Jan
31
2010
I love playlists. I have playlists built around all kinds of crap: food, people’s names, nonsense lyrics, mean boys, robots, spooky sh*t (I blogged about this particular playlist here). I even have a playlist based solely on the Berkinator, which I like to call Berkin’ It Up.
And so of course I have playlists for my books. Here’s a sampling from the Bleeding Violet playlist.
Jan
12
2010
According to the random thingy chooser, the winner is:
Congratulations; you have successfully cheered up my book. 
Email me your address, as you have 24 hours to claim your prize or it will go to a different book cheerer-upper.
For my personal favorite, I choose:
It was pretty close between Aik and Jessica who introduced me to that fabulous weirdo anthem “All My Heroes Are Weirdos”, but I had to go with Aik. Based on her comment, she sounds like a really cool, confident, super-nerd. Love that! Super-nerdiness must be encouraged.
Honorable mentions:
Steve and Lacey for great quotes, although Ninefly’s was the best: “Creativity is a mental disorder“. Soooo getting that on a tee shirt someday.
sbklinda and Thuy for knowing how to twist logic until it screams, “Uncle!”
Yan for having the most educational comment.
Emilee and Kay whose posts always make me feel normal.
Statements I must comment on:
Mike Jung – name one thing badminton players ever did to contribute to society. Exactly.
Ari - I don’t think it would be boring if people walked around naked. It would be the opposite of boring.
And Susan, what can I say? I like the irony :p
Thanks for playing, y’all!
Jan
9
2010
Ka-Yam Chui from The Letter Garden drew a picture of Hanna and Rosalee for me. My very first fan art! Of course, I asked her to do it, but so what? I refused to be robbed of the joy of fan art. :p It’s always really interesting to see someone else’s idea of something that used to be solely in your own head. Love how she put Swan in the picture too. 
Thanks, Ka-Yam!!!!!!!
ETA: Ka-Yam reminded me about this one. This is the first picture of Hanna she sent me. Ha! So this one is really my first bit of fan art. Which I didn’t ask for, so see? It’s totally legitimate. xD
Jan
5
2010
It’s official, folks. Bleeding Violet is finally out and about in the world–the REAL world, not just the world in my head. Talk about surreal.
Anyway, I thought I’d do something nice for my book today, you know, show her how very loved she is. (People keep saying she’s weird and dark and creepy, and I think it’s starting to give her a complex, poor thing.) So I’m going to do a Release Day Giveaway that’s open to everyone from everywhere. Yes, even Philadelphia (joke between me and my football archnemesis Josh Berk).
If you want to enter, all you have to do is leave one comment for my book explaining why being a weirdo isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I’ll pick a winner at random, using the random chooser thingy, but I’ll also pick a personal favorite. The winner gets a signed copy of Bleeding Violet and the personal favorite gets a BV bookmark and a Porterene key (you have to read the book if you don’t know what that is). This giveaway will end next Monday, and on the following Tuesday, I’ll announce the winners.
So that’s it, and I really hope you guys can make my poor little book feel good about herself. Good luck!
Dec
26
2009
Okay, here it is folks. I crunched some numbers (well, the computer did) and the randomly chosen winner of the Bleeding Violet *Christmas Giveaway Extravaganza is:
It’s almost 11 a.m. my time, so I will give you til 11 a.m. tomorrow to claim your prize or it will go to the next random person on the list.
As for the comments, I have to give a few special shoutouts:
Ari MissAttitude for the Edith Beale quote. Grey Gardens is one of the best documentaries EVER!
Emilee for being the most like the main character in the story. xD
Kay and Stacy W for their strange attempts to actually describe the color violet.
Yan for adding to my storehouse of useless but fascinating trivia.
and finally:
Kelly B and her awesome inability to keep a secret.
Be sure to check back again on my actual release date, January 5, for another BV giveaway. Thanks for playing!
Dec
14
2009
* Or whatever holiday you celebrate–I don’t judge. ;p
I got two finished copies of Bleeding Violet today from my favorite editor Emilia, and I’m feeling this urge to share the love and/or holiday spirit.
Guess which one is mine? Ha! Here’s the cookie on the back:
(By cookie, I mean a teasy little excerpt, not an actual snack treat). And here’s the spine without the jacket:
I know this has crossed the line into dork city, but don’t judge me. I don’t judge you for not celebrating Christmas. :p
Anyway, about the Bleeding Violet *Christmas Giveaway Extravaganza, let’s just keep it simple, shall we? If you comment on this post (just once, please, for the sake of simplicity), consider yourself in it to win it. Don’t do anything stupid, though, like putting your address in the comments. I’ll use some random name thingy to choose a winner, so it’s only the winner’s address I’ll need, which I’ll get through email. And it has to be an interesting comment not something lame like, “I’ve commented”. All lame comments will be automatically disqualified. How do I know if my comment is lame, you ask? You don’t. I’m the sole judge of both “cool” and “lame”. That’s just the way the world works. Sorry. :p
What do you win, you ask? The prize is a signed copy of Bleeding Violet, plus some swaggish type stuff. I have a purple lock box with some stuff in it. Here’s a pic:
What is that stuff, you ask? Some Lipsmackers (I’m a Lipsmacker junkie), purple mini-Sharpies, an iTunes card, a bottle of aubergine nail polish (aubergine is actually a lot darker than that polish is, but whatever), and a silver key. The key is a nod to Bleeding Violet; all the Porterenes carry little silver keys. There are also bookmarks, but not for BV (I might get some made, someday; I’m still relatively young enough to get around to that):
I’m sure none of these authorly folk mind me giving their bookmarks away. And if they do, tuffers (and no, that’s not a typo; it’s a nice way of saying tough sh*t).
So that’s it. If you win, you get all this stuff. I thought about doing the whole first, second, third place rigamarole, but screw that. In my world, it’s all or nuthin’.
The giveaway starts now and ends…I dunno…Christmas Eve. I’ll announce the winner the day after Christmas, and whoever wins will have 24 hours to claim the prize or I will send thugs to your house to thrash you. Hahaha, just kidding. The prize will just go to some other random person. Okay that’s all. Merry *Christmas!
Nov
10
2009
From STRANGE FRUIT:
“After we kill Franken,” said Kit as she and Fancy set the table, “I’m gone put his tongue in a jar too. Just like that old man’s. I’ll start a collection!”
“I hope you hid that thing real good,” Fancy hissed when Madda came back into the kitchen. “Last thing we need is Madda finding it.”
“She won’t.”
“And we are not gone kill Franken. How many times I gotta tell you?”
“You don’t even like Franken. All you do is complain about him. You can’t still be worried about the police.” Kit pinched Fancy’s cheek. “Not after what you did to that old man.”
Fancy slapped her hand away. “That was different.”
“What’re you girls whispering about?” asked Madda, eyeing her daughters expectantly as she fried the tomatoes.
“Nothing,” the sisters trilled in unison, smiling their brightest good-girl smiles.
And because I’m nice, here’s a teaser from BLEEDING VIOLET:
I wriggled free of the queen, covered in goo and trying not to stumble in the loose piles of animal bones, wet rock, and mounds of hardhead eggs. Wyatt bounded over to me, dodging long pillars of color where the stalagmites and stalactites had grown together.
“So how was it?” he asked.
I puked.
Wyatt and Shoko laughed.
“Yeah,” he said. “It’s intense, right?”
Shoko swatted me on the back. “Especially once you get past that first stomach.”
, people’s names, nonsense lyrics, mean boys, robots, spooky sh*t (I blogged about this particular playlist 