Today (Monday, May 14, 2012) through Thursday, May 17, 2012 you can download Falling for free! What a great deal!
Take advantage of this limited time offer and go to Amazon.
It’s near the end of the school year and everyone needs a good book to read. Find out more at the “May Promotion – ISEF” link above.
Enjoy!
Out of 5000 entries for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, Falling made it to the top 250! That made me a quarter-finalist. Not bad, huh? If you asked me when I first wrote Falling if I would dare to submit it to a contest and think that it’d advance any round, I would have said no. But it never hurts to try, so I did. I’m glad I did. It is incredibly validating – not that I look for outside validation – but it’s nice that I’m not the only one enjoying the book. Yes, I know others do. Some of them have even posted reviews on Amazon. I’ve gotten the emails asking “What’s next? I need to know!” Ah, spoiler requests… Be careful what you ask for, I might just tell you. Or rather, tell you enough to make you want more!
Last month I submitted my entry into the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest. I was hopeful – why else would you enter in a contest unless you hope to win – but didn’t want to obsess about it. Thankfully, the following weeks after were crazy busy for me and I didn’t have time to dwell on it at all. In all honesty, I forgot about it because I was so preoccupied with all my other various commitments and activities. Then I got an email from them saying the entrants who were moving on to the next round were posted. I clicked on the link. Eventually, I got to the pdf that contained the writers who moved on. It was in alphabetical order – by first name. At first, I started scrolling down. Then I thought, this will take me forever to scroll to the “S”s. I had to suck it up and do a search for my name. So, I hit
I am excited to announce that Book 2 of the “Bits and Pieces” series is now available! The Kindle version can be purchased now on Amazon (http://amzn.to/bnpWinterSolstice). The paperback version will be out in the coming month or so… just waiting for some reviews! Check out the latest with Liz, Patrick and the rest of the crew!
Book Description
Liz and Patrick have survived the winter party being closer than ever. It’s now the holidays and Liz can’t wait to share Christmas and New Year’s Eve with Patrick and the rest of the crew. She has a lot to look forward to – her first kiss and her first boyfriend. It’s exciting and confusing. She likes him, he likes her, and most importantly, her mom is thrilled. Life is good. Or is it? There’s Becca, the auditions for the school musical, Patrick’s basketball games, her growing relationship, and how to balance everything and keep everyone happy. How will the crew react to this new relationship? With Patrick by her side, what else will the winter bring
Christmas shopping is in full swing. Amusement parks in Southern California have “snow” nightly or on weekends. But it’s still (technically) Fall!
So, what’s happening (without giving too much away) in Falling? A lot! Winter Break is quickly approaching for Liz and Patrick and life doesn’t slow down one bit. In fact, it gets more… complicated. Basketball games, concerts, a dance and party keep life fun and challenging for them.
As I see my students tackle on the last few days before Winter Break, I know their life doesn’t just exist in my classroom. High school is much more than what happens in the four walls of your math class! It’s about friends and finding out who you are. That’s why it’s a great (and sometimes the most difficult) time! For Liz, it’s no different!
Ever try to back track and figure out when things happen in a book? Sure, there might references to Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Halloween and from there you figure the date. Then if you thought about it some more, you might be able to discern that boy met girl three weeks or four months before. Heck, they might even tell you it’s the middle of January. But you every know the date from a story that doesn’t specifically state it in terms of holidays? Maybe I’m the only one who thinks that way.
Of course, as an author, I’m guilty of not explicitly stating the date to my readers. Let’s be honest… as a reader I don’t usually care. I’m more interested in who the character is or what’s happening to them. But as an author, having your timeline is important – in both story and character development. But I don’t keep it generic as a timeline. I calendar it. Literally. I have a calendar with key events or chapters noted in it. For me, my first book opens on October 12. Is that date significant to me? No, not before I started writing. But when I looked at the calendar and knew what things had to happen, and in what order, I realized that some time had to pass between events and had backtracked it all to October 12. It had to be October 12.
After a bad day, I was driving home and let my mind wander to my book. It was then, in a moment where I let go of the day-to-day stresses, that I realized it was the 12th of October. The realization hit me that I had to be around the date that the book “started”. I knew it started in mid-October. Keep in mind, I’m not referring to when I started writing, but rather what date we begin to hear Liz talking. Once I got home, I pulled out my book calendar and found I was right. It was mid-October. In fact it was that day. It was a weird cosmic thing. My book – and characters, naturally – are so connected to me that I had that sixth sense that today was significant in my book. I just didn’t realize how.
Today I officially approved the printed copy of “Falling”. It was exciting and nerve-wracking at the same time. It’s thrilling to know that it’s now available for readers to purchase in “real” book form. But scary to think that it’s available in “real” book form. It’s like opening it up to the world again. Yes, it was available in Kindle format for about three months now, but that didn’t make this experience any less memorable.
If you’ve been waiting for a printed copy, you can get it now by clicking on the “printed version” link to the right or here. If you would like a signed copy, you can contact me via email to order it directly from me.
Good reading!
My motivation isn’t external. I WANT to spend time with my characters. I WANT to find out what happens next. I write every day which can be tough with my schedule and all I’m involved with. If anything else, I spend time when I go to bed think about where the story “paused” in my head. I may not get a chance to write a lot (sometimes it can be just a few lines), but it’s progress. Every sentence is progress. Sometimes I’m writing frantically to get every word, action, nuance down and pages pour out. But often, it can be a paragraph or two at a time. But again, it’s progress. I love my characters and at the end of the day, if I’ve never thought of them and what they’re up to, I get very agitated and antsy. So,I guess part of my motivation is my own peace of mind and soul. I’m not writing for anyone else but me. If others like it then great (and I’m thrilled that people do). But I don’t do it to please others. It’s the wrong thing to do for anything.
COSMOS is in full swing! As a special opportunity for current COSMOS students, a limited number of the first book of my “Bits and Pieces” series will be given free.
Comment to this post with your name, email address, COSMOS site and cluster, and hometown. (Don’t worry, it won’t be publicly viewed.) Upon verification, you will recieve an electronic copy of “Falling”. You don’t need a Kindle to read a Kindle book, the Kindle App is free for download for your PC, smart phone, iPad, etc.
This is a limited time offer with a limited amount of copies available! Sign up now!
Did you know that you don’t need a Kindle to read Kindle books? If you are reading this, you can read Kindle books! All you need to do is download the free Kindle app for your phone, Android device, iPad, etc! It’s that easy!
You can pick up “Falling” on Amazon.com. (See the link to the right). You can read the Prologue and first chapter in earlier blog posts. Below is the description of it.
Here’s a brief description!
Meet Liz. She’s sixteen, the daughter of immigrant parents, doesn’t fit in at home and hides in plain sight in school. She’s an outsider until she’s rescued by an unlikely friendship that changes her life.
FALLING (first in the Bits and Pieces Series) is a coming of age friendship story about Liz that chronicles parts of her life during the fall of her junior year. She’s had a rough year and managed to get through it without anyone’s support, including her parents’. Her life changes when her physics teacher assigns new seats in class and Patrick, her new lab partner, befriends her. Unlike her past partners, Patrick challenges her to see the true meaning of teamwork and friendship. With him as her new best friend, she learns what friendship is really about and starts to find herself in the process.
