Blog Tour: Broken by CJ Lyons

Hey guys! Today I present you a guest post from CJ Lyons, author of Broken which sounds absolutely amazing! 

What is it like working in an ER?

Becoming a doctor was amazing—I come from a small town in Pennsylvania and worked three jobs to put myself through medical school—but becoming a writer was a dream I'd had all my life, so being able to make it come true has been fantastic beyond words.

My writing career hasn't been smooth sailing, in many ways it's as hard as being a doctor (I actually work longer hours now!) but it has been fulfilling in so many ways.

As a doctor the greatest rush came from those rare moments when I actually saved a life. As a writer I get the chance to touch hundreds of thousands of lives—and I can't begin to describe the feeling I get when I hear from fans about how my stories have done more than provide entertainment but have inspired or empowered them. Talk about your dreams come true!

But real life in the ER isn’t always that exciting—and definitely not as glamorous as they portray it on TV. For instance, the popular TV show Grey's Anatomy has interns, who'd be maybe 25 years old, sleeping with "world renown" surgical attendings…well, to be a "world renown" neurosurgeon you'd have to have 12 years of primary education, 4 years of college, 4 years of medical school, 7 years of residency, probably another 3 year fellowship, and then be in practice a long time, at least 5-10 years…so the 25 year old intern's love interest would be old enough to be her father! Gross!

Not only that, a surgical intern doesn't have time to sleep or bathe (interns eat on the run) so sex isn't the first thing you think of doing when you finally do make it to a call room.

Don't even get me started on stories where a "doctor" can do everything from take x-rays (99.9% of us wouldn't even know where the "on" button is) to diagnose rare diseases from glancing into a microscope to doing brain surgery one minute and heart surgery the next…while I love the idea of doctors being heroes, let's at least make us human.

Oh, and I've only met two physicians who drove Porsches, both orthopedic surgeons, freshly divorced and shopping for new wives. At the community pediatric practice where I worked, the guys who plowed the snow were paid more than we were. So just because a character is a doctor doesn't mean they're rich.

Real life in the ER is a lot of hard, hard work—and it’s teamwork that counts. The ER is a crucible that exposes the worst and best in people. My seventeen years of practicing medicine gave me the chance to witness courage first hand and really see what it takes for ordinary people to step up and become heroes. I owe so much to my patients and their families for teaching me the true meaning of courage, love, faith, and strength.

Those years also gave me the opportunity to work alongside men and women who became my heroes: police officers, firefighters, paramedics, doctors, nurses, social workers, prosecutors…As well as a chance to come face to face with evil, whether in the form of sociopaths, sexual predators, even killers.

All of these experiences have influenced my writing and are why I chose to write what I call Thrillers with Heart. Fast paced novels that aren't about the car chases and explosions as much as they are about the people and their relationships while focusing on a truth I discovered for myself during my time as an ER doctor: Heroes are born everyday. 

Broken Synopsis

The only thing fifteen-year-old Scarlet Killian has ever wanted is a chance at a normal life. Diagnosed with a rare and untreatable heart condition, she has never taken the school bus. Or giggled with friends during lunch. Or spied on a crush out of the corner of her eye. So when her parents offer her three days to prove she can survive high school, Scarlet knows her time is now... or never. Scarlet can feel her heart beating out of control with every slammed locker and every sideways glance in the hallway. But this high school is far from normal. And finding out the truth might just kill Scarlet before her heart does.

Author Bio

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of twenty-one novels, former pediatric ER doctor CJ Lyons has lived the life she writes about in her cutting edge Thrillers with Heart.

Winner of the International Thriller Writers’ coveted Thriller Award, CJ has been called a "master within the genre" (Pittsburgh Magazine) and her work has been praised as "breathtakingly fast-paced" and "riveting" (Publishers Weekly) with "characters with beating hearts and three dimensions" (Newsday).

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Blog Tour: Resist by Sarah Crossan

EEEP! I feel so excited to be able to host SARAH CROSSAN on my blog! I haven't had the time to read Resist, but I LOVED Breathe, I remember! 

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WRITING SPACES

When I listen to other writers speak, I’m always intrigued by what they reveal about where they write. Roald Dahl wrote in a shed, as did Virginia Woof. Libba Bray writes in her local coffee shop, while Phil Earle types away on the top of a double decker bus on his way to his day job. It makes me wonder about the ideal space and whether or not there really is one.

I suspect there is, though many writers make do with what they’ve got or where they live because they’ve no other choice.

When I was writing the BREATHE series, I convinced myself that the only way to get it written and to make it good was to find the ideal location for my writing. I tried hunkering down at home in my spare room, but the window looked out onto an intersection and with drivers compelled to honk one another for the most trifling of offenses, not to mention the fact there was a gym below my apartment where people worked out to Gangham Style from 6am-9pm, I looked elsewhere.

What I discovered was that in NYC there are writing spaces you can join where people with a common goal show up every day, borrow a desk, and get scribbling. I joined The Writers Room on Broadway, a loft-like space with around a hundred desks (plus couches for napping and a kitchen for tea breaks) where I could be alone – but not alone – and write.

It was bliss. In the kitchen I could chit-chat with other writers about the misery of the process and then in the actual writing room (which was silent apart from the patter of fingers on keyboards) I could focus and get to work. It meant being away from home and away from distractions and made me feel like I was getting up to go to work every day like a normal human being. The worst thing about being a writer for me is the isolation and having places like The Writers Room solves this problem.

But then I got sick and the doctor told me to stay at home and not to ride the subway, so I was back to my noisy spare room and the sexy lure of laundry and reruns of The Office. I had to find an alternative, so I spoke with my building manager who had a solution: He had an empty building across the street and for a nominal fee would happily rent me a room. I didn’t hesitate. I snapped up the space and dragged a desk across the street. However, what I hadn’t thought about was the fact that I would be alone. And when I say alone – I mean, A-L-O-N-E. I was on the fifth floor of a dilapidated nursing school with no one else about. The other rooms were open and filled with junk and the only space lacking creepy was my office. In short, it terrified me. I kept expecting zombies to appear down the hallway and every time the elevator pinged (which it kept doing even though there was no one else there) I wondered with Jason from Friday the 13^th would appear. I lasted a week before I frightened myself into submission and went back to the spare room. I tried listening to music. I tried a white noise machine. Then I went down to the foyer and got working. 

And that’s where RESIST was born. Between hospital visits (I’m very fit and healthy now btw, thank you) I sat in my apartment building foyer and wrote. I tried to ignore the mailman and the doorman and hoards of folks carrying groceries and the kids all looking at me strangely and wondering exactly what I might be doing. Perhaps they all thought I just wanted to use the free WiFi. Not so. In fact, wherever I write, I turn off the internet because more than gym noise or honking cars, Twitter is a killer to creativity.

And now what?

Well, since then I’ve moved to the UK where I bought myself a real grownup house with a garden. And as a treat I have built a special office which has everything I’ve ever craved. It has space for my desk, a huge armchair and bookshelves. It’s got no internet (Hallelujah!) but even has its own bathroom! It has bright windows for light, it’s quiet, and it’s also close enough to the house so I can mosey on down there when I

need a chin-wag to stop myself from going round the bend.

Is it the perfect space to write? Well it’s what I’ve dreamed of for years. And I guess we’ll see what I produce. What I know for sure though, is that if I don’t just sit down and do it, it doesn’t matter where I am. The most important writing space to keep tidy and silent is the mind – fill that up with clutter and you haven’t got a chance. 

About the Book

Bea, Alina, and Quinn are on the run. They started a rebellion and were thrown out of the pod, the only place where there's enough oxygen to breathe. Bea has lost her family. Alina has lost her home. And Quinn has lost his privileged life. Can they survive in the perilous Outlands? Can they finish the revolution they began? Especially when a young operative from the pod's Special Forces is sent after them. Their only chance is to stand together, even when terrible circumstances force them apart. When the future of human society is in danger, these four teens must decide where their allegiances lie. Sarah Crossan has created a dangerous, and shattered society in this wrenching, thought-provoking, and unforgettable post-apocalyptic novel.

Author Info

Sarah Crossan is Irish. She graduated with a degree in Philosophy and Literature before training as an English and Drama teacher at Cambridge University and worked to promote creative writing in schools before leaving teaching to write full time.

She completed her Masters in Creative Writing at the University of Warwick in 2003 and in 2010 received an Edward Albee Fellowship for writing.

The Weight of Water, published by Bloomsbury in January 2012, was her first novel.

Breathe published by Greenwillow and Bloomsbury in October 2012 and Resist in October 2013.

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Schedule

11/11/2013- Fiction Freak- Guest Post

11/12/2013- Mundie Moms- Review

11/13/2013- Two Chicks on Books- Guest Post

11/14/2013- Fiktshun  - Character Interview

11/15/2013- Fantasy Book Addict- Interview

Debut Authors Bash: Kate Karyus Quinn

Hey guys! I know GYDO (my own debut author thing) just ended, but when my friend at YA Reads said that she was hosting a debut author blog hop...well I had to join! And I hadn't managed to snag Kate Karyus Quinn on that, so...well. HERE SHE IS. With a rather epic post from a certain character's POV. 

My review of Another Little Piece goes up tomorrow (Spoiler: I LOVED IT.)
Oh, and there's a giveaway! 

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Thanks so much Nikki for having me on your blog and giving me such an awesome assignment for the YA Debut Author Bash! It was so much fun to dive back into Dex’s head after having spent so much time away from him. Anyone who’s read ANOTHER LITTLE PIECE can probably tell that I like the guy quite a lot. And for anyone who hasn’t read ALP, I have a quick warning that this is a teensy bit spoilery – so read with caution!

Nikki’s Question to Dex:

How did you feel when Annaliese came back?

And Dex’s answer:

Here’s the thing about watching someone die: it feels pretty final. Of course, when someone goes the way that Annaliese did: all screaming and covered in blood—you know you’ll be seeing them in your dreams, or nightmares to be more accurate, for years to come.

Since I have this little problem with seeing how people die, well I’d already been seeing that particular vision for years anyhow, so it wasn’t anything new to me… except that I no longer worried about trying to save her. I’d failed. And that’s a test you can’t retake.

Or so I thought.

So how did I feel when I saw Annaliese? I should have been overjoyed just like everyone else. Somehow she’d miraculously survived and was being returned home.

Except.

She was dead. I knew she was dead. And dead people come home in body bags or maybe even as ghostly spirits, but not the way Annaliese did.

She was alive, fully alive. Flesh. Blood. Breathing. Smiling in the same uncertain way she always did, peering out from behind her long hair. No, that’s not right. The long hair had been cut so that only a few spiky inches of hair were left. Still being dead should change more than your hairstyle. Generally it changes ones entire lifestyle.

So what was the deal? I didn’t know. I didn’t want to know.

The truth is: I was scared. I guess somewhere along the line I’d gotten used to seeing the different ways that people might die, but this was the first time I’d seen someone come back to life and I did not really care to know exactly how that sausage got made. I didn’t want any part of Annaliese’s miracle.

I decided to stay as far away from her as possible. But seeing as how I lived next door, that wasn’t nearly far enough away and soon my curiosity got the better of me. And then I got to know Annaliese and then I started thinking the most dangerous thing of all: Maybe I wanted her to keep being whatever weird and totally wrong thing she’d come back as.

And worse yet… Maybe I liked her better this way.

Another Little Piece Blurb
On a cool autumn night, Annaliese Rose Gordon stumbled out of the woods and into a high school party. She was screaming. Drenched in blood. Then she vanished.
A year later, Annaliese is found wandering down a road hundreds of miles away. She doesn't know who she is. She doesn't know how she got there. She only knows one thing: She is not the real Annaliese Rose Gordon.
Now Annaliese is haunted by strange visions and broken memories. Memories of a reckless, desperate wish . . . a bloody razor . . . and the faces of other girls who disappeared. Piece by piece, Annaliese's fractured memories come together to reveal a violent, endless cycle that she will never escape—unless she can unlock the twisted secrets of her past.

Author Bio

Kate Karyus Quinn is an avid reader and menthol ChapStick addict. She has lived in California and Tennessee, but recently made the move back to her hometown of Buffalo, New York, with her husband and two children in tow. She promised them wonderful people, amazing food, and weather that would . . . build character. Another Little Piece is her first novel.

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GYDO: Lydia Kang

Lydia Kang, Author of Control

When I starting writing, I didn’t realize that I’d have to become my protagonist’s worst nightmare. Fellow writers would advise, “Don’t go easy on your main character. Put them through hell! Make them suffer! Don’t hold back!” Because a tepid story about a character who’s happy with no problems is, well, boring. As in, watching-paint-dry boring.

So let’s look at some of the terrible things I’ve done to Zelia Benten, the main character of CONTROL:

I’ve made her runty and not too pretty.

I’ve made her a lab science geek. (Okay, that is debatable, since I actually think that’s cool but maybe for Zelia, it didn’t exactly make her social life blossom.)

I tore her family apart.

I gave her a life-threatening illness she has to live with, day in and day out.

I gave her enemies within the one sanctuary where she could be safe.

I made her hair frizzy. Really, really frizzy.

I had this really freaky-looking, monstrous guy chase her in a club. A guy with black teeth.

I revealed secrets about her life that made her question everything she knew and trusted.

I hurt the people she loves in some wretched ways.

Basically, I was Queen Mean to Zelia.

But hey, she’s got her work cut out for her, right? You’ll have to read the book to see if she overcomes these mighty obstacles. Oh, and whether or not she gets a good makeover!*

*which may or may not happen in the book. Okay, okay. She does gets a makeover. Because I love makeovers. But it’s only temporary. J

Control Blurb
When a crash kills their father and leaves them orphaned, Zel knows she needs to protect her sister, Dyl. But before Zel has a plan, Dyl is taken by strangers using bizarre sensory weapons, and Zel finds herself in a safe house for teens who aren’t like any she’s ever seen before—teens who shouldn't even exist. Using broken-down technology, her new friends’ peculiar gifts, and her own grit, Zel must find a way to get her sister back from the kidnappers who think a powerful secret is encoded in Dyl’s DNA.
A spiraling, intense, romantic story set in 2150—in a world of automatic cars, nightclubs with auditory ecstasy drugs, and guys with four arms—this is about the human genetic “mistakes” that society wants to forget, and the way that outcasts can turn out to be heroes.

Author Bio

Lydia Kang is a young adult fiction author, part-time doc, salt-lover, geek-girl, and hyphen addict. She is represented by Eric Myers of the Spieler Agency, and her YA sci-fi novel, CONTROL (Dial Books for Young Readers/Penguin) releases in December 2013 and its sequel CATALYST (Kathy Dawson Books/Penguin) arrives Fall 2014.

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GYDO: Bethany Hagen

Bethany Hagen, Author of Landry Park

I think it's true that most authors write the kind of books we love to read.  Or perhaps, more accurately, most authors write books that combine elements from all the things they love to read.  Some of my favorite books are books where the author blends together things that seem separate, like magic and the mafia in Holly Black's Curse Workers series, or Nazis and Peter Pan like in Code Name Verity.  

The world of Landry Park is a similar blending of elements.  Here's the formula for how the future-historical, science-fiction romance world of Landry Park came to be:

1. Take one lifelong obsession with Gothic novels, most of which feature a prominent or fundamentally important estate like Manderley or Thornfield.

2. Take the classic novels of manners, Jane Austen's in particular, where the conversations happen during country reels and games of whist, and where everyone is always looking their best.

3. Take Gone with the Wind where an entire way of life is interrupted by a rude moral awakening and war.

4. Take Cold War paranoia and obsession with all things nuclear:

et voila!  Landry Park!

So like the Gothic novels and the Austen novels and Gone with the Wind, Landry Park features a stratified social order, where the leisure class is defined by their ties to inherited land and dominance over cultural and political structures.  This is the class my main character is born into, and she spends her days studying philosophy and history, preparing to take over the family estate, and her evenings dressed in ball gowns, promenaded in front of potential husbands.  Which isn't to say that this is a novel about the suppression of women into traditional gender roles (which is certainly an important topic.)  Rather, Madeline, as heir to the most powerful estate in the nation, is being pressured to marry so that she can carry on the Landry family line and ensure the family's survival in the next generation.  The fate of the family and the gentry way of life rests on her shoulders, and that is what makes her discoveries about the world she lives in all the more crucial.  With Madeline lies the power to make the world of gorgeous dresses, sumptuous dinners and glowing blue lanterns grind to a sudden halt.

Landry Park Blurb
Madeline Landry is born into a world of influence and luxury, a world of estates and gardens fueled by nuclear power and maintained by a caste of people called the Rootless. When a Gentry girl is attacked, it is the Rootless who are blamed, even though Madeline knows better.
As she searches for the truth, she can't escape the rumors of revolution and retribution circulating through the ballrooms, and neither can she escape the city's new golden boy, Captain David Dana, who has secrets of his own. Soon, she finds herself forced to choose between her duty and her desires, her ancestral destiny and her conscience, and her choice will shake the very foundations of the world she was born to rule.

Author Bio

​Librarian by day, Bethany Hagen is the author of the forthcoming LANDRY PARK, set to be released from Dial February 4th, 2014. She lives in Kansas City with her husband and two children.

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GYDO: Mary Gray

Mary Gray, Author of Dollhouse Asylum

(In which a character from THE DOLLHOUSE ASYLUM pops in!)

So. Guys! I just got back from the gym, and my endorphins are surging and I just have to tell you about this amazing party coming up. It’s about this book—this book where I happen to do a few cool flips and cartwheels and stuff. I kick the trash out of this freaky little albino, too. Yeah. I heart myself in THE DOLLHOUSE ASYLUM so much. But see, here’s the deal. My friend, Cheyenne’s, the star and she can be so melancholy and somber and gah! I just had to tell you about the party myself, because it’s going to be AWESOME and you really have to come.

It’s October 25^th (read: the Friday before Halloween!) and you get to dress up. You know how THE DOLLHOUSE ASYLUM stars famous, tragic literary couples? Well, at this party you get to dress up as tragic literary characters (like me!) for awards and stuff! *pops gum* *fastens pony-tail* *does the splits* There will be other awards, too, like for the person who brought the most friends, and whoever travels the farthest to Dallas (technically Irving, but blahblahblah). I hear the author’s going to involve the crowd in her presentation, too. And in the devastating chance that you can’t make it, the author’s also inviting readers to take pictures of their tragic literary character costumes at home (you have to dress up for Halloween anyway, right?) and email them to her so she can print them out and bring them to the party! Brilliance, yes? If you don’t know who to be, check out the comments in this link: http://marygraybooks.com/cultdollhouseasylum-giveaway-2000-goodreads-adds-eep/ Some people seriously have some great ideas for costumes. If I had my way, I’d dress up as each of them in twenty minute increments—I’d have hair-dressers, bring my own music, and—*slouches* too bad I have to stay trapped in the book.

Here’s the deal, though. Cheyenne may have an issue with me telling everyone about this early on, but I’VE NEVER BEEN GOOD WITH SUBTLETY. YOU NEED TO COME. PLUS THERE WILL BE A CAKE WITH THE COVER OF THE BOOK. And did I mention it will be the author’s birthday party? I know!

I suppose you want to know my name. And I really wanna tell you. Hm. Eep! I’m not really supposed to say, but, well, I can’t keep it to myself, so I’ll just whisper it. It’s—

*Mary Gray slaps hand over her mouth, because no one can know the tragic literary couples who appear in the book*

*Wiggles loose* Fine, whatever. I won’t tell! But they know about the party now! *laughs* *flees from the author* Tell us who you'd like to dress up as in the comments below!

Dollhouse Asylum Blurb
A virus that had once been contained has returned, and soon no place will be left untouched by its destruction. But when Cheyenne wakes up in Elysian Fields--a subdivision cut off from the world and its monster-creating virus--she is thrilled to have a chance at survival.
At first, Elysian Fields,with its beautiful houses and manicured lawns, is perfect. Teo Richardson, the older man who stole Cheyenne's heart, built it so they could be together. But when Teo tells Cheyenne there are tests that she and seven other couples must pass to be worthy of salvation, Cheyenne begins to question the perfection of his world.
The people they were before are gone. Cheyenne is now "Persephone," and each couple has been re-named to reflect the most tragic romances ever told. Everyone is fighting to pass the test, to remain in Elysian Fields. Teo dresses them up, tells them when to move and how to act, and in order to pass the test, they must play along.
If they play it right, then they'll be safe.
But if they play it wrong, they'll die.

Author Bio

Mary Gray has a fascination with all things creepy. That’s why all her favorite stories usually involve panic attacks and hyperventilating. In real life, she prefers to type away on her computer, ogle over her favorite TV shows, and savor fiction. When she’s not immersed in other worlds, she and her husband get their exercise by chasing after their three children. The Dollhouse Asylum is her first novel.

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GYDO: Josin L. McQuein

Josin L. McQuein, Author of Arclight

WARNING: Copious metaphors and similes ahead. Proceed with caution.

It’s no secret that I’m a nerd. Actually, a nerd wrapped in a dork, who’s fluent in geek, and when I try to explain things, it’s often in nerd-speak, so bear with me as I attempt to sum up the debut moment for writers in two words: Schrödinger’s cat.

(I could be really mean and end my post there, but I’ve already made Nikki wait far too long for this post, and I think if I left her with a single paragraph, she might spontaneously combust. No one wants that, so I’ll explain.)

I’m running on the assumption that most people will have heard of the aforementioned feline at some point, but as a quick summary, it’s quantum-ish and physics-like, and deals with the idea of multiple possible realities coexisting simultaneously.  That is likely the worst phrasing of the principles involved ever typed, but it really does apply to being a new novelist, I promise. To be accurate, quantum physics is about the only way to actually describe the process, because if you ever go through it yourself, you’ll end up feeling like you’ve fallen into another dimension apart from reality.

Having a book published is an odd thing. (Not as odd as spending massive numbers of hours postulating on what would happen if you locked a cat in a box with a cyanide pellet, but odd, none the less.) It’s both a destination and a starting point, making it an endless journey taken in a single step, and in that single step, you travel so far that you can no longer see the place you were standing in the moment before your book went “live.”

The book is done. It’s edited and published, and you feel like you should be at the end of something, but you’ve actually only scaled a wall. As you stand there on top, you occupy this tiny little space that you thought was the goal you wanted to reach, but you’ve not actually started, yet. You’ve gone so far, and you’re still at the beginning because the book is in stasis. It hasn’t interacted with its environment. No one’s read it. It exists, but it doesn’t, because a book isn’t a book, and a story isn’t a story, unless the words have eyes and ears to enter. They can’t live until they’re processed through a human mind.

So, it’s the eve of your “debut” and… nothing. Literally nothing. It’s an equilibrium so perfect that it becomes sensory deprivation. All of your emotions cancel each other out – you’re excited, but terrified; you’re happy, but anxious; you hope people will love your story as much as you do, but you’re worried they’ll hate it. That’s when you look around and realize you’ve become the cat in that ridiculous box – a theory, waiting to be proven.

Then suddenly, the box is open and the book is out there where people can see it and touch it and make their own determinations of its worth. You’re flooded with data based on the observations others have made about this thing that - to them - is new, but to you is so, so old. And while all this is going on, while the focus of your world is being quantified by people you’ve never seen or met, it’s Tuesday to everyone else on the planet. Nothing special, at all. They’ve not been locked in a box, waiting for someone to pull off the lid.

The thing that you made, your creation, which was shaped by your experiences and references is now being subjected the perception of others who have experiences and references of their own.  There’s nothing you can do about it – it’s alive, now, and a living thing won’t always behave in the way you think it should. Assumptions will imbue lines with meaning you never intended, and the familiarity of a character you think you made up will hit chords with people you’ll never have a name or face for. A throw-away detail you added for texture becomes the obsession of someone who insists it must have purpose.

Your story starts to change; it’s not only yours anymore. It belongs to every reader who absorbs the words. It’s gone airborne, mutating as it’s passed along, but it’s alive – definitely alive – and that’s what matters. That’s what having a novel debut is like – it begins as a cat sealed in a box with something that could kill it, and turns into a contagion infecting the imaginations and emotions of those who set it free by reading it.

Maybe that’s daunting. Maybe that’s terrifying. But what is writing if not creation? And creation is a daunting and terrifying prospect.

I’ve already said it, but being published is just plain odd. You’re putting something into the world that’s never been there before. It feels like going insane and welcoming the madness. And it never stops.

I’ve got two books out this year – both YA, but in vastly different genres. One’s got monsters, the other has something truly scary: humans who act monstrously. So, in effect, I’ve got two debuts. I never really planned it that way. The fact that they’re coming out so close together is a quirk of publishing schedules, but it’s proven to me that the strangeness of waiting for the book’s release isn’t just novice jitters.

I’ve been asked what’s behind the trend of authors putting out more than one book their debut year, and honestly, I didn’t realize it was a trend, but if I had to guess, I’d say it’s a matter of momentum. Back to the geek-speak: With each new book, you climb back in the box and watch it fill with infinite possibilities until it bursts into reality. All of the expectation and anxiety have been building up like potential energy stored for the moment and then BOOM, you’re in motion, and you don’t want to stop.

It’s easier to keep going because then you don’t have time to think about all those things that make the process feel so weird. Eventually you’ll get your legs under you. All that motion, all that speed, has created the inertia of a new world populated with your ideas. The uneasy tilt will equalize again, and the process starts over. New idea, new book, new journey, and you’re still standing there, at the beginning and the end on the cusp of every possibility.

So what’s it like to be a new author with two books coming out in one year? It’s slaying the dragon and flying off into the unknown. It’s being the hero and the villain at the same time. It’s a fantasy come true and a fiction that’s edging its way into reality. It’s the best and scariest and most confusing and awesome thing in the world.

Basically, it’s really, really cool.

Arclight Blurb
(Check out her other book, Premeditated which releases in Oct.)
No one crosses the wall of light . . . except for one girl who doesn’t remember who she is, where she came from, or how she survived. A harrowing, powerful debut thriller about finding yourself and protecting your future—no matter how short and uncertain it may be. 
The Arclight is the last defense. The Fade can’t get in. Outside the Arclight’s border of high-powered beams is the Dark. And between the Light and the Dark is the Grey, a narrow, barren no-man’s-land. That’s where the rescue team finds Marina, a lone teenage girl with no memory of the horrors she faced or the family she lost. Marina is the only person who has ever survived an encounter with the Fade. She’s the first hope humanity has had in generations, but she could also be the catalyst for their final destruction. Because the Fade will stop at nothing to get her back. Marina knows it. Tobin, who’s determined to take his revenge on the Fade, knows it. Anne-Marie, who just wishes it were all over, knows it.
When one of the Fade infiltrates the Arclight and Marina recognizes it, she will begin to unlock secrets she didn’t even know she had. Who will Marina become? Who can she never be again?

Author Bio

Josin L. McQuein was born and raised in Texas. Now she and her three crazy dogs live in a town so small the buffalo outnumber the people, and things like subways or consistent Internet access are fictional creations of a faraway fantasyland known as civilization. Arclight is her first book.

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GYDO: Imogen Howson

Imogen Howson, Author of Linked

The magical thing about writing fiction is that you’re creating it from scratch.  It feels as if it comes from nothing—from imagination and pen on blank paper (or pixels in an empty Word document).  From scraps of dreams you had months ago, and weird pictures in your head, and times when the sun got in your eyes and you looked at something ordinary and saw it, just for a moment, as something else.

Except that, although it feels like that, actually it’s not true.  Fiction doesn’t come from nothing.  Those dreams and weird little scraps of interesting thoughts and all the stuff that rises up through the swamp of your subconscious—they all come from stuff in your real life, filtered through, not created by, your imagination.

It’s easy to forget that, as a writer.  You get one awesome idea, and it becomes a book.  And you kind of think all you need to do to write the next book is hook onto the next awesome idea.  And it’ll come along, right?  Because they always have before.

But writing a book doesn’t use up just that one awesome idea: it uses up a whole store of different ideas you’ve been accumulating, sometimes for years. 

The main idea of LINKED was its original title, Telepathic Twins in Space.  But that wasn’t the only idea I used for it.  I used a version of an idea I’d written about in an as-yet-unpublished short story years ago, and I used a collection of images that had been swimming in my head for ages, and that I hadn’t yet been able to turn into a story, and I used an area near my house that, if you look at it the right way, looks like the landscape of an alien planet.  And I used bits of how I felt as a teenager at school, and bits of stuff that I’d read about abuse victims, and cognitive dissonance, and human rights issues, and politics.

So, once I’d written LINKED, plus its sequel, UNRAVEL, I’d used up not just one or two ideas, but most of the whole stock of ideas I’d been accumulating for ages.  And when I came to start a new book I felt kind of…sucked dry.  Like I’d used up my whole store of imagination, and (the writer’s worst fear) maybe I couldn’t do it any more.

So I took a break.  I read a lot.  I picked up running again, which I hadn’t done for years.  I baked, and read recipe books, and had a spa break with friends, and went to two writers’ conferences, and bought a language course in basic (very basic) Arabic, and had a day’s sightseeing in Berlin.  I’m planning on booking myself onto a falconry course in the next couple of months, and possibly doing some rock climbing (despite my fear of heights).

Partly because it’s good to do stuff that’s not just staring at my laptop screen.  And partly because all this stuff—whether it’s directly to do with writing or not—is restocking my ideas bank, refilling my creative well.

I am writing again now (25,000 words into my next book), and I have plenty of ideas all over again.  And if my next heroine ends up going to a planet that’s like a huge sauna, or takes up baking, or has to run a marathon, or fight Nazism, or speak Arabic, or fly birds of prey…well, you know where it came from!

Linked Blurb
Elissa used to have it all: looks, popularity, and a bright future. But for the last three years, she’s been struggling with terrifying visions, phantom pains, and mysterious bruises that appear out of nowhere. 
Finally, she’s promised a cure: minor surgery to burn out the overactive area of her brain. But on the eve of the procedure, she discovers the shocking truth behind her hallucinations: she’s been seeing the world through another girl’s eyes. 
Elissa follows her visions, and finds a battered, broken girl on the run. A girl—Lin—who looks exactly like Elissa, down to the matching bruises. The twin sister she never knew existed. 
Now, Elissa and Lin are on the run from a government who will stop at nothing to reclaim Lin and protect the dangerous secrets she could expose—secrets that would shake the very foundation of their world. 

Author Bio

When Imogen Howson was a child, she loved reading so much she not only read in bed, at the table and in the bath, but in the shower and - not so successfully - on her bicycle. She enjoyed books in a slightly unorthodox way, too - many of her childhood books still have ragged edges where she tore paper from the margins in order to eat it.

When Imogen and her younger sister became bored on family outings, Imogen entertained them both with stories about fairies or, in defiance of biology, "the people inside your body" who made everything work.

Imogen's favorite stories are still those that ignore biology, reality and the known laws of nature. She writes romantic fantasy and science fiction, and makes liberal use of the substance known as handwavium. She is the winner of the 2008 Elizabeth Goudge Award.
Imogen lives near Sherwood Forest in England, with her partner and their two daughters. She still reads in most places, but nowadays she prefers Cheddar cheese and endless cups of coffee to paper.

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