Catching Fire

Have you ever read a book, and when you were done you were practically on the verge of pulling your hair out because you wanted to know what happened next?



And have you ever read the sequel to such a book and when you devoured every word printed within it's pages you just couldn't bear to close it because you don't know how you'll stand the next year waiting for the final book?

It doesn't happen to me too often, but it happened with the Twilight series, the Eragon saga, and now the Hunger Games books. You must read these books. They are so awesome and disturbing at the same time. I can't tell you more than that, but I must stress the disturbing factor. Read the descriptions here and here and you'll realize why I say that.

You'll love and hate Katniss in the first book (emphasis on the hate), and love and forgive her in the second book.

But most of all, you'll beg for more.

I would know. I was on the waiting list for 6 weeks before I got my copy from the library...and they bought 20 books.

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Insert creative title here:

Ok, so I've sent The Gifted to one publisher, and I haven't heard back, and I'm prepping to send it to another publisher.

I know, I know. It's been a LONG time...but I had to go through the book again to polish it one more time. And boy am I glad I did.

The first publisher I sent it to I was able to just upload it on the computer directly to their website. The second publisher wanted it printed off with a specific formatting for page numbering and such, and then mailed in. It's 222 pages, and you can't just print that off anywhere!

And in my mind's eye I saw an editor sitting in a big fancy office. In front of him sits my manuscript. It's a hot day, so he opens the window. Suddenly the wind barges in, takes loose pages of my manuscript and blows them out the window and down the street. Do you think the editor is going to chase the random pages down the street until he catches them all? Probably not. He can just slide mine off the desk and into the garbage and pick up the next book without another thought.

I did not want to let that happen. So I decided to have it bound. No loose pages, no pesky wind, no problems for me.

The only place I know of to print stuff off and have it bound is the Copy Spot, the copy center at the university. Sure, I probably could have gone to one of the ship and copy places in town, but let's be honest: I'm comfortable with what I'm familiar with.

So yesterday, being my day off, I drove up to campus, fought for a parking spot (school started a week ago), and hiked down to the Copy Spot. Tyler came with me, he likes to get out of the office when I come to campus.

I got to the Copy Spot and asked the college student wearing the maroon Copy Spot vest how it worked. Did I need to print it off there and give it to him to bind? Did I just give him my jump drive and he took care of it?

"Is this for seminary?" He asked.
"No."
"Ok....is it for history?"
"No."
"Ok...it's just...?"
"Yeah."
"Ok."

So he told me to pull it up on the computer there, and once I had it up, he would help me print it. I went over to the indicated computer and got in my purse to pull out the jump drive. Well, I was supposed to meet someone on campus at 10:00 to sell her something, and it wasn't in my purse. I looked up at the clock, it was 9:44. I didn't have time, so Tyler and I left. I drove home, grabbed the item, drove all the way back to campus, fought for another parking spot, made $.65, then hiked back down to the Copy Spot.

When I got there, the guy I talked to before was gone, and a bubbly blonde was in his place. There were two or three people in line, so I thought, "No problem." So I went up and told her I needed to print and bind a 222 page document.

"Is it for religion class?" She asked.
"No."
"Is it for Brother So-and-So's history class?"
"No."
"So what is it?"

'Scuze me? It's mine, that's what it is. It's the next best-seller! Don't you know who I am? Just kidding:)

"It's just mine." Lame-o answer, I know. But she caught me off guard.

So she smacked her gum, flipped her hair and told me to pull it up on the computer and she'd come over once I got it pulled up. By then there was no one else in the store. No one. I pulled it up on the computer and went back to the counter. Mind you, this is a TINY store. It has a maximum capacity of twelve people. It's little. So I went back to the counter to let her know I was ready for her and the blonde just stared at me. Finally she said, "Hi, can I help you?" I looked around, unsure if she was serious. I wanted to say, "I was up here 38 seconds ago and you forgot who I was...?" But I just pointed to the computer and said, "It's up."

So she came over and pressed print. Yeah, I could have done that. So my document started to print. I waited until it was done printing before I logged off the computer, just in case there was a problem. In the mean time, the Copy Spot all of a sudden became a popular hang out. It was soon filled beyond capacity with students. And everyone was looking at me like I was the hold up. Ok, so maybe I was the hold up, but there were two other computers! So I hurried over to the printer to see how far along I was in the printing process. According to the publisher's directions, in each upper right hand corner it was to say: Andreasen/Gifted/Page 1. So I just looked in the upper right hand corner for the page number....but it wasn't there.

In a panic I checked all the other pages. It wasn't there either. Instead it said: Debhr?Ghf*hbh

On every. Single. Page.

So there were 15 pairs of eyes on me, and I had a choice to make: accept this garbled version of my book and send it off to the publisher, or track down an employee and do it again. I wasn't entirely sure I could find the employee in the sea of bodies that massed that little cave of a store...but I knew that if I sent something to the publisher that wasn't up to their specifications, they had no obligation to read a single word.

So I squared my jaw, straightened my back, and elbowed my way through the crowd until I found the maroon vest.

I'm not rude, so I waited my turn and showed her the garbled mess. She went over to the printer (which was luckily out of paper) and canceled the print job. In the mean time someone else had tried to print and their job got canceled too. In a huff he left the store and vowed to return when it was empty.

Good luck with that.

So I asked the attendant, as she's flying away to help someone else, what to do about my paper. She yells over her shoulder, "Is it in PDF form?"
"No..."
"Well isn't there a way to convert it to PDF form?"
"I don't know," I shrug.
"Me neither."

And then she's gone. Helping someone else. So I stand there like a dweeb, holding the computer and catching glares, waiting for her to come back. Finally the girl next to me takes pity on my and shows me how. I felt like an idiot because it took one click of the mouse and voila.

So I finally got my document to print, and I checked to make sure that it looked right. It was perfect.

222 pages takes a while to print. So I had to stand there guarding the printer with people behind me huffing and tapping their feet waiting for me to be done.

FINALLY I had my manuscript in my hand...for real. This was it. All I needed was to have it bound. So I waited and took it up to the counter, where they showed me, "Oh, to bind it you take it over to this hole punch, and do it just like this..."

So five sheets at a time or less, not kidding, I had to hole punch my entire book. It took me forever! And then they gave me the front, back, and spiral binder and waved me out the door.

Ok, so 45 minutes, $12.91 later, here I am:


It's so beautiful!

No, I didn't dress up just for this picture. I took the picture this morning before work. I considered being funny and taking a picture of the last page...but I didn't :)

So I'll kiss my book good-bye and send her off to the publisher. With a self-addressed-stamped envelope so I will get her back if they don't want her.

Wish me luck! Pin It

I'm a gold digger

My sister-in-law called me Wednesday and told me about an adult reading program at the local library. If you fulfill the requirements (which are easy things like donate items to a good cause, tell a friend about the library, read a book...), you get a gold membership card.

When she told me that, I literally went, "Oooooooh, a gold membership!" And then I had to stop and think. "What's a gold membership?"

Well, I was not disappointed with the answer. It's a normal library card, but you have no fees on your account for a year! I don't often incur fines on my account, but that's because when I know I can't finish my book, I take it back to the library. Unread. Incomplete. Unfinished. I'll never know what happens (never mind that I can just renew it or check it out again). But on rare occasion when I simply must know the end, I take it back a day or two late, paying the $.20 per day.

So now I can finish my books with no fear of penalty! And not only that, I can check out movies for however long I want! Ok, I won't abuse the system, I promise. But still, that's pretty cool, huh?

Gold membership, here I come! Pin It

The good, the bad, and the ugly.

We're actually going to change the order and make it the bad, the good and the ugly.


The Bad: Unless this is your first visit to my blog (and if so, welcome!), you've heard about my involvement in the Amazon contest. Quick rundown: Out of 10,000 submissions, my book made it to the top 100. Unfortunately, it stopped there. I did not make it to the top three finalist list. But that's not the bad news.


When I sent in my manuscript to Amazon, I basically signed a contract saying Penguin "owns" my book until the contest is over. Now that I'm out of the running, I'm ready to take off and find an editor, a publisher, the coupon I lost last week...anything!

Here's the bad news (finally!): I just found out (by sheer luck) that Penguin still holds the rights to THE GIFTED until June 30th. That means I am legally prohibited from querying publishers or agents. In other words I can't do anything with my book until July 1st (because it's not really "mine").


Phew, that was a close one! I was moments away from pushing SEND and releasing my book to see if any agent fishies bite.

The Good: There is still a possibility that Penguin will want to publish THE GIFTED. That would be awesome! It'd save the trouble of having to hook an agent or a publisher, and I'd be a real live author. Ok, so I'm a real live author now, but you know what I mean.

The Ugly:

*cough*

...'Nuff said.

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Please vote!

Hola friends and family.

I did not make it to the final three in the Amazon contest. But that's ok. I've had my pout, and now I'm back up on my feet moving forward.

But if I had made it to the final three, I would want everyone I know to vote. And since I didn't, I'm still asking you to help choose the winner.

You have to have an Amazon account to vote, you can only vote once, and your vote cannot be changed once it's cast.

Go to www.amazon.com/abna to download the finalists' excerpts and vote. Sorry, there's no place for a write in. ;)

This is going to be a tough one to decide, so good luck! PS. I may ask you to vote, but I don't vouch for what you read. There is swearing and vulgarity...it's not my fault!

Well, I made it as far as I possibly could without winning, and that was more than I could have hoped for. I'm working hard on getting THE GIFTED published so that you can all read the rest of it!:) Thanks for your support and for giving me courage! Pin It

Creativity or wasted time? Your call.

Yesterday I was playing around on amazon.com/abna. I like to read the threads (which are like chats or online conversations) about the contest.

One of them was about "casting" for their book. They wanted to know if anyone else had casted the characters for their books. And I thought, "What a fun idea!" Stephenie Meyer casted for Twilight way back before it was even optioned for a movie...but she wrote a NY Times Bestseller, teen sensation, American Harry Potter that turned into an actual movie.

Anyway, I won't dwell on that.

So last night I thought it would be so much fun to find the faces that match the names. I could not use real actors, try as I might. It just seemed wrong to me because these characters aren't actors. They're real to me. So I had to find real people (not that actors aren't real).

Pyper

When I put Pyper on paper (haha, love the alliteration), I had one face in mind, with someone else's colors. That makes no sense, I'm sure, but I'll explain in a second. While I was writing, I remembered seeing a book cover (two, actually) with a profile view of a girl, and her red hair was a curtain around her face, like she'd just moved her head and her hair is whipping around to catch up.

Last night while I was searching for pictures of Pyper, I found her!


I seriously have seen this on book covers twice, for Tantalize, by Cynthia Leitich Smith, and The Homeplace, by Gilbert Morris. However, if I ever get to pick the cover of my book (hahaha, dream on, right?), it will be this gal, even though she's been used twice already. She was seriously the model Pyper.

And the colors I mentioned earlier...This Pyper's hair isn't dark enough. It's more of a strawberry blond. Pyper's hair is red. Dark red. I had a roommate in college, Liz, who had the most gorgeous red hair and dark green eyes you've ever seen. She told me once color is the kind that doesn't come in a bottle. Which is totally true (and I used that line in the book). So after over an hour of looking at pics, I never found one with the right colors. Oh well. Use your imagination for that one.

I'm sure you want to see a front view of Pyper. So did I. So here she is (with the wrong hair color):

I know the pic seems wrong to you. She's wearing a dress. Where's her black shirt and worn out jeans? Where's her black gloves? But trust me. This is her. I wish I could elaborate, but I can't. I'd give too much away. Just know that when (not if) you read the rest of the book, this picture of Pyper will come back to you and you'll go, "Ohhh..."

Kael

Kael is near and dear to my heart, but I get so irritated with the guy at the same time because he's a frustrating person.

Anyway, I found two possible Kaels that appealed to me.

Kael A: This is the best I could find of this particular Kael. He had a dozen or more shots on gettyimages.com, but in most of them he had a blond wrapped around him, and in some cases he was missing a key feature: a shirt. So I'm not going to put a picture of a bare-chested Kael on my blog. Sorry. Just keeping it rated G.

Kael B: For reasons I can't explain, when I first saw this picture I went, 'Oh, that's him!' But the longer I looked at the pic and the more other faces I had to compare it with, I started to doubt myself. His hair is a little long, but that's ok. Anyway, this was another Kael and I just had to share. I felt like I was being unfair if I didn't put his face on here.

We don't get much from the book (dumb author) except that Kael's hair is shaggy brown and his eyes are a brown-green. Both of those guys fit, but I'm not sure which fits more.

Baler

This is Baler. Hands down, no question, this is him. Ok, maybe his hair is a little poofier than Baler's, but everything else is spot on. How come I know and you don't? Because chapter two cut off right before we get a more detailed description of Baler. I picked this image last night. This morning I read the rest of the chapter and it described this guy right here:

He looks like little brother material, huh?

Summer

I found a lot of pictures of gorgeous gals who could have all been Summer except for one thing. They weren't. They were all smiling and happy and playing on the beach. They just did not embody the image of Summer.

She was a hard one to find, but I finally found her:

High cheekbones, sharp eyes, snooty attitude. That's her.


And last but certainly not least:

Raven

And interesting thing happened when I went looking for Raven's picture. I searched for teenage girls with black hair (as opposed to blond hair when I searched for Summer). When I went looking for the blonds, I got a lot (and I mean a lot) of girls on the beach, or on cell phones, or kissing guys.

When I searched for the dark haired beauty, I got a lot of dancers and athletes. Stereotypes, anyone?

Anyway, I looked for a good ten minutes and hadn't found any Ravens. And then I thought about a movie I just saw and realized that Raven was in it. And then I thought, "Ok, if I had my choice of actresses, Raven would be ___."

I'm not going to say their names because then you'll remember what movies they're in (if you've seen them) and I think that'd ruin it.

So here's Raven A:

You know her, I'm sure you do. But this was the cleanest pic I could find of her. Apparently she likes to pose almost nudie. And I think this one is Raven to a 't'. Or R. Or V. Or whatever.

Here is Raven B:

You may or may not know this one. I'm guessing not unless you watch the Disney Channel. The problem with this Raven is that in all her other pics she was too innocent. So I had to find her most snooty picture, which was kind of hard to do.

So. There they are. The cast of The Gifted. Of course that's not all of them. I didn't find Robyn (Pyper and Baler's mom) because there just isn't enough about her for you to care yet. And I didn't find some of the other key characters because that would have been too confusing. And it might have given too much away.

And I have a few other pics up my sleeve for after the book is published (see, I'm being positive) and you can read it and then I'll give you the pics I found.

So what do you think? Did you find someone else that matches better? If you did, let me know and I'll post their faces here. Which Kael and Raven do you like better?

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Who? Me? Never.

If you can imagine me, sitting at my computer in a bright green sweater with my hair up in a bun, you will also see that I am rolling my eyes and crossing my arms. (It's difficult to imagine since I'm also typing, but pretend I'm not typing, just throwing a fit.)

This is me in denial.

I just got my Publisher's Weekly review for my book. Apparently it's been on my stinkin' site since yesterday and I just didn't even see it. But I read a lot of people on amazon commenting about their PW reviews and thought, "Hey! Where's mine?" So I went looking and voila. It was on my webpage under editorial reviews...go figure.

So, for those of you who are biting your nails to figure out what on EARTH is going to happen next...the nice man (or woman) at Publisher's Weekly has written the Reader's Digest version for all the world to see. And here it is.

"From Publishers Weekly

"With its odd character names and troubled teenage protagonists, this competent contemporary fantasy aims straight for the “Twilight” audience. “Miracle child” Pyper Wynn drowned and came back to life but she came back with amazing powers. Hiding her telekinetic abilities has made her into a social outcast; her best friend is her little brother, Baler. When Kael, the hottest guy in her high school class, shows interest in her, Pyper’s sure it’s a set-up but his persistence wears down her resistance and he has her mom’s seal of approval. Then Pyper meets Kael’s mom and discovers they are Fae. They tell Pyper that she is the Gifted, the champion born to fight for them in the epic battle to choose the new King of the Fae. Relieved to know there’s a reason for her talents, Pyper begins to train for the upcoming battle but Kael’s warning to tell no one, especially Baler, creates some misgivings. As the battle draws near, Pyper’s questions about her place in the Fae world as well as her relationship with Kael must take second place to taking action, no matter the cost to herself. This gritty YA fantasy manages to smoothly blend modern teenage angst with enough elements of the fantastic to make an entertaining, if somewhat melodramatic, read."

So. There you have it. Now you know. Unless you don't know. And if you don't know, then I'll tell you. Fae = fairy. Yes, The Gifted is about fairies. I'm just relieved he didn't tell you the end!!

I only hope your not disappointed. I cringe at the thought, and then I remember I'm not disappointed...so that should count for something.

I was delighted to discover that The Gifted would appeal to "Twilight" fans, being a Twi-hard Fan-pire myself. But I completely skipped over all the good stuff, like "competent," "entertaining," "smoothly blend" and went straight for the guts. The bullet at the end of the shiny barrel.

Melodramatic.

He called me melodramatic. Me.

Ok. Fine. I'm melodramatic. But did you have to say it for everyone to see?! Sheesh. Give me a little privacy, allow me a shred of pride, please.

But in the end, my feelings were hurt for only a second until I realized a) the review is about The Gifted, not me. And b) a synonym for melodramatic is sensational.

Ha! I'll take it. I'll take my mediocre review and frame it on my virtual wall for all to see.

So there.

PS. I never ever, ever, ever said Kael was the "hottest guy in her high school class." That's enough cliche to make me barf. Seriously.

PPS. If you've ever written a novel or story of any kind you will find that characters tend to come with names. I don't love the name Pyper. I fought it tooth and nail...and I lost. That was her dagum name and I can't help it if it's odd. But quite frankly, so is she. So there you go.

The Last PS. I promise. I completely ignored "gritty" because it could mean course and rough, or it could mean determined, resolute, courageous. How on earth am I supposed to know which one it is? So I'm ignoring it completely before I give myself a complex. Pin It

Tax day: a good day? It is if you're me...

Why is today a good day if you're me? No, it's not because I've already done my taxes. No, it's not because today is my day off and I'm still sittin' around in my bathrobe. No, it's not because I won the lottery...because I didn't.

Today is a good day for me because I just found out that I am in the top 100 semi-finalists for the Amazon ABNA contest!!!!!

Yes, you know my book that I've been trying to shove down your throats....it made it to the next level!!!!

Last time I had to wait ALL day before I heard anything. This morning I got on the website and saw the announcement. Tada!!

Go to www.amazon.com/abna and click on "Fantasy" and you will see little old me...well, The Gifted by little old me.

I honestly figured I wouldn't have not great news for you because I've read some of the other entrants and discovered they were filled with blood, vulgarity and sex. Mine is not. I don't write that and I don't want to read it. So I figured I'd be out. But hey, here I am telling you the good news!

I told my sister-in-law, I could really get used to having good news to share! Good news seems it's been few and far between for us up until recently.

So from here the 100 will be narrowed to 3. Just 3. I'm pretty positive this is as far as I go, but I'm not discouraged or upset. I'm already looking for an agent or publisher that will take me. (I've had a lot of people ask me if I'll try to get published. The answer is a resounding yes.) The problem is I legally can't submit my manuscript anywhere else until I'm booted from the contest.

I feel so blessed to have made it this far and I am EXTREMELY grateful to you for your support. I know I keep saying that, but I keep meaning it too.

Wish me luck! Pin It