a Rafflecopter giveaway
Saturday, December 29, 2012
The Great BREAKING GLASS bookmark giveaway starts today!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Breaking Glass has a Facebook page...
I hope you'll come and check it out.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Breaking-Glass-the-book/488130164558455
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Breaking-Glass-the-book/488130164558455
2012: It was the best of years, it was the worst of years...
In honor of the year ahead, I gave my blog a makeover. What do you think? I'm trying to unify my *brand* as they call it.
2012 was a strange year spent it with the vague (and ultimately non-existent) threat of a Mayan apocalypse. Instead some truly apocalyptic things happened--the Japanese tsunami, multiple mass shootings--including the Sandy Hook horror, and of course, not to be outdone Hurricane Sandy. That hurricane still has the northeast reeling from the damage, though we here in the Bronx were mostly unscathed.
My parents' health was shaky all year, finally, thank goodness, stabilizing. Then of course we had to endure the slow torture of the election from hell. And now, the lovely fiscal cliff, which as of this posting, we may or may not be heading over in a barrel.
Yet, for me, 2012 was an amazing year. In February Spencer Hill Press bought my book BREAKING GLASS, and bought VISION and a sequel in October. I have been given the opportunity to do some cover design work for both SHP and indie authors. The Spencer Hill family is an incredible addition to my life. I've met a group of wonderful authors, and of course, my invincible editor, Vikki Ciaffone.
For me, writing and cover design are a waltz with two lovers. They both fulfill me to my core. So who can ask for more?
I face 2013 with a little bit of fear, a little bit of exhilaration. This spring both my kids face new milestones--my son graduates college (hopefully) and my daughter, high school. My book releases in July.
I will be doing a lot of cool BREAKING GLASS related stuff, including some giveaways. And, my awesome super prolific Hamster twin (because we are both hyper enough to power the northeast with our hamster wheels) Michelle McLean and I (along with 21 others) will soon be rolling out a brand new blog for 2013 releases called Scene 13--so stay tuned for that.
On that note, I wish all of you for 2013 only the best of times.
May all your wishes come true.
2012 was a strange year spent it with the vague (and ultimately non-existent) threat of a Mayan apocalypse. Instead some truly apocalyptic things happened--the Japanese tsunami, multiple mass shootings--including the Sandy Hook horror, and of course, not to be outdone Hurricane Sandy. That hurricane still has the northeast reeling from the damage, though we here in the Bronx were mostly unscathed.
My parents' health was shaky all year, finally, thank goodness, stabilizing. Then of course we had to endure the slow torture of the election from hell. And now, the lovely fiscal cliff, which as of this posting, we may or may not be heading over in a barrel.
Yet, for me, 2012 was an amazing year. In February Spencer Hill Press bought my book BREAKING GLASS, and bought VISION and a sequel in October. I have been given the opportunity to do some cover design work for both SHP and indie authors. The Spencer Hill family is an incredible addition to my life. I've met a group of wonderful authors, and of course, my invincible editor, Vikki Ciaffone.
For me, writing and cover design are a waltz with two lovers. They both fulfill me to my core. So who can ask for more?
I face 2013 with a little bit of fear, a little bit of exhilaration. This spring both my kids face new milestones--my son graduates college (hopefully) and my daughter, high school. My book releases in July.
I will be doing a lot of cool BREAKING GLASS related stuff, including some giveaways. And, my awesome super prolific Hamster twin (because we are both hyper enough to power the northeast with our hamster wheels) Michelle McLean and I (along with 21 others) will soon be rolling out a brand new blog for 2013 releases called Scene 13--so stay tuned for that.
On that note, I wish all of you for 2013 only the best of times.
May all your wishes come true.
Sunday, December 16, 2012
Some thoughts on a tragedy from a friend
I've been posting my thoughts about this past week's horrific event, here and there and helter skelter. Today I received an articulate and heartfelt email from an old friend, Stephen Crooks, and I wanted to share it here...
from Stephen Crooks FELIS <scrooks@felis.com > :
Remember the last time you took a bad fall, cut yourself in the toolroom, or rapped your headbone in some big, stupid way? Maybe in a ball-field or a car accident or somesuch? The impetus is to be very still, right? Breath coming slow and shallow, feeling around for lingering damage or dizziness, assessing the situation.
This horrid week has been so much like that, a damaging, lacerating blow to the nation's midsection, causing us to stop, hold our breath and examine the way we feel about ourselves and each other. To assess the situation. At this time of thoughtful sorrow and of sorrowful thought, I imagine that people should be entitled to their own space, to work it all out for themselves; each in their own way and time. People are hearing so much talk. I think, "Who needs me running off at the mouth?"
But there I was a day or so ago, listening to the President, declaring with grim determination that assault rifles and handguns a 'threat to national security', committing his energies to going 'door to door and getting the guns'.
President Obama's tearful broadcast? Unfortunately, no. The face and voice was that of fictional President Andrew Shephard, movingly portrayed by the actor Michael Douglas in a movie made nearly twenty years ago. Draw your own conclusions.
Look, I understand what some people are saying, how we should refrain from 'politicizing' this fathomless horror in Newtown, this senseless loss of innocence and future and human promise, this waterfall of tears. That we should put aside current events and just pray, for both the victims and the survivors.
Of course we should. For all of about twenty silent seconds.
Then, immediately, before our national shock can wear off to be replaced with the next callous holiday-season headline, we should consider a nation where budget trimming would allow the desperate and the mentally ill to fall between the cracks of care until it's too late, that allows the senseless proliferation of deadly weapons to go unchecked, that still believes uniforms and badges and fear of punishment will keep bad people from doing bad things. Godalmighty, I love and respect our policemen, but do even they believe that anymore?
We yearn to punish the guilty but can't, because the terrible demons that drove this unstable young Connecticut man have already punished him to death. What's left to us in this moment, without shame or hesitation, is to become a nation of mourners, praying for the souls of the departed, praying for the safety of our own children, praying for our nation. And praying for peace of heart and clarity of thought.
Because in the next moment, driven as always to either our worst or our best instincts, we can become a nation of rage, or of mercy; of blind punishers or of clear-eyed problem-solvers. A nation of grieving hindsight, or of creative humanistic forethought.
Perhaps it's the primitive bloodlust of human nature to look for the nearest rope and tree at a time like this; to curl our lips around gutsy epithets like 'I hope this so-and-so rots in Hell,' (despite the fact that this in the season of Jesus and Mary and 'Mercy mild'). But it doesn't take guts to punish a sick pathetic man any more than it takes guts to shoot a mad dog, does it?
You want to show guts? Puff up your collective chests, curl those lips and talk tough to your elected representatives; tell them to keep us safe from the prevalence of deadly weapons in the midst of our families and communities. Talk tough to those who think that the way to 'fiscal responsibility' is by denying care to those teetering on the hard edges of our society who need it. Show some real guts.
Whenever there is a tragic loss of life we are staggered and diminished, behaving as if there are much, much less people left on the Earth; a veritable hole in the population, causing the world itself to wobble on its axis for the lesser weight of human souls. Although of course this cannot be the case.
But I say we can behave as if it is; we can take what we have left, all the few billion souls remaining, bind them with our arms and hold them close to our hearts and never, ever let them stray from our loving attention.
It's challenging to think this way, and that's reason enough alone to do so: to consider those lost terrorized schoolchildren just as we consider the lost terrorized young man who slew them, their teachers and protectors, his own family. The murderer and the murdered, all of them created equally perfect and full of promise as you or me or any newborn child in a manger in Bethlehem, a nursery in Waukegan or a doorstep in South Philadelphia, but gone from our care, concern and community, from our binding arms, far too soon.
What do we owe them? Them and all of the beloved lost children of our lives? Ever in our thoughts, our words, our deeds, our philosophies and politics and religions and societies; we owe them our best. Our best, whatever meaning that word has for you. Through all of the new opportunities of this coming new year, stacked high and gleaming before us like unopened gifts, will we honor them by rising to it?
from Stephen Crooks FELIS <scrooks@felis.com > :
Remember the last time you took a bad fall, cut yourself in the toolroom, or rapped your headbone in some big, stupid way? Maybe in a ball-field or a car accident or somesuch? The impetus is to be very still, right? Breath coming slow and shallow, feeling around for lingering damage or dizziness, assessing the situation.
This horrid week has been so much like that, a damaging, lacerating blow to the nation's midsection, causing us to stop, hold our breath and examine the way we feel about ourselves and each other. To assess the situation. At this time of thoughtful sorrow and of sorrowful thought, I imagine that people should be entitled to their own space, to work it all out for themselves; each in their own way and time. People are hearing so much talk. I think, "Who needs me running off at the mouth?"
But there I was a day or so ago, listening to the President, declaring with grim determination that assault rifles and handguns a 'threat to national security', committing his energies to going 'door to door and getting the guns'.
President Obama's tearful broadcast? Unfortunately, no. The face and voice was that of fictional President Andrew Shephard, movingly portrayed by the actor Michael Douglas in a movie made nearly twenty years ago. Draw your own conclusions.
Look, I understand what some people are saying, how we should refrain from 'politicizing' this fathomless horror in Newtown, this senseless loss of innocence and future and human promise, this waterfall of tears. That we should put aside current events and just pray, for both the victims and the survivors.
Of course we should. For all of about twenty silent seconds.
Then, immediately, before our national shock can wear off to be replaced with the next callous holiday-season headline, we should consider a nation where budget trimming would allow the desperate and the mentally ill to fall between the cracks of care until it's too late, that allows the senseless proliferation of deadly weapons to go unchecked, that still believes uniforms and badges and fear of punishment will keep bad people from doing bad things. Godalmighty, I love and respect our policemen, but do even they believe that anymore?
We yearn to punish the guilty but can't, because the terrible demons that drove this unstable young Connecticut man have already punished him to death. What's left to us in this moment, without shame or hesitation, is to become a nation of mourners, praying for the souls of the departed, praying for the safety of our own children, praying for our nation. And praying for peace of heart and clarity of thought.
Because in the next moment, driven as always to either our worst or our best instincts, we can become a nation of rage, or of mercy; of blind punishers or of clear-eyed problem-solvers. A nation of grieving hindsight, or of creative humanistic forethought.
Perhaps it's the primitive bloodlust of human nature to look for the nearest rope and tree at a time like this; to curl our lips around gutsy epithets like 'I hope this so-and-so rots in Hell,' (despite the fact that this in the season of Jesus and Mary and 'Mercy mild'). But it doesn't take guts to punish a sick pathetic man any more than it takes guts to shoot a mad dog, does it?
You want to show guts? Puff up your collective chests, curl those lips and talk tough to your elected representatives; tell them to keep us safe from the prevalence of deadly weapons in the midst of our families and communities. Talk tough to those who think that the way to 'fiscal responsibility' is by denying care to those teetering on the hard edges of our society who need it. Show some real guts.
Whenever there is a tragic loss of life we are staggered and diminished, behaving as if there are much, much less people left on the Earth; a veritable hole in the population, causing the world itself to wobble on its axis for the lesser weight of human souls. Although of course this cannot be the case.
But I say we can behave as if it is; we can take what we have left, all the few billion souls remaining, bind them with our arms and hold them close to our hearts and never, ever let them stray from our loving attention.
It's challenging to think this way, and that's reason enough alone to do so: to consider those lost terrorized schoolchildren just as we consider the lost terrorized young man who slew them, their teachers and protectors, his own family. The murderer and the murdered, all of them created equally perfect and full of promise as you or me or any newborn child in a manger in Bethlehem, a nursery in Waukegan or a doorstep in South Philadelphia, but gone from our care, concern and community, from our binding arms, far too soon.
What do we owe them? Them and all of the beloved lost children of our lives? Ever in our thoughts, our words, our deeds, our philosophies and politics and religions and societies; we owe them our best. Our best, whatever meaning that word has for you. Through all of the new opportunities of this coming new year, stacked high and gleaming before us like unopened gifts, will we honor them by rising to it?
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
The Great Spencer Hill Press Holiday Cheer-Away Give-Away (contest)
We are giving away three awesome prize bags to three very lucky people.
Just in time for the holiday season, too. Our present to you.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
GRAND PRIZE Holiday Cheer Away Holiday
Giveaway Bag (Not everything is in pic)
Books:
TOUCH OF DEATH
One Spencer Hill Press book (winner's
choice--can include soon to be release selections)
Jewelery:
Bracelet
TOUCH OF DEATH Handcrafted Pendant- www.stainedglasscreationsandbeyond.com
Handcrafted Necklace and Earrings
So Many Books, So Little Time Necklace
Giftcards:
$20 Amazon or Barnes and Nobel (Winner's
Choice)
$15 Starbucks
Two $10 Amazon
Critiques:
First Chapter Critique-Mary Gray
First Chapter Critique-Rhys A Jones
Query Letter Critique-Trisha Wolfe
Cool Stuff:
GUARDIAN T-shirt
BETRAYED Fridge Magnet
Flashlight
Ornaments
Holiday Towel and Potholder
Candy- nom nom nom
Swag:
BREAKING GLASS Handcrafted Bookmark
FINN FINNEGAN Handcrafted Charmed
Bookmark- www.stainedglasscreationsandbeyond.com
PERFECTION
TOUCH OF DEATH
FINN FINNEGAN
BETRAYED
ANGELINA'S SECRET
COPPER GIRL
OTHER TREE
PODs
SECOND PRIZE Holiday Cheer Away Holiday
Giveaway Bag (not everything is in pic)
Books:
ANGELINA'S SECRET - 1st edition signed
copy
Jewelery:
Bracelet
TOUCH OF DEATH Handcrafted Pendant- www.stainedglasscreationsandbeyond.com
Earrings
Giftcards:
$10 Amazon or Barnes and Nobel (Winner's
Choice)
$15 Starbucks
$10 Amazon
Critiques:
First Chapter Critique-Trisha Wolfe
First Chapter Critique (2500 Words Max)-Elizabeth
Langston
Query Letter Critique-Kimberly Ann
Miller
Cool Stuff:
BETRAYED Fridge Magnet
Flashlight
Ornaments
Holiday Towel and Potholder
Candy- NOM NOM NOM
Swag:
FINN FINNEGAN Handcrafted Charmed
Bookmark- www.stainedglasscreationsandbeyond.com
PERFECTION
TOUCH OF DEATH
FINN FINNEGAN
BETRAYED
ANGELINA'S SECRET
COPPER GIRL
OTHER TREE
PODs
THIRD PRIZE Holiday Cheer Away Holiday
Giveaway
Critiques:
First five pages--Sarah Guillory
First 250 word-DK Mok
Either query or first 250 word critique (your choice)--Michelle Pickett
Please note: The giveaway is from Dec. 3rd to Dec. 16
Open to US and Canadian Residents only. Sorry to all our international friends.
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Guest post from YA author Lena Goldfinch, my cover design protege
-->
--> Creating a book cover is not unlike writing fantasy
I love creating book covers and have been making mock covers
for my work for years. Recently though, I've gotten more serious about it and
Lisa Amowitz graciously offered to mentor me. She's been helping me develop some
cover mojo. (Thanks, Sensei Lisa! :))
The process of creating a cover feels a lot like creating a
book, actually. You take these disparate elements, tweak and mold them to suit
the story, and, after you sprinkle them with magical Photoshop fairy dust, voila, you have a book cover! LOL
For me, it starts out with hunting down images, which is
mostly an instinctive, gut-level thing. I browse stock photo sites for likely
candidates. [Picture me in attractive jungle gear, wading through the dense, jungle-green
undergrowth of the internet, searching for rare orchid-like images.] Here, I'm
searching for a "click" of connection. I'm looking for tone: does it feel like the story, does she look like my
character, is the image eye catching, romantic, are the colors evocative...?
And until I find that spark, I just start tenderly
collecting samples in orchid-friendly storage containers (i.e. dumping them into
my Favorites folders). A lot of time I don't know what's going to work until I
try a billion things. Roughly.
Sources: For stock
photo and images, I tend to go to Fotolia, iStockphoto, Flickr Creative Commons
and deviantART the most.
Then comes lots of
trial and error, trying different images and fonts as mock covers. And here's
where I start collecting free fonts too. (I blame Lisa for my font addiction,
pretty much ;) She's the one who pointed me to FontSquirrel and dafont.com.)
Here's a (much reduced) sampling of likely images for my
romantic fantasy novella, The Language of
Souls
From these, I threw together a bunch of designs and, from
there, whittled it down to a short list:
And I selected one. (bottom right) Oh, I was so sure it was the one. I'd spent
(roughly) forever working on it after all. There'd been a lot of endless
tweaking involved and me with very bloodshot eyes. (Cultivating a rare and
beautiful orchid is a lot of hard work, to stretch a metaphor. ;)) But then I
started to question myself. I really felt I needed some input from teens, the
very ones I wanted to read my book.
So I printed out sample sheets & posted them at the barn
where my daughter rides and our local teen librarian let me post it on the
bulletin board. My daughter and a friend also brought copies in to their high
schools to get votes. The results were startling, for me anyway! The cover I'd
chosen didn't get great results. It got a decent number of votes, but nothing
like the bottom left cover, which was the overwhelming
favorite. I love that design, but had initially discarded it because I felt it
was too light. Amazon.com & all the other retailers have a white
background, and I feared a pale image would get lost there.
Here's how the votes played out:
I decided if I was going to ask the teens, then I was going
to LISTEN to them. Teens know what they like, and I value their opinion.
My new motto:
"Ask the teens,
trust the teens."
But if I was going to listen to the teens that meant going
with a cover I felt (strongly) was way too light. My next question was: how can
I stand by my motto & also address my concerns that this cover will get
lost on the white sea that is Amazon's background? (Ditto for Barnes &
Noble, iTunes, Kobo,, ... the same white background issue is pretty much
everywhere.)
Decision: I'm going to listen to the teens AND I'm also going to listen to my gut.
Q: How can I make this very pale design pop on a white page?
(Above, which cover pops the most? It's not the pale tree cover, is it? Which
one do you think stands out the most as a thumbnail?)
So I began playing with magical fairy dust...I mean,
Photoshop. ;)
To back up a bit, there are actually two elements in the
draft version of this cover & three elements in the final cover.
The girl in the dress, the tree reflected in rippled water,
and an additional image, wherein I added hair extensions. :)
That last image is shown rotated and flipped, just as I used
it. I was able to lengthen the girl's hair a bit with a handy application of
the Stamp Tool, which Lisa introduced me to a while back. I also flipped the
image of the girl, so the arc of her body echoed the tree line.
Clipping and trimming the source file for the girl was
actually the most time-intensive part of this design. Looking back, I learned
from this. In selecting images, how hard is it going to be to select, for
example, just the girl? See how her hair blends in with the dark background
above the blue sheet? Lesson from the newly wise: look for these things while
selecting raw images! LOL
Anyway, I was able to isolate just the girl using the Magic
Wand Tool. (Aha!!! Magic!! I told you! ;)) And I dropped her into that pretty
tree background. Then used the Stamp tool, as I said, to lengthen her hair. I
also tweaked the brightness and contrast, edited out that hair that was across
her face, and etc...
I used a Mask on the girl's layer in Photoshop to select
just the dress. That way I was able to adjust the hue & contrast to modify the color (among
other tools like Selective Color, Curves, and blending options like
Luminosity). I played with fonts and text colors...
This led to a slew of new covers:
The one that popped the best for me—and also felt most like
the story—was that last peachy-toned one.
Fast forward, and after much tweaking, here's the final
cover:
And that is the story behind the cover design for The Language of Souls, complete with
magic wands and fairy dust. And belabored orchid analogies. :)
Thanks for having me here, Lisa! And unbridled thanks for
all your guidance in all things graphics design. I feel very much like I'm
still in the apprentice stage and am looking forward to growing my skills.
Lena
Thanks for doing this Lena! It's been fun to work with you and to see your skills blossom.
You can visit Lena and find more information about THE LANGUAGE OD SOULS at:
Lena also blogs at the Enchanted Inkpot, a community of fantasy bloggers of which I am also a member:
Saturday, December 1, 2012
How important is setting when crafting a story
Blog Chain Post #4 (a week and a day late!)
How important is setting when crafting a story? How do you choose where your stories take place? How do you research setting? Do you have to have been somewhere in order to write about it? What are some memorable settings from books you've read?
The above photo is a picture of the town of Croton-on-Hudson, New York, the real life inspiration for the fictional town of Riverton from my forthcoming novel BREAKING GLASS.
So to answer the question posed above, for BREAKING GLASS, the setting is pretty much a character in the book. Croton is a quasi-suburban, fairly upscale community about 50 minutes north of New York City. It overlooks the Hudson River and also has miles of forested roads that weave past the reservoirs that give Westchester County its drinking water. Croton has a river, a damn and a gorge. It feels like the country, but its residents are an interesting bumch, largely commuters to the city. It has an intrigue and a mystery all its own, which made it the ideal setting for the spooky goings on of BREAKING GLASS. Geeky Jeremy and his lawyer dad would fit right in in Croton.
One of the reasons, I suppose, setting is so important to me is that I am such a visual person. As I write, I picture the scenario and take a lot of time to paint the image in the reader's mind. But I am usually quite unconcerned with accuracy. I simply use real locations as a starting point and then embellish at will. I tend to stick with places I've been and notice most of my writing friends do the same. Creating a sense of place is more than just looking at photos or watching movies. You need to understand the smell, feel and sounds of the place. For instance, my friend Heidi Ayarbe sets most of her books in Carson City, Nevada. The desert plays a huge part in her books. Though her vivid descriptions help me picture it, I wouldn't know enough about the vegetation and terrain to write convincingly about it.
Memorable settings? It seems I'm always falling back on this, but I still don't think there is a more memorable setting than Hogwarts! And that was before the movie--which captured it exactly as JK described it.
For more insights regarding the part setting plays in one's writing check out Michelle McLean's blog.
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