Dear Book Giveaway #2, CSN contest and GUESS WHAT????????

Hello.

First of all, hooray for Ally! We are so excited to welcome her to the blog and now maybe all our posts won’t be depressing and morbid.

Second of all, do you want to win THE DUFF? (Designated Ugly Fat Friend)

I haven’t read it yet but I think the title is awesome. So funny, so inviting, and so true. In fact, one time, in eighth grade . . . I’ll stop before I really depress myself.

Today (TUESDAY, September 14th) we are giving away  THE DUFF to one lucky reader. All you have to do is use the word DUFF in a sentence. We’ll pick at random. Oh, and an extra entry if you blog about the contest.

Third of all, we are announcing our SECOND 60 DOLLAR CSN stores giveaway. This contest will start on THURSDAY and will run for two weeks. For the challenge your MC will have a major conflict involving an item you find on one of the 200 CSN online stores. Confused? I’ll tell you more on Thursday.

And finally, do you think I look good in pink? My mom never let me wear red or pink because she said redheads look awful in hot tones. Ally confirmed that Anne of Green Gables said the very same thing. I am not sure how to feel about this because when I put on that wig, and yes, it’s a wig, I felt so alive. More alive than I have for days. You should have been at the photo session.

Maybe breaking the rules is my thing? One of these days I’m going to have a pink wig giveaway. I promise it will change your life.

And finally finally, did you realize the Delacorte contest is right around the corner? Who is planning on entering? They are taking entries between October 1st and December 31st. Maybe we should do a Delecorte contest marathon? Or a novel critique retreat for Delacorters? Or a big party for anyone who submits. If your book is close, think about going for it.

Yay to the new blog! Yay to giveaways and writing contests! Yay to my belly folding over my jeans! Yay to wigs that make all the difference! Yay to being aa writer!

A Few Caps Just Thrown in for Good Measure, but None in Our New Owen Mills Pictures (imgaine the little copyright symbol HERE) . . . OR . . . The Day We Started Doing More Together

Okay- so as you can see, well–Look What’s Going on with Our Blog! What the helk! This is so exciting.

After many hours in a photo studio, Ally, Ann Dee, Kyra and I were finally able to pick our favorite Owen Mills photographs and then, of course, share them here with you. I, however, did not get the best shot of ME for the banner. I have the one where it looks like I have been crying and that I am wearing vampire teeth. So what if I WAS crying? So what if I DID borrow a certain SomeBody’s glow-in-the-dark teeth? Does that mean you use the ONLY one bad picture of me?

(Sorry–I got carried away. Usually, I have really terrific photos.)

By now, I guess you can see that we have a new writer who has joined us here on our blog. Ally Condie is the author of the much-anticipated dystopian novel MATCHED, due out this November. Ann Dee, Kyra and I are VERY excited about getting to work with Ally. You will find that she’s a kind person. And being kind is most important in my book. (Well, not in the books I write. Mostly people are pretty crappy to each other in my novels. I mean in TRUE LIFE.)

So what’s going on, right? That’s what you’re asking? I can hear you. Why in the world are Ann Dee and Kyra and now Ally–well, why are they acting a little strange? They’ve never acted strange before. Well, here’s the TRUTH. No matter what anyone else might say.

When Ann Dee and I started  this blog together, we  hoped to be able to offer other writers  a place where we could REALLY talk about books. We’ve wanted people to walk away feeling like maybe they had learned something about writing after they read a post. Certainly, we have offered a LOT as far as fashion. We know we do. YOU know it. But this isn’t our fashion blog. (I’ll give you that address at the end of this post.) I need to get back on task. We’ve wanted to be able to hear from YOU. We want you to post–want you to share what you’ve written–want you to join us when we do marathons and etc.

With this NEW blog we hope to have more writing exercises, more contests, more modeling shots, more interviews and more surprises. In  fact, today could be called The Day We Started Doing More Together. (I call this to be the title of my next romance novel. And movie.)

So–A Couple of Things to Point Out:

1st thing, check out our bios. These will be changing every few weeks or months or days, depending on if we feel like it.
2nd thing, each day this week, we will be giving away one or two books. And maybe even signing them. Or maybe not.
3rd thing, we will be doing another sixty dollar give-away with the CSN stores for the blog.  You’ll have two weeks to enter. Ann Dee will tell you more about that tomorrow.
4th thing, each day this week we will have a writing exercise for you to do. This will help you qualify for the book give-away.
5th thing, Friday we’ll announce the first book of The Single Ladies Book Club. As well, Kyra has an exciting interview planned.

Writing Exercise Number One

Your main character has been changed into One of the Undead. Rewrite the first 500 words of any scene from your book that you choose, with your main character a Freshly-Turned Zombie.

Book Give Away–ZOMBIES VS UNICORNS–a collection of short stories written by some terrific authors and edited by Holly Black and Justine Larbalestier. (BTW, Kyra LOVED this book.)

To win, you need to do the writing exercise and then mention our blog on your blog. A tweet would give you another entry. Make sure to let us know that you did it! We will be picking the winner at random so have fun writing your scene with no pressure.

Final thing, I think it might be fun to start NoteBooks entitled: The Day We Started Doing More Together. These NoteBooks should hold all the writing you do for this blog. A collection. So, Ally, Ann Dee, Kyra and I will participate in the writing challenges with you. We’ll start Note Books, too.

PS–We are STILL going to have our dance. I swear it. Swear, swear, swear. (I have the music. I just need a venue. We’re doing it because I saw dance moves last night from all the other girls and they would have really danced hard but guess what? We were at Owen Mills and they DO NOT ALLOW dancing. I’m just saying.)