Twisted Classics

There is nothing more rewarding for a written classic then when one brave author’s steps up and tells the tale over again - this time with some new added flare.

I know there are some (like me) who love to devour the new twist on an old tale, but there are others who think that classics should remain just that, classic.

I’m reading Jackson Pearce’s take on Hansel and Gretel. One that I’m not sure many have tried to rewrite. She’s done beautifully and I find myself captivated and giggling every time she’s intertwined the old story and added her new fresh twist.

“Candy. On the ground, yellow candies. Ansel was following them, slicing around trees while the twins followed along desperately, eyes focused on finding the next piece, the trail back to the part of the forest they knew.”

This tells you she decided simple bread crumbs wasn’t enough, Ansel is a new take on Hansel, and why is he with twins?

I wish I had a want or need to write a fairytale but instead I’ll leave it the others who imagination runs wild with ideas of fresh new ideas for those wonderful tales we grew up with.

What’s your favorite retelling? Have you read Sweetly? You should!

Going Bald...

So you know how last week I did this ‘Ode to the blogging world’ thing? I said stuff, like, I was looking forward to commenting more, life was sucking me in but I was spitting it back out, blah, blah, blah?

Well that was before I realized life doesn’t exactly throw you back out until it’s finished with you.

This week’s truths only pertain to my skills at house buying (which resulted in lack of blogging… AGAIN).

Apparently on the radio someone read my CRAZED mind and heard I was buying a house so they offered up friendly advice.

You start to hate people. FACT – one day this week I may or may not have wanted to punch everyone I met in the face. I SAID MAY OR MAY NOT HAVE.

Your sex drive goes missing. This one – for the sake of small humans reading this blog – will remain for your minds to wonder.

You forget things. As opposed to normal?

You go bald. <-- THIS ONE I WILL NOT ALLOW. Now I know I have the blonde Victoria Beckham look but I am not about to let that go just because I’d like a house. NO WAY. I will not lose my hair. I must take affirmative action. I know the box only says ROGAINE FOR MEN, but hey, a girl has to have options. Hell no, I am not about to purchase Jessica Simpsons hair extension line… I’d rather borrow Shawnquandra’s weave from the corner store.

Care to share any of your many random thoughts today?

Five Stages of Rejection

Stages of Rejection

Denial
OMIGOSH first one! Makes me feel like a real author!

Anger
Does no one have vision? I nailed this piece and yet they feel it isn't their cup of tea? It's for everyone, universal. Heck, even babies would love it.

Realization
Maybe I should rework my query. The book itself isn't where I suck. Who can tell a story in 250 words or less? It's impossible. Why would they make us do something like this... you can't even get the story across!

Hopeless
Damn! They asked for a full only to crush my heart after all the waiting. I suck as a writer... This is stupid. JK Rowling didn't have to go through this. Why do I?

Moving on
Thank God for new ideas. Now the waiting doesn't seem as hard.

--

Rejection is never easy. What stage are you in?

You are what you read.

No, this doesn't mean you're turning into a vampire and are in search of your true love. Or your about to enter into another annual Hunger Games.

However it does mean you recognize how deliciously captivating the author made their piece.

My favorite novels are those you can't put down. They grab you from the beginning and you didn't let go of the bound pages until the end arrived, and even then the book was hard to close.

Girl, Stolen. This is a story that is still hard to let go. A blind teenager is in the backseat of a car that gets stolen. She must save herself when she becomes noticed. LOVED doesn't even begin to describe what I felt about this novel.

Shatter Me. A single touch and this female destroys lives. The way the words are written, scratched out, and rewritten is a beautiful way to show just how damaged she is. The authors writing power is so intricate I find myself reading the pages over and over just to revel in the creative genius.

Wither. A life where everything can be fancy should you be chosen into a wealthy family. This breaks molds. The author chose to be different and open up the world of polygamy in a dystopian society and it paid off. Beautifully written I felt each females emotions. The will to please or the will to free themselves, Lauren DeStefano, made reading worthwhile.

I've read these months ago but they still sit with me. What are yours? Give a description as I'm sure I'll add it to my TBR list!

Grabbing blogging by the...

I'm not Candyland so to mention balls would just be in poor taste.

This last weekend I went back to my fun loving self. There was a chili cook-off for the upcoming roller derby season and that screams FUN so the hubs and I attended.

It reminded me of all the fun I was missing. I knew I needed to alter my activities but lately even organizing in order of importance was a feet.

You see I used to have all the time in the world to blog. Now it seems my blog tank has run empty. I blog three times a week and yet I feel so unconnected from this amazing community.

Well, this past weekend had me writing down what I couldn't live without. Asking myself what I enjoyed, and making a wall mural (we move in a month, I figured it was okay) telling me what to X out and what to put first.

Guess what, blogging is a love of mine, as is writing.

So I've decided to make sure I have time to do both. Hello, coffee shop, you're my new friend.

I've taken myself out of my old routine and into a new one. Inside the house I felt like it held me back... Sometimes a change in scenery is all it takes.

Feeling stressed? Ironing out what's most important to you? How to juggle all you want to accomplish?

What genre do you dip in?

Last week on twitter I announced the fact I was playing in the genre pool. Still not wanting to decide what genre to write in I wanted to get others opinions. Was I the only one genre hopping? Were there closet hoppers? Who would stand with me and share their honesty.

Turns out, lots of people genre hop.

I adore writing chick lit, thrillers, and dystopian YA. Which one do I like more? The one I’m writing at that moment. They’re all my favorites, that’s what makes it so hard to choose.

When the rain hits my mind shy’s away from the romance and a killer character comes rushing out, after all, he does his best work in the rain.

When my life feels like it’s falling apart, the young sixteen year old pops up and decides she wants to take charge of her life and we try and tackle real life AND her life.

When spring hits and my hearts all a flutter, the characters who want to find love embrace me.

However, if you’re a genre hopper you want to make sure you’re still doing the proper research. Reading is a writer’s best tool. It’s the one thing (next to trash television) that we can tell our significant others is actual research BUT also something we LOVE to do. You must read the genre you’re trying to write. After all, if you’re trying to write the next Stephen King novel and the closest thing you’ve read is Sophie Kinsella’s books, your book would be about a shoe murder. Not interesting and not relevant to thriller readers.
Do you genre hop? How do you juggle them?

Single in the City

So it’s customary for Unedited to always have a few fabulous people on the blog throughout the year. I’d hate to short you right off the bat so I’ve scheduled someone fabulous for today!

Michele Gorman. For all you young adult lovers out there I’m afraid this one will have to have you step out of your YA shoes and step foot into your Adult ones. To make things a little more fun I’ll be GIVING AWAY a copy of this fabulous tale!!! Make sure to comment below for your chance at this little gem!

Single in the City is a Contemporary Fiction novel that will sweep you off your feet! Here’s a little blurb to get you excited…

Recipe for changing your life: Take one twenty six year old American, add to one two thousand year old city, add a big dose of culture clash and stir.

To think Hannah ever believed that Americans differed from Brits mainly in pronunciation, sophistication and dentistry. That’s been the understatement of a lifetime.

She lands upon England’s gentle shores with no job, no friends and no idea how she’s supposed to build the new life she’s dreaming of.

How is supposed to make new friends when she has no idea about the rules of engagement?

How can she win over her poisonous boss when she’s not even trusted to arrange the paperclips?

And could her nationality give her an exotic edge in the dating game over Britain’s home-grown lovelies?

Armed with little more than her enthusiasm, she charges headlong into London, baffling the locals in her pursuit of a new life, new love and sense of herself.

Of course I’m not going to leave you without some of the famous Unedited question and answers! So without further ado, I give you Michele!
We want details!

What was the first thing you learned when you moved to the UK?

I learned that I didn’t, in fact, speak English. From simple directions to different meanings for common words, this realization struck me at every turn… literally, sometimes! For instance, being raised in the US, I was used to directions that went something like “To get from A to B, you go straight/left/right for a certain number of blocks”. English directions are very descriptive, without ever giving me the information I need: “Come out of the Tube station and you’ll see a Waitrose, go past that until you come to the off-license, go along a bit more until you get to a set of lights, then go over the road.” I haven’t successfully followed directions here since 1998.

Most people know about some of the American/English word differences, but a few are big, Big mistakes, as I found out when I announced to my office that I need a good fanny pack. What is a polite way to refer to one’s backside to Americans is the c-word to Brits.

What dream did you follow that led you to London?

It’s the age-old story … I followed my heart. I’d met a sweet, fun man who lived 5 time zones away, and having to book a flight to kiss gets old after awhile. So I took the plunge after I finished graduate school and moved to London where he was working. The man is long gone but I fell in love with London instantly, and very quickly felt like it was home. In 2006 I became a UK citizen so now I have two passports.

Worst job you ever had? What made you stay as long as you did?

Well, I hold the record in my family for being fired the most times, so I didn’t really stay very long at any of them! To give you a flavour (though I wasn’t fired from all of these): I once worked at a paper factory, counting sheets of paper. Pallets would be fork-lifted in, I’d count 15 sheets at a time and put them in a box. Repeat. I worked in a sandwich-making factory. If you ever wondered where those sandwiches that come out of machines are born, I can tell you all about it. I worked as an office clerk for an insane plumber who constantly accused me of ‘ruining his filing system’. The filing system consisted of piles of paper on the floor. I worked in two restaurants as a very bad waitress. I was also a very bad auditor and a very bad secretary… Is it any wonder I’m a writer?

What’s the hardest thing about moving out of the country? Making new friends? Learning a new language?

I think the hardest thing for me was remembering that I’m in another culture and things are going to be different. It was very tempting when I first moved to London to compare the way things are done here with the way they are done in the US. And yet the whole point of living in a new country is that it is new. Getting out of that mindset takes awhile and until you do, it’s hard to appreciate where you’re living for its own sake.

And of course, as I’ve mentioned, learning a new language hasn’t been a piece of cake either!

If given a choice, who would you like your work to be compared to? What author?

I’d love to have my chick lit compared to Sophie Kinsella because she makes writing seem effortless. Her main character Becky in the Shopaholic series was winsomely ditzy, unerringly funny and the story galloped along, making me want to read it from cover to cover in a single sitting. She knew that women like to read happy, very funny women’s fiction, without the need for “issues” to be addressed. It would be a big compliment for me to hear that I’ve made women guffaw unattractively in public places.

One word answer, cupcake!
Heels or flats – heels
Cupcakes or cookie – cupcakes
Educational show or Trash TV – educational show
Kitty or Puppy – Technically my one word answer would be ‘both’, but in the spirit of the question: puppy
Polka-dots or Stripes – stripes

Thank you so much for stopping in! Isn’t Michele fabulous?

Be sure to stop by her website, twitter, and facebook and introduce yourself! To buy a copy of her novel visit here (Amazon) or here (Barnes & Noble)! She’s a doll! Don’t forget to leave your thoughts and email for an entry into the giveaway!

Monday Musings

Here is yet another installment of Monday Musings, where I share just about anything that comes to mind... whether you're prepared for the facts or not.

This edition is the Come on, tell me I'm not the only one. And I really hope I'm not alone on any of these. That would just be tragic.

1. I've been WAITING for them to release Twilight Breaking Dawn Part 1. In preparation for this addiction I have watched all the previously released movies last week. Come on, tell me I'm not the only one.

2. I have a contract for my first home and it's AWESOME. I may or may not visit the house nightly just to see it's beautiful front entrance. The neighbors might start to wonder. Come on, tell me I'm not the only one.

3. Valentine's Day is celebrated inside our house, without flowers or chocolate. I prefer to avoid the masses who insist on going out the evening of. Bring me home a heart shaped pizza and mini champagne, love, and everything will be alright. Come on, tell me I'm not the only one.

4. I go to the bookstore just to read the acknowledgements. You never know what awesome agent you might have missed OR the awesome novel that catches your eye. Come on, tell me I'm not the only one.

5. My ability to clean has gotten, well, lazy. If less than a month left in the apartment making myself clean the place just seems hopeless. I might actually have to call someone to pick up after my lazy ass. We haven't resorted to that. I figured I should probably attempt to pack and see where I end up. Come on, tell me I'm not the only one.

Well, now it's your turn. Share something about yourself...or just agree with me on some of these. This is a day where we all come together and you tell me how awesome I am. Yup, that's how I'd like things.

Welcome to La La Land

Hello, Jen’s followers. How are you? Nice to meet you and you and you too. I am L.A. DeVaul, author of Roxanne in La La Land and co-founder of CeleryTree.com.

Jen invited me here today to introduce you to the new website: CeleryTree.com.

Let’s face it, we writers are all over the internet: blogging, tweeting, FaceBooking, starting websites, tearing down old websites, basically doing everything we can to get people’s attention so we can sell one more copy of our books. I can’t tell you how many times I have felt an author’s pain when they say: “Marketing takes so much time, I feel like I don’t have time to write anymore.” Can I get an amen?

Besides marketing gobbling into our writing time, how effective is it for these marketing efforts to be scattered all over the internet? Sure you may have 153 blog followers, and 207 FaceBook friends, and that is just all kinds of wonderful, but wouldn’t it be simpler and less time consuming for readers and writers alike, if those marketing efforts were compiled onto one website? Writers need a central location where readers automatically go to discover new books, instead of accidentally stumbling across a writer’s blog, website, or FaceBook page.

CeleryTree.com is that website. And not only is it a central, ad-free, location for writers to market and discover new books, it is an online bookstore so readers can directly buy that book they are so excited to read.

The cost of membership? $35 a year and purchasing 6 books in a twelve month period. And get this: authors get to keep 90% of every sale. That is better than I could do selling directly from my personal website.

My advice? Leave the jungle and join Celery Tree.
 
Wanna know something even better? Today one commenter will walk away with a FREE SIGNED copy of Roxanne in La La Land purchased from Celery Tree! She walks away with 90% of the sale! See? We're already supporting authors! It's that easy!

Wednesday WiP

Wednesday! Half way through the work week (at least for me). I figured today I'd do a fun book post. I used to do Tuesday Twists and since those disappeared the moment I stopped posting on Tuesday's I thought bringing it back with a new twist would be fun!

For newbies... WELCOME... for oldies... WELCOME (you know the drill). I'll share the first sentence of three novels. You tell me what you'd read based on those sentences. What's the twist? I'm providing cover art at the bottom. Not in order, mind you. After all, this is to see what your eyes tell you. What draws you in the most? Do any look more intriguing with cover art? DISH!

For me personally, I've chosen books that I've either enjoyed or I'm looking forward to devouring! So, here we go!

1. "Your blood looks funny." (Title Reveal)
2. I'll never forget the glimpse of Winterhaven as we pulled up the long, curving drive-gray stones bathed in the lavender haze of dusk, looking like an old European university, all flying buttresses and stone spires reaching toward the sky. (Title Reveal)
3. It starts with a crack, a sputter, and a spark. (Title Reveal)

Any sound interesting? What about the cover art? What's the most striking?

Monday Musings

It's not fair to rid you from truth Thursday's just because I don't blog then anymore. I figured, why not Mondays? First day is always the hardest after a weekend... What better way to rid you and me that bad 'case of the Mondays'


1. I work against The Bachelor. Love the show. I'm an absolute addict. But when I see basket cases like Courtney I vote for them to steal the bachelors heart. Why? Because I highly doubt most of those girls are there to find love. They're looking for camera time. Oh, and because the drama is all the spicier.

2. Friday is the new Tuesday. For all you who know me, I had a Tuesday outfit. I'd purposely wash it so id have it Tuesday. It's been moved to Fridays. Hello, Coca-cola tee, I love you.

3. House hunting is fun, until you realize your dreams may take years. We love houses in our price range but my imagination runs wild on what all I'll buy to make it beautiful. It's then I realized I'm poor. That's right, little monies with big dreams.

4. The Vow stole my idea. Or, it was such a good one I want to call it my own. Either way you know where I'll be Feb. 10...

5. My cats have multi personalities. I hope it's not contagious. One minute they're cuddling up next to me, next minute they're plotting my death. I can't win, but those cuddly little monsters only defense is their cuteness and damn all to hell if it's my kryptonite. You win, cats, you win.

6. I had an extra confession today. I just purchased a delicious Coca-cola and it made me wonder, how the hell do the vending machines keep their cokes so cold? What an amazing freezer contraption that holds my delectable morning caffeinated beverage. Who needs coffee? This gem is cold and delicious, which is why I shared this precious piece from my thoughts.
What are your secrets?

Short Story Sanctuary

It wasn't but a few months ago I found myself in a rut. I'd been writing novels and just started querying when the words stopped.

You know... your first rejection rolls in and you feel defeat? That's when I find myself stuck. I can't write anything and when I do, I hate it all.

Guess what? I found the silver lining. This novel-length-diva found herself an opportunity of a lifetime.

Still Moments Publishing just happened to fall in my twitter feed and it was there I embarked on a journey to prove something to myself.

That I was worthy of publishing.

Turns out, they had just as  much faith in me as I did. In January I released my very first published works, Snowbanked (in the Snowbound Hearts Anthology). Coming soon is Latte Love (in the Valentine Delights Anthology). Even more exciting, I'll be having my very first single short in March titled When Love Aligns. That's right, just me and my beautiful baby! I am so excited!

Each month they have a fresh new idea for an anthology. With summer months approaching they're diving into Wedding Territory. What I love is they give you a few stipulations but let your mind do the rest of the work!

Do you have a bachelorette party idea? How about a character finding love before the bride & groom get to the alter? Check out details for these stories at Still Moments Publishing. They're wonderful to be a part of. They also do more than short stories so stop in today!

Their Romance Categories are: Chick lit, Romantic Comedy, Contemporary, Fantasy, Inspirational, Sensual, Suspense & Western.

It's kind of funny how inspiration is as simple as getting the small ideas out of your head to make room for the bigger ideas. Are you a short story writer? Ever though of dabbling?

Something Borrowed

Agents are looking for the next big thing. Publishers are looking for great voices. All are looking for the next story that moves them, speaks to them, changes their way of thinking for those several hours they dive into the book.

You want to be the one person that drives them to think about your novel for days.

However, you can't be too unique. You have to borrow a story and give it a fresh take. No, I'm not talking about plagiarizing. That's wrong (obviously).

What I'm talking about is the unique take on an old idea.

Stephanie Meyer took the old idea of a vampire and turned them into 'vegetarians' and had them live kindly among humans. That's an entirely new take on the old vampires that suck your blood.

How about J.K. Rowling's wonderful tale, Harry Potter? Wizards and witches are used to being burned at the stake, using their brooms only at night. Cackling and warts? Nah, none of the above... they attend school regularly, learn how to properly ride brooms, and laughter is just like any child. See what I mean? A new take on an old idea.

See? Something Borrowed. It doesn't just apply to weddings.