Friday Four - Writerly Business!

1. I ALMOST have a cover to show of NEVER ENOUGH! The cover is actually complete, I'm hoping I can have a summary to post with it so it makes it IMPOSSIBLE for you to not want to read this book! LOL. I'll have a little contest with the unveiling of the cover giving away a couple of cool prizes, like a copy of the 2nd Printing edition of LOSING FAITH, and some cool new swag for NEVER ENOUGH. Fun, yes?

2. My agent got back to me yesterday about my outline for the companion novel to LOSING FAITH. It's tentatively called FINDING HOPE, and it will be in Tessa's point of view. My agent had lots of good things to say about my outline, but she still thinks it needs to be a bit more focused. She likes it, though, and is eager to get it off to my editor, as soon as we tweak it a little. Yay!!!

3. Until I heard from my agent, I was working on a new project. I think of it as "the forbidden manuscript" because A. It's about forbidden love, and B. It's not the manuscript I *should* be working on. But sometimes you just have to stop shoulding on yourself and follow your heart. Right? RIGHT? 

4. My 1PP (otherwise known as First Pass Pages) for NEVER ENOUGH arrived yesterday, which is basically the interiors of the book the way it will look when it is finished. Not quite as much squealing with this one as with LOSING FAITH. It's a little plainer in comparison. Here's a little glimpse:

But I still love it. Annnnddd...there is an excerpt of LOSING FAITH at the back, so there ARE still butterflies:

I'll be busy petting, er, I mean WORKING THROUGH these pages over the weekend. This is my last, last chance at making changes (at least I think it is. I have heard of authors working on 2nd pass pages, but so far I haven't had any part in that stage) so I'll be going through it with a micro-fine tooth comb, trying very hard to concentrate on every word, paragraph, and page.

How about you? Do you have any writing/revising/reading planned for the weekend?

Thankful Thursday

To be hones, I've been a bit of a grump lately. So I thought I might be due to count my blessings. And already it is putting a smile on my face. Besides, Canadian Thanksgiving is right around the corner!

1. As always, I'm so thankful that I have a happy, healthy family who loves me.
2. I'm thankful that my mom sold her house.
3. I'm thankful for the community of writers I know and how generous everyone is with sharing their wisdom and experience.
4. I'm thankful for blogging. Yes, it's true. There's something about blogging that makes me feel happy, and I love to see comments and know there are people listening, and I love hearing from old friends as well as seeing brand new names show up in the comments.
5. I'm thankful that I've had a new gym to workout in lately. Before I went there, my husband told me, "yeah, but it's really warm and spread out in this new place." How little he knows me! If there are two things I LOVE warmth and spaciousness!!
6. I'm thankful that my edits on NEVER ENOUGH are practically done. All I have left is a read-through of first-pass pages, which I'm really looking forward to.
7. I'm thankful that LOSING FAITH is still receiving so many glowing reviews, and awards nominations too!
8. I'm thankful for my son and husband's lightheartedness and sense of humor (remind me of this on April first).
9. I'm thankful for all the new, amazing books I've been blessed with lately.
10. I'm thankful for steadfast faith, even through a difficult year.

How about you? What are you most thankful for?

A Blog in Pictures

Lately, I've had no time, mostly because of this:

And today I'll be off doing this:

But at the end of the day, this is what's waiting for me:

Happy Wednesday, everybody!

Contemps Blogging

I'm blogging over at The Contemps site today, spotlighting an awesome book by a friend of mine.

I won't tell you who this author is, but here's a quote I just read from her the other day, which I did not know...

"My editor thought that my (first) book sounded like gay erotic porn because of the first sentences I had. Which my editor made me change."

So if you want to find out who this is and what she's writing now, stop by The Contemps!

Monday Stuff

Well, it's October 3rd, and so far I'm doing really well with NaBloWriMo - Blogging every day of October. Of course my blog titles are already suffering. Sigh.

Let's see, what do I have to blog about today...

I added a new little widget highlighting some blurbs and review excerpts for LOSING FAITH at the top of my blog. Do you like it, or is it annoying?

Also, very exciting news for me over the weekend...Several months ago LOSING FAITH was nominated for an INSPY award (An award for faith-driven literature). I just found out that my book was short-listed for the award!! The winner will be announced in December, so please cross your fingers and toes (and your eyes) for me :-)

I finished reading MOONGLASS by Jessi Kirby. I really enjoyed it. As you probably know, I don't usually do reviews on this blog, but as a challenge to myself, I thought I'd see if I could convince you to read it in five words or less (because it really is a very good book!) Okay, here it goes...

Hot lifeguards cliff-jumping naked.

Did it work? Are you going to check out this book???

But seriously, it has a lot more going for it than naked lifeguards, I promise. Here's the summary from GoodReads:

I read once that water is a symbol for emotions. And for a while now, I've thought maybe my mother drowned in both.

Anna's life is upended when her father accepts a job transfer the summer before her junior year. It's bad enough that she has to leave her friends and her life behind, but her dad is moving them to the beach where her parents first met and fell in love- a place awash in memories that Anna would just as soon leave under the surface.

While life on the beach is pretty great, with ocean views and one adorable lifeguard in particular, there are also family secrets that were buried along the shore years ago. And the ebb and flow of the ocean's tide means that nothing- not the sea glass that she collects on the sand and not the truths behind Anna's mother's death- stays buried forever.
That's all the news I have for you today. Catch you back here tomorrow (probably).

How Awesome is @SaraZarr ? Pretty Freakin Awesome

Yesterday I had it in my thoughts that I might get to the Smart Chicks Kick It Tour - on location in Vancouver. I did have several other things going on, so I didn't know for sure if I'd make it (plus Vancouver is a bit of a drive for me). But I did get there, and I was so glad I did!

More than anything, I wanted to meet Sara Zarr, because, well, she's my hero, and I hoped to get my greedy little hands on her latest book HOW TO SAVE A LIFE, which doesn't actually release until October 18th. I got there late and the place was PACKED, but I did see a copy of Sara's book and snagged it right away. I was directed to get into line or I wouldn't be able to get it signed.

Well...the lineup was about a mile long. No kidding. Granted, it was for five awesome authors (Kelley Armstrong, Melissa Marr, Jennifer Lynn Barnes, Beth Revis, Margaret Stohl, and Sara Zarr). The section of line I was in was all very hyped over Kelly Armstrong. I personally haven't read any of Kelley's books yet, but it was so fun to see groups of teens so excited over books and authors!


We got to talking, and I mentioned I was also an author and passed out a few bookmarks. A couple of the girls in line with me rushed off to get my book so I could sign it for them. :-))))


But in reality, I was there as a total fangirl. It's not all that often that we get great YA authors in Vancouver and Sara Zarr really is one of my favorites. The five authors gave what sounded like a very entertaining Q&A (unfortunately I couldn't hear much of it from my place in line). When they started signing, it seemed like the line didn't move for ages, and at one point I tweeted about being in a very long line with my copy of HOW TO SAVE A LIFE.


The sweet girls who bought copies of my book held my place in line repeatedly while I went roaming the store to check on my seven-year-old. He was doing fine (Chapters has a huge toy section) and by the time I got back, the line had finally moved so we could now actually make visual contact with our idols. Though we were still many rows of people away.


At one point, Sara Zarr stood behind her table on the stage and waved in my direction at the back of this huge crowd of people. As much as I tried to convince myself otherwise, she doesn't know me, so I did what any other person in the crowd would do and looked behind me. There were a few customers, a few Chapters staff members, but none of them were looking back in Sara's direction.


Weird.


So I got to talking with my Kelley-Armstrong-fangirl-friends again, and was lost in conversation, when suddenly who was standing beside me? Yup, Sara Zarr herself.

Apparently she'd seen my tweet and didn't want me to have to wait all day. How freakin' cool is that?! THEN...to make my day even BETTER, when I introduced myself and told her what I wrote, she said she already knew that! So now Sara Zarr AND Elizabeth Scott totally know who I am! (Somebody slap me before I truly embarrass my fangirlish self here.) The day that Laurie Halse Anderson walks up and says, "Hey, aren't you Denise Jaden?" my life will be complete!


So, yeah, I had an awesome time, with an awesome picture of Sara (not so great of me) and an amazing book to show for it. I'm a little sad that I didn't get to say hi to Beth Revis, but I would have had to keep my son in that store for another couple of hours to accomplish that.


 Anyway, here's the pic, and the book (which I *may* give away in an upcoming contest after I've had a chance to read it.

#NaBloWriMo and my #NaNoWriMo History

So there's this thing I saw floating around Twitter last night called NaBloWriMo. Any guesses as to what it stands for? I was lacking creativity last night, so I just asked. Apparently it's National Blog Writing Month - which they're naming the month of October. The idea is to blog every day - AKA Write Every Day. If you want to get more involved, here's their website.

It's probably a good idea, to warm up for NaNoWriMo and all. Not sure I can commit to really, truly doing it every day, but I thought I'd at least start and keep my fingers busy. I'll try to blog a bit more about my process of getting prepared for NaNoWriMo as I do it, but I've been tying up a few other projects first.

At this point, I'm at the brainstorming stage, so not much to share yet. For today, I thought I'd give you a history of my NaNo experience, what has worked for me and what has not.

2007 - First draft of LOSING FAITH - started with a logline/query blurb. Not a very thorough outline.

2008 - First draft of BELLY UP - thorough outline and SOUNDS LIKE THUNDER - without an outline. The one without an outline was fun, and easy to work on during the days I wasn't feeling super-driven on the other one, but it kind of ended up as a plotless heap of *$#$%&*. I've since learned that I need some sort of an outline. The outlined book is still in revisions, and I hope to publish it one day.

2009 - First draft of PERFECT AIM. During this NaNo, I was also in the midst of heavy edits on LOSING FAITH. I had a 38k outline for this one, but to tell you the truth, I think it was over-outlined. I got lazy because of the outline and the writing became stilted. I still hope to go back to this one, but I know it will require a complete rewrite.

2010 - first draft of FINDING HOPE, a companion novel to LOSING FAITH. I'm still in revisions on that one, so I can't tell you for sure about the success of the outlining/preparation, but I did try to go back to a simpler outline for this one, and even though my revisions have been almost total rewrites, the first draft has helped me worked out a lot of issues.

Hope that has helped you some. It actually has helped me, so I'm glad I took the time to get it down.

See you tomorrow...Maybe.