Original Sin Teaser #3 and contests!

First, in case you haven't seen it yet, my incomparable critique partner, Andrea Cremer (Nightshade, Philomel), is running an epic, blow-out contest for some amazing books (including both of mine, both of hers, four others mentioned in this post, and tons more). It's a Twitter contest, but you can find deets on her blog here. And, my good friend Kody Keplinger (The DUFF, Little Brown) is giving away a copy of Personal Demons in her 20th birthday celebration, so go wish her a happy birthday and enter to win. Also, don't forget to enter to win a signed ARC of Original Sin and a signed copy of Rachel Hawkin's Demons Glass here. Just an aside: I've discovered tote bags are popular. 200 of you entered my First Contest-for-no-reason last week, when a signed Rachel Hawkins tote was up for grabs, but not so many this week in the Second Contest-for-no-reason for a signed Rachel Hawkins book. LOL ;p

And, yesterday was a big YA release day. There were books by Cassie Claire and her awesome crit partner, Holly Black, and my most anticipated release of the year, Where She Went by Gayle Forman, is now sitting happily in my Nook. I have to admit that I've missed the party with Cassie's Mortal Instruments series. I just listened to the the audiobook of CoB last month. I will start CoA when I finish with Where She Went.

So, I'm curious: What, if anything, did you download/buy yesterday? With the embargo on City of Fallen Angels, there were lots of people drooling over it's release and it took over Josh Hutcherson and Liam Hemsworth as the big YA Twitter topic yesterday. Were you one that bought/read it yesterday? Did you (like me) buy and read something else?

Now on to our Original Sin teaser.

Yesterday we met Matt, Frannie's new guardian angel, and I mentioned he's not a big fan of Luc's. Here is another bit from their first exchange.

#OriginalSin p13 Matt to Luc: “I knew you were going to be useless. Why Gabriel thought you’d be any help at all, I’ll never understand.” He fans the pages and turns his glare back on me. “You’re going to slip back into your old ways. I just know it. Demons don’t change.”

Tomorrow and Friday we get a few more snippets from this exchange. Once again, please feel free to leave spoiler-free questions in the comment feed and I promise to answer them. =)

Original Sin Teaser Number Two!

I'm lifting my head out of my most anticipated spring release--

to do this:

because it's exactly THREE MONTHS until Original Sin release!

There is a third narator in Original Sin, and you get to meet him in today's teaser. If you're like me, and the only time you have to read is in the car, audiobooks are a life saver. In December, I got a subscription to Audible.com, and I've listened to a ton of books this year. The Personal Demons audiobook is especially fun to listen to. Michael Nathanson reads Luc, and he's very demonic. Sara Barnett reads Frannie. I like her because she sounds like the girl next door, which is how I envisioned Frannie when I wrote her. And, I just listened to audition tapes for the third narator in Original Sin, Matt. I really like the actor I chose to read his part. His name is Josh Hurley and he sounds just like I imagined Matt would--cynical with a side of comic relief. I can't wait to hear the finished product on release day!

So, for my Original Sin Teaser #2, here is Matt. To set this up for you: Matt is Frannie's new guardian angel, and not a big fan of Luc. And that's all I can say about Matt without spoiling Personal Demons for those of you who haven't read it yet ;p If you've read Personal Demons, you know Frannie and her grandfather fix up old Mustangs. The car they were working on in Personal Demons was a '65 convertible, which is now Frannie's in Original Sin.

#OriginalSin p13 Luc: I raise my eyebrow at him. "If Frannie's on her way over, why aren't you watching her. Falling down on the job so soon? What the Hell kind of guardian angel are you?"

A grin spreads across Matt's face as he shrugs away from the wall. “Frannie drives so fast not even the Hounds of Hell could catch her between there and here.”

So that's Matt! We'll hear more from him later this week. Hope you enjoyed! If you have any spoiler free questions, please leave them in comments, and don't forget, you still have time to enter to win an Original Sin ARC and a signed copy of Demon Glass by Rachel Hawkins in my Second of Many Contest-for-No-Reason.

The Second of Many Contests-for-No-Reason and THE FIRST ORIGINAL SIN TEASER!!

Tomorrow marks THREE MONTHS until Original Sin's official release! I CAN'T WAIT!!!! I know! You're all like, but you already read it! I did! And now I'm dying to share it with you. So, before we get to the contest, in which you might win not only a signed Original Sin ARC, but also a signed NYT bestseller by an awewomesauce author, here is the first Original Sin teaser!

#OriginalSin p11 Luc: Why the Almighty designed mortals to require so much maintenance is beyond me. And, all these millennia, I thought it was we demons who got off on torture.

Yep, Team Luc...he's back, and just as incorrigible as ever. ;p

I will be posting a new teaser each weekday between now and release on July 5th! They will post daily at 10 am PST on the Personal Demons Books Facebook page, and cross-post to Twitter with the #Original Sin hashtag. And, here on the blog, I'll give you some context, where I can do that without spoiling. =)

So...the real reason you're all here...THE CONTEST!

Thanks so much for your enthusiastic response to my First-of-Many-Contests-for-No-Reason. My Second-of-Many-Contests-for-No-Reason starts NOW! What's up for grabs, you ask. A signed ARC of Original Sin, of course, but also this:

Yep! That's a signed copy of the New York Times bestseller Demon Glass, by the incomparable Rachel Hawkins! I know!!! You want it, don't you???

All you have to do to enter is comment below before noon (PST) on Friday April 15th! So easy! In addition to commenting (for which you get one point) you can accumulate extra points as follows:

Old blog follower: +3 points
New blog follower: +2 points
"Like" the Personal Demons Books Facebook page +2
Follow me on Twitter (@LisaDez) +2 points
Link to my contest post on your blog or twitter: +1 point
Dedicated post with link to my contest on your website/blog: +3 points
Add me to your blogroll: +2 points
Original Sin widget in your blog sidebar +2

Also on your entry, please remember to tell me how to find you (email address). And ADD UP YOUR POINTS because I can’t be trusted with math…just sayin’.

As always, the contest is open internationally. You must be at least 13 years old to enter. The winner will be chosen by the randomizer and posted on the blog after noon on April 15th. SQUEE!!

So, good luck!! Enter early and enter often! (Joking ;p One entry per person please.)

Original Sin Teasers!

News flash:

In celebration of THREE MONTHS to Original Sin release, I'm going to post the ENTIRE text of Original Sin right here, starting Monday!

I know!! Pretty awesome, yeah?


Okay...that's a lie. April fools and all that...

But!

If you guys want them, I will be posting teasers! There are some really fun twists in Personal Demons that I would hate to spoil for those who haven't yet read it, so I won't be posting the long excerpts I did for Personal Demons. However, if you tell me you want them, I will Facebook (yes, that's a verb) short teasers daily from now until Original Sin release on the Personal Demons Books Facebook page. (Follow the link to like the fan page if you haven't already so you don't miss them! :p) The Facebook teasers will cross post to Twitter with the hashtag #OriginalSin. And...I will include them here, with some context as a bonus to you, my lovely blog readers.

So??? Do you want them? Let me know in comments, and if there are enough of you, we'll (that's the royal we) do it!!
Yay! I can't tell you how excited I am to be able to share snippets of Original Sin! If you have read Personal Demons, and you want more than my meager offerings, remember that the first chapter of Original Sin is up on Tor.com. But SPOILER ALLERT! The first line of Original Sin is a total spoiler for one of the biggest twists in PD. So, if you haven't read PD, read at your own risk.

Also, feel free to leave spoiler free questions in comments and I'll be sure to answer! And, don't forget, I'll be posting my Second-of-Many-Contests-for-No-Reason on Monday!! Don't miss it!

Original Sin WINNER!!!

Thanks so much to all of you who entered my Personal Demons and Original Sin giveaway! I have the best followers! You guys rock!

As usual, there were a ton of you. I will announce the winner in just a second. But you know me. I can't help myself. There will be another contest. I'm not telling you the prize yet...because I'm tricky like that, but here's a hint:

The contest will post on Monday, but tomorrow I have a fun announcement involving the words sneak peek and Original Sin. :p

Before I get to the winner, there were some questions in the contest comment thread that I promised to answer.

@Lady Reader asks: Will there be a 4^th book?

Nope! Book three is due to my editor tomorrow, and it wraps up Frannie, Luc and Gabe’s story. :p

@Mindy fangedmom asks: What is your favorite thing about your books? Tell me in one sentence why you think I should read them.

I love my characters. One sentence? I’ll tell you in one word: Luc.

@L8BloomerOnline asks: If you could go back and give your unpublished self advice, knowing what you know now, what would it be?

See this and this. =)

@Nicole asks: I just wanted to say I really liked an older blog post of yours that talked about how you have to know the basics of your whole series before you release the first one, with foreshadowing and all that. I'm having to deal with that a little right now. It's like I have strokes of genius with certain ideas that can really get the plot going, but then I'm worried I'll forget to mention it at a later or even earlier time. Is there any way to fix this or somehow make it less painful? Thanks!

Honestly, I keep everything in my head. I know a lot of writers who do story boards and keep character profiles. Me, not so much. I’m pretty much the last person to ask about writing strategies.

@Katrina W asks: I must say you have made it hard which of the boys to love the most I am torn. So I have a question, did you base any of your characters around anyone you know?

Not in the Personal Demons series. They’re all my made up pets. =)

@Birgit asks: Do you dislike revising or is it just part of the fun for you, like plotting and actually writing?

I have an amazing critique partner, agent and editor, so I really enjoy revisions for the most part. They help me make my manuscript into the book I thought I wrote.

@Kristi The Book Faery asks: My questions for you are how much research did you have to do to A) Angels and Catholicism and B) Demons and Hell?
Also, did you base any of the book on theory ---I mean partly, of course, because it was fiction but your descriptions were so vivid that I wondered how much of that came from your own personal concept of Hell or if you researched concepts of Hell from the Bible or other fictional accounts, i.e. Dante's Inferno etc...

The beauty of fiction is you can make stuff up. I did a ton of research into demon and angel hierarchies, religious concepts of Heaven and Hell (without deference to any one religion), biblical interpretations, and papal encyclicals, as well as fictional accounts such as Dante’s Divine Comedy. (Specifically, the middle of the three books, Purgatorio, from which I’ve pulled a quote that embodies each book for the epigraph.) I took everything I learned and put a contemporary spin on it.

@Safari Poet asks: How do you keep all the facts straight in your head? That can't be easy, especially if it's a series. Do you have a board that to others would look like you're planning world domination that is full of all the facts or everything in a notebook?

The truth is, I’m horribly lazy. I know writers who keep notes on everything. When I’m not sure about something specific, I pull up my manuscript (from the previous books) and search by key word for what I’m looking for.

@RachelJames asks: Does Gabe have a point of view in Original Sin? Does he? DOES HE!!!!?

Sadly, no. I write when my characters have something to say. I write what they tell me. I don’t get a say in who speaks up when. That’s totally up to them. Not only didn’t Gabe want a POV in books 1 and 2, but he got pissed off when I tried to make him talk. Finally, in book 3, he’s demanding a POV, and he’s got tons to say. =)

So, onto the winner of the Original Sin ARC, Personal Demons and the signed Rachel Hawkins/Sarwat Chadda tote.

The winner, as chosen my the randomizer is...

John the Bookworm!!!

Congrats!! I will be emailing you... :p

*blows virtual noisemaker cuz the real ones hurt my ears*

How writing is like learning to drive. Just go with me again...

Quick reminder: you only have until noon PST tomorrow to enter for a signed ARC of Original Sin!

So yesterday you got my post on how a good critique partner should be like a tough volleyball coach. Today, you get my bit about how writing is like learning to drive.

My oldest just took her first driving lesson yesterday. Here she is:

(I snapped that picture out the window on the sly, cuz she was already so nervous.)

I remember the first time I got behind the wheel of a car. I was fourteen. (I so hope my mother isn't reading this...) I like to think of myself as a fairly intelligent person, whether it's true or not. I generally pick up new skills fairly easily. By the time I was fourteen, I'd been watching my parents drive for a long time, so I was pretty sure I understood the mechanics of the whole thing. One day when my dad was at work and my mom had taken my sister somewhere, I decided to take my sister's car out for a spin. (There was a reason my dad always thought I'd be the one they'd have to bail out of jail.) So, I got behind the wheel, stuck the key in the ignition, and started the car.

So far so good.

I put the car in reverse and managed to back it out of the garage and down the driveway. Then I put it in gear and off I went. I was quite responsible for being so irresponsible, and drove very slowly, cuz, let's face it, if I crashed, my parents would find out what I'd done. Now that I think back on it, I'd be surprised if I got much over ten miles an hour. I can't remember exactly how far I went, but I'm pretty sure I just went to the end of my road and back. Whatever it was, I was sure I was doing it with the utmost skill.

I never got caught (I hope my kids aren't reading this...) so there's no big moral, EXCEPT...this:

Just because I had a basic sense of the mechanics of the whole thing, that didn't automatically make me a great driver, just like understanding the basic mechanics of what goes into a novel doesn't automatically make you a great writer.

When I decided I was going to write a book two and a half years ago, I'd read a lot (just like I'd watched my parents drive a lot) so I had a sense of what needed to go into my novel. I had a general plot (my road map) and I followed it. When I was done, I had a 120K word masterpiece. The good news, I'd written it for my daughter, never to be queried. If I'd decided to query it, just like if I'd decided to take my sister's car out onto the highway that first day, I'd have crashed and burned.

There's more to great writing than understanding the mechanics. It's the intangibles that make a story sing, such as style and voice. And, those intangibles only come with practice. When I started Personal Demons eight months after I starting that first book, I had two novels under my belt. I'd read some more in the genre I wanted to write in. I'd read Steven King's On Writing, which gave me a sense of what those intangibles were. I'd invested in a writer's conference, where I met my amazing critique partner. In short, I had more experience and was ready for highway speeds.

So, my second bit of writing advice for those of you aspiring to publication: BE PATIENT. It's so hard, I know. You're truly in love with your book and your characters. You want to share them with the world. Reality is, you'll have a much better chance of that happening if you shelve it and work on a new project. Write another, unrelated book. You'll learn some things, get up to highway speed, and, like me, when you go back to re-read your original masterpiece, you may find what you thought was a Renoir is really a finger painting. You can bring your newfound skills to that work of art and make it into the Renoir you thought you wrote. By this time you'll also have found yourself an amazing critique partner or group that you can send it off to, and they can tell you were there are still smudges in the paint. And, best part, you'll have another novel that you can turn around and do the same thing with when you're done. How can you go wrong?

How writing is like volleyball. Just go with me...

So, it’s volleyball season. Which means I’m watching a lot of volleyball.

We were on the court at 7:30am Sunday, and finally left the venue at 6:30pm. My daughter’s team had another great day. But, something struck me as I was watching the matches.

My daughter’s team plays at a pretty high level for their age. (she’s 13 years old) They’re currently ranked 27^th out of over 140 teams in the Northern California Volleyball Association league. So far this season they’ve only lost one match. Their coach is what I like to call passionate. She will openly scream (yes, that’s the right word) at them during a match when they screw up, because she expects a lot from them. But…she’s also the first one to give them a high five when they do something great. Sometimes she does these things all at the same time to the same player. (Very funny to watch :p)

When she screams, it's always constructive, and the girls know she knows what she’s talking about. They have a huge amount of respect for her. In the three months they’ve been playing together, the parents have watched them grow as individual players and as a team. (In case you haven’t figured it out yet, my daughter is #13--with the glasses :p)

So, you’re asking…what does this have to do with anything…?

I often get asked what advice I have for aspiring writers. I have lots, actually. (Fodder for a different post, maybe, when I’m done bragging on my daughter.) The thing that struck me while I was watching was how writing from the trenches can be a lot like this. Sometimes you do something brilliant. Other times, you suck eggs. If you don’t have someone who will be brutally honest and tell you these things, both the good and the bad, then you’ll never really grow as a writer.

I am the poster child for what not to do. I wrote for a very long time without any sort of critique from anyone. When I submitted Personal Demons to agents, my fab crit partner (Hi Andrea!), who I’d just recently found, had only read the first few chapters. I was basically terrified to put my writing out there in case it sucked. But, the thing is, if you don’t, and it does, and you submit it, you’re not going to get very far.

Every writer needs someone like my daughter’s coach: someone whose opinion you respect, who’s not afraid to tell you when you screwed up and exactly why, but also someone who will give you the huge high five when you’ve done something brilliant. Just like my daughter’s team, it’s the only way you’ll ever grow as a writer. (For a list of what I'm looking for when I critique, go here.)

Do you have a fab crit partner or group? If not, find one posthaste!