We had another great WOW Wednesday post yesterday to inspire us and point out that craft, persistence, and perseverance do pay off, but we’ve been talking a lot about accomplishments lately, and I’ve spoken to a lot of writers who are a little bit down about where they are personally on the road to pub. Marissa, Clara, and I had wanted to do something special when we hit 3000 Twitter followers (besides fall over in shock — OMG, THANK YOU ALL!!!), but I think you need to hear some encouragement and applause. So, we’re going to do this a little early.
Are you ready?
It’s time for a BIG giveaway to help remind us all of some important points about the writer’s journey. As Kiki Hamilton pointed out, it takes more than inspiration to write a successful novel and build a lasting career.
We can’t just keep writing the same thing that didn’t succeed before.
We have to grow.
We have to work on our craft.
We have to stay on top of the publishing industry.
We have to read widely and deeply.
We have to question our concepts and our work.
We have to revise. A lot.
And we have to write new stuff. A lot.
And one more thing.
We can’t wait for validation from other people to tell us that we are right to write.
We have to believe in ourselves.
So let’s make a pact, shall we? Let’s celebrate our own work, our own milestones. Every step we take on our writing journeys is a victory, even if it feels like a defeat.
Did you read and analyze a book by an acclaimed author recently? Great.
Did you finish reading a new book on craft and consider how to apply it to your own work? Yay.
Did you write down a new idea? Did you question that idea, try to grow it? Awesome.
Did you finish a synopsis or outline? Wow.
Did you write another 1000 words in your first draft? Score.
Did you finish a draft? Victory!
Did you revise another page, another chapter? Yep, you guessed it. Congratulate yourself.
And all those rejection letters?
As long as you learn something from them, even if it’s only the depth of your determination, every one is a badge of honor.
Keep Writing and Keep Improving
For the most part, writers succeed because they Keep Writing. Few of us sell our first manuscripts. Or even our second manuscripts. But fewer writers stick it out to write three manuscripts, and fewer still grit it out to four.
Let’s Celebrate Your Victories
Today, let’s celebrate your milestones, small and large. For every five writers who leave a comment with a even a minor victory, We’ll pick a winner at random and a book at random. (U.S. and Canadian entries only!) We’ve got tons of books in the vault. Comment before next Thursday, 10/13 and help us give them all away.
Here’s a list of the awesomeness that’s waiting for you:
BARGAINS AND BETRAYALS: A 13 TO LIFE NOVEL by Shannon DelanyLocked away at Pecan Place, Jessie finds her situation to be even more dangerous than she feared. While she struggles to maintain her sanity and discover answers about the group that seems less and less like any legitimate government agency, Pietr fights to keep their relationship alive. But very aware that his mother’s time is running out, Pietr makes a deal he doesn’t dare tell Jessie about. Because the deal Pietr’s made could mean the death of far more than his tenuous relationship with the girl he loves.
YOU AGAINST ME by Jenny Downham
If someone hurts your sister and you’re any kind of man, you seek revenge, right? If your brother’s been accused of a terrible crime and you’re the main witness, then you banish all doubt and defend him. Isn’t that what families do? When Mikey’s sister claims a boy assaulted her at a party, his world of work and girls begins to fall apart. When Ellie’s brother is charged with the crime, but says he didn’t do it, her world of revision, exams and fitting in at a new school begins to unravel. When Mikey and Ellie meet, two worlds collide. Brave and unflinching, this is a novel of extraordinary skillfulness and almost unbearable tension. It’s a book about loyalty and the choices that come with it. But above all it’s a book about love – for one’s family and for another
DRAGON’S OATH by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast
The first in an enthralling new mini-series of novellas from the #1 bestselling authors of the House of Night, Dragon’s Oath tells the story behind the House of Night’s formidable fencing instructor – the love that will transform him, and the promise that will haunt him
In early 19th century England, long before he’s a professor at the Tulsa House of Night, Bryan Lankford is a troublesome yet talented human teen who thinks he can get away with anything… until his father, a wealthy nobleman, has finally had enough, and banishes him to America. When Bryan is Marked on the docks and given the choice between the London House of Night and the dragon-prowed ship to America, he chooses the Dragon – and a brand new fate.
Becoming a Fledgling may be exciting, but it opens a door to a dangerous world…. In 1830’s St. Louis, the Gateway to the West, Dragon Lankford becomes a Sword Master, and soon realizes there are both frightening challenges and beautiful perks. Like Anastasia, the captivating young Professor of Spells and Rituals at the Tower Grove House of Night, who really should have nothing to do with a fledgling…
But when a dark power threatens, Dragon is caught in its focus. Though his uncanny fighting skills make him a powerful fledgling, is he strong enough to ward off evil, while protecting Anastasia as well? Will his choices save her—or destroy them all?
When 17-year-old Jamie arrives on the idyllic New England island of Little Bly to work as a summer au pair, she is stunned to learn of the horror that precedes her. Seeking the truth surrounding a young couple’s tragic deaths, Jamie discovers that she herself looks shockingly like the dead girl—and that she has a disturbing ability to sense the two ghosts. Why is Jamie’s connection to the couple so intense? What really happened last summer at Little Bly? As the secrets of the house wrap tighter and tighter around her, Jamie must navigate the increasingly blurred divide between the worlds of the living and the dead.
Brilliantly plotted, with startling twists, here is a thrilling page-turner from the award-winning Adele Griffin
It all started with a book. The most boring book in the world! So boring that nobody would ever read it. The perfect place to hide a terrible secret. But now the book has emerged from its hiding place and the world may never be the same.
An action-packed adventure which will have readers on the edge of their seat
From the best-selling and award-winning author of The Tomorrow Code and Brainjack.
Perfect for kids who love Alex Rider.
THE DEATH CURE by James Dashner
Thomas knows that Wicked can’t be trusted, but they say the time for lies is over, that they’ve collected all they can from the Trials and now must rely on the Gladers, with full memories restored, to help them with their ultimate mission. It’s up to the Gladers to complete the blueprint for the cure to the Flare with a final voluntary test.
What Wicked doesn’t know is that something’s happened that no Trial or Variable could have foreseen. Thomas has remembered far more than they think. And he knows that he can’t believe a word of what Wicked says.
The time for lies is over. But the truth is more dangerous than Thomas could ever imagine.
Will anyone survive the Death Cure?
Sixteen-year-old Neva has been trapped since birth. She was born and raised under the Protectosphere, in an isolated nation ruled by fear, lies, and xenophobia. A shield “protects” them from the outside world, but also locks the citizens inside. But there’s nothing left on the outside, ever since the world collapsed from violent warfare. Or so the government says…
Neva and her best friend Sanna believe the government is lying and stage a “dark party” to recruit members for their underground rebellion. But as Neva begins to uncover the truth, she realizes she must question everything she’s ever known, including the people she loves the most.
JANE JONES: WORST. VAMPIRE. EVER, by Caissie St. Onge
For Jane Jones, being a vampire is nothing like you read about in books. In fact, it kind of sucks. She’s not beautiful, she’s not rich, and she doesn’t “sparkle.” She’s just an average, slightly nerdy girl from an ordinary suburban family (who happens to be vampires.) Jane’s from the wrong side of the tracks (not to mention stuck in the world’s longest awkward phase), so she doesn’t fit in with the cool vampire kids at school or with the humans kids. To top it all off, she’s battling an overprotective mom, a clique of high school mean girls (the kind who really do have fangs), and the most embarrassing allergy in the history of the undead, she’s blood intolerant. So no one’s more surprised than Jane when for the first time in her life, things start to heat up (as much as they can for a walking corpse, anyway) with not one, but two boys. Eli’s a geeky, but cute real-live boy in her history class, and Timothy is a beautiful, brooding bloodsucker, who might just hold the key to a possible “cure” for vampirism. Facing an eternity of high school pressure, fumbling first dates, or a mere lifetime together with Timothy, what’s a 90-something year-old teen vampire to do?
Fans of the Vladmir Tod Chronicles, You are So Undead to Me, and Jessica’s Guide to Dating on the Dark Side will feast on this deliciously readable, smart, and fantastically funny debut.
Seventeen-year-old Riley has about had it up to here. After the devastating battle at the Tabernacle, trappers are dead and injured, her boyfriend Simon is gravely injured, and now her beloved late father’s been illegally poached from his grave by a very powerful necromancer. As if that’s not enough, there’s Ori, one sizzling hot freelance demon hunter who’s made himself Riley’s unofficial body guard, and Beck, a super over-protective “friend” who acts more like a grouchy granddad. With all the hassles, Riley’s almost ready to leave Atlanta altogether.
But as Atlanta’s demon count increases, the Vatican finally sends its own Demon Hunters to take care of the city’s “little” problem, and pandemonium breaks loose. Only Riley knows that she might be the center of Hell’s attention: an extremely powerful Grade 5 demon is stalking her, and her luck can’t last forever…
Thea Galehouse has always known how to take care of herself. With a flighty club-owner mom and a standoffish, recovering-alcoholic dad, Thea has made her own way in her hometown of New York, attending the prestigious and competitive Stuyvesant High School. But one chat with Will, a handsome and witty senior, and she’s a goner—completely hooked on him and unable to concentrate on anything else.
Always worried that she loves Will more than he loves her, Thea is pleasantly surprised when their romance weathers his move to college and Will goes out of his way to involve her in his life. But then, Thea misses a period. And that starts Thea and Will on a wild ride that neither of them could have possibly prepared for. When they decide to keep the baby, their concerned parents chip in what they can to keep Will in school and give both teenagers a comfortable place to raise their child. But when a freak accident leaves Thea shaken and threatens to upend their little family altogether, Thea is forced to turn to the last place she would have chosen for comfort: her stiff, uncompromising father.
This smart, touching first novel brims with realistic, beautifully drawn characters, and reminds us that love is never as easy or predictable as we might like it to be.
THE DRAGON’S TOOTH by N.D. Wilson
For two years, Cyrus and Antigone Smith have run a sagging roadside motel with their older brother, Daniel. Nothing ever seems to happen. Then a strange old man with bone tattoos arrives, demanding a specific room.
Less than 24 hours later, the old man is dead. The motel has burned, and Daniel is missing. And Cyrus and Antigone are kneeling in a crowded hall, swearing an oath to an order of explorers who have long served as caretakers of the world’s secrets, keepers of powerful relics from lost civilizations, and jailers to unkillable criminals who have terrorized the world for millennia.
N. D. Wilson, author of Leepike Ridge and 100 Cupboards, returns with an imagination-capturing adventure that inventively combines the contemporary and the legendary.
Grave-robbing. What kind of monster would do such a thing? It’s true that Leonardo da Vinci did it, Shakespeare wrote about it, and the resurrection men of nineteenth-century Scotland practically made it an art. But none of this matters to Joey Crouch, a sixteen-year-old straight-A student living in Chicago with his single mom. For the most part, Joey’s life is about playing the trumpet and avoiding the daily humiliations of high school.
Everything changes when Joey’s mother dies in a tragic accident and he is sent to rural Iowa to live with the father he has never known, a strange, solitary man with unimaginable secrets. At first, Joey’s father wants nothing to do with him, but once father and son come to terms with each other, Joey’s life takes a turn both macabre and exhilarating.
Daniel Kraus’s masterful plotting and unforgettable characters make Rotters a moving, terrifying, and unconventional epic about fathers and sons, complex family ties, taboos, and the ever-present specter of mortality.
YOU DON’T KNOW ABOUT ME by Brian Meehl
Sixteen-year-old Billy Allbright is about to bust out of his sheltered cocoon and go on a gonzo road trip. He just doesn’t know it yet. His ticket to freedom? A mysterious Bible containing two resurrection stories. The second is about a man Billy’s never met, and who is supposedly dead: his father.
But the road to a risen-from-the-grave dad, and the unusual inheritance he promises, is far from straight. Billy zigzags across the American West in a geocaching treasure hunt. When his journey includes a runaway baseball star, nudists who perform sun dances, a girl with neon green body parts, and con artists who blackmail him into their “anti-action movie,” Billy soon realizes that the path to self-discovery is mega off-road.
THE FLAPPERS: INGENUE by Jillian Larkin
In the city that never sleeps, Lorraine Dyer is wide awake. Ever since she exposed Clara Knowles for the tramp she was—and lost her closest confidante in the process—Lorraine has spent every second scheming to make her selfish, lovesick ex–best friend pay for what she did. No one crosses Lorraine. Not even Gloria.
True love conquers everything—or so Gloria Carmody crazily believed. She and Jerome Johnson can barely scrape together cash for their rent, let alone have a moment to whisper sweet nothings in the dark. And if they thought escaping Chicago meant they’d get away with murder . . . they were dead wrong.
Clara was sure that once handsome, charming Marcus Eastman discovered her shameful secret, he’d drop her like a bad habit. Instead, he swept her off her feet and whisked her away to New York. Being with Marcus is a breath of fresh air—and a chance for Clara to leave her wild flapper ways firmly in the past. Except the dazzling parties and bright lights won’t stop whispering her name. . . .
INGENUE is the second novel in the sexy, dangerous, and ridiculously romantic Flappers series set in the Roaring Twenties . . . where revenge is a dish best served cold.
THE OTHER COUNTESS by Eve Edwards
It’s 1582 and eighteen-year-old Will Lacey’s family is in trouble. After years of wasteful spending, his late father has run Lacey Hall to near ruin. Tasked with marrying his family back into fortune, the new Earl of Dorset is all set for a season at court to woo not just the Queen but potential brides with his jousting skills. But when Ellie – a strong-willed girl with nothing to her name but a worthless Spanish title – catches Will’s eye, he faces a bigger battle than he could ever have anticipated.
ART GEEKS AND PROM QUEENS by Alyson Noel
Dorks, Dweebs, Debutantes, and Jocks—Where would you fit in?
Being the new girl is tough—just ask sixteen-year-old Rio Jones. A New York transplant, Rio has no clue how she’s going to fit in at her fancy new private school in Southern California. Plus, being late, overdressed, and named after a Duran Duran song doesn’t make the first day any easier for her.
Then Rio meets Kristi. Beautiful, rich, and a cheerleader, Kristi is the queen bee of Newport Beach. And Kristi isn’t friends with just anyone, so Rio is thrilled when she’s invited to be part of the most exclusive, popular clique. Of course, like any club, Kristi and her friends have rules: Always smile (even if you don’t mean it), always dress cute (and never repeat outfits), and always flirt (but only with jocks, preps, and rich college guys).
At first Rio is having a great time, but as she becomes more immersed in this jet-set crowd, she figures out there is one last rule that her new friends forgot to mention: Don’t cross Kristi . . .
SEVEN KINDS OF ORDINARY CATASTROPHES by Amber Kizer
Okay, so here’s the deal: there are books about volcanoes erupting and meteorites hitting Earth and plane crashes where the survivors have to eat people—those are extraordinary crises.
That’s not what this book is about. I’m more the ordinary catastrophe type. This second semester of my sophomore year, there are basically 7 KINDS OF ORDINARY CATASTROPHES: high school, boys, heartbreak, family, job, friends, and the future.
Well, I guess everyone’s life is full of ordinary catastrophes. These are mine. Hi, I’m Gert Garibaldi. Welcome to my crazy life.
Late on a hot summer night in 1965, Charlie Bucktin, a precocious and bookish boy of thirteen, is startled by an urgent knock on the window of his sleep-out. His visitor is Jasper Jones, an outcast in the regional mining town of Corrigan. Rebellious, mixed-race and solitary, Jasper is a distant figure of danger and intrigue for Charlie. So when Jasper begs for his help, Charlie eagerly steals into the night by his side, terribly afraid but desperate to impress. Jasper takes him to his secret glade in the bush, and it’s here that Charlie bears witness to Jasper’s horrible discovery. With his secret like a brick in his belly, Charlie is pushed and pulled by a town closing in on itself in fear and suspicion as he locks horns with his tempestuous mother; falls nervously in love and battles to keep a lid on his zealous best friend, Jeffrey Lu. And in vainly attempting to restore the parts that have been shaken loose, Charlie learns to discern the truth from the myth, and why white lies creep like a curse. In the simmering summer where everything changes, Charlie learns why the truth of things is so hard to know, and even harder to hold in his heart.
FOLLOWING CHRISTOPHER CREED by Carol Plum-Ucci
Years later . . . what really happened to Christopher Creed?
When Torey Adams posts on his blog that a body has been found in Steepleton—four years after Christopher Creed disappeared—college reporter Mike Mavic sells his laptop and hops a plane to capture the story that will undoubtedly launch his journalistic career. But what Mike finds is a town suffering under a cloud of bad frequency and people with an underlying streak of meanness. To the teens of Steepleton, Chris is nothing more than history—but to Justin Creed, a teen obsessed with his older brother’s memory and balancing on the edge of sanity, discovering what really happened to Chris Creed is a matter of life and death.
THE SHATTERING by Karen Healey
Seventeen-year-old Keri likes to plan for every possibility. She knows what to do if you break an arm, or get caught in an earthquake or fire. But she wasn’t prepared for her brother’s suicide, and his death has left her shattered with grief. When her childhood friend Janna tells her it was murder, not suicide, Keri wants to believe her. After all, Janna’s brother died under similar circumstances years ago, and Janna insists a visiting tourist, Sione, who also lost a brother to apparent suicide that year, has helped her find some answers.
As the three dig deeper, disturbing facts begin to pile up: one boy killed every year; all older brothers; all had spent New Year’s Eve in the idyllic town of Summerton. But when their search for the serial killer takes an unexpected turn, suspicion is cast on those they trust the most.
As secrets shatter around them, can they save the next victim? Or will they become victims themselves?
The first time I meet an angel, it is Raphael and I am eighteen.
Miriam is an unassuming college freshman stuck on campus after her spring break plans fall through. She’s not a religious girl–when pressed she admits reluctantly to believing in a higher power. Truth be told, she’s about as comfortable speaking about her faith as she is about her love life, which is to say, not at all.
Then the archangel Raphael pays Miriam a visit, and she finds herself on a desperate mission to save two of her contemporaries. To top it all off, her twin brother, Mo, has also had a visitation, but from the opposite end of the good-evil spectrum, which leaves Miriam to wonder–has she been blessed and her brother cursed or vice versa? And what is the real purpose behind her mission?
Are you ready? Let’s celebrate!
Happy writing,
Martina
