Author Guest Post & Giveaway: Hélène Boudreau (Real Mermaids Don't Wear Toe Rings)

Hélène Boudreau

Books (Young Adult):

• Real Mermaids Don't Wear Toe Rings (2010)

Hélène Boudreau:
Hélène Boudreau grew up on an island surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean but now writes fiction and non-fiction for kids from her land-locked home in Ontario, Canada.

She has never time-travelled or saved an endangered bird, nor has she ever spotted a mermaid in the wild, but she believes mermaids are just as plausible as sea horses, flying fish, or electric eels.

Real Mermaids Don't Wear To Rings:

First zit. First crush. First…mermaid’s tail?

If she hadn’t been so clueless, she might have seen it coming. But really, who expects to get into a relaxing bathtub after a stressful day of shopping for tankinis and come out with scales and a tail?

Most. Embarassing. Moment. Ever.

Jade soon discovers she inherited her mermaid tendencies from her mom. But this revelation raises a serious question: if Mom was a mermaid, how did she drown?

Jade is determined to find out. But how does a plus-sized, aqua-phobic, mer-girl go about doing that, exactly? And how will Jade ever be able to explain her secret to her best friend Cori, and her crush, Luke?

This summer is about to get a lot more interesting…
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Real zombies, real vampires, real MERMAIDS?

Do mermaids lurk deep beneath the ocean’s surface? Do zombies really exist? Are there vampires among us? Maybe…maybe not…

Stories of mythical creatures can grow from real life.

It has always fascinated me how stories of mythical creatures evolve. Sometimes, these creatures are inspired by real-life sightings of unusual creatures.

Unicorn tales, for example, may have started with a sighting of a single-horned deer. These deer aren’t ‘magical’ but they’re definitely unusual. They are genetic mutations and are born with only one horn.

But, like a game of telephone-tag, a story like this can get out of hand. Before you know it—a mythical creature is born.

But is truth stranger than fiction?

Creatures in the wild can seem just as weird and freaky as the mythical ones you read about or see on screen. Here are just a few ‘stranger than fiction’ actual-factual mythical-like creatures.

REAL VAMPIRES:

The payara or vampire fish from the Amazon River has vampire-like teeth. They are so long; its upper jaw has built-in holes for its teeth to slip into so it can close its mouth!

And from the blackest part of the ocean…the vampire squid. It might only be six inches long but the vampire squid’s eyes are as big as a large dog’s!

These large eyes help it see at ocean depths of up to 3,000 feet. Vampire squid feed off crustaceans or fish and live in complete darkness. Vampire squid also have photophores (light producing organs) which they can turn off and on to confuse predators or attract prey. Oh…sparkly!

REAL ZOMBIES:

The Komodo dragon is the biggest known lizard in the world. This fierce reptile is a top-of-the-food-chain predator. It will eat almost anything, including its own young. Its saliva contains dozens of smelly bacteria, which make its breath stink.

Talk about dragon-breath!

REAL MERMAIDS:

Do these exist? Well, ch’yeah! Was there ever any doubt? ;-)

But seriously…you just never know!

Who would have believed that a monstrous 24-foot long giant squid with ten-inch wide eyes, like the one captured in Japan in December, 2006 could actually exist?


Imagining ‘what if’ is one of the most important factors in scientific discovery AND fiction writing.

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It's your turn! Share your proof (real or imagined) that mermaids actually do exist and you'll be entered to win a copy of Real Mermaids Don't Wear Toe Rings!!

Thanks to Sourcebooks for providing the prize!!

Official Information:

• to enter, fill out the form below
• entrants must be 13 years of age or older
• February 13 is the deadline
• only open to U.S. residents
• book is being shipped straight from publisher

contest closed.

Author Guest Post: Laura J. Burns & Melinda Metz

Melinda Metz & Laura J. Burns

Books (Young Adult):

• Echoes

Melinda Metz:

Melinda Metz has long been fascinated with the paranormal. She wrote about teen aliens in the Roswell High series, a girl with psychic powers in the Echoes series, and an evil force taking over a small town in Raven's Point. She's thrilled to have had the chance to take on vampires with oft-time writing partner Laura J. Burns in Crave. Melinda lives in Concord, North Carolina with her dog, Scully, who possesses one of the highest barks ever recorded.

Laura J. Burns:

Laura J. Burns has written more than thirty books for kids and teens, touching on topics from imaginary lake monsters to out-of-control Hollywood starlets. With Melinda Metz, she has also written for the TV shows ROSWELL, MISSING, and THE DEAD ZONE. They were nominated for an Edgar Award for their book The Wright and Wong Mysteries: The Case of the Nana Napper. Laura lives in California with her husband, her kids, and her two exceptionally silly dogs.

Crave:

Shay has had a rare blood disorder since she was born. In fact, her mother married one of Shay’s doctors, Martin, who left his world-renowned leukemia research to try and figure out exactly what the disorder is and how to cure it. When she turns seventeen, Martin begins to give her new blood transfusions that make her feel the strongest she has ever felt. But she also has odd visions where she sees through the eyes of a vampire.

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Road to Publication

There are many roads to publication. For example, The Situation developed his abs and tan, made sure his clothes were clean, and was outrageous enough to become a reality show stand out. Now he has a book being published./div>

What’s that you say? You have more of a two-pack than a six-pack? Then just for you, we've broken down a more standard journey to publication. Here, in several steps, is the typical way to go about becoming (dun dun DUN!) a published author:

STEP ONE. Write a book. It's almost impossible for a first-time writer to sell a book based on a concept, an outline, or even a partial manuscript.

STEP TWO. Revise the book. Revising is quite possibly the most important part of the writing process. Everyone does it! Sometimes it means cutting out scenes or even characters you love. Sometimes it means adding more detail or going through the painstaking process of mapping out a timeline and making sure it all adds up. Sometimes it just means punching up dialogue.

Before you revise, it's really useful to get some feedback from people you trust. They don't have to be other writers. Readers are also great at spotting plot inconsistencies, character problems, and typos. Don’t get defensive when friends give you notes you disagree with. Don’t think “it’s good enough” when your readers are telling you it’s not.

On the other hand, taking every revision suggestion is pretty much impossible because it's likely you'll get some contradictory advice. Our advice (which you should definitely take): Put in the time to think about the comments you get, and pay special attention to similar comments that come from more than one person, and then choose which notes you want to address. More of our advice: If you don't think you need to address any of the comments, you probably need to think a little more.

STEP THREE. Write a query letter and send it out to agents. The purpose of your query letter is simple—you want the agent to ask to see more!

Agents have specialties. You'll reduce your chances of being able to wallpaper your bathroom with rejections if you send your query to agents who represent the type of book you've written. One way to find these agents is to check the acknowledgement page in books that seem to be in a similar vein to your manuscript. Often authors will give a thank-you to their agent. Once you have an agent's name, you can look up the contact information in the Literary Market Place. (Most libraries have a copy.)

Query letters have a fairly standard format. They shouldn't be longer than a page, and they should go something like this:

Paragraph 1: A logline. That's a one line synopsis of your manuscript with a hook. Give genre and word count.

Paragraph 2: A longer synopsis.

Longer, but not more than a paragraph. Don't worry. You aren't expected to cram in every single plot point—or even necessarily to say how the book ends. Match the tone of your synopsis to the tone of your book. If your book is funny, show that in the way you describe the story. If it's suspenseful, make the synopsis tense. Check out the back cover copy of published books to find ideas on how to get plot and tone across in a short number of words.

Paragraph 3: Your writing credentials. This doesn't have to be other books you have published. If you're a member of an organization like The Society for Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators, mention that. If you write a blog, mention that too.

Paragraph 4: Thank you. Agents are actually people. Really! So say thank you for his/her attention.

STEP FOUR. The agent calls with an offer to represent you. Hurray! Now you need to decide if the agent is the right person for you. Don't be afraid to ask questions about who their other clients are and how they've managed to market them. Also ask what the agent's plan is for your manuscript.

STEP FIVE. Your agent sends your manuscript out to editors at various publishing houses. Agents spend a lot of time talking to editors—either at lunch or on the phone—getting the scoop on what the editors are looking for. This way, they can handpick where to send your work. You don't want your sci-fi epic going to an editor who only does Regency romances, after all.

STEP SIX. Wait. And sometimes, wait, and wait, and wait. Editors have piles of manuscripts waiting to be read. And once they've found a manuscript they like, they will usually need to bring it up before an editorial board before making an offer. Your agent can—and will—nag, but it's still probably going to take months before responses from editors come in.

STEP SEVEN. Your agent gets an offer for your manuscript. Woo-hoo!! You discuss the offer with your agent, and decide whether or not to take it. Sure, you'll want to jump on the first offer, just to see your name on the cover of a book. But if your agent says not to, and can back it up with a good reason, then you'll want to give it some serious thought.

STEP EIGHT. Your editor gives you notes on your manuscript—and it's back to Step Two. Revision. All the same rules apply.

After that, it's time to start the writing again. Get to your next book! And then, one day, while you're neck-deep in revising THAT manuscript, a box will arrive at your door. It will be filled with books--your author copies. Of your novel. With your name on it. And that's where the road to publication ends!

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Thanks to Melinda and Laura for stopping by!

Author Guest Post: Elizabeth Rudnick & Giveaway

Elizabeth Rudnick

Books (Young Adult):

• Tweet Heart

Links:

Website : Blog : Twitter

Elizabeth Rudnick:

Elizabeth Rudnick is a debut author who also is a senior edit at Disney Press in New York City. She's edited books based on movies like Pirates of the Caribbean and Prince of Persia as well as Miley Cyrus's memoir, Miles to Go, which was a New York Times bestseller.

She lives in Connecticut with a bug mutt named Jack Dyson. He has the ability to suck up anything in his way and has a habit of watching hours of mindless television!

Tweet Heart:

Claire is a #hopelessromantic. Lottie is determined to set up her BFF with Mr. Perfect. Will wants his #secretcrush to finally notice him. Bennett is a man with a plan.

Claire can’t believe it when her dream guy starts following her on Twitter. She never thought he noticed her, and suddenly he seems to understand her better than almost anyone.

But the Twitterverse can be a confusing place, especially when friends act differently online than they do in person. Things get even more complicated when Claire realizes she’s falling for someone else, the last person she ever would have expected….

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How Tweet Heart Was Born

First, I just want to say thank Mavie, for asking me to write about my experience working on Tweet Heart. It was such fun--and yes, at times, quite painful--so it is always nice when people want to hear about how it all came about.

I guess, I’ll start with the beginning--how did I come up with the idea to write a book in all tweets, emails, and blogs? And the answer is--I got dumped. Silly, I know. But people are always saying write what you know and in this case, I knew exactly what it was like to like someone from afar who, for all intents and purposes, would never like me back. Or, if he did, he’d manage to break my heart. So, yes, I had been recently dumped and was sitting on my couch discussing it with my then roommate. I was going through all the great things the guy had said while we were dating and mentioned that in one of our first emails, he had said that I made him feel twitterpaited. And suddenly, lightning struck. I thought out loud, wouldn’t it be funny if there was a love story told all in tweets? A courtship limited to 140 characters? What if it were called Tweet Heart? And so the idea was born.

Of course, I quickly found out that having a title and a gleam of an idea doesn’t a book make. I fleshed out the idea--I wanted it to have some sort of hook besides the tweet factor and I also wanted it to have some nods to classic literature given that it was based on such a modern technology. The novel Cyrano de Bergerac was where I landed. It is a story about mistaken identity and I just modernized it to make it a story of mistweeten identity. Claire was the first character to come to life and I will admit, she is probably the most like me (though I think Bennett and I share some qualities as well!). It definitely wasn’t easy writing the book and where I started and what was printed are worlds apart. For example, originally, I was just going to write in all tweets but I quickly discovered that it is hard to move a story along when you are only really allowed to work in “dialogue”. That was where the blogs and emails came in. They are how I helped move the plot along and then relied on the tweets as the conversations. And let me tell you, for someone as wordy as me, limiting those conversations to 140 character interactions was tough! I spent a LOT of time going back and cutting and trying to come up with clever ways to shorten thoughts. But it was worth it because I think, or hope rather, that in the end, the novel speaks to the way teens think and speak today. It is a book in their language and the responses I’ve gotten make me feel like I succeeded in getting that voice across. For the most part that is :)

The one thing I did want to do, along with creating a compelling and entertaining story (with its own staircase moment because I’m still waiting for mine so why not live vicariously through my characters?), was to also address the fact that things like twitter or email or IMs or blogs--they are great and can be wonderful ways of communicating, but they can also lead to more drama than is necessary. Will is the perfect example. He was happier living behind his computer and telling Claire how he felt online but that backfired. If he had been up front with her and talked to her face-to-face, he probably would have saved himself a lot of heartache. Don’t get me wrong, I rely on email a lot to get across thoughts to friends and loved ones. But we should never forget that sometimes, good old fashioned talking can be more rewarding. :)

Thanks again Mavie!! I hope your readers are all as twitterpaited with Tweet Heart as you were!

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Thanks so much to Elizabeth for stopping by! I really loved Tweet Heart and I hope you readers will too!

I also have a signed copy of Tweet Heart up for grabs! Thanks to Elizabeth for donating!!

Official Information:

• fill out the form below
• November 17 is the deadline
• open to everyone
• entrants must be 13 years or older
• check my contest policy
• contest closed - winner announced

Author Guest Post: Mara Purnhagen

Mara Purnhagen

Books:

• Tagged
• Past Midnight
• One Hundred Candles
• The Other Life

Links:

Facebook : Website : Publisher

Mara Purnhagen:

Mara Purnhagen cannot live without a tall caramel latte, her iPod, or a stack of books on her night stand. She has lived in Aurora, Illinois; Kalamazoo, South Carolina. She presently lives outside Cleveland, Ohio with her family and two cats.

Tagged:
Can Kate Morgan stand up for herself—without being labeled a snitch?

Kate is just as confused as her best friend, Lan, when she arrives at Cleary High to find the building's been "tagged" with a life-size graffiti mural. Could the culprit be one of their friends or classmates? And is the kind-of-amazing creation really vandalism, or a work of art? She's tempted to stay out of it—mostly because, as the police chief's daughter, she's worried about being labeled a snitch. But when the same mysterious graffiti starts appearing throughout the state, putting more pressure on the authorities to catch the vandal, her investigative instincts kick in.

Now Eli, Kate's favorite coworker at the local coffee shop, is MIA. With Lan preoccupied with her own boy troubles, Kate needs to figure out some things on her own. Like why she can't stop thinking about Eli. And what she will do when all the clues about the graffiti point to someone she's close to…
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Kate Morgan

I hated Awards Day. At my high school, the last Tuesday of the year was reserved for a three-hour long ceremony in which students received awards for achievement. It was a big deal, with teachers handing out certificates to the best student in each of their classes, coaches bestowing letterman jackets and pins, and club moderators passing out long ribbons. It was a small school—about 400 students—and we all had to attend and cheer for our classmates. There was always one outstanding student who received an award for everything, to the point where they’d have to give him or her a paper grocery bag to carry all of the chunky medals and shiny plastic trophies.

And then there was me.

I went through four years of high school without ever once being called to the stage to receive an award. Not even a certificate, which I would have happily framed. I was a good student but not great. I didn’t participate in sports because I had to work after school. I was firmly planted in the middle of everyone: not an underachiever but certainly not an overachiever, either. And Awards Day simply reminded me that I wasn’t really great at anything.

The worst part of the ceremony (besides sitting for three hours straight and clapping every two minutes) was the end, when our principal would look out at all of us and smile. “Some of you didn’t receive anything today,” he’d say. “But maybe if you try harder, you can stand up here next year.”

I swear, he looked right at me when he said it. I was convinced that I was the only student who hadn’t gotten anything. And I resented his words. I did try! If they gave out a ribbon for cleanest locker or quietest kid in class, I’d be rolling in them. But as a typical high school student, I didn’t yet know what I loved and the only thing I was good at was staying out of trouble.

Kate Morgan, the main character in Tagged, is a little like my high school self. She’s not an athlete or academic superstar. She has an after-school job. She admires her best friend and harbors a crush on a guy. But more importantly, she’s still trying to determine her talents. I wanted to create an “average” character, someone who doesn’t stand out but is quietly trying to do her best.

There are those lucky people who seem to be born with a unique talent. Maybe it’s an amazing voice and gift for song. Maybe they are an inherently great athlete or mathematics whiz. There are a lot of us, though, who struggle to figure it out. For a while, I tried everything. Once, I signed up for a ping pong competition during lunch. I had never played ping pong, but I wondered: what if I’m good at it? I was out in the first round.

Yes, I felt sorry for myself at the time, more than I should have. I didn’t want to be average. I wanted to excel. Now that high school is a misty memory, I know that sometimes the best opportunities to discover our passions aren’t available to us until later. If Kate Morgan is loosely based on a high school version of me, she won’t really shine until college. And that’s fine. That’s better than fine—it’s outstanding.
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Thanks to Mara for stopping by!

Author Guest Post: Janice Hardy

Janice Hardy

Books (YA):

• The Shifter
• Blue Fire

A long-time fantasy reader, Janice Hardy always wondered about the darker side of healing. For her fantasy trilogy THE HEALING WARS, she tapped into her own dark side to create a world where healing was dangerous, and those with the best intentions often made the worst choices. Her books include THE SHIFTER, and BLUE FIRE from Balzer+Bray/Harper Collins. She lives in Georgia with her husband, three cats and one very nervous freshwater eel.

Part fugitive, part hero, fifteen-year-old Nya is barely staying ahead of the Duke of Baseer’s trackers. Wanted for a crime she didn’t mean to commit, she risks capture to protect every Taker she can find, determined to prevent the Duke from using them in his fiendish experiments. But resolve isn’t enough to protect any of them, and Nya soon realizes that the only way to keep them all out of the Duke’s clutches is to flee Geveg. Unfortunately, the Duke’s best tracker has other ideas. Nya finds herself trapped in the last place she ever wanted to be, forced to trust the last people she ever thought she could. More is at stake than just the people of Geveg, and the closer she gets to uncovering the Duke’s plan, the more she discovers how critical she is to his victory. To save Geveg, she just might have to save Baseer—if she doesn’t destroy it first.

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They’re Just Not That Into You

A common question I get asked at events is, how do I handle negative reviews? Sometimes it’s asked matter-of-factly, other times with this look of dread in the asker’s eyes (I can tell right there they’re writers, too). Do I respond? Do I cry? Do I get mad? Do I change my writing to fix what they said? How do I possibly go on?

I’ve been pretty lucky so far in that most of the review of my two books (The Shifter, and Blue Fire) have been positive. Even the reviewers who didn’t like it had some positive things to say (a sign of a good reviewer in my book). There have only been a few that were downright nasty. But this holds true of every book out there, even the ones with hundreds of five-star ratings. Be kinda silly for me to expect different treatment, wouldn’t it?

Do I respond? I haven’t yet, though sometimes I’m tempted to say thanks for trying, and it’s a shame it wasn’t for them. But I’m never sure how that might come across, so I stay silent. I’ve never been tempted to say more than that, though, because everyone really is entitled to their opinion. And just because that person didn’t like my book, that doesn’t mean it’s bad or that no one will like it.

Do I cry? No tears, but there have been a few that hurt. It wasn’t so much the review that got me, but the comments after where people said they’d seen the book and were thinking about buying it because it looked good, then changed their minds now that they read this review. Those really stung. But then I told myself that if these people liked the same kinds of book as the reviewer, and the reviewer was usually spot on in their tastes, then my book probably wasn’t for them. Had they read it, it might have generated another bad review somewhere.

Do I get mad? Nah. There’s really no point, and it’s a waste of energy. Even though a bad review can feel personal, it really isn’t. They’re not attacking me, they just didn’t like my book. And that’s okay, because I don’t expect everyone to like my book. Naturally, I hope most folks do, and I hope folks are willing to give it a try, but everyone has their own tastes.

Do I change my writing to fix what they said? Sometimes, but only if it’s a comment I see in a lot of reviews, and I think they’re right. I look at reviews as another way to gain valuable reader feedback. If I’m doing something that hurts the book even a little, then it might be something I want to address in my writing. My goal as a writer is to entertain readers, and understanding what entertains them helps me do my job a lot easier. And hopefully, a lot better. While I won’t change something to appease one reviewer when hundreds more liked what I did, I have found things in bad reviews that I agreed I could have done better. I tried to improve on that in my next book.

How do I possibly go on? By developing a thick skin, and understanding that my books are products, and people are going to have every opinion about them there is. Not every book is for everybody, and that’s a good thing, because it gives us an enormous variety of stories to choose from. Besides, personal taste has zero bearing on the talent of the writer or the quality of the book. There are bestsellers out there that I couldn’t get past the first chapter, and books than others panned I adored. Entertainment is subjective, as is art, and books are both. The goal is the get the books into the hands of those who like your kind of book. And reviews can be good way to do that.

I give kudos to reviewers, because I imagine it has to be a bit nerve-wracking to write about someone’s work, especially if you have some criticisms. Will they be upset? Will they comment? Will they say bad things in return? But as an author and a lover of books, I enjoy discovering new books and seeing other readers discover mine. So I really can’t get too upset about what’s said about my work.

’Cause after all, at least they’re talking about me, right?

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Thanks so much to Janice for stopping by!