I haven't been posting much and I thought you all should know the reason why.



Yeah, I'm kinda a big deal around my house.

Today is November 15th.
Do you know what happened today?
Today, even though the preorders were shipped out weeks ago and Lightbringer has been on the shelves for awhile, I officially became an author. Today, Nov 15th, 2011 Lightbringer officially hit the shelves!

WOOT!

I'm informed that author-types who wish to not remain swaddled in safe obscurity must do this whole 'promotion' thing. I am one of those individuals who gets embarrassed trying to talk about myself or what I do, but I will HAPPILY share reviews and news from those who actually have experience discussing literature. We'll start with a recent review that actually had me blushing and jumping for joy, that was followed by the happy news that the Kindle Version is up!

And the lovely blogs who got this ball rolling include
Supernatural Snark and the very first review over at the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer's Chat.

Finally, last but not least, my homie... homeboy... fellow author peer guy who wears Superman undies with great glee and gusto, the super-talented and nice Kris Reisz. He roxxors and if you haven't read Unleashed or Tripping to Somewhere I demand that you find and obtain copies right now. Go! Shoo!

Spooky Legends Guest post


It's just an AU short story set in the Lightbringer universe, but all in all it was a fun exercise to write. I've got awhile before I reach Kris Reisz levels of awesomeness in short story writing (or any of the other fabulous YA authors out there but it was still very flattering to be invited and included. Go read the other posts for the month of October!

I was always a Pike girl. Christopher Pike, to be exact. So you can imagine my glee on coming across this link shared on Reddit: Pike v. Stine: Retro YA Thriller Throwdown

If you’re about my age and went to a public middle or high school in North America, you know the key battle of the 90s in grade 6-9 classrooms across the continent: R.L. Stine vs. Christopher Pike — who is more awesome? Everyone had an opinion, and even if you read both you liked one or the other more. The only people who didn’t were the kids who claimed Christopher Pike and R.L. Stine were the same person (and I’m sure these conspiracy-theorists-in-waiting grew up to be 9/11 Truthers). For my part, I was 100% Pike — which, after reviewing the books through adults eyes, makes me worried that I was a terribly disturbed little person.

So let the challenge BEGIN!

Just in case you're here visiting from Reddit, the Halloween signed "Lightbringer" contest for the subreddits r/books and r/random_acts_of_books are now done. The winners have been PM'ed and the runners-up have been noted. I'm giving the winners a few weeks to get back to me with their addresses and then I'll contact the runners-up for *their* addresses.

Happy Halloween!

Ze book is officially up for sale and not preorder at several fine online locations. I had dreams about it last night. So when I got up this morning I broke the cardinal rule of authoring.

Yep, that's right, I went looking for reviews.

I was NOT disappointed. First review I found? Lightbringer was called "bloated" and "stilted". Well, that didn't take long, did it? ^_^

I brooded for, oh, about three minutes. Maybe five.

And then I remembered the OTHER cardinal rule of authoring.



Hiho Silver, away!

Apparently Lightbringer is shipping early for those who preordered through Amazon. That's a whole two weeks early plus a bit by my count, but I'm not complaining in the least little bit. It'll be nice to get reviews back, that's for certain. :-D

At a risk of using ALL THE ALLCAPS AND EXCLAMATION POINTS, I have news.

LIGHTBRINGER ARCS CAME IN!!!!

Holy crap. Wow. Just wow. I have no words. Chatty, talkative, over-sharing me. Wordless. I'm just running around in mental circles.

What should I make for dinner? (BOOK IS HERE.) Do I need to run out and buy milk? (BOOK IS HERE.) Oooh, deadline is sneaking up faster than I thought. (BOOK IS HERE.) Whoops, naptime is over. (BOOK IS HERE.)

There's a lot to say on the matter. How grateful I am to everyone who beta-read for me. How thrilled I am at how pretty the book is. How floored I am that it's hardcover (I wasn't expecting that). Just... just how grateful and loved and proud I am in general. I didn't do this by myself. I had a LOT of help - not just from AgentJoe and EditorLou, but from all these amazing, talented people at Pyr, and from Faith and Karen who both bent over backwards on relatively short notice last year to turn my ms redder than hell. They marked it up but good, lol.

I am just so quietly thrilled, so nervous, and so hopeful. I know most authors can't make a living doing what they do. Most of them need day-time jobs to support the crack that is putting words on the page. But I'm hoping that maybe, one day, with luck, I'll be that exception, that I'll be able to do this full time.

After all, I already made one dream come true... why not two?

Check it out, if you're so inclined - an AU Lightbringer short story.

Thanks to the awesomeness that is George and Jake (who wishes to remain semi-anonymous) my website, she is up, and looking good.

Granted, right now I feel like the loser kid on the playground who has a valentine's mailbox full of Snoopy valentines from my mom, grandma, and toddler nephew, but maybe my puppy-eyes and whimpering on Facebook shall garner me those coveted "likes" I hear the kids are so crazy about these days. Or if not, well, nanny-nanny-boo-boo, I didn't want those grapes anyhow, and other such banalities and puffery.

That's all I really came to say. Alas, I can't talk about all the exciting behind-the-scenes stuff that I'm currently engaged in. LIGHTBRINGER shall grace shelves (both virtual and not) November 15th. I got to see an advanced peek at some cool cover art for an upcoming project. In case I haven't said enough to every poor soul who must suffer my conversational skills, Sam Weber is da man. He deserves much love and many cookies... unless he happens to be diabetic or primal or something, whereby he then deserves much love and many tasty and delicious treats of his choosing.