly. I couldn't ask for a more perfect champion for NIL, for me, or for my writing. Thanks Jennifer, for EVERYTHING.

Jennifer sold my book, NIL, to Macmillan/Henry Holt, for publication Winter 2014. Just--WOW. Talk about a culmination of years of work . . . of a dream come true. Again, thank you Jennifer. :) And thank you Kate, for falling in love with NIL too. :)

I met my awesome crit partner from Omaha, Tonya Kuper, in person--not once, but twice. (Which also meant I got to see Snow Patrol live twice as well--both times with Tonya. Woot!) I'm so grateful to my friend and CP, Laura Stanford, for introducing us through Backspace (a killer conference if you ever have the chance to go). Hugs, Laura! Tonya landed an agent in 2012 too and that made me HAPPY. Like over-the-moon happy. To watch a friend succeed when you have been there for the ride is pure sweetness and a highlight all its own. :)

I made more writing friends on-line than I ever dreamed possible. Like the amazing Lindsay Currie and Trisha Leaver (through Tonya!), who gave me the opportunity to read one of their blow-your-mind awesome manuscripts and who are as nice as they are talented . . . like Jay Spencer, a talented artist-writer-music fan (alert: Jay writes kick-butt MG) who kick-started a music blog for writers and gave me the chance to be a part of it . . . like Eliza Tilton and Laura Stanford, both writers from Backspace, who each celebrated personal/career successes this year (publication! dream job!) which make me happy too . . . like Jessie Harrell, who is an amazing writer and CP (ok, Jessie is local and I love her and I can lunch with her when the stars align and neither of our kids are sick, but this wrap-up cannot NOT include Jessie, who has been with me every step of my writing journey.:D) . . . like Natalie Whipple, whose blog I stumbled across when I first began pursuing publication and who I'm honored to count as a friend (Natalie is honest and smart and Talented and kind and I want to read EVERY SINGLE ONE OF HER BOOKS -- and possibly her grocery list, because her writing is just that awesome)  . . . and like dozens of other writers who make me smile when I read their Tweets. The writing community is tight on Twitter, but not in an exclusive way, and I feel blessed to be a part of it.

I learned--again--that publication really is about patience, and perseverance. Patience while you wait to hear from your agent while on submission, patience while you wait on your book contract, patience while you wait to receive your edits . . . (see a trend here? The waiting in publishing never ends. I'd heard that before and it's so true!) But while you wait, you must still write. You still have to sit and push through the block when the words won't come, or the muse doesn't show, and you can't let the waiting kill your writing. It's hard, at least it was for me at times, because the emotional roller coaster of the WAITS (the flats in between the highs and the lows) are like mental quicksand. At times it's hard to keep going, but you can't stop, at least not for long, because you'll get stuck.

There were personal highlights too . . . I celebrated my 17th wedding anniversary, watched many gorgeous sunsets and sunrises over the ocean (sometimes on a paddle board), fell back in love with painting (oil, preferably, but acrylics are fun too), figured out I suck at yoga but like it anyway, watched all 4 of my boys do amazing things in sports and school, and read over 150 books. Lots of good books out there to be read, which makes me stoked for 2013. :)

So Happy New Year! Here's to a fresh start, a new year, many months of GREAT books and good times. :) *clinks glass*

Oh, one more thing: my resolution. Balance. I'm REALLY going to work hard on juggling the family/life/health/writing balance. It's hard for me, because when I'm into something, I do it 100%. But sometimes as much as I want to write for 14 hours straight, I can't--or shouldn't. So I'm working on balance, with a time management component.

What's your resolution for 2013?

To you! Cheers!

Friday Five

Hey, y'all! How are you? I thought I'd do a quick Friday Five to share what's been going in in my life.

5. End-of Year School Craziness

With four boys in two different schools, we had holiday parties, teacher gifts (I baked M & M cookies for dozens of teachers... and made white chocolate trash for others), final projects, etc. The first few weeks of December were like a Disneyland ride on warp speed. Fun, but WILD.

4. Holidays

Um, yeah. I LOVE Christmas. I love the songs, the festive vibe, the family traditions we have... the whole thing. And I love decorating for the holidays. The house is decked out, with lights and garland inside and out. Step inside and we've got Nativity sets and Santas and all kinds of stuff EVERYWHERE. Some tacky, some not, and like the boys, I love every bit of it. :) But while I love decorating, and celebrating, it takes time, time sometimes I feel pressed to find, especially this year. And right this minute I don't even want to think about taking all the decorations down. The  holiday breakdown is a less fun time-suck on the other end, coming in a January when I seriously do not have one minute to spare. (More on that in a second).

3. Company

We had my hubby's brother, sister-in-law, and their kids, plus my mother-in law and my mom for Christmas. Then the day after Christmas, some of our best friends from Beijing came to visit for a day/night with their three girls...and two hours after they left my sister and her husband and their two boys rolled in. They'll be with us until the new year, which is AWESOME. My sister lives in Wisconsin, and I don't see her enough. We'll have had company for two weeks totally, which is awesome and crazy and crazy awesome. Normally I'd relax after but NOT THIS YEAR. (More on that in a second). And my kids aren't back in school until January 7th. *gulp*

2. All The Write Notes.

A cool music blog for writers is in the works. A group of us are pulling it together and I can't WAIT for you to check it out! Debuts in January... I'll keep you posted. :)

1. THIS:

Yup, NIL edits. :) Woohoo! Got 'em December 11th, chatted with my editor on the 13th, and my revisions are due mid-January. *panics* *wails* *breathes* :) The cool thing is that I finally see how it's coming together... it's really going to be a book. A published book, that people (and not just my friends and CP's LOL) can read. And *hopefully* will like.

But edits. Mid-holiday. Yeah, there's that. So I'm just doing the best I can. :) Aren't we all? :)

My next post will be a 2012 wrap-up, short & sweet. Then it's going to be a little NIL for the new year, with playlists, background, inspiration, and character shorts. I can't wait for you to meet Charley and Thad!

Anyway, I hope your holidays have been lovely, full of friends, family, love, and of course, cookies. (My favorite this year were ginger-chocolate chip bars. Delish!)

Let me know what's new with you, and if you have a favorite holiday cookie. :)

The Secret to Writing a Bestseller

I haven't a clue. :)

And I don't think there is one. There's no secret, no magic bullet. But I do think there's some basic ingredients to the bestseller recipe. Like . . .

Hard work.

Great writing.

Fresh storytelling.

Timing.

Opportunity.

Heaps of LUCK.

Mix all those up--and listen, I know the last three aren't really in your control--and you *might* have a bestseller. MIGHT. Because as y'all know, nothing is guaranteed, especially not in publishing.

But I believe there is something that will help improve your odds: write what you love.

Maybe it won't sell a bazillion copies, maybe it will. But if you're lucky, your book will touch a reader in a way no other book has. Because if you write what you love, your passion for your story and your characters gets infused in the pages themselves, and your readers will respond to it . . . they will feel it, and in the end, isn't that what you want? For your readers to feel? To be moved? To be transported to another place or time? To be scared? To want? To wonder? To fall in love? And if your novel touches enough people . . . voila! Now we're starting to talk bestseller. :)

So give yourself a gift this holiday season: permission to write what you love. Just write . . . without fear, without expectations. Without pressure. Write the story you're dying to write, because if you love it, chances are, another person will love it too. :) And maybe more than just one . . .

So what are you writing? And do you have any other ingredients to add to the bestseller mix?

THROUGH TO YOU

Hi y'all!

Happy-almost-Thankgiving! :D

I know my blog's been a little quiet lately. ;( I'm still figuring this blog thing out, and in the precious minutes I've found to write, I've been revising one manuscript, beta-reading another (an amazing YA light sci-fi manuscript that y'all will LOVE when it comes out!) and reading. Like most writers, I love to read. Books are brain candy all the way. :D

And, as my CP's and family know, I read freakishly fast. It's weird, but I always have. The upside? Two hours and I've read a great book. Done. The downside? I don't get to stay with those characters as long as I'd like. So when characters linger . . . and I keep thinking about them, and the world(s) they inhabit, and the choices they made . . . I LOVE IT. (Think Harry Potter, Sirius Black, Edward Cullen, Mia and Adam, Peeta, Lessa of Pern, Sita, Jenna Fox  . . . I could go on but I'll stop. :D).

The last novel with characters that stayed with me? THROUGH TO YOU by Emily Hainsworth (*psst* The cover is on my sidebar to the right...go on, look. I'll wait. :D)

Okay! You're back! So, THROUGH TO YOU. Here's the description from Goodreads:

"Camden Pike has been grief-stricken since his girlfriend, Viv, died. He’d give anything to have just one more glimpse of her. But when Cam visits the site of Viv’s deadly car accident, he sees an apparition. Her name is Nina, and she’s a girl from a parallel world. When Cam follows here there and makes an unbelievable discovery, it’s as if all his wildest dreams have come true. But things are very different in this other world. Nina is hiding a secret, and the window between the worlds is shrinking every day. As Cam comes to terms with the truth, he’s forced to make a choice that will change his life forever."

Don't you want to read it?!

IMO, using the device of parallel worlds, Emily's development of Viv was brilliant. And Camden's evolution as a character is as impressive as Emily's treatment of Viv, for different reasons. I don't want to spoil this read for anyone (so I'll stay vague) but Camden can "see" both worlds, and this dual sight leads to insight: about the people in both worlds, including himself. 

It's been weeks since I read THROUGH TO YOU, and I still find myself thinking about Camden, and Viv. Even Nina. They have lingered, as have their choices....and I love that. :) Thanks Emily, for a GREAT read. :D

Ok, readers, what about you? What books--or characters--have lingered with you after you closed the book? Old favorites, or new discoveries? And on a side note, what's your favorite Thanksgiving dish? Mine is sweet potato casserole, with pecans on top.:D Double-yum.

Off to bake.:) Can't wait to hear about your faves!