Flashbacks: An Introduction

I was never a very good journal writer. (And always aware of that fact — my very first entry in my very first diary begins, I won’t write every day. I’m not good at that.) And I haven’t kept a journal in years. But during my teens I periodically turned to journals as a way of getting out all the things I wanted to express but couldn’t quite seem to with my parents and friends; a way of analyzing the behavior of my peers (particularly boys); and a way of recording the things that had happened right after they did, so that I could look back later and find out what really happened, not just what my memory had come up with (and actually, reading over these journals I’ve sometimes discovered that what I wrote at the time was quite different from what I remembered later. So they have served that purpose).

And now, they’re a way of offering you all a glimpse inside the head of this YA writer, as a teen.

Every week or so, I’ll be posting a flashback — an entry from one of my preteen or teenaged journals — along with some supplementary commentary on issues I didn’t end up writing about. All entries will be unedited (other than occasional spelling mistakes I may fix). Names will be substituted with letters so as not to intrude on anyone else’s privacy — the reoccurring letters can be found in The Cast post.

I hope you enjoy spending time with my young adult self!

Writer at Work: Voices

There are a whole lot of activities that make up a writer’s life that involve little or no writing. For example:

A few days ago my WIP decided that possibly it wanted to be 1st person after insisting for two and a half drafts that it really must be 3rd. (Gee thanks, muse!) But hey, I am always game. What story wants, story gets. And I knew it might solve a few narrative issues I’d been having difficulty with.

Unfortunately, switching POV is not as simple as changing all the “he”s to “I”s. I’d need to have a strong sense of my main character’s voice. And in this particular case my main character is a teenage boy living many centuries ago (to the extent that the events in the story could theoretically be in our reality) in Scandinavia. Though, for fictional purposes, speaking English.

So what writerly task did I find myself engaged in that evening? Looking up interviews and other videos on YouTube with native Scandinavians speaking in English. Preferably young-ish and male. Which, okay, is not the most accurate representation, but it’s about as close as I’m going to get to developing a sense of rhythm and sentence structure and anything else that might be useful.

All in a day’s work!

Want to smell like a ghost?

I mentioned in the Great Ghost Giveaway post that there’d be a little something extra along with the books. Now I’m going to tell you what that is. 🙂

I wanted to have some sort of fun item to tie in with GIVE UP THE GHOST, for giveaways and handing out at signings and that sort of thing, an extra for people who enjoyed the book. And I’d been a fan of unique scents like those Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab creates for years. So in my brainstorming, I had one of those light bulb moments–hey! All of my ghosts have a specific smell. Maybe people would like to smell like a ghost!

Thanks to the BPAL forums, I was able to get in touch with the owner of independent soap and scent company Super Bad Soap (check out her current products at her Etsy shop and other stores online). We chatted back and forth about what I was thinking, and this is the end result:

These are just samples, of course. The scents will be officially released later this summer. But in the meantime, you’ll have a chance to sniff them early via this blog! The winner of the Great Ghost Giveaway will receive a sample of each of the five scents along with the books.

These are the ghosts, and their scents:

Paige — Paige drifted over, her hand grazing my head with a faint tingle. The smell of candied apples and cinnamon wisped from her fingers.

Norris — Under it all, I caught a whiff of something only I could smell: old-fashioned hair oil. It got stronger as the crowd thinned by the hall’s dead end, just past the math office, where my locker was.

Mrs. Reed — As I breathed, I caught the scent, light and sweet like powdered sugar.

Bitzy — She lifted her arms over her head and tiptoed the last few steps, adding a wobbly twirl at the end, the scent of lemon-polished wood drifting with her.

Chester — The faint smell of tea that had always hung in the air, even when he wasn’t by the tree–that was gone, too. I hadn’t seen him since.

Looking forward to sharing them with you!

Let the Great Ghost Giveaway begin!

Please note that the Great Ghost Giveaway is now over. For another chance to win an ARC of GIVE UP THE GHOST, check out the latest giveaway here!

I am pleased to announce my first official author giveaway! 😀 What am I giving away? Well, naturally, first there is this:

One advance copy of GIVE UP THE GHOST, signed by yours truly.

And also, so my little book doesn’t get lonely, I’m including a couple other awesome ghost books to go along with it. Both are poignant and atmospheric and full of characters who’ll stick with you long after you’ve finished reading; one spooky and suspenseful, one sweet and romantic:

SHADOWED SUMMER by Saundra Mitchell, and I HEART YOU, YOU HAUNT ME by Lisa Schroeder

And on top of all that ghostly goodness, there will also be a little extra thrown in… A set of five ghost scents!

For this first giveaway, I’m making entering super-easy. All you have to do is comment on this post (WordPress or LiveJournal, either’s fine)! Please leave your e-mail address if you’re commenting anonymously. The giveaway is open to anyone in the world.

I’ll also give an extra entry to anyone who’s been kind enough to link to my website or one of my blogs in their site’s link list/blog roll/etc.–just mention it in your comment, and you’ll be entered twice.

The giveaway will be open for one week, until midnight EST on Friday June 12th. I’ll announce the winner Monday June 15th.

Good luck!

Here we go!

Because my LiveJournal is so writer-centric, I’m starting a new WordPress blog through my website, that will be focused on topics more of interest (hopefully) to readers.  Since most of my LiveJournal friends are readers as well, I’ll be crossposting my entries here to LJ. And I’ll be responding to comments in both places.

So those of you who already follow my LJ blog, you don’t need to change anything.  Anyone who’d find it easier to follow a WP blog, and doesn’t mind missing some of the more detailed craft/publishing related posts at LJ, come on over here and hang out with me there. 🙂

Either way, stay tuned–the first GIVE UP THE GHOST giveaway is starting tomorrow!