When Your Mom Calls At Five AM Wanting To Borrow A Gun...

... the first question out of your mouth isn't "Why?" But rather, "Which one?"

Well, it is if you're me, anyway.

Yes, life continues to be an amalgamation of the amazing. Some really awesome storms have been ripping through Ohio lately. If you've been following my Twitter feed you know that it's been above 90 degrees as late as 10 PM these days, and you've also seen pics of golf-ball sized hail. The one thing I can't take a picture of is the fact that around 300,000 people in my state do not have power at the moment. Well, I could take a picture but it would be rather... dark.

My parents are among the 300k, but we're resourceful people. You can imagine the same couple that has a backhoe at their disposal also has a generator, so they're doing alright. However, the generator cord isn't quite allowing the back door to shut all the way, and sometime around 4 AM a particularly curious mammal with opposable thumbs figured that out.

So what do you do when there's a raccoon in the kitchen? Call your daughter and borrow her rifle.

It seems pretty straightforward, but raccoons aren't really that excited about being shot at. Plus, Abby (yes, the Scottish Terrier of tunneling under the road fame) had it in her head that *this* was her redeeming moment and was doing her damn-it-all-best to kill the raccoon, which really just meant she was ruining any chance of my dad getting a clean shot.

Oh - and I forgot to mention that he only had one bullet.

And also - the flashlight was going dim because they've been using them constantly.

And yes - that flashlight was my Mag light that I still haven't gotten back after the Abby-Under-the-Road Incident.

One more thing - the person holding the Mag light was my mom, who kept having to scream and run the other way when the raccoon charged her.

It was a glorious, badly-lit circus.

To add to the fun, my parents' St. Bernard (appropriately named Boo, because he's scared of everything) would occasionally stick his head in whatever room the entire escapade had moved to, howl mournfully, and then back out because he didn't feel equal to the situation. Dad says it's just not in his nature to hurt things, and that's a good thing.

My dad is a really big, really nice guy (pretty much just like Boo). He gave the raccoon every chance to make an escape, but once it did find its way back to the screen door it refused to let go of a bag of bread (no, I'm not kidding) that wouldn't squeeze through the crack. So it was time to make use of the one bullet, and unfortunately the raccoon met its bitter end in the bathroom.

Mom says that's OK, because she was tired of the Harvest Gold colored tub anyway.

Blogging with Presenting Lenore

I’ve ran across a lot of really awesome people, and culled an enormous amount of information from blogs. As I raided my brain – yes, I picture myself on the prow of a Viking ship, approaching my own gray matter – for more people I’d like to interview, it repeatedly offered up names of bloggers. And so, the third series; Bloggers of Awesome. Yeah, it’s the BOA.

Today's guest is Lenore Applehans of Presenting Lenore, who runs an absolutely stunning book review blog, as well as being a debut author herself! Her book, LEVEL 2, will be available from Simon & Schuster, January 15, 2013. For her fantastic cover reveal and trailer, check out this post on her blog. And to make her even cooler, she's a cat person.

So you run an excellent blog over at Presenting Lenore What made you decide to take the approach you do on your blog?

Originally I envisioned PL as a place to talk about my work in advertising (hence the title), but after attending the SCBWI pre-Bologna conference in 2008, I repurposed the blog to discuss books. In the early years, my reading was a lot more eclectic, but gradually my focus narrowed to YA since that’s what I mainly write.

I know a lot of aspiring writers who are intimidated by the idea of blogging. They want to, but they are worried it will cut into their (already precious) writing time. You're a prolific blogger - how do you recommend one be both a successful blogger and writer?

Blogs are a ton of work, no question. In 2009, at the height of my blogging, I wrote and published a post every day – with probably about half being book reviews. These days, most of that creative energy goes into writing fiction, so I’m lucky to have time for one or two posts a week.

One thing I think helps keep a balance is having specific goals. For 2012, for example, my two main goals are to stage my two dystopian/post-apocalyptic theme months (February and August) and to promote my fellow debut authors in the Apocalypsies via my Apoc Love! feature. I also have the very reliable Cat Tuesdays as an easy filler post.

I used to accept more blog tours and scheduled events, but I’ve drastically cut back on anything that has a firm deadline. It’s just too stressful. Having a calendar really helps though!

It looks like you’re a big reader - do you set aside time for that?

I have to set aside time for reading and I consider it part of my job as a writer. It’s essential not only to know what’s out there but also in terms of improving craft. I have learned so much about how to pace and plot YA from reading hundreds of YA novels over the past couple of years.

You do a lot of reviews. Have you ever given a bad review? Why or why not?

I’ve written critical reviews, yes. Book reviews are for readers and if they’re not honest, they are worthless. What I think a lot of authors don’t really get is that vaguely positive reviews pass from a reader’s consciousness in a matter of seconds while an in-depth, thoughtful review, even if it has its criticisms, forces a reader to engage with the material and really consider reading it.

Despite my firm belief in the value of critical reviews, my Apoc Love! book reviews are a bit different. Since these debut authors are essentially part of my support community, I use this feature to accentuate the positive, only talking about what I love about a book and not bringing up what I don’t. I’m still being honest, but my readers know that I’m only discussing the good aspects of the book.

Do you think blogging is a helpful self-marketing tool?

It can be, for sure. When I asked, in a recent survey attached to a contest, where visitors had first heard about LEVEL 2, I’d say 70% answered that they’d heard about it via my blog. Granted I was a blogger long before I was an author, but the contacts I’ve made just by being an active part of the blogosphere all these years (leaving comments on other blogs, engaging people on twitter, joining in events like read-a-thons, etc) are so valuable. At Book Expo America this year, I couldn’t walk two feet without running into someone I knew.

What other websites / resources can you recommend for writers?

I’m a huge fan of the link round-ups at YA Highway and Cynsations and I check in at least once a week at Verla Kay’s blue boards. I also subscribe to Publisher’s Marketplace and the free newsletters from Publisher’s Weekly and Shelf Awareness. I find myself clicking on a lot of links from authors, agents and editors on twitter. Always lots of wisdom to be found there!

It can also be very educational to follow some of the more critical reviewers in the blogosphere to get an idea of what type of story element resonates and what repels. A few of my favorites are: Forever Young Adult, The Book Smugglers, GalleySmith, StephSuReads, and Stacked Books.

What is your genre, and what led you to it? Does your genre influence the style of your blog?

I’d say LEVEL 2 falls mainly into the thriller genre, though it does have some dystopian elements.  My blog isn’t dystopian most of the year – just in February and August! But I am also blogging on the group blog The League of Extraordinary Writers, which focuses on sci-fi.

Any words of inspiration for aspiring writers?

Hard work pays off. Maybe not today, but someday! Hopefully soon :)

Cover Talk with Shannon Messenger

 I love talking to authors. Our experiences are so similar, yet so very different, that every one of us has a new story to share. Everyone says that the moment you get your cover it really hits you - you're an author. The cover is your story - and you - packaged for the world. So the process of the cover reveal can be slightly panic inducing. Does it fit your story? Is it what you hoped? Will it sell? With this in mind I put together the CRAP (Cover Reveal Anxiety Phase) Interview.

Today's guest is my fellow Lucky13s and Friday the Thirteeners member Shannon Messenger, to talk about her awesome cover for LET THE SKY FALL, available from Simon Pulse in March, 2013.

Did you have any pre-conceived notions about what you wanted your cover to look like?

Honestly? Not really. I had a much stronger sense of what I DIDN’T want it to look like than what I wanted, so mostly I sent a lot of silent, “please don’t let it have _____” wishes into the void and danced for joy when I saw the final cover.

How far in advance from your pub date did you start talking covers with your house?

Pretty early, actually. Even in my first round of edits there were notes in the margins of certain scenes marking them for possible cover ideas. And during The Great and Never-Ending Title Debate (LET THE SKY FALL was VERY hard to title) my editor gave me some information on what they were thinking for the cover to try and help inspire some title ideas.

Did you have any input on your cover?

Yes and no. My editor and I are (fortunately) very much on the same page, so mostly she told me what they were doing and I said brilliant things like, “Ooo, that’s going to be awesome!” I did get to see headshots of the models they’d selected for the photo shoot ahead of time, and offer some suggestions on how I’d preferred them to be styled (all of which were met with: yep, that’s what we’re planning!), but on the whole it was all the amazing team at S&S doing what they do best.

How was your cover revealed to you?

In an email from my editor where she gushed and gushed about how amazing it was for several paragraphs and I did my best to be a good author and read all of that despite the fact that all I really wanted to do was DOWNLOAD THE ATTACHMENT AND SEE IT.

Was there an official "cover reveal" date for your art?

Yes, though it was a bit of a rushed scramble. Within a couple of weeks of finalizing the art I found out that LET THE SKY FALL was going to be featured at a special S&S event the week of BEA and that ARCs would be given out. Which—while AWESOME—meant we needed to do the reveal before that event, and there wasn’t a lot of time to organize. So we settled on revealing May 30th, which gave me a couple of weeks to prepare, but was still before everyone would start traveling for BEA and be too distracted to be checking blogs.

How far in advance of the reveal date were you aware of what your cover would look like?

Only about three weeks. Like I said, it was a bit of a last minute scramble.

Was it hard to keep it to yourself before the official release?

YES! Keeping secrets is never easy for me. And since we were scrambling to prepare for that event, I kept getting exciting things I couldn’t share. Like, they sent me my ARCs, but I couldn’t post the obligatory Shannon-Hugging-Her-Book photo (what? It HAS to be done!) because the cover was still secret. Same with when the bookmarks I’d ordered came in, I *almost* forgot and posted a picture of them on Twitter. Thank goodness I remembered at the last minute and stopped.

What surprised you most about the process?

How MUCH I loved the final cover. It was SO MUCH BETTER than what my imagination had come up with.

Any advice to other debut authors about how to handle cover art anxiety?

Yes, two things. One: try not to panic until you actually SEE the cover, because nine times out of ten authors end up loving what their publisher sends them. And if you do happen to fall into the category of not liking your cover, trust your agent to help guide you through. There’s a lot that can still be done and I know many authors who started out with something that wasn’t right and ended up with something awesome!