Janette Rallison's Blog, page 33

I have my moments . . .

I admit I don't read all of my Goodread reviews. For one thing, it would be hard to keep up with reviews on twenty books. And besides, there is the author curse to deal with. The curse is this: you can read thirty glowing reviews about your book--and feel so happy--until you get to that one bad review. I know that it's impossible to write a book that everyone on the face of the planet will enjoy. People have different tastes. For example, some people inexplicably like the song Hotel California.

If you aren't familiar with the song Hotel California consider yourself fortunate. It is a slow ballad about a hotel that traps people inside. There is stabbing going on. I remember hearing once that the song was inspired by the movie Psycho. When it comes on the radio, I literally leap over furniture so that I can turn the station two seconds faster.

Anyway, so authors expect bad reviews. I shrug off most, but every once in awhile there is one that bugs me because it gets the facts wrong and then the reviewer states that s/he didn't like the book because of those facts. I know authors who have gotten bad review for books they didn't write. I once got a bad review for a book that I hadn't finished writing yet. (Apparent the reviewer had psychic powers.)

Sometimes I read reviews though and I had to say that I loved this review of A Longtime (and at one point illegal) Crush. I won't quote the whole thing because that would look like shameless self-promotion. I will say that the reviewer is brilliant and astute and right about all the nice things she said about me.

You know how (Janette Rallison) seems to create the most awkward, embarrassing, yet down right hilarious teenage moments in all of her books? (If you don't, read some and you'll see.) Well my friends and I have what we like to call "Janette Rallison moments". It's where we have the most humiliating experiences that are mortifying at first, but then we have a giggle fest later on about it. Like the time when one of my friends got their braces stuck to her crushes shirt. Yeah. Definitely Janette Rallison moment.

I am ridiculously proud to have humiliating moments named in my honor. This is perhaps because I've had so many Janette Rallison moments myself. In fact, you could pretty much say my life has been one Janette Rallison moment after another.

The latest, completely true moment that happened to me:
Imagine you are at a place where you are surrounded by people who are all dressed up. You are dressed up too. It is close quarters. You reach into your purse to pull out something you need--something that everyone is expecting you to have. It is at this point you realize that the bad smell you've been getting whiffs of all evening originates from your purse. Apparently one of your evil cats has recently crawled into your purse and peed inside.

(Here I am with the likely suspects.)There is not a gracious way to get out of this sort of situation. And unfortunately, randomly screaming in close quarters is still not socially acceptable. That Janette Rallison moment will probably find its way into a book someday.

Things I learned at the ANWA conference

The reason I haven't updated this blog lately is not that I wanted to leave the Buy-my-new-romance-novella blog up forever. (Although you should in fact buy it because hey, it's only 99 cents. What can you find at the dollar store that's going to make you happier?)

 The ANWA conference was Thursday-Saturday and I was busy--literally--from the moment I woke up (way too early) to the moment I fell exhausted into bed (way too late). Still, it was an AWESOME conference. Here's some of the things I learned:

 1) Don't volunteer to introduce James Owen. Instead of reading his bio in the ANWA program, I went off the cuff and told people about him. I ended by saying, "And the best part about James is that even though he's a bestseller, he's still a wonderful guy!"

 Which had all sorts of connotations I didn't intend. (Apologies to my other friends who are bestsellers.) 

2) Don't volunteer to give James Owen the five-minute-til-class-is-over-sign. James has had an incredible life. He talks convincingly about the power of determination because he's overcome so much. I would like his achievements without all of that 'overcoming' he had to do beforehand. I was so engrossed during his class that I completely forgot to keep track of the time. When the people in the next room suddenly started clapping, I jumped several inches in my chair and hurriedly glanced at the clock on my laptop--which made James think the class was over. He wrapped up and still had five minutes left. It probably worked out for the best though, since so many people wanted to talk to him after class.

 3) I work with awesome ladies. A big conference doesn't happen without lots and lots of help. I was so impressed and grateful for everyone who selflessly helped.


Here we are at the protagonist ball.


 4)People who help out at conference win the Beginning of Book contests. The judging was completely blind/anonymous so there was no way anyone could have rigged the winners, but most of the people who won in the various categories of the BOB contest had also helped out at conference in some fashion. Are helpful people more talented? More dedicated to writing? Do you get extra creative blessings if you serve others? I have no idea, but I plan on using this phenomena to recruit helpers for next year's conference. (And Torsha Baker who was in charge of the AV at conference got an agent from the conference. Now don't you want to be on the conference committee?)

5) If I'm going to conduct any part of conference I need sleep beforehand. By the end of conference I was so sleep deprived I was beginning to sound and act like a drunk person. Seriously, when I introduced James for the keynote, I decided I'd better read his bio (see number 1) and I couldn't pronounce the word 'adaptation'. It took me three times to get it right. And did I mention that a film crew was there filming James's speech? I'm really hoping that none of my introduction is left in.

Here I am as Snow White who has wandered into the wrong film.

A Longtime Crush for Valentine's Day

Remember, like, three weeks ago when I said I would be putting up a couple of ebooks in a week? Well, that was proof that I'm overly optimistic about my to-do list. You would think that after living with myself for forty-some years I would know some basic facts:

1) No matter what my intentions at the store, I won't send in the rebate form.
2)  I also won't turn in my receipt to the Boy Scout adviser, Achievement Day adviser, conference committee, or any other place that I'm supposed to turn in a receipt so I can get reimbursed for whatever I just bought for said groups.
3) I won't have just one cookie. I will eat as many as it takes to make me wonder if there should be a reality show about people with no willpower.

And most importantly 4) Everything takes more time than I first thought it would. (This is also why I'm frequently late for things.)

Anyway, my romance novella, A Longtime (and at one point illegal) Crush is finally up at Amazon. (Techno-Bob put it up last night at midnight so it would be available for Valentine's Day, and he made some mistakes, such as putting the parenthesis in the wrong place and putting the author's note where the book description should be. I fixed those this morning, but it will take awhile for Amazon to update.)

You can buy it here:
http://www.amazon.com/Longtime-point-Illegal-Crush-ebook/dp/B00BFNYG1A/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1360867713&sr=8-5&keywords=a+longtime+crush

It's only 62 pages, but I must say they are good pages. In fact, I sort of have an author crush on Kye--which is entirely inappropriate since I'm about twenty years older than him.

Here's the real description:

From the day Elsie’s older brother brought his friend Kye McBride to their house, Elsie adored him.  When she was eight she secretly blew kisses to him. When she was twelve she sat on the stairs, unnoticed, and watched him escort another girl to prom. When she was a senior in high school, she walked into math class and found out he was her new math teacher.
With that much emotion fueling her, things were bound to go wrong. And they did. Elsie not only spent her last two weeks of school avoiding him, she turned avoiding-Kye-at-all-costs into her life-long philosophy.
Now three years have passed and Elsie has come home for her brother’s wedding.  She’s got to face Kye –hopefully without getting crushed again.

Upcoming Events You Don't Want to Miss

I've got a boat-load of events coming up. (Although sadly no cruises to make my boat-load of events analogy more apt.) If you want a Janette/CJ sighting or signing or even sighing here's where you need to be:

Feb 21-23 ANWA Time Out For Writers conference in Mesa, Az. For more info click:
http://www.anwa-lds.com/conference

Saturday, March 9, Tucson Book Festival 4-5:00 panel with Bruce Coville and Jennifer Nielsen
Worlds of Fantasy: Dragons, Monsters, and False Princes
For more info click:
http://tucsonfestivalofbooks.org/

Saturday, March 16, Teen Author Boot Camp at Utah Valley University (for 13-19) For more info click:
http://teenauthorbootcamp.com/

Saturday, April 6 Kingman Area Books Are Magic (KABAM!) Festival. Kingman, Arizona

I would love to see any and all of you at these events! Hope you can make it!

Erasing Time giveaway

Free Book Friday is giving away three copies of Erasing Time on their blog. Plus there's an interview with me and I know you never get tired of hearing what I have to say. For example, you were probably just asking yourself today which fictional character I have a crush on. By the way, if we were basing it just on looks, Matt Bomer who plays Neal Caffrey on White Collar comes quickly to mind. And then insistently stays there. 
(I have a theory--based purely on wishful thinking-- that in heaven we will be able to look like anyway we want. I'll frequently look like Cindy Crawford and I'm going to make a request of my husband that every once in awhile he look like Matt Bomer. At least when he's not busy looking like Nathan Fillion, Hugh Jackman, and Richard Hatch. Oh, and some of the time he's got to look like himself too, because he is pretty hot. So if you see two people walking around who look like Matt and Cindy, you'll  know it's me and Techno Bob.)
Anyway, here's the link to the Erasing Time giveaway on Free Book Friday.http://teens.freebookfriday.com/

Random picked Julie

Send me your address and I'll send you your book, or if you'd rather have an ebook, it should be available this week. Either way, let me know at jrallisonfans at yahoo dot com

Which cover and a book giveaway

I just remembered that I signed up to do part of a blog hop today. Oops. Forgot to do that, so I'm just going to add it to this blog. I'll give away one of the original hardback copies of My Double Life to one of the commenters.
I've got the rights back to My Double Life, and so I'm going to put it up as an ebook. (Hopefully I'll have this book and a brand new romance novella up this week. Be excited. Be very excited.) However, as I don't have the rights to the original cover of My Double Life, I've got to come up with something new. Fortunately, there are some pictures on Shutterstock that fit with the theme. The very accommodating Su from Earthly Charms did three mock-ups for me so that you--my reading experts--could let me know which you liked best.

Please leave a comment and tell me your favorite!

Which cover do you like best?

I've got the rights back to My Double Life, and so I'm going to put it up as an ebook. (Hopefully I'll have this book and a brand new romance novella up this week. Be excited. Be very excited.) However, as I don't have the rights to the original cover of My Double Life, I've got to come up with something new. Fortunately, there are some pictures on Shutterstock that fit with the theme. The very accommodating Su from Earthly Charms did three mock-ups for me so that you--my reading experts--could let me know which you liked best.
Please leave a comment and tell me your favorite!

Yallapalooza and writers conference on Sat, the 26th

This Saturday I'll be involved in two fun writing gigs. The first will be a YA writers conference at Dobson High School. Don't click on the banner. It won't take you anywhere. I just stole it from Changing Hand's website because I love how serious and slightly dangerous some of the YA writers look. That's how you can tell who the cool writers are.

Ten authors of young adult fiction, including several New York Times bestsellers, share strategies, tips, and tricks for writing engaging work for tween and teen readers. You can choose three of four informative sessions to fill your three-session schedule, including "Unforgettable Characters," "Heroes vs. Villains," "Writing Realistic Dialogue," and "Essentials of SciFi/Fantasy."

If you want more info on the conference (I believe it's 85.00 for the day) here's a link: http://www.changinghands.com/yawriting2013

Then there will be Yallapalooza at Changing Hands. If you've never been before, it's free and it's fun--sorta like a game show in which you get to work with groups of authors. Plus there is pizza. Here's the details:

At 4pm Saturday, January 26 Changing Hands Bookstore presents YAllapalooza 2013, a literary extravaganza for tween and teen readers. Here's your chance to mix and mingle with your favorite YA authors, get signed books, enjoy pizza, and more!

Attending Authors: Tom Leveen, Cecil Castelluci, Amy Fellner Dominy, Shannon Messenger, Suzanne Lazear, Janni Lee Simner, Kevin Emerson, Erin Jade Lange, Lisa McMann, Suzanne Young, James A. Owen, C.J. Hill (aka Janette Rallison), Laura Ellen, and Lisa Schroeder.

Come be on my team! I always bomb when it comes to the first line in a book game so I need your help. For more info on that, you can go to: http://www.changinghands.com/yallapalooza2013

Partying with authors

I'm always up for a party--as long as it is at somebody else's house. Having a party at my house inevitably means that I have to nag my children for 24 hours straight to pick up their junk, do their jobs, etc. My children combat my efforts by working at the same rate that fossils solidify and by vanishing every time I'm not physically making eye contact with them. I tell a child to take out the garbage and poof, he or she is gone for an hour.

So yeah, I don't do a lot of entertaining.

Thankfully the same isn't true for my author friends because we just held our second Teacher/Librarian appreciation party at Amy Dominy's home. Our awesome publishers donated not only copies of our books to give to educators, but also provided other books and swag as well.

Here's a picture of us hiding behind our books. Authors do that a lot.

Here's a picture of us being more social. You can see Lisa McMann, Bill Konigsberg, Me, Jon Lewis, Aprilynne Pike, (second row) Shelly Coriell, Janni Lee Simner, Angela Morrison, Amy Dominy, Nancy Bo Flood, (First row) Suzanne Young, Erin Lange, James Owen

Here's a picture of all the awesome books publisher's donated.
 Oh, and by the way, this is Amy's laundry room. Seriously. I soo  have laundry room jealousy now. For some reason that I have never fully understood, builders all put dining rooms into houses--which people never use--but think homeowners all want to do their laundry in cubical-like closets.

If any architects are currently reading my blog, do us all a favor and switch that around.


The captain is our unofficial blow-up mascot. A man in a cape and underwear is always fun at a party.
Thanks publishers for being so generous, and thanks teachers and librarians for all that you do!