Summer Ketchup

Although I do like ketchup, this post is more about the action of catching-up then dipping chips in a condiment. (Yup, I dip my plain chips in ketchup. Don't knock it 'til you try it!)
I'm taking a blogging break until the end of August, but I won't be totally gone. I'll be posting a few times with relative posts for fellow pub pals' new releases as well as my own. I have so much news I've yet to share with you, but because of my health issues and caring for my mom this past winter I'm disgustingly behind on everything from writing to laundry. I haven't even sent out a newsletter yet and I announced signups back in February! I mean now, really. 
To keep this post short, I'll finish up bullet-style: 

• Upcoming Newzzz - I have a HUGE fall season coming up with the release of my debut middle grade novel! If you are willing to help me out in any way - cover reveal, blog tour, giveaway, release blitz, FB party read/review an ARC - please let me know it the comments or email me. There will be lollypops and gummies involved. #Nom-Nom

• ***Speaking of which, I saw my cover the other day!!! Holy Batman, dude! It's brimming with a bit of creepy and mythology and OMgosh! Can't wait to share it with you.

• Newsletter - If you haven't signed up I'd be forever grateful if you did. Plus, you'll receive my writing aid: Character & Setting FREE! I'm only planning three newsletters a year, unless there's some pressing news to share. Sign up in my right sidebar or right HERE.

• New Story - I completely forgot I have a story coming out this summer in a YA anthology! UNDER A BRASS MOON is releasing on July 28th with my story ETHEREAL COIL - a new sin eater refuses to do her job, but discovers she might not have a choice with Wrath - one of the Seven Deadly Sins - on her trail. Here's a peek at the cover, which I forgot to share with you last week. EEK! (How good am I doing?)

A moon of gears and wires shines down upon a world of clockwork creations and humming airships. What adventures await the heroes in top hats and heroines in corsets? 

Nineteen authors wait at the kingdom's entrance. They smile and beckon you inside their stories.  

Do you accept the offered lantern and follow? If you do, then open to the front page and begin...

 

• ADD My Middle Grade - Lastly, even if you don't normally read middle grade I'd be so incredibly grateful if you'd add MOTLEY EDUCATION to your to-be-read list. Even share that you've added it. 

Add MOTLEY EDUCATION

So...do you have any exciting plans for this summer? Please share!  Let me live vicariously through you.

YA in the Alleyway~HAIR IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES by Andrew Buckley

Here's this week's YA in the Alleyway spotlight - Meet Author Andrew Buckley and his new release about a boy who finds himself in a real hairy situation. And there's a giveaway! But first the book because I'm all fangirl over it.

Google Play | BAM | Chapters | Indies | Amazon | B&N | Kobo 

TBD | iBooks | Goodreads

HAIR IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES by Andrew Buckley

Release Date: June 7, 2016 Pages: 231 Editions: Paperback, ebook  Publisher: Month9Books, LLC
Description: What has he done? 
What's happening to him? 
And what on Earth is that smell? 
For Colin Strauss, puberty stinks. Blackouts, hallucinations, and lapses in memory are the perils of growing up werewolf. 
Worse than that, Colin worries he might have had something to do with the recent attacks on the townspeople. He may have eaten a person. It doesn’t matter that it’s someone he doesn’t particularly like. What kind of boy goes around eating people? 
Foolishly, all Colin can think about is how Becca Emerson finally kissed him for the first time. Yep, hormones are afoot. Yikes! 
But girls will have to wait. Collin better get himself under control before someone else ends up hurt or worse . . . dead.   Now, let's meet the mastermind behind this story, *waves author over* 
Hi Andrew! It's great to have you here. Tell the readers something about Andrew as a young boy and how he became intrigued with storytelling.  Funnily enough my love of stories came from having a very weak left eye. I was maybe 6 when I had to wear a patch over my right eye most evenings in order to strengthen my other eye. During this time I couldn’t really do anything (lack of depth perception meant I’d just walk into walls a lot) so my parents read with me. I grew to love stories and storytelling and always found creative writing to be my favourite subject throughout school. The rest is history . . . or future history . . . or whatever.
What a wonderful way to help a young kid deal with a physical issue. Kudos to Mom and Dad! Colin definitely has the whole puberty thing rough. How were you able to use that staple of teen-dom to fuel this premise? Puberty is rough! It’s terrible! We all remember it. It’s such a transformation process for tweens/teens on a physical, emotional, and mental level that running it alongside the transformation into a werewolf isn’t exactly a vast stretch of the imagination. However, Colin’s awkwardness with the girls, his lack of athleticism, and his general smart-ass-ness is something I did pull directly from my own teen-dom experiences.

The story sounds like it's overflowing in humor, but also mystery. As a writer, how did you sprinkle those elements to keep the story forging ahead?

When I originally sat down and put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard rather, I was writing a horror novel. But it became quickly apparent that I’m unable to write anything without including humour so it transformed (tee-hee) into a teen-coming-of-age-supernatural-murder-mystery. The Town of Elkwood has a lot more going on than what people see on the surface, and when a rogue werewolf shows up in town at the same time a local student gets eaten, there’s a lot of mystery to be solved. 

Using two other book or movie titles, describe your book for readers? Feel free to explain your choices.

I was quite influenced by the 1987 movie The Monster Squad and also by The Goonies. Both those movies deal with the age group of the main characters so very well and, Monster Squad in particular, put a great spin on the classic Universal monsters. Other movies I could factor in would be The Lost Boys, Abbott and Costello Meet the Wolfman, and Teen Wolf (the Michael J Fox one).

TOUR SCHEDULE

The Goonies!! One of my absolute favs as a kid. And The Lost Boys??? Very, very cool. What's up next for you?

I have a number of books in the works including sequels to my first two novels, a sequel to HAVELOCK (writing as Jane D Everly), and of course a sequel to HAIR IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES. I also have a new book series I’m developing based around a comedic re-telling of the true story behind Jack the Ripper (you can find the prologue chapter in an anthology called CHRONOLOGY under the guise of a short story called ‘Whitechapel’.) Plus I have a secret project on the go and a TV Development Concept . . . but alas, I’ve said too much!

Ooh...secret projects are always the best. Thank you so much for sharing yourself and your work with the Alleyway. Best of luck to you! 

Andrew Buckley attended the Vancouver Film School’s Writing for Film and Television program. After pitching and developing several screenplay projects for film and television, he worked in marketing and public relations, before becoming a professional copy and content writer. During this time Andrew began writing his first adult novel, DEATH, THE DEVIL AND THE GOLDFISH, followed closely by his second novel, STILTSKIN. He works as an editor for Curiosity Quills Press.

Andrew also co-hosts a geek movie podcast, is working on his next novel, and has a stunning amount of other ideas. He now lives happily in the Okanagan Valley, BC with three kids, one cat, one needy dog, one beautiful wife, and a multitude of characters that live comfortably inside of his mind.


Andrew is represented by Mark Gottlieb at the Trident Media Group.

Website | Twitter | Facebook |Goodreads

Do you remember the awkwardness of the younger years and your high school days? Care to share?

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YA in the Alleyway! ALMOST THERE by Laurel Garver

YA in the Alleyway is my revised meme to give young adult literature the spotlight it deserves. It also gives YA authors the opportunity to share their signature with the world!  Feel free to join me any Wednesday. 
This week's featured author and book:

AMAZON |  B&N | SMASHWORDS
iTUNES |  CREATESPACE

ALMOST THERE by Laurel Garver
Genre: YA inspirational Release date: May 26, 2016 Pages: 309
Fave passage: In Paris, art seeps into your feet and drips from your fingertips. Dark-eyed buskers in berets squeeze out sweet accordion songs, and the birds trill along. The air tastes like crème brûlée; the light is melted butter. Or so I’ve heard. In two weeks, I’ll find out for myself. I can see it all now: In the golden mornings, Mum and I will set up matching easels on the banks of the Seine and paint side-by-side. She’ll be too excited to sleep till noon, too inspired to stare blankly at the wall. Her sadness will fall away like a too-heavy coat, and she’ll once again fill canvas after canvas with works of aching beauty. 
Description: Paris, the City of Lights. To seventeen-year-old Dani Deane, it’s the Promised Land. There, her widowed mother’s depression will vanish and she will no longer fear losing her only parent, her arty New York life, or her devoted boyfriend.
But shortly before their Paris getaway, Dani’s tyrannical grandfather falls ill, pulling them to rural Pennsylvania to deal with his hoarder horror of a house. Among the piles, Dani finds disturbing truths that could make Mum completely unravel. Desperate to protect her from pain and escape to Paris, Dani hatches a plan with the flirtatious neighbor boy that only threatens the relationships she most wants to save. 
Why would God block all paths to Paris? Could real hope for healing be as close as a box tucked in the rafters?
Hi Laurel! It's great to have you visit the Alleyway. Gosh, this story sounds fantastic. What inspired you to write it? My story ideas come from curiosity ("what if?" questions) followed by research (discovering numerous solid answers to those "what if?" questions), which are then sifted and stitched together. Research is truly the most central part of my process, helping me not only discover essential details, but also plot ideas and thematic threads. 
Give us a peek inside the world you created. Much of the story takes place in rural north central Pennsylvania, where I grew up. It's mountainous, with old deciduous forests and some truly magical state parks with waterfall-dotted hiking trails. My city-girl protagonist Dani finds nature both intriguing and a bit scary. For example, she describes summer night sounds as "a billion crickets chirp a threatening cacophony."  
Dani's grandparents' home is something of a character in itself. Her widower grandfather has filled the house with collections to make living alone bearable. There's a mysterious outbuilding on his property that Dani will discover holds key pieces of her family's deepest secrets.  
What about your main characters? How do they fit (or not) into this world? Dani is an arty, imaginative high school junior with a strong sarcastic streak. Despite being deeply rooted in her faith, she has a tendency to worry and catastrophize. Since losing her dad when she was 15, she has become fiercely protective of her mother, worried she'll end up an orphan. Dani's boyfriend Theo is a sweet, funny guy who rows crew and hopes to one day become a psychiatrist. Weathering his parents' messy divorce has made him empathetic and insightful on the one hand, and a bit self-protective on the other. 
In the course of the story, Dani meets a new guy, Laughlin O'Donnell, her grandfather's neighbor. He's a gruff, rifle-toting, chain-smoking country boy who helps support his single mom doing landscaping, odd jobs, and working as a groom at a horse farm. He's the least likely person a girl like Dani would ever befriend, let alone seek for help. But he needs her help as much as she needs his. 
Playlist or favorite songs of inspiration? Mad World (Tears for Fears / Gary Jules)  Pompeii (Bastille) Atlas (Coldplay) Fix You (Coldplay) Kingdom Come (Civil Wars) Home (Phillip Phillips) Burn (Ellie Goulding) Ho Hey (Lumineers) A few common themes here--broken relationships, a sense of displacement, and ultimately reconciliation and finding a sense of belonging
Yes, I can see that. But you've chosen some great gut-wrenching tunes! What can your fans expect from you next? I'm currently working on a Christmas novella that fits between Never Gone and Almost There, told in alternating points of view from both Dani's and Theo's perpsectives. It's their first Christmas as a couple--and the first anniversary of Dani's father's death--so the pressure is on for Theo to find the perfect gift. 
YAY! More Dani & Theo and in alternating POVs. Nice! We'll all be on the lookout for its release. Thank you for sharing yourself and your work with us.

Laurel Garver is an editor, professor’s wife, and mom to an arty teenager. An indie film enthusiast and incurable Anglophile, she enjoys geeking out about Harry Potter and Dr. Who, playing word games, singing in church choir, and taking long walks in Philly's Fairmount Park.  Find her: Facebook | Twitter | Blog | Goodreads | 
Laurel has been generous enough to offer up a paperback copy of the prequel, Never Gone to one lucky visitor. So leave your thoughts below. (If your email is not attached to your blogger profile please leave it in your comment.) 
GOOD LUCK! What's the last contemporary book you read? 

IWSG~Snail Writing

Everything about my next words is personal. I guess that's what this monthly posting thing is all about anyway, right? So to say I'm a little nervous is an understatement. via GIPHY
It's not really anything dramatic, but I'm not in the habit of ripping the seam of my heart open and exposing it to the oxygen of others' eyes. Despite the initial burn, here goes:  I've been sick. I might have mentioned it in a brief, passing sentence here before, but never really explained. AND, as you might expect from me, I won't go into details now, either. I will say that the few ailments I've been diagnosed with cause extreme fatigue, joint swelling, and pain. To be honest, I can deal with the swelling and pain. But when I can't keep my eyes open to drive a car let alone stare at my computer screen to write because of the fatigue I want to scream. But I'm too tired to do that. Go figure. 
Yes, I'm sure some of you are thinking this is an understandable excuse for not being able to write or get my next draft finished. From a moral and compassionate standpoint, you're correct. Absolutely. But the publishing world isn't always moral and we all know that compassion isn't its strongest characteristic. I'm terrified that if I don't get book II of this series written, edited, perfected, and submitted by summer's end that I'll be left out in the cold. I know my publisher can only accept so many books a year. 
Somehow I must rise above this and write this book. Plus, my YA publisher should be knocking on my email soon to start work on that manuscript. I honestly don't know how I'm going to do this. I feel like I've lost connection with some of  my closest cyber peeps. That's logical with me going through edits for my debut MG novel. Normally, I could jump right back into cyberspace and reconnect. But with this health thing reconnecting has been hard. I guess I'm asking 'Are you still there? Will my CPs and betas forgive such egregious distance?  
The purpose of the IWSG is to share and encourage, posting on the first Wednesday of each month. You'll find writer doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Support and a common understanding spread throughout the group as many fellow writers can relate. Feel free to JOIN in anytime.