Joy Preble's Blog, page 36

it must be time for happy endings.Have you seen Serendipity? I love this movie. Every bit of it. But especially the happy, fate-driven ending.

[image error]Happy Monday! New to the Crossroads Blog Tour? Click on the banner above to find out how to play! Swag!! Grand Prizes!! Amazing paranormal authors including yours truly!! Arranged and sponsored by Judith Graves and Bridge Social Media!
My schedule for the rest of the tour is:10/24: Book Swarm10/25: Kid Lit Frenzy10/26: Narratively Speaking10/27: Electrifying Reviews10/28: Just Your Typical Book Blog10/29: Late Bloomer Online
Thank you to all these amazing and intrepid bloggers for their support!! You rock!!!
And in the coming days: more on Austin Comic Con and my fellow Writing Ninjas of Texas!

Will post the remaining Crossroads Blog Tour 2 schedule in a longer post tomorrow. But for now, my hosts today are A Simple Love of Reading and Jessica Estep at Confessions of a Bookaholic .
Go! Check it out! Win prizes!!Want to find out about the whole tour? See yesterday's post.
Happy Sunday, everybody!

Welcome to day one of the Crossroads Blog Tour! Click on the icon above to get info about the entire tour, authors, swag, grand prizes, etc! A multi-author paranormal event to lead us on to Halloween!!

Today, I am being hosted by Tori at Book Faery. Thank you Tori and please click on the link in the previous sentence to find out what Tori and I talked about!

Glad you could meet us at the Crossroads! And thanks especially to Judith Graves, whose website is at the bottom of the Crossroads banner. Those Canadian authors rock, eh? :)

Just did my first blog post over at Teen Shiver. Also another contest, so go check it out!
The adopted bassett/boxer year old so still a puppy has exhausted herself and is finally asleep -ish at my feet so I can work. Shhhhh.
It's cold outside! In Houston. But still in a drought.
Wrote my first re-done chapter yesterday for the new WIP. I thought it would never come to me, but finally, it did.
Go buy a copy of Lauren Myracle's Shine. Let the National Book Awards folks know that asking her to withdraw from the competition because somehow they couldn't tell the difference between Shine and Chime, by two diff authors w/very diff. names was hurtful and destructive and just kinda silly.
Our YAHouston (YAHous) group is really shaping up and you will start hearing and seeing us very soon. Anyone interested in group signings, literacy events, workshops? Let me know! YAHouston is a Houston YA author collective. We are: Joy Preble, Mary Lindsey, Crystal Allen, Lynne Kelly Hoenig, Chris Mandelski, Sophie Jordan, Dotti Enderle, Jenny Moss, CC Hunter. Go YAHous!!
And I'm back at work. Exhausted from this puppy thing. And trying to learn how to be a dog person.

Let's number 'em:
1. Wrote my email wrong on yesterday's winner's post for the 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon contest.
If you won, send me your email at joypreble at gmail dot com

2. The whole National Book Award debacle/cluster? My writing idol Libba Bray says it best here.

3.My new macbook pro ate something it didn't like during down load and is now in the apple store hospital. Feel free to send cards and flowers. Can you say warranty?

4.Counting down to Thursday's Teen Writing Workshop at South Regional Library here in The Woodlands at 6 PM. If you're between 13-18, please join me!! But call and register. And there will be prizes galore! Sourcebooks sent me a huge bag of their latest YA's to use as giveaways!!
5.Found some great zombie glasses on Amazon that I'm going to order for Austin ComicCon. Amazon lists them as a Beauty item! But of course!

6.Am outlining the new WIP. Yes, you heard that right. Taking my time at it, too. But I am officially itching to get started writing.

7. Exciting Soho Teen news! You can now read a sampler of the first 30 pages or so of six books (including THE SWEET DEAD LIFE by yours truly) that will be part of the new imprint in Spring 2013. Go here to check it out!

8.Count down has begun to the Crossroads Blog Tour 2, starting on 10/22!

9.Cooler weather is coming to Houston for the first time since, um, January!!

10. My agent, Jen Rofe, is a made of awesome cowgirl!

[image error] Thanks to everyone who participated in the 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon contest!! Your answers were amazing! The winner of the signed copy of PJ Hoover's Emerald Tablet is Christine, who told a fascinating Hollywood tale!
The signed copy of Jessica Lee Anderson's Trudy is Carrie, who had another fantastic road to Kevin Bacon!

And Valerie Kemp wins the signed (by me!) copy of HAUNTED for her star-studded 6 degree tale.

Sir Bacon would be proud!
All winners need to email me with your mailing address at joy at gmail dot com.
Thanks for playing!!

In other news, I'll be conducting a Teen Writer Workshop at the South Regional Library on Lake Robbins Rd. in The Woodlands, TX, on Thursday 10/20 at 6 PM. If you're 13-18, call the library or go over there to register. Not only are we going to write together, but I'll be giving away an entire bag of Sourcebooks YA titles that my editor Leah Hultenschmidt and my publicist Kay Mitchell have sent as prizes!!

And Comic Con in Austin is coming.... More on that soon.... the Ninja Writers of Texas will be going crazy at our booth. Zombie jerky, zombie contacts, zombie glasses, mermaid costumes, greek goddess costumes, Baba Yaga t shirts... plus me, PJ Hoover, Mari Mancusi, Jessica Lee Anderson, Kari Ann Holt and more... November 11-13... Austin Convention Center.

And click on the Crossroads icon on the blog sidebar to find out how to play and win as Crossroads 2 revs up on 10/22!

Who doesn't love Footloose? Who doesn't want to dance like a fool when that music comes on? And who wants to play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon in honor of the original Ren from the 80's classic? Thought you'd say yes!
Okay, here's how to play, in case you've been living under a rock all these years and have never tried to see how close your connection to Sir Bacon is. I'll go first: A few weeks ago when I was in Malibu with my daughter in law's mom (aka my bestie Pennie), we parked in front of Julia Roberts' house to go to the private beach. (long story, but let me say it was fabulous) Julia Roberts starred in Flatliners with Kevin Bacon. This makes me 2 degrees from Kevin Bacon.
Comment and let me know how many degrees it takes you to connect yourself to Kevin Bacon and I'll put you in the running for three possible prizes -- a signed copy of my very own HAUNTED, and signed copies of books by two of my Ninja Writers of Texas Austin Comic Con cohorts, The Emerald Tablet by PJ Hoover and Trudy by Jessica Lee Anderson.
Contest will run through Sunday night and I'll announce the winner on Monday.Until then, let's dance:

In between projects. I haven't been in between projects for awhile. Okay that's a lie - I'm not exactly in between, I'm just waiting for editors to confirm that what I've sent them either sucks or shines and so.... here's what one does when one is in between:

got my hair highlighted
worked on my materials for two conferences and the teen writing workshop I'm giving next week. (if you live in Houston and are between 12-18, come to South County Library on 10/20 at 6!! There will be prizes!)
Started getting ready for Austin Comic Con!!! I get to eat zombie jerky off KA Holt's fingers!
Made folders with plastic sleeves for various parts of my life that needed organizing.
began to dig out the crap in my office. Oh the piles of crap.
learned how to safely remove flashdrive from new macbook pro (the one thing I've found so far in which pc really excels is in anal retentive safety instructions)
watched last night's ep of Ringer. I don't think I even know what's going on anymore and I'm curious how they could maintain this level of confusion through more than one season but I love watching SMG so it's all good. SMG and her not so dead twin's stepdaughter smiling and washing WHORE off a white picture. Could it get any better?
Got tired of DWTS. It's okay if it's rigged. But does it have to be so obvious? And this comment is from the woman who watched Skating with the Stars!
Speaking of SWTS, I have also spent time reading about the maybe or maybe not lost at sea/our GPS stopped functioning with Bethenny Frankel and her crew. And Bethenney I LOVE you, I really do. But why was your therapist on the cruise? Is that what people do these days? What does this mean for me? I don't even have a therapist. But I might go on another cruise some day (although what could equal the Bachelorette cruise from last March, the one where we headed out from Long Beach as the tsunami hit California? No cruise I know of), and what will I do. Maybe I need a therapist. So I can tell her/him that I can't afford to take him/her.
Organized my tax receipts (early!) while watching Ringer... and beyond...
Got excited by the three commercials for Vampire Diaries during Ringer. The teaser dialogue goes something like this: Stefan -- I'm going to have to feed on you Elana! And there's a timer! And I'm sweating for some reason! And Klaus is still a bastard! And I bet Damon will save the day! And damn your neck looks inviting!

til next time...

Revving up for the Crossroads Blog Tour 2, starting on 10/22 - 10/29, created by the fab Judith Graves of Class of 2k10. I LOVED doing this last year and I'm even more excited this year. We've got an all star paranormal author cast: Not only yours truly and Judith Graves, too, but also Shannon Delaney, Carrie Harris, Kitty Keswick, Linda Joy Singleton, Dawn Dalton, Jeri Smith Ready, Amanda Ashby, Stacey Kade (with whom I had the privilege of appearing at Houston's Teen Book Con last spring), Angie Frazier, Kiki Hamilton, Lucienne Diver, Jackie Morse Kessler and Rachel Vincent! Plus amazing bloggers who are hosting us and more on them in a later post!


Click on the icon above for all the deets. Swag, giveaways, signed books.... it's going to be a spookalicious run up to Halloween! Yay!

Beyond that, it's been revision land here. Just pressed send on my Again and Again revisions back to editor Leah at Sourcebooks. Title might be changing by the way. I won't spill the beans yet, but I think you will love! I am so excited about book 3 of the DA series. Everything you've been wondering about comes together here and the romance... well, let's just say I've had fun writing.

And speaking of Sbooks, I'm reading my buddy Janet Gurtler's I'm Not Her and I cannot put this book down. I posted an interview with Janet awhile back before the book came out in the spring. But I hadn't read. Now I am and I'm ripping through the pages of this story of how bone cancer turns a family upside down, particularly the two sisters -- Kristina the gorgeous athelete/popular girl who finds herself suddenly ill and the narrator Tess, quiet, artistic, geeky, and suddenly the center of attention when her sister gets sick. I'm about a 1/3 in and it's an amazing read. Having dealt with serious illness myself, I know that it does impact family, relationships and pretty much everything in your world. I love the small moments in Janet's book -- such as when Tess feels momentarily guilty for thinking her usual mean sister thoughts about Kristina or when she's angsting over an art contest and then shifts to think of her sister's condition. It soooo accurately hits that range of emotion.... illness doesn't happen only to the person who gets cancer.

If you haven't picked up I'm Not Her (or Janet's newest book, If I Tell, also from Sbooks), you need to!

til next time...