Competition time

Hello lovely peeps. Though I'd better do a bit of a catch up since I've been MIA for so long!

I'm over at We Love YA talking about all things writing and television related and there is also a giveaway comp going on so please swing by and enter (and tell me what your favorite TV shows are!)

There is still time to head over to Amazon and buy You Had Me at Halo on Kindle for the bargain price of 99 cents before it goes back up again.

I'm still getting in some lovely reviews of Fairy Bad Day, which is wonderful. Turns out that cheeky fairies and Skittles are a popular combination. Who knew?! ReadPlus said:

"Ashby has brought together the tried formula of a school for talented paranormal teens, a quest to save the world from evil and an interesting romance to make a very enjoyable, quick read. Teen girls who are after something amusing and cheerful will enjoy this one. I will certainly be reading anything else by this author purely for the laughs I know I will receive from her clever dialogue." ReadPlus Pat Pledger

And City Book Reviews said:

"This fairy read puts a new spin on a cliché that I have not seen before. Full of action, entertaining banter, and fairies (of course), Fairy Bad Day is a fun paranormal read that any young adult fan would enjoy putting on their summer reading list."City Book Reviews, Missy Wadkins

And finally, because it can't all be about me. I'd like to give a special shout out to Teri Brown who has just sold an an amazing new YA series. The first book is called Houdini's Daughter and I'm already dying to read it!

Oh and one last thing. Some of you might know that in August the beautiful and talented Sandra Hyatt (Hyde) died suddenly. This was such a terrible shock to everyone who knew Sandra and I think it will be quite some time before the news really sinks in. However, her family and her closest writing friends have set up the Sandra Hyde Memorial Trust to help emerging writers and if you would like to contribute to it, you can do so here.

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You Had Me at Halo Kindle special

Dear sweet, kind, lovely blog readers,

Have I mentioned how pretty you look today??!!!!

Anyway, yes, I know I'm a very bad author for ignoring you for so long so as a way of saying sorry I've reduced the price of my kindle book, You Had Me at Halo. That's right, for one week it will be 99cents over at Amazon.

You Had Me at Halo was my first published book and not only was it a Romantic Times Top Pick and a finalist in the Reviewer's Choice Awards, but Publisher's Weekly said it was 'The Lovely Bones meets Bridget Jones' so if you haven't read it yet then now is your chance. But be quick because I'm only going to keep the price down for one week. And no, there aren't any steak knives to accompany it, mainly because my heroine isn't trustworthy when sharp objects are concerned!

When Holly Evans wakes up dead at the tender age of twenty-two, she’s pretty sure things can’t get any worse (especially since her boyfriend was about to propose to her with a diamond ring the size of her knuckle). But Holly’s wrong and it turns out that she’s still got some mortal baggage to unload before she can walk through the pearly gates, which is why she’s being sent back to earth to get things sorted out.

Problem is that when she lands in the body of computer geek, Vince Murphy, she discovers that instead of having left the building, Vince is still very much alive (and remarkably unimpressed at the idea of sharing with a dead girl). So now Holly has to sort out her unresolved baggage in the next forty-eight hours while stuck in the body of a guy she barely noticed while she was alive. And if she doesn’t? Well, let’s just say that she’s probably not going to like the alternative.

So, if you're looking for something a bit lighter to read then this is the book for you!

lots of hugs

Amanda


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GCC presents Jeri Smith-Ready

Well my sweet bloggers, here I am again. Good news is that I'm going to be doing a blog overhaul very soon and then you will be seeing a lot more of me. It will be all singing, all dancing and all glittery. Well, maybe! Anyway, before I start my tour, just to let you know that I've over at Totebags giving some advice to unpublished authors (don't worry, none of it involves complicated long words or anything that will hurt your brains). So if you're chasing publication, then please pop over and say hi.

Anyway, enough about me. Today I'm touring Jeri Smith-Ready, who is honestly one of the coolest, smartest authors out there and if you haven't read her books then please, you need to get that sorted out stat!!!! So Jeri's latest release is a short story in, ENTHRALLED: PARANORMAL DIVERSION, edited by Melissa Marr and Kelley Armstrong.

This collection of original paranormal YA short stories grew out of the 2010 Smart Chicks Kick It Tour, a multi author, multi city, author-organized tour of the US and Canada. With it, these 16 authors hoped to bring a little taste of the Smart Chicks experience to readers everywhere.

Jeri's story is called Bridge and here is the skinny:

In the world of the SHADE novels, everyone seventeen and under can see and hear ghosts, but no one else can. So when Logan Keeley dies and his eighteen-year-old brother Mickey blames himself, they can’t ease each other’s pain or reconcile their rage. Over the course of SHADE and SHIFT, Mickey sinks into a near-suicidal depression over Logan’s death.

“Bridge” is the story, told in free verse, of how two brothers, with the help of a stranger, forge the chasm between them to find a lasting peace.

REVIEWS

“A solid collection of stories...Sarah Rees Brennan's ‘Let's Get This Undead Show on the Road’ follows a vampire in a boy-band and stands out with its perfect blend of snark and sincerity. It's followed in a one-two punch by Jeri Smith-Ready's intense and earnest ‘Bridge.’...This collection is ideal as a sampler tray for paranormal readers looking to pick up new authors to follow or to further explore the fictional worlds they already know. —Kirkus Reviews 1. How did you come up with the idea for this story?

In the first draft of SHIFT (SHADE book 2), I wrote some sections in free verse from Logan’s point-of view. He had the intro, the outro, and a couple of interludes to bridge parts of the novel where a lot of time passed. None of my beta readers really “got it”—they thought it was supposed to be a song, not part of the narrative—and my editor wanted SHIFT to be consistent with SHADE, keeping to Aura’s point-of-view. I cut Logan’s portions, a few of which were later released on the SHIFT blog tour:

http://hefollowedmehome.blogspot.com/2011/04/shift-blog-tour-deleted-scene-guest.html

But I’d been bitten by the “free verse” bug! I’ve always loved reading verse novels, and since Logan is a songwriter, it made sense for his story to be in verse.

Besides, Logan is a special dude. He’s more like me than any other character in the series. I wanted to show him apart from Aura, the POV character in SHADE, so readers could see who he was without her.
2 What’s been your favorite author moment so far in your career?

Definitely the YA Crush Tournament this summer, when another SHADE character (Zachary) went from last seed all the way to the finals and gave Jace from Mortal Instruments a serious challenge. It happened not because of anything I did, but because Zach’s advocates (bloggers Amy and Jen at Fictitious Delicious) created the phenomenon now known as “Team Kilt” (Zach is Scottish). They made videos, wrote poems, and rallied fans from around the world to support Zachary. I am still blown away by the hundreds of fans who came out to have fun during the tournament and beyond.

Oh, I wish I'd know, I would've joined Team Kilt (Jace is a bit too tetchy for me!)

3 It’s Oscar speech time! Who are the three people that you would most like to thank for helping you write this story?

Can I name four people? It would be Marcus Mumford, Country Winston, Ben Lovett, and Ted Dwane—the members of the band Mumford & Sons. I listened to their CD, SIGH NO MORE, over and over and over and over and OVER again, probably five or six times a day for three weeks. Their music is so evocative and heart-rending and redemptive, making it perfect for this story about two brothers learning to forgive each other. These lines from “The Cave” say it all:

I will hold on hope
And I won’t let you choke
On the noose around your neck
And I’ll find strength in pain
And I will change my ways
I’ll know my name as it’s called again.


4 Describe a typical writing day.

No such thing! I get twitchy if I have too much routine and structure, so I’m constantly shuffling things around to trick myself into working.

But it always involves coffee and comfy clothes.

5 Tell me one strange random fact about this story.

At every stop on the Smart Chicks tour, the audience members entered to win the chance to be killed in one of the anthology short stories—I mean, for someone with their name to be killed in our stories. I hope Cindy thinks I did her justice. Retweet this button on every post blogger

GCC presents Dear Bully

Today I've got a super important book to talk about. Dear Bully was put together by two of the wonderful GCC authors, Megan Kelley Hall and Carrie Jones in response to the death of Phoebe Prince last year after she was bullied so badly that she took her own life. As a mother with two kids in primary school the idea that they might face cyber bullying as well as regular bullying is completely terrifying and anything that we can do to break it down and stop it from happening has to be worth it.

WHY THEY DID IT
Megan Kelley Hall and Carrie Jones formed the group YAAAB (Young Adult Authors Against Bullying) in April 2010 when they both coincidentally blogged about the Phoebe Prince case on the same day. Megan reached out to Carrie expressing her frustration with this case and the fact that bullying that seemed to be growing at a ridiculously fast rate. As a Massachusetts resident and having already spoken about bullying in schools, Megan was horrified after hearing about the bullying that took place in the Phoebe Prince case.

While writing her books, SISTERS OF MISERY and THE LOST SISTER, she had to dig deep to make “mean girls as evil as she possibly could. When she heard about all the bullying and bullycide stories in the news, she felt like the bullies had jumped off the pages of her book and into real life. She was also disheartened by the numerous times she’d done book signings and would say to readers, “I hope you never meet girls as mean as the ones in my book.” Shockingly, they almost always said, “We already have.”

Carrie Jones was also moved to do something, as she was the target of bullying as a young child due to a speech impediment. Together, they felt that they owed it to teen readers to discourage bullying -- to make it "uncool." Megan Kelley Hall started by creating a Facebook page that kicked off an entire "movement" to end bullying. This was the day that Megan, Carrie and other authors decided to use their platform as Young Adult authors to actually facilitate change and to be a voice for those kids who cannot speak out or are too afraid to be heard.

HOW IT HAPPENED

Right away, a large number of authors jumped on board of this cause -- wanting to be involved in any way possible. The Facebook group jumped from 5 to 1500 members in one weekend and is now closing in on nearly 5,000 members. Carrie and Megan were thrilled when HarperTeen offered to put all of the stories into an anthology. The thought of having 70 authors – well-known, highly successful writers – sharing their personal bullying stories with their fans was something beyond what they had ever hoped for.

The stories in DEAR BULLY come from all angles: from the point of view of the victim, the mother, the friend, the sibling, the classmate – even a few from the actual bully. Some of the stories are light-hearted, while others are raw and emotional. All of them drive home the point that bullying is something that almost everyone has experienced. And while that is a sad fact, they want to prove that it's not a rite of passage. It doesn't make you stronger, wiser, or better. But it is something that can be overcome, something that can be changed, something that is relatable, and something that one should never be ashamed of. Through these stories, the authors want to show that they understand what teens are going through today. It is important to encourage bystanders to speak up and make bullying unacceptable. Parents and adults must get involved. Bullying is something that people no longer have to endure--at least, not by themselves.

Though quite a lofty mission, the goal of DEAR BULLY is to help just one person get through a difficult time, and hopefully make bullying a thing of the past.

Don't forget to join the Facebook page at www.facebook.com/dearbully, visit the website at www.dearbully.com, or follow DEAR BULLY on Twitter at www.twitter.com/dearbully.

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I'm back!

Oh, look! I'm back in time to collect my Worst Blogger In the World. Ever. Ever. Ever Award. It's so pretty and shiny. Though of course I wouldn't be the bad blogger I am if it wasn't for the help of my television and the teetering pile of awesome books that are sitting next to my bed...

Anyway, yes dear friends, I have been bad and there is no promise that I will get any better, but I'm here now so let's play! First up, I just want to let you know that I had a lovely weekend at the CYA conference in Brisbane where I got to meet so many great people (well, I say meet, you might say rugby tackle to the ground, but let's not split hairs!)

But now I want to tell you about a new book written by my lovely buddy, Lauren Fobbs who also goes by the name Empress Awesome (sorry guys, I've already tried to steal this tag off her and she's not letting it go!!!!) Anyway, Lauren is wickedly funny and has self-published her book, The (Sparkly) Vampire (Obsessed) Diaries and if you think that this sounds like my cup of tea, then you'd be right!

Here's the skinny

Jeanette Thomas is in love with all things Twilight. So when the new hottie at school, Steven, starts taking notice of her she's positive that she's found her very own vampire boyfriend. Unfortunately, in The World of Jeanette, sexy Irish boys with albinism can sometimes be mistaken for the undead; and after she gets dumped for taking her Twilight obsession too far, she sets out on a life changing quest to win Steven back. And when Jeanette wants something, not even paper towel mini skirts, conniving aunts, and the entire expanse of the U.S. can stop her from getting it... but her budding love for the charming and mysterious Grayson just might.

Cute, right? Lauren also has a Goodreads competition going so if you'd like to win a copy then scoot right over!

Anyway, because no one gets a free ride on this blog, I've also put Lauren through her paces! Let's see how she did!

1) How did you first get the idea for your current book?

I would definitely have to blame it on the current vampire craze—I was taking a break from writing to read some two-star Goodreads reviews for popular books because I thrive off of other authors’ pain I was morbidly curious Ooh, look, a llama! So anyway, I was reading Twilight reviews, and lots of people I know are obsessed with Twilight, so I figured why not throw my coin in the competition and write a vampire novel, too? Or a faux-vampire novel, as it were.

Actually, when I had writer’s block on a novel I had been working on I started writing something to get the ideas flowing and it just sort of…happened. And I liked it enough to finish it. But the first story’s cooler, let’s stick with that.

2) What's a normal writing day for you?

I don’t really have a schedule—that is, I don’t make time for writing. *horrified gasp* I sort of just stick it in random hours of the day. *someone at the back of the room faints* Ideally, I get up in the morning (not the afternoon) and eat, work out, eat, surf the internet, practice my violin, eat, surf the internet, go out, eat, go to work, eat, surf the internet, go out, eat, and watch tv and write in between everything. Key word there is ideally.

3) I found that some books are pure joy to write and others need to be dragged kicking and screaming from your mind. What was this book like to write?

Relatively easy. The only problem I ran into was reaching my word count goal; The story was rolling out so rapidly it wouldn’t have felt genuine to add another scene just for word count sake. But then I realized I should add a faux-werewolf to go with my faux-vampire and teen girl, because who doesn’t love love triangles? It probably would have been about 15,000 words if I hadn’t added that aspect. Also, the faux-were character, Grayson, fit so well into the story and had so much chemistry with everyone else that adding scenes was no longer an issue. In the end, I think this is the most fun book I’ve ever written.

4) The best blooper I've ever done as a writer was when I had my heroine hand the hero something. Problem was they were sharing the same body at the time! So to help lessen my embarrassment, I'd love to know what your best writing blooper is and did someone catch it before your book went into print?

Oh my gosh, this is so embarrassing: After I submitted my Kindle version to Amazon and was busy formatting the (amazingly awesome) paperback version I noticed an unfinished scene in the manuscript that I thought I had deleted! I mean, I fixed it immediately but… there are four people in the world who have a scene that ends right at the good part. Yeah. Sorry about that.

5) And finally, since most people who read this blog know that I have an unhealthy addiction to television, let’s get down to the nitty gritty – what are your favorite shows both past and present?

We definitely have that in common Amanda—sometimes I’ll even turn it on for background noise instead of using the radio. My absolute fave shows are Psych, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Futurama, The Office, Judge Judy, Hell’s Kitchen, pretty much everything on TLC and Bravo…it’s a sickness, I know. But if it makes it sound any better, I usually do my internet surfing or writing while I watch TV. ( Not sure it makes it sound better. Luckily, I am quite unashamed.)

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