Kitty vs' Candle***

Protagonists: the assistants, at least three times as ferocious as they are cute...

Antagonist: a candle, vanilla woods scented, half-price from Walgreens...

Rising action: My money is on the candle...

But then, just as I am about to intervene...

Climax: Tatsu lands a strong right hook!

Resolution: Behold the awesome extinguishing power of the assistants!

Assistants: 1 Candle: 0

***Note: For the aspiring PETA members in the audience, obviously I did not set up a grudge match between my lovely assistants and fire. For one, I'm not sadistic. Also, I am lazy, and setting up things sounds like a lot of work. But when the drama started to play out, I found myself transfixed. How would it all end? I just had to to know. Rest assured, no lovely assistants were injured during this activity. (However, one candle did get bitch-slapped.)

Giveaway Winners!!!

I am super-excited to announce the winner of the Delirium Special Edition and Pandemonium ARC. It is...

SupaGirlbooks!!!!!

SG, you have not only won both a Delirium Special Edition (with the pretty, pretty cover) and a Pandemonium ARC, you have also won another book of your choice from the list below, for a total of three books. Email me via the 'contact me' tab with your additional book of choice and your mailing address.

But wait, there's more!

Second place goes to Kate. Kate you have won your choice of two books from the list below. Email me your top three choices and your mailing address.

But wait, I'm not quite finished...

Third place goes to Natalie. Natalie you have won your choice of one book from the list below. Email me your top three choices and your mailing address.

Winners, put something like GIVEAWAY WINNER in your subject line in case the google mail decides to spam you when I'm not looking and I have to wade through emails about Nigerian lotteries and viagra specials to find you. (Am I the only one it does this to?) And remember, ARCs cannot legally be sold. Keep. Share. Give away on your own blog. But please do not sell, on ebay or anywhere else.

To everyone who didn't win: the list below is just a small sampling of the books I've got cluttering up my too-tiny apartment. Also, I do the occasional book review (under a different name) so I should be scoring sweet new ARCs in the future. I assure you there will be more giveaways, so stay tuned. Extra-special thanks to Lauren Oliver for donating two of her books.

Your possible FREE books include:

An ARC of The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater (lightly chewed cover *glares at assistant #2*)
An ARC of Liar's Moon by Eliazbeth C Bunce
An ARC of Icefall by Matthew Kirby
An ARC of Fire World by Chris d'Lacey
An ARC of The Eleventh Plague by Jeff Hirsch
A hard cover of Lips Touch by Laini Taylor
A hard cover of Rip Tide by Kat Falls
A hard cover of Something, Maybe by Elizabeth Scott
A soft cover of The Betrayal of Natalie Hargrove by Lauren Kate
A soft cover of Twisted by Laurie Halse Anderson
A soft cover of Inexcusable by Chris Lynch
A soft cover of The Luxe by Anna Godbersen
A soft cover of Let it Snow by John Green, Maureen Johnson and Lauren Myracle

(All books in new condition unless specified as chawed by a certain kitty I am thinking of renaming 'Pica')

PANDEMONIUM CONTEST!!!!

As promised, the details on how you can win a much-desired ARC of Lauren Oliver's PANDEMONIUM, as well as a DELIRIUM special edition, both graciously provided by Lauren herself. (Sorry, she forgot to sign them, but you don't care because you can have her sign them when you meet her at a conference someday and that will be even cooler.)

And since I'm feeling a little crazy today, I may just throw in a surprise bonus book, an ARC that's so tasty one of my assistants decided to eat part of the cover :)

This is going to be a random drawing. There are 5 ways to enter. You can do all 5 and have 5 entries. This contest will run for 5 days.

Ways to enter:
1. follow the blog
2. like me on FB
3. follow me on twitter
4. tweet about this contest
5. comment on something on the blog, other than the comment you will be posting in this thread, which will be your actual entry. I know there's not a ton of content here (yet!), but between ranting about things that drive you crazy and raving about TV shows, there should be something for everyone, right?

How to enter:
Post a comment (not an email, not a tweet) in this thread with the ways that you entered. So example:

Awesome reader chick said:
followed blog
liked on FB
commented on blog

Awesome reader chick gets three entries. Winner will be announced on December 6th. Questions?

Less is more

Make every word count. It's not just good advice. It's what your editor expects from you. Everybody knows adverbs are the devil, right? Your characters don't need to dance gracefully or smile happily (though we might need to hear about it if they're smiling sadly.) But it isn't just extra adverbs that gum up the works of your manuscript. Here are a few other superfluous devils to consider:


1. Wordy structure: 'The pages of the book were yellow with age.' Why not 'the book's pages'?


2. Echoes or overused words: We've all got 'em. Mine are 'tiny' and 'just.' Oh yes, everything I write about is just tiny. And then there are manuscript-specific ones. For Venom, they were 'murky' and 'cavernous.' Murky canals and cavernous palazzos on every freaking street corner. Usually you can pick these out in revision, do a 'find', and replace as necessary. Alternatively, you can paste your whole manuscript into a wordle and it'll give you a cute graphical representation of your verbal crutches.


3. Redundant or excessive modifiers:' The frigid, cold winter.' Simplistic, but I see this construction all the time. 'A thin coating of snow, luminous and iceblown, encased the car is a shell of crystal white.' Sounds good, but what is it really saying? Anywhere you are using two adjectives to modify a noun, I would ask yourself a) if you could show instead of tell and b) do you really need both?


4. Extra prepositional phrases: 'Cass sat up in bed.' If your character has been dreaming or sleeping, chances are we know they are in bed. 'Sam glanced around the room and was surprised to see a rabid chicken advancing.' Why not just 'Sam saw a rabid chicken advancing'? (and then show the surprise.) 'It's in the third drawer of the wooden dresser by the window in your bedroom.' Do you really need all that? Maybe you do. The idea is not to strike all the prepositional phrases, just to recognize them and make a conscious decision as to whether they add anything.


5. TM freaking I: It's the Moby Dick phenomenon. Maybe you're an expert in marine biology. Cool, but kids reading your fun MG adventure about a boy who falls off a cruise ship and gets saved by a pod of dolphins don't care. They don't need to read two pages about what dolphins eat. They just want enough description/information to visualize the pod, to feel like they're really there. Plus, if you fell off a cruise ship would you really be watching dolphins eat? No, you'd be freaking out, wondering if you're going to die, and watching for sharks. Well, I would be anyway.


6. Body parts doing their own thing: 'My eyes lifted upward, ever so slightly.' 'My feet carried me away from the brawl that had just broken out.' 'My fingers reached out to touch the stubble of his beard.' There are some places where this kind of writing might be best for tone or style purposes, but again, you should be conscious of your characters' wayward body parts. Unless her eyes are lifting upward while the rest of her is collapsing into a puddle of blood in the street, 'I glanced upward,' probably gets the job done. Did I mention 'glance' is another one of my overused words?


It's not just about weighing down your manuscript with clunky writing; it's also a financial matter. Longer books cost more to edit, copy edit, and produce. As someone whose debut novel weighs in at a hefty 113,000 words, I can tell you that my editor and I were grateful for every single syllable we were able to trim away without sacrificing the story.

Things for which I am NOT thankful

I thought I'd follow up Wednesday's 'Thankful' post with a fun look at a few things that drive me cray-cray. We've all got them. Here are some of mine:

1. People who start a sentence with "I don't mean to be a bitch, but...." Then don't. Moving on.

2. Twitter spammers. I will follow back most people, but I will drop you like a rabid raccoon if 99% of your posts are shameless self-promotion. I only get on twitter a couple times a week. If I've seen the same amazon review blurb about your awesome mystery book at least 7 times in a single week, that means you're resending the same tweet like 20 times a week. No. Just no. Also, if all your tweets are Please follow => @randomstranger, @randomstrangersmom, @irrelevant, @couldbeanyone... you're also getting unfollowed. I mean, WHO actually follows people for no reason at all???? I'm more about quality, than quantity, if you know what I mean.

3. Insane pseudo-professional cyclists. The asphalt loop around Forest Park is NOT the Tour de France. It is a place for wobbly rollerbladers and jogglers (a jogger who juggles--quite a feat) and freaking little kids on bikes with training wheels. I realize your padded spandex shorts make you feel like a professional, but if you can't slow down for five seconds or share the track then you need to GTFO before someone gets killed, okay?

4. Pet rent. So let me get this straight. I can move in a gainfully-employed, big, sweaty boyfriend who will undoubtedly spill a different flavor of beer on the carpet every week during Monday Night Football for free, but my unemployed cats, whose biggest crimes will be shedding all over my sofa, have to pay monthly rent in addition to their separate security deposit? Something's not right about that.

5. Clueless reviewers. I'm not talking about the mean-spirited people on goodreads who mistakenly think it's funny to decorate their 1-star reviews with jpegs of cartoon characters spewing vomit on book covers. Those people deserve a blog post all of their own. Right now I'm cranky at the people who say:

 "This book really pulled me in and I loved the main character and the setting was so exotic and I really liked everything up until I realized Fabulous Author was presenting Christianity as if it were a myth and I'm Christian so I just couldn't agree with that. 1 star."

Really? So Fabulous Author is maybe a different religion than you are, or maybe she's the same religion, but since this is a work of FICTION her character feels differently, and for that you feel justified giving Amazing YA Novel it's only 1-star review? Ditto for the people who say "I really liked it, Breakout Author is a phenomenal writer, but her MC had sex with an older guy and I just don't think we should be marketing this to teens. 1 star."

What about the parts of these reviews (and yes, they are paraphrased but real) that say "really pulled me in", "loved the MC", "really liked it", "phenomenal writer"? Do these not warrant any stars at all? Rating books should be about how you viewed the work overall, not about your political agenda. And I say that as a writer, reader, and book reviewer.

What's driving YOU crazy?