Talking Destined, With Author Jessie Harrell and eBook Giveaway!

 Yay! Readers!

So I loved, loved, loved this book! And I am super excited to welcome Jessie Harrell to the blog today so she can tell you a little bit about her upcoming YA release, Destined.

DESTINED BLOG TOUR: EXAMINING THE OTHER FOOT

Hi everyone! I want to thank Lauren for letting me take over her blog today as part of the official Destined blog tour.  This is the first guest post I’ve ever done for someone else’s blog and I hope you don’t hate it. :) The twitter summary of my topic: u can improve ur writing by figuring out what happens when the shoe is on the other foot. Bottom line, if you’re a reader and not a writer, just go ahead and skip to the bottom to read about the novel and the contest.  **you can win a free e-book**

For those of you still with us, here’s my thought for the day --

I remember having to come up with a thesis for a 4000 level English lit class on folk tales back in undergrad.  (Not quite the most awesome class ever, but close.)  As I struggled to come up with something to write about, another student told me that my thesis needed to challenge a common idea.  You can’t just say: anthropomorphism is common in folk lore.  That’s not a thesis, it’s a fact.  A thesis would be something more along the lines of ancient peoples used anthropomorphism in fables as a way of doing x.  (btw - I had no recollection of what my thesis actually was for that class)  The point being, by learning that I had to challenge a belief to write a compelling paper, I learned to examine things from many different angles.

Fast forward to this spring.  Destined was sitting on my computer waiting for me to find the perfect tweak for it.  I knew the story was so close, but it was just lacking that little something.  After a talk with Georgia McBride (thank you, Georgia!), I realized I’d forgotten to look at my story from all the possible different angles.  I’d latched onto the myth of Cupid & Psyche as written and just accepted that Cupid was a spoiled playboy and Venus was a complete b!tch.  But was that the best way to tell the story?  If I could start from scratch, what would be their motivations, their backstory?

Which made me realize, despite being “gods,” these characters needed to be humanized.  Venus needed a reason to become irate with Psyche.  Cupid needed a reason to reject Psyche the first time he met her.  Along the same lines, I heard someone remark recently that the bad guys in stories don’t think they’re being evil.  They have their own perfectly logical explanation for what their doing.  To make all of my characters come to life on the page, I realized I needed to find those “logical explanations.”

So my advice to you as writers is to turn each of your characters around and look at them from the other side.  You’ve got good guys and bad guys, but how would they act if the shoe was on the other foot?  How would the story be different if you were telling it from the “bad guy’s” perspective?  Would he or she really seem so bad?  

** I note that Lauren does this incredibly well with her new novella He Loves Me, He Loves You Not, telling the story of the “other woman” in a way that makes her the more sympathetic character. Not any easy task.

DESTINED BLURB AND CONTEST

For those of you who skipped ahead, START READING HERE.  :)  Here is where you get to learn how to win Destined.  But first, the blurb:

When Psyche receives a prophecy gone horribly wrong, she learns that even the most beautiful girl in Greece can have a hideous future. Her fate? Fall in love with the one creature even the gods fear.

As she feels herself slipping closer into the arms of the prophecy, Psyche must choose between the terrifyingly tender touch she feels almost powerless to resist and the one constant she's come to expect out of life: you cannot escape what is destined.(summary from goodreads)

If you leave your e-mail address in your comment, you'll be automatically entered to win an e-copy of Destined. The contest will stay open for 48 hours after the post goes live, and then Jessie will use random.org to select a winner. Available formats include .mobi, .epub and .pdf. And please be sure to visit the other stops on Destined's official blog tour for chances to win copies of Destined and other goodies.

Check out the list below!
1-Nov Once Upon A Twilght -  Book Trailer +Interview Ebook giveaway
2-Nov Books With Bite - Interview Ebook giveaway
3-Nov Living in Literary La La Land Guest Post Ebook giveaway
4-Nov I am a Reader, Not a Writer Guest Post Ebook giveaway
5-Nov Paper Hangover Interview Ebook giveaway
6-Nov Nikki Katz Interview Ebook giveaway
6-Nov Fictional Distraction Review Ebook Giveaway
7-Nov Daisy Chain Book Review Interview Ebook giveaway
8-Nov MundieMoms Review + Short Story Ebook giveaway
9-Nov Safari Poet Guest Post Ebook giveaway
10-Nov Good Choice Reading WOW CONTEST + Review Ebook giveaway
11-Nov LM Preston Guest Post VLOG - Read a Scene Ebook giveaway
12-Nov An Avid Readers Musings Interview VLOG Ebook giveaway
13-Nov Skyla11377 Review Ebook giveaway
14-Nov Dark Readers Interview Ebook giveaway
15-Nov Shortie Says... Character GUEST POST Ebook giveaway
16-Nov A Cozy Reader's Corner Reviews  Guest post - Sneak Peek Ebook giveaway
17-Nov Stuck In Books Character Interview Ebook giveaway
18-Nov From A to Z Review  Ebook giveaway
19-Nov Turning Pages Interview Ebook giveaway
20-Nov A Tale of Many Reviews Guest Post Ebook giveaway
21-Nov Read My Mind - AliseonLife Interview Vlog Ebook giveaway
22-Nov S.A.Larson Review Ebook giveaway
23-Nov Starry Sky Books Prize pack giveaway + Guest Post Ebook giveaway
23-Nov Angels and Demons and Portals. Oh My! Prize pack giveaway Ebook giveaway

Thank you for dropping in on this stop of the blog tour.  Hope you found a useful nugget from my advice.  And better yet, I just hope you love reading Destined as much as I loved writing it.

Jessie Harrell

jessieharrell@me.com

Well, I'll Be Shattered....

Today we have all kinds of awesomeness going on!

First if you'd like to win a paperback copy of Famished and see what my favorite things to do during the summer are.....Check out my guest post on Jessica's awesome blog, here.

Secondly, if you missed my interview with the lovely Adrienne over at Paper Hangover. Where I talk about all my upcoming releases and agenting...... You can check it out here.

And lastly...... The book of the week..... Ta Da.

Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi

Juliette hasn't touched anyone in exactly 264 days. The last time she did, it was an accident, but The Reestablishment locked her up for murder. No one knows why Juliette's touch is fatal. As long as she doesn't hurt anyone else, no one really cares. The world is too busy crumbling to pieces to pay attention to a 17-year-old-girl. Diseases are destroying the population, food is hard to find, birds don't fly anymore, and the clouds are the wrong color.

The Reestablishment said their way was the only way to fix things, so they threw Juliette in a cell. Now so many people are dead that the survivors are whispering war- and The Reestablishment has changed its mind. Maybe Juliette is more than a tortured soul stuffed into a poisonous body. Maybe she's exactly what they need right now.

Juliette has to make a choice: Be a weapon. Or be a warrior.

In this electrifying debut, Tahereh Mafi presents a world as riveting as The Hunger Games and a superhero story as thrilling as The X-Men. Full of pulse-pounding romance, intoxicating villainy, and high-stakes choices, Shatter Me is a fresh and original dystopian novel—with a paranormal twist—that will leave readers anxiously awaiting its sequel. (summary from goodreads)

Now, I won't be posting my review for a while since the book doesn't come out until November, but I will say this.....

Amazing is an understatement when it comes to Shatter Me. And also, it's one of the most unique and beautiful books I've ever read.

Now what are you waiting for... Add it here.

I promise you, you'll regret it if you don't.

Cheers!