CAROLYN ADAMS GUEST POST AND RUTHLESS GIVEAWAY

Happy Monday Everyone! Hope you're having a great start to summer. Anna Li and I went through the orientation at University of Michigan. It made us even more excited she's going there. I'm glad that things are now going to get back to normal.

Follower News

M. Pax's new book PRACIPICE was recently release. Here's a blurb: The Backworlds hang by a Quantum string, a thread about to snap. Annihilation is coming if Craze can’t stop it. Salvation comes at a price.

And here are a few links: Amazon / B&N / iBook / Googleplay / Other

I have a winner to announce.
The winner of IMOGENE AND THE CASE OF THE MISSING PEARLS is Cherie Reich!

Today I'm thrilled to have debut author Carolyn Adams here to share about her writing process in the midst of the challenges in life we all face and her YA suspenseful thriller RUTHLESS. It sounds like a real page turner.

Here's a blurb from Goodreads:

A spine-tingling debut about the ultimate game of cat-and-mouse in reverse as a teen struggles to retain hope—and her sanity—while on the run from a cunning and determined killer.

Ruth Carver has always competed like her life depends on it. Ambitious. Tough. Maybe even mean. It’s no wonder people call her Ruthless.

When she wakes up with a concussion in the bed of a moving pickup trick, she realizes she has been entered into a contest she can’t afford to lose.

At a remote, rotting cabin deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains, Ruth’s blindfold comes off and she comes face-to-face with her captor. A man who believes his mission is to punish bad girls like Ruth. A man who has done this six times before.

The other girls were never heard from again, but Ruth won’t go down easy. She escapes into the wilderness, but her hunter is close at her heels. That’s when the real battle begins. That’s when Ruth must decides just how far she’ll go in order to survive.

Back home, they called her Ruthless. They had no idea just how right they were.

So here's Carolyn!

Here are some things that are awesome and some things that suck. Awesome thing – getting an agent like Mandy Hubbard, the Platonic Ideal of agents. Also awesome -selling a book to Simon & Schuster for six figures. Additionally awesome, spending my days writing and my nights as a stand-up comedian, performing all over the country. My life is almost entirely comprised of things that bring me joy.

Some things that suck – graduating from USC Film School with all the promise in the world and spending fourteen wandering in a manual labor wilderness. Watching my first novel fail to sell. Seeing my beloved second novel I’d spent a year writing (and rewriting) fail to connect with my agent. Experiencing a truly magnificent two-week period of suckage wherein my agent dumped me, my husband of ten years left me, my father’s cancer returned, and my grandmother-in-law developed pneumonia. I was her caretaker and the only one at her bedside as she received her Last Rites. I sat there, watching her 80 pound body struggle to stay alive, feeling profoundly alone and hopeless. I was 36 years old. I hadn’t had a job in two years. I had been, in all ways that mattered most to me, a failure. I had one thing going for me. A half-finished manuscript about a girl named Ruth. That night I went home, resurrected the manuscript, and began to write.

A month later, I’d finished the draft. A friend liked it, an editor friend gave me notes, I took a week to

apply those notes, and then a third friend said it was ready to go out. I went out to very few agents. Six weeks later, Mandy requested the full. Several weeks went by, but I didn’t worry. My dream agent had my book and we had so many things in common – we grew up in the same area, showed horses at the same venues, were both impacted by the presence of The Green River Killer in our neck of the woods. I believed the book would resonate with her, so I was patient. My patience paid off. Mandy had a handful of tiny notes. She suggested a new title – RUTHLESS – that I loved. Although I implemented her notes within a few hours, I reread the book many times over the next five days, looking for something to fix. It struck me as surreal that this draft, so very close to the original rough draft, would be good enough to sell. Mandy went out with it, five days later we had an offer, the following Monday we had a deal. My life, once dominated by a uniquely terrible two week period, now stood on the other side of a uniquely amazing two week period.

One could not have happened without the other.

I remember being so anxious as I worked on my first novel. I kept up with all the trends, as though my monitoring of such things would make an impact on the ultimate outcome. I was desperate for that book to sell. Not only for the obvious reasons, but because I thought somehow it could magically fix my marriage. Magically fix me. Selling novels does not magically fix anything, by the by, outside of magically fixing the launch of your writing career. By the time RUTHLESS came along, I’d let go of those sorts of anxieties. Just as importantly, I’d developed into a far better writer. I am so thankful I am debuting with RUTHLESS instead of my first novel.

What I learned is that I am an imperfect captain of this ship, that I don’t always know what is best. I came to believe that there are two ways to live life – you can paddle hard against the current, or you can let go and find out where you were meant to be all along. Life’s a lot easier when you work with your strengths, when you’re honest about where you are and what you’re feeling. Writing is a lot easier when you simply write from your gut and don’t worry about what’s on your neighbor’s page. Write what you’re passionate about. Follow your bliss. What brings you bliss will never steer you wrong.

All of that said, I certainly don’t have it all figured out. Over the winter, I didn’t write at all. Grief – and the death of a marriage is something to be grieved – comes in strange stops and starts. Success in writing comes in stops and starts. Everything is a process. Nothing is ever perfect. But if you find your current and keep moving toward that which brings you peace and joy, let go of the things that bring stress and anxiety, you’ll wind up writing the books you were meant to write. That’s what makes us writers. We have stories inside us that are unique to ourselves, stories we are meant to share. Write what only you can write and the rest will take care of itself.

Thanks for all the advice, Carolyn! You can find Carolyn at:

Carolyn Lee Adams on Facebook

@carolynleeadams on Twitter 

www.carolynleeadams.com
www.fanfreakingtastic.com

Carolyn has generously offered a copy of RUTHLESS for a giveaway. To enter,  you need to do is be a follower (just click the follow button if you’re not a follower) and leave a comment through June 27th. I’ll announce the winner on June 29th. If your e-mail is not on your Google Profile, please leave it in the comments.

If you mention this contest on Twitter, Facebook, or your blog, mention this in the comments and I'll give you an extra entry. This is an international giveaway.

Here's what's coming up:

On Wednesday I have a guest post with agent Tina Wexler and Jessica Lawson and a query critique giveaway by Tina Wexler and a giveaway of Jessica's new MG mystery NOOKS AND CRANNIES.


Then I'll be on a blog break until Saturday, July 4th when I'm participating in the I Just Couldn't Put It Down Blog Hop. I'll have lots of great new YA books to choose from or an Amazon Giftcard if you prefer that. FYI, while I'm on periodic blog breaks this summer, I will be visiting your blogs. I just won't be blogging as much while I work on my interview and guest post schedule for next year.

On Monday, 7/13 I have a guest post by Julia Durango and a giveaway of THE LEVELLER, her new YA science fiction book.

Hope to see you on Wednesday!