Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Midnight is Coming!

The blog tour for Vivian Zabel's book Midnight Hours will be here on Saturday, November 1st! I have a cool, interactive Treasure Hunt lined up for that day, so I hope you all will participate. In addition, don't forget about Vivian's Contest. You could win a $25 Amazon.com gift certificate! See rules below.


Prize: $25 gift certificate from Amazon.com

Rules:1. Each person who comments on a blog stop receives one entry. For example, if a person leaves a comment (or more) on four blog stops, he has four entries. (one entry per blog tour stop)

2. A purchase of Midnight Hours from the 4RV Bookstore, or from the author, receives fifteen (15) entries.

Books must be bought directly from the author or from the publisher.A person may have entries from a purchase and from leaving comments.

3. The final step in the contest: Each person with entries must send an email to president@4rvpublishingllc.com with the answer to the following question: What time does Midnight appear on the game site to chat with Martin?

November 5, a random drawing will be held using a program online to choose a winner. Vivian will notify the winner by email and will post the result on her blogs at Vivian's Site and Brain Cells & Bubble Wrap.

Saturday, October 25, 2008

Change in the Midnight Hours Blog Tour Schedule

Please note the minor change in the schedule. My tour date has not been effected.

Oct. 26 Holly Jahangiri
Oct. 27 Brian L. Porter Lee Lofland, The Graveyard Shift
Oct. 28 Karen Syed Joyce Anthony
Oct. 29 Elysabeth Eldering Joyce Anthony
Oct. 30 Joyce Anthony Jean Henry Mead Oct. 31 Aidana WillowRaven
Joyce Anthony
Nov. 1 Crystalee Calderwood
Nov. 2 Vivian Zabel - Vivian's Site and Brain Cells & Bubble Wrap Midnight Tour wrap up.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

On November 1st, I will be hosting the blog tour for Vivian Zabel's new novel Midnight Hours, here on my blog. As part of this blog tour, 4RV is running the following contest. You could win!

Prize: $25 gift certificate from Amazon.com

Rules:

1. Each person who comments on a blog stop receives one entry. For example, if a person leaves a comment ( or more) on four blog stops, he has four entries. (one entry per blog tour stop)

2. A purchase of Midnight Hours from the 4RV Bookstore, or from the author, receives fifteen (15) entries.
Books must be bought directly from the author or from the publisher.
A person may have entries from a purchase and from leaving comments.

3. The final step in the contest: Each person with entries must send an email to president@4rvpublishingllc.com with the answer to the following question:What time does Midnight appear on the game site to chat with Martin?

November 5, a random drawing will be held using a program online to choose a winner. Vivian will notify the winner by email and will post the result on her blogs at Vivian's Site and Brain Cells & Bubble Wrap.

URLs:
4RV Bookstore: http://4rvpublishingllc.com/Store-Books.html
Vivian's Site http://vzabel.multiply.com/journal
Brain Cells & Bubble Wrap http://vivianzabel.blogspot.com/
Information about Midnight Hours can be found on http://midnight-hours.weebly.com/

The schedule is as follows:
Oct. 26 Holly Jahangiri http://blog.jahangiri.us/
Oct. 27 Brian L. Porter http://tinyurl.com/4qa4tw Patty @ TAL http://talauthros.com/ & http://talwriters.blogspot.com/
Oct. 28 Karen Syed http://karensyed.blogspot.com/ Joyce Anthony http://joyceanthony.tripod.com/blog
Oct. 29 Elysabeth Eldering http://elysabethsstories.blogspot.com/ Joyce Anthony http://joyceanthony.tripod.com/blog
Oct. 30 Joyce Anthony http://joyceanthony.tripod.com/blog Jean Henry Mead http://advicefromeditors.blogspot.com/
Oct. 31 Aidana WillowRaven http://coverchatter.blogspot.com/ Joyce Anthony http://joyceanthony.tripod.com/blog
Nov. 1 Crystalee Calderwood http://crystaleecalderwood.blogspot.com/ Lee Lofland, The Graveyard Shift http://www.leelofland.com/wordpress
Nov. 2 Vivian Zabel http://vzabel.multiply.com/journal and http://vivianzabel.blogspot.com/

I hope to see everyone on the tour!

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Rejection Letter Week

Everything that I have sent out in the past month is coming back rejected. Picture book, poems, even a query about writing for Capstone Press. This week, I received a rejection letter three days in a row.

I'm not dwelling on it, though. I really need to start submitting again, because you can't get published if you don't try.

Inspiration

Last weekend, I had the pleasure to see and meet two very awesome writers, Jan Beatty and Naomi Shihab Nye. It was my first "literary" weekend in awhile. On Friday night, I attended the Gist St. Reading Series to see Pittsburgh native Jan Beatty read her poetry. I've admired her work for a couple of years now and even own one of her books (which, unfortunately, I forgot to take for her to sign). When I left the reading, I had this strange desire to write poetry again, something I haven't done in months. It was like my brain had opened up and all of this creativity had rushed in again. I was thinking like a poet, seeing things for their hidden meanings once again.

Then, on Sunday, I met Naomi Shihab Nye at the Bridges to New Worlds Literary Festival at Chatham University. Her workshop was amazing! Naomi is such a friendly, down-to-earth, yet wise woman. Naomi is just like me-- a poet at heart turned children's writer. She is probably best known for her poetry, but her YA novel Haibibi is outstanding! I left the workshop on Sunday morning floating on a cloud, my signed copy of A Maze Me: Poems for Girls in my hand and another push to start writing more.

The point of my stories is this: we must live in order to write. When we stop allowing ourselves to commune with other writers, to share our work, to seek out inspiration, that's when we prevent ourselves from being constructive with our work. I feel as if I've allowed myself to get so busy with life that I've prevented myself from truly living the life of a writer. It took a weekend like this past one to remind me how great it feels to have this gift.

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

From start to finish, the cover of Angeline

Check out how illustrator Stephen Macquignon went about drawing the cover of Angeline Jellybean, step-by-step, in his blog: http://scketch2color.multiply.com/journal