Marilyn Brant's Blog, page 22

1. My friend and fabulous author Laura Moore has the cover art now for her new book, Believe in Me --coming January 26, 2011!! This is the second in her Rosewood Trilogy. I loved book one, Remember Me , and am anxious for this one to hit the shelves, too! (But look at that poor man on the cover...having to wear a shirt in the heat like that. I do wish--for his own sake, of course--that we could convince him to remove it completely. ;)

2. I totally love being one of the lucky "Beta Testers" that ...

This is one of my favorite photos from our recent trip: a Sarasota sunset. A place so beautiful along the Gulf that I was tempted to frame every photo I snapped of it. I can't tell you how much I'm hoping that the oil spill can be contained before it reaches this gorgeous area...

On our way to visit there, we stopped at Mammouth Caves, where I'm VERY happy to say that we DIDN'T see the bats that the ranger threatened, I mean, mentioned might be inside. My son, however, was quite disappointed....

We just got back from a 2-week-long family driving trip a few days ago (photos to follow soon), and to say I had "issues" getting an Internet connection on some of those days would be a massive understatement... It underscored for me just how attached I am to my computer and my ease of connectivity. You should've seen me sighing in relief when I walked through the door, turned on my destop and was online in seconds--I almost hugged my monitor!

However, on the days I was able to check in (thank...

My dad is the true family storyteller. I have a thousand memories of hearing his fabulous, fantastical tales throughout my childhood. He's intuitively talented in the art of the cliffhanger ending...and I spent endless energy as a kid trying to get him to tell me MORE (now!!) of the story. Not to make me WAIT (no!!!) until its continuation the next day. Verbal page-turners, that's how I remember those magical tales.

My dad did not succeed in passing down to me his love of gardening (or, let's ...

I am a lucky, lucky reader. In the past few months, I've either won or have been given as gifts each of these novels, and all five are on my personal summer reading list. I'm so excited about them! Yes, yes, I have writing to do this summer, too (The Grand European is not exactly drafting itself on my laptop), but I'm craving that introduction to new worlds, new characters, new perspectives. I want to lose myself in a story that's not just of my own making, jump wildly between genres and tast...

About a month ago, I read a fabulous piece on "how to craft a great voice" written by literary agent Nathan Bransford on his blog. Writers, if you haven't seen this, you'll want to check it out. Really. It's one of the best explanations I've ever read, and I think it addresses the complexity of the subject very well.

He wrote, "Voice, at its most basic level, is the sensibility with which an author writes. It's a perspective, an outlook on the world, a personality and style that is recognizabl...

I'll admit, I kind of wanted to keep that last post up for longer--partly because I'm still so excited about the award, but largely because I LOVE looking at that ice cream sundae picture...

Anyway, the weekend has been in full swing with neighborhood block parties and school-ending rituals. It really is June (a month that seems like it's never going to get here when we're in the midst of one of our icy Midwestern winters). My attention keeps jumping back and forth between the fun Austenesque ...

Many of you already know this, but I got some thrilling news over this long Memorial Day Weekend: According to Jane is a double finalist in the Booksellers' Best Awards (squee!!!), a contest where the judges are booksellers and librarians from around the country.

I can't express how honored and delighted I was to find out that my debut novel was a finalist in the Single Title/Mainstream category (along with Toni Blake's One Reckless Summer, Robin Kaye's Breakfast in Bed, Susan Mallery's Hot o...

I may not have been actually blogging this week, but I was thinking about blogging frequently.

Yeah, I know. That's not an excuse.

How about this: I was editing the first 60K words of the new book and suffering alternating pangs of horror and panic, which had me yanking open random kitchen drawers in a futile hunt for plastic knives so I could mimic in real life the slow, painful, death-like experience of the revision process? Better, hmm?

Okay, then.

While taking a break yesterday from the lif...

First of all, congrats to Sia McKye for winning the t-shirt of Friday Mornings at Nine! Please email me your address (marilynbrant AT gmail DOT com) and I'll send it out to you ;-). I'll be giving more of them away throughout the summer and, hopefully, there will be ARCs soon, too...

In other news, I've been finding myself increasingly fascinated by the whole Twilight scene, ever since reading that first book. I have a handful of plot- and characterization-specific criticisms of the novel (bio...