Imogen Howson's Blog, page 3

Cover art reveal contest winners

Courtesy of www.random.org, I've selected the prizewinners.

1st prize: The Loopy Librarian
2nd prize: Steven Katriel
3rd prize: Angel Graham

Please contact me via email to let me know your addresses, whether you'd like a print or e-copy of Blood of the Volcano, and your chocolate preferences!

And thank you for entering!

Cover art reveal: LINKED

Dear blog readers, fellow authors, friends and assorted lurkers, I'd like to introduce you to the cover art for LINKED.

I feel the need for a fanfare, but I'll have to make do with the Continue Reading function.

LINKED (Simon & Schuster, Spring 2013)

Elissa discovers her nightmarish visions and inexplicable bruises are caused by a telepathic link to a twin she didn't know existed. When she helps the girl evade government capture, a Bourne Identity style chase ensues.

(And I'll contact the winners to arrange their prizes very soon!)

Cover art reveal STILL on its way…

Ha, I know, but how often do I get to do this?

Because it's SO MUCH FUN (for me) and because I have a stack of author copies of my current romance book, I'm running a mini contest.

What you need to do is read the following questions and either post your answers in the comments or email them to me (imogenhowson AT gmail DOT com).  First thing tomorrow (Thursday March 1st), whoever has the most correct answers will win first prize.  There will also be second and third prizewinners, and possibly a randomly selected prizewinner too who will get a surprise prize (ha, a surprise prize) – it depends on how good you all are at guessing!

Prize details.

First Prize

Your choice of a print or electronic copy of my fantasy romance, Blood of the Volcano (some sex and violence, but it's suitable for upper young adults – my fifteen-year-old has read it), plus 200 grams of your choice of high-quality British chocolate, posted to you wherever you live.

Second Prize

Your choice of a print or electronic copy of Blood of the Volcano, plus 100 grams of your choice of high-quality British chocolate, posted to you wherever you live.

Third Prize

Your choice of a print or electronic copy of Blood of the Volcano.

Questions.

1. What is the colour scheme for the cover of Linked?

Blue/Grey.

Grey/Green.

Black/White.

Brown/Orange.

Yellow/Gold.

Dark Blue/Light Blue.

Silver/Grey.

Brown/Cream.

Purple/Silver.

Dark Blue/Silver.

Rainbow.

2. How many people are on the cover?

Zero.

One.

Two.

Three.

Six.

Ten.

3. What colour is the title?

White.

Black.

Green.

Purple.

Red.

Brown.

Orange.

Dark Blue.

Light Blue.

Yellow.

4. What colour is the author's name?

White.

Black.

Green.

Purple.

Red.

Brown.

Orange.

Dark Blue.

Light Blue.

Yellow.

5. What was the first word I said in my reply email to my editor when she sent me the cover?

Oh

Hi

OMG

Thank

Wow

Dear

Squee

Eek

Remember, you can enter the contest by email or commenting here, and I'll announce the prizewinners tomorrow!

Cover art reveal on its way…

I'm sharing the cover art for Linked soon.  Not right this minute, but soon!

While you wait for the exciting major cover reveal, I'll leave you with some clues as to the past YA cover trends it does not follow.

It does not have a girl's back.

It does not have a headless girl.

It does not have a girl who looks either dead or asleep.

It does not have a girl in a ballgown.

Also, despite being a science fiction book, it does not have:

A spaceship;

A glowy girl's head silhouetted against stars;

A robot.

However, it DOES have:

The title

and…

MY NAME!

The builders are destroying my house

The whole point of having an extension was to make the house bigger.  And yet, at this stage in the process we have lost:

1 conservatory
1 porch/front hall

Which makes our house, yes, significantly smaller.

In other news, I'm through copy edits for Linked.  The night after I sent them back to my editor, I dreamed that I'd missed lots and lots of important details and it was Too Late to change them.

The next night I dreamed that my editor had sent me the manuscript for the sequel, which Simon & Schuster had had written for me by a ghost writer.  All I had to do was go through it and tweak it to make it "my voice".  I started doing it, thinking determined, positive thoughts like "this is fine, I can totally do this" and then gradually came to the realisation that actually it wasn't at all what I'd expected to be doing, and that no matter how much time and effort it saved me I really really wanted to write my own sequel.  And, again, it was Too Late.

The next night I dreamed that I'd left my husband for someone else and was very very sad because it had made me realise that actually I much preferred my husband.

I think you could say that my dreams have a bit of a theme at the moment.

Monday Busyness

Monday, the girls' school was running teacher/parent appointments all day, which meant no school. One of Gloworm's friends was coming to spend the day while her parents went to work, so first thing, just as I was taking Abstract to the station (snow and motorbikes make an unhappy combination), her dad dropped her off.

A little later that morning, my cleaner arrived, which meant I had to chase Gloworm and friend out of the sitting room.  Then our builders arrived to start taking apart our conservatory preparatory to building our extension (I know, exciting, huh?).  Just as they were getting out of their van, the postman brought me a special delivery of my copyedits for Linked.

Then Abstract phoned to say he was coming home because he wasn't feeling well, so I had to go pick him up from the station.  Then I made lunch for the girls.  Shortly after that, they had to get into their uniforms and we all had to go out for parent/teacher appointments.

In between times, I did try to a) work and b) write, but it didn't exactly go too well.  Fortunately, Abstract, bless him, was up to taking the girls to their ballet lesson at 5.45pm.  I waited in to deliver Gloworm's friend to her dad when he came to pick her up, the builders disappeared, and I actually got half an hour of the house to myself.

Later, after dinner and TV-watching with the girls (we're working through the first season of Ally McBeal – and I have to say Ally's total emotional dysfunction is irritating me a lot more than it did twelve years ago!), I took the laptop to bed and caught up on my writing.

And that was Monday.  I'm hoping the rest of the week is a little more Immi-working oriented.

On domesticity

Back when my only job was being a full-time parent, I did an awful lot of housewifey stuff.  The girls and I used to do a Halloween party every October half-term holiday, with all homemade food, decorations and games.  Including, at various times, marshmallow ghosts, paper spider racing, a pizza snake, an "evil bunny" cake, the conservatory turned into a spooky cave with a "pin the broom on the witch's cave picture" game, pumpkin and frog "well done" badges for the games, and one year a papier mache pumpkin pinata that proved so tough it had to be jumped on before it would burst.

I also made granola cereal, homemade "washing gloop" for the laundry, regular supplies of choc-chip and oatmeal and raisin cookies, mince pies, hot cross buns, soup…

I never did a great deal of ironing, to be honest (because who wants to iron when you can read?), but I had a pretty good handle on the cleaning, cooking  and fun child activities side of being the stay-at-home parent.

Since Gloworm went to full-time school and I became a part-time parent (and yes, I know I'm a parent all the time, but I'm no longer doing parenting all the time), since I started work, and even more since I started seriously writing, all that is a bit of a distant memory.

Nowadays I buy pretty much all the stuff I used to make, we have a lot more ready meals, and a weekly cleaner, and Abstract has taken over most of laundry duty.  And every day I put writing and my admin job over most of the houseworky chores.  And it's good.  I loved being just a parent/housewife when the girls were little, but having them more grown up and independent, and being able to earn a living from basically my own imagination is a wonderful and welcome change.  And it's nice to be able to buy cereal and laundry detergent rather than needing to make it because the homemade versions are so much cheaper!

However, after a week of entirely cerebral spreadsheets and character arcs and determining whether, if you're signifying "I did a lot of baking" it's more correct to say "I baked no end" or "I baked to no end"  (totally debatable and location-dependent, it turns out, much to my surprise, because I would have bet money on it being the former), on occasion it's really nice to have a day of being that housewifey person again.

This Saturday, after a lie-in and a peaceful coffee-and-croissant breakfast, I sorted out a bit of laundry, then I peeled and par-boiled some potatoes for later, roasting the clean peelings in olive oil to make crisps.  Then I prepared ingredients for gravy and roast vegetables (garlic, beetroot, broccoli), and seasoned a joint of beef, and washed up and tidied the kitchen.  I did escape to my bedroom then, with a cup of tea and two Graze punnets and my laptop, to get a couple of hours' writing done.  But then, while snow fell outside, I roasted the beef, and poured the dripping into the potatoes to make them all crispy and brown edged, and cooked the vegetables and made the gravy and set the table, and we had a lovely traditional British dinner with the world gone soft and white with snow outside our windows.

And then the girls and I watched Take Me Out and Take Me Out: The Gossip, and it was peaceful and domestic and totally non-cerebral.  And kind of felt like every Saturday should.

2012, the year of travel

If 2011 was the year of career-related quantum leaps  (getting my agent!  getting my book deal!!), 2012 is shaping up to be the Year of Travel.

In April, I'm going to the London Book Fair.  I'll hopefully be meeting up with Samhain colleagues, and maybe with the literary agent who's handling the foreign rights for Linked.

In July, I'm going to both the RNA conference in Penrith, and the RWA conference in California.  (California!)  Then in September, I may be going to America again for a work-related event.  For me, this pretty much qualifies me as a frequent flyer!  Yeah, I know it doesn't really.

As well as the Year of Travel, 2012 is also going to be the Year of Weddings.  My Model Cousin is marrying his fiancee in April.  My girls are being maids of honour, which is super exciting for them.  And in September, The Model Auntie is marrying Dr T-shirt!  They're having a tiny tiny wedding, followed by an afternoon tea reception at a hotel, which I think sounds so much fun.  Dr T-shirt proposed on Christmas Day, which is totally romantic and makes up for the fact that he will probably attend the wedding in, yes, a T-shirt.

I'm sorry to say that so far 2012 has also been the Year of Illness and the Year of Too Much Work.  Which is why this is my first blog post since November.  Abstract and I were ill over Christmas and New Year, both the girls have had various bits of time off school before and since, and I'm still regularly waking up with middle-of-the-night coughing fits.

Abstract is busy at work, Sparkler is moving towards GCSEs and looking at sixth-form colleges, and I'm marching towards the finish line of Linked the Sequel.

After about three and a half years, Erica the Red Laptop can no longer hold onto a battery charge for more than an hour, making her pretty hopeless for helping me get more word count when I'm out.  I love Erica the Red Laptop, but I'm sorry to say a Dell laptop was not the best choice, because she really hasn't lived as long as she should have done (as well as the battery issues, she has various other ailments, mostly to do with build quality).  So, she's been reincarnated into the silver streamlined body of Princess Erica the Macbook Air.  Very expensive, very beautiful, very much a learning curve for Immi the PC girl.  (Why are the keys that way round, why is the word count this when on the PC it was that, and where is the End key?)

The sheer beauty does encourage me to keep going, though, she's super speedy, and with her wafer-thin body, extra-long battery life and FaceTime programme, she's going to be a fabulous companion for the Year of Travel.

And speaking of editorial comments…

I'm blogging at The Lucky 13s today about my editorial letter.  It's serendipitous, because I just finished going through my second round of edits with my editor for Linked.

Come visit me!

Happiness via Twitter

So, it's about half past two on a grey November Wednesday afternoon, and I'm feeling slightly ill, am dosing a killer backache with painkillers that seem to do exactly nothing, both my daughters are off school, I'm trying to catch up on a full work load, and I'm surrounded by a full groceries delivery that I haven't yet put away and a cat who keeps spraying hair all over the place.

Then I get this tweet from my Simon & Schuster editor, who is currently working on the second round of edits for Linked, and everything is better!

@navahw Navah Wolfe
Dear @imogenhowson, thanks for making me cry on the train this morning. Love, your editor. #editorjoy