How Do You Like My New Home???

Hi. Welcome to Gotta Have YA, my new and improved blog. How do you like my digs? Wicked cute, huh? I love my design!!! It was done by Freyja Silver at Silver Designs, so if you're looking for totally adorable designs, check out her site.

I know I don't have many followers yet, and that that looks really sad in the boxes, but I'm in the process of moving from Wordpress to Blogger. I still need to do my link lists, but just about everything else has come together sweetly. Please click the Follow button to keep it from remaining so pitiful.

Why did I move??? Well, WP makes you choose from stock designs, or you can pay, but why pay when Blogger's FREE? And it doesn't allow javascript, so there's only so much you can do with it to make it feel like your blogging home rather than a rental space. Like, you can't put little widgets in your sidebar, especially follower boxes, countdowns or to-be-read books. That's pretty much like not being able to hang pictures, put in surround sound or paint the walls.

I've been at Wordpress since 2008, and although it was nice for the time I was there, I felt it was time to part ways. Blogger offers fun, color and a more visitor-friendly platform. My blog posts may be old, but there are great nuggets in there for writers. Click on my labels if you are trying to figure out what people mean about different points of view, if you need a creative boost with a writing exercise or want to learn all about voice, hooks, the importance of story questions, etc. and how I really felt about Twilight.

For this blog, I intend to make it more YA-focused. Sure, I'll talk about writing and personal stuff too, but I mostly plan engulf myself in YA lit and blog about books and what's going on in the publishing industry regarding this way-awesome genre that sets trends, surprises always and bridges divides. Thanks for stopping in. If you follow, I'll follow back.

~ Signing off and sending out cyber hugs.

Shocker: I Designed a Cool Website

I'd created a writer website with CoffeeCup Visual Site Designer but had to do a system reinstall, losing the program. Plus, to add any little thing on it like videos or flash, you have to buy extra attachments, which is ridiculous. They have so many free builders online, there's no point in buying anything. So, I went on the hunt.

Most of the templates on various sites looked so generic and stock. I tried a few builders (Yahoo and some others I can't remember) but they weren't really what I was looking for.

Then, I landed on Wix.com, advertised as FREE. It's huge array of templates, backgrounds, flash options, animations, customizable features, etc. won me over. So, I tried it out for my Kings & Queens page and loved the whole process. I think I made an awesome site with it.

The site builder was wicked easy to use, and ironically, I didn't even use a template. I got inspired by two of their examples, combined ideas, and designed my own.

Wix is not a perfect hosting company at all. It barely hosts. You don't get an email account or access to your code, nor a stat counter (Google Analytics) unless you pay $8.25 per month (the locked-in price for a one-year commitment), but you can have a free site if you don't care about stats (or their tiny ad bars) (though, their two ads will be affixed to your site) or upgrade to one of their plans. Most hosting sites are in the $4-a-month range.

They do have a $4-and-change plan but their little ads stay on your page. The $8.25 plan no ads, Google Analytics, a free domain and the extra advertising candies that every other host gives out.

For now, I'm online free; stats are not really important to me at this point. But I really don't mind paying $8.25 a month later on if it gets me an awesome site and I don't have to pay for a designer. Plus, I honestly don't need another email account to check, so linking my contact form to my current address totally works for me.

Here's my URL: http://www.kingsandqueensnovel.com if you want to check it out, but please note, it's a work in progress and I haven't plugged in my trailer, picked my set copy and all that jazz. I'm just so excited to show it. Check it out and let me know what you think.

If you pop in, please sign my guestbook, so I know you stopped by and let me know if it's easy to navigate and if everything appears cool on your end (fonts especially). My body text type should look kind of like Courier and all the page headers should look like black punch tape. Thanks a bunch.

~ Signing off and sending out cyber hugs.

Almost There...Eeeeek!

Okay. I got my final proof yesterday. I'm super excited because I'm almost finished with this twisted YA book, Kings & Queens, and the paperback will be out very, very soon.

I got as many PDF conversion glitches as I could find in my eBook. There may still be a couple of missing words or whatever, but I'm done with it. It will have to be as-is. [My eBook has been updated at Smashwords, Amazon and B&N, so if your copy doesn't change, let me know and I'll give you a coupon for a free replacement. I used a different font for chapter headings, so you will know instantly if you open it.]

I really need to move on to my next projects. I was going to finish Dropping Like Flies, but changed my mind. I'm going to put out Sapphire Reign next, in February or March, to keep my series momentum going. And I'm also going to continue writing StarStruck, which I intend to give away for free.

It's been a challenge to get this book out with one delay after another, including a power surge during a tornado storm, but I figure there's a reason for everything and I have definitely learned a lot about perseverance. When you want a dream to come true, you just have to keep pressing on and dealing with the obstacles as they come your way.

I know my book is not for everyone, and that I write on the side of realism and a character's mindset rather than my own standard of morality, but I believe a work becomes comprised and its message diluted when an author gets in the way. So, I just can't write in a pristine way. It's inauthentic to me. I let my characters be however ugly they are, say bad things and make mistakes because that's how people are in real life. Even my Christian characters are not morally perfect because, really, who is? I'm sure not! So why would I draft up book people who only make tiny, minor mistakes and never fail big? That's boring to me and not a true depiction of or glimpse at the problems, temptations or issues people face.

I believe the fact that I SHOW God's grace in a very non-preachy way in Kings & Queens and have an authentic and raw character who finds that grace will make a huge impact with some readers. And a certain enemy is clearly opposed to that message getting out and finding those curious, broken, questioning, thirsty souls who don't even know they're in search of it. When the initial idea for the novel came to me, I specifically prayed for a way that I could show God's grace, and that came about through my parallel protagonist's depravity and deep hunger for a clean slate.

I am giving away a short eCollection called Death Calls. Most of these pieces are scattered throughout my blog and now they're in one place for your reading pleasure. The collection is free at Smashwords and available in .mobi, .epub, PDF and RTF, so you can download your copy today. I also have it up at Amazon but I'm not sure how long it will take to switch to FREE. It's currently .99 there. Each piece touches on life's journey, death or dying in my own freakish way and it also includes a 5-chapter excerpt from my novel Kings & Queens, which is why I want it to be free at Amazon too. Everyone likes presents and you can't beat FREE advertising!!

Well, I'm off in search of dinosaur tracks. For real!

~ Signing off and sending out cyber hugs.

Book Review: Songbird

Author: Angela Fristoe
Publisher: Little Prince Publishing (June 25, 2011)
ISBN-10: 0615470491
ISBN-13: 978-0615470498

Synopsis:

There are defining moments in life when everything changes. For Dani Mays, it was the day she witnessed her father kill her brother. Now seventeen years-old, she still hasn’t put it behind her. After Jace’s death, she bounced between her alcoholic mother and foster homes, until she found a permanent place. And a reason to want to stay: Reece Tyler. He’s her best friend, yet Dani wants more from Reece. Faced with losing Reece, Dani struggles to define his place in her life and escape the influence her memories of her brother’s death have over her choices. Even as she weaves the pieces of her heart back together, the past becomes more than a memory when a former foster brother reappears and Dani begins receiving threatening phone calls.

My Take:

Songbird is a sweet story that perfectly captures the quest for love, laced with moments of pain and suspense, and you end up being sucked in from the very first words. The first chapter is so horrific and gut-wrenching and helps readers instantly sympathize with poor Dani, as the then six-year-old witnesses her brother's murder by her father from a playground tube she's hiding in.

Now, at seventeen, Dani yearns to escape her past and find love in the eyes and arms of her best friend, Reece, but right when the bonds of her friendships with him are strained, her life gets chucked into further turmoil at the resurfacing of a former foster brother in her school and threatening phone calls she begins receiving. She must make peace with her past and self-reflect to discover if her heart's desire is really her true love or just a replacement for her brother. And by the time the haze clears and the caller mystery plays out, will it be too late to follow her heart?

Some YA authors use empty, bland first person narrators, but Fristoe's use of Dani's voice immediately strikes chords of confidence and surety. Aside from a couple of grammatical slip ups, there's no hesitance or clumsiness or amateurism anywhere in sight in this debut novel. It's rich in detail and characterization and is packed with plenty of showing actions.

Songbird is light on plot, but it's the perfect read if you're looking a story that will tug at your heart and stay with you long after you close the cover ... or turn off your eReader ... or whatever your word-addiction vice may be. :)

MY RATING

~ Signing off and sending out cyber hugs.

Slow Progress

Here's where I'm at: the galley. I'm just waiting for that to arrive so I can go through it several times with a fine-toothed comb, a hatchet, and a red pen.

Ya see, when I lost my book files from the tornado storm, I had to convert my novel from a PDF to a doc I could manipulate, and when I did that, it randomly stripped out words, punctuation marks, numbers, etc. Oh joy. Right. Insanely annoying, especially for a perfectionist like me.

I uploaded my eBooks at Amazon, B&N and Smashwords on July 5th, but I've done at least three updates since because I keep finding these weird, random errors. (Soooorrry if you've bought my YA novel Kings & Queens and it keeps changing on your Kindle. :( I'm not finished either. One more round should do it.)

So, once I have my paperback book file and eBook file ready, I'll re-upload and send the final to the publisher and get to organizing another blog tour. Because I keep having one unforeseen delay after another with this novel, I wanna wait until my book is up everywhere so perked people won't have to wait for its availability.

I just wrapped up a Giveaway at LibraryThing. Three more people have requested my eBook in exchange for a review, which is cool with me. If you didn't win a copy and would like one for FREE, just let me know. I'm giving out Smashword coupons and my eBook is available in all eBook formats expect plain text.

Publishing a book is exhausting and this is just the easy part. Then I'll have to kickoff my big marketing phase and simultaneously finish up my second novel, StarStruck, which I hope to have out before Christmas. My plan is to offer that eBook for free. When you have a FREE eBook, you end up listed on all these sites that list free Kindle books, and that's free exposure and might just generate sales for Kings & Queens.

For marketing, beyond the blog tour, I may do another giveaway at Goodreads. I'm creating flyers, bookmarks and a press kit with a press release. I'll send the kit out with copies of my book (that I'll get for free with ecards I've gotten through swagbucks) to major newspapers, I may try click advertising at Goodreads for a month and try to land as many eBook of the day spots as I can across the web, like on Kindle Daily Nation. That's just to start. If you have any other inexpensive or free marketing ideas, please share. Thanks.

So that's where I'm at.

~ Signing off and sending out cyber hugs.

Win the Kings & Queens eBook

I'm giving away 50 eBooks of my YA suspense novel, Kings & Queens, all formats, in exchange for a review at LibraryThing. LibraryThing is not as pretty and or as easy to navigate as Goodreads and it seems far less social and popular, but there are some cool e-Books you can win. So sign up and click to win Kings & Queens. http://bit.ly/qcY7Pk

Here's the synopsis:

Seventeen-year-old Majesty Alistair wants police to look further into her father’s fatal car wreck, hopes the baseball team she manages can reclaim the state crown, aches for Derek…or, no…maybe Alec…maybe. And she mostly wishes to retract the hateful words she said to her dad right before slamming the door in his face, only to never see him again.

All her desires get sidelined, though, when she overhears two fellow students planning a church massacre. She doubts cops will follow up on her tip since they’re sick of her coming around with notions of possible crimes-in-the-works. And it’s not like she cries wolf. Not really. They’d be freaked too, but they’re not the ones suffering from bloody dreams that hint at disaster like some crazy, street guy forecasting the Apocalypse.

So, she does what any habitual winner with zero cred would do…try to I.D. the nutjobs before they act. But, when their agenda turns out to be far bigger than she ever assumed, and even friends start looking suspect, the truth and her actions threaten to haunt her forever, especially since she’s left with blood on her hands, the blood of someone she loves.

Here are some recent spots I landed on the web. Check 'em out.

An interview with me at Jeanne Bannon's blog, Beyond Words.
An interview with Derek, at Lost For Words, where you can find out how Derek and Majesty met.
An interview with Majesty at Hopelessly Devoted Bibliophile, where you can find out what she'd most like to change about herself.
Character Tweets will give you a sense of my main characters' personalities and how they'd communicate if on Twitter.

My paperback should be out next month. If you'd like to have me on your blog for a guest spot with an interview or anything to help me fill out my blog tour, just let me know in the comments. Thanks.

~ Signing off and sending out cyber hugs.

The Kings & Queens eBook

...is finally here. I expected it to be out by June 30th, but that didn't happen. After a little bit of a delay with my computer getting zapped in a tornado storm and me having to redo the eBook format, my YA suspense novel, Kings & Queens, is finally LIVE and available for purchase at Amazon (Kindle) and Barnes & Noble (NOOK book) for $3.99.

It was a pain to get it to look the way I wanted, and hopefully, it's right now. But, I do not own Microsoft Word, so that will present a problem in the future. I'm on a limited-use trial of Word on my computer and it wants the dang code. I think I have 5 more uses. I tried converting my file from Works and it completely disregarded styles, including the indents I set, and smashwords will take Open Office files that have been converted, but they DO NOT prefer them and tell tales of various horrors.

And marketing??? Well, I just wrapped up my tour with Teen Book Scene, which was a blast, and have been hesitant to fill out more dates until I at least had the eBook up. But really, I'm gonna need the paperback on hand too before I can go fish for YA book blogger reviews. Not all, but most bloggers only accept paperbacks. For the ones who do accept eBooks, once my book is LIVE on Smashwords, I can offer coupons and they can get it in any format they choose. And I'm still waiting on that.

I'm not sure when my paperback will be out, but hopefully by the end of the month.

The Kindle Indiependence Day Giveaway wrapped up. Congrats to the Grand Prize winner, Lilibeth, who won the FREE Kindle and all 17 Kindle books by the participating authors. If you haven't yet, you can still subscribe to the Kindle Indiependence newsletter to stay abreast of book news and upcoming contests. Just go here.

Once my dizziness ends and I find ground, I'll start compiling a blog tour. If you'd like to host me, let me know. That would be great!

~ Signing off and sending out cyber hugs.

Book Review: The Queen Bee of Bridgeton

Author: Leslie DuBois
Publisher: Little Prince Publishing (May 17, 2011)
ISBN-10: 0615460534
ISBN-13: 978-0615460536

Synopsis:

When fifteen-year-old Sonya Garrison is accepted into the prestigious Bridgeton Academy, she soon discovers that rich girls are just as dangerous as the thugs in her home of Venton Heights. Maybe more so. After catching the eye of the star, white basketball player and unwittingly becoming the most popular girl in school, she earns the hatred of the three most ruthless and vindictive girls at Bridgeton. Can she defeat the reigning high school royalty? Or will they succeed in ruining her lifelong dream of becoming a world class dancer?

My Take:

Sonya, a shy, black ballerina, who's been cleaning a studio for years in exchange for dance lessons, might actually be able to escape her real life in the ghetto and fulfill her dream of becoming a world-class ballerina, thanks to her dance scholarship at the prestigious Bridgeton Academy. Her older sister, Sasha, who spent years trying to get in through academic achievement, finally made it too. So, both sisters spend their lives in glam by day and return to cockroaches, nearby gunshots and ketchup sandwiches by night.

But, with Sasha having acted like a second mom to Sonya for years, by shrouding her from the dangers surrounding them and making sure she keeps up with her studies, Sonya has been skirting through life with her head down.

So, when she attracts the attention of the star, white basketball player and unwittingly becomes the most popular girl in school, the queens who rule her school don't like it one bit and take no hesitation in letting her know it. They've literally ruined the lives of others, and Sonya has become their number one target to destroy. And this shy girl must reach inside herself to find strength and the ugly in order to beat them at their own game. But even if she can, it may be too late to save her dream and her relationship.

What stands out immediately in this novel is the voice. It's full of humor, but also laced with a little bit of pain, which is hard to pull off. I find Sonya a relatable protagonist in that she has awkward moments, a passion for something and often underestimates her own worth. Growing up with a deadbeat father in a neighborhood of crime with no guys even glancing twice at her, she's felt invisible and bumbly her whole life, except when she's dancing. That's when she comes alive. And at Bridgeton, and in everything, dance is her sole focus. So, when she catches Will's eye, she's shocked and doesn't even know who he is. She blows him off at first, but something about him intrigues her and she soon becomes as smitten with him as he is with her.

I liked several things about this novel, but the things that stand out are the romance, the dashes of humor and the emotional journey the reader can experience.

If you want a YA book that's different and fresh on the familiar fish-out-of-water theme, that is packed with surprises and little bits that will make you laugh out loud, The Queen Bee of Bridgeton is definitely one to put on your to-read wall.

MY RATING

~ Signing off and sending out cyber hugs.

Book Review: Wake

Author: Lisa McCann
Publisher: Little Prince Publishing (December 23, 2008)
ISBN-10: 0615460534
ISBN-13: 978-1416974475

Synopsis:

Not all dreams are sweet.

For seventeen-year-old Janie, getting sucked into other people's dreams is getting old. Especially the falling dreams, the naked-but-nobody- notices dreams, and the sex-crazed dreams. Janie's seen enough fantasy booty to last her a lifetime.

She can't tell anybody about what she does -- they'd never believe her, or worse, they'd think she's a freak. So Janie lives on the fringe, cursed with an ability she doesn't want and can't control.

Then she falls into a gruesome nightmare, one that chills her to the bone. For the first time, Janie is more than a witness to someone else's twisted psyche. She is a participant....

My Take:

This was a quick read for me. Finished it in about four hours. I really liked the concept. That's the best thing about it.

The characters are hard to relate to because they're so paper-thin. Janey??? (not even sure if I got that right and I just read it and have photographic memory)the MC was solely defined by her ability and there wasn't much else given. Another character Cabel in the novel had the most dimension of anyone and I found him to be the most interesting. The other characters are forgettable.

I did enjoy the MC's arc and her struggle to figure things out and turn a curse into a blessing, but I felt at times, her emotions rang flat within all that.

The fragmented style took some getting used to, and I did, but I got tired of the passive voice and seeing so many ISes abound. I just think a greater attention to wording would've made the prose much more compelling and pleasing to the ear. WAKE is described as lyrical by the New York Times and I wouldn't consider this lyrical in the least. Choppy is more like it.

The dreams were also so very linear and too perfectly drawn out, and Janey always took them at face value. Dreams in real life are often symbolic and chaotic and far more bizarre than the ones shown in this book, and in most of the dreams she gets sucked into, they were actual scenarios that took place in the past or very closely linked to them.

You may like this book if you don't mind a sparse read, one that gives just enough for readers to be entertained and no more. Some readers don't care, as they can be gripped by the hooky concept alone. If you like more depth in your reads, you'll probably be disappointed in WAKE.

Overall, I didn't find this book terrible, it just wasn't amazing, and I think it could've been.

MY RATING

~ Signing off and sending out cyber hugs.

Swearing...

....in any given novel can be…

Perfect
Humorous
Honest
Crude
Biting
Fitting
Silly
Sardonic
Sexy
Innocent
Spontaneous
Offensive
Reactionary
Spiteful
Flippant
Careless
Stupid
Erotic
Redundant
Unnecessary
Instantaneous
Needed
Vulgar
Forgettable
Modifying
True
Rebellious
Rude
Blasphemous
Junky
Endearing
Contextual
Cool
Uncool
Superfluous
Shocking
Acidic
Stunning
Ill-timed
Cutting
Filthy
Edgy
Rough
Courageous
Kick-ass
Unspoken
Popular
Resistant
Liberating
Suitable
Over-the-top
Plentiful
Abusive
Clingy
Distasteful
Showy
Raunchy
Heightened
Playful
Emotive
Ugly

...and then some. But it is NOT…LAZY.

Not!

So why do I keep seeing this statement everywhere I look from readers and writers alike? To blanketly write off EVERY swear as being “lazy writing” is not only incorrect, it’s infuriating. I'm so sick and tired of hearing this.

Sometimes, swears just fit. Sometimes, they’re meant to be funny or understated. Sometimes, a setting or mindset demands it. Sometimes, nothing better conveys pain, frustration or anger. And sometimes, no offense is intended and there's a contradiction in the reader's response. Like if your story features a dog show, yeah, that's fine, but ‘bitchin’ can't stand in for ‘to complain’? Or an ass can heehaw but you’d better not talk about its rear. What is with that? It’s the same word.

Sure, there are books with swears that run amuck in prose and dialogue like verbal diarrhea, when the writer DID take the easy way out, when a story got ruined because of absolutely no restraint, but to say any and all writers are LAZY if they use ANY swears means you were too lazy to come up with your own reason for not liking them. That is parroted talk. And it needs to stop, damn it! Right now.

(Oh, and BTW: swears are okay in YA. It rhymes, so that should be easy to memorize. Let's say it together, "Okay in YA.")

I really don’t want my characters or stories to be censored by ME and MY moral code, my comfort level or my mom. I am not my characters. And they are not me. And if one of my characters needs to swear, given the circumstance, that doesn’t make me lazy. It makes me gutsy and FREE, in letting the story be told the way it needs to be told.

So, stop being a parrot. If you don’t like swears, that’s perfectly fine and up to you. No big deal. But please stop calling writers LAZY, or even thinking that way. Your tainted poison is unnecessarily and wrongly spreading to other weak-minded trolls.

Writing is never LAZY. It is a rush of creative breath, a gift from one soul to another, an exertion of energy, blood, sweat and tears. So how are you seeing laziness in that?

~ Signing off and sending out cyber hugs.