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Was supposed to guest speak last night at a minimum security women’s prison facility where a friend is currently teaching creative writing. She’d gotten permission to bring in guest authors and so I was the first, but there was some snafu and when we arrived at five last night for the three hour class, I was somehow still not fully vetted. Some quiet drama ensued, although not on my part. Once you’ve taught a few decades in the public school system, you understand that sometimes, this is what happens in institutions and in this case, I really get it. You can’t just walk into a prison because you say you were invited. That kind of thing is no one’s friend.
Still. The education supervisor was called to attempt to sort things out. My friend went to teach her class. And I was instructed –okay, ordered actually—to sit on a hard plastic chair in the heat by Control and not move. And so I did until the supervisor eventually strode back. Honestly, it was relaxing: it’s a pretty place, more like a junior college campus if you ignore the barbed wire at the top of the fence—lots of trees and flowers and plants—and there was a breeze and I had my chair. I had left my cell in the car and so it was just me and nature and the guard behind the tinted glass and the occasional other contract worker checking in.
Mostly I thought about the questions the inmates had written for their instructor and which she had passed on to me—the things they wanted to know about writing and publishing and the act of creating art in this particular way—the ones I was going to talk about.
They were the usual sorts of things—questions about process and revision and what editors do, and how to find an agent and what if you’ve self-published and what to do about writer’s block and how you get paid.
But as I was on my plastic chair and they were in their classroom, I didn’t get to answer any of those. Instead, I sat and thought about how when my friend had received her training for this job she’d been reminded not to reveal any personal facts to her students. This makes sense in the setting and context. But how I wondered as I looked at the flowers and heard the traffic wooshing by on the road just outside the fence, do you talk about writing and inspiration without getting personal, other than in vague, general terms? It felt suspiciously like the time one of my former supervisors had informed the English department that it didn’t matter—not at all—what novels we taught or if we even taught just excerpts. We were there to teach skills. You could do that with anything.
Well, yeah. (And if that person is reading this, let me now say what was in my head during that department meeting: No. No. No. That’s kind of, um, bullshit. You know that, right?)
Anyway. It seemed that what was happening last night was a sort of metaphor for what they were collectively asking. Publishing is often, although not always, a series of amazing moments (when you get a story right; when someone acquires your book; when there’s a lovely review; when you type THE END) punctuated by frustration and dead ends and the occasional crushing disappointment. (Like wanting to hear a guest speaker who is stuck sitting on a plastic chair in the heat.)
If I had been in the room—and I know by now that you realize that matters were not sorted out last night and that eventually, the class ended early since the main attraction was not in attendance, the supervisor hugged me and said she was sorry, really sorry, and my friend and I went to the bar at the local Saltgrass for fried zucchini and a coke for her and a glass of cab for me—here is what I would have said about writing, the part that is in between the lines of my answers to all those many questions:
You can indeed save yourself though writing, but don’t expect writing to save you. There will be days when you get it right and still it doesn’t matter. There will be days when someone reads your story and really, really gets it and you feel there is nothing better in this world than having communicated your thoughts on what it means to be human—the good, the bad, the mundane, the glorious, the small, petty and awful and tragic (because that is what writing is about regardless of genre). By the next evening, you may equally feel that you are not quick enough, not smart enough, not talented in any way. You are too old or too young or not cool enough or too cool. (Is there such a thing?) You are too loud or too quiet. Your language is too rough or not rough enough.
You started too early. Or too late. Life intervened in a variety of ways. You are not the flavor of the week. Or you are and it’s overwhelming and you are afraid. Someone else has won the prize, gotten the golden ticket and there you are, fingers on the laptop keys, typing as fast as you can. You are trying to please the wrong people or the right people but in the wrong ways.
You are stuck on a plastic chair in the heat.
Write anyway. Write the story only you can tell. Tell the truth on the page even if it’s hard and painful and scary. Treat it like a job not a hobby. Study. Read. Write some more. Your story has value. Tell it.
But don’t expect writing to give you anything in return. A thin, tricky line, that. Sometimes, you have to back away and let it go for a bit. Find a different way. Remind yourself to keep your eyes on your own paper.
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Keep writing, I would have told them. Keep at it.
It’s here! It’s here!
Welcome to the world, IT WASN’T ALWAYS LIKE THIS !
What a journey this book has been. It began as the barest of ideas discussed between my editor and me back in late fall of 2013—an elevator pitch and not much more. Tuck Everlastingmeets Veronica Mars. A girl and boy who become accidentally immortal and lose each other in the aftermath and somehow in searching for him, the girl becomes an immortal and jaded private eye. I liked the idea from that very first phone conversation. But liking an idea and executing it on the page are two different things.
So I began pondering immortality. I mean who doesn’t, right? Myths and legends and stories and beauty ads and science and theological musings. It became quickly apparent that in one way or another we all want to live forever. Even if we say we don’t. So what would it be like for this couple, I wondered, if they really did? If they weren’t magical in any other particular way but not aging? What would that really be like? Would they love it? Hate it? Would it get tedious? Would it be scary? Would it be the best thing ever? And if they were separated, how long would they search for each other? How long do you stay in love with someone? How do you cope if you’re truly stuck at seventeen? And how do I write a multi-point of view thriller/romance/mystery that spans 100 years and a large number of places? Do I tell it straight through? (Nope.) Do I find myself writing a non-linear novel that slowly builds characters past and present? (Yup.) How do I let my readers simultaneously get to know the innocent, sweet Emma of the past and the world-weary, jaded Emma of the present? And what about Charlie? And what about the bad guys? And the sort-of bad guys? And the legend of the Fountain of Youth? How would I get the fairy tale tone I thought I needed?
I wrote and wrote, draft after draft.
Emma became Emma.
Charlie became Charlie.
Detective Pete Mondragon evolved from an offstage phone call to a crucial secondary character.
And so it went.
Today IT WASN’T ALWAYS LIKE THIS becomes yours. I hope you love it as much as I do.
Accidental immortality. Star-crossed romance. Murder. And a forever-seventeen-year-old girl who refused to give up on anything, especially not on the search for the boy she loves.
"With its exciting plot and well-wrought characters, this novel emerges as a suspenseful treat with a gooey romantic center. The narrative alternates between scenes of Emma’s distant past with Charlie and her murder-mystery present, building to a final showdown that is both surprising and satisfying."
—The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
So much going on.
IT WASN'T ALWAYS LIKE THIS is coming in less than a week on 5/17 from Soho Teen/Soho Press! Tuck Everlasting meets Veronica Mars. Accidental immortality. Star-crossed romance. And most of all a twisty, non-linear murder mystery with a hard-boiled forever seventeen year old PI named Emma O'Neill.
I'm very proud of this book. I hope you all love it as much as I do.
It's that weird time right before a book arrives. We authors wonder if anyone will read. If anyone will talk about it. So many wonderful books that we always hope ours won't just slip between the cracks. Always so grateful that so many readers and authors and booksellers and bloggers support me with such full hearts!
And so it goes in the writing world.
Working on something new right now. Been working on it. Excited about that one, too!
And other cool, unexpected things that I won't talk about quite yet.
But mostly it's been IWALT release planning these past few weeks.
A brief calendar:
Tuesday May 17:Release Day!
Launch Party at Murder by the Book in Houston6:30 PM
http://www.murderbooks.com/event/prebleSunday May 22I
n Conversation with Samantha Mabry, moderated by Mandy Curtis of FYAat Book People, Austin TX
1 PM
http://www.bookpeople.com/event/samantha-mabry-joy-prebleThursday May 26In Conversation with Meredith Mooreat Twig Books, San Antonio TX
6 PM
More to come, including panels at Comicpalooza and the Barnes and Noble Teen Weekend, both in Houston in June!
So excited for THE RAVEN KING by Maggie Stiefvater! Managed to get to her event at Blue Willow this week despite getting caught in crazy Houston traffic caused by a shoot out on the beltway. Yeah, that was no fun.
But from my last minute seat on the floor, I snapped this pic:
I have loved, loved the world Maggie has created for the Raven Boys series. Truly magnificent writing. Brilliant. Only a few chapters in and already hooked again.
Maggie Stiefvater is the real deal, y'all. You probably know this already. But her artist's eye helps create stories like no other and her characters twine themselves around your heart. *I'm looking at you Ronan. And you Gansey. And you Blue and Adam.... Okay I'm looking at all of them.*
Two years ago I got to hear her teach about writing at SCBWI LA, which was also a true pleasure to learn about process through her eyes.
Anyway. If you haven't started the RAVEN BOYS series yet, do so right now. Four books, Raven King being the finale. You will thank me.
Til next week, when the IWALT countdown begins because tomorrow is MAY!!
1. Reading Samantha Mabry's Fierce and Subtle Poison which is not only gorgeously written but also a twist on Hawthorne's Rappaccini's Daughter, which is a short story I have long adored. Samantha and I will be paneling together (with others) at TxLA16, on a Fairy Tale Retellings panel on Thursday. If you are a librarian type, please come see us!
I'll also be joining Samantha at Book People on Sunday 5/22 at 2 PM, in conversation with Mandy Curtis from Forever Young Adult! We'll be talking our new books (IT WASN'T ALWAYS LIKE THIS will be out then!) and magic and mystery and love and other juicy stuff.
http://www.bookpeople.com/event/samantha-mabry-joy-preble
2. Getting ready in general for TxLA16. I am honored to have a big schedule this year:
Tuesday 4/19
Panel: What's New with Texas Authors and Illustrators for MG to YA?
3:00-3:50
Wednesday 4/20
Texas Tea: Meet and Greet with YA Authors
Hilton Hotel
4:00-5:20
Off site event: Soho Teen Night at Murder by the Book
2342 Bissonnet Street, Houston 77005
with Adam Silvera, me, Robin Epstein, Brianna Baker
7 PM
Thursday 4/21
Signing galleys of IT WASN'T ALWAYS LIKE THIS at Author's Area: 1:00- 1:35 PM
Panel: Fairy Tale Retellings in YA Literature
2:00-3:50 PM
with Liz Bramwell, Samantha Mabry, Lisa Maxwell, Marissa Meyer, Liesel Shurtliff and me!
Did you notice that you can get galleys of IWALT on Thursday??
And just fyi Soho Press is distributed by Penguin/Random House, so if you are a librarian, check the PRH booth for any further info about IWALT! Which will be here 5/17! (more on that soon.)
3. So Blacklist. Last night. The big surprise. Not at all sure how I feel about this. Or if I believe it's even true. Hmmm...
But OUTLANDER season 2 is here. And it did not disappoint. Oh Jamie Fraser. Jamie. Fraser. You are the cause of the great Preble household "This is why I must have access somehow to Starz" debate. Which I lost last season. But won last week. Yes, I know. Shallow problems. But still. It's Jamie. I mean seriously.
And in less cerebral matters, RHONY 's Ramona Singer will be guesting with Amy Schumer on Bravo's WWHL next Wednesday and so yeah. The DVR will be cranking. Because where else would this pairing exist except in the mind of Andy Cohen?
4. The WIP continues. All I'm saying for now except that this book is set in Chicago, right in the heart of the city and so I've had the honestly fun research job of looking up El and bus routes and I've been spending some quality time on Google Maps looking at street views. Which always makes me think twice when I walk out to the mailbox and imagine those same satellites taking pictures of me in my yoga pants.
5. Can't wait to show you the amazingly awesome IWALT swag I just ordered. Counting down to 5/17.
Tis next time.
Welcome to YA Scavenger Hunt! This bi-annual event was first organized by author Colleen Houck as a way to give readers a chance to gain access to exclusive bonus material from their favorite authors...and a chance to win some awesome prizes! At this hunt, you not only get access to exclusive content from each author, you also get a clue for the hunt. Add up the clues, and you can enter for our prize--one lucky winner will receive one signed book from each author on the hunt in my team! But play fast: this contest (and all the exclusive bonus material) will only be online for 72 hours! The Spring YA Scavenger Hunt goes live on Tuesday, March 29 at 12 pm Pacific Time and comes down on Sunday, April 3rd at noon Pacific time.
Go to the YA Scavenger Hunt page to find out all about the hunt. There are multiple contests going on simultaneously, and you can enter one or all! I am a part of the BLUE TEAM--but there are many other teams: red, gold, green, orange, teal, purple, silver, pink— all giving you a chance to win a whole different set of signed books!
I’m Joy Preble, your hostess for this stop on the hunt! I’m the author of the DREAMING ANASTASIA series (Sourcebooks) and the SWEET DEAD LIFE series (Soho Press). I’m also the author of FINDING PARIS, a dark mystery/road trip novel (Balzer Bray/Harper Collins) On 5/17/16 comes IT WASN’T ALWAYS LIKE THIS, a wildly romantic story with the quick pitch of Tuck Everlasting meets Veronica Mars! (think: accidental immortality, star-crossed romance and murder mystery!)
I will give you an extra special chance at the bottom of this post to win some of my books!!
You are currently hunting on BLUE TEAM!!
SCAVENGER HUNT PUZZLE
Directions: Below, you'll notice that I've listed my favorite number. Collect the favorite numbers of all the authors on the BLUE TEAM, and then add them up (don't worry, you can use a calculator!).
Rules: Open internationally, anyone below the age of 18 should have a parent or guardian's permission to enter. To be eligible for the grand prize, you must submit the completed entry form by April 3, at noon Pacific Time. Entries sent without the correct number or without contact information will not be considered.
My secret number is highlighted in BLUE.
SCAVENGER HUNT POST
Today, I am hosting Sarah Ahiers on my website for the YA Scavenger Hunt! Sarah Ahiers is the author of ASSASSIN’S HEART (Harper Teen).
Bio: Sarah Ahiers has an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Hamline University and lives in Minnesota with three dogs and a house full of critters. She has a collection of steampunk hats and when she’s not writing she fills her time with good games, good food, good friends and good family.
Sarah writes Young Adult and Middle Grade novels and occasionally dabbles in Picture Books. Fantasy is her favorite genre, though she sometimes can be found playing around with Horror and other things that go bump in the night.
Find out more information about Sarah Ahiers and ASSASSIN’S HEART by checking out her author’s website HERE!
EXCLUSIVE CONTENT
Here’s a brief bit about ASSASSIN’S HEART: Racked with guilt and shattered over Val’s probable betrayal, Lea sets out to even the score, with her heart set on retaliation and only one thought clear in her mind: make the Da Vias pay.
With shades of The Godfather and Romeo and Juliet, this richly imagined fantasy from debut author Sarah Ahiers is a story of love, lies, and the ultimate vengeance.
Sarah Ahiers has graciously provided a playlist for ASSASSIN’S HEART as her exclusive content!!
Here’s what Sarah has to say and it includes an awesome video:
I'm a huge fan of playlists for my novels. HUGE.
I don't think I can properly explain how much of a fan I actually am.
I make a playlist for every novel I write. Every single one. I'm lucky enough that I can listen to music while writing and that I can even listen to music with lyrics while I'm writing, so it really opens the door to some great music options.
The best thing about playlists are how much they help get you back into the space of a specific novel. If I had to set a draft aside to revise something else, or have to pick up a manuscript after it's been sitting for a while and I need to get back into it, all I have to do is put the playlist on and BAM! I'm right back where I was when I first worked on it.
The playlist for ASSASSIN'S HEART is one of my all time favorites. I spent a lot of time with this book which means I spent a lot of time with its music as well, but that's great because I love the songs I picked for it.
ASSASSIN'S HEART is a book full of grief and loss and losing the ones you love. And so a lot of the songs focus on those themes, either in their lyrics or in how they feel. And because ASSASSIN'S HEART has a sort of renaissance Italian feel going on, I also tried to stick with as much violin and viola music as possible.
And by the time I was done, certain songs came to represent specific characters to me, or specific scenes, and I can't hear that music without thinking of that character or scene.
So here it is, the playlist for ASSASSIN'S HEART. I hope you enjoy!
(embed HTML code: )
And don't forget to enter #YASH for a chance to win a ton of signed books by me (Joy Preble), Sarah Ahiers, and more! To enter, you need to know that my favorite number is 18 ! Add up all the favorite numbers of the authors on the BLUE TEAM and you'll have all the secret code to enter for the grand prize!
To keep going on your quest for the hunt, you need to check out the next author! Go to Brendan Reich by clicking HERE !
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And as promised, here is my own extra bonus giveaway!! It is for domestic U.S. readers only because of shipping costs. But hang in there the rest of you, because when IT WASN’T ALWAYS LIKE THIS comes out in May, I will be doing a broader set of giveaways. But for those of you in the States, check out the Rafflecopter below and enter to win a whole bunch of my books!a Rafflecopter giveaway
WHAT YOU ALWAYS WANTED, coming at the end of the month from Bloomsbury’s If Only line, is a delightful, romantic, beach read romp. Main character Maddie Brooks loves drama, musicals, and romantic Hollywood heartthrobs—the old-fashioned classic kind who can sing and tap dance, who ‘cute meet’ their true loves and dress in dapper fashions and woe a girl off her feet with dance moves and sweet kisses. Think: Gene Kelly or Fred Astaire or Cary Grant. (Okay I don’t know if Cary Grant can tap dance. But dapper, he definitely was!) Like many of my own more modern film favorites—think: Sleepless in Seattle, or Kate and Leopold or The Holiday— WHAT YOU ALWAYS WANTED is about that movie version of love—the one where the guy you think you want is not exactly the guy you need. And where the reader knows that despite the many complications, all will be well in the end.
So Maddie moves with her family from Chicago to Texas. She is not happy about the outer burbs of Houston. She hates their small house; she hates the weather; she hates the pollen; she hates that her father is starting over in his new job and that her mother is pregnant.She wants her first kiss to be perfect but what boy can meet her fantasy, movie-romance standards?
Enter Jess Morales, the boy next door. Baseball star. Hunk. Sweet. And unbeknownst to Maddie, a tap dancer extraordinaire, even if he’s given it up for baseball and a dream of the pros.
Enter a grand and pleasing story about a quirky girl who needs to grow up before she's ready for true love and a talented boy who needs to learn that his true friends won’t care if he can both pitch a no-hitter AND tap a three beat shuffle.
My very talented friend Kristin Rae is a gem of a romance writer. Like Maddie, she knows her way around classic movies and musicals. When she first told me the premise for this book, I couldn’t wait for her to write it so I could read it.
Want a happy ending? Vibrant, relatable characters? Sweet romance?
Then pre-order your copy of WHAT YOU ALWAYS WANTED by Kristin Rae. And settle into your lawn chair and read!
And check out the Kirkus Reviews love for WHAT YOU ALWAYS WANTED
here!
Five things that make me happy this week:
1. Growing tomatoes again. Three different plants; three different types. Year two of patio farming and I'm out there every day checking on them. Yeah, it's awesome, my tiny farm.
2. House of Cards. Half-way through the new season. No spoilers except two words: Claire. Underwood. Holy hell. And in related matters-- Scandal. The theme since it started up again seems to be everyone's a monster, even when they try not to be. Cyrus Bean and Abby I'm looking at you. And VP Susan, you surprising woman you. Shonda Rimes does not disappoint.
3. Not quite to the 3/4 mark in the WIP. You guys. This book. It has challenged me and surprised me and that's all I'm saying for now. Except that I am glad that I kept going because some books take a while to let you know what they really are.
4. It's chilly again today but my new straw fedora makes me feel like it's spring on the French Riviera.
5. Happy, happy to have had some quiet weeks to write and write before things rev up in the days approaching IT WASN'T ALWAYS LIKE THIS, which is coming 5/17 from Soho Press. Lots of events in the offing, lots of excitement, and hopefully lots of readers who will enjoy.
Tis next week.
Crystal Allen has written another amazing book with THE MAGNIFICENT MYA TIBBS, SPIRIT WEEK SHOWDOWN, out now from Balzer and Bray/Harper Collins. Mya is funny and big-hearted and spunky and sometimes wonderfully clueless to the truth about the people around her. MAGNIFICENT MYA is a story about many things: friendship and bullying and family and siblings and the goofiness of school Spirit Week. Mya learns that not all friends are true or even truthful and that gossip and rumors are hurtful and that sometimes the least likely suspects can become your truest friends once you really get to know them.
Like her other novels (HOW LAMAR’S BAD PRANK WON HIM A BUBBA-SIZED TROPHY (2011) and THE LAURA LINE (2013), MYA combines humor and heart as it navigates serious issues. Mya doesn’t know that her best friend Naomi has some huge ulterior motives for their friendship. She doesn’t know that “Mean” Connie Tate might not be so mean after all. Mya doesn’t know that she might not be the best sister on the planet right now to her brother Nugget. In short, Mya doesn’t know a lot of things and when she finds herself paired with Connie not Naomi as Spirit Week partners, everything Mya believes gets tossed away as she attempts to navigate through crisis after crisis.
Crystal Allen is a master of dialogue and of creating characters that stick in your mind and heart long after you’ve finished the story. Or to steal from Mya herself, Allen’s story-telling skills are
boo-yangamazing!
As, by the way are her skills at teaching writing to reluctant readers, at putting herself out into the community and walking the walk of a writer who gives back to her readers. Like the characters she creates, she is inspiring and funny and generous. She knows how important it is to believe in yourself and your ability to create regardless of circumstance, and in full disclosure, she has frequently kicked her metaphor cowgirl boots into my metaphor butt to remind me of that.
An inspiring kind of lady, my friend Crystal Allen. I would totally be her Spirit Week partner!
So ka-clunk your cowgirl or cowboy boots to a bookstore and get your copy of MAGNIFICENT MYA right now!
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Went to see Victoria Schwab and Rachel Hawkins at Blue Willow Books this weeks and as happens when a bunch of readers meet up with awesome authors, talk turned to writing and plotting and origin stories and the like. Victoria described how she saves up plot points like a chipmunk saving nuts and when she has enough, has those 10 or 15 key moments that will make up a novel, she basically connects the dots. "I'm not a plotter or a pants-er," she told the crowd. "I'm a connect-the-dots-er"
For the most part, this describes my process as well. Oh, I do full-blown outlines of the skeleton draft variety when I'm forced to. And certainly I almost always have to know the end and keep it in mind as I write. In fact I write at least a sketch of that final scene early on, trying to encapsulate the emotional beats, giving me something to aim at. It helps the story arc develop. It helps keep me true to the emotional arc I've envisioned for the main character. It gives me focus. But as for keeping tight to outlines, that's a bit troublesome for me. So much of novel writing for me comes with the freedom to explore and shift and tweak the story during that exploratory first full draft.
The business end of publishing sometimes stymies this process, although I'm sure that's not its intention. Agents need a full outline to sell a proposal and sample pages. An editor may come back to an author and say, I need to know exactly what happens all the way through. Which is easy to tell her or him when the book is finished. Less simple when you've only written act 1. I always know the plot in general. But I have to leave myself room for the characters to discover things that I do not yet know. Yes, I know that sounds a bit twee and precious and but it's true. Shit happens when you write. That's the miracle of creating something out of nothing. That glorious moment when the 'oh that's what this is all about' reveals itself to you like some sort of writer's Mt. Sinai and you're gobsmacked and cheering and you think yes, yes, THIS is why I am a writer. Because of this! Because something layered and complex has revealed itself through the act of telling the story, one of those glorious grey areas about life that hang out in the fringes of your brain waiting for you to realize oh! That's why I was writing this. That's what this character is all about.
It's a crazy wonderful way to try to earn a living, isn't it?
Watched part of a documentary on the great stage and screen director and improv comedian, Mike Nichols. (whose improv partner Elaine May created and starred in one of my favorite obscure 70s movies, a New Leaf, about a wealthy guy who goes broke and decides to marry this dingy wealthy lady botanist and then kill her on the honeymoon, only she finds this undiscovered species of fern and things go wacky and ultimately in a different direction from there) Anyway, Mike Nichols ( who directed The Graduate and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf and Barefoot in the Park and many other films and plays) believes that there are only three types of scenes: Negotiation, seduction, or fights. I'm not sure if he meant this specifically for stage plays and film or for all story telling but now it's stuck in my head and I'm going to see what I can do with it. Basically, his theory is that if a scene isn't moving forward, or if it's boring, probably it isn't doing one of those three things and if you can tweak it so it can, things will work just fine.
So how do you plot a novel? What are your tricks and secrets?
It’s hard to count how many times I’ve taught the now late Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. It was in the 9th grade English curriculum the first year I taught—that crazy year I was also the JV girl’s volleyball coach back in Illinois. It was in the curriculum every year I taught 10th grade here in Texas. So if you multiple four or five sections times all those years, well, that’s a lot of Jem and Scout and Atticus and Tom Robinson and Boo Radley. A lot of fictional Macomb. And honestly, a lot of reading passages aloud, not only because I believe in the power of reading words to students, many of whom over the years have rarely been read to growing up, but also because the cold hard reality of high school English is that many students never read what they’re assigned. Not ever. Even honors students. Sometimes especially honors students, which is another story entirely.
But Mockingbird. When you teach something that many times, when you re-read something that many times, it becomes part of you—the words, the rhythms, the characters, the joys and the tragedies of the story. I can recite large chunks of the book from memory. Sometimes when I’m writing my own books, a cadence floats in and I have to recognize it as Harper Lee’s and push it away. For me it’s like that with Fitzgerald’s Gatsby as well. I’ve read it so many, many times that it’s just a part of me.
I had to replace my original copy a few years ago when the yellowing pages started falling out from having been turned so many times. (Let me add here that there nothing digital that can replace the true wonder of loving a physical book so much that it falls apart bit by bit, goes fragile and has to be held together with a rubber band.)
What passages are indelibly marked in my brain? So many. The opening, for one, that luscious, slow description of Maycomb, Alabama. The scene where Atticus has to shoot Tim Johnson, the rabid dog. The courtroom scenes during Tom Robinson’s trial. Atticus’ closing speech. That brutal, awful moment when he has lost the case and is walking alone through the courtroom and up in the balcony Reverend Sykes tells Scout: “Jean Louise, stand up. Your father’s passing.” The goofiness with Dill. Scout’s progressive realization the Maycomb on the surface is not the Maycomb underneath. The moment at Aunt Alexandria’s Missionary Circle when Scout sees the town’s hypocrisy for what it is, just as Atticus receives word that Tom Robinson has been shot. Scout’s ham costume. The cruelty of Bob Ewell and the moment where Boo Radley saves the children. The meeting of Scout and Boo. And a dozen other glorious moments in between. Line after line. Word after word.
One of my favorite passages among many, one that I can’t read without weeping is the one I’ll end with. I have always loved asking students if the last part is true. I like to think that Scout grew up and realized that it wasn’t.
“Neighbors bring food with death and flowers with sickness and little things in between. Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good-luck pennies, and our lives. But neighbors give in return. We never put back into the tree what we took out of it: we had given him nothing, and it made me sad.”
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Sometimes I know a chapter is well-written but it still isn’t working as well as it needs to. For me, this often happens when the tension in the scene (or scenes) is primarily internal. It’s not that nothing is happening. It’s just that I’ve written a bunch of character ruminating and after awhile that gets tedious to read. It also tends to bring out a level of repetition in my writing that I’d prefer to avoid because really, how many new things can a character think about? I find myself writing the same loop of thoughts.
So what’s a writer to do?
Well, revise, of course!
And in this case, dig in and re-think how the scene needs to play out, how I can move out of the character’s head and ground the internal angst with external action. Author Sara Zarr, whose workshop I attended at The Writing Barn a few years ago, calls these Emotional Turnings. She taught us that every emotional turning of a character needs to be rooted in some action perceivable by the senses. It is grand and wise advice.
Yesterday, I used this advice to turn around a set of scenes that had devolved into too much thinking. In this case, the key was a phone call the MC makes to her best friend, a friend she hasn’t seen much since the MC moved to the city, and has in fact been ignoring, mostly because the MC’s life has been turned upside down by the death of her brother and the ensuing breakup of her family. And then there’s been something very strange that has happened and there’s a new boy and a bunch of angst and so the MC calls her friend.
In the original version, she calls. There is witty banter, but it’s mostly one-sided with the friend going on and on about her camp counselor job and teaching archery and the MC thinks some witty things and then the friend says she has to go without asking why the MC has called. Followed by some pages of MC angsting.
Yeah. I know. It reads well technically. It does bring back all the things that are going wrong in the MCs world and all the things she wants but possibly will never have. But yeah. A lot of ruminating.
So I gave it a hard look. Poked around at this friendship and this moment and the myopic-nature of people when their lives are taking unexpected turns. And wondered what would happen if after the friend rattled on about archery and said she had to go, the MC would say no. I need to tell you something. And instead of saying something friend-like, the friend would basically tell her to get lost. What does she think, calling after basically ignoring her all this time. Call her self-centered or whatever. I hate giving away an exact plot so this is the basic gist although not the specifics. The point is, that the MC needs to be totally blindsided here. And then the MC needs to react in a physical way and DO SOMETHING. Then and only then can she think and then and only then will her thoughts have a real, physical world catalyst. And the stakes are raised because in the process one last remaining safety net (the friend) is ripped away rather than just hanging up the phone. (well, pressing end, which is so much less dramatic, but whatever.)
See what I mean?
What do you do when you realize a scene lacks tension?
Today I’m beginning the first of what I hope will be an ongoing set of posts about people who make a difference in my writer world, whose presence and work furthers me (and many others) on the winding path toward creating art that matters. For me, this is a long, long list of amazing humans who not only write but also work tirelessly in one form or another to create community. Children’s writers are mostly generous like that, in ways both large and small. But it’s easier than I used to think to get lost in your own head in this world of writers and books, to find yourself stuck in the business details, the endless often soul-sucking worry about the next book and the next and ‘will anyone notice this one? Why am I doing this again?’
Which is why I’m so grateful for so many people who keep me focused on the wonder and joy of the process, the journey. Who pay it forward HARD and remind me to do the same.
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| Writing Barn interior |
If you don’t know about The Writing Barn in Austin, well, you should. And if you don’t know about its creator and director Bethany Hegedus, well, you should know about her, too. I can’t even remember when I first met Bethany, but it was at least five years ago and probably in Austin. I do remember posing for a goofy picture with her at the Soho Press booth in 2012 at ALAMW in Dallas. Soho was launching Soho Teen and there was champagne and somehow colorful squirt guns, I think for the Soho Crime inprint. In any case, our paths kept crossing, Bethany and I, including our twice yearly sojourns to what a group of us now lovingly call The Lodge of Death. Each time I learned more about her, about what had brought her here to Texas, about her writer’s journey and life journey and bunch of stuff in between. Plus we laugh a lot. A lot!
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| Bethany Hegedus |
Bethany writes amazing books, including but not limited to the picture book, Grandfather Gandhi,which she co-authored with Arun Gandhi, grandson of yes, the other Gandhi! Yes, I know! It is such a beautiful, moving, meaningful book.
But The Writing Barn! Bethany and her husband Vivek have made a true book-lover’s haven in a wooded area outside of Austin. Retreats, workshops, lectures, special events. You can come for a few hours, a weekend, a week, depending on the event. You can work on your writer’s craft and learn from a growing and illustrious list of guest authors. (Nova Ren Suma! Jenny Han! Francisco X. Stork! Libba Bray and Barry Goldblatt will be teaching in October!) I am forever grateful for the weekend I spent at The Writing Barn learning about ‘emotional turnings’ in novel writing from author Sara Zarr. I have been back many times, including as a mentor and writing
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| me and Sara Zarr ! |
instructor this past summer for a week long Whole Novel Workshop, where I got to teach alongside amazing writers Tim Wynne-Jones and Nicole Griffin, and also learn from many others including Lisa Papademetriou and Hannah Barnaby.
Have I gushed enough?
Check it out. Go!
Tell Bethany I sent you.
And it's Friday again, after a strange week that was, in turns, upsetting and encouragingly joyful, depending on what day it was. It has been a roller coaster-y few weeks into 2016, and the weather has reflected this here in my piece of the Gulf Coast, with 75 temps one day and 35 the next and frequently in the same day, leaving my head confused and achy. Seriously, we are all complaining that it's hard to keep up.
And so the five things on my mind this week:
1. Possibly today I will sneak away and see Zoolander 2, because the mister does not find the idea hilarious fun and there is nothing worse on date night than sitting next to someone you love who is nonetheless sighing under his breath and counting the minutes until it's over while he eats his popcorn.
In a small side commentary on that, I always find it interesting that I know people who refuse to go to the movies alone. I am totally grand with going to the movies alone. I love the movies. I love sitting in a theater. I love watching something I really wanted to see and why inflict something you love on someone who won't enjoy it?
2. Scandal is back! But I can't discuss it yet because I haven't seen it yet. But soon.
3. The Lumineers are touring again! They have a new album. Hooray!!
4. Went to see ALL THE WAY at The Alley Theater this week and it was truly brilliant. It takes the story of LBJ's presidency from the moment of the assassination of Kennedy to LBJ's own election the following November, with the backdrop of the Civil Rights movement, the growing turmoil in the US and the insidious beginnings of the conflict in Vietnam. It's a long play, close to 3 hours, but you really don't notice. Of course, I have the Hamilton soundtrack running in my head always now because I love it so much, so it's almost hard not to sit there imagining a stage play re-created as a musical. Still, if ALL THE WAY comes your way, go see it!
5. The WIP is in that place where once I get beyond the next chapter, things will start flying and soon it will be a real book and this thrills me to my tired, tired core. And someday, if I'm really good, I will be able to tell you about it. Hooray to that!
In other writing matters, I had a grand time last Saturday teaching 8 writers about "how to find an agent and why you need one." If you are a writer in Houston and haven't discovered Whitespace Houston yet, you need to discover it!
until next time!
First Friday in February!
Here's five things on mind:
1. Just 3 months plus a few days until May 17th, pub day for IT WASN'T ALWAYS LIKE THIS ! I am seriously so excited about this book. Because accidental immortality and murder mystery and star-crossed romance and a forever-seventeen-year-old girl named Emma who ends up a hard-boiled private eye but refuses to stop searching for the boy she loves. His name is Charlie. And oh my gosh, you guys, Emma and Charlie. Plus a down at the heels detective named Pete Mondragon. And did I say Emma and Charlie?? Please be on the lookout!
2. Obsessed with the musical HAMILTON. Have listened to the cast recording a zillion times. Have checked the bio it's based on from the library. I admit that I HAD NO IDEA. Because somewhere I was assigned the Federalist papers and I never could make my way through it. And now I just look at a ten dollar bill and I'm all gooey and teary-eyed because THIS STORY! Lin-Manuel Miranda is a freaking genius. Those tickets for the Broadway show are impossible to get for a reason. (seriously! Even my own sort of BIG CONNECTION, the one who can get anything, really, even she couldn't promise me access to tickets for the next time I'm going to be in NYC. ) But HAMILTON. Listen to it!!
3. Have lots of things to say about the current presidential campaign but this is not the place to say them. At least not in this particular post.
4. Current TV obsessions: YOUNGER on TVLand, which is not a perfect show but definitely has a lot to say about the publishing world, some of which is occasionally right on the money. and a lot to say about what it means to be a middle-aged woman in this country even now in 2016 when we should know better but we really don't. Plus it stars Sutton Foster who is so talented and brilliant that I would watch her in pretty much anything, including the far-too-soon cancelled Boneheads of a few years back. Still hanging in there with SUPERGIRL and trying to catch up with iZOMBIE. And if you read this blog, you know that's just some of it. And did I mention that season 2 of TRANSPARENT on Amazon Prime is absolutely perfect and moving and so utterly watchable??
5. Since the McAllen book festival in November, I've had this THING for enchiladas with mole sauce. Holy cow I love that stuff.
And okay, I have so much more to say about so very many things, but I need to write 1,000 words this morning.
Tim next time...
ROOM was a brilliant film that has stuck with me since I saw it Sunday. Everything works: the cinematography, the nuanced performances, the lighting, the stark contrast between the first half of the film and the second. It is a tough and brutal story, about a seventeen year old girl who is kidnapped and held captive in what is essentially a sound-proofed garden shed for seven years. She is raped every night by her captor. Two years in, she has given birth to Jack, whose fifth birthday opens the film. And it is quickly becoming apparent to Ma, which is what Jack calls her, although her real name is Joy, that if they do not manage to escape soon, their captor, referred to only as ‘him’ or ‘Old Nick’ will try to kill them. Or at least Ma. As with the book (which I am only now reading), the POV is through Jack’s eyes. Room is his only normal. It is not a prison to him, it is simply his life. And then he manages to help save them, a piece of the plot I won’t give away, although you do see a piece of it in all the trailers.
If you have been afraid to go see it, go anyway. I will probably see it at least one more time. It inspired me to check the book out of the library and I can say that the film stays very true to the text.
I had not wanted to read the book. I’m not fully sure why except to say that I thought –falsely so—that it would be sensationalistic or lurid or whatever. It is none of those things, although clearly there are larger agendas in the actual text that reach beyond the story of this one mother and son. I am glad that I am reading it now and I’m honestly blown away by Emma Donoghue’s prose, by her narrative choices, her ability to use a five year old to tell this story in a way that makes sense and is in fact, the best way to show the world that Ma has created for him in one 12x12 room that seems to Jack a much larger place. His narration allows the reality of Ma’s horror to wash over use between the lines and it is all the more horrific because of that. Her true situation in contrast to the world that she has created for Jack. And the film (Donoghue wrote the screenplay as well) manages to capture all this as well, also through Jack’s eyes. Including freedom in the 2ndhalf, because Room is the only world Jack has known and so freedom means something very different to him than it does to Ma.
I’m going to be thinking about this story for a long time, about motherhood and childhood, and the awful things people do to each other and the human spirit that allows us to survive. About how generally impossible it is for us to understand situations we haven’t physically experienced. About this story of a woman and her child forced to make their own world.
Go see ROOM. Then let me know what you thought.
Twice a year, a group of us kidlit writers head out to the woods, about half-way between Austin and Houston. For three solid days we write, critique, inspire and read. Okay there’s some silliness and wine and a lot of snack food that sneaks in there. A lot of it, actually! (Full disclosure, we ran out of wine last summer, so I guess this time, everyone made sure to compensate.)
But here’s the important thing: 18 women converge in one enormous, ramshackle hunting lodge with crazy amounts of insane taxidermy. (Think tiny deer arranged in a rowboat with flowers. Mounted heads with smiles.) We range in age from 20s to 50s. We write YA, MG, and picture books. Most of us are multi-published. Some of us are not yet published. Some are in between. All of us are dedicated to our craft. All of us are committed to bringing stories to the world.
We cook meals. We respect dietary needs without making a big deal of it. (“Gluten-free folks, those paler muffins are for you!”) We support and amplify and encourage each other’s careers in ways big and small. We laugh. We write. We dream. We get a little raucous in the evenings. Okay maybe a lot. We celebrate HUGELY our successes.
And as my friend Lynne Kelly pointed out after this past weekend’s retreat, there are no fights. No posturing. No table-flipping and honestly, no cliques or sub-grouping or secret whispers. NONE. Seriously, none. We would make a really boring reality show.
Because we started with a smaller core group and because we’ve been doing this for awhile now, sometimes I forget the true, kick-ass wonder of this. How much I appreciate these retreats, especially after a difficult, transitional year like this past one where—in ways both good and bad—almost nothing turned out the way I expected. But none of that mattered this past weekend. Only the work and the company and the inspiration of fierce, brilliant women who are my tribe, my people, my collective creative force.
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And the occasional misguided squirrel crashing into the window.
Y'all!! I have waited so long for the moment when it was time to reveal the final cover for IT WASN'T ALWAYS LIKE THIS, which is coming on 5/17/16 from Soho Teen/Penguin Random House !!
But finally, I can show you and more. In fact, it was revealed yesterday in an exclusive on EW.com, with an interview that the brilliant E. Lockhart did with me and two sneak peek chapters! Yes, that REALLY HAPPENED!! Here's the link:
http://www.ew.com/article/2015/12/10/e-lockhart-joy-preble-interview-wasnt-always-like-this
IWALT is Tuck Everlasting meets Veronica Mars. Thriller. Murder mystery. Fairy Tale. Accidental Immortality. Star-crossed romance. A forever seventeen year old girl who won't give up the search for the boy she loves. Yeah, I know! Everything we love all in ONE BOOK!
The cover's in the EW piece but I can't stop looking at it, so here's the gorgeous cover:
I am so excited to introduce you all to Emma and Charlie and their wildly romantic story!
By:
Joy Preble,
on 10/23/2015
Blog:
Joy's Novel Idea
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So Soho Press is still keeping the cover for next year's IT WASN'T ALWAYS LIKE THIS under wraps as best they can. ARCs are sneaking into the world to early readers/blurbers, and the come January to everyone else. But they approved these awesome bookmarks, created by my friend and writing partner Kristin Rae!
Yeah, they're pretty awesome and they hint so nicely at the cover while still not giving it away, so look closely! Very excited!
And in #2, a quick photo recap of last week's Texas Book Festival which was supremely awesome and such an honor to be part of!
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| Catching some sun with capitol behind us with me, A.G. Howard, Cory Putnam Oakes, Mari Mancusi, PJ Hoover |
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| Our Blood is Thicker than Water panel in the signing tent: me, Heather Demetrios, Renee Watson |
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| And yes, that is Margaret Atwood. |
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Meeting fellow Soho author and all around awesome author and human and very tall guy, Adam Silvera
3. It is still summer in Houston. It should move on to Fall. Like NOW.
4. Looking forward to Comic Con Austin and then McAllen Book Festival and then some time to just write, write, write.
5. And between all the above and a brief jaunt to Florida to just hang on the beach in Ft. Walton where it's just you and the white sand and the birds and the sea turtles and it's heaven, I am also now getting better from strep throat/sinus infection. But yeah, it was worth it! |
As soon as I heard Cammie McGovern talking about her books at Houston's Blue Willow last week (she was touring with Julie Murphy), I knew this was an author who should have already been on my radar and somehow wasn't. It happens, I know. So many books; so little time. But I grabbed a copy of SAY WHAT YOU WILL, her debut YA title from 2014 and took it to the beach with me this past weekend and promptly devoured it.
SAY WHAT YOU WILL is about many things: Friendship. An over-protected but brilliant girl whose cerebral palsy traps her in a body that she accepts and tries not to let define her but which doesn't let her have the physical freedoms that would make life easier. A boy with OCD, whose fears and anxieties trap him as well. A star-crossed romance. The good, the bad, the ugly of living in this world -- of loving and losing and making mistakes and pulling yourself up. The difficulties of overcoming perceptions and fears. The terrible things we sometimes do to the people who love us, often because we don't love ourselves enough first. How hard and miraculous it is to find someone who truly 'gets you.' About how easy it is to mess up and miss opportunities to find your tribe, your people. And as main character Amy calls one of her favorite themes (and it's one of mine, too!): Oddballs finding each other. It is not by accident that Amy's favorite book, referenced more than once in the novel, is Tell Me You Love Me, Junie Moon, the story of three misfits who meet in a hospital.
This is a beautiful, beautiful book. It is gorgeously written, gentle and thoughtful. Amy and Matthew are as imperfect and damaged yet perfect and wonderful as any two characters I have ever read. Their story break my heart, pieced it back together, then broke it again and eventually let me know that while a happily ever after might not in their future, their story is not over. First love is like that. It is often painful and intense and confusing and wonderful and awful all at the same time.
McGovern creates fully rounded characters in SWYW. The reader learns exactly what it is like to live with CP or OCD; their disabilities are deftly drawn in ways that don't always happen in novels. But be sure: this is not an 'issue' book, although in less capable hands it could be. It is real and heartbreaking and encouraging and one of the best books I've read this year, YA or other. I cannot wait to dig into McGovern's newest book, A Step Toward Falling, just out from Harper Teen.
I'm sitting here looking for a quote to end this review and I'm feeling teary-eyed again in the best of ways just flipping through the pages of this wonderful, wonderful book! And here's your quote, from near the end, but it doesn't ruin anything, just gives you a sense of the words:
"They sat like that for a while, hands intertwined on top of the book. If he spoke, he knew his voice would betray him. It would crack and break and he'd start to cry. So they stayed just like that, as the light through the window drained from the sky."
For more about the brilliant Cammie McGovern, go to
www.cammiemcgovern.com
YA SCAVENGER HUNT
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| My newest book is FINDING PARIS, out now from Balzer and Bray/Harper Collins |
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Welcome to YA Scavenger Hunt! This bi-annual event was first organized by author Colleen Houck as a way to give readers a chance to gain access to exclusive bonus material from their favorite authors...and a chance to win some awesome prizes! At this hunt, you not only get access to exclusive content from each author, you also get a clue for the hunt. Add up the clues, and you can enter for our prize--one lucky winner will receive one signed book from each author on the hunt in my team! But play fast: this contest (and all the exclusive bonus material) will only be online for 72 hours! <!--[if gte mso 9]>
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The Fall YA Scavenger Hunt goes live on Thursday, October 1st at 12 pm Pacific Time and comes down on Sunday, October 4th at noon Pacific time.
I’m Joy Preble, your hostess for this leg of the hunt and author of many young adult novels including THE DREAMING ANASTASIA series; THE SWEET DEAD LIFE series; FINDING PARIS; and the forthcoming IT WASN’T ALWAYS LIKE THIS (Soho Press, May 17, 2016).I am on TEAM PURPLE.
I will give you an extra special chance at the bottom of this post to win some of my books!!
Go to the YA Scavenger Hunt page to find out all about the hunt. There are SIX contests going on simultaneously, and you can enter one or all! I am a part of the PURPLE TEAM--but there is also a RED, BLUE, GOLD, GREEN,ORANGE, TEAL, PURPLE, PINK-each with 20 authors, for a chance to win a whole different set of signed books!
Remember, you are currently hunting on TEAM PURPLE.
If you'd like to find out more about the hunt, see links to all the authors participating, and see the full list of prizes up for grabs, go to the YA Scavenger Hunt page.
SCAVENGER HUNT PUZZLE
Directions: Below, you'll notice that I've listed my favorite number, highlighted in PURPLE. Collect the favorite numbers of all the authors on the purple team, and then add them up (don't worry, you can use a calculator!).
Rules: Open internationally, anyone below the age of 18 should have a parent or guardian's permission to enter. To be eligible for the grand prize, you must submit the completed entry form by Sunday October 4th, at noon Pacific Time. Entries sent without the correct number or without contact information will not be considered.
SCAVENGER HUNT POST
Today, I am hosting CATRINA BURGESS on my website for the YA Scavenger Hunt! Catrina is the author of AWAKENING—The Dark Rituals, Book 1, from Full Fathom Five Digital.
In Awakening, the first installment in the Dark Rituals series, a former healer turns to the Death Arts to seek revenge.
Seventeen-year-old Colina was born a healer. But after a horrific event forces her to leave her clan, she becomes desperate to learn the dark magic of the death dealers, mages who draw their power from the spirits of the dead. Colina was taught to fear and hate death dealers, but becoming one of them is the only way for her to get the revenge she seeks—and the only way for her to survive.
Here's Catrina's bio:I write because it helps keeps the darkness away and reminds me that there is magic in the world. I live with one husband, two dogs, and a cat named Shitty Kitty in a small mining town in Arizona. At night this place is definitely spooky. I swear I’ve heard the wind giggle, and sometimes there’s a very odd breeze. Luckily, I love all things that go bump in the night. I adore old movies. I’m a huge Joss Whedon fan.
I’ve been known to eat pizza and cold Chinese food for breakfast, and I’m the queen of the board game Stratego. I’ve never been beaten. NEVER!
What am I doing when I’m not writing? I turn into my alter ego Chaoscat, the owner and operator of RomanceJunkies.com—a romance review site that been around since 2002.
You can find her online at:
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EXCLUSIVE CONTENT
Catrina is giving you a sneak peek at her upcoming DARK RITUALS series!!
Waving Howdy!
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I’m Catrina Burgess, author of the Dark Rituals, a 4 book YA Paranormal/Horror series coming out this October.
I’m so excited for everyone to meet Colina, my heroine. I spent the last two years working away on her adventures and here are a couple things I can tell you about her:
She is a bit head strong.
She sometime rushes into situations without thinking.
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But she never gives up no matter how dark the days.
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Here is a teaser from Awakening, book 1:
This was it. The fighting was going to start. My breath caught in the back of my throat, but before the guy could lay a hand on him, Luke spun around, lifted his forearm, and smashed the guy on the side of the head. The guy went down, hard.
The group turned in unison, all attention now focused on Luke. The woman could have scrambled away and made a run for it now that they were ignoring her, but she lay frozen on the ground. It was then that I realized all the guys sported orange-and-black bandanas. Luke was facing down the Triads. The situation had gone from bad to worse. Maybe if it was a general mugging or a bunch of hooligan teenagers out for a little mischief, Luke might have had a chance of scaring them off, but this was an organized gang that spent most of their time looking for mayhem. From what I read in the papers, they weren’t above murder.
One of them shouted out, “You just signed your death warrant!”
Luke stood his ground. “Death. Now that’s something I know a thing or two about.”
Luke raised his hands and started to speak in an unfamiliar language—the language of magic and spells. Light flickered from his fingers, and his eyes shone as if lit from within. His voice suddenly took on a lower, deeper tone, until he didn’t sound like him at all. Then a slew of words flew from his mouth and the light moved from his hands to surround the gang.
I watched in horror as one face formed within the lights, then another. Luke’s calling on spirits. A chill ran down the length of my body. I wasn’t the only one to realize what was happening.
Someone cried out, “The dude is a death dealer!”
Death dealers commune with the dead that have not crossed over, especially the mage dead. That gives them frightening power. It is an easy power to abuse—victimizing the dead for their own ends—and the fear that they will bind your immortal soul to their own ends terrifies any who see it.
The gang began to scatter, and I didn’t blame them—lights swirled around them in a circle, carrying whirling, formless faces. It was a freaky thing to behold. Heads and partial bodies were starting to form inside the lights. The expression on each ghostly face Luke summoned was full of pain and terror. Then the noise started, an ear-splitting screeching. He was calling up the unsettled dead.
He was bringing forth banshees. I’d heard of banshees—they were the death dealers’ most fear-inspiring magic. The rest of the magic clans and guilds viewed the very idea of them with horror, but to see these creatures shift out of the ether and take on a semi-solid form was something I never thought I would experience. They were souls of those trapped between life and what lay beyond, ghosts that Luke had bound into a weapon. They flowed around him, blinking in and out of the material world and glittering with the dark magic that gave them form.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and my arms were suddenly covered in goose bumps. I reached for the protection pouch I wore around my neck. My hands grasped at nothing but air. Used to wear, I reminded myself. I stopped wearing the pouch when I stopped being a healer.
The banshees began filling the alley, but there was no place for them to go. I dropped the baseball bat and took quick steps backward until I felt a brick wall at my back. They had me cornered like a rat in a cage.
The banshees moved faster and faster around the men. The guys were fleeing, and as they ran the lights followed, surrounding them, circling them. Men’s voices full of panic filled the air. I looked toward the woman we’d initially come to save. She was still on the ground, but she raised her head, looked at the chaos around her, and started screaming. Her screams mixed with the shrieks of the banshees.
I should have been freaking out. I should have been shrieking in horror like the woman, but instead I sat as though spellbound. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the scene before me.
Rain streamed down my face, and my hair clung to my cheeks and fell into my eyes. I pushed it aside and watched as blue streaks of light broke off from the gang members standing not far from me and began heading in my direction. I knew the bright streaks whizzing through the air were not just lights. Within the blue lights, I could see partial forms—banshees. I focused on the light closest to me and immediately regretted it. In the center of the light was a shape—a form that was almost human…or, rather, the forgotten memory of something that had once been human. It had long arms that ended in sharp claws and an angular face that had only gaping shadows for eyes and a mouth. Its thin torso ended in shreds of mist, and it flew through the air with a cloud of mist trailing behind it. The banshee howled as it floated my way.
Don’t ever look into a banshee’s eyes. I heard the voice inside my head. It was a warning that had been instilled in me from childhood.
“What’ll I see if I look in its eyes, Pa?”
“Death. And when you look at death, child, it can take ahold of you and suck you into the ether sea.”
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And don't forget to enter the contest for a chance to win a ton of signed books by me, JOY PREBLE, and more! To enter, you need to know that my favorite number is 13 !! Add up all the favorite numbers of the authors on the purple team and you'll have all the secret code to enter for the grand prize!
CONTINUE THE HUNT
BONUS EXTRA!!!
And as a bonus for stopping by this leg of the tour, I am giving away a set of my SWEET DEAD LIFE series!
Just enter the Rafflecopter Giveaway below! I will let you know if you are the winner once YASH is over!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
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Coming on 10/1 is the FALL YA SCAVENGER HUNT!
I am TEAM PURPLE !!
To see the rest of the teams go HERE !
It's fall, although the Texas weather doesn't believe it. We're still in the 90s and although we had a taste of cooler weather a couple weeks ago, temps have hiked back up and now it's an endurance contest.
But in hopes of that still elusive blue norther, I give you five of my favorite fall things:
1. Sweaters, hoodies, sweat shirts, jackets. Yeah, I'm in love with outerwear. I really am. I'm having a love hate thing right now with the ponchos that have returned to the racks. I like them in theory. But it's an awkward thing to wear. Pretty if you're standing up. Meh if you're walking and it's twisting around.
2. Boots. I love boots. Moto boots and cowboy boots and tall boots and well, boots. It's no wonder that Jenna Samuels in my Sweet Dead Life series loved her red cowgirl boots.
3. Pumpkins in general, and gourds and leaves that turn color. Last year we actually got fall color here, which was honesty thrilling. But pumpkin spice everything? Including pumpkin spice lattes? Not so much. A real pumpkin. Yes. Pumpkin frosting and middles of Oreos? Nope.
4. Texas High School Football. Friday Night Lights for real. Absolutely nothing like it. Professional football pales in comparison. it really does.
5. The Renaissance Festival and cooler air and dare I say it? Being able to open the windows and have an actual breeze slip in.
What do you like about fall?
Gonna be hard to keep it to five. But let me squoosh some together:
1. The guy who fixed my pineapple lamp (it was the socket) and made it work all spiffy again. I LOVE my pineapple lamp. And I was sad that it was all blinky. Now it is PERFECT. And the lady, in the same store, who waxed eloquent on the subject of bathroom lighting ("think of it as the jewelry. Pick your faucets first, then your mirrors, then your lights"). Well who knew? And so project master bath is actually moving forward and who knew I could be so excited about countertops?
2. Entrepreneur/author Bethenny Frankel because she is knows how to reinvent and knows her flaws and her strengths and even if you are reading this and scoffing about 'reality TV' let me say that she inspires me to get it done, to believe in myself, to pick up the pieces when I fail, to keep a keen eye on the world's absurdities, and to laugh because laughter is awesome.
3. Julie Murphy for writing DUMPLIN' and for telling the world that women can take up as much space in this world as they want or need to.
4. Colleen Thompson, who writes kick ass romantic suspense (among many other genres) and who also does a lot to keep my head on straight and remind me to keep my eyes on my own work because that's the only thing I can control!
5. And all the team at Soho Press, with whom writing books is an honor and a pleasure. Soon they will start giving you sneak peeks at next year's IT WASN'T ALWAYS LIKE THIS and I can hardly wait! Here's a little teaser description: Part thriller, part murder mystery, part fairy tale in the vein of Tuck Everlasting, comes a story of accidental immortality, star-crossed romance, and a forever-seventeen-year-old girl who won't give up the search for the boy she loves.
Yeah, you want to read that, don't you? Well it's coming on 5/17/16.
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