Cidney Swanson

Writer's Block

2012-03-03T00:01:00.000-08:00

Writer's blockcan cover a host of issues that stem from a number of sources ranging from somethingas simple as fatigue to something as complex as clinical depression. Most ofthe time though, it doesn't come from anything quite so dramatic. Most of the time,writer's block crops up when we're afraid to commit our words to paper or whenwe have "run out" of things to say.

Although these causesare really dissimilar, the solution for both is the same. B-I-C. Butt in chair.As in: you need to sit down and just write.

Have you everprimed a pump? There's a campground I visit every summer where we have to dothat. You pull that handle up and down a few times and it seems like nothing ishappening, but then all the sudden you're jumping backwards to avoid beingdrenched in icy fresh water.

Your brain islike that pump. It needs to be primed, and often it will look like nothing ishappening for the first little bit of B-I-C time. Inspiration really doesfollow perspiration though, and as you get your mind to recognize that you aregoing to go through with this activity right now, your mind will usuallysupply you with a few things to jot down. And then a few more.

Still feelingstuck? Here are my two favorite ways to get unstuck.

1: Interview yourcharacters. You can ask them anything, really. Sit at your [writing instrumentof choice] to do this, and actually write out the Q's and the A's. I find outall kinds of amazing stuff when I start asking my characters questions.

2: If you’vetruly tried, truly done your B-I-C time and you’re still stuck, go take a walk.Sometimes a little change in scenery will loosen things up. Or maybe it’s thephysical motion that does it. I’m not sure. But before you take your walk, askyour brain, “So, what happens next?” and see what comes up!

Giveaways

2012-02-28T15:15:00.000-08:00

I am so terribly sorry that I'm so late posting about this, but Amazon has my book FREE today, February 28, Tuesday. So get over and grab a copy! And then, because I'm feeling guilty about forgetting to notify everyone on my blog earlier about this, I'll be doing some Rippler giveaways in a week or so! Stay tuned . . .

Also, for those of you who read on Nooks, yes, Rippler has been exclusively available through Amazon. My plan, right now, is to offer free ePub copies to anyone who follows my blog during the week of March 10th. My exclusivity contract with Amazon will expire at that time, and before I sign a new one with them, I'd like to give away some ePubs. So, if you have a Nook, or know someone who does, let them know they can contact me that week of March 10th and I'll send 'em out free.

As for why I would enter into an exclusive contract to sell Rippler only at Amazon, well, it's complicated. Amazon made me an offer which allowed me to finally start making a living wage as an author. They make it easy to put my book for sale, easy to make changes to my book (as often as I want) and, say what you will about some of their business practices or aims, they are so nice to me as both a customer and an author. "Easy" and "Nice" go a long way with me. "Easy" means that I can spend time writing instead of pulling my hair out because some system isn't working or doesn't recognize my document or [insert writerly dilemma here]. "Nice" means that when I call Amazon to tell them that all of my reviews have disappeared during a promotion, they help me quickly and (shocking!) apologize for the mistake.

So, bottom line here:
(1) Rippler free today on Amazon
(2) I'll be doing giveaways in a week for twenty lucky winners!
(3) When that finishes, it should be March 10th, and I'll be giving away ePub copies of Rippler for another week or so!

If you want a free copy of Rippler, it's looking good!
Cheers,
Cidney

SOMETIMES A LITTLE SILLY

2012-02-20T08:42:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, what you need most in life is a sprinkle of silly. This past weekend, I got to hang out with the girls of the Ladies Night Out Book Club of Eugene for a BREAKING DAWN party. There was a catch, of course. Costumes were requested. Okay, I thought, I can do this--I used to design costumes. (Really. I got an MFA to learn how.) Some of the guests went "wedding dress" or "prom dress;" I went Volturi. Yup, that's right: Volturi as in the Italian clan who tend to wear fashions a bit "ago."

But what's the fun of silly if you don't share it? So, here you are. That's me, posing in an Italian renaissance gown with Edward. (He wanted me. I could tell.) Can you see the shiny thing on my right ring finger? That is an actual ring from Volterra, Italy, for which I paid a whopping eighteen euros. (About twenty-five bucks.)

Buying the ring was a silly something I did a few years back. It sparkles, and I got it in Volterra. Get it? Something sparkly from Volterra? (We didn't know at the time that the actual filming of New Moon happened in Montepulciano instead of Volterra.) But the silliness didn't end there. Oh, no. See that clock? That's one of a bazillion pictures I took of the Volterran clock tower as it flipped over to twelve noon!Yeah, standing there and snapping pics of a clock tower . . . Another silly thing I did. Because sometimes a little silly is exactly what you need.

How about you? Anyone else haul out their inner silly for Valentine's? C'mon. What d'ya got for me?

I HEART YOU

2012-02-10T18:12:00.000-08:00

Valentine's Day is around the corner. I recently uncovered an old, old diary from college days. And apparently I had a particularly suck-y Valentine's Day my sophomore year. My diary said:

Today on Valentine's Day, my mailbox was empty.

(Doesn't that just say it all?) Apparently, my roomates received, between them, the following items:

Roses
Carnations
Packages of goodies in mail
Candy
Cards
Letters

Of course, if I remember right, this was the year one of my roomies broke up with her boyfriend on Valentine's Day . . . It takes a confident woman to do that.

I remember thinking that it was some kind of reflection on me that my friends were showered with stuff and I wasn't. That basically, I was a second-rate human being. I've grown up some in the intervening years, and here's what I'd say to myself if I could go back in time (and exist as two people, yeah, space-time havoc. Whatever.)

"Go buy yourself some freaking chocolate and roses, already!" (Spoken in tones full of gentleness and concern, of course.) "You don't need to wait around to enjoy the heady scent of a rose in bloom. (Try "Sterling" roses, the lavender ones, for great scent in a florist rose.) You don't have to watch others eat chocolate. You have a couple of bucks and a bus-pass. Get down to Vons and buy something yumalicious! And enjoy it! And for goodness' sake, once you've acquired your flowers and chocolates, sink your talons into a really, really good book."

Now, I'm as mushy as the next person when it comes to true love and finding it, but just remember: it is okay to buy your own freaking flowers and candy. And now, in honor of all those of us who have had to pass a lonely Valentine's Day or two, I give you a scene from Chameleon where Sam is feeling pretty down about her relationship with Will as they fly across the Atlantic to Paris, a city for lovers, if ever there was one!

********

Will didn’t really fit in the tiny economy seat wedged betweenme and his sister. Every time his leg drifted over to Mickie’s side, she’dawaken with a start, snarl at her brother, and shove his leg back. I tried tothink of a non-awkward way to say to Will, Rest your legs against mine.

Across the aisle, a young couple returning to Francefolded into one another so completely that I couldn’t tell where one body beganand the other ended. Comfort travel in the coach class. I glanced over at Willbeside me, stiff and awkward, holding himself within the imaginary boundaries ofhis middle-seat.

I curled my knees up, collapsing them against the wall at myleft. “Hey,” I said to Will, pointing to the space in front of me. “Stretch outalready. You look ridiculous all pretzeled in your seat.”

“You sure?” he asked.

“Unless you got a way to fold your legs in thirds,” Ireplied. “Besides, I like the fetal position.” I hugged my arms around myknees.

Will grinned and thanked me, easing his long legs into thespace where my feet had been a moment earlier.

“Oh, man,” he said, “You have no idea how good that feels.It’s like they built this plane for under-nourished pre-schoolers.”

Mickie mumbled in her sleep and shot an elbow into Will’sribs.

“No respect for my personal space even when she’s asleep,”Will whispered, gently replacing her arm. “Sir Walter offered to upgrade ourtickets to First Class, and Mick said no.”

I raised my eyebrows.

“She takes stubborn to new heights,” said Will.

“I thought you guys were passing him off as your rich Frenchuncle.”

“Maybe he’s feeling the recession.” Will yawned hugely. “Ithink I might be able to sleep now. How much longer?”

I consulted my cell. “Five and a half hours.”

Will’s eyes settled to half-mast. “Mmmm.” He lookedcomfortable now that his legs had somewhere to rest. His eyes drifted shut.

My eyes followed the curve of space between us, a pathway ofplaces where we didn’t touch, where our bodies might intersect but didn’t.Will’s breathing settled until it matched his sister’s.

My reading light cast an industrial white glow about me.Most other passengers had turned theirs off. I might have been the only personon the flight still awake. I should have drunk Sprite instead of Coke. Sighing,I pulled Helga’s book from my bag and started flipping pages. Unfortunately, inthe past three weeks, I’d begun to admit that we’d stolen something utterlyuseless. It was a book of names and dates and crisscross lines with no hint ofa story or confession of evil schemes. I’d recognized no names so far exceptfor “Napoleon” and a couple of “Helisaba’s” like from Pfeffer’s book, butnothing remotely useful had turned up. We’d undertaken that trip to UC Merced andexposed our underbellies with nothing to show for it.

Beside me Will twitched and mumbled somethingincomprehensible. His right side pushed up against his sister, but she was finallytoo crashed out to care. Another twitch and a small shift and now his cheekpressed into my shoulder, his legs articulating a curve around the front edgeof my chair. I ached for how his hand would feel pressed into my hand. For hislips melting with mine. For wishing his head resting upon my shoulder meantsomething more than my-neck-got-tired.

I closed the book, nestling it into my bag. I closed my eyesupon the image of Will’s form surrounding mine. Aching, wishing, breathing inthe clean-washed scent of Will’s hair, I wandered at last into sleep.

January 31, 2012 A Day Off Plus ARC Giveaway!

2012-01-31T00:01:00.000-08:00

I'm taking a day off from blog touring, so I thought I'd instead direct your attention to a very fine blogger. Her review of Unfurl can be read there. And let's throw in a giveaway while we're at it. ;D

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Update UNFURL Tour Stops

2012-01-26T06:22:00.000-08:00

I promised to update the Blog Tour stops, and it only took me a week. :P Seriously, touring is exhausting. Fun, but exhausting. Not even virtual exhaustion, which would make sense, but actual exhaustion. Which kind of doesn't make sense. Looking for a place to win your own free kindle set of the RIPPLE TRILOGY? There are over a dozen opportunities below, including a few that still have live giveaways as of the time of this post.

Here are the upcoming tour stops, for those of you looking for new chances to win the Ripple Trilogy for kindle, or if you just want to check out some interviews and guest posts!

Jan. 22 Lisa Nowak Interview with Samantha Ruiz + giveaway
Jan. 24 Laura Elliott Excerpt from UNFURL +giveaway
Jan 25 The Writer's Voice Guest Post by Cidney +giveaway
Jan 26 Bryna Butler Guest Post by Sam's step-mom, Sylvia (Tips for your Groundhog's Eve Party)
Jan 25-27 Great Minds Think Aloud Guest Post by Cidney: the inspiration for the Ripple Trilogy + giveaway
Jan 28 Thoughts of a Reelfoot Hoodrat Guest Post + giveaway. Rescheduled to Feb 12!
Jan 31 ARC Giveaway begins
Feb. 1, 2012 http://theliteratipress.blogspot.com/ Interview + giveaway
Feb 2 Refracted Light Reviews Will writes a letter + giveaway

Feb 3 The Warrior Series Blogspot Guest Post + giveaway

Feb 4 Cheri Schmidt Guest Post + giveaway
Feb 5 ScriptSuperhero mega-interview of mega proportions

Feb 6 Obsessed Reader Interview + giveaway
Feb 1 What's Beyond Forks Interview + giveaway

Feb 9 Paranormal Indie Feature

Feb 10 Hardcover Feedback Guest Post +giveaway

Feb 11 Supagirl Book Reviews Stay Tuned! + giveaway

Feb 12 Paranormal Indie Interview

Feb 13http://amdase.blogspot.com/ Stay Tuned! + giveaway

Feb 14 Right Here-for one last ARC giveaway of UNFURL on the last day of the Tour!

What Reading Gives Me as a Writer

2012-01-22T11:53:00.000-08:00

First I was a lover of words. Then a lover of books (because books are word-holders!) Then a lover of writing (because I could make more word-holders--an unending supply!)

So, for me, the reading came before the writing. It doesn't always come first anymore, but I can't imagine being a writer apart from being a reader. Reading gives me so much more than just a story. I learned grammar from reading. (It was out of fashion during my decades in California public schools.) Which means that I learned how to construct sentences correctly, and how to know when I'm breaking the rules for effect. (See how I began my sentence? And see how I abused that poor comma?) During times when I've had "grader of papers" in my job description, I always felt like I could peg the readers and non-readers by how well they constructed their sentences. So, if you want to write better sentences: read more.

In the years when I get through a hundred books, there are usually six or seven that really stand out. Last year I only read around fifty. (Sixty?) Three stood out. I pay attention to the ones that really stand out because they are the ones that teach me about story-crafting. I go back through them with post-it flags and mark the sections that do certain things well. I study these things. How did that writer keep me turning pages even though it was waaaaaaaay past my bedtime? How did that writer make me laugh? Cry? Throw the book across the room? (Less tempting with a Kindle, I'll admit.)

Reading makes me love my job. My job is writing stories. I love thinking of Tolkien and Lewis saying to one another that there weren't enough of the kinds of stories they loved to read, and that they had better get busy writing the kind of stories they wanted to read. I think others have said it more recently in a "write the story you want to read" kind of prescriptive way. In any case, when I read a stunningly good book, it makes me want to tell a good tale. It makes me willing to spend the hours (long) to do the work (impossible-seeming) of making books to hold words that enchant and delight and sometimes, maybe, wear down the hard edges that life gives you.

What has reading given to you, lately? Tell me in the Rafflecopter below. One of you will win a set of my books in Kindle version!

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Guest Visit! The Fab Cheri Lasota!

2012-01-19T14:33:00.000-08:00

I am very excited to bring two of my author buddies onboard today. Laura Elliott and I first met through SCBWI, and I'm getting to know Cheri (who is also a downhill ski racer--oh, yeah, baby!) thanks to Laura! The two are going to share some thoughts about where the e-book market is heading. At the bottom of the interview, you'll find an excerpt from Cheri's novel, ARTEMIS RISING. Enjoy!

Ladies, take it away!

Laura asks:Cheri, where do you think enhanced books are headed next? [Music? Videos? Scratch n’ Sniff? Hee-hee!]

Cheri says: Ebooks will eventually be fully immersive. Even the writers will be writing TO the medium and planning the interactivity into the writing itself. Remember those old choose-your-own-adventure books when you were a kid? Well, interactive ebooks will be those books on steroids. Just imagine reading a choose-your-own-adventure book on an e-reader? That'd be a double whammy! I'd buy one. =) I think we have a lot of what we need already to make immersive books actually, but over time and especially with this latest version of epub, adding interactive elements to our ebooks will become easier and easier (with less glitches and less complicated coding). I'm looking forward to diving in and trying everything.

Laura asks:If you had a crystal ball, what do you think publishing will look like five years from now?

Cheri says: Ebooks, e-readers, tablets. Paper will be niche. And frankly, rather boring. If you leave ebooks out of your marketing plans, you might as well kiss your writing career goodbye. Learn as much as you can about these new technologies now, before it grows too late. This is the dawn of the era of the Author. Embracing the possibilities of the indie life and not giving in to fear of failure is a surefire way to making your own dreams come true for the first time in literary history. There has been no better time to be an author than right now, in this moment. Go for it!

Laura asks:What one thing would you recommend Indie Authors do to make their ebooks more reader friendly/set them apart?

Cheri says: Don't be too scared or lazy to do your own ebook design. Not everyone can make sense of HTML. I understand that. But for years I was too afraid to learn it. It was a completely different language and I didn't have a lot of time. But oh! I'm so glad I got over that. I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer. It takes me a long time to understand such things. But I kept at it, because I wanted to learn for my own gratification. Key to success? Practice in a dummy file until you get it right. And check out the tutorials at www.Lynda.com to really learn a program or language well.

Laura asks:What’s the newest hot feature in enhanced books?

Cheri says: I've been reading up on the new Epub 3 specification set down by the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF), and for me, the most exciting thing is the addition of JQuery scripting to epub files. Honestly, I'm still in the middle of a crash course on JQuery, Epub 3, HTML5, and Flash, but the fact that I used all of those in a sentence pertaining to ebooks is really the most thrilling news of all. Across the board, almost everything was "upgraded" in Epub 3. This new specification is going to blow the lid on what ebooks can handle in the near future. You'll soon see more interactive children's books, amazing bonus content for novels, and complex audio/video options for nonfiction and textbooks than ever before. Yowza! I can't wait to get started. In fact, if I wasn't writing this answer, I'd be studying the Epub 3 specification right now. =)

Laura asks:What book would you recommend reading for people interested in learning more about coding ebooks/enhanced books?

Cheri says: I can tell you what I used to earn my ebook design spurs:• InDesign CS5.5 (It's like CS5 but blinged out for epub creation. Very cool features.)• Anne-Marie Concepcion's Lynda.com Tutorial "InDesign CS5.5 to EPUB Kindle and iPad"• Elizabeth Castro's Epub: Straight to the Point (I learned a great deal of coding/design bling from this book.)• TextWrangler, Dreamweaver, Notepad++ (All excellent text editors. FYI: You canNOT create an enhanced ebook without knowing basic HTML).• Sigil (This is a specialized text editor created for easily opening epub files and making changes without screwing anything up. Anne-Marie's tutorial explains its fantastic features.)

An excerpt of Cheri's novel, Artemis Rising(Here the main character, Arethusa, is watching the boy she loves fight in the bullring.)

On cue, thesad call of the trumpeter sounded, announcing the start of the bullfight. Thefirst cavaleiro marched his white Lusitano stallion out onto the pristine fieldof sand. He wore white pants with shiny black knee boots and a scarlet coatfiligreed with gold embroidery.

As thecavaleiro displayed dressage techniques with his plumed and ribboned horse, Paimade his way through the stands to his seat. The condessa glared at him, butshe dared not say a word with the Brancos so near.

Pai nodded toConde Branco and his wife and then turned to Arethusa.

“Have faith.”With an imperceptible smile, he whispered.

She ached toquestion him, but the first bull was set loose at that moment. His greatmuscles writhed under his hide as he strutted in the dust and his loud snortsresounded through the whole arena. His thick horns looked like great antennaeseeking out the perpetrator of his anger. He soon found his prey as he eyed theprancing Lusitano and rider at the opposite side of the ring. He charged andcharged, yet failed to catch the skilled cavaleiro every time.

Arethusa wason edge, as much for the fight before her as for the fight to come when Tristanwould be pitted against a bull like this one, except face-to-face and on foot.It was said the forcados faced death every time they stepped into the Praça deTouros. But today wasn’t about nameless men from legends and small talk invillage shops. It would be Tristan Vazante walking into this arena. He hadgreat skill, but this was his first official bullfight. Success was neverguaranteed, even for the most experienced fighter.

The cavaleirofaced the bull without fear. He raised the banderilla, a slender spear wrappedin bright tinsel. A moment of silence and expectation followed. Then the bullcharged. The Lusitano leapt toward the bull, sand flying behind his hooves.Closer and closer—it was impossible for them not to collide—the cavaleiro andhis horse twisted away. He plunged the banderilla into the bull’s shoulder, andthe crowd erupted in applause.

Again andagain, the cavaleiro and bull charged at one another. Each time the rider wasvictorious. The cavaleiro bowed to the crowd and the bull was ushered from thearena by a herd of cows, their bell-collars jangling from their thick necks.

The nextcompetitor, a handsome matador dressed in a mint green coat with fuchsiastockings, strutted out onto the field. He would be the first to fight Pai’senormous prize bull. The matador held the banderillas and cape at his side,bowed to the crowd, and the battle commenced. Pai’s bull charged the moment heburst from the pen, but the matador stood his ground. He spread the fuchsia andsaffron cape before him and arched his hips in time to distract the bull fromhis aim. Out from behind the brilliant cape, a banderilla shot backward andstruck the bull. The crowd erupted in approval. The young matador’s dignifiedair and graceful footwork won the crowd’s heart. When he strode from the field,many of the society girls threw their bouquets at his feet.

Pai’s bullremained in the ring, the banderillas draping from his bleeding back, hisbreathing heavy, his anger intense.

Arethusaleaned forward. Eight men stood behind the arena wall. The music died away andthe trumpet heralded the entrance of the forcados. At the same instant, theeight men vaulted over the wall and lined up inside the ring opposite the bull.The beast stood eyeing them, his breath heavy with exertion.

She spottedTristan at the front of the line of men. He stood rigid, his feet planted firm.The only movement was the shifting of the green cap in his hands. He gazed upinto the stands, and it seemed to Arethusa that he looked right at her. Shestood, feeling embarrassed, but knowing he would see her. The green cap wentstill. He bowed low to her. Or does he bow to Isabel? He put the cap on and marched in thedirection of the bull, his lithe body made graceful by the gait of his longstride.

Arethusa couldn’tsit. She watched Tristan’s slow, measured paces down the center of the arena,the line of forcados following. Does he march to his death?

The bullstared down their approach, as if daring the forcados to try him. Tristan didnot falter but moved ever forward. The bull snorted and stomped his hoofagainst the sand. Tristan led the men closer. The bull charged. Tristan rushedforward. But at the last second, Tristan stepped too far to the left. His bodyslammed against the bull’s head, one of the horns goring his belly.

The arena fellsilent. Then Tristan cried out. Arethusa clutched her throat as everyone in thecrowd stood.

“No,” Paiwhispered.

She heardIsabel scream as the crowd erupted into a cacophony of noise. The shouts of theother forcados struggling with the bull drowned out Tristan’s agonies as heclutched the bull’s horns. One of them grabbed the beast’s tail, distractingthe bull long enough for two other forcados to lift Tristan off the bull’shead. The crowd erupted into cries and shouts as one of the men carried Tristanoff the field.

Pai touchedher arm. “He failed for you, Arethusa. But I didn’t ask him to do this.”

For a moment,she stared up at him, feeling emotions she could not name. Then he let her go.She pushed past the people in her row: a wealthy family with five children, anold man with a pipe, two businessmen—all staring down at the bull, allmotionless with shock.

Blog Tour & Giveaway Updates

2012-01-18T11:25:00.000-08:00

There are several giveaways of some-to-all of my books happening right now. See how happy this makes me? (Okay, maybe it's the hanging at Starb's with friends that made me happy . . .)

At Amy's site, I discuss my nerdliness. Giveaway of trilogy (ends tomorrow-with excellent odds!!!) Over at Fisher's, it is Why YA? And a trilogy giveaway (ends tomorrow-with good odds!) You should also check out Pamela's site for another trilogy giveaway and her reviews and a post by me! (ends in 4 days--cool site altogether for non-book reviews!) And Suzy really needs you to stop by, as her giveaway is so fresh there aren't any entries yet! (ends in a weekish) Finally, definitely go see Anna who interviews Sam! How cool! You'll want to check it out. (With trilogy giveaway.)

I'm thrilled to still have some listings in breakdown categories on Amazon's Top 100 Books (Contemporary Fantasy is one! Coolio!) Thanks for helping me sell 400 copies this past week. It's been amazing and slightly unreal.

Well, what are you waiting for? Go enter some giveaways! Or, if you already own everything, tell a friend!
Hugs,
Cidney

Milestones

2012-01-14T19:12:00.000-08:00

I bought a dresser today.I know, I know: big deal. But here's the thing. It kind of was a big deal. When my husband and I first married, we were both grad students and dirt poor. I brought a bedroom set into the marriage, and that was our only furniture for years. We made bookshelves from cinder blocks and pieces of 1x8 planks of wood because, really, bookshelves weren't optional for us. We shuddered at the expense, which could have bought us a week's worth of Mac-n-Cheese and hot dogs and Cheerios.

Before too long, we bought a "do it yourself" wooden table with a drawer which was big enough for both of us to use as a study desk if we sat kitty-corner. Then came a long stretch of no furniture until we had our first kid. Friends lent us a changing table and a crib, we were given a rocking chair, and my husband took a woodcraft class to make a futon couch for us. (I sewed the futon cushion. Yes, you can do that.) Why the futon couch? Well, now that we had a kid, people wanted to see us our kid. Oh, and we bought a chair at St Vinnie's for $6 so I'd have somewhere to feed the kid. I guess our family members got tired of not having anywhere to sit, because we acquired assorted hand-me-down furniture from them.

But there was one thing we always found spare change for. Bookshelves.

We built our first (non cinder-block) pair between kid one and kid two. Rubbed it down with beeswax and used heater-vent sheeting for cool looking doors. Sweeeeeet, we thought. Then a couple more moves and we needed another bookshelf. And then another. And another couple. And then two more. The ratio of bookshelves to any other single piece of furniture in our home is really astounding. And we still don't have enough.

See? Here's proof: my writing desk as bookshelf.

So, today, after spending yesterday evening with some truly delightful writer buddies in Portland, I went to Ikea to buy myself some NEW furniture that wasn't for shelving books. I'm just ridiculously happy with my new dresser. (Sorry, no pics--bedroom is even more of a disaster than my desk!)

I know a dresser's not much, but I used WRITER INCOME to buy it! I've been working (writing) without a paycheck for twenty-five loooooong months. (Actually, I made about 12$ a month during the summer, and I just got my October royalty check of $43.)
November was maybe double that. But December was another creature altogether, peeps. I made over $600 from book sales! This month I don't know what I'll end up with, but I think it's around $1000 so far.I wanted to celebrate, to mark the moment. I know bookshelves would seem like an ideal way to do that, and it was tempting!!! But the thought of buying myself a dresser felt so utterly frivolous, and after a bleak twenty-five months sans paycheck, I was ready to rock me some frivolity.What's your fave piece of furniture? Does it have a story? Tell me for a chance to win your choice of one of my e-books!
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Books For Which I'm Grateful

2012-01-13T12:27:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking about my beginnings as a writer, and I realized I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Louisa May Alcott. Her book, LITTLE WOMEN, was the first novel-length work I ever read to myself. I was eight and seriously too young to catch everything that was going on. I even managed to miss that one of the main characters had died, and I had a huge argument on the bus one day with a friend who knew The Truth.

But there were things that sunk in deeply and nourished me for years. Jo's love for books told me it was okay to love them as deeply as I did. Her sister's comparative indifference to the printed word told me most of the people in my life would likely not feel the book-fever. And her love of writing? I've mentioned elsewhere that as an eight year old, I actually (sort of) believed LMA had based the character on me.

There have been many books since for which I'm grateful, and I think I'll mention a couple this upcoming week as I post reminders about my blog tour.

Blog Tour? Did SOMEONE say Blog Tour?

*raises hand*

Please come visit me at Tee's site or at Larissa's site for, respectively, a guest post and an interview. Tee's site features a giveaway, too! Woot!
Have a great weekend,
Cidney

January 11 BLOG TOUR STOPS

2012-01-11T15:40:00.000-08:00

Hey Reader Kinfolk,

Here are today's opportunities to register for giveaways connected with the Official Unfurl Blog Tour:

Enter to win a signed ARC of Unfurl here on my blog. (ends 2 days)
Enter to win an e-copy of Chameleon here on Heather's blog. (ends 13 days)

Also, I have a guest post over here at Emily's blog about history and fiction.

And lastly, thanks A TON to those of you who helped spread the word about my free day on Amazon. I had 5400 downloads in 24 hours. That's a lot of Rippler!

Hugs,
Cidney

2012-01-10T00:01:00.000-08:00

It's here! The official beginning of the Official Unfurl Blog Tour!

And I'm kicking it off with a BIG BANG! Today, from 12:01AM 'til midnight tonight, RIPPLER will be free at Amazon.com. Yes, that's right--FREE! Please spread the word! 'Cause when it's over at 11:59PST tonight, it's over. So head over to amzn.to/rippled and for goodness' sake, tweet to your BFFs about this one.
But Wait! There's more!

For the next 36 days, I'll be hopping all over the blog-o-sphere giving interviews, doing guest posts, receiving reviews of Unfurl and giving away over a hundred kindle-copies of my books! Yes, you read that correctly. Thanks to my new best friend Rafflecopter, (see my commercial break below) most of the host sites are doing giveaways of the trilogy. Every day. Yeah. It's big and I can't wait.

Since some of you would probably looooooove to win a free kindle set of the whole trilogy, here is a list of where I will be and what day I'll be there. Sites who opted out of the trilogy giveaway are usually giving away something else, so don't despair if you don't see a Rafflecopter. Just read the post/interview/whatever carefully to see what they are giving away!

Day One: January 10, 2012 My Blog! Rippler Freebie Day! Send friends here: amzn.to/rippled
Day Two: January 11, 2012 Double-Whammy! http://www.maybeteenauthor.blogspot.com/ and http://supagurlbooks.blogspot.com/
Day Three: January 12, 2012 http://tgayer.wordpress.com
Day Four: January 13, 2012 http://teacherwritebookaholicohmy.blogspot.com/
Day Five: January 14, 2012 http://amyjonesyaff.blogspot.com/
Day Six: January 15, 2012 http://fisheramelie.com/blog/
Day Seven: January 16, 2012 http://www.outnumberedmama.com/
Day Eight: January 17, 2012 http://suzyturner.blogspot.com/
Day Nine: January 18, 2012 http://diamondinroughcoal.blogspot.com
Day Ten: January 19, 2012 http://www.cherilasota.com/
Day Eleven: January 20, 2012 http://www.angelacarlie.blogspot.com/
Day Twelve: January 21, 2012 http://borneanbookworm.blogspot.com
Day Thirteen: January 22, 2012 lisanowak.wordpress.com
Day Fourteen: January 23, 2012 [Had to bow out--this could be your blog here!]
Day Fifteen: January 24, 2012 http://laurasmagicday.wordpress.com/
Day Sixteen: January 25, 2012 greatmindsthinkaloud AND The Writer's Voice
Day Seventeen: January 26, 2012 http://brynabutler.wordpress.com
Day Eighteen: January 27, 2012 http://www.greatmindsthinkaloud.proboards.com/
Day Nineteen: January 28, 2012 http://thoughtsofareelfoothoodrat.blogspot.com/
Day Twenty: January 29-31, 2012 Available!
February: Check back. My fingers are tired. ;-)

*Commercial Break*

If you are a blogger who gives things away, and if you haven't tried Rafflecopter yet, you should. The sites above are using it to do the trilogy giveaways I referenced. So, here. Try it. And maybe you'll win a cool iPad or Fire onto which you can download, oh, say, a copy of my book(s) that you won on one of the above sites!

a Rafflecopter giveawayOkay. Commercial Break over.

It's time for me to get some sleep so I can ~~check my download numbers all day~~ write tomorrow. And, in case you didn't already pick up on this: I really hope you win something fabulous!

xoxo
Cidney

UNFURL: The Great Giveaway

2012-01-06T18:01:00.000-08:00

Bringing out the third in a trilogy is very, very, (very) exciting for me! And that means I need to spread the excitement. Share the love. Give stuff away. Would you like an ARC of Unfurl and a signed bookmark (swag from Chameleon/Rippler events)? You're in luck! Fill out the Rafflecopter form below (you may need to press "read more" to make it show up.) Then sit back and wait to see if you're one of three lucky winners!

This giveaway is in addition to the Unfurl Official Blog Tour Stops where I'll be giving away complete kindle versions of The Ripple Trilogy every day from January 10-February 14. (You'll want to check back for a special Valentine's Day giveaway!) Hope you're feeling the love!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Year In Review

2011-12-30T20:18:00.000-08:00

For those of you who are writers, or considering writing, I cordially present: my year in scribbling. For the rest of you, this will probably be deadly dull, and I advise finding a more interesting website, post haste.

January
Fresh back from a fab Big Sur Workshop with ABLit. Inspired. Instructed. I eradicate thousands of words from WIP thanks to great advice from Jenn Rofe and Mary Kole. I am introduced to several of my bad author-ly habits, and I send them packing. Yay! I realize I don't know where my WIP should begin. *Is annoyed* I join kindleboards and ~~lurk~~ watch the Writer's Cafe with interest.

February
WIP is looking thin and fit thanks to December/January weight loss program. I still fear I haven't found the correct beginning for my story, but I go with one I think might work. Now a polished manuscript (ms), it circulates amongst a handful of agents. I remove the completed first draft of what will become Chameleon from the deep freeze and begin applying the weight loss regime to it as well. Meanwhile, I write bits of what will become Unfurl and lots of what won't become a part of anything. I acquire several very polite rejections of my full ms, with requests to submit something else if I have it.

March
I participate in the conversations on kindleboards after lurking for over a month and begin to consider indie-publishing. More polite and encouraging rejections, more requests for something else if I have it. Barry Eisler walks away from SMP deal, Amanda Hocking signs with SMP. I am realizing my ms doesn't begin at the right place. Completely befuddled as to how to begin it. I set it aside to age.

April
I write a sci-fi novel (first draft) and set it aside to age. I hear back from the last agent and last editor who had expressed interest in my ms. (Another appetizing serving of "no, thank you.") I decide to indie-publish my ms, since it is nearly done--if I could just find that slippery, that elusive . . . beginning. I feel pretty certain there is a market for this story, even if that market isn't the traditional one. I work with the amazing Claudia at phatpuppyart.com to get a cover for my novel, Ripple.

May
I buff Ripple 'til it glistens. The novel gets a last minute name change when PW Daily announces a July release of a YA paranormal romance with my title. What??? (My preciousssssss . . . ) Ripple becomes Rippler, going from a nice noun-verb double-entendre to a merely descriptive noun. Le sigh. I get stellar advice from a best-selling YA author who tells me two possible places she would begin my novel if she were writing it. One of them rings one-hundred per-cent true to me. I write it down in a frenzy. I delete 15,000 words from my lame beginning. I have a book I am proud of! I publish it on Amazon days before my birthday.

June
I sell a few books! I get several reviews! From people I've never met! It's amazing! I worry that having four 5-star reviews will make it look like I asked friends to review my book. (Something I asked them to please not do.) Then I get a 2-star review and a 4-star review. I feel legitimized. I write, write, write the second-in-series.

July
I write, write, write number two clear to the end and set it aside to age. I go back to the sci-fi novel and polish it. I check my sales far more often than is strictly rational. The numbers creep forward slowly, and more reviews start coming in. Every time a 5-star comes in, it is followed by a 4-star. Every time. *Is amused*

August
I polish the second-in-series, realizing it will be better than its older sibling! The story arc progresses more naturally, and it reads a bit like a thriller. *Is thrilled*

September
I put Chameleon, the second-in-series for sale days before I embark upon a cruise across the Atlantic celebrating a big anniversary with my BFF/DH. We talk about book three, but I Do. No. Writing. For. Two. Weeks. Chameleon sells moderately well, and sales are up for Rippler as well. I outline book three once we reach home.

October
I write like a woman possessed. 2,500-3,500 words per day. I'm determined to get book three out by Christmas. A women's book group hosts me; they discuss my book and ask me questions. It is more fun than riding Pirates of the Caribbean.

November
Still possessed. A polished draft is completed. Beginning of work with editor who tells me what scenes go where. (Several were completely backwards! Imagine that!) I have an author event at Vanilla Jill's in Eugene, Oregon. I sign books, do readings, and answer questions. It is more fun than Toy Story Mania!

December
Edits, edits, edits. Followed by copy-edits, copy-edits, copy-edits. Trailed by beta-reader responses. Chased by publication around 11:00PM on the 25th. I met my goal! Plus, 2400 downloads of Rippler when I set it free as a Christmas thank you. Wow. That's a lot of downloads. I sell hundreds over the following days, doubling my sales of the first seven months. All those new Kindles require feeding, apparently.

There you have it, my pets! Anyone still awake?

Merry Christmas to You

2011-12-25T00:01:00.000-08:00

Wishing you a very, very happy season of holidays, whichever you celebrate. For my fam, it's Christmas, although you might hear the occasional Hanukkah greeting, depending on who is around and how closely the two holidays fall any given year.

I wanted to send a little something out to say thanks for following me this year, so today, December 25, you can download a copy of Rippler from Amazon absolutely gratis! Er, free. Sir Walter's been hanging out in my head again. (Yes, he also knows and can speak in Latin.) The special will end sometime around midnight Pacific Time, so head over while the getting is good!

With wishes for "Peace on Earth, Goodwill to mankind,"
Cidney

Fisher Amelie

2011-12-24T00:01:00.000-08:00

It's my pleasure to bring the lovely Fisher Amelie on deck today, as part of her Bad Aces Blog Tour for her new title, CALLUM AND HARPER.

Author Bio: Fisher Amelie resides in the South with her kick ace husband slash soul mate. She earned her first 'mama' patch in 2009. She also lives with her Wiem, 'Jonah,' and her Beta, 'Whale.' All these living creatures keep the belly of her life full, sometimes to the point of gluttony, but she doesn't mind all that much because life isn't worth living if it isn't entertaining, right?

Fisher grew up writing. She secretly hid notebooks and notebooks of dribble in a large Tupperware storage container in her closet as a kid. She didn't put two and two together until after college when it suddenly dawned on her:

"Hey, I like writing." She's a bit dense.

"No, I'm not."

"Yes, you are. Put down that Oreo, your butt can't take anymore."

"You're rude."

"Yeah, yeah."

Anyway, she likes to write and has finally beaten her self-esteem into submission enough to allow herself to be scrutinized under the 'other readers' microscope. "No! No! Not a cover slip! Las time it gave me a ra . . ." (mumbling)

I asked Fisher a few questions so that you could get to know how she likes her chocolate and other things I wanted to know myself.

1) What are five books you're grateful for?

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Le Morte' D'Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
1984 by George Orwell
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

2) Briefly, how do spend an average day? I wake around seven thirty, before my son, thank goodness. I do a few copywriting tasks (day job). Son wakes. Son demands food. I comply. Son watches some 'educational' type show on PBS only because I just can't seem to be okay with Yo Gabba Gabba (weirds me out). Write a few blogs for my clients. Write a few social updates for Fisher Amelie Fan Page/Twitter. Play with son, i.e. reading, watching a film, playing outside. Make lunch. Feed lunch to kid. By this time, son should have needed a bath for one of the variety of reasons he inevitably needs a bath. Bath. Nap. Back to day job, return a few e-mails. He wakes! We play some more. We clean up our messes. I start dinner. Daddy emerges from office. Son and daddy play. We all eat. Yaaay! We survived dinner. We all clean up. Another bath for son (I know). Daddy reads a few books to son. Bed time. I write. I write and write and write. I ready for bed, maybe treat myself to a shower. ;P I read. I read and read and read. I fall asleep. Repeat.

3) If a family member read your book, what would make them say, "Oh, that's soooooo Fisher!"? I'm going to get really literal here for a second. Jules, my lead heroine in The Understorey, is a carbon copy of me....only...more polished. (LOL!) She's got black hair, pale skin, green eyes. Also, the slightly foul mouth on Harper...that's unfortunately me as well. LOL! If you asked any of my family member's what parts of my book were 'soooo Fisher', they'd say the entire thing. Ba ha ha ha! My books are my personality.

4) What are four (real) places you'd like to visit? Rome. Dublin. Rio de Janeiro. Tokyo. For the history. For the family. 'Cause it rocks. 'Cause it's interesting.

Quickies:

Milk Chocolate or Dark Chocolate? Dark.

Summer or Winter? Winter.

Morning Person or Night Owl? Definitely Night Owl.

Plotter or Pantser? Plotter.

Angry Birds or Daydreaming? Daydreaming.

There you have it!

Be sure to stop by her blog to learn more about this beautiful book:

She can be found chilling at www.fisheramelie.com where you can also enter a contest to win a signed copy of Callum and Harper.

I leave you with this question: Is that cover stunning or what??

Secret Santa Giveaway

2011-12-23T16:01:00.000-08:00

WINNERS ANNOUNCED:

Congratulations to Ally Arendt, Krystal Larson, and Kelly Fox, who will each get to choose from the three books below! And for the BIG winner of all the Indie Carnival giveaways: Vanessa Eric! Woohoo!

There are some really fine books being independently published these days, and I'm making a list so I can load a few up on my kindle for Christmas. (Yes, DH, that was a massive hint!)

Here are some that caught my eye:

Fateful by Cheri Schmidt features a heroine leaving small town life in Colorado to study art in London. Study art in London? Count me in! Danielle, the heroine, is hoping to find Mr. Darcy. (Um, yes, please, I'll have some of that, too.) Her hero, Ethan, is wonderful by day, but by night he's, well, a vampire. I haven't read any vamp fiction this year, so I popped this one on my list.

Would you like to win a free copy for your holiday reading? Just enter with Rafflecopter below!

Next on my list is:
Every Last Kiss by Courtney Cole

Which just makes me squee because it involves a modern day girl going back in time to re-live her life as Cleopatra's hand maiden. I really miss the days when my kids were obsessed with all-things-Egyptian, and I'm looking forward to diving into this one!

Want it in your stocking? Enter below!

Finally, I'm adding:
Glimpse by Stacey Wallace Benefiel

because I heard Stacey read a few pages and it was hysterical (even though the story itself is angsty and danger-filled.) The heroine suffers from hereditary visions of a tragic future which can only be avoided if she gives up what she wants most. (Hint: a very crush-worthy hero!)

Well? What books do you want in your stocking? I'll pick three winners and send them the book of their choice. Want even more free books? There's a very big giveaway going on at the YA Author Club, http://yaauthorclub.blogspot.com/ so be sure to check that out. After you enter here, of course!
Happy Holidays! CLICK "READ MORE" BELOW IF RAFFLECOPTER IS HIDING.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Fiction Pie: One Writer's Recipe

2011-12-03T11:20:00.000-08:00

When I first starting rolling the idea for this post around in my mind, I thought I'd be talking about writing from the point of view of plot, story arc, character development and so on. Which kind of made me want to hit the snooze alarm. Maybe another day I'll feel inspired to write on those things. Today? Not so much.

Instead, I thought I'd serve up a slice of what writing is like using figurative language. Let me list the ingredients, and I think you'll see where I'm going with this. And be sure to let me know how your pie turns out if you try the recipe!

Fiction Pie

1 part constructive criticism (initially, seems to make tart, but will improve flavor over time)
1 part rejection
1 part rewriting (to taste)
1 part compare-self-to-others (note: this makes the pie bitter; when in doubt, leave it out)
1 part elation
1 part butt-in-chair (add more as needed)

Constructive Criticism
As noted above, initially, this seems to make your pie tart. However, so long as the criticism is of high quality and/or from a reputable supplier, you will find that you cannot get decent pie without it. I suggest going to suppliers that you know have experience and will deliver the criticism in its undiluted form. Diluted criticism may look pretty in a bottle, but will not improve your pie.

Rejection
My pies would not be tasty if it weren't for this key ingredient. It is costly, no doubt. Sometimes you might feel that you literally cannot bear what it costs you. However, when the rejection comes from suppliers such as agents and editors, it is usually seasoned with advice. This is what will make your pies robust in flavor. As with the first ingredient, you may at first find yourself staring at the rejection and thinking that you do not need the advice contained therein. That your pie was doing just fine without it, thank you very much. If this happens, I suggest you set the rejection (and advice) upon a pantry shelf for anywhere from an hour to a month. You will probably find it of value and palatable after some time has passed. I can't imagine making a pie without it, myself.

Rewriting
Do I really need to say why your pie needs this? All pies need this. There have been times I thought maybe I'd created a pie that didn't need this ingredient. However, a week or two later, it became apparent that this wasn't the case. If you doubt the need for this ingredient, set your pie in the freezer for two weeks. When you thaw it, you will probably be able to see the need for this ingredient very clearly.

Compare-Self-to-Others
It's so hard to resist. I hear you saying, "But I'm just tossing in a little bit of this. A teensy-weensy nothing of a toss." To which I reply, "Well, then, your pie can probably get by without it." You see, this ingredient, whilst attractive in packaging, will turn your pie bitter. And all the sugar in the world won't fix it. My suggestion: if you absolutely cannot resist, you need to find Others who write about their Struggles and Failures. This form of comparison can actually be helpful in some pies.

Elation
For goodness' sake, take time to savor your milestones. Elation is an essential ingredient. Perhaps yours is found in a sentence of delectable proportion. Perhaps you will come across it as you write "The End." Maybe you'll find some nestled inside a fan e-mail. Wherever you find it, gather it and treasure it. With occasional sprinkles, it will take your pie-making from the realms of drudgery into the realms divine.

Butt-in-Chair
There will be days when you are sure you can't make a pie at all. That you were never meant to make pies. That everyone else on the planet makes better pies than you do. You might think you need to go to the grocery store before you can even think about pie. (Or the nail salon, gym, movies, you name it.) But here's the thing: if you use this ingredient, even when you don't feel like it, over time your pie will get made. And your pie-making will improve. Nearly every problem pie-makers encounter can be fixed with the addition of Butt-in-Chair. So don't use it sparingly--use it frequently, regularly, and generously.

There you have it. My recipe for Fiction Pie.

I'd love to hear what ingredients you have found beneficial. (For alternate recipes, try here)

When People Ask Me Why, As An Adult, I Read and Write YA

2011-11-20T16:05:00.000-08:00

The best morals kids get from any book is just the capacity to empathize with other people, to care about the characters and their feelings. So you don’t have to write a preachy book to do that. You just have to make it a fun book with characters they care about, and they will become better people as a result. –Louis Sachar

Does reading make you a better person? Honestly, I don’t know. But what Sachar writes about readers empathizing with characters strikes me as very deeply true. As a kid, I read for many reasons. Early on, I read for fun and for the sheer delight of words side by side on a page. As I grew older, I read so I could learn about kids who lived far away from me, in space or time.

These reasons continued to be important as I hit my teen years, but another reason became even more important: I read to “try on” what it was like to be brave or broken-hearted. Famous or forgotten. Victorious over impossible odds. What would it be like to be part of a large family? Or to be orphaned? How would I survive with Nazgûl or the Cauldron-Born exhaling their reeking breath upon me?

So, to what Sachar said, I would add that reading increases our capacity for courage.

Even as an adult, when I read about those who suffer and then rise with valor, it makes me consider that maybe I can act with bravery. If Harry Potter could knowingly walk to meet Lord Voldemort and his own death, then maybe I can walk towards some of my darker fears.

And, like Harry, I don’t have to do it alone. Harry took his friends and family with him. Do you know who I take? I bring Harry alongside me. And Dobby. And Frodo and Sam. And Katniss. And Peeta and Prim. And hundreds of other brave, true friends who are no less real to me because they’re imaginary.

A writer could do this in any genre. I don’t doubt it for a moment. But Young Adult literature seems to be especially rich in providing for readers: characters who (a) grow and change through (b) adventures often unenviable and which (c) end in a place of hope.

And that is what keeps me reading YA.

As a writer of YA, here is what I wish for you, my readers: I hope you will find courage from the pages of a book and make that courage your own; I want you to discover compassion for those not like you; and most of all, for those of you in pain, I want you to find friends who will stand beside you in moments of darkness and whisper to you, “It’ll be okay. I’m here with you. I understand.”

Indie Carnival: What's New?

2011-11-20T16:02:00.000-08:00

A few fun things to read (click to visit the blog of these fine authors!)

1.	Laura A. H. Elliott author of Winnemucca & 13 on Halloween, Book 1 in the Teen Halloween Series	2.	Bryna Butler, author Midnight Guardian series
3.	Heather Self	4.	T. R. Graves, Author of The Warrior Series
5.	Suzy Turner, author of The Raven Saga	6.	Darby Karchut, author of GRIFFIN RISING
7.	Lexus Luke	8.	PJ Hoover, Author of SOLSTICE, Blogging at ROOTS IN MYTH
9.	Cheri Schmidt, author of the Fateful Trilogy	10.	Rachel Coles, author of Into The Ruins, geek mom blog
11.	K. C. Blake, author of Vampires Rule and Crushed	12.	Patti Larsen, The Hunted series and The Hayle Coven series
13.	Courtney Cole, author of The Bloodstone Saga	14.	Amy Maurer Jones, Author of The Soul Quest Trilogy
15.	Dani Snell’s Refracted Light Reviews	16.	Fisher Amelie, author of The Understorey
17.	M. Leighton, Blood Like Poison Series, Madly, The Reaping	18.	Abbi Glines, author of Breathe and The Vincent Boys
19.	Kimberly Kinrade, Bits of You & Pieces of Me, Forbidden Mind	20.	Madeline Smoot, Missing, Summer Shorts, and The Girls
21.	Cidney Swanson, author of Rippler	22.	Nicole Williams, author of Eternal Eden, Falling Eden
23.	Gwenn Wright, author of Filter	24.	TG Ayer

Emo Me

2011-11-04T18:07:00.000-07:00

EMO-ME

I’m almost certain I’m going to regret this, but I found some high school writing from freshman year that was just too . . . amazing . . . to keep to myself. You may go ahead and assume that the first person narrator is, in fact, me. And the boy? My freshman crush, of course, re-named “Gonzo” because I was, in fact, gonzo for the guy. And now, without further ado, I present, “Snow Day.”

Snow Day

I’m skiing at Badger by myself – ski bus brought me up.① I’m alone since all my friends went inside because of the snow. I’m standing in a rather short line when, all the sudden, Gonzo whizzes by and says “Hello” in his way.② So, Gonzo and I go up on the lift together. It gets cold and I notice that he’s only got a tee and down vest and jeans. No Gloves. I can see that he’s cold.③

So I casually say “Oh Gonzo, you must be freezing. Here, wear my gloves; I’ve got another pair in my pocket.” During which time I take his hands and stroke them like a mom who’s kid is cold.④

He skis much faster than I usually do, so I have to speed up a bit. He wants to take me down the dangerous run. I’ve never been down it, I admit. He says that he’ll get me down safely! It’s starting to snow. We take the scary run and race back to the lodge and he wins.

In the lodge, friends are talking about how nice the dangerous run was today. I put my head on the table and say, “I don’t need to hear it!” And suddenly I realize that the ski bus must have left already!⑤I’m in a panic, but Gonzo calms me down and says his friends can drive me down or I could spend the night with them. So he has me phone home and we all decide that it would be better to stay, because of the weather conditions.⑥

[long boring, well, even more boring section removed]

I get up after trying to sleep for an hour because the floor is so crowded with people that I can’t fall asleep. I go to the big window⑦ and sit watching the snow drift down. After maybe ten minutes I get really sleepy and comfy but just a little chilled. Then, Gonzo wakes up and asks me if I could use some company! I say “Oh yes!!”⑧ and he joins me on the deep sofa.⑨ I talk and he talks and I remember about my friend who just died and get tear-y.⑩ Then, I look up at him and he leans closer to me and kisses me very softly and briefly. I run my fingers through his thick, soft hair⑾ and we kiss mouth on mouth. He covers me with warmth and sweetness. After a short yet long while, he holds me face.

[At this point, the narrative switches into Elvish script, which I’ve gotten a bit rusty on, but I think there was lots more slobbery kissing goin’ on. And probably more running of fingers through hair.]⑿

Okay, blast-from-the-past is over. Seriously though, the next time you are worried about the quality of your writing, please feel free to stop by and re-read “Snow Day.”

Notes:

① Look how chic I was! I wrote in present tense decades before it came in vogue! Note also poor use of en-dash followed by incomplete sentence.

② He says it in his way. Okay?

③ I fail to notice he’s an idiot. Hello—it’s snowing! And everyone else went inside!

④ Seriously debating which is worse: (a) that I want to be his mom or (b) that I wrote “who’s” instead of “whose.”

⑤ Second use of a form of “sudden” which is only allowed three times in an 80,000 word manuscript, according to my current rules.

⑥ Also because it will make the story more interesting. And! Look! I remembered to call my parents!

⑦ Way to make an adjective count! “Big”—wow, just, wow!

⑧ Because I just stepped out of the pages of a Louisa May Alcott book.

⑨ Again with the awesome adjective!

⑩ Because that always makes boys want to kiss you.

⑾ Okay, now I’m actually getting scared. Because if I remember right, this is something Sam wanted to do to Will in CHAMELEON.

⑿ Elvish? Really? Yes. Really. I told you HERE I was a nerd.

Also by the author of Snow Day

New from Indie Carnival Authors!

2011-11-04T18:02:00.000-07:00

What's new this week

Refracted Light is hosting a giveaway for artist and author Selina Fenech's illustrated novel, Memory's Wake. Winner will receive a paperback copy. Open Internationally to wherever The Book Depository ships. Giveaway ends 11/10. Click here to enter!

I'm a Reader, Not a Writer posts and interview and giveaway of Cheri Schmidt's novel Fateful!

The Reckoning by M. Leighton, the second and final book in the Fahllen series, just released on Amazon and Barnes & Noble on Monday, October 31st. Have you gotten your copy?

Visit http://mleightonbooks.blogspot.com/2011/10/reckoning.html for excerpts and the latest on her new release!

Winnemucca & 13 on Halloween by Laura A. H. Elliott are now available for the Nook too! To celebrate, Winnemucca includes an excerpt of Cheri Lasota's novel Artemis Rising in its Kindle & Nook versions. Happy November!

Scary Fall Reads

2011-10-28T21:48:00.000-07:00

I’ve received lots of email lately this week from people who hope to write someday. Based on the two titles I’m about to recommend, I have some advice for everyone who’s written me this month about wanting to write someday. Here it is: do like these authors did and write the story that only you can write. Brilliant advice, huh? I estimate I’m the two-million-seven-hundred-thousand-sixty-fourth person to give this advice. (Give or take a few.) So you’ve probably heard it before. But it’s good advice.

I read two great examples this week from writers who do just this: Maggie Stiefvater and Laura Elliot. I started reading Maggie the summer Shiver came out. I liked her writing, and I’ve been buying her books ever since. I want to recommend The Scorpio Races as an example of where a writer does what only she could do. It’s scary. It’s romantic. It’s about horses. And the faery-realm. (Ish.) The setting is strongly Celtic. Color (in descriptions) is practically a character on its own right.

Now, lots of people could write a scary story with great descriptions utilizing color. And lots of people could write a romantic tale in a Celtic setting. Or a horse story that draws on mythology. Or—you get the idea. But I’m pretty sure only Maggie could have written a Celtic-set, scary, romantic horse-race story drawing upon faery-mythology with descriptions of color that make you want to get your watercolors out.

Then there’s Laura. I am reading her Thirteen on Halloween which has this lovely crossing in and out of reality based on perception. Laura loves magical realism. Laura loves Halloween. Laura’s funny as heck. Laura uses animals’ names as verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. Who else could have written this humorous Halloween tale of magical realism with “to peacock” as a conjugate-able verb? Not me!

So there you have it: my recommends for some fun fall reading. By authors uniquely qualified to tell their stories. And for those of you who are thinking you’d like to write something? Please do. Dig deeply through the things you know and love. And you might find the story only you can write.

A Story Only I Could Write

YA Indie Carnival--What's New This Week

2011-10-28T21:37:00.000-07:00

The Reckoning by M. Leighton, the second and final book in the Fahllen series, will be available for purchase on Amazon and Barnes & Noble on Monday, October 31st. Halloween day!

Visit http://mleightonbooks.blogspot.com/2011/10/reckoning.html for excerpts and the latest on her new release!

Book signing for Crushed by K.C. Blake this Saturday from noon to four at the Northpark Mall in Joplin, MO.!
Read an excerpt here!

Join The Paranormal Plumes This Weekend Oct. 28-Oct. 30th in Savannah, GA IF YOU DARE! #paranormalplumessociety all weekend for virtual scares

The Noah sisters rule Titan High with their beauty, brains, and magical powers.

Each year they play a secret game: Crushed. The girls pick their targets carefully and blow enchanted dust into the boy’s faces, charming them, but this year Kristen makes a grave mistake. She chooses the wrong boy and almost dies that same day. Coincidence? Maybe.

But something isn’t quite right about Zach Bevian. He doesn’t behave like a boy who’s been Crushed. He goes from hot to cold, from looking at her with contempt to asking her out on a date. She doesn’t know what to think. Does he hate her or is he truly falling for her? Is he trying to kill her, or is he trying to save her?

CHAMELEON by Cidney Swanson Now Available in paperback!Click to purchase

When Sam learns of her nemesis Helmann’s Nazi-like plan to establish a Thousand-Year Reign, she’s determined to fight him. Along with Will and Mickie, Sam flees to France to meet Sir Walter—their best hope for stopping Helmann’s brave new world.
But Sam isn’t any safer in France. Someone is following her. Someone invisible. Sam will have to figure out how to hide from an enemy she can’t even see.

13 on Halloween & Winnemucca by Laura A. H. Elliott now for sale at A Children's Place Bookstore andBroadway Books in Portland, OR

Twelve-year-old Roxie wants to be like Adrianne, the popular girl, the peacock, who gets everything she wants––a trampoline, a flock to prowl around the mall with, and most especially invitations to parties. But everything changes when Roxie invites all the popular kids in the eighth grade to her thirteenth birthday party on Halloween and they all come. And a boy, the boy, actually talks to Roxie. Roxie has the best night of her life until the peacocks decide they want to celebrate her birthday in a way Roxie never expects––in her attic, with a gift that is out of this world, and a pact to never tell a living soul what happens next.

Enter Cheri Schmidt's Library Giveaway from Oct. 20- Nov 20th & win a chance win signed copies of The Fateful Trilogy & have Cheri donate her books to your library!

A huge fan of Jane Austen, Danielle hopes to find her own Mr. Darcy when she leaves Colorado to attend art school in London. Of course she knows it's silly to wish for that, naive even. But she's met enough males who lacked respect for women, a growing trend it seemed. And at nineteen...well.... However, on only her second night there she gets lost and is threatened by a stalker who proves to be immune to her martial arts training. Before she is completely overpowered, she is then saved by Ethan Deveroux.

The Vincent Boys by Abbi Glines Available Now

Being the good girl isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Ashton Gray has grown weary of playing the part to please her parents, and to be worthy of the town’s prince charming, Sawyer Vincent. Maybe That’s why she’s found herself spending time with Sawyer’s cousin, Beau, while he’s away for the summer camping with his family. Beau is nothing like her perfect boyfriend. He’s the sexiest guy she’s ever seen, dangerous in ways she’s only day dreamed about, and the one guy she should stay away from.
Beau never envied Sawyer his loving parents, his big nice home, or his position as quarterback. He loves him like a brother. Which is why he's tried everything in his power to keep his distance from Sawyer’s girlfriend. Even if he has loved her since the age of five, Ashton is Sawyer’s girl, so therefore she’s off limits. But when Sawyer leaves for the summer, Ashton, the one girl Beau would move Heaven and Earth for, decides she wants to get into trouble. Stabbing the one person who’s always accepted him and stood by him in the back, is the cost of finally holding Ashton Gray in his arms. Is she worth losing his cousin over?.... Hell Yeah.

Family Magic by Patti Larsen available now

Sixteen-year-old Sydlynn Hayle is the daughter of a powerful witch and a demon lord of the seventh plane. The trouble is, she just wants to be ordinary. Syd struggles to survive the minefield of her new high school while being torn between her attraction to football hero Brad Peters and the darkly mysterious Quaid Moromond. When her coven comes under attack, Syd is forced to face the fact she is a witch and only her power can save her family’s magic.

My Tattered Bonds, the last of the Bloodstone Saga by Courtney Cole

It is always darkest before the dawn. Harmonia has certainly found this to be true. She has faced more than any one person, goddess or mortal, should ever have to face.

She has lost her soul mate time after time, lies and deceit have surrounded her and in fact, she has even been misled about her very identity. Yet she has always emerged with strength and grace. But now she will face the unthinkable. Her daughter has been taken and Harmonia will risk everything to get her back.

In this epic series finale, all will be revealed. The only question remaining is…Who will be left standing?

My Tattered Bonds is preceded by Every Last Kiss (book one), Fated (book two) and With My Last Breath (book three). This book contains a preview of Courtney Cole's exciting upcoming new series, The Moonstone Saga.

God Bless the Nerds

2011-10-15T13:51:00.000-07:00

Raise your hand if you’re a nerd. Of any variety. Maybe you’re a little too into ballet. Or Star Trek. Or you’re the only girl ever to like Halo. You think Middle Earth is a real place. You study obscure facts about World War II aircraft. You’ve read every work in the library’s biography section. Go on; raise your hand if you’re a nerd.

I won’t laugh.

As soon as I was old enough to scrawl my name across the back of a library card, I lived in libraries: the county library, stately with a cupola on top, the children’s section in a warm cozy basement; the school library, with large windows along one whole wall and ugly blue-gray carpeting that made your knees itch. Librarians became the fairy godmothers and fathers who provided me with riches beyond compare.

I was on my way to Nerd-dom.

When I grew older, a number of factors contributed to making me a quiet and withdrawn teen. If I’d lived in libraries as a child, I lived in books as a teen. Here I found the safe harbor from the raging sea that is middle school. I had friends, I had hopes, I had dreams--all within the pages of book after book after book.

During these years I formed deep relationships with words, sentences, and paragraphs. I’d always written stories; now I explored essays, poetry, and imagined histories. Writing was personal and provided a place I felt safe. And it might have remained a private thing except for the Nerds.

As my stories grew longer and explored the angst and pain of growing up, I realized I didn’t want to keep my writing to myself any longer. I thought of all the libraries and classrooms filled with nerds like me. The time had come to pay forward all that I’d been given. (A tiny something--just a few drops in a rich ocean.) I felt pretty confident the world hadn’t run out of kids who needed a safe place to explore their questions and pain, or even to escape from those things. I began putting my stories out there because I had something I wanted to give back to the ‘tweens and teens that were like me: happiest in a book.

And then it happened last month. A quiet ‘tween approached me to tell me how much she’d enjoyed my book. I could see the conflict behind her eyes: I want to talk to this author; I don’t like talking to strangers. She was so brave it made my insides squirm. A part of me recognized a part of this young woman. I hope I told her thank you in a way that she could hear. I was so overwhelmed by the beauty of her courage that I have no idea what I actually said to her.

But I went home glad to have a job that lets me pay forward all the gratitude I feel for those librarians, those authors, those books that got me through the rough patches. I was a book-nerd. Ha! I still am. And I don’t think I’m alone.

Browse Cidney's Books on Amazon

Browse Cidney's Books on Barnes&Noble

Looking for more book-geekdom? Check out these authors on YA Indie Carnival:

Courtney Cole's final book in the Bloodstone Saga is out! http://www.amazon.com/Courtney-Cole/e/B004Y4Z8ZU/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_pop_1

Lexus Luke's Manitou The Sky People Saga (30% of the royalties of go to the ASPCA) http://www.lexusluke.com/

The Vincent Boys by Abbi Glines releases Oct 21. Here is the book trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=aAp6chU-d6o

For a limited time, get a signed copy of Kimberly Kinrade's YA paranormal thriller/romance Forbidden Mind plus awesome gifts with each purchase. http://bit.ly/qGMQkz

Filter Giveaway on Gwenn Wright's blog! http://hereventuality.blogspot.com/2011/10/von-strassenbergs-giving-it-away.html. The Paranormal Plumes Haunted Book Tour in Savannah Halloween Weekend!http://www.theplumessociety.com/

Love in a Minor Key

2011-10-06T17:57:00.000-07:00

Love in a Minor Key

While my main characters wake me early in the morning and keep me tossing and turning at night, there are days when I find myself seduced by the charms of one of the minor characters inhabiting my personal universe.

Like Sir Walter de Rochefort.

Ah, Sir Walter, you relentless tease. Of all the characters in my Ripple series, he’s the most likely to tell me what he’s thinks of something. Anything. The dinner I cooked, (the dinner I didn’t cook), the danger in which I’ve placed a character, his opinion on American _________. (You fill in the blank. He’s got plenty o’ opining when it comes to America and Americans.)

Whilst my other characters (major and minor) mostly skedaddle the moment I finish writing for the day, Sir Walter refuses. He hangs around unseen and unexpected like the invisible man he is. And then he ambushes me at absolutely ridiculous moments with his Gallic wit and accent (which is remarkably sexy, considering he’s old enough to be my . . . er . . . never mind—too hard to calculate—considering he’s over six-hundred.)

His complete devotion to France and all things French just kills me. He’s just so darned sure that his country has already pronounced the last word in everything from fashion to dining to automobiles. I mean, really? (“Absolument, my dear,” he replies.)

There’s the fact he can cook a mean cassoulet, help dispatch a villain, and perform surgery all within a few hours. There’s his loyalty to Mickie, Will and Samanthe. There’s his ability to take a trivial experience (a day at an amusement park) and draw out of that lessons for living life with more compassion and a willingness to sacrifice one’s own life for the good of others. Um, gosh.

So, in a few minutes when I step away from my desk for the evening, I’ll be keeping an ear out for my French friend. I’m reheating take-out pizza. I’m sure he’ll have something to say about that.

Who are your fave “lesser” characters?

Sir Walter approves your purchase of this book, featuring himself. 3.99.

Finding the Gems

2011-09-26T19:22:00.000-07:00

FINDING THE GEMS: A Tribute to Markus Zusak

She leaned down and looked at his lifeless face and Liesel kissed her best friend, Rudy Steiner, soft and true on his lips. He tasted dusty and sweet. He tasted like regret in the shadows of trees and in the glow of the anarchist’s suit collection.

–Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

If you have read and loved Zusak’s book, you may have come across his description of his writing: "I like the idea that every page in every book can have a gem on it." When I first read this, I immediately thought, “Yes!” I knew I wanted to try to do that same thing: to make sure there was one sparkling bit of language on each page that would make a reader sigh or smile or cry or remember when. Zusak’s idea of a “gem on [each page]” has never left me.

Zusak further mentions that some of his images show up during initial writing and others get re-written dozens of times or even removed entirely. When I’m feeling lazy or in a hurry, I use these ideas to remind myself to slow down and let the words take as much time as they need. At the very least, Zusak’s words remind me to make a notation to re-visit an image later, when my mind is fresher.

Zusak continues, "It’s probably what I love most about writing—that words can be used in a way that’s like a child playing in a sandpit, re-arranging things, swapping them around."

I love this image, because at its best, this is what writing is like for me. Playful and full of give-and-take. When too many of my sentences begin with a subject, continue to a verb, and end with a direct object, I know it’s time to play. How can I switch things around? Make them interesting? If I’ve written too many long, comma-filled sentences in a row (yes, Mr. Robinson-from-ninth-grade-English, I was listening!) then I know it’s time to pop in a very short sentence or two. This kind of word-play is, to me, soothing and irresistible.

While the story is what starts me out when I write, the words themselves are what propel me through the dark days when I’m sure what I’ve written is awful dreck. How can I dredge through this muck and find that gem? And in the end, this provides a nice balance: spending some days writing the story down as fast as my fingers can fly and then sinking down into the words on a single page and swapping them around until they shine.

So thank you, Markus Zusak, for giving me that image of a gem that can be placed upon each page. Thank you for the hours of intense and often frustrating labor, and thank you for helping me, in the end, to make my stories a little bit better.
4.99 e-book

Notes:

Markus Zusak, The Book Thief, (2005, rpt; New York; Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, 2007), p. 536.

Markus Zusak, Afterword, “In His Own Words—A Conversation with Markus Zusak,” The Book Thief, (2005, rpt; New York; Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, 2007), p. 11.

Snape is My New Crush

2011-07-22T20:41:00.000-07:00

Snape is my new crush. There. I said it out loud. Well, I put it in writing anyway. Like many readers, I feel an intense connection to Severus Snape every time I read through the second half of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I just wasn’t prepared for the effect that his story would have on me when presented on a really, really big screen.

I wasn’t one of those who made it for the midnight viewings. I’d promised my niece that we would watch it together. (We’re both very bookish and deeply devoted to all things JK Rowling.) After I made the promise, it was a bit hard to keep, as she wouldn’t be coming to visit ‘til July 18^th, and the rest of the family were too sick to go until the 20^th.

But this past Wednesday, taking advantage of cheaper matinee pricing, we all marched down to the local Cinemark. I knew I’d be sad. I’d read a tweet by Cheryl Klein (continuity editor on later HP’s) where she compared her night at the premiere to watching your best friends getting beaten up for two hours. So, yeah, I knew it would probably be a tear-jerker. For some people.

But I wasn’t prepared.

Oh, my goodness, from the moment Alan Rickman first walked on the screen, and without his having uttered any words, you could feel Snape's inner turmoil. It was painful, hearing him deliver that initial warning about not sheltering Harry Potter. Okay, you know what? I’m just going to break every rule I learned in school about reviewing a film and full-on talk about Snape like he was a real person,. But didn’t you feel it? How conflicted he was as he made those demands of all of the Hogwarts students? I got shivers.

And I kind of wanted to slap Harry’s face and tell him to behave when he accused Severus of the wrong crime moments later. (Didn’t you want to shake Harry by the shoulders?) I love Rowling’s Harry Potter deeply, so I’ve got to admire the directing behind a scene that made me want to give Harry a wake-up slap.

And then the pensieve scene. Oh my. Oh I so did not see that reaction coming. Liquid just started gushing from my eyes and nose. I was shaking with tears. And, of course, trying to do it quietly so as not to disturb other people near me. But I couldn’t stop. I think the tears started the moment I heard young Severus’ voice. So small, so earnest. So obviously over-the-top in love with Lily, his one friend in all the wide world. And Snape’s anguish when he comes to Dumbledore knowing Lily’s been killed? “They put their trust in the wrong person, just like someone else I know.” (Thanks, Dumbledore. Here’s some salt and lemon juice you can throw in there while you’re at it.)

Which brings us to the moment when Snape discovers the dead body of his best friend, his compass-star, his one true love. I can’t bring that scene to mind without tearing up. Which would not be good because I’m not a great typist to begin with. So, ku-dos to you-dos, Hollywood, for taking those unbelievably painful pages from Rowling’s masterpiece and turning them into something even harder to bear. Because like Aristotle pointed out, a good cry can be a good thing. Even if you end up with a crush on Severus Snape.

Rippler 2.99 ebook/10.99 paperback

How Teenagers Can Give You the Courage to Change Your Life

2011-06-23T19:43:00.000-07:00

It took two fifteen-year-old boys to convince me to follow my heart and start writing full time. Fifteen’s this great age. You’ve survived the battle arena of middle school and probably made it through your first year of high school. And in some part of you that maybe doesn’t hover on the surface, you know—absolutely know—that you can do something great. Something amazing. Something only you can do.

Yeah, maybe a person or circumstance in your life has shoved that knowledge down to the deep end of the pool and tied it there with a big rock, but you still know it’s there, it’s true, and it really doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks because you know it.

Look around at the adults in your life: how many of them still know this, carry it around in their pockets? One? Two? Zero? We get old and we get tired and we forget that we ever felt this way once. I mean, adults write sentences like “It’s never too old to be what you might have been” precisely because they have to see it spelled out in black and white to even remember what you know at fifteen: that you are invincible and can do whatever you set out to do.

Four years ago I found Eragon by Christopher Paolini. I was standing in my Costco, looking at the books table (the coolest part of Costco.) As I browsed, I overheard these grandmas talking.

“Wrote it when he was a teenager, and he’s a real nice kid. He home-schooled with one of my grandchildren.”

Well, you can bet that caught my attention. This gorgeous book was written by a teen? Whaaat? Anyway, I bought the book and loved it. I hadn’t fallen into a world like this since I was a kid riding in a van to Alaska. (I had only Lord of the Rings for thirty days of driving. I rationed it out to one hundred pages a day; those pages were the best part of each day.)

And now, here’s this fifteen-year-old author giving me another great world (with way more dragons!) I finished his first book and bought and read the others, and I thought to myself, Wow. This kid, he’s like, fifteen, and he didn’t have any issues with writing a freaking long book. He just did it. And then did it again.

That same year, I noticed another fifteen-year-old knocking out a couple of novels every couple of months. And I thought to myself: Wow. Where do you get that kind of belief in yourself and your abilities that lets you just do what you want to do?

And it’s like this light popped on, blinding me: when you’re a teenager, you know that you can do anything. Seriously, Teens. Can. Do. Anything. As a late-bloomer, I’m probably not the best person in the world to convince you of this fact, but look: someone else said it too! (Better than I did.)

So on March 20, 2009, I told myself: “No more ‘I’m-going-to-write-a-novel-someday;’ I need to just write. Like those fearless fifteen-year-olds. Forget ‘someday.’ This is someday.”

You know how adults or teachers say that their kids teach them so much? (Yeah, we do say that, and if the adults in your own life aren’t saying it, that sucks—they should, because it’s true!) So anyway, it took a pair of undaunted teenage boys to teach me that if I wanted to do something bad enough, I needed to just start. Today.

No matter what your age is: be that fifteen-year-old version of yourself. And if you are fifteen? Do what you know you can do. Do it now before you get old and forgetful and busy doing things that don’t really matter to you anyway. Take it from a late-bloomer. Nuff said.

Thank you, Chris Paolini, for showing me that it’s okay to do what you dream of doing and that if you weren’t too young to do it, then maybe I wasn’t too old. And the other fifteen-year-old? That was my kid: the ‘JWS’ to whom I dedicated my first book. Because if it weren’t for him and Paolini and their teenager-ability to just do stuff, I wouldn’t be writing novels today. And that would just be sad.

Book One in the Ripple Series 2.99 at Amazon

Candles and Electricity*

2011-06-04T13:57:00.000-07:00

I am frequently asked why I chose to publish Rippler independently. The short answer is that I couldn't resist. Imagine for a moment that you lived in the age during which electric light was being installed. You don't have electricity. Some of your neighbors have had that new-fangled gas-lighting installed, but they admit it was a bother and that it smells bad, and honestly, you've always been fine with candles and a kerosene lamp or two yourself.

Now imagine that you are off to the big city where you will stay in a hotel. Your room is supplied with candles and electric lighting. You try it out, and suddenly you see the appeal. Electric light is bright and unwavering. You consider how convenient it is; there's no wick to trim, no running out of wax, and considerably less fire hazard.

Obviously the analogy breaks down pretty quickly. Oh, what analogy? Well, in my example above, paper books would be to candles as e-books are to electric light. (Kerosene and gas lighting are the e-readers of 20 years ago that didn't catch on and the ability to read books on your computer.) (Maybe you have to flip them for the analogy to work.) (Whatever.)

Clearly, there are times even today when you might choose candles over electricity: to set a certain mood or because there's a black-out. And when you camp, you might use a Coleman lantern. But for everyday convenience, our nation has decided nothing beats electric light, for the time being.

I believe that is where we are heading now with regard to reading. That is, I think that in the near future, more people will read books electronically than on paper. This is especially true for the kids born at the turn of the millennium, and they are the future. They also happen to be my target market.

I had a novel (a series, actually) that hadn't found a home yet. I also have two other titles that are close to being ready for submission. I had decided I would pursue publishing those instead. But what to do with Rippler, the darling child of my heart?

I couldn't resist giving e-publishing a try.

And I'm so very glad I did! I completely underestimated the amount of work involved, but much of what slowed me down will be easier the next few times, and people are buying Rippler. I'm so tickled! My little book, which could have languished on my computer's hard drive, is out there being read by people I've never met! I did not expect sales to take off this quickly, but I'm not complaining!

I'm moving right on to my next novel. And that feels great.

Oh, and by the way? I totally love lighting my house with candles, and I will always treasure books printed on paper.

*With a nod to Joe Konrath's blog, where I first ran into the analogy. http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/

Book One in the Ripple Series 2.99 at Amazon

All I Ever Wanted

2011-06-01T11:47:00.000-07:00

I accomplished a huge life-goal over Memorial Day Weekend. Since I was seven, I have wanted to write a book. That goal morphed into "I want to write a book people will buy" as the years went on. Rippler (the book formerly known as "Ripple") went live on Amazon this weekend and, shock of shocks, people bought it. People not related to me. (I would know this because I had more than the two sales I coerced family members into making!) I spent my birthday (on traditional Mem. Day) pulling weeds and laying compost in the yard, and all day I had this happy flutter in my belly.
I did it! I really did it!
My seven-year-old self just grinned and grinned.

Book One in the Ripple Series 2.99 at Amazon

Things I Didn't Miss on Vacation

2011-05-17T14:06:00.000-07:00

I went to sunny, hot Florida for ten days to escape wet, cold Oregon. There were quite a few things I didn't miss.

I didn't miss the rain.

I didn't miss the sub-80-degree weather. (80 is God's perfect temperature; just sayin'.)

Didn't miss the cats me-yowling for breakfast.

Okay. Maybe just a teeny. Gosh, I did kind of miss the cats, I guess. Maybe I should list the things I missed, now that I am PATENTLY no longer on vacay.
So . . . Um . . . There has to be something . . .

Jeeves! I missed my butler-alarm-clock. Seriously, if you haven't been woken up by the mellifluous voice of Stephen Fry as your own personal butler (Excuse me, madam, but the Washington Post rang, again . . .), then you have not lived. I'm sure you can find one for sale online. Probably not used, though, as the wake-up changes daily and is freaking hysterical. So, yes, I did miss Jeeves.

And brussell sprouts. "What?" you say, "How on earth do you cook those miniature cabbages? They always end up all gooey at the bottom of my veg drawer after 3 or 4 months of being ignored because I can't figure out how to cook them!" (Admit it, did I peg some of you?)

So, because I missed brussell sprouts and now you are dying to know how I make them, I present to you my very own deliciousness method of including this cruciferous (I think) veg in your diet.

Brussell Sprouts a la Cidney

1/2 pound of the little buggers, as small of size as you can find*
2 slices of bacon; go for the uncured, happily-raised hog variety*

Start cooking the bacon, on low heat. Cut off any discolored ends at stem end and make an "X" through the stem end of each sprout. Place in a veg steamer and steam for about 10 minutes--your mileage may vary depending on size of sprout--and remove. Slice each in half, lengthwise. Remove bacon from pan and dice it up teeny. Leave the bacon fat in the skillet. YOU HEARD ME. You're eating brussell sprouts, for goodness sakes. Live a little.
Place all the little halved sprouts in the bacon fat and add the diced bacon. Fry the sprouts in bacon/fat for 2-5 minutes depending on how blackened or light you like it. Salt and pepper to taste.
*Try Trader Joe's or a healthy foods store near you if your farmer's market can't supply.

If you want to be really decadent, make a cheese sauce to drizzle all over the little yummies. Enjoy! Tell me if you do enjoy. Really. I want to know.

Finding the Write Rules

2011-04-28T07:59:00.000-07:00

Editor Cheryl Kline challenged writers of children's literature to post or at least ponder their guiding lights for writing (on her non-eponymous blog, chavelaque.blogspot.com). I love a challenge, so here goes!

My Advice to Me, Myself and I

Write because you must.

When I was younger, an actor/director told me there was only one excuse for being in theatre: because you'd be miserable doing anything else.

Let your characters say what they need to say, how they need to say it.

One of my most recently-met characters insisted on reporting (past) conversations in "scripted" form instead of as bits of quotation-marked dialog. I let her have her way in this one area, and it must have really given her some confidence, because she's the biggest bossy-pants I've ever written. If I'd insisted upon quotation marks, I might never have met her.

Don't write down to anybody.

Admit it: you hated this when you were any age. Your readers are smarter than you. Get over it.

Write the story you want to read.

It worked for Tolkien, and it really saves on the old book-budget. Just kidding. I'd never apply a budget to anything as essential as reading.

Read it out loud to your kids.

Yes, I know there's all kinds of advice out there about not relying on the feedback you get from your sister, your best friend, or the people-who-depend-on-your-goodwill-to-eat. But if you're writing for kids, read it out loud to your own. Mine have no problem telling me when I suck. I guess they know how to make their own food, though. So, teach your kids to cook. Then read your stuff to them.

I guess that's about it for now. (Hint: do a screen capture and then come back in a few minutes/hours/days to see my edits!)

What are your rules for your own writing endeavors?

Happy Birthday, Bill

2011-04-23T21:31:00.000-07:00

Ah, William. You heart-breaker. You shameless flirt. You had me at "the quality of mercy is not strained." I mean, how's a seven-year-old supposed to resist language like that? And here's the thing: no one saw it coming. Mom and Dad figured I wouldn't notice you, probably counted on our age difference as something that would steer me clear of you--maybe even send me down for a nap.

But no.

From the first moment, from, "In sooth, I know not why I am so sad," I was yours heart and soul. From there it was but a short step to, "for you, I would be trebled twenty times myself." Ah, me, Will Shakespeare. You captured my affections before I knew I had any to bestow.

Did you know I tried to give my daughter your birthday? And when she insisted on being born two days early, I shook my head and asked, "Who will believe thee [fill in the name, fellow bard-o-philes!]?" Did you hear I middle-named my first-born after you? Called my second-born after the jolly knight of Twelfth Night?

You ruined me, Will, for anyone else. Here's to you--I raise my bumper high and toast this, your 447th year.

drink of the gods

2011-03-12T12:10:00.000-08:00

If someone had walked up to me this morning and said, "You are going to spend ten minutes making yourself a mug of hot cocoa," I probably would have responded with something like, "Dude. Two words. Swiss Miss. Two more. Thirty seconds." (Or maybe it's Carnation brand we usually keep on hand?)

In any case, the [insert brand name here] that we usually keep on the shelves was GONE when I felt the cocoa cravings. Ohnoes! It's cold and rainy and I absolutely, positively need cocoa! The cold and rain put me off making a run to the grocery store or [insert coffee shop name here.]

But wait! The internet will save me! I googled around a bit and found a recipe here that looked promising and freely adapted it to suit my preferences, the amount I required, and what was on the cocoa-packet-less shelf in my kitchen.

As I blenderized and stirred my beverage, I pondered several things such as:
(1) I am an idiot for spending this much time on a mug of cocoa.
(2) I am not an idiot for spending this much time on a mug of cocoa.
(3) It feels nice to get up from my desk and stretch and WOW does this stuff smell amazing!

So, was the beverage in question worth the time it took?

Two words. Um, yeah.

If you'd like to make your own mug of awesomeness, here's my recipe:
1 cup raw milk
1 1/2 T raw cream
1 raw egg yolk
teeny-weeniest pinch of salt
1/2 tsp butter
1/8 tsp vanilla
2 1/2 tsp. rapadura (or sweetener of choice, to taste)
1 tsp honey
1 tablespoon high quality (best you can afford!) cocoa powder, unsweetened

Yes, that's a whopping 9 ingredients. I placed them in a blender to smooth everything out and then heated on a low heat to 117 degrees. I then poured the chocolate-y deliciousness into a mug I'd warmed with hot water, because 117 is a perfect drinking temp, and I didn't want the mug to cast an undesired chill upon my potion of delectable-ness.

If it is cold and rainy, or cold and snowy, or cold and [insert undesirable weather pattern here] where you live, I invite you to skip the powdered stuff and sample the drink of the gods.

Who's Cidney?

2011-03-11T15:21:00.000-08:00

If you know me, personally, you'll know me as Cindy, or maybe Cynthia. So who's Cidney? Well, when I was little, I had a friend who couldn't manage to pronounce my name correctly. She called me Cidney all year, and I liked it. I was only five, and it didn't occur to me that I could require everyone to address me as Cidney, or I would have.

Tee hee! Enter the need for an easily-googled pen name. Go ahead and google Cynthia Swanson. Or Cindy Swanson. Or CJ Swanson. Wow! There's a lot of me out there! Who knew I also ran PepsiCo or made cool art?

Use your kindergarten nickname, said a tiny little voice inside. Now, being a writer, I don't run the other way when the voices start talking. I listen. I take notes. I write tomes. Or in this case, I decide to spend a few days or maybe months trying on the name "Cidney" once again, at least in my writerly endeavors.

(Good job, says the little voice.)

Thoughts on MATCHED

2011-01-07T20:41:00.000-08:00

So, if THE GIVER had a baby with UNWIND whilst living as a resident in the Capitol of Panem, it would look like MATCHED. (You have to suspend your disbelief on soooo many levels regarding Lowry's and Shusterman's novels to imagine this . . .) There's a lot of buzz about MATCHED being the next great thing to give to your students/library patrons/kids/selves who loved THE HUNGER GAMES. I don't exactly buy that particular sell. Okay, I did buy the book, so I guess I believed or wanted to believe. But if you are looking for the kind of heroine you loved in Katniss, or the kind of adventure the 74th annual Hunger Games provided, it ain't gonna be found in MATCHED.

This heroine takes her time to put on her big-girl panties and play hard ball. It feels real, that it would take her this long, because if anyone ever lived in a candy-colored Capitol, it's Cassia. Her journey isn't one of fighting to survive. The journey she must take is one that brings her to the place where she realizes something's rotten in the perfect State which has dictated every aspect of her perfect life. That takes some doing when you are well-fed and loved and basically safe.

That said, it's a fun read and the world-building is just terrific. And there's a great set-up for an action-filled second (and third?) book. There's just not much action or danger in this volume. If that's what you liked in THE HUNGER GAMES, you'd be better served reading elsewhere.

Thoughts on MOCKINGJAY

2010-10-10T11:32:00.000-07:00

I really wanted to like Mockingjay. No, to put it more accurately, I wanted to finish the book and be utterly satisfied with the outcome of Katniss’ life. Because, along with so many of you, I’d grown to care deeply for the feisty teen. I wanted her to take out Snow (and Coin as well.) I wanted her to have a profound happily-ever-after with one of the boys she loved. I was even willing to be persuaded one way or the other although I leaned towards self-sacrificing Peeta just a bit. I wanted Prim to grow up to be an herbalist and healer. I wanted Buttercup fat and happy, Haymitch back on the wagon for good, and a cherry on top, please.

So did I like it? Did the novel, in fact, satisfy?

If you’ve read the novel, you know that what Ms. Collins delivered fell somewhat outside the purview of my expectations. So much so that it has taken six weeks for all my feelings to settle into something like an opinion. So here it is. Collins didn’t deliver either happily-ever-after or up-yours-Capitol the way I expected. Instead, she delivered what I’m going to call realistically-ever-after. Given everything that we know about how humans survive trauma, wartime, and devastating loss, the picture of Katniss rings absolutely true.

First the Capitol, and then Coin, spent untold effort trying to figure out how to complete unhitch and neutralize Katniss Everdeen. And they came so close to succeeding. It’s nothing short of miraculous that she retains a semblance of sanity after two rounds in the Arena, seeing her entire District destroyed because of her actions, watching as a warehouse filled with people she’s comforted are bombed, watching as her companions are horrifically slaughtered while she leads them towards Snow in the Capitol, and seeing her little sister burn to death before her eyes, and so many other horrors. A superhero could survive these things. A fictional character could survive these things. But what makes us love Katniss? She’s as true-to-life as they come. A real person—a person who loves and feels deeply—cannot experience these horrors without some degree of insanity, without some desire to end it all.

I agonized through the pages detailing Katniss’ mental derailment. Why? I kept asking. Why can’t I just have Katniss happy and married or happy and single or, well, just happy? Do I need this as a reader? Er, well, yes. Actually I do, if I value truth-telling. And that is what Collins gave me: not what I expected, not what I wanted, but Truth. The last paragraph, the last sentence—these are what reconcile me to the way in which Collins told Katniss’ truth:

I’ll tell them how I survive it. I’ll tell them that on bad mornings, it feels impossible to take pleasure in anything because I’m afraid it could be taken away. That’s when I make a list in my head of every act of goodness I’ve seen someone do. It’s like a game. Repetitive. Even a little tedious after more than twenty year.

But there are much worse games to play.

Peeta Bread

2010-08-14T10:16:00.000-07:00

Hmmm. Where'd summer disappear? Well, the good thing about nearing the end of summer is that MOCKINGJAY is releasing soon. Are you one of the people who still has HUNGER GAMES on their too-be-read list? This is a great week to start reading. Although next week would be better. And plan to take the day off because once you sit down with the first book, there's no getting up for any non-essential activities. In fact, it would be best if you just bought or borrowed all three books at once.

But I'm not here today to discuss the meritorious nature of Collins' books. Rather, I present you with a recipe: a small homage to Peeta Mellark, that savior of all things Katniss. In the novel, the bread is described as stuffed with raisins and nuts. My version is made with whole wheat since I'm guessing Peeta would have known that whole wheat would provide Katniss and family with more nutrition per bite.

Enjoy!

PEETA BREAD

In a large mixing bowl, combine:

3/4 cup warm milk (100-120 degrees)
2 cups warm water (100-120 degrees)
2 T. yeast
1/8 cup sugar

Stir once and let sit until yeast has proofed. (Become bubbly.)

Add to above mixture:

1/4 cup oil
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup loose-packed brown sugar
1 T. salt
3 cups whole wheat flour (fresh ground if you can grind it)
3 cups white flour or until sides of bowl are clean when mixing.

Mix together by hand or with dough hooks on a mixer until you have a beautiful dough. Knead in 1-2 cups walnuts and 1 cup raisins, 1/2 cup dried cranberries.

Often I add an additional cup whole wheat, but I live in a damp climate.

Let dough rise in an oiled, covered container until doubled. (1/2 hour to 90 minutes)

Divide dough in half. Form loaves and place in greased pans. Let rise in warm place, covered, until doubled.

Bake in preheated oven at 350 for 35 minutes.

For the full Katniss experience (which I do not recommend) you would avoid eating for a month before enjoying this delicious bread. And there's something about putting the loaf under your shirt that just sounds really painful as well. That's it. I need to re-read obviously.

Happy Baking while you wait for MOCKINGJAY!

Show, Don't Tell

2010-05-20T09:28:00.000-07:00

I picked up a 1996 Newberry Honor Book after reading an interview with the author who had just published a fourth book in the series begun with The Thief (Megan Whalen Turner, Greenwillow, 1996.) Not a very inspired title, I thought, and the cover art on my library-borrowed edition gave nothing away. I got drowsy reading three successive nights in a row, forcing myself to make it through to the chapters' ends before turning off my light. And I rarely get drowsy reading. Still, I liked some of the quirks of the main character, and the book had been given a prestigious award, right?

I'm glad I stuck with it.

This is a story where things that you learn at the book's end force you to reconsider (and in my case, re-read) everything you thought you'd understood. The technique, done poorly, can antagonize even the most generous reader. But I don't think you'll feel angry at Turner for holding out on you. The great thing about telling the story this way is that you learn who the protagonist is even when you don't know what he is. (I'm sooooo avoiding a major spoiler here, trust me.) This writer understands the value of showing over telling.

As I re-read some of the early chapters that I'd found "slow," I began to notice the art in Turner's showing. Rather than tell us that the thief, Gen, is a handsome, rogue-ish fellow, Turner gives us a scene in which Gen charms the innkeeper, earning her smile where others in Gen's group earn her scorn. The interaction between innkeeper and thief further shows us important character traits. Gen speaks gently when he learns her son is in prison. He's insufferably haughty towards his fellows when she brings Gen, and only Gen, a lunch for the road. Now, it would have been so easy to just say on the first page that the thief's a fellow who behaves kindly towards the down-trodden, but acts arrogantly around those who think too well of themselves.

Turner doesn't.

The author holds her cards close, showing us Gen's behavior in an array of testing situations which allow Gen to learn what he's really made of. And we learn right alongside him. The author's gamble pays off; The Thief is a great coming-of-age read.

I highly recommend The Queen of Attolia and The King of Attolia, the next two books in the series. Have a box of tissues at hand or something you won't regret breaking when you throw it. (Let your knowledge of yourself direct you.) As for me, I'm off to the bookstore for the fourth in the series.

2010-05-17T09:35:00.000-07:00

PARTY by Tom Leveen, Random House 2010

Okay. For starters it's set in Santa Barbara, California. Santa Barbara. *moans with nostalgia* And Leveen gets subtle things just right about the place, such as the fog in June and the fact that sometimes it's better to take De La Vina instead of State Street. Eating is a big deal when you are a high school student, and Leveen makes frequent stops at a variety of food joints. I got hungry for wheat-germ strawberry pancakes (which I don't even like) and killer burritos (which I do) and wondered if my old fave pizza place still exists.

So let's say you have zero personal connection to Santa Barbara. There's still a great chance you'll find this an immersive read. Eleven great chances, actually. Leveen recounts the twelve-or-so hours surrounding the party from eleven different points of view. All speak in first person and in present tense. While I've slogged through books where keeping things in present tense did not enhance the narrative, it absolutely works in PARTY. Much of the action takes place inside the characters' heads where the present tense reinforces the illusion that you are working through issues alongside the characters. Not to say the action stays in the characters' heads; there's an ugly fight, sex, a car accident, and a big, BIG party.

So how does Leveen sustain eleven different POVs? He creates unique back-stories and identities for each character, but many writers do that. What I really enjoyed about Leveen's characterizations can be found in the rhythm of their speech. With a couple of exceptions (which I'll address below), each person in the story speaks from a distinct perspective using decidedly individualized language. Which brings me to: potentially objectionable content. Several characters swear. A lot. This creates a high level of realism in the dialog, but the book will not be appropriate for every teen both because of the language and the frank portrayal of teen sexual and drinking behavior.

But to return to the dialogue. Where one teen uses every known curse-word with abandon, others refrain entirely, and one kid abbreviates his offensive language by using only the first letter of the word he has in mind. Some speak in grammatically correct sentences; others elide letters and syllables. The dialog (and in some cases, dialect,) is so accurate you'll swear Leveen followed these people around with a recording device. I kept thinking of Hamlet speaking to the players: "Now this overdone . . . though it make the unskillful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve." No over-doings here. The dialog is brilliant.

So what are these eleven talking and thinking about? A party, certainly, but there's more going on in this novel than drinking, fighting, and getting laid. (One character's summary of what kids go to parties to do.) We watch them pass through transforming, redemptive experiences between sunset and sunrise. There are really, really, bad decisions made by some of these kids, but there's some amazing re-thinking, apologizing, and owning-up afterward.

I had to think hard to come up with a complaint about the book. I promised above to return to the exceptions to Leveen's success in creating eleven distinctive voices. So here's my only complaint. I found it tough to keep Tommy, Daniel, and Matt from mushing together in my head. In fairness, Matt doesn't get his own chapter. But Tommy and Daniel do, and I still had a hard time, while I read, remembering anything very distinguishing about either of them. Later it occurred to me that this could have been purposeful on the author's part; along with Ryan and Josh, Tommy-Daniel-Matt make a five-some who have spent years together. They have a lot in common and maybe we're supposed to notice similarities instead of differences.

Or maybe I just need to go back and have a second, slower read. Hmm, that sounds nice. And I think I'll go ahead and register for my class reunion in Santa Barbara this fall.

Cutting Hair

2010-04-02T14:58:00.000-07:00

I did it. I went back to the pixie-short cut you can see on the right. After years of ponytailing and pulling the bundle of blond out of the turtleneck, I did it. And it feels GREAT! Honestly, what was I thinking, having thick, long hair in a climate like that of the Willamette Valley? Nothing ever really dries here, ya' know? So now I can dry this head o' hair in about 5 minutes, tops. WOW! Which means: more time for what I love! Books! Baking!

This week I'm reading The Nineteenth Wife set both in 1875 and the present. The dual-story keeps you from getting bored. I'm enjoying the multiple narrative techniques as well. The writer uses court depositions, diaries, pages from the Internet, and the first person narrative of the main character, a twenty-something boy/man. Still not entirely sure where the whole ball of wax is heading, but it is a fascinating look into plural marriages in the 19th and 21st centuries.