Why I love YA - A Guest post by Emlyn Chand

Today I'm glad, no, delirious (in a good way) to have Emlyn Chand the author of the brilliantly written and addictive YA paranormal novel Farsighted guest post in my blog. I have to say this is one of the best creatively written books, spellbinding in its originality and awesomeness, I've read this year. Therefore, I'm a HUGE fan.

If you haven't had a chance to get a copy of this book, please read on. There is a chance of winning an autographed copy and/or other prizes.

This is a guest post by Emlyn Chand, author of Farsighted

For years, I focused on reading classic literature with the occasional YA novel thrown in as a fun change. But you know what? I'm done moving back and forth between what I think I need to be reading and what I know I want to read. I'm making YA my official genre du jour. And what's not to love?


Let's take a quick journey back to the beginning of it all...


The 1930s were the decade when Juvenile Literature first asserted itself as a genre with books such as Boylston’s Sue Barton series and Rose Wilder Lane’s Let the Hurricane Roar. In the 1950s, JD Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye further defined the protagonists of this genre —those who are not quite grown-ups, but aren’t kids either, those who are in the process of discovering who they are and how they fit into the world around them.


It’s clear that the success of a certain boy wizard (does he even need to be named?) brought readers to YA in droves. And from there, literature for a young adult audience is absolutely everywhere.


Of all the great material that is available, YA may have the widest readership — with middle grade children wanting to read a step ahead, adults wanting to remember what it was like to be young and, of course, with the teenage audience for which the books are primarily focused.


I am 26, and I love YA literature.


It, like other genres, allows for an escape from your own reality, as you become enmeshed in an exciting, fictional world. It features characters who are malleable and who grow into themselves during the course of the novel. It’s often fast-paced and exciting, using a style of prose that is engaging and easy-to-read. If a YA book strikes a chord with you, you may be able to pick up with its adventures again, if the novel has been turned into a series, trilogy or saga. And guess what, there are actual happy ending sometimes, woo hoo!


So which YA books have I read and enjoyed? I’m a Harry Potter nut, of course. I'm also coo coo for Hunger Games and most recently, Matched. I’ve enjoyed series such as: Percy Jackson and the Olympians, The City of Ember, Twilight, and His Dark Materials. Louis Sachar’s Holes also kicked butt, and I look forward to reading The Tiger Series by Colleen Houck.


The truth is, I’ve only avowed my devotion to this genre quite recently--about a year-and-a-half ago, actually. Just six short months before I decided that YA was so happenin', so exciting, I just had to write it myself!


Much of what I’ve read has been multi-book series, which means I haven’t yet discovered all of the great literature that’s out there, just waiting for me to pick it up and enter its compelling world of adventure, excitement, and intrigue.


Please, humble book-blog reader, which YA novels are your favorites? Let's generate a go-to list of reading gems and discover the favorite books we haven't gotten the chance to read yet.

Blog Tour Notes

THE BOOK:  Alex Kosmitoras may be blind, but he can still “see” things others can’t.  When his unwanted visions of the future begin to suggest that the girl he likes could be in danger, he has no choice but to take on destiny and demand it reconsider. Get your copy today by visiting Amazon.com’s Kindle store or the eBook retailer of your choice. The paperback edition will be available on November 24 (for the author’s birthday).


THE CASH PRIZES:  Guess what? You could win a $100 Amazon gift card as part of this special blog tour. That’s right! Just leave a comment below saying something about the post you just read, and you’ll be entered into the raffle. I could win $100 too! Please help by voting for my blog in the traffic-breaker poll. To cast your vote, visit the official Farsighted blog tour page and scroll all the way to the bottom. Thank you for your help with that.


THE GIVEAWAYS:  Win 1 of 10 autographed copies of Farsighted before its paperback release by entering the giveaway on GoodReads. Perhaps you’d like an autographed postcard from the author; you can request one on her site.


THE AUTHOR:  Emlyn Chand has always loved to hear and tell stories, having emerged from the womb with a fountain pen grasped firmly in her left hand (true story). When she’s not writing, she runs a large book club in Ann Arbor and is the president of author PR firm, Novel Publicity. Emlyn loves to connect with readers and is available throughout the social media interweb. Visit www.emlynchand.com for more info. Don’t forget to say “hi” to her sun conure Ducky!


MORE FUN: There's more fun below. Watch the live action Farsighted book trailer and take the quiz to find out which character is most like you!

Dear Jacob Black - Letter to Twilight heart-throb

This is a guest post by Emlyn Chand, author of Farsighted

Dear Jacob Black,


Hi. How are you doing? Me? Not so good. You see, I have a bone to pick with you (tacky pun intended).


Okay, first of all, why on God’s green Earth did you ever fall for Bella? I mean, really. Even the most fanatic of Twi-fans can’t understand what you see in her. You are so much better than Bella Swan-Cullen (insert gagging noises here).


No, don’t get down on yourself, you are!


Look at you; you’re a hulking stack of gorgeousness both on paper and on-screen. You’re also really sweet and funny and strong and... swoon... Did I tell you that my husband is Indian—mind you, he’s not the same kind of Indian as you, but yeah, I appreciate that look (wink, wink, Jakey boy).


Back to my point... I don’t think I ever would have finished the entire Saga if it hadn’t been for you. You are just the kind of guy I would love to be friends with. You made Twilight so, so interesting. And that scene at the end of Eclipse when you told Edward that Bella loves you too? I almost died. I mean, that was one of the best scenes in modern fiction. Seriously, Jacob, it was, and that was because of you!


It’s cool how you were always there for Bella, no matter what the consequences—not that she deserved your unwavering loyalty. It is also cool how you not only ride motorcycles, but you also fix them. You’re a man’s man and a ladies’ man, Jacob Black.


But do you wanna know what’s not cool? It’s so not cool how you fell in love with baby Renesme.


So. Not. Cool!


I understand that there was some kind of cosmic imprinting thing going on, but yuck! I mean, she’s a baby, and she’s not even interesting anyway. I personally think your saga would have ended much better if there had never ever been a Renesme. She shouldn’t’ve existed not only from the freak of nature standpoint (cus let’s face it, you’re a freak of nature too, and I like you a whole lot), but from a literary standpoint. I don’t feel like she contributed to the plot at all. It was kind of a mess.


But what do you know about that? Did I just rock your world by revealing that your whole existence takes place within the pages of a book? I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to reveal this secret. Darn it! I have to be more careful.


But now that you do know and hopefully you’ve recovered from the shock a bit, I have to say this: the imprinting business with Renesme, that’s not really the universe playing games with you. It’s Stephenie Meyer. Oh, in case you didn’t know, Stephenie Meyer is the name of your God. She created you.


Anyway, I believe she had you imprint on Renesme for two reasons:


1. She didn’t want you to be alone after Bella rejected you but also decided to keep you hanging around on a tight leash (another bad pun, sorry) – but this bit shows that your God does love you – yay!


2. She was sick of people saying that 100ish-year-old Edward diggin’ on 18-year-old Bella was disgusting. She wanted them to be like Romeo and Juliet, so innocent, so fated. So what does she do? She takes the heat off of them by giving you an even more disgusting love affair. Gee, thanks, Steph.


I personally think you should be with Leah Clearwater. Maybe if the two of you both gouge out your eyes all Oedipus Rex-style, that horrific imprint will go away, and you can just be together.


I also think there’s a chance you could find happiness with Shapri Teak—she lives inside of my book, Farsighted. I’d be more than happy to introduce you...


So...


In summary, while Ms. Meyer clearly loved you, she loved Edward more.


Just like Bella. Ha, burn!





I come from a place of kindness. Eternally yours,












PS Edward sucks! Team Jacob!


PPS Do you know a guy named Sirius Black? If so, are you related to him? You have more in common than just your last name---aaaaawoooo!

Blog Tour Notes

THE BOOK:  Alex Kosmitoras may be blind, but he can still “see” things others can’t.  When his unwanted visions of the future begin to suggest that the girl he likes could be in danger, he has no choice but to take on destiny and demand it reconsider. Get your copy today by visiting Amazon.com’s Kindle store or the eBook retailer of your choice. The paperback edition will be available on November 24 (for the author’s birthday).


THE CASH PRIZES:  Guess what? You could win a $100 Amazon gift card as part of this special blog tour. That’s right! Just leave a comment below saying something about the post you just read, and you’ll be entered into the raffle. I could win $100 too! Please help by voting for my blog in the traffic-breaker poll. To cast your vote, visit the official Farsighted blog tour page and scroll all the way to the bottom. Thank you for your help with that.


THE GIVEAWAYS:  Win 1 of 10 autographed copies of Farsighted before its paperback release by entering the giveaway on GoodReads. Perhaps you’d like an autographed postcard from the author; you can request one on her site.


THE AUTHOR:  Emlyn Chand has always loved to hear and tell stories, having emerged from the womb with a fountain pen grasped firmly in her left hand (true story). When she’s not writing, she runs a large book club in Ann Arbor and is the president of author PR firm, Novel Publicity. Emlyn loves to connect with readers and is available throughout the social media interweb. Visit www.emlynchand.com for more info. Don’t forget to say “hi” to her sun conure Ducky!


MORE FUN: There's more fun below. Watch the live action Farsighted book trailer and take the quiz to find out which character is most like you!

Guest Post - Susan Kaye's Open Mind's Trilogy released today

ing Stuff Up, or How to Get From A to B

by Susan Kaye Quinn, author of Open Minds (Book One of the Mindjack Trilogy)

The best and worst question a writer can get is “where do your ideas come from?” Just ask a writer and see what happens. They hem and haw. They get a bit flustered and check their watch. Then they ask for a cupcake.

Or maybe that’s just me.

Ideas come from everywhere and nowhere. My stories are filled with bits and pieces of my life, as well as things that I’ve never experienced (and never will). My experiences of working for NASA, traveling across the country, and falling in love all play into it. It’s part of your Voice and who you are as a writer. But coming up with specific ideas for actual stories is a bit more complicated.

When I first started writing, I just sat down and started. I had no idea where I was going, so what filled the page was often a lot of meandering, but usually in a logical progression. Walk down the street; turn right; turn left. The idea of where to turn came when I reached a fork in the road.

Later in my writing journey, I brought a map. I knew vaguely where I wanted to go, and I had something that resembled directions, but it was really more like a landscape with elevations and contours and somehow I had left my compass behind. Writing was like heading to the store by walking down the street, three left turns and we’ll be somewhere in the vicinity. I might even get snacks, if I could only hop that last plot hole. I had to get a little inventive to get to the finish line, but writing was still usually just going from point A to point B.

Along the way, my writing evolved into a conflict centered process. I knew exactly where my characters needed to go and vaguely how to get there. Then I put them in a box they couldn’t possibly get out of. I tossed the map, and dumped on the table all the ingredients we had to play with. Duct tape, a section of hose, a ball of twine and a puppy. Ideas were thrown around, turned upside down, and tormented. Finally, the character would climb out of the hole. Only to fall in another. Rinse. Repeat.

This was where my creative engine really started to hum. But I couldn’t have possibly started there. It would have stalled out in a cold panic and never started again.

I recently gave some advice to someone dear to me, who was considering picking up the pen again after a long hiatus. She wanted to know if she should get some books on plotting, so she would have some idea of what to write, before she actually wrote it. I said books on plotting were like a GPS—great for giving you directions to somewhere you already wanted to go. But I told her she was just a baby, trying to figure out how to haul herself up on her two feet and get across the room. Babies don’t need a GPS. They need determination.

And new writers need to just write.

So, it turns out, I started in exactly the right place without knowing it.

While I was writing Open Minds (Book One of the Mindjack Trilogy), I went through all these stages of idea generation. First, choosing logically how the world would unfold. Then, having some idea of where the story needed to go. Finally, building the conflicts so that my characters had to fight their way through the story.

The idea for a mindreading world came in a flash of brain spark. But coming up with mindware interfaces, mindreading range ordinances, and scribepads? That was all crunching away at problems thrown up by the story itself. I invented a flushable garbage system because Kira needed to get rid of something so that it wouldn’t be found. I created a paper book pod in the library, because it made sense that paper books would be long gone, and I needed a secluded spot for the scene. I dreamed up mindware interfaces because the tech guys were sure to have built some way to read thoughts.

So, where do my ideas come from? They are beaten out of my brain by hours at the keyboard, imagining all kinds of ways that things can go wrong, and then eventually go right. There’s no shortcut. Writing is one of the purest forms of creativity, and that stuff works your brain like crazy.

Have a cupcake. J

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See more guest posts about Open Minds at the Virtual Launch Party

When everyone reads minds, a secret is a dangerous thing to keep.

Sixteen-year-old Kira Moore is a zero, someone who can’t read thoughts or be read by others. Zeros are outcasts who can’t be trusted, leaving her no chance with Raf, a regular mindreader and the best friend she secretly loves. When she accidentally controls Raf’s mind and nearly kills him, Kira tries to hide her frightening new ability from her family and an increasingly suspicious Raf. But lies tangle around her, and she’s dragged deep into a hidden world of mindjackers, where having to mind control everyone she loves is just the beginning of the deadly choices before her.

Open Minds (Book One of the Mindjack Trilogy) by Susan Kaye Quinn is available for $2.99 in e-book (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords) and $9.99 in print (Amazon, Createspace).

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PRIZES!

Susan Kaye Quinn is giving away an Open Books/Open Minds t-shirt, mug, and some fun wristbands to celebrate the Virtual Launch Party of Open Minds (Book One of the Mindjack Trilogy)! (Check out the prizes here.)

Three ways to enter (you can have multiple entries):

1)      Leave a comment here or at the Virtual Launch Party post

2)      Tweet (with tag #keepingOPENMINDS)

Example: When everyone reads minds, a secret is a dangerous thing to keep. #keepingOPENMINDS @susankayequinn #SF #YA avail NOW http://bit.ly/psX1Hh

Example: Celebrate the launch of OPEN MINDS by @susankayequinn #keepingOPENMINDS #SciFi #paranormal #YA avail NOW http://bit.ly/SKQOpenMinds

3)     Facebook (tag @AuthorSusanKayeQuinn)

Example: Celebrate the launch of paranormal/SF novel OPEN MINDS by @AuthorSusanKayeQuinn for a chance to win Open Books/Open Minds prizes!

Spotlight on Fiona 'McDroll' Johnson

  

Today, I have the awesome pleasure of welcoming one of Trestle Press fantastic new authors, Fiona 'McDroll' Johnson, the author of 'KICK IT', for chat. 

Why crime writing?

I’ve always wanted to write as far back as I can remember and over the years I’ve had various disastrous attempts that just didn’t work. My writing was boring, bland and twee. I had come to the conclusion that I just didn’t have what it takes.

Then I joined Twitter and quickly discovered that there were lots of writers around the world tweeting about their writing. They would discuss their difficulties, the characters they wrote about and the struggle to get published.

Slowly I crept into this circle of talented people and as I have always been a rabid reader of crime fiction, I thought that if I couldn’t write then at least I could review and be a little help to those with talent struggling to get noticed.

Eventually some very kind people asked if I wrote. After the initial, ‘no, no, no,’ I decided to give the writing lark another go but this time try to write within the crime genre….and that’s all it took. My years of reading crime have somehow helped me understand how to write the type of story that people seem to get a lot of fun out of reading.

Who do you read?

I’ve really enjoyed reading SMOKE by Nigel Bird, another Trestle author. The story alternates between its two main characters, Jimmy and Carlos. Jimmy is still at school, theoretically, but is one of those lads who has fallen through the cracks in the system and is more likely to be seen pounding the streets of his local community begging smokes or getting blitzed out of his head with his mates.

Carlos has a swanky new motorised wheelchair, top notch, and was Jimmy's sister's boyfriend before somebody tied him to a railway line and he lost an arm and a leg. After a long period of therapy he's back on the local scene and hopes that Kylie will take him back and will allow him access to their young son. Problems start when Kylie declares that the child isn't his.........

I love Nigel’s gritty realism and I can see his characters when I walk down any high street in the towns of Scotland.

Tell us abit more about your books and working with Trestle Press

To have a book published is a magical experience that very few people ever get to achieve, but thanks to TRESTLE PRESS and their amazing outlook on the revolution of digital publishing about to hit readers around the world like a literary tsunami, more amazing writers will be able to get their writing out there to an ever increasing digital audience.

My first collection of short stories, KICK IT has just been published this week and my goodness, I certainly did get a kick from seeing my book up there for sale on Amazon. KICK IT is a collection of 5 short noir / crime stories with a little twist of Scottish humour thrown into the mix.

Three of the stories have my favourite character, DC Gemma Dixon, strutting her stuff around the crime scene of Glasgow. New to CID, Gemma has to learn very quickly to stand up for herself in male dominated environments where as the newbie she gets some of the roughest assignments on offer.

I love having fun with Gemma as she banters with her fellow officers, making sure that she asserts herself and doesn’t take any of their cheek.

 

My other two stories deal with our perceptions of people and I attempt to show how far off the mark we can be when we don’t take the time to dig a bit deeper into ‘hidden stories;’ the secrets that people keep close to their chests as they go about their daily lives. So much can be going on beneath a person’s outward shell and I try to uncover some of these tales.

So I hope you check out my first ever e-Book and please let me know what you think!

http://www.amazon.com/Kick-It-ebook/dp/B005ZMTZBI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1319826524&sr=8-1

 

What’s next?

I’m hoping to have another collection of short stories KICK IT AGAIN out soon and then move onto a serialization of a novella that I’ve been working on for some time. More ‘Gemma’ stories are in the pipeline and you will be able to meet Gemma again in BRIT GRIT 2, soon to be published by TRESTLE.

Thank you for the chat, Fiona, and I wish you all the best with 'KICK IT' and upcoming 'KICK IT AGAIN' short stories.

CeCe