Authors Are Rockstars Tour: Gabrielle Zevin Guest Post and Giveaway

As a part of the Authors Are Rockstars Tour (hosted by Fiktshun and Two Chicks On Books), I get to host Gabrielle Zevin today in Bookland! Wooooo!


Why do I think Gabrielle Zevin is a rockstar? Well, it's obvious... isn't it? I absolutely adored her book, All These Things I've Done and seriously cannot wait for Because It Is My Blood. The main character, Anya, is an incredibly real character. She is completely flawed, but that is what makes her so amazing. I truly appreciate when an author is able to create a flawed character that ends up being really likable... and Gabrielle Zevin does just that!


Also, whoever is able to imagine a world where chocolate and coffee are illegal is completely amazing to me. I would not even want to think about a world like that, let alone spend so much time crafting the world and writing about it. Seriously.. if you can get me to love a book where coffee (which may as well be my lifeline) is illegal, you're a rockstar! 


Now you can read Gabrielle's awesome guest post. :) (And Gabrielle was super rockstar-like in that she is including a giveaway too (which is international)!
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On Hair and Hair-oines!

So, full disclosure. I have Anya Balanchine’s hair as described in All These Things I’ve Done. It is long, voluminous, dark, curly, and in the absence of product and the presence of humidity, occasionally prone to frizz. (One of the things that truly scares me about the future world of ATTID is not the fact that chocolate is illegal, but that hair products are rationed.) My hair blows out and flatirons well, and I’d say I do that maybe twenty percent of the time. At this moment, I am a couple of days into a flatiron and it’s slightly wavy, like straight hair that’s been to the beach. I’m prettier than I can even stand. (I jest!) In general though, I like my hair au naturel, and I’ve never wanted to become one of those women who treated curls like they were a plague to be eradicated by any means necessary. The reason I like my hair is because it is the perfect combination of my mom’s hair and my dad’s hair. Mom is Korean; Dad is of Jewish/Russian descent. And my hair looks like hair that comes from those people, those backgrounds. I like those people. I like that background. I like my hair.


It annoys me in movies or books when the nerdy girl gets “pretty” and the way we know that she’s “pretty” is that her once curly hair has become super straight. Exhibit A: Anne Hathaway in The Princess Diaries. Exhibit B: When Hermione goes to the ball in Harry Potter. (Don’t even get me started on the evolution of Hermione’s hair in the movies…) You know what I’m talking about. The subtext of these moments is that a girl cannot have naturally curly hair and be attractive. Is the bravest thing about Brave the fact that Merida is unabashedly curly? 


In writing, the selection of a character’s hair is no small matter. (Dare I say it is a hairy matter?) Certainly, there is an extent to which hair determines character. Would Anne Shirley be Anne Shirley without the red hair? Perhaps it’s a cliché, but the red hair symbolizes her outsider-ness, her specialness, her very Anne-ness. The inciting incident for her relationship to Gilbert Blythe is the moment when he insults her hair, calling her “Carrots!” Consider Daisy Buchanan in Gatsby. We think of her as a blond, but her hair actually changes colors throughout Fitzgerald’s descriptions. These shifting descriptions are no accident.


But as a writer, why I really think hair is important is because it’s one of the few things in life that a person can easily change. For the most part, if you want to be a redhead, you will be a redhead. If you want to have pink hair or blue hair, you will. Hair is not destiny in the same way that, say, height is. Hair color and style speak to the place and time one lives in, one’s health, one’s religion, one’s style, the style of one’s mate or parents or friends, I could go on. Hair can have intent in it or discontent, too. This is to say, we learn a lot about a character from the way he or she wears (or is made to wear) their hair. 


After name, hair is one of the first decisions I make about a character. Elizabeth Hall in Elsewhere was blond and blue-eyed. It was my first novel, and in retrospect, I think I needed her to look as differently from me as possible so that I could be freer in my writing. With blond hair and blue eyes, there was no chance anyone would mistake her for me, which allowed me to be more emotionally open. In Margarettown, one of my novels for adults, the male narrator thinks Margaret Towne is red-haired but later in the book, it is revealed that she has been dyeing her hair the entire time. The hair becomes a symbol for all the things the male narrator doesn’t know about his beloved. On the various foreign jackets, sometimes Margaret is depicted as a blond, sometimes as a redhead. I find this very appropriate. In Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac, Naomi wakes up in an ambulance as a bottle blond whose roots are showing, and this ought to tell you pretty much everything you need to know about her character.


Last year, my publisher decided to re-jacket All These Things I’ve Done. Despite the fact that covers with girls on them are as common as iPhones, I was not all that upset when the new concept included a photographic depiction of the main character. While I had liked the original hardcover concept very much, I had strongly objected to the copy on the front. The copy had spelled out the world (“Chocolate is contraband; caffeine is illegal,” etc.), which I felt emphasized the wrong thing for readers as they approached the book. All These Things I’ve Done is a book about a deeply flawed girl, Anya Balanchine, not a world, and I hoped (hope!) that the new jacket would let readers know that they would be reading a novel that emphasized character. Furthermore, I liked the girl on the jacket. She was strong looking, not too pretty or girly, a little bit Lisbeth Salander. Of course, I did have to point out to my publisher that the cover model’s hair did not match the description of Anya Balanchine’s hair in All These Things… but no one seemed to think it was a problem. And as I thought about it, it wasn’t a problem for me either. The girl they chose captures something of Anya’s spirit. Ultimately, I think this is more important than if the model had the right hair. Although I’ve spent the last thousand words or so telling you how important hair is, I also think book characters are MORE than just hairstyles. Hair is a fine place to start, but if it doesn’t speak to a character’s situation, I won’t write it into a book at all. Not to put to fine a point on it but women are more than just hairstyles, too. Judge me by the content of my character not the quality of my flatiron, you know?


Incidentally, by the end of the series, Anya will have a hairstyle very much like the one on the jacket. Most women don’t have the same hairstyles their whole lives, after all. Anya is a sixteen-year-old high school girl in book one, but she will be in her twenties and in a very different place in her life by the end of the series. Not to mention, she has always been a retrospective narrator, telling the story from some future place and time, after all. In the future, Anya’s hair will look exactly like the girl on the jacket’s, I promise.

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Giveaway Details:
-International (thanks to Gabrielle!)
-You must be 13 or older to enter
-Ends at 11:59pm EST on August 31, 2012
-Winner will be chosen through Rafflecopter
-Winner will be announced here and emailed
-Winner will have 48 hours after notification to respond with their details or prize will be forfeit and awarded to someone else
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Fiction and the Happiness/Creativity Loop

Here is the last guest post by the fabulous Jaime Buckley! Enjoy. :)
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When Kaitlyn was kind enough to let me do these guest posts, something specific came to my mind.

Do powerful, engaging fictional stories help us create happiness? 

You might think this is a strange question. Maybe it is. I was, after all, thinking about it while in the bathroom, reading a Terry Pratchett book in the middle of the night (great toilet books BTW—but expect your legs to go numb). This book, recommended by some dear friends of mine, was given to me while I was in a serious depression. I’m writing my next novel, and it's so challenging to keep going...because I’m also homeless at present. Add to that being married, with 10 children and a father in law that we care for and might…just might, be able to imagine my stress levels. 

This book, in one night, had me laughing to tears. It was beyond brilliant. I instantly found myself not only relating to the child protagonist of the story, but also to a tribe of 6” men in kilts who love to drink and fight (no I won’t explain that one). Within 24 hours my stress had vanished, my smile returned and my writing output went through the roof. 

What I wanted to know was: WHY?
My life is the same. The same pressures I had at the beginning of the book remain in my life by the end of the book. Or was it? Why would reading create such a surge of energy and positive outlook, which not only helped me, but helped my children—who now had a happy father hopeful for the future?

It has a great deal to do with physiological changes that take place. Don’t run on me here, I’m completely serious. Every time you read, your body changes. Specifically, there is an increase in the levels of dopamine in our brains, from reading—created by intense mental and emotional moments in the story we experience. 

This powerful chemical affects us in dramatic ways, the most important being a sensation of well being, while opening all the nerve centers of the brain! The presence of this chemical increases our ability to learn, create and perform. In many cases, such as my own, it heightens your awareness levels which can alter your perspectives.

That's why we enjoy the 'rush' of a good book: we're all drug addicts.

Just kidding. 

So to close this article, I have a treat. It’s not one of Kaitlyn’s great YouTube posts, but it is a video. I’m a fan of TED videos and this one caught my attention, because it indirectly explains why the books we love could actually create a happiness/creativity loop in our lives. The video doesn't directly talk about books, but it talks about the results. 

I believe great stories are a powerful spark to start the process and to gain access to what Shawn Achor calls the “Happiness Advantage”. This video is very funny and enlightening.

Enjoy.

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Thanks so much for these guest posts, Jaime! You're the best. :) I totally believe a good book can change our whole outlook on our lives, our moods, etc.

Fiction Provides Hope for the Hopeless-Guest Post by Jaime Buckley

Here is the third in a series of guest posts by author Jaime Buckley. Enjoy!
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Has anyone noticed, besides me, that when you read a really good story—I’m talking about a serious page turner, that you feel alive, happy and the world seems to be more…pliable? That’s what I constantly experienced as I grew into my adolescence—and constantly reading great fiction. 

As the world turned and I hid from the bullies of the school yards, good stories became the staple of life to me. It was a way for me to let the pain, frustration and depression go and venture into lands rarely traveled. I could enjoy a calm conversation with a King, sit in on the strategic plans of a war council or travel along with heroes venturing into Mordor.

But there was more to it than that. 

There’s always a character or perhaps a situation that you can relate to in a great story of fiction. Sometimes it’s unnerving how close to the heart these scenes, challenges or personalities come to your own. There are times, as in my own books of Wanted Hero, that readers find they may even be looking in a mirror. The first time I realized this was happening was when I watched Frodo observing Gollum. Sam makes the comment that there isn’t hope for the creature and before I knew what would happen next, I was on fire. I seriously took offense at that point of view…and it hurt me. My heart seized up and I felt pains like never before…because I realized at that moment that if there was no hope for Gollum, who had been a ring bearer, there would be no hope for poor Frodo.

I had instantly translated that situation subconsciously, that if you made bad choices in life, there would be no hope. So not only was there no hope for Frodo…there was no hope for me.
  
The principles behind the story, intended or not, had a profound affect on how I saw myself. I had made many bad choices in my life and I was terrified that I was simply ‘evil’. Opinions of others weighed heavily upon me, and the encouragement of my parents couldn’t counter the ‘truth’ I knew about myself. Yet this book, the story of Lord of the Rings? It instantly penetrated the cracks of my heart with a hope that if Frodo, someone I had grown to admire and relate to could be redeemed…so could a little, awkward kid of 14.

There are countless books that have this very affect upon us, for both good and bad. In that experience, we find freedom, we find convictions, we find points of view we might never had considered…and all through the crafting of a brilliantly executed story. It’s a journey we quickly become addicted to. Why? Because we love that rush, we love that mystery, we love that fear and pull of the unknown. It’s because what we usually find is something unique and something wonderful. What we usually find is ourselves.

Some of my favorite fiction stories of all time are from Narnia, Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, the Dragonlance series, and the full gambit of Xanth books by Piers Anthony. What are some of your favorite fiction stories you read growing up and how did they affect YOU in a positive manner? I’d love to know.

Please share your experience with us.
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This is my favorite of Jaime's posts so far! :) Clearly me=book nerd. My obvious answer to Jaime's question is Harry Potter. Harry is the best kind of hero because even though he is scared, he does what he thinks is right. The same can be said for Ron, Hermione, Neville, Luna, Ginny... They aren't superheroes who don't show fear. They can be terrified, yet they still act. They are the true heroes!

Trading Bruises for Books-Guest Post by Jaime Buckley

Here is the second article in the series from author friend, Jaime Buckley. Enjoy!
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Stories allow us to experience extraordinary events in the safety of our own minds.

I was born in Oakland California in 1969 and grew up very close to the street. Luckily I had a loving family, because going out into the world was a complete hell. Violence was, unfortunately, a regular occurrence. School was the worst part of my life, seemingly born with a target on my back, which was invisible to adults, but stood out to attract every bully that walked the Earth.

It seemed like life was against me most days. Then again, I was a little kid—what did I know, right? No matter how I explained the traumatic events of my life to grown-ups, they just didn’t get it. They didn’t see me, hear me or protect me. Instead, I was brushed off with the philosophies of the retarded. You know what I’m talking about…that whole slew of one-liners that parents and adults tell kids to get them out of their hair and to avoid using their actual brains in constructive guidance? 

Things like: “If you play nice with them, they’ll play nice with you?” Really? How well did that work for you? Personally, I got sand kicked in my face and was forced to eat the freakin shovel. It wasn’t long before I realized these heartless efforts at instruction were a total lie. With the exception of my own parents, I couldn’t find safety or refuge in another adult. Once I left my home, I would never be safe, and by age six, I was already having anxiety attacks. 

So I started to withdraw from life…and retreat into books. 

Some of you can probably relate here. After all, you’re connected to Kaitlyn and this awesome blog—so I know you love books. But can you remember when they truly became important to you? Made a real impact in your life? Books allowed me to withdraw from the pain and conflict of my life and a good story would transport me to a realm where I was unknown. A place where I didn’t have to participate if I didn’t want to—I could simply observe. It wasn’t long before I realized, in a funny way, I had found my own personal, kid-version of heaven. 

No matter what the story I was reading, I could put the book down at any time. In real life I had been beaten with bats and bricks, chains and fists, enduring broken bones, stitches, fractures and constant humiliation. What self respecting kid with half a brain wouldn’t choose to lose themselves in the stories around them?

It wasn’t until I read Lord of the Rings, that I realized escapism was only the beginning. A wonderfully crafted story could and would, in fact, shape my very future.
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Thanks again, Jaime! You're the best. I'm so glad you were able to find books. :) They're truly magical. 

Puberty, Skin Conditions & Snockhockey-A Guest Post by Jaime Buckley

As some of you may know, I have been outrageously busy with school this semester, so I reached out to some friends to see if they would like to do guest posts. Luckily, author Jaime Buckley agreed to do a series of posts for me! Here is the first one--thank you so much, Jaime!  
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What does a kidnapping, 11 children, a senile old wizard, a beautiful Samoan woman and a green-skinned elf wearing polka dotted boxer shorts have in common?

They have all been critical in the creation of an epic YA fantasy series.

Now, I may be bias, being the author and all—but I have to admit, this is the most important job I have ever had in my life. The creation of a story that you might read and enjoy.

No, I’m not trying to be sarcastic. I’m serious here. More often than not, we forget how powerful stories can be in our lives and how they often shape the very nature of who we are. I can say that as a father to 11 amazing children, all bookworms, and also as an author who has seen the effect of my own stories on others—because they write and tell me.

That being said, authors have a great responsibility…but more importantly, a great honor in creating a vehicle that affects the human soul to one degree or another.

But what is it that hooks us? What is it about Young Adult Fiction stories that grab our attention, melts our heart, challenges our mind and energizes our soul? Is it the might and magic, the honor and glory, the inner conflict of the protagonist…or perhaps the hyperventilating wizard distraught over seeing a fat person in spandex?

It doesn’t matter if you’re a fan of the supernatural, mysteries, drama, paranormal romance, sci-fi, horror or the good ‘ol epic fantasy…I believe this mini-series will be worth your time.
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Thanks again, Jaime! I can't wait to read the rest of the articles. Be on the lookout for Part 2 soon!

Ami Blackwelder Guest Post

Today we have a guest post from Ami Blackwelder. She is here to talk about her Shifter Evolutions Saga. Some of you may remember that I reviewed The Hunted of 2060 here in Bookland awhile ago. If not, you can read that review here! Without further ado, here is Ami's post!

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The Shifters of 2040 is the third book from the shifter Evolutions saga. Third? you might ask, what happened to book 1 and 2? 

The series actually begins in the middle. The reader starts with Book Three and then they chose to read the past or future next. 

Interesting concept, huh? 

I know each read will enjoy this six part saga, made up of Invasion of 2020, SCM of 2030, Shifters of 2040, Hybrids of 2050, Hunted of 2060, Revolution of 2060.

What is this book about?

Alaska 2040.

Three Species. Divided Lovers. The Race is on for Planet Earth.

Summary: Set in Alaska in 2040, Melissa Marn and Bruce Wilder must work under the iron fist of the SCM, while still trying to maintain humanity. Discovering a world of shifters and hybrids, the scientists must struggle with human prejudice and betrayal. 

With the original ancestors, dubbed shifters, still living on earth, humans are in the midst of a fifteen year old war. As the eldest hybrids, Unseen and Diamond, learn about humans the hard way, with the loss of loved ones and sacrifices, love on planet earth proves challenging.  

With underlining themes of how prejudice breaks human connections and animal/wildlife conservation, this novel which has received rave reviews will leave the reader flipping through the pages.

THE PITCH:

“I’m pregnant.  Her eyes peered over the edge of the cloth and confronted her mirrored reflection with that truth.  I’m pregnant…by a SHIFTER.  Oh, god!”

In “The Shifters of 2040,” Scientist Melissa Marn finds her world swirling on its axis with that one revelation.  Shifters — a sentient alien species of light — look to Earth for refuge.  In doing so, both shifters and humans are forced to confront prejudice, betrayal, adversity and oppression.

Methodical scientist, Melissa Marn, and her coworker, Dr. Bruce Wilder, conduct experiments on the shifters.  Through her pregnancy, she becomes more compassionate and humane and finds herself defending the very species she’s supposed to eradicate.  

One of the hybrids, Diamond, falls in love with Keenan, a soldier trained to kill her. Between the four, the reader is led from conflict to resolution, from despair to hope, from loneliness to love.

Much of the book’s originality lies in the shifters, common characters in science fiction, but whose origins are rarely explained. In this series, their alien DNA allows them to metamorphose into not just wolves, but a variety of animals. As the plot unfolds, the shifters discover they can have children with humans — hybrids.

Strengths of the novel include the complex characters, its writing style of poetic prose and rich description, and the well developed, thought-provoking, yet highly entertaining plot.

This fast paced book will appeal to the young adult and adult market. It fits nicely into the paranormal romance and science fiction romance genres and would make a great movie, a captivating TV series and an intriguing video game.

Readers will enjoy the fresh approach and original concept of the world thirty years from now, and will find the characters come to life in their minds.  This story will stay with them long after they read “The End.”

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Thanks so much to Ami for stopping by! You can check out her website here. 

Bryan Cohen Blog Tour and Giveaway

Hi everyone! I would like to welcome Bryan Cohen here today. He has come up with a great list of tips to help fight writer's block. There was a discussion over at Fiktshun about reviewer's block and I think a lot of these tips could help with that as well. So, awayyy we go!

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Getting Unstuck

By Bryan Cohen

Even though I’m a writer about writing and motivation, there are some occasions in which I feel totally stuck. Some would look at these instances as major problems and negative emotions like fear could potentially ruin an intended writing session. I try to see my spurts of writer’s block as opportunities to try out my tips and tricks for getting unstuck.

1. Listen To An Audio Program

My MP3 player is loaded up with wise words and success stories that can quickly bring me out of a writer’s funk. Short and sweet tracks like the audiobook version of Tom Butler-Bowdon’s 50 Success Classics give me a burst of motivation in 15 minutes or less. I also recommend the works of Jack Canfield, Tony Robbins, Marci Shimoff and Earl Nightingale. Make sure to keep your player charged at all times in order to keep your brain charged.

2. Change Your Location

I have written in coffee shops, grocery stores, libraries, parks, beaches, backyards, bathrooms and restaurants. This variety isn’t just to spice up my life; it also helps me to break up a pattern that may be causing my creativity to dry up. I’ll even try working at different tables within my favorite destinations to shift things slightly. One of my best tricks is taking a bus ride to a coffee shop I’ve never been to in an effort to “strand myself” and force myself to work. For double the motivation, listen to an audio program along the way.

3. Drag a Friend Along

While many of your friends may blab their way through a coffee date with you, there are probably at least a few who need to get some work done. These are the friends you should enlist to keep you company as you write. As writers, sometimes we lead a solitary existence while typing or scribbling along. If we can look up from our page or document and see another person working, it validates what we are putting our weight behind. Set aside at least an hour for you two (or more) to work and make sure it’s clear you will be writing and not chit-chatting.

4. A Walkabout

I once told a friend that from time to time I go for a several mile walk with a notebook in hand to no place in particular. He called it my little walkabout. When you go for a walk outside, the increased presence of oxygen, plus improved circulation literally increases your brain’s thinking power. Sometimes this is just the push you need to get past your blockage. I fully recommend a long walk of at least a mile or two for fitness reasons and because more time tends to equal more ideas. Don’t worry about “wasting time” as I’ve thought of several $100 and $1,000 ideas while wandering on my lengthy walkabouts, proving that “time to think” is money.

5. A List of Gratitude

Often when I get stuck, I get down on myself as a sort of scolding for my temporary lack of productivity. To build myself back up, I write down a list of things I am grateful for. I realize this sounds a bit hippy-dippy, but it always helps me get out of the dumps. When you’re stuck it can feel like you have nothing going for you. That is, of course, ridiculous and by listing your “good,” the “bad” doesn’t seem nearly as terrible. Make sure to actually write this list down as it’s much more powerful than simply thinking it to yourself.

Try one or more of these five items every time you get stuck. The more often you try them out, the more effective they will be. Soon enough, your wallowing will be over and you can get back to writing your masterpiece.

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Bryan Cohen is giving away 100 personalized writing prompts to one giveaway entrant chosen at random during the blog tour. Personalized prompts are story starters that cater specifically to a writer’s subject matter, strengths/weaknesses, etc. Cohen will create the prompts to cater exclusively to the winner. He is giving away free digital copies of his book, The Writing Sampler, to everybody who enters, which includes excerpts from each of his four books on writing. The book contains essays, writing prompts and tips and tricks to enhance your writing skills. In addition, for each of Cohen’s books that reach the Top 500 on Amazon during his blog tour, he will add a $50 Amazon gift card to the drawing (up to six $50 cards in total)!

To enter, simply post a comment to this blog post with your e-mail address. Entries will be counted through June 2^nd, 2011.

Bryan Cohen is a writer, actor and comedian from Dresher, Pennsylvania. Since graduating from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill he has written four books (1,000 Creative Writing Prompts: Ideas for Blogs, Scripts, Stories and More, 500 Writing Prompts for Kids: First Grade through Fifth Grade, Sharpening the Pencil: Essays on Writing, Motivation, and Enjoying your Life, and Writer on the Side: How to Write Your Book Around Your 9 to 5 Job), several plays (Something from Nothing and Chekhov Kegstand: A Dorm Room Dramedy in Two Acts) and he was the head writer for an un-produced Web series (Covenant Coffee). His writing and motivation website, Build Creative Writing Ideas, has had over 100,000 visitors since it was founded in December 2008. He lives in Chicago, Illinois.

Follow Bryan on Twitter @buildcwideas.

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Thanks so much, Bryan! This is a great opportunity for my readers because I know a lot of bloggers/blog readers are aspiring writers. Excellent :)

Guest Post and Kindle Giveaway Tour-Scott Nicholson

Bookland

By Scott Nicholson

http://www.hauntedcomputer.com/

I’ve been in the writing game for 14 years now, and I’ve acted like a professional for most of them, though I’ve done some dumb stuff.

As part of the slog, I’ve done probably 120 to 150 store signings, maybe more. That was back in the days when your book came out and you went around like a madman trying to cram in as many stores as possible during the 30 days before the next wave of books came out and you got pushed off the shelves.

Looking back, it was a bit of an Amway model, where you’re hustling for the publisher and making a couple of quarters per book sold. Of course, you rarely earn out the advance so in essence you’re primarily hoping to keep good enough sales numbers so you don’t get dumped by the publisher. And, boy, for all their talk of protecting the literary values of America, they will drop you like a cold dog turd if your numbers don’t please them, even if you are the reincarnation of Jane Austen.

Signings are fun, but they are also funny. Usually signings are just plain lonely, as bookstore traffic diminished noticeably over the years I worked for New York. But sometimes they were just plain weird. Here’s the top three weird moments that I can remember.

I’d set up a signing in the next county, at a little downtown newstand that sold more girlie mags than books. I arrived and said “I’m Scott Nicholson and I’m here to sign books.” The person behind the counter said they hadn’t gotten the books in, though I could see a couple dozen stacked right on the counter beside us. I asked her to call the manager but they didn’t connect, and I rolled my eyes toward the books several times so she could take a hint. “Those are mine,” I said. I honestly think she thought I was trying to steal them. Finally I decided the place was so weird I wouldn’t sell any books anyway, so I took off. Later I came to believe she didn’t know what a “book signing” was and that I was somehow going to damage their nice new books by scribbling in them with a pen.

Another time I was pimping the anthology “Writers of the Future XV,” for which I’d won an international writing prize. The contest (which is a great one for new speculative fiction writers, BTW) is sponsored by the late L. Ron Hubbard of Scientology fame, to maintain his standing as a pulp icon. A man came up to me and asked if I were Hubbard. To which I should have replied, “Yes, that’s why I am sitting here pushing books instead of running my religion.” I told him I wasn’t, he told me he once saw William Shatner in a hotel lobby, and he left without buying a book. I wished I had told him I was Hubbard. At least I’d have had someone standing beside the table, and, besides, maybe he would have joined my religion.

My favorite, though, was when a guy kept sidling by the table, back and forth a few times, always keeping a safe distance and glancing at me out of the corner of his eye. Finally, the guy comes up and says in a conspiratorial whisper, “Are you the author?” I responded in the affirmative, thinking I’d finally reeled one in, but he promptly fled for the exit. Five minutes later, he comes back in and heads straight for me. I’m thinking maybe he doesn’t like supernatural books and he’s going to lay a cross on my forehead or something, such was the determination in his eyes.

Instead, he flips a $10 bill at me, says, “Here,” and walks back out without even taking a book or giving a backward glance. I still don’t know what to make of that one. Maybe he thought I was a charity case, a poor object of pity, or maybe it was his way of supporting the arts. At any rate, that was the most money I ever earned from a book signing.

Actually, this was the same signing where I opened four copies of my books to find the text of a lousy romance novel tucked in between my covers, but that’s another story for another day.

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My new crime thriller Disintegration launches on Nov. 1 for 99 cents! With your help, it has a good chance to hit the Top 100 and double your chances of winning a Kindle. If you want a free advance copy and agree to review it by Nov. 1, please email me at hauntedcomputer AT yahoo.com

Scott Nicholson is author of 12 novels, including the thrillers Speed Dating with the Dead, Drummer Boy, Forever Never Ends, The Skull Ring, As I Die Lying, Burial to Follow ,and They Hunger. His revised novels for the U.K. Kindle are Creative Spirit, Troubled, and Solom. He’s also written four comic series, six screenplays, and more than 60 short stories. His story collections include Ashes, The First, Murdermouth: Zombie Bits, and Flowers. 

To be eligible for the Kindle DX, simply post a comment below with contact info. Feel free to debate and discuss the topic, but you will only be entered once per blog. Visit all the blogs on the tour and increase your odds. I’m also giving away a Kindle 3 through the tour newsletter and a Pandora’s Box of free e-books to a follower of “hauntedcomputer” on Twitter. Thanks for playing. Complete details at http://www.hauntedcomputer.com/blogtour.htm

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I just wanted to say thanks to Scott for stopping by my little bloggy blog! Go buy his books!