Anne Michaud's Blog: Musings & Little Obsessions, page 5
April 29, 2013
Girls & Monsters, the Release Party !!
Well, the time has come for my dark young adult novella collection to come out – are you guys ready? I sure am, after this crazy 5 weeks blog tour, the interview questions and guest posts, the pimping and exposure… At last, my girls and my monsters are unleashed. So this week, only two stops:
Monday, April 29th I am a Reader Not a Writer
Tuesday, April 30th, 9 PM (east) DARKFUSE LIVE CHAT
You good people still have a few hours left to try to snag my international giveaway of a Girls & Monsters softcover and The Monster Collection of Skellies, including 5 pieces handcrafted by moi. The winner will be drawn randomly and announced during the live chat on Tuesday night – come fun, come all!!
Girls & Monsters is on sale on AMAZON
I would like to thank to all the bloggers, reviewers, writers and friends who participated to my blog tour – this has been exhausting but so much fun ♥
April 22, 2013
Girls & Monsters Blog Tour – Week 5
LIVE CHAT WITH ME ON APRIL 30th AT 9PM (east) OVER AT DARKFUSE!!!!!!!
Come on over and visit these wonderful blogs where you’ll discover something new about me, my book, and everything in between…
Monday, 22th of April: Victoria Griesdoorn
Tuesday, 23rd of April: Gothic Angel
Wednesday, 24th of April: Marianne Su
Thursday, 25th of April: Lisa Forget
Friday, 26th of April: Aheila
GIRLS & MONSTERS Giveaway">
Wanna win a Girls & Monsters softcover with The Monster Collection Skellies of 5 pieces, handcrafted by me? Click
April 21, 2013
Troll or Derby by Red Tash
TROLL OR DERBY ON SALE!!!
Debra Wheeler seems like any other high school reject: at fifteen, she’s more into roller skating than boys, and Mom plays favorites with big sister Gennifer, the homecoming princess. With little to love in ultra-rural Bedrock, Indiana, Deb’s counting down the days until she can skate away to join the roller derby.
When Gennifer is kidnapped, Mom’s breakdown forces Deb to take charge. With no clue where to start and thugs on her tail, she turns to the only adult who has ever helped her out in a jam: Coach, the owner of the skating rink. So what if he has tusks and might be a troll? Coach gives her a pair of magical skates and sends her off into a world that reveals a magical, if somewhat sinister, nature. Deb soon discovers that beneath the “glamours” of everyday life flit a million fantastical stories–and her own might be the juiciest gossip in town.
The Midwestern lifestyle every teenager loves to hate is turned inside out as Deb careens through Rumspringa, biker gangs, flea markets and tractor pulls–all teeming with fae. The valiant troll Harlow tries to intervene before Deb strays from her mission into romance and roller derby, but will they join forces to save Gennifer, or be lost to this strange new realm, forever?
Readers will find Deb a smart and witty narrator who–like them–says the wrong thing, wishes she could be someone else, and falls for the wrong person. They’ll be drawn in by a girl who is independent and street smart, and they’ll fall for her destined BFF, the whimsical troll loner who guides them through this quirky dark fantasy romp.
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Red Tash is a journalist-turned-novelist of dark fantasy for readers of all ages. Monsters, SciFi, wizards, trolls, fairies, and roller derby lightly sautéed in a Southern/Midwestern sauce await you in her pantry of readerly delights. Y’all come, anytime.
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Troll Or Derby is a 4.7 star fantasy with 58 reviews. The ebook normally retails for $4.99, but to celebrate its return to Nook, iTunes, and other epub platforms, the book will be on sale for only $.99 on all ebook stores, including Amazon, from April 19-22nd.
April 15, 2013
Girls & Monsters Blog Tour – Week 4
Come on over and visit these wonderful blogs where you’ll discover something new about me, my book, and everything in between…
Monday, 15th of April: Samantha Young
Tuesday, 16th of April: Michelle Muto
Wednesday, 17th of April: AJ Brown
Thursday, 18th of April: Axel Howerton
Friday, 19th of April: Rebecca Hamilton
GIRLS & MONSTERS Giveaway">Wanna win a Girls & Monsters softcover with The Monster Collection Skellies of 5 pieces, handcrafted by me? Click
April 8, 2013
Girls & Monsters Blog Tour – Week 3
Come on over and visit these wonderful blogs where you’ll discover something new about me, my book, and everything in between…
Monday, 8th of April: Steve McHugh
Tuesday, 9th of April: Bea’s Book Nook
Wednesday, 10th of April: Red Tash
Thursday, 11th of April: Anita G Howard
Friday, 12th of April: Thea Atkinson
GIRLS & MONSTERS Giveaway">Wanna win a Girls & Monsters softcover with The Monster Collection Skellies of 5 pieces, handcrafted by me? Click
April 1, 2013
Girls & Monsters Blog Tour – Week 2
Come on over and visit these wonderful blogs where you’ll discover something new about me, my book, and everything in between…
Monday, 1st of April: Ren Warom
Tuesday, 2nd of April: Adam Sydney
Wednesday, 3rd of April: Rainy of the Dark
Thursday, 4th of April: Krista Walsh
Friday, 5th of April: Julie Campbell
GIRLS & MONSTERS Giveaway">Wanna win a Girls & Monsters softcover with The Monster Collection Skellies of 5 pieces, handcrafted by me? Click GIRLS & MONSTERS Giveaway" target="_blank">here and fill up the form. The winner will be announced on release day, April the 30th at 9pm (east) during my LIVE CHAT at Darkfuse!
See you there ♥
March 25, 2013
Girls & Monsters Blog Tour – Week 1
Come on over and visit these wonderful blogs where you’ll discover something new about me, my book, and everything in between…
Monday, 25th of March: Laura Diamond
Tuesday, 26th of March: Jay Birch
Wednesday, 27th of March: Julianne Snow
Thursday, 28th of March: Imran Siddiq
Friday, 29th of March: Angela Addams
Saturday, 30th of March: Laura Howard
GIRLS & MONSTERS Giveaway">Wanna win a Girls & Monsters softcover with The Monster Collection Skellies of 5 pieces, handcrafted by me? Click GIRLS & MONSTERS Giveaway" target="_blank">here and fill up the form. The winner will be announced on release day, April the 30th at 9pm (east) during my LIVE CHAT at Darkfuse!
See you there ♥
March 18, 2013
Girls & Monsters, the blog tour
Get ready, people – it’s coming your way…
March 11, 2013
Chatting with… Sean Munger
My friend Emma Cunningham said his book Life Without Giamotti was her favorite of all times; he writes horror and zombies; he’s a cool guy. So here I present to you Sean Munger, author of the book Zombies of Byzantium.
I often wonder about why I write genre – how about you? Why did you write a horror story?
Strangely, before I wrote Zombies of Byzantium, I had never written anything in the horror genre except a short story. I’ve been a lover of Byzantium for years, and since I began reading Byzantine history I wanted to do a book set there. The thing that struck me about it was how much it was like a constructed world out of a fantasy or science fiction book, like Middle Earth in Lord of the Rings or Barsoom of Edgar Rice Burroughs’s John Carter of Marsbooks—but Byzantium was a real place where real people lived. I tried about three or four different ideas, all of them I guess you’d say historical fiction, which were all extremely flat, dull and lifeless. Then I hatched the idea of a zombie outbreak in medieval Constantinople. Amazingly, shifting to the horror genre suddenly made Byzantium come to life on the page. It was like flipping a switch, or that famous cut in The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy opens the door in black-and-white and suddenly Oz is in color. I really can’t explain it, but something made it live.
Once I started to get into the story itself it made me realize how much the genre of horror can really explore aspects of the world you never thought of before. I’ve read a lot of books about Byzantium but in all of that reading I never once encountered the concept of fear or horror. If Byzantines believed in ghosts or the supernatural, for instance, they must have done so entirely in a religious context. So what would scare you if you lived in 8th century Constantinople? If a horde of flesh-eating undead zombies was fanning out through the streets devouring your neighbors, how would you, as a person living in that place and time, react? When this became more interesting to think about than the setting itself, I knew I had a story worth telling.
That’s so weird, the genre chose you instead of the usual way – like me. I’ve always loved horror, but more of the darker kind than slasher or graphic. I love to explore how people can appear normal but are far from it; those are the best characters, surprising not only the characters in the story but the writer, too.
So I gather you do a lot of research before you write your stories, but how else do you prepare? I’m a crazy outliner and I cannot start to write unless I know where my plot is going and who’s doing what and the most important: the ending. Are you like that, too?
My relationship with outlining is sort of complex. How completely I outline a story really depends on the story. I’m not a rigid outliner for the most part, usually because an outline is sort of like a military battle plan. It looks great on paper, but once you get on the battlefield, events can render it obsolete pretty quickly, and trying at all costs to conform reality to the plan often gets people killed.
I usually do start with a strong idea of what the end point is going to be, though. The ending is pretty much everything and I agree it’s the most important point. As I go along I usually make a list of things that need to happen and, particularly, potential questions or objections the reader might have that need to be addressed. If I strongly want something to happen, I have to write things into the story that close off other opportunities and leave the desired path as the only possible one.
Are you familiar with a movie from the 70s called “The Warriors”? That movie made me incredibly angry. The plot concerns a gang that gets framed for a murder, and they have to cross the entirety of New York City, which is controlled by rival gangs, in order to reach their own territory. They do this on foot, naturally. What made me angry is, the movie never explained why the gang just doesn’t hail a taxi. Wouldn’t that be much easier? Obviously the writers needed it to be the way it was, but they never explained that potential objection, and the whole plot hinges on it. So if I was writing “The Warriors,” the next scene after the murder would be some plot device to explain why they can’t just take a taxi back to their territory.
Sean Munger’s Important Links:
My website: http://seanmunger.com
My page on Samhain Publishing (you can order books from there): http://store.samhainpublishing.com/sean-munger-pa-1748.html
Amazon (paperback): http://www.amazon.com/Zombies-Byzantium-Sean-Munger/dp/1619212293/
Amazon (Kindle): http://www.amazon.com/Zombies-of-Byzantium-ebook/dp/B009AZ3NEG/
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15814687-zombies-of-byzantium
My Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sean-Munger/267079030087379
February 25, 2013
Girls & Monsters Blog Tour & Skellies
Dear reader, the time is *almost* upon us for the Girls & Monsters Blog Tour ♥ Starting on March the 25th and ending on April 30th on releaseday, I’ll be visiting 28 blogs. At each stop, not only will you discover something new about the stories and/or me, but also about my wonderfully generous hosts ranging from reviewers, authors, bloggers, YA and horror fans all alike.
To celebrate my debut collection of novelettes, I have been hard at work on a special Skellies set representing each monsters of the stories. Handmade in felt, *you* dear reader, have the chance to own your very own killer mermaid, heartless neighbor, bone to tame your own Black Dog, Bunny the spider and a bone-broken zombie. The contest will run during the tour with chances to win Girls & Monsters softcovers as well.
Now, if you just cannot wait for the release day to get your very own copy, there’s always the Goodreads giveaway with an extravageant 10 chances to win ♥
