Grab your dark chocolate and join me at Chachic's Book Nook today! I've donned my smarty pants glasses for the occasion and will be dishing on all things romance and Paris (le sigh) as part of her fantastic Amour et Florand series. à bientôt!
Showing posts with label guest post. Show all posts
Showing posts with label guest post. Show all posts
Smart Chicks Get What They Want
originally published at Book Harbinger's Seven Days for Sevenwaters but I wanted to make sure it wound up in my archives too.
Thank you very much to Holly for inviting me to be a part of her fabulous Seven Days for Sevenwaters series! I'm all aflutter at the chance to be able to talk about my favorite Sevenwaters book. And which particular volume of deliciousness am I going to blabber on about today? Hmmm. It was a little over two years ago that I
A quick warning ... If you haven't gotten around to reading Son of the Shadows (and why ever not?!), I really don't want to spoil it for you. Really. So be warned. Spoilers, dishing over the villains, the HEA, and all those delicious details will be contained herein.
Like many other Juliet Marillier novels, what truly cemented my love affair with Son of the Shadows is its standout cast of characters. In addition to one dark, brooding hero with a mysterious past and his band of Merry Painted Men, it happens to contain one of my all time favorite female leads: Liadan, daughter of Sorcha and Red from Daughter of the Forest. Liadan is smart, she's resourceful, she's an infinitely caring person and one who values family above all else. But never fear! Our Liadan would never be described as a pushover. She's the type who utterly refuses to back down when it counts. And what's more, she knows what she wants and then goes out and MAKES it happen.
Case in point: At this point in Son of the Shadows Liadan has not had the best day. She's just been unceremoniously released by Bran and is now headed home to Sevenwaters brokenhearted and humiliated when the Fair Folk appear and decide to drop this bombshell.
Fair Folk: You've sorta been making some stupid choices in the man department.
Liadan: Excuse me? Are you talking to me?
Fair Folk: Yes, you. We've decided you need to stay near Sevenwaters. Forever.
Liadan: Huh?
Fair Folk: Oh and you can never get married.
Liadan: Whaaa???
Fair Folk: Promise?
Liadan: Uh, no.
Fair Folk: But! But! You could mess up the prophecy!
Liadan: Don't care.
Fair Folk: Well then. Doom on you! DOOM on you!
Liadan: Really. Don't. Care.
Remember now, Bran has just basically dumped Liadan after learning who she really was. And like many bad breakups, he said some truly not-so-nice things to her and Laidan is pretty convinced she's never gonna lay eyes on the man she loves ever again. But instead of swearing off men forever like the Fair Folk demand, she hasn't given up hope and chooses instead to decide for herself. Think of it: in the face of so much pain she still has hope for the future!
I truly don't think I've ever encountered a character with more hope than Liadan. She refuses to let fate dictate her path and instead fights for her own future. When the Fair Folk come back later and demand she choose Bran or her son Johnny (I KNOW! You'd think they'd learn by now), Liadan once again flouts their decree and then goes on to keep BOTH. But not because anybody handed her her happily ever after on a silver platter. Oh no, she's a smart chick with a very strong view on how her life will turn out and a deep understanding that she has to fight for that happiness. And guess what? She does get it all: her man, her son, and the chicken dinner. I'll just leave it to you to find out exactly how...
"Making of Nightspell" Guest Post
Today I am so excited to welcome the incredible author Leah Cypess -- author of Mistwood and the soon-to-be-released Nightspell, which I really, really loved. Today Leah is here to talk a bit about her writing process for Nightspell - including some very awesome pictures of her writing notebooks.
Making of Nightspell: Notebooks
This is the first of a four-part “Making of Nightspell” feature I’ll be doing as part of this blog tour. Ever wanted to know what goes on behind the scenes of an author’s work? Ever suspect it’s not half as exciting as what goes into making a movie? Well, here’s your chance! Starting with the glamorous world of notebooks.
I write my first drafts in longhand. Needless to say, because I’m a writer, I get obsessive about what type of notebook I use. It used to be that I used all types of notebooks, but would stand obsessively at the drugstore trying to figure out which specific notebook was right for this particular story. The notebook I ended up choosing when I first started writing Nightspell – at the age of 17 – was this one:
I filled about half that notebook, and wrote myself into a complete mess. Since I couldn’t see how to extricate myself, I ended up putting the notebook away and starting something new.
Ten years later, having quit my job to give full-time writing a try, I pulled that notebook out again and went through it, trying to figure out which parts of what I had written were worth salvaging. Most of it got nixed:
In fact, out of that entire notebook, I ended up with maybe a page’s worth of actual writing I wanted to salvage. And then I started from scratch. This time, my taste in notebooks had changed, ever since a friend in law school introduced me to these awesome notebooks from Japan:
I do a lot of writing on the playground these days, and these notebooks are wonderful for that: they’re really thin and fit perfectly into a small backpack. You can also fold them open and closed several million times without having them fall apart. These are the notebooks on which Nightspell was REwritten… for the first time.
For the next part of the Making of Nightspell, check out Books Complete Me on June 3!
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Many, many thanks to Leah for stopping by and sharing her notebooks with us!
Ann Aguirre Guest Post - Enclave Casting Call
As you guys probably noticed yesterday, I am a major fan of Ann Aguirre's newest YA dystopian novel, Enclave - which just so happened to have been released this week! Yay!As part of her blog tour for Enclave, Ann has graciously agreed to stop by today to share a little more about her book by revealing who she thinks would make good casting choices for each character. As I am woefully out of the loop when it comes to current actors (blame it on too much Disneyfied TV courtesy of my 3 year old) - I was much impressed with her choices. But I'll let you judge for yourself ;)
Take it away Ann!
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There are more characters like Silk, Copper, Twist, Whitewall, and the Wordkeeper, but I'm not going to cast them. Once you read the book, you can do that on your own, and then you'll have some thoughts on how well I did.
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So what do you think? Personally, I think Ann's choice for Deuce and Fade are fabulous. And so is Evanna Lynch! Ooooh! And Kathy Bates! Okay, okay, I really love all these actors and am just nodding my head over how well they fit the characters in the book.
Thank you again Ann for dropping by today! Go here to read the first couple chapters of Enclave.
What do you think? Have you read Enclave yet? Which actors would you pick?
Split Tour: Deleted Scene
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In lieu of a deleted scene, here is a second scene I wrote from Christian’s point of view. Again, this was never meant to go into the manuscript, but was the product of a writing exercise given to me by a mentor, Jim Moore. You can check out the first scene as well.
(Author-mystique-buster: This is all I get in 15 minutes and writing exercises are pretty shabby).
Boots
by Swati Avasthi
In October, it rains in Chicago. Inevitable, for at least 4 days. Steady rain. No flashes of lightning, no break in the clouds or even the temp of the big drops. It drowns the fall leaves, leaving them fragile under foot, to be torn by a boot as it passed over the seams in the pavement.
The year I was seven, I had my first pair of black rain boots with a red stripe across the top. My father thought that a boy of six no longer needed puddle jumpers with frog’s eyes on the top or picture of ducks on the side. Not even red or yellow ones. When my mother wanted to get them for me and I was begging in the store to have them, too, he put both hands on my shoulders and leaned into my face.
“Now, Christian,” he had said. “Those are for little kids, like her.” He glanced at a chubby little girl whose T shirt was sliding up over her mound of a waist and whose ponytail holder was just barely hanging on by a tangle. “You’re not like that anymore. A big boy. Daddy’s boy.”
I nodded and neither my mom nor I said anything else. He got the saleswoman and told her what I wanted. I smiled and nodded.
I looked over toward the window where Jace, my little brother, had crawled. He had hoisted himself into the window display. A one year old can, who can barely walk, but can climb like a cheetah.
I should get him out of there, I thought. A big boy would, I supposed. But instead, I watched him. He grabbed the first big boot – a pink boot with red hearts and I grimaced at my little brother’s taste – girl’s stuff. He tipped over the boot and studied it. Then, with his shoes on, he stuffed his little foot inside the boot. They came up to his chubby thighs. The next one was the boot my father picked out for me. He examined it and tossed it aside.
How come he got away with it? How come a baby knew his mind and wouldn’t let it be changed by anyone, and me, a boy of six, would nod and smile when I was told. Looking back, I wonder if it was at that moment that I first became jealous of Jace, not when he got into my toys, or at Christmas, but right then. Right then, I knew something but couldn’t really find the words for it yet: that Jace would end up with a freer spirit than me, and I would end up with dull, boring boots – boots that were right for me.
He would get the ones with ducks on the sides.
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As part of the Split blog tour and charity auction, I'd like to highlight a couple of items up for bid from the amazingly fantastic list of items available.
A SIGNED copy of Bull Rider and a phone consult or school visit, donated by Suzanne Morgan Williams.
A SIGNED set of five of Lynne Jonell's books donated by the author.
A SIGNED copy of Bull Rider and a phone consult or school visit, donated by Suzanne Morgan Williams.
A SIGNED set of five of Lynne Jonell's books donated by the author.
We love YA!
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