Impossible - Teaser #2

Since last week's teaser was a little mean, here is something sweeter.

WITH ME is currently in the safe hands of my critique partners, Erica Cope and Michelle Flick, who are both amazing writers. I'm so lucky to know them!

Also, I'd like to add that A Dash of YA officially launches tomorrow. Head on over for launch week for your chance to win some amazing prizes! You won't want to miss it!

Enjoy the teaser!

My breath caught in my throat. A million thoughts were running through my mind, but one thought began to form clearly, wriggling its way to the forefront. “I love you too.” I leaned forward to kiss him, but Luca took a step back.

“What is it, Luca?”

He stared at me like I was a ghost. “I’m trying to make sure this isn’t a figment of my imagination.”

Enjoy your week!

Guest Post: Mia Hayson

Please welcome the awesome, amazing Mia Hayson to my blog!

Mia Hayson is a writer who lives in Scotland. She loves odd socks, graphical things, zombies and horror movies. In her spare time she enjoys collecting boots, and has her very own apocalypse plan.

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When Komal asked me to guest post, not going to lie, I panicked. I mean, I was honoured! Me! I never get asked away from Jam HQ! This is like a mini holiday for me! Woo! I am wearing sunglasses right now. My ensemble is somewhat muted by the PJ bottoms and thick jumper I am sporting, sure, but in my mind I am in shorts and a shirt. Anywhichway, despite this there is a part of me, by no means small, that is a little terrified of guest posting. I never have ideas! Alas! And when I do they are generally a little OUT THERE.

Komal is very forgiving and lovely and amazing, though, so I think this might not be a problem. Also, because I am about 3 years old, I made her give me a prompt. I know; I am a bad person. This is probably the most important thing about me you will learn today. BAD BAD PERSON. I hide it between stapling my hand to things accidentally and collecting boots but it's still THERE.

Anyway, so, thanks to powers above and beyond me this post is about revising. Don't run away yet; the second most important thing you will learn today is WE DO NOT LIKE THE LENGTHY BOGGY PASSIVE EXPLANATIONS HERE so there is no need to worry. No no. Besides which, I totally do not own the monopoly on revising. Normally when I revise I am returning to a manuscript after a PRETTY LONG time apart and I tend to become very liberal with the scissors. Haha.

I think everyone has their own revising style, right? Some people are super fast and know exactly what is what, and others are still finding out. I'm in the latter group; I like to think of us as the explorers. We are still discovering things and it is half awesome half frustrating.  And in the midst of discovering things I can settle and pretend I'm pantsing again. Because, for me, the torture of revision isn't the sheer volume of words that need fixing, or the cutting out scenes that are fabtacular but essentially go nowhere, it's in knowing exactly what is ahead. It's a kind of futility at times, seeing the path before it arrives.

To a certain extent! I know this cannot be avoided. It's your novel, eventually you're going to have to know what happens. But I guess I like to trick myself. I like to find that original excitement and enthusiasm and unleash it upon old words. I love the thrill of a blank page, sometimes when something is totally depressing me I open a new document and pretend I am starting again. I pretend to myself and tell my fingers there is nothing ahead and nothing behind this. I whisper to the keys, swearing that they can do what they like because we are not limited by a set path.

So, in short, I full out lie when I am revising. As we have already established, I am actually kind of a bad person; just nobody has noticed it yet. Mwahahahahaaa.

How do you revise?! Any tips I am totally missing? Are you a one revision or two or many revision kind of person? The best part of revisioning has got to be the snacks, right? I cannot be the only person who uses revisions as an excuse to basically attempt to consume the entire gastronomic universe in one sitting? Never works but I always like to try.

Impossible - Teaser #1

Since 'With Me' is coming out in four short weeks, I thought that every Sunday, I would post a little teaser to get everyone excited for the release!

This is still the first draft, so it will probably be a little different once it's published.

Feel free to share or re-post this, and link it back to my site. :)

So, without further ado, here is the first teaser. Be warned, Ashton is a "little" mean.

My leg “accidentally” gave way, and I cried out as I lost my balance. I reached out to grab onto Kance and flung the contents of the coffee cup right in Elly’s face. The warm liquid hit her chin, neck and the cream silk top that she was wearing.

“No!” she shrieked, trying to wipe the coffee off her shirt. It would do no good. The coffee was already seeping into the delicate fabric, and spreading the more she tried to clean it.

We all burst out laughing, and I made a sad face at her. “Oh, no, I’m so sorry, Belly. Let that be a reminder to you next time you decide to talk to losers like Luca, or try to be on my squad looking like a whale.”

Elly’s bottom lip quivered and she looked like she was on the verge of tears. Honestly, she deserved it, trying to fit in with people she didn’t belong with. We didn’t take well to posers like her. She was way below our standards.

“I-I…but I got into the squad—”

I cut her off. “Honey, no one is going to be able to lift you. You poor thing.”

Come back for another teaser next Sunday! Have a great week, everyone!

An Update on...Everything!

Hi, everyone! *waves excitedly*

This is an update on what's been happening lately and what to expect from me in the coming months. As you can see, the blog's transition into an author blog is almost complete! This is so exciting for me because I've been wanting to do this since last year, but life got in the way.

My debut novel, WITH ME, will be released around the end of October. There will be a cover and a blurb coming very soon, I promise! I'm doing revisions at the moment and, once I'm done, my beautiful, wonderful critique partners will do edits for me.

Let me tell you a bit about how WITH ME came into being. First off, I used to be a huge procrastinator. It took me nine months to write one novel. I could not bring myself to write more than 6000-7000 words in a week, and I always wanted to write so much more. I'd hear about all these authors who'd write a novel in a month, or a week, and I wanted to be like that.

The idea for WITH ME came to me while I was watching that movie 'Drive Me Crazy'. You know the one? It happened to be on TV one night, and it got me thinking. The next day, I dropped everything I was doing and began WITH ME. I had a vague plot and some side characters, but what really stood out to me were the two main characters, Ashton and Luca.

From there, I wrote WITH ME in 4 and a half weeks. I learnt a lot in that short amount of time. I learnt discipline, how to push myself, and how to make time to write every day. Writing that story changed me as a writer. I'm not saying I'm going to churn out another story in a month, but I've picked up some valuable skills in order to be more productive.

Now, the next order of business is going to affect how soon my second book is released. NaNoWriMo. I have never taken part, but this year I'm going to join up. I feel like this is something I can really achieve now, and it would be fabulous to have another finished novel. So, for NaNoWriMo, I will be writing the first draft of FALLING FOR HADIE, which is the second book in the 'With Me' series.

Due to NaNoWriMo, I will have to push back the release date for RUNAWAY MORTAL to the end of January, so I have enough time to edit it properly and get my cover done etc. When I know more, I will let you know.

Finally, here are a few ways to connect with me on social networking sites.

Facebook

Twitter

Goodreads

Leave your Twitter name etc. if you would like me to add/follow you. I love talking to other bloggers and writers!

Have a great weekend, everyone!

P.S. Apologies for the long, rambly post!

Cover Reveal: Opal!!!!

I'm super excited to share this with everyone! Here's something to tide all us Daemon fans over until the next book: the cover of Opal!!

Go on. Take your time to admire it. I know I did.

Holy alien babies everywhere! Isn't HE, I mean, the cover, beautiful????

No one is like Daemon Black.

When he set out to prove his feelings for me, he wasn’t fooling around. Doubting him isn’t something I’ll do again, and now that we’ve made it through the rough patches, well... There’s a lot of spontaneous combustion going on.

But even he can’t protect his family from the danger of trying to free those they love.

After everything, I’m no longer the same Katy. I’m different... And I’m not sure what that will mean in the end. When each step we take in discovering the truth puts us in the path of the secret organization responsible for torturing and testing hybrids, the more I realize there is no end to what I’m capable of. The death of someone close still lingers, help comes from the most unlikely source, and friends will become the deadliest of enemies, but we won’t turn back. Even if the outcome will shatter our worlds forever.

Together we’re stronger... and they know it.

Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Follow this link to an ~~~ EPIC CONTEST ~~~ Announcement. You will want to bookmark this page!

http://jenniferarmentrout.blogspot.com/p/october-1-2012.html

USA TODAY Bestselling author, Jennifer L. Armentrout, lives in Martinsburg, West Virginia. All the rumors you’ve heard about her state aren’t true. When she’s not hard at work writing, she spends her time reading, working out, watching really bad zombie movies, pretending to write, and hanging out with her husband and her Jack Russell, Loki. Her dreams of becoming an author started in algebra class where she spent most of her time writing short stories….which explains her dismal grades in math. Jennifer writes young adult paranormal, science fiction, fantasy, and contemporary romance. She also writes adult romance under the name J. Lynn.

Find Jennifer on: Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads | Website | Blog

With Me Stats

I finished the first draft of WITH ME the other day and it's complete at 63,870 words! I wanted to post my stats for the story, so here they are!

Began Story: August 12, 2012
Finished Story: September 15, 2012

Weekly Word Count

Week 1 - 10,000
Week 2 - 13,000
Week 3 - 13,000
Week 4 - 15,000
Week 5 - 12,870

I was supposed to be taking a break for a couple of days, but instead I jumped right into writing the next book in the series, FALLING FOR HADIE. I wrote 2,000 words for it today! Whoo! I don't think I will work on it again for a while because I want to take a proper day off before my husband goes back to work.

On Tuesday, I begin the first round of revisions for WITH ME. I really want to stay focused and get a lot of work done. Wish me luck!

If anyone has any revision tips, feel free to share them. Have a great week!

Book Recommendations #1

I've read a lot of great books lately and I wanted to share them with you guys. I might make this into a regular post every week, or once a month. Not too sure yet--it depends on how many books I read. Most of these books are Contemporary Romances, and one of my goals for this year was to read more Contemporary since all I read for the last two years was Urban Fantasy/Paranormal. I'm glad I'm doing so well on one of my goals!

(Also, a few of these covers were designed by the awesome Stephanie Mooney who happens to be my cover designer. She's awesome!)

Okay, here are my book recommendations!

TBR List

I hope some of these books have given you an idea of what to read next, or if you have read them then let me know your thoughts.

Happy reading!

Review: Onyx

Onyx - Jennifer Armentrout
Genre - Young Adult Paranormal
Released - August 2012

Being connected to Daemon Black sucks…

Thanks to his alien mojo, Daemon’s determined to prove what he feels for me is more than a product of our bizarro connection. So I’ve sworn him off, even though he’s running more hot than cold these days. But we’ve got bigger problems.

Something worse than the Arum has come to town…

The Department of Defense are here. If they ever find out what Daemon can do and that we're linked, I’m a goner. So is he. And there's this new boy in school who’s got a secret of his own. He knows what’s happened to me and he can help, but to do so, I have to lie to Daemon and stay away from him. Like that's possible. Against all common sense, I'm falling for Daemon. Hard.

But then everything changes…

I’ve seen someone who shouldn’t be alive. And I have to tell Daemon, even though I know he’s never going to stop searching until he gets the truth. What happened to his brother? Who betrayed him? And what does the DOD want from them—from me?

No one is who they seem. And not everyone will survive the lies…

Onyx is the sequel to Jennifer's bestselling novel, Obsidian, and I absolutely loved it! Jennifer has this way of making you really root for her characters and become invested in what's happening to them. Also, there is this amazing character in the book called Daemon Black--sexy, arrogant, brooding and sexy--who you need to acquaint yourself with immediately. Jennifer has this way of writing swoon-worthy male characters that stay with you and Daemon is definitely is someone you don't forget.

Moving on, we see Katy really evolve in this book. Sure, she has her moments where she makes stupid decisions, but she really does stand up for herself and doesn't let anyone boss her around. The secondary characters really took a backseat to the Katy and Daemon romance. I really wanted to see more of Dee. Katy spent the majority of the book avoiding her which was the reason Dee was barely in it. Still, I would've loved to see more of her!

The plot was fast-paced, full of action and had an amazing cliffhanger. I was so hurt/upset/shocked by the end of it and that cliffhanger just killed me. I really, really want to know what happens next. I cannot wait for the next book in this amazing series! Be sure to pick this one up!