ROCK MY COVER LIKE A HURRICANE

In honor of hurricane Irene, my AWESOME, fantastic, beyond-amazing, and totally-accommodating-at-all-times publisher, Rhemalda, has given me permission to reveal the cover of Tangled Tides.

Here. It. Is...


*huge grin*

NOW do you see why I begged for it to be released this weekend? (Actually, I didn't have to beg they were totally on board and supportive.) I mean, hurricane Irene is reeking havoc on the east coast, and my story opens with a hurricane. The cover shows stormy tides. Could it be more perfect timing?
So, what do you think?
Do you love it as much as I do?
I wish I could post it in high def so you could see all of the shimmery detail, but this is as good as it gets for now. It's soooo pretty, yet ominous.
I want to make it into a necklace and wear it close to my heart at all times. That's how much I love it. Rhemalda's art department is incredible. I'm so so proud and happy to call this my cover.

WINNER of ARC for THE GIRL OF FIRE AND THORNS

Choosing the best comment for The Girl Of Fire and Thorns ARC was really really tough. I wish I had ten ARCs to give away instead of one. However, I could only choose one winner and that lucky reader is...

Angel C @ Mermaid Vision Books






No, I did not choose her because she has mermaid in her blog title. Although that does make her extra awesome IMO. Her comment was just so heartfelt and it made me tear up. Here it is...

Dear Karen,
I've lived my whole life surrounded by fear. Insecurities run amok in my head, not to mention living with banal fears like bugs and ghosts. But the two fears that I've had to try to remove from my life are related in a way I never really realized: fire and rejection.
As a little girl, I burned my hand. The fear of fire has stayed with me since then, to the point where I can't hold a lit candle without having a panic attack. I chose to be a writer but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't scared. More writers are rejected and ridiculed every day than find success, and it really can be a bath of fire sometimes. But books like Rae Carson's Girl of Fire and Thorns inspire me to keep going. One day, it will happen for me, and in the meantime I have to find a way to break away those fears. Somewhere out there, there may be another young girl afraid to spark the flame of passion and joy inside her and I might be the lucky person who can help her. Isn't that the best thing a writer can achieve?
So in conclusion, I'd really love to read this book. Sometimes I just need to be reminded that you can be surrounded by fire and the thorns of ridicule and still survive.
Angel

I KNOW Angel will love Elisa (the MC of TGOFAT) and find her inspiring. I also think Rae Carson's beautiful and masterful writing is a great learning tool for any writer, and Angel's comment proved that she already has a gift with words. Reading this book will only strengthen her talent.

Studying great novels is one of the best ways for writers to improve their craft. This book is beyond great. So much can be learned from it. As I said in my original review post, it's the kind of novel that inspired me to be a better writer. So if you love YA, fantasy, or adventure, be sure to pre-order your copy for its September 20th release.

Thanks so much to everyone who commented! Have wonderful week.

START THE INSANITY

I started writing the first draft of book 2 of my mermaid/selkie series. More lovingly referred to as The Sea Monster Memoirs.
That's not the insane part.
At RWA one of my roomies attended a panel about writing your first draft in 2 weeks.
No, that's not a typo. 2 weeks. Twenty pages a day. Do or die.
The theory is that the draft will be pure crap, but the obsessive creation process will kick in somewhere during week one and you will become a lean mean writing machine.
So a few of us started yesterday. And failed.
I proudly wrote 12--almost 13 pages. (Woot!)
But I assure you, most of it is crap.
Here's where I dive even deeper into the sea of insanity...
3 of those pages were for a totally different book. My new shiny idea that has nothing to do with the ocean, or sea peeps. (Quite the opposite actually.) And it's in present tense.
My other manuscript is in past tense. Yup, slap a sticker on me...My name is Crazy.

In other crazy fun news, Saturday is the 20th. You know what that means...
It's time for another winner of The Girl of Fire and Thorns by the beyond-amazing-and sweet, Rae Carson.
And this month I'm not pre-ordering a copy for you. Winner. Gets. An. ARC.
So, if you haven't entered then go HERE and comment. You must be a follower of my blog to win and you must leave a comment convincing me to choose you as the winner.
That's right. This drawing ain't random. BEST COMMENT WINS!
So if you commented before but you know it wasn't all that fabulous, go comment again and add some sugar and spice to it.
Also, this ARC is a collector's item because it's the original cover version. Stop drooling and go enter!

Thanks for stopping by! Have an insanely great week.

TANGLED TIDES COVER TEASER

I am SO in love with the cover for Tangled Tides.
I keep staring at it and wishing I could jump into the picture.
It's not completely finished yet so I can't reveal it in its entirety, but my publisher gave me permission to share a tiny cropped portion of it. I begged to share SOMETHING because I'm just so excited and dying to show it off. This is one small section of the current mock-up...
I know it's not much, but at least I get to share a tiny sneak peek.
Can you tell what it is?
I'd love to hear your guesses.
What would you picture the cover to look like knowing what you do about the story?
For those of you who know nothing about Tangled Tides here's the summary...

Yara Jones doesn’t believe in sea monsters—until she becomes one.

On her eighteenth birthday a hurricane hits Yara’s small island and with it blows in Treygan, a cocky blue-haired merman who claims he saved her life by turning her mer, but he could also take her life with his ability to turn things to stone, with just a touch… or kiss.

All Yara wants is to return home to her terminally sick uncle and her cool new boyfriend, Rownan. But she quickly learns that she can’t go back because her new existence—and new crush—complicate things beyond belief. Yara must open a sealed gateway between Earth and the sea creature realm, and that can only be achieved with a great sacrifice including friendship, love, and possibly even her soul. Or maybe, she hopes, that sacrifice will open the gateway to a love that’s deeper than she could ever imagine.

Rhemalda said I will probably be able to reveal the finished cover somewhere around August 22nd. It seems so far away because I'm itching to share it with all of you RIGHT NOW, but I will practice patience and be satisfied with sharing this teaser for the time being. Maybe I'll post another one next week too if you guys want to see another one?

Eeek! I'm so excited. I hope you will love it as much as I do.

SHARING SECRETS

Now that I'm going to be published (yay!) I figure I should confess a very big secret...

I don't write my own stories.
I dictate them and my assistant types them out for me. Sometimes, he even adds plot twists and details when I'm not paying attention. All the great stuff in any of my stories was probably not my idea or doing. Credit should most likely be given to Rooney, my American Bulldog. Here's proof...
He's bored in this pic, but that's because he's tired of merfolk and selkie tales. He wants a werebulldog story. I keep vetoing that idea. Sorry, Roo.

Continuing the theme of sharing things, I got tagged in a meme by Taryn Tyler (Taliesin).
I haven't done one of these in a long time, and since Taryn rhymes with Karen I felt obligated to participate. so here we go...

Are you a rutabaga?

No, but I do like Rutabaga pie.

When was the last time you ate lion meat?

Never. However, I did eat one of those massive "turkey" legs at Disney World once and I'm convinced no turkey could ever get that big. So it could have been a lion, and if so, I feel awful about it. No one should eat the king of the jungle.

Upload a heartwarming picture of something that makes you smile.

See above pic of Rooney.

If you could go back in time and kick the crap out of someone, who would it be?

My list is LONG. I can only pick one? Wait, no, violence is bad. And changing events of the past can cause cataclysmic damage in the present and/or future. (But okay, maybe Hitler. I'll take my chances on altering the universe if I could spare so many from torture and pain.)

Name one habit that makes other people plot your demise.

My sarcastic sense of humor. Most people interpret this as me being a you-know-what, but I swear I'm not. I just hung out with a lot of sarcastic people growing up, so it's an instilled social behavior that runs very deep.

What song would you like to be playing while you are kicking the crap out of someone?

What's up with the violence questions? I'd want What a Wonderful World by Louie Armstrong. The positive message and feeling would cancel out the negativity of the event and keep me in a ninja zenlike state of mind. (Picture it, me beating the crap out of Hitler in slow motion while the following plays...The colors of the rainbow, so pretty in the sky, Are also on the faces, of people going by. I see friends shaking hands, sayin', "How do you do?" They're really sayin', "I love you."
*big grin*

Where da muffin top at?

The top of my jeans. I've been eating way too much cake lately.

Describe yourself using obscure Latin words.

Fortunatus- fortunate, lucky, happy

Why does evil exist?

So that good can defeat it.

What the chiz are you thinking right now?

That I'm running late. And that I thought it was schiz, not chiz. But who am I to question the spelling?

Have a great week! xo