Courtney Summers's Blog

Wow! I should maybe not hold contests that end on Sundays. Who updates their blogs on Sunday? Not me, apparently! So, a day late (and a dollar short), I am pleased to announce the winner of C.K. Kelly Martin’s One Lonely Degree, by random number generation, is….


BRANDY!


Brandy, I’ve emailed you. I hope you enjoy the book as much as I did! And to all those who entered: thank you. I’m sorry I couldn’t give a copy to each and every one of you, and I hope you’ll all pick up One Lonely Degree r

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So here is the thing: I loved C.K. Kelly Martin’s sophomore novel, One Lonely Degree so much, I want to ensure my part in getting this amazing book into someone else’s hands. How do I do that? Why, by holding a giveaway of course!

And I’ll tell you exactly what’s required of you to have your name put into a draw to win it at the bottom of this entry–right after my review of this incredible book and my interview with its incredible author.





WHAT IT’S ABOUT


After a traumatic experience

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The lovely Danette Haworth, author of one of my fav middlegrade novels, invited me to post about DIY book trailers over at her blog! I detailed the process of making the Cracked Up to Be trailer on a $0 budget and shared some tips and tricks I learned along the way. Check it out here! Please ignore the part where I wrote ‘produce’ when I meant to write ‘product.’ I wrote it last night and I was very hungry then.

So a recent comment on one of my older blog entries led me to discover something

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Supposedly, there are a lot of people having a great time at this BEA thing? And I am not one of them. But that’s okay because I just finished reading the best book I’ve read all year and it eases my pain:












Wow.

That is all I will say.

That, and a review of the book and an interview (!) with C.K. Kelly Martin are forthcoming.

A reader emailed me a lovely question about Cracked Up to Be and my reply bounced! I’m sorry, person whose name begins with S. If you’re wondering why I didn’t get

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I meant to mention this sooner, but St. Martin’s Press put the first four chapters of Cracked Up to Be up on their page for the book. That’s 45 pages! And it’s a pdf file, so it looks pretty snazzy, too. Also, Cracked Up to Be is now available on the Kindle. I secretly wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that I clicked the Tell the Publisher I’d like to read this on the Kindle button on Amazon once just to see what’d happened cough BUT EVEN SO, I think that is cool.

I don’t have

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A year ago today, my grandfather fell suddenly and seriously ill. On June 3rd, he passed away. I debated whether or not I would write anything; a lot of you were there when it happened and it is something that is still very painful to me. Ultimately, I decided I’d observe the 3rd quietly, but I also decided I really wanted to tell you about the man who had such a profound impact on my life.

So here is a story:

When I was five, I ran away from home. I was mad at my parents because they wanted

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The What Lady Gaga Song Are You? quiz on Facebook revealed I was THE FAME, which means that I am obsessed with celebrity and material things, like designer bags. And while it’s true I sometimes like to OD on Ohnotheydidnt and I do like having things, my materialism is largely driven by music, movies and books. These are the things I love to own and actively buy.

I don’t really care, however, about clothes or designer labels. I think the outfit I am wearing right now actively reflects this an

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I think I’ll dive into an entry about the editorial process for Some Girls Are while it’s still fresh in mind. I have this problem when it comes to the books I’ve written. If I don’t make note somewhere about how hard they were to write–because they’re all hard to write–I would never believe they gave me any problems at all. The euphoria of finishing acts like a pleasant amnesia ray, which I’m assuming is a kind of mental suit of armor designed to keep me writing books.

I had a very complicate

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Look at this, you guys. LOOK AT THIS:













I love this woman.

Lady Gaga is my hero. I think she sets a fine example for the writing community. Speaking as an author, she has a played a large part in my career and my attitude toward my career. In fact, if you write and hope to make a career out of it, you need to take a page out of Lady Gaga’s book.


HOW LADY GAGA WILL MAKE YOU A BETTER WRITER


01. She eschews pants! I eschew pants as well, sort of. I mean, I don’t wear socially acceptable pant

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Wow! I know, I know. What else can I say. 5:30 am Monday morning, I sent off the latest (final? Fingers crossed!) round of revisions for Some Girls Are to my incredible editor and now I wait. It was a good round–my most favourite yet–but I am not even going to attempt a blog entry about the revision process until she tells me, “This Book is Revised.”

(Oh my God, I just imagined her saying that to me and got a little chill.)

While I revised, I turned another year older. That was gross and I

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