L.E. DeLano's Blog, page 31

I’ll Be Appearing At Barnes & Noble’s Teen Book Festival!

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I’m very happy to announce that I’ve been invited to take part in B-Fest, the teen book festival at Barnes & Noble!

Look for me at their store in Plymouth Meeting, PA on Saturday, September 23rd from 2pm – 4pm. I’ll be signing copies of TRAVELER, answering questions, and if the printing and publishing gods are smiling, I may have have an ARC of DREAMER to give away!

 

 

I open my eyes, giving up on sleep . . .

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“Silent as the grave” doesn’t seem to apply to Brin. You’d think a ghost as old as him would be tired of his own voice by now.

#1linewed

Topic: “Noise”

From: WIP

“Off with you, now,” he says, reaching for the wheel.

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I stroll to the bow and the ship rises and dips gently beneath me as I drink in the fresh sea air and the waning sun on my face.

#LoveLines

Topic: “Cruisin'”

From: DREAMER

When Irish Ears Are Smiling

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Welcome to my life. I am researching and writing my next book, which is based on the gods of ancient Ireland – the Tuatha Dé Danann, to be specific – and name pronunciation is really making my head swim. Not to mention, many of the names of these gods have gone through several iterations, and can be spelled a half-dozen different ways, depending on when in time they were written about, or where in Ireland you find the narrator of the story.

Saoirse Ronan did a wonderful bit on the pronunciation of Irish names on the Stephen Colbert show a while back. Skip to 2:40 to see it – you’ll get an idea of what I’m dealing with, here.

So when you’re writing a book, an exotic-sounding name is cool, but if you make it really rough to pronounce and your reader may get so hung up on pronouncing it, it can take them out of the story and we don’t want that.

God bless my Irish ancestors. But I have to find a happy medium here, and that may mean going with more modern versions of some of these names. I’m sticking as true as I can to most of this, but this is mythology, and many of these stories have multiple variations, so I’m building on a theme and writing a new path for these overly-voweled character names to trod upon.

So far, so good. I’ll keep you posted.

Sláinte!

Tidbit Tuesday: A First Glimpse Into Another World

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In TRAVELER, Jessa learns that her dreams  – the source of most of her imaginative writing – haven’t all been fantasy. In fact, they’ve been a window into all the alternate realities she is capable of traveling to. She’s still not sure at this moment if she really believes it, though, and she decides to dig a little deeper . . .

I’m hit with sudden inspiration and open up my dream journal, reading back over the entries there. It’s not surprising but definitely unsettling. I may not have known Finn’s name, but reading my notes brings the memories of the dreams back, and I connect the fragments easily into a picture of him. Or, more accurately, of us.

I’ve detailed walks in the park, trips to the beach, quiet meetings in coffee shops, and bizarre memories of swimming with dolphins, eating fruit the size of my head, even dancing someplace with palm trees in the background.

And if he’s telling the truth, I’ve lived every bit of it.

As long as I can remember, I’ve been told I have a wild imagination. I’ve had vivid dreams and lost myself in daydreams, and I always felt that was a sign that I was meant to be a writer.

When I was four, my family visited the aquarium. My parents were, as usual, chasing after my six-year-old brother, who had no interest in fish but did have a strong obsession with running up and down the handicap ramps by each set of stairs.

He took off at one point, knocking into a stroller and nearly tipping it over. My mother ran over to make sure the baby inside was all right and apologize to the parents, and my father took off after Danny.

I wandered over to the dolphin display, watching the light behind the giant wall of glass filter through the water, daydreaming about swimming with my dolphin friends in an underwater dolphin kingdom, when something odd happened.

I stood there, spellbound, staring with wide eyes at the girl staring back at me, and I was mesmerized by my own reflection.

They found me there nearly ten minutes later, and my mother scolded me even though Danny was the one who ran away first. She only remembers today that I was lost and scared her half to death.

But I remember these two things:

First, that Danny, as always, had all their attention.

Second, the way my hair rippled and swirled in my reflection on the other side of the glass . . .

TRAVELER takes Jessa on a whirlwind journey through multiple realities and multiple versions of herself, all while running from someone intent on destroying every single one of her. It ends on a nail-biting cliffhanger, but no worries – DREAMER is coming Spring of 2018!

Bibliophile Soprano Reviews TRAVELER!

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Happy Friday! And it’s a definite happy day for me thanks to this terrific review from Fay at Bibliophile Soprano!

She opened the review with this gem:

“I am in love with this book.

It’s a beautiful kind of love – the one you never saw coming.”

And of course, I am in love with Fay’s review!  Thanks so much for reading and shouting me out! And if you loved TRAVELER, oh honey, are you ever going to love DREAMER.

Read the full review here!

Come See Me At Towne Book Center Tonight!

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Just a reminder that I’ll be sitting in with The Young Creatives club at Town Book Center in Collegeville, PA on tonight from 5 – 7pm, and we’ll be discussing the building of magical and fantastical worlds!

Let’s build a better world (or worlds!) together!

Happy Book Deal Anniversary To Me!

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Two years ago today, at 4:30 in the afternoon, my life completely changed. I was a single mom with two kids, barely any money in my bank account, and a dream in book form. The phone rang, Swoon Reads offered me a two book deal, and I became a genuine, bona-fide mainstream YA author.

It still feels surreal, even now that the first book has been out for five months, and book two hits the shelves in the spring. Even now that I’m working on a third book unrelated to the first series. 

Do you know, when my editor emailed me a few weeks ago to say “Hey, we need to talk about your next book – when can we get together?” I was sitting on the couch with my daughter, and I pushed the laptop off my lap and let out this enormous sigh of relief. My daughter asked why and I told her the truth:

I was still half-expecting my editor (now that the two book deal is done) to say “Hey, it’s been swell, but we don’t need you anymore.” Or for her to just sort of forget about me and for me to have to write one slam-banging book and pitch my ever-loving heart out to get it considered. Instead, she asked me. What a relief!

My daughter looked at me like I’d grown a second nose when I told her that. She pointed out that my book sales are good. That my reviews are good. That I get fan mail and fans who make me things and want to send them to me. That her friends think I’m “low-key famous.”

Heh. Had to chuckle at that. But it still all feels surreal, two years on. I suspect it will for the rest of my life. But I love the hell out of what I do, and the truth is, I’d do it whether I got paid for it or not.

Thanks for reading me and believing in me, all of you. You’ve changed a life.

Confessions Of A Crazy Car Writer

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I’m writing in my car

Turn on the radio

I pull a thought closer

It just says no

I say that I don’t like it

But I know I’m a liar

‘Cause when I drive

Ooooh-oooh fiiiii-re . . .

You heard me. I write in the car.

Before you scratch your head over a vision of me propping my keyboard on a steering wheel or madly typing text into my phone as I drift across the lanes of the highway, know that I am a car-talker.

That’s right, a car talker.

I talk to myself in my car. I talk to others, too – coworkers, friends, family members, other drivers, my kids, political figures (don’t get me started), celebrities – pretty much anybody is fair game. When my marriage fell apart, I had numerous, lengthy conversations with my ex (none of which he was in attendance for, of course), and God only knows how many times my kids have been spared a lecture only because I already had it without them.

But lately, I’ve started really working through my books this way, having conversations with characters, playing ‘what if,’ sequencing through logistical problems in setting or plot – my car is like my idea zone, where I can muse aloud and blather and pontificate to a captive audience of me.

It’s honestly where I do my best writing, (some of which is occasionally brilliant) but alas, my scumbag brain doesn’t remember half of it, and the half it does remember contains little of the witty dialog or engaging commentary I came up with on the commute into work. It’s a pale echo, at best.

I keep telling myself I should record it all, but then I’d have to actually remember to set my phone to record and then remember to turn it off before I get to the office and that’s not really likely to happen with regularity. I’m lucky if I remember to be fully dressed when I head out the door in the morning (Seriously, I drove to work barefoot once!).

I guess you could say I owe my next book in part to the Pennsylvania Turnpike.  Whatever works, y’all. Whatever works.

What’s Up Wednesday: Writing And Mentoring

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I have been laugh-out-loud crazy busy. Borderline psychotic, even. What kind of idiot thinks they can fully research and write a first draft in six weeks? This kind, apparently. But the really weird thing is, I woke in the middle of the night a few days ago and had a sudden revelation about a cool plot hook and ever since, the  book has pretty much been writing itself.

So I’m plugging away, and God willing, we’ll have an awesome book (in hardcover!) circa 2019.

Next week, I’m doing some mentoring for The Young Creatives club at Towne Book Center, and I’ve got a giveaway (yes, giveaway!) to organize and a guest blog to write that will be up on the Swoon Reads site next week.

All this comes around working a full-time job, raising my kids, doing laundry and mowing my lawn, which is beginning to look like Jurassic Park. Oh, such a glamorous life I lead.

If I ever win the lottery, I’m going to buy an island. I’ll call it Isle de Author and there will be hammocks and cool drinks and climate-controlled huts full of bookshelves. Oh, and wi-fi. Mustn’t forget that. We’ll all laze and drink and research and watch stupid YouTube videos instead of research and we’ll write. We’ll write memoirs and non-fiction and sweeping tomes about tribulation and magic and humans being humans. And nobody will have to go to a day job or mow a lawn.

‘Till then I’ll keep plugging along.