Zia Marie's Blog, page 2

Memorial Weekend

Four day weekends are the best, but it's also important to remember what we're honoring as well. Keep all the members of the armed forces who have lost their lives protecting generations of Americans and others around the world in your thoughts. Have a great weekend.






(Over There is coming soon!)

"Lost" is STILL $0.99 for just under SIX MORE HOURS!!

"Lost" is STILL $0.99 for just under SIX MORE HOURS!!

(A piece of the) Prologue to "Current"

Here's a little bit of the prologue to Current, a little ditty I'm writing next. Don't really want to spoil what's to come, but here's a little taste.
War was inevitable. Prince Troy knew this, even as he watched both sides attempt to reach some sort of agreement. Across the table in the grand hall, drafts of treaties, full of compromises, changed hands, positions were explained and considered, and consensus was reached on a few issues. But Troy was impatient, and it frustrated him that everyone else was willing to delay what would ultimately come to pass. There was no way to avoid it now. And all of this mindless chatter was giving him a headache and irritating him further. They were so determined to prevent fighting that no one noticed that the most important person in the room was not participating in any of the conversations. Him.He swiveled his chair until he was facing his sister, Alessia. She was engaged in a tense but polite disagreement with Queen Kai. Alessia was too timid, he thought. He imagined that she was bending toward every one of Kai’s demands. That would not stand. He had final say, anyway, so his sister’s discussion was for naught. And as for Kai, there was nothing that she could say to warrant him listening. It wasn’t that he didn’t respect Kai, he liked her actually, but she had no right to a throne that was supposed to be his. The country had been severed in a previous war and he wanted reunification, with him taking his place as ruler over it all. Kai had all but spit at the idea. But unbeknownst to all of them, this would be the last set of talks they would have to resolve issues. He would take what belonged to him by force. He had the army and the time.

JUST A REMINDER - $0.99 until tomorrow night

"Lost" will remain $0.99 until tomorrow night 11:59 pm EST. Happy reading and another round of thanks for people who got "Lost" already!

And if you've already moved through "Lost" and finished, and you're thinking, "Girl,  I need more...like, NAO." Look for "Over There" toward the very end of this week.

I'm sure some of you are figuring out how it's all coming together (stop being so astute! LOL), but I have to say "Gone" is my favorite part of this idea I thought up and I can't wait to share. If I keep talking, I'll spill everything so I'm shutting up now.

As a side note, my favorite new show of this fall season is ending tonight: Revenge =( How much of a cutie is that Josh Bowman? But after this weekend, we will officially be in pool/beach season! Yay! I'm excited.

Hope your week has been splendid so far.

Z

THANK YOU

THANK YOU to everyone who picked up "Lost" this weekend!!! I'm still in awe of the kind emails and sweet messages that I have received from you all. I do hope you like it and I entertain you in some way. I'm so appreciative of you readers who accept me and are so patient, even though I'm mostly a space case mess. I never anticipated in any way that anyone would really be interested in reading anything I write. So I'm a little overwhelmed and surprised by it all. I'm a shy girl and I keep myself in a bit of a bubble mostly. So I've been a little deer in the headlights about it.

 I know you guys crave more more more so "Over There" (which is complete) will be out this week. And for those who are wondering how this is going to end, I've known what the ending was going to be from day one.

Nook link for "Lost"

Here's B&N's Nook link for "Lost":
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/lost-the-taken-trilogy-book-2-zia-marie/1110945436; I posted the Kindle link in the post right before this.

Amazon link

The link for "Lost" at Amazon, FYI: http://www.amazon.com/Lost-Taken-Trilogy-Book-ebook/dp/B0084NKHRG/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337530023&sr=1-2

Also, stay tuned for "Over There."

"Lost" is live...

"Lost" is live on Amazon for Kindle (finally).  It's $0.99 until Thursday 11:59 PM ET.

Also, I want to send a HUGE "thank you" to all the amazing people who take the time to write to me about "Taken" (and "Lost.") I love you guys and girls! If I haven't written you back yet, I apologize so hard. Balancing real life and writing life is hard. I like both obvi, but I have no desire to combine them, so sometimes one suffers when I'm more interested in the other (usually it's writing life suffering, and it's not because I don't care, I just don't want to be a slave to it). I will write back as soon as I can.

To everyone who is going to buy "Lost," thanks for being so patient, it means the world to me. A lot of people are/were waiting on it, and I didn't even realize, and it frightens the crap out of me a little, believe me. 

Thank you to anyone who read "Taken" or considered reading it or read it and said "Oh, girl, no...just no." Because? You gave me a chance! I make a point to take bad with good, that's how life goes. Without bad, there could never be good...blah, blah, blah...philosophy, philosophy, blah LOL.

 I take all my successes, failures, mistakes and triumphs with a grain of salt because none of them are permanent. All I do is try to learn from them and move on. I have a very "oops" mentality about a lot of things in life. So if you never read anything I write again, I thank you for giving me the chance in the first place =). If you stay on for the ride, I thank you the most and I'm happy and excited and it'll be fun going forward, I think =) =).

I'm not writing any masterpieces by any stretch of the the imagination. Lives won't be changed here LOL. I'm not telling any real life stories. I will exaggerate, there will be plot holes, and I will take a lot of artistic license. My work will be full of crap you hate or think is awful or dull or "meh." Maybe someone sold you on hype and you're disappointed. Maybe you didn't even finish (been there!). Maybe you discovered I'm not for you (been there!).  It's par for the course. Everyone is going to have expectations, wants and desires for a plot or characters that I just won't ever be able to deliver.  All I'm saying is, while I'm not (actively) trying to be jewelry you can get out quarter vending machines at the grocery story, I'm not interested in being Lorraine Schwartz diamond studs either. You will absolutely hate me going forward if you ignore me on this stuff. I don't want you to hate me.

But whether anything I write ends up being something that takes someone's mind off a crappy day, makes their public transportation commute to home or school feel a little shorter or maybe they just need something to pass the time wherever they are. That's why I'm here. It's the only reason I'm here. Hey, maybe you just want to be snarky and love to hate it. Awesome. (That's how I am with The Secret Life of the American Teenager, I totally get it). All are welcome.

So anyway, I hope you enjoy "Lost" (or enjoy not enjoying it LOL). Have a great day and happy reading.

Hey y'all...

I got distracted by Grey's and Scandal last night (because I schedule my life around TV. Not kidding!) But all systems are a go, i.e., I only just recently pushed publish! So basically, once Amazon and B&N do their business (LOL), it's all yours. But while I love you guys and I love hearing from you, of course, no torches and pitchforks and emails fussing at me at least until like late Saturday/ early Sunday, for Amazon, JUST IN CASE they're slow for whatever reason. As for Nook, let's wait until like Monday, JUST IN CASE, to raise hell. AGAIN, WORST CASE SCENARIO OPTIONS ONLY.

Then I'll beg for your mercy and find out what's going on.

1. 0.99 for 5 days after it goes live.

2. Over There (Sasha's part) is out next week sometime, probs. 0.99 foreves!

3. There's violence and cursing. There are guns. I would say for ages 16/17+, maybe. There's a controversial scene at the beginning that I went back and forth with for a long time regarding whether to keep it. It kind of bothered me when I wrote it, and it still leaves me really unsettled, but I decided to keep it. This isn't Disney World.

4. As for "Gone," talk to me after the summer.

Talk soon.

 Zia

Guess what's happening on Thursday?!

Hi friends,

I'm pushing "publish" (sometime) on Thursday. Once I hand it over to Amazon and B&N, it's out of my hands as they prepare it for sale sometime over the next 12 and 36 hours respectively (after I push "publish"). Amazon usually wraps it up first, but B&N seems to like to torture you. Give it at least through the weekend, and then I give you permission to accost me electronically.

Here's some stuff you should know:

1) It'll be $0.99 for five days the minute it goes live, ending at 11:59 PM ET on the fifth day. Why? That's how many months ago I promised you a book.

2)  For a long time, I've been going back and forth about how and whether to include "Over There," which was supposed to be a novella/extra  about Sasha's life, but it evolved into a whole book. I discovered that it was fun to be mean to her LOL. I'm kidding. But I ended up liking the novella so much that it kept going. Well, consider it not included in "Lost." But it will be available separately sometime next week and not Thursday. I was cheating on the whole trilogy idea anyway, so might as well go all out.  If you're thinking "How important is this so-called "extra" to what will happen in "Gone"? Well... if you're asking if I'm just going to re-hash all the details in "Gone," I wouldn't bet on it.

"Over There" will be $0.99 for the entirety of its existence. 

3) This is kind of important. There's cursing and people-on-people violence. And there are guns. I'm not trying to be sensational about it, but this was the plan from day one. I warn of this because a lot of people don't like these things. It's not "Hostel" gore-y, but I think it's important to point out things that people may be turned off by. I actually hate guns (yeah, don't second amendment me lol I know, I know). But in fiction, for me, I'm making an exception. I'm building a fake world with fake people and, well, some of them get hurt in it. The world was violent before I started writing.

At the end of the day, someone's heart getting ripped out by a vampire or a random human's neck being snapped on The Vampire Diaries (my favorite show ever...how freaking awesome was that season finale?) is violent,  too. Different instrument but same result. And maybe it's different because vampires aren't real, but fictional people are still being killed.

Anyway, that's just my two cents on the use of violence. It feels really controversial to me, especially for younger readers. I'm putting a warning in the book description on the retailer sites...LOL I hope this isn't setting up some expectation in your mind right now as I ramble, but I promise there's dialogue in-between.

If anything, rage against it in a review. And if those things don't bother you, I'm pretty sure that there's enough other things to make you hate it anyway. I really hate expectations and hype because it'll only make you hate me in the long run. Please come open-minded.

4) I don't know when "Gone" will be out. I'm taking the summer off (sort of), but write to me on here or email or Facebook or GoodReads, wherever you're most comfortable, if you want to be besties.

5) Strictly for B&N Nook users:  A month from now (publication), I'm going to make "Lost" available for free for Amazon Prime users. This means I have to make it exclusively available to Kindle for 90 days. That's like the WHOLE summer.  I'm sorry. It'll be back though.  

Zia