I am over here. Now I am over here.

I'm OVER HERE today on Operation Awesome with a book giveaway of one of my all-time favorite YA wonders:

Paranormalcy

goodreads 

The third book in the trilogy comes out July 24th, just one month after my baby is due! So go to Operation Awesome now for the giveaway of Book 1. :) You're welcome.

Pretty, Pretty Amy

Ta-da!!!

The PRETTY AMY cover revealed!

I love the juxtaposition of the lovely, fairy tale dress and the dirty jail bars! Read the blurb below to find out why she's sitting in a jail cell!

Amy is fine living in the shadows of beautiful Lila and uber-cool Cassie, because at least she’s somewhat beautiful and uber-cool by association. But when their dates stand them up for prom, and the girls take matters into their own hands—earning them a night in jail outfitted in satin, stilettos, and Spanx—Amy discovers even a prom spent in handcuffs might be better than the humiliating “rehabilitation techniques” now filling up her summer. Worse, with Lila and Cassie parentally banned, Amy feels like she has nothing—like she is nothing. Navigating unlikely alliances with her new coworker, two very different boys, and possibly even her parents, Amy struggles to decide if it’s worth being a best friend when it makes you a public enemy. Bringing readers along on an often hilarious and heartwarming journey, Amy finds that maybe getting a life only happens once you think your life is over.

Add it on Goodreads

Pre-order at Amazon  (due out May 15th, 2012!)

Pre-order at Barnes and Noble

Also, for everybody who desperately wants to know where Amy got her terrific shoes...

You can ask Lisa here:

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Dies Irae Blog Tour with Christine Fonseca!! Understanding Gothic and Thriller Subgenres

Today it's my pleasure to welcome Christine Fonseca to my blog!!

You may know Christine from her very cool non-fiction about gifted children, but if not, then here is a real treat, because you get to meet her at the start of her YA debut! Dies Irae!

Short Blurb for DIES IRAE (Goodreads)

Some sacrifices should never be made—even for love.
Mikayel lives by one rule—obey the orders of the angelic Council at all
costs. But when he and his friends, Azza and Demi, are sent to Earth as
teenagers, following the rules is more difficult than they expected.
Being human isn’t the only problem facing the three angels. Unbeknownst
to the Council, demonic activity is on the rise, threatening to break a
tenuous peace that has existed for a millennia.
Caught in a struggle for power with unseen demonic forces, and fighting
against his rising emotional, Mikayel must now decide how many rules he
is willing to break to save his friends, a decision that could reignite an
ancient war and will threaten the only thing that matters to the angels, the
survival of humanity.

“Dies Irae is the perfect introduction to Christine Fonseca’s Requiem series. The beauty of the words will tempt you, the tragedy of the story will break you, and the love, woven throughout like music through the trees, will haunt you for days afterward. Dies Irae promises a tale unlike any you’ve read before.”

~Ali Cross, Author of BECOME

Christine Fonseca

School psychologist by day, critically acclaimed YA and nonfiction

author by night, Christine Fonseca believes that writing is a great

way to explore humanity. Her debut YA Gothic series, The Requiem

Series, including DIES IRAE and LACRIMOSA, examines the role

of redemption, sacrifice and love. When she’s not writing or spending

time with her family, she can be sipping too many skinny vanilla lattes

at her favorite coffee house or playing around on Facebook and

Twitter. Catch her daily thoughts about writing and life on her blog.

Now, here's Christine...

My Type of Writing: Understanding Gothic and Thriller Subgenres

Thanks, Katrina, for being part of the blog tour for DIES IRAE. Today I want to talk about the types of stories I like to write—namely Gothic stories and thrillers.

We’ll start with Gothic stories. While DIES IRAE is not strictly a Gothic story, it does have several elements of this subgenre. Typically a Gothic novel has the following features:

·         Setting: Typically a Gothic tale takes place in an old castle of house, full of gloomy shadows, long dark hallways, trap doors, etc. In more modern takes, a Gothic tale may take place in a rundown part of a city.

·         Mood/Tone: An atmosphere of suspense and mystery overrides every aspect of a Gothic tale. Typically, the setting itself is used to portray and enhance the tone.

·         Story: Gothic novels usually include an ancient prophesy of some type, omens and nightmares, women in distress of one form or another, and mystery.

·         Characteristics: A Gothic tale has supernatural occurrences in the story and usually pulls on mythology and Jungian archetypes.

·         Language: The rhythm of the writing is somewhat fluid and lyrical. The emotional content is intense and overwrought throughout the majority of the story.

·         Romance: Yes, there is often a romance, usually involving a woman trying to get away from a tyrannical male, and the hero meant to save her.

The Requiem Series fits nicely within these guidelines, tapping into almost all of them.

The other genre I enjoy writing, is thrillers. Specifically psychological thrillers. Similar to the Gothic story elements listed above, thrillers are dark, spine-tingling stories. A few of the common characteristics include:

·         Setting: Since I write psychological thrillers, I fill focus on the mind, using it as the setting for the story in many ways. I may even make it a character of sorts.

·         Mood/Tone: Varies, but it is typically dark. Foreboding. And can be done through a series of literary devices designed to elicit the emotional response of fear.

·         Story: A thriller typically focuses on WHO committed the terrible act, or HOW it was committed. The pacing is typically fast and furious, all designed to keep the reader at the edge of their seat.

·         Characteristics: These are not your overarching moral-tale kind of stories. Thrillers are all about one thing—eliciting a feeling of fear from the reader.

·         Language: Simple and quick, designed to mirror the pacing. It may be fluid and lyrical, but the variance of sentences will still maintain the pacing.

·         Romance: I use romance, albeit a dysfunctional romance, in my thrillers as a motivating factor for the crimes being committed. I find love the best emotion to elicit a response, you know?!?

As you can see, there is a lot in common between these sub-genres, and indeed, I fluctuate between them often, pulling elements of each into every story I write. I don’t know, I just like writing the somewhat creepy stuff. I hope my readers will like it too!

Thank you, Christine!! I love this insight into writing psychological thrillers! What an exciting genre!

Here's a peek at the beautiful Lacrimosa cover:

Short Blurb for LACRIMOSA (Goodreads)

As if casting out demons isn’t hard enough, five-hundred-year-old Nesy has to masquerade as a teenage girl to do it. Nesy is the best of the warrior angels called Sentinals. She never makes mistakes, never hesitates, never gets emotionally involved. Until she meets Aydan.  He is evil incarnate; a fallen angel that feeds off the souls of others. Everything Nesy is supposed to hate.  But she can’t, because he’s also the love of her former life as a human girl—a life that ended too soon, tying her to emotions she was never supposed to feel.
Now Nesy must choose between doing her duty—damning Aydan to the fiery depths of hell—or saving him, and condemning herself.  

"LACRIMOSA reaches out, grabs readers by the heart, and takes them on an emotional journey from the first page to the last. The last novel you'll need to read to understand true sacrifice." - Elana Johnson, Author of POSSESSION 

Additional Titles in the series include LIBERA ME (Nov 2012) and REQUIEM (March 2013). 

BOOK TRAILER!!!

For more information about Christine Fonseca or the series, visit her website – http://christinefonseca.com or her blog http://christinefonseca.blogspot.com.

This movie made me want to write again...

Something made me think of this film after a long time...

Link to imdb info

It's probably one of my favorite movies of all time. A very talented teen boy living in a poor neighborhood gets a scholarship to a private school for basketball, but his hidden talent for writing is what makes waves at the preppy school when he discovers an eccentric yet acclaimed novelist living in his hometown. The older man, played by Sean Connery, teaches him about writing in such a grumpy, effective way. It's awesome to behold. The kid, played by Rob Brown, helps the old writer come to terms with his past and the thing that's kept him from writing a second book after his first one made it big. There's so much packed into this film in terms of societal commentary, morals, cheating, plagiarism, relationships, and writing. I loved it all the way through, and I especially loved the hope I felt at the end. 

Some films and books just make you feel like CREATING! Whether you're an artist or a musician, a dancer, or a street performer, or even a writer. Some stories inspire you to create your own. For me, Finding Forrester was that story. It has nothing to do with me or my life, but it was just THAT inspiring.

What books, films, music, poetry, or whatever, have you consumed that made you want to express yourself? What inspires you?

The Puzzle I Can Solve vs. the Puzzle I Can't

I won!! Small victories. So this is what I do when I don't write. I put the headphones on and soak up news and politics while I save the world one Free Cell game at a time.

Why do I waste my time doing this when I feel blocked as a writer?

Easy puzzles. Humans need easy problems to solve every once in a while to keep us from becoming overly frustrated with the puzzles we can't solve.

I'm proud to say that I reviewed and line-edited over 100 pages in my WIP last night, staying up past midnight to do it. It's been a long time since I've done anything so committed to my own writing. But 100 pages is where I hit the invisible wall between where I originally started my story and where it joins with the new 100-page beginning. It doesn't quite mesh like a whole book should, and this has been my great writing puzzle... for a long time.

I haven't even tried to solve it lately because it's so daunting. How do I mesh subtle paranormal world-building discrepancies like how her empathic powers manifest? Because it's a subtle difference, it's noticeable to a reader but really, really hard to edit through. Like if I'd changed somebody's eye-color and had to go through the entire manuscript to make sure there are no more hazel eyes. But at least with that I could do a ctrl-F search-and-destroy for 'hazel.' As it is, I have to go through my manuscript with a fine-tooth comb and try to solve all the other discrepancies I'm sure to find along the way. Sometimes I think I should just rewrite the second half entirely because of what seemed like subtle changes in the new beginning. You've heard the metaphor about the switch at the train tracks. Such a little change of motion, flipping that switch. And yet... the train can end up in a whole new destination miles and miles from where it meant to go.

Which brings me to Free Cell. See the problem, fix the problem. Easy. Fulfilling? Not as much so as finishing a book you can be proud of, but it provides a sliver of fulfillment, yeah. :)

Where do you turn when you need an easy puzzle to banish temporarily the trickier ones?

Blog Chain: My Childhood Realm

Outside is a mysterious metal box, deep forest green with the image of an electric man. Jill across the street says if I touch it, it will shock me. But I play on it all the time anyway. I use it as a table for my rock and flower collages, and I stand there to sing my songs. Further up the lawn is the house. My bedroom window stands protected from the outside world by a pair of stalwart rose bushes. Red tea cup roses look so innocent, but nobody can get in or out of my window past those thorns. Is it a fortress or a cage? To the side, mangled branches stem from what used to be a pomegranate sapling. I've seen it shoot up wildly in my short lifetime, and now I smash its fruit on the bricks to see the plump ruby kernels inside. Some days they really are rubies fit for my crown. Before the front door are two red brick pillars, but you can scarcely see the color of the brick behind graceful vines of Star Jasmine, my favorite little white flower. It makes every day smell sweet.

Behind the door is the hallway and the front room with the piano. I practice... sometimes. Besides that, there isn't a lot to do in there. Behind the wall is the family room, and that's where the TV is. My favorite movie is The Little Mermaid. To the right is the kitchen, pantry, and table. But more often, I run to the left, down the narrow hallway decked with family pictures in plain wood frames. Everything is this way. The bathroom, and all the bedrooms. I share with my sisters: bunk bed, trundle bed. Three of us, making up games at night when we can't fall asleep. We get in trouble when we're loud, but if we whisper and close our eyes, we're almost psychically connected. Together we can make another world, and so we do.

This blog chain round was begun by Jonathon Arnston: 


Imagine the home(s) where you grew up, and start drawing a floor plan. As you draw, memories will surface. Grab onto one of those memories and tell us a story.

You can see I took a little liberty with the assignment. Be sure to check out Cole's pullout couch of dreams before me and Michelle H. tomorrow!

And if you try this writing exercise yourself, link it in the comments. I'd love to see it. 

Happy writing!

First Post of the New Year: list of anticipations

I'm over at Operation Awesome today with my first post of the new year! It's freakin' 2012!!! How did that happen?

Truthfully, I've had one foot in this year since last summer when all my favorite authors suddenly had books coming out in 2012, not to mention The Hunger Games movie coming out in March of this year. Now that the 11 officially switched over to a 12, I'm ecstatic! 

There is so much to look forward to this year! In no particular chronological order:

• A few of my critique partners have BOOKS COMING OUT!!

Angela Townsend's Publisher's Weekly Announcement

Kelly Andrews' upcoming Middle Grade book

• Some great movies: the first Hunger Games movie, the very last Twilight movie. THE AVENGERS!!!
• My third child will be born, probably around June sometime.
• We'll move in the fall.
• My husband will finish his master's program in February! Woot!!!!
• My oldest is about to turn FIVE! He's getting so tall...
• We might get a new president and an economic recovery *crosses fingers*

This year is looking pretty great already! 

What are your big anticipations for 2012?

My boys with daddy and great grandpa in the new year