Giveaway Winners!

Winners for the May Giveaways, chosen by Rafflecopter:

Personal Demons

Lisa Desrochers

Jessica W.

Sanctum

Sarah Fine

Katie O.

Nobody But Us

By Kristin Halbrook

Liza R.

Valkyrie Rising

Ingrid Paulson

Tanya S.

A Midsummer's Nightmare

Kody Keplinger

MarcyKate C.

Shadow and Bone

Leigh Bardugo

Gwendolyn M.

The Nightmare Affair

Mindee Arnett

Gwendolyn M. (2 Books! Lucky girl!)

All the winners have been emailed. 

The Survey Results:

Which movie are you most excited about: Iron Man III or The Great Gatsby

Iron Man III (By 1 vote)

Favorite Jane Austen Novel:

Pride and Prejudice (Landslide)

Preference in Herondale (asked twice accidentally!):

Jace (By 1 vote)

Dessert: Chocolate vs. Vanilla

Chocolate

Blogging Preference: (Blogger, Tumblr, Other)

Blogger (Other came in second place)

Social Media Preference:

Twitter

Thank you to everyone for entering! This was my first giveaway and hopefully it will not be my last. :) And another huge thank you to those of you who tweeted and blogged about it to help spread the word! xo

May Giveaways!

So a few weeks ago I went to the New Leaf Author Event, Fall in Love with Teen Fiction, at Powell's in Oregon. 

WELL, I brought back signed books to giveaway. YAY! 

Enter to win by filling out the forms below (and answering the silly questions). You can sign up to win one, or two, or ALL. Several of the books also come with extras like bookmarks, tattoos, and bracelets. :) :) 

This giveaway is open to U.S. only (unfortunately!). 

Spppprrrreeeaaad the word! 

Last day to enter is Sunday! Winners will be announced Tuesday, May 14th. 

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Stealing music from writers

I used to be really into music. In high School and college my friends and I would go to shows and research new bands online, and we always had that music that made people go, wait who was that, play that again. 

It's all different now. I blame time. I no longer have an entire afternoon free to chat with that guy two dorms away who plays the guitar and wants to sound like that band he heard in LA that one time, and I no longer have the time to stay up until 4 am passing around iPods with that one band who just got back from Europe and heard that Swedish band that would blow everyone away. 

I find 50% of music via Shazam -- basically being somewhere random where something good is playing and using the app to find out what it is. Lazy, but efficient.  

The other 50% I steal from writers who so generously post their playlists online. Writer's have very good taste from what I've experiences so far. Especially when it comes to music to listen to while writing.  

via Courtney Summers: 

via Maggie Stiefvater's blog - okay, the link goes to a 2011 playlist, but really the best music stealing from Maggie comes from her daily posts where at the bottom she lists what she was listening to that day. 

via Veronica Roth's Tumblr (two links have been included here, to two of my faves)

via Mindee Arnett

via Lauren Oliver

via Alex Bracken

via Nova Ren Suma

via Dan Krokos (via NovelSounds, which is also a good place to find music, as all their reviews include songs) 

via Gayle Forman

via Chelsea Fine

2nd Annual My So-Called Teenage Life Blog Hop

So the last time I did this I let everyone see my obsession with Dickie Greenleaf. 

Healthy, right? 

But come on, this is what I was working with in high school: 

Dated: January 9, 2000 (I was fifteen)

Things are really different between us. We don't really talk anymore. It's almost like we were never close. It's weird. It's really confusing. A few weeks ago he came to my locker really upset, and told me, "I got my license suspended until I'm 21," but he never explained and left before I could ask. He looked like he was going to cry. The thing is, he still drives. Every day. So I don't know if he lied or if he actually thought they were going to suspend his license, or what. I don't know what to say to him. He acts like he has nothing to say to me, but I know he does. Yesterday I commented on his winter hands and he started to peel a piece of skin off them. I hit him lightly and said "Don't" and he looked at me for a really long time and then he said "Don't tell me what to do," and walked away. I don't know what to say to him anymore. 

Oh, the angst. Foreshadowing the following diary entry:

Dated: January 25, 2000
Dickie Greenleaf is really the kind of guy I want for myself when I'm 25. He's perfect. And I want to live in Italy but only if he's there and has a house. 

Totally healthy.  :)

Go here for for links to the rest of the blog hoppers. 

This is what it's like.

There's that question  writers seem to get, constantly. 

Why do you write?  

And usually the answer is extremely simple: because we have to. 
(sidebar: my agent is so wise & she gets it--see tweet above.)

 "I write in my head pretty much everywhere I go: in the car, in the shower, pushing my grocery cart down the aisles. Sometimes I’m fixing the plot and sometimes my characters are dialoguing with each other. I get my best epiphanies while I’m zoning out on a long stretch of highway. Hell, I wrote half this blog post in the shower."- Kimberly Derting 

"...after that week in the desert with the friend from college driven mad by her life and the endless rewrites of a science fiction pilot that was never going to happen, something in me finally cracked. I began making notes for a new novel in the last week of January." - Bret Easton Ellis 

"Which made me realize that there just isn't a time in my life that I don't want to be doing this. There is no vacation, there is a series of destinations that make me want to write more." - Christa Desir

Friday Five: You should be reading these, no?

Trailers and excerpts that if you haven't seen already, well, HERE: 

1. Requiem  By Lauren Oliver - excerpt: first few chapters. Probably don't read if you haven't read the first two because SPOILERS, but if you haven't started reading this series now is the time. 

2.  Unravel Me By Tahereh Mafi - excerpt: first few chapters (thanks again, HarperTeen. You are clearly my favorite.)  Again, this is book two, so spoilers abound. But really, get with it and read Shatter Me.  I read on Twitter that the original title for that was TOUCH ME, so there's that. 

3.  Just One Year By Gayle Forman. Another spoiler - sort of - but I'd say you're safe to read this because you'll still need to read the first book, Just One Day, to get the the whole story. These come out the same year, which is so so nice. Less torturous this way. I love it.

4.  Clockwork Princess By Cassandra Clare. Everyone should watch this Trailer. If you haven't read the first two you won't really know what's being spoiled. And this trailer will make you wish you'd read them. Do it now. 

5.  The Nightmare Affair By Mindee Arnett. First chapter excerpt AND trailer. I'm hooked, hooked, hooked. Seriously, look.  This is going to be great. 

Accumulated: The Next Big Thing Posts

So you've probably noticed the lovely blog hop that's been going round and round. Below are some of my favorite The Next Big Thing posts, including the posts from the lovely writers I tagged when it was my turn. Enjoy! 

Mindee Arnett (The Nightmare Affair) 

Nova Ren Suma (Imaginary Girls, Seventeen & Gone)

Heather Marie 

Rachel Searles (The Lost Planet) 

Christ Desir (Fault Line, Bleed Like Me)

Sarah McCarry (All Our Pretty Songs)

Rachel

Kate Hart

Sarah Enni 

Stephanie Kuehn (Charm & Strange)

Sonia Gensler (The Revenant, The Dark Between) 

Amy Spalding (The Reece Malcom List, Ink Is Thicker Than Water)

Lillian Rivera 

Kara Taylor (Prep School Confidential) 

Tanya Spencer

Sarah Wylie (All These Lives, Something Beginning with You)

Feel free to add more links in the comments :)