Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Teaser Tuesday - 1/21/14


Photo credit: V.C. Andrews' website

I watched Lifetime's new Flowers in the Attic movie this weekend, which was surprisingly not as bad as I expected it to be. What it did, though, was prompt me to want to read the rest of the series, which I never did. I just started Petals on the Wind, and I'm reading it in between other things, but I thought I'd use a teaser from there today.

For Carrie, Chris and Cathy, the attic was a dark horror that would not leave their minds, even while they built bright, promising new lives. Of course mother had to pretend they didn't exist.

And grandmother was convinced they had the devil in them.

But that wasn't their fault. Was it? Cathy knew what to do.

She now had the powers she had learned from her beautiful mother. She knew it in the way her brother still yearned for her, in the way her guardian touched her, in the way all men looked at her.

She knew it was time to put what she knew to the test. To show her mother and grandmother that the pain and terror of the attic could not be forgotten... Show them.

Show them--once and for all.

The rules for Teaser Tuesday are:

  • Grab your current read
  • Open to a random page
  • Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
  • BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
  • Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!
  • Then hit up Should Be Reading to add your link.

And the teaser:

"Do you always wear more than one outfit on Sundays?" he asked.

"Only on the Sundays I run away," I said.

Thursday, January 16, 2014

2014 New Year's Resolutions

It's unusual for me to let half of January go by without writing down my new year's resolutions. I know a lot of people disregard this as a waste of time, or setting yourself up to fail, or any number of things, but I've always taking resolution writing pretty seriously. I think about it carefully, write them all down, go back sometime in the summer to see if I'm making any progress towards them, then evaluate at the end of the year. I like taking the time to be introspective. Plus, I always feel more grounded if I have goals.

2013 was a huge year for me. I wiped a couple big-ticket items off my bucket list, including publishing Pack Mentality, and because of that, I was floundering a bit when it came to deciding on this year's resolutions. But I've finally got some ideas--both personal and professional--and I thought, "What better place to write them down than the internet, where I can never lose them?" So here goes.

  1. Publish CH2. I'm about halfway through my first round of edits on the second Capitoline Hill book, so I'm pretty optimistic about this. Right now, I'm planning for an early October release. You can keep up with the details by adding the book on Goodreads. Also, keep an eye out for a giveaway or two as it the release gets closer.
  2. Write 1-2 more novels. Writing Bex and CH3 was one of my resolutions for 2013, but it never came to pass, so I'm taking another stab at it this year. I'm pretty sure Bex is a standalone, so I'd love to get that out into the world soon, and CH3 is basically entirely written in my head; I just need to put it on paper.
  3. Read one nonfiction book. I'll admit I blatantly stole this from last year's resolutions, but it's still something I'd like to accomplish. Because seriously, it's just getting sad now.
  4. Create and maintain a writing/blogging schedule. These go together. Basically, I just want to be more professional about my craft. Right now, I'm still doing a lot of the "write when the muse hits" thing, but I know if I want to start seeing more results, I have to be willing to put in the time... even when it's hard.
  5. Dramatically reduce procrastination. This applies to both the personal and the professional. Not only do I occasionally get myself in trouble with my procrastination, but it causes me a lot of anxiety.

I think that's enough for now. Anyone else have some resolutions they'd like to share?

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Teaser Tuesday - 1/14/14


Photo credit: The copyrights for the images are held by Michael Shevlin, Jose Antonio Sánchez Reyes | Dreamstime.com, and Iakov Filimonov | Dreamstime.com. The copyright for the cover is held by Patricia L. Miller.

So my blog schedule fell apart before I ever started, but that's okay. I'm getting back on track this week. But since I'm still reading UnSouled, this week's teaser comes from my book, Pack Mentality, in honor of my completion of the first draft of book 2.

The Mid-Atlantic Pack has a problem: there’s a man-killing werewolf loose in their territory. As a Guardian—a protector of the Pack and its Alpha—Quinn Dunlap is one of the people tasked with finding him and eliminating the threat… by any means necessary.

But what Quinn finds isn’t the big bad wolf; it’s a scruffy, scared boy named Elijah who was bitten three months ago and has been running ever since. So instead of the typically accepted execution he probably deserves, she takes pity on him and brings him home to the Pack Alpha, a firm but fair werewolf named Geoffrey Reynolds. Geoffrey’s always respected Quinn as a good judge of character, and this time is no exception. He lets Elijah stay, but he makes it clear that the boy is Quinn’s responsibility.

Quinn doesn’t want Elijah to be her responsibility. She doesn’t even want to be her own responsibility. When she left five years ago, she had honestly never thought she'd be moving back to Capitoline Hill, a decidedly not hilly compound in New Jersey. So maybe it's time for her to accept that sometimes you have to go home again, no matter what the saying is. And maybe, maybe, it's also time for her to get over some of those fears that drove her away in the first place. But when someone attacks the Pack, Quinn finds out that everyone, even her Alpha, is afraid of something. And sooner or later, those fears always come back to haunt you

The rules for Teaser Tuesday are:

  • Grab your current read
  • Open to a random page
  • Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
  • BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
  • Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!
  • Then hit up Should Be Reading to add your link.

And the teaser:

I'd always known violence was a part of Pack life, from the first time I'd seen my uncle Rick come home from an assignment with blood on his shirt. But I'd never been so directly affected before.

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Teaser Tuesday - 1/7/14

What's this? A Teaser Tuesday post?

One of my new year's resolutions is to establish a real blogging schedule (to go with my real writing schedule), and part of that schedule includes Teaser Tuesdays because... well, I think they're fun. Also, because it prompts me to read more, which I fell sadly behind on at the end of last year (I blame Joss Whedon for this, but that's a whole different story).

So without further ado, the first Teaser Tuesday book of the year is UnSouled, the third book in Neal Shusterman's fantastic Unwind series. WARNING: The blurb for this book may contain spoilers for the first two books in this series.

Connor and Lev are on the run after the destruction of the Graveyard, the last safe haven for AWOL Unwinds. But for the first time, they’re not just running away from something. This time, they’re running toward answers, in the form of a woman Proactive Citizenry has tried to erase from history itself. If they can find her, and learn why the shadowy figures behind unwinding are so afraid of her, they may discover the key to bringing down unwinding forever.

Cam, the rewound boy, is plotting to take down the organization that created him. Because he knows that if he can bring Proactive Citizenry to its knees, it will show Risa how he truly feels about her. And without Risa, Cam is having trouble remembering what it feels like to be human.

With the Juvenile Authority and vindictive parts pirates hunting them, the paths of Connor, Lev, Cam, and Risa will converge explosively—and everyone will be changed.

The rules for Teaser Tuesday are:

  • Grab your current read
  • Open to a random page
  • Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
  • BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
  • Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!
  • Then hit up Should Be Reading to add your link.

And the teaser:

Following Grace's plan, they pull into the supermarket parking lot and leave the squad car there, along with the keys and the deputy's gun--because a missing gun will beg too many questions. Leave the man his car and his gun, and he might just keep quiet to save himself from humiliation.