Tag: book release (Page 6 of 8)

7 Things I Learned About the Creative Process While Writing InHUMAN by Kama Falzoi Post

December 16, 2016 / Katie L. Carroll

Today, Kama Falzoi Post stops by for the release of her Young Adult sci-fi thriller, InHuman. Keep reading for a chance to win $25 Amazon Gift Certificate!

7 Things I Learned About the Creative Process While Writing InHUMAN
by Kama Falzoi Post

1. My characters hated me. I forced my characters into all kinds of terrible situations. I could almost feel them shaking their heads at me, trudging along out of sheer duty. For a long time they didn’t trust me at all, but eventually they understood that they had to endure that strenuous journey to come out the other side. (And honestly, I think they sort of enjoyed the ass-kicking.)

2. My brain kept working on the story. Even when I wasn’t consciously working on my story, I was working on my story. My brain kept churning away in the background, tossing out ideas at the most inopportune moments: scarfing down diner food, banging out some cardio, sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic. I used the recording feature on my phone a lot.

3. It’s called the Creative Process for a reason. It’s a long, arduous, messy process that seems to have no end. I think only a quarter of can actually pass for creative. And that quarter is often trash: it’s the chapter I wrote in a sort of fugue state, thinking it was the most inspired writing ever. Spoiler: It wasn’t.

4. You can’t wait for inspiration to strike. Inspiration didn’t really strike so much as it descended like a fog. And that was only after countless hours doubting my ability to type coherent words onto a page. If inspiration were the main motivator, I would write less than once a month.

5. Keep snacks on hand at all times. It was so easy to create excuses. “I ran out of peanut butter filled pretzels, and I can’t write without peanut butter filled pretzels! I have to go get some, now!” Ad infinitum.

6. The writing feels different than the reading. The scenes between Mira and Adam flew out of me, because I was so deep in the experience: the electrifying tension, the giddiness, the flying feeling of locking eyes with someone you’re attracted to. However, that is exactly where those feelings stayed: in my imagination. To a reader, those scenes were just plot on the page. Yawn. My revisions centered around trying to breathe life into those scenes, rooting them in physical actions and dialogue, so readers might experience that same rush.

7. Deleting just one word counts as forward progress. Sitting down to write with a number in my head (I’ll aim for 1,000 words today!) is daunting. In fact, that was the definition of writer’s block for me: being so overwhelmed with the amount of work left, I couldn’t even rouse myself to start. Thinking of each step (even deleting entire chapters) as a step forward helped me overcome that feeling. It kept me writing. And finding out what it takes to keep writing? That was the most important lesson for me.

InHuman_Kama Falzoi Post_Cover.png

Title: InHuman

Author: Kama Falzoi Post

Genre: Young Adult Sci-Fi

Release Date: December 13, 2016

Publisher: BookFish Books

Cover Artist: Anita Carroll at Race-Point

About InHuman

Mira’s mother sizes up bodies at the morgue like she’s rifling through the sales rack: this one’s too big… this one’s too small… ah, here it is. Just right. The perfect vessel for the one they’ll call Adam.

Since Adam’s survival is the key to drawing out the Conduit—a slippery sort bent on evacuating souls from their human bodies—Mira must help him pass for a typical teenage boy. That means showing him how to talk right, walk right, chew with his mouth open… blend in.

Ironic, because blending in is has always been a challenge for Mira, especially with hair the color of a Dorito. But at their small, secluded prep school, blending in is a matter of life and death.

Because the Conduit is watching.

BUY InHuman Now: https://www.amazon.com/InHuman-Kama-Falzoi-Post-ebook/dp/B01M98ZUXR

Add InHuman to your Goodreads List: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30077755-inhuman?from_search=true#other_reviews

About Kama Falzoi Post:

inhuman_kama-falzoi-post_author-pic Kama Falzoi Post is a functioning member of society, a part-time introvert, a pinnacle of contradictions, the mother of a hurricane, a step-mother, and an author. She enjoys drinking red wine and then drinking more red wine, listening to music that moves her, and taking things too far.

She developed a love of books and writing at a very early age. Her stories have appeared in a handful of literary magazines including Inkwell and SmokeLong Quarterly, and most recently in the anthology Outliers of Speculative Fiction. She lives in a small town outside a small city with her husband, son, and too many cats.

Twitter: @KamaPost

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KamaFalzoiPost/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/KamaPost

WordPress: https://kamafalzoipost.wordpress.com

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Cover Reveal InHuman by Kama Falzoi Post

October 26, 2016 / Katie L. Carroll

Today, Kama Falzoi Post stops by the blog to share the cover for her YA sci-fi InHuman. Let’s give Kama a big welcome!

InHuman_Kama Falzoi Post_Cover.png

Title: InHuman

Author: Kama Falzoi Post

Genre: Young Adult Sci-Fi

Release Date: December 13, 2016

Publisher: BookFish Books

Cover Artist: Anita Carroll at Race-Point

About InHuman

Ironic, because blending in is has always been a challenge for Mira, especially with hair the color of a Dorito. But at their small, secluded prep school, blending in is a matter of life and death.

Because the Conduit is watching.

PRE-ORDER InHuman Now! Preorder Link: https://www.amazon.com/InHuman-Kama-Falzoi-Post-ebook/dp/B01M98ZUXR

Add InHuman to your Goodreads List: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30077755-inhuman?from_search=true#other_reviews

About Kama Falzoi Post

Twitter: @KamaPost

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KamaFalzoiPost/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/KamaPost

WordPress: https://kamafalzoipost.wordpress.com

Cover Reveal HOLLYWOOD HOMICIDE by Kellye Garrett

October 24, 2016 / Katie L. Carroll

It’s week of cover reveals on the blog. Today we’ve got HOLLYWOOD HOMICIDE by Kellye Garrett, coming summer 2017. Welcome, Kellye!

Title: Hollywood Homicide

Book 1 in the Detective By Day Series

Publisher: Midnight Ink

Release Date: August 8, 2017

Book Blurb:

Dayna Anderson doesn’t set out to solve a murder. All the semi-famous, mega-broke black actress wants is to help her parents keep their house. After witnessing a deadly hit-and-run, she figures pursuing the fifteen-grand reward isn’t the craziest thing a Hollywood actress has done for some cash.

But what starts as simply trying to remember a speeding car soon blossoms into a full-on investigation. As Dayna digs deeper into the victim’s life, she wants more than just reward money. She’s determined to find the poor woman’s killer too. When she connects the accident to a notorious Hollywood crime spree, Dayna chases down leads at paparazzi hot spots, celeb homes and movie premieres. She loves every second—until someone tries to kill her.

And there are no second takes in real life.

About the Author:

Kellye Garrett spent 8 years working in Hollywood, including a stint writing for the CBS drama Cold Case. People were always surprised to learn what she did for a living—probably because she seemed way too happy to be brainstorming ways to murder people. A former magazine editor, Kellye holds a B.S. in magazine writing from Florida A&M and an MFA in screenwriting from USC’s famed film school. Having moved back to her native New Jersey, she spends her mornings commuting to Manhattan for her job at a leading media company—while still happily brainstorming ways to commit murder. Her first novel, Hollywood Homicide, will be released by Midnight Ink in August 2017. It’s the first book in the Detective by Day series.

Connect with Kellye

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Blog

You can pre-order the e-book and print edition on Amazon.

Getting Excited About Science with Julie Murphy Author of GILLY’S TREASURES

October 19, 2016 / Katie L. Carroll

Today I have a great guest post from Julie Murphy, author of the picture book GILLY’S TREASURES. I always love seeing how people’s day jobs or passions influence what they write, and Julie’s post is full of wonderful pictures. Let’s give her a big welcome!

Thanks for hosting me on your blog, Katie, and helping me to celebrate the October 11 release of my new fiction picture book for children (4-8), Gilly’s Treasures.

Some writers say they always wanted to be an author, but my journey to Gilly’s Treasures was a little more roundabout. I always loved animals, so after finishing school I went to university and studied to become a zoologist – a scientist who studies animals.

The mornings were cold, but living close to a seal colony for a couple of weeks was a wonderful experience. (There’s a baby seal on the rock behind/between us.)

I was especially drawn to animal behavior, and studied how guide dog trainers assess the temperament of their trainee guide dogs for my Masters thesis. It was a great project, but city-based, so I made a point of helping friends with their projects in the field which got me out into nature from time to time. Among other things, I helped to collect sea cucumbers (which, despite their name, are actually animals!), and sea stars, and observed a population of fur seals on a restricted stretch of shoreline for ten precious days. That last project was especially amazing – and liberating. Can you imagine? Three young women on our own, camping along the coastline next to a colony of hundreds of seals. Our only outside contact was a radio call to the local ranger every afternoon to say we were okay. It was fantastic!

With a baby wombat in my zookeeper days. Wombats are still one of my favorite animals.

Later on, I worked as a zookeeper for ten years. But even then I couldn’t resist doing voluntary research projects in my spare time. One project involved rigging up time-lapse cameras to film the nocturnal behavior of native Australian mammals. I wanted to find out when they were active, what they did, and how they got along with each other in their mixed-species enclosures. Of course, doing the research is only half the job; the other half is sharing the results with others who could benefit from them. So I wrote my results into an article for a zoo journal, and presented them at a conference. This is how my published writing list began.

I view science as having a healthy curiosity about the world and trying to answer some of the questions we have about it. I believe that curiosity is something we should actively encourage in our kids, which is one reason why I love writing for children. It’s my chance to encourage children to be excited by nature, and life in general. Not only is it enriching for the child, but the more that children learn about animals and the environment, the more they will care about conservation.

My daughter (3) has always enjoyed exploring nature, and I’m sure she benefits from it in many ways.

It wasn’t until I became a stay-at-home mom that I focussed on writing for children. Reading picture books every day to my daughter taught me about the kinds of books that were being published, and through which publishers. I was able to use my science training to get a foot in the door with some publishers with work-for-hire, which involved writing non-fiction books about animals and the environment to specific briefs provided by the publisher.

It was a steep learning curve, but doing writing courses (some on-line), joining organizations such as the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI), and finding some trusted critique partners to provide honestfeedback all helped me to improve – and still do! And it turns out that the skills I learnt from working in science – objective observation, critical thinking, research, and concise writing – have all come in handy too.

Some of my non-fiction books about animals.

I am extra excited to welcome Gilly’s Treasures into the world because it is my first fiction picture book that began as my own idea (as opposed to from a publisher’s brief). Here’s the blurb: While out fishing, Gilly the seagull finds a beautiful, shiny treasure. He loves it so much he can’t help searching for more…and more. Will he ever be satisfied with what he has? The story has the feel of a traditional fable, which illustrator Jay Fontano has done a wonderful job balancing with fun, friendly illustrations. I especially love the new character he introduced – an adorable little crab. I am sure children will love spotting him (or her!) on each page.

I hope that readers of Gilly’s Treasures will be inspired to visit the beach for themselves, and maybe find a treasure or two of their own. (I for one can never leave a beachcombing session without a pretty shell or two in my pocket!) And it might even spawn a conversation about what they hold most important in their own lives.

A “family portrait” from one of my beach holidays.

About the Author:

Julie Murphy is a children’s writer of both fiction and non fiction. She trained as a zoologist and zookeeper, and is never far from animals and nature. Her favorite place to be is at the beach. She lives in Melbourne, Australia – a country surrounded by beach – with her husband and daughter.

Julie Murphy’s web site – (not working) www.juliemurphybooks.com

P.S. On a sad note, my website host has gone missing in action. True! I have set up an interim web site, in case anyone is interested. You will find it at http://www.members.optusnet.com.au/~julieamurphy/

Twitter: @juliekidsbooks

Facebook page with book preview: www.facebook.com/GILLYSTREASURES

Gilly’s Treasures is available from many on-line book stores, including Cedar Fort’s sales site, Books & Things (free postage to most states in the US): www.booksandthings.com

Diving Into Research with Anna Staniszewski Author of ONCE UPON A CRUISE

September 28, 2016 / Katie L. Carroll

Prolific author and one of my writing buddies Anna Staniszewski is here today to talk about researching ONCE UPON A CRUISE, the first book in her latest tween series. It’s always fun and informative to have Anna on the blog!

Diving Into Book Research

by Anna Staniszewski

Before I embark on a post about the process of researching my newest tween novel, ONCE UPON A CRUISE, I have a confession to make: I’ve never been a big fan of the research process. For many authors I know, research is one of the most fun parts of the process, but for me, it can be paralyzing.

When I start researching something, I often feel overwhelmed by the amount of information I don’t know, and I start to panic that I’m going to get everything wrong. That’s why, when I can, I write stories that require minimal research (e.g. ones that take place in completely made-up worlds) or ones that require the most enjoyable type of research (e.g. creating the perfect brownie). But when my editor at Scholastic approached me with the idea for a story about a girl who spends her summer working with her mom on a wannabe Disney cruise, I was instantly on board, even though it meant knowing a lot more information about cruise ships than was currently in my brain.

Now, in an ideal world, researching cruise ships would also be the enjoyable kind of research. You just go on a cruise and write it off as a business expense, right? Sadly, not in my case. When I started working on the book, I was hugely pregnant and too bogged down with deadlines to be able to dash out of town. That meant I had to remain firmly on land and explore other research avenues.

First, I started with what I knew. I had been on a couple of cruises in the past, so I wrote down as many details as I could remember about the experience—the seas of sunbathers who were starting to resemble leather suitcases and the extremely enthusiastic people spraying hand disinfectant at every turn. But those details weren’t enough for the book, especially since my character wasn’t a passenger on a cruise—she was an employee. I had to dig deeper.

I set out to read as much as I could on what it’s like to work on a cruise ship, including the crazy hours, the cramped living quarters, and the personal dramas. This gave me a better idea of what my protagonist’s room might look like and what her schedule might be, but I was missing one very important detail. This wasn’t any cruise. It was a knockoff Disney cruise, and Disney cruises are their own special kind of nautical adventure.

With that in mind, I started looking into life on a Disney cruise, which led to watching training videos and even a documentary on how Disney cruise ships are built and operated. Once I had this info, I went about twisting it to make it fit my “knockoff cruise,” which often meant making things goofier and a lot less organized than they would be on a Disney vessel. Thankfully when it came to the fairy tale details of the story, I could use a lot of the info that I’d gathered for my UnFairy Tale series.

Finally, after all of that research and writing and revising, I was pretty happy with the result. But, being the paranoid researcher that I am, I still wasn’t sure the details were right. So I put out a call on social media, asking if anyone happened to have experience working on a cruise ship, and the Internet did not disappoint!

Thanks to the magic of Twitter, I was able to find someone who’d not only worked on a Disney cruise but had actually done the same job as my main character! I couldn’t believe my luck. Not only was this woman willing to answer my questions, but she agreed to read through my manuscript and flag any errors. She pointed out a few small mistakes and had a couple of suggestions that helped make the details more authentic. When she wrote, “I can tell you did your research!” in her comments, I had to admit that I was so relieved. If I’d passed her scrutiny, I was a lot more confident that I’d pass young readers’ as well!

So did my experience with ONCE UPON A CRUISE change my approach to research? Yes and no. I still find the process a bit daunting, but because the amount of research I did for this book was much more in-depth than for my other projects, I now have more confidence in my ability to do even more research for future books. And hey, maybe next time, I’ll even get a tropical vacation out of the deal. 😉

ONCE UPON A CRUISE blurb:

Ainsley never wanted to spend her summer on a fairy tale cruise–especially since, instead of lounging by the pool, she’s running around the ship doing favor after favor for her cruise director mom.

Things aren’t all bad–it’s good to see her mom acting confident again after the divorce, and she’s learning a lot about obscure German fairy tales and how to fold towels into entertaining shapes for little kids (um, yay?). There’s also a guy who’s super cute, even in a dorky dwarf costume–if only Ainsley could get Prince Handsome to stop babbling about himself long enough for her to say more than ‘hi’ to the cute dwarf!

But once the cruise starts, things start to go wrong: the laundry turns pink, the kitchen runs out of food, the guy playing the Pig King is always in Ainsley’s hair, and her mom expects her to be in a hundred places all at once. Is this fairy tale cruise under a wicked curse? Or can Ainsley stand up for herself and make the cruise end happily ever after?

About the Author:

Anna Staniszewski is the author of the My Very UnFairy Tale Life series, the Dirt Diary series, and the Switched at First Kiss series–-all published by Sourcebooks–-as well as the picture book POWER DOWN, LITTLE ROBOT. Her latest tween novel, ONCE UPON A CRUISE, will be released by Scholastic on September 27th. Anna was a Writer-in-Residence at the Boston Public Library and a recipient of the PEN New England Discovery Award, and she currently teach in the MFA Writing for Children Program at Simmons College in Boston. You can find out more about Anna and her books at www.annastan.com.