KIM SAVAGE GUEST POST AND AFTER THE WOODS GIVEAWAY

Happy Monday Everyone! Before I get to my fantastic guest post today, I'm participating in Bloghop to help encourage, amuse, and inspire everyone. I don't know about you, but I could always use these things, especially during the cold winter months.

As many of you know, I've been going through so many changes over the last few years and I hate change. I thought I'd share part of an article on attitude from the newspaper that I taped on my fridge to help me through it. I'm not sure who the author is. Hope it inspires you too!


Attitude.
The longer I liver, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. 
                                       . . .
We cannot change our past . . . we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable.
The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and this is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10 percent what happens to me and 90 percent how I react to it.


Today I'm excited to have debut author Kim Savage here to share about her new YA thriller AFTER THE WOODS that sounds really suspenseful and terrifying in a good way.

Here's a blurb of AFTER THE WOODS:

Would you risk your life to save your best friend?

Julia knows she beat the odds. She escaped the kidnapper who hunted her in the woods for two terrifying nights that she can’t seem to fully remember. Now it’s one year later, and as Julia settles into her junior year, a dead girl turns up in those same woods. The terrible memories resurface, leaving the whip-smart Julia in a stupor at awkward moments—in front of gorgeous Kellan MacDougall, for example. Julia copes by recording facts: collecting statistics about abductions, drawing diagrams of the players, and making lists.

Her best friend, Liv, was also abducted by the same man, but she managed to escape while Julia was left behind. Is Liv’s guilt over leaving Julia in the woods the reason she’s starving herself? Is hooking up with Shane Cuthbert, an addict with a volatile temper, Liv’s way of punishing herself for not having Julia’s back? As Julia struggles to make sense of her friend’s self-destructive behavior, she realizes the one person she thinks she knows best—Liv—is the person she knows least of all.

Now here's Kim!

Ten Easy Steps for Getting Back in With Your Muse

by Kim Savage

 

My debut novel, After the Woods, releases Feb. 23rd, and the days leading up to its launch have been heady. Shouty caps on Twitter. Giveaways and talks. I’ve been stroking, feeding and loving this first book, my book baby, primogenitus, to the neglect of all other things, especially my Muse.

And she’s giving me the stink eye.

So it’s time to write again. To do that, I’ve laid forth some commandments for myself and to share, wherever you may be on your publication path.

1.       Thou shalt restrict social media to the phone. That nerve pinging as you tap out 140 characters on a tiny screen? That’s called Carpal Tunnel, and that shall be your reward. The Muse is a punishing Muse.

2.       Thou shalt turn to apps that block wireless and transform the urge to Tweet into something useful. No one cares that you “worked with Mac Freedom for 480 minutes!” but you can pretend that, somewhere in New York, your editor is nodding approvingly.

3.       Thou shalt keep said phone a minimum of twenty feet from your sacred writing space.

4.       Thou shalt read touchstone texts, those books that inspire your writing, but not too many, because that is procrasti-reading, and you’re not fooling anyone.

5.       Thou shalt dream only of your plot, because the sleeping brain cannot be interrupted by requests for hot chocolate or to tug off a child’s Nike Elites, those hateful podiatric condoms designed by a man who never removed sweaty socks.

6.       Thou shalt draw and quarter thine internal editor. See Commandment One.

7.       Thou shalt not covet they neighbor’s Twitter love. The Muse is not impressed by confetti tosses,

muppet-flapping, or the feels, no matter how reals.

8.       Remember the writing day, which is your date with the Muse, and she will not be stood up, or she becomes Crazy Ex-Muse, and you’ll have to file a restraining order.

9.       Make your only idol Annie Dillard, who wrote so hard she didn’t realize it was the Fourth of July until she heard the pop of fireworks. Then, make your own fireworks on the page.

10.   Honor thine Muse. She’s the one who brought you into this world, and she’s the one who’ll take you out of it.

Now, go forth and write.

Bio:

KIM SAVAGE is a former reporter who received her Master’s degree in Journalism from Northeastern University. She worked as a business journalist, pitching story ideas along the lines of "When Murder Kills Property Values."  You get the idea. Today, Kim lives in a town north of Boston, Massachusetts, near the real Middlesex Fells Reservation of After the Woods. Born directionally challenged, the fear of getting lost in that lovely, dark forest lives close to her skin. She and her husband have three children, each of whom beg to appear in her books. They shouldn’t.  

You can follow Kim on Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, and Twitter, and visit her at kimsavage.me. AFTER THE WOODS is her debut novel.

Link to Instagram: https://instagram.com/kimsavagewrites

Link to Tumblr: http://kimsavageauthor.tumblr.com

Link to Pinteres: https://www.pinterest.com/kimsavagewrites/

Link to Twitter: https://twitter.com/khsavage

Kim's publisher Macmillan Children's Publishing Group is generously offering a copy of AFTER THE WOODS for a giveaway. To enter, all you need to do is be a follower and leave a comment through March 5th. If your e-mail is not on your Google Profile, you must leave it in the comments to enter the contest.

If you mention this contest on Twitter, Facebook, or your blog, let me know this in the comments and I'll give you an extra entry. This is for U.S. and Canada.

Here's what's coming up:

On Wednesday I have a guest post by Kimberley Griffith Little and a giveaway of BANISHED or another book in this series.

Next Monday I have a guest post by debut author Melanie Conklin and her agent Peter Knapp and a giveaway of her MG contemporary COUNTING TIME.

Next Friday I'm participating in the Lucky Is Reading Book Giveaway Hop.

The following Monday I have an interview with debut author Janet Summer Johnson and a giveaway of her MG contemporary THE LAST GREAT ADVENTURE OF THE PB&J SOCIETY.

Wednesday that week I have an Agent Spotlight Interview with agent Patricia Nelson and a query critique giveaway.

Hope to see you on Wednesday!