M.J. Pullen's Blog, page 25

Book Launch Happy Hour! November 20 at Tin Lizzy’s in Dunwoody

Hi friends! I don’t know about you, but I am getting super excited about the launch of  Baggage Check in just 18 days. Woo hoo!

Coming November 20, 2013!

To celebrate, I’ll be hosting a Book Launch Happy Hour at Tin Lizzy’s Perimeter location in Dunwoody, Georgia.

If you’re going to be in the Atlanta area, stop by Tin Lizzy’s between 5:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m., say hello, and get a signed copy of Baggage Check at a special discounted price. If you’re not going to be in Atlanta, don’t worry – you can still get a digital copy of Baggage Check for your Kindle, Nook or iPad for just 99 cents – Wednesday only!

Either way, stop by the event page on Facebook and RSVP, share, or just say hello: https://www.facebook.com/events/16652...

See you soon!

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The 20-Year Reunion Blog

It’s a half-anticipated, half-dreaded event: the 20-year high school reunion. This gathering of old friends (and enemies) has become a benchmark in our culture: The Great Check-In on how your life is going up to this point. Who better to assess the success or failure of your last two decades than people you haven’t seen in that long, right?

Worried? Who’s worried?

Even knowing how silly that is, I couldn’t help but be a little nervous about it. Getting ready for the reunion, I found myself comparing the current me to the potential me of 20 years ago: thinking how much has happened, how far I have come, and where I hope my life is headed. It’s hard not to notice on an occasion like this where you’ve come up short, too. All those everyday insecurities are filtered through the weird lens of the distant past.

Twenty years ago, our class was the first one to graduate from a new high school we had the choice to attend. Ours had 210 or so members, while the class behind us (who did not have the option to stay at their old high schools) was well over 600. The fact that as rising juniors we chose to leave our old schools and help establish a new one made our high school experience… special. The teachers were psyched to be in a new place, and so were most of us. Certainly, this did not iron out all the normal problems of high school: cliques, drugs, etc.  I think it intensified the nature of our relationships — good and bad — because there were few places to hide. We had no senior class our first year and, though I know there are schools all over the country graduating classes of fewer than 200 or even 100, for us this was a huge paradigm shift. Friendships, rivalries, and striving for various forms of success were all intensified under a microscope of newness and expectations.

Enjoy that thick, lustrous hair while you can, 17-year-old me. Trust me.

I know this will come as a tremendous shock to all of you: but as an overweight, spazzy, redheaded bookworm with acne and high SAT scores, I did not run with the popular crowd in high school. Go ahead, pick yourself up off the floor and absorb. It’s true. I worked at least 20 hours a week at McDonald’s and was the editor of a non-existent school newspaper. I was possibly the worst member of the Varsity softball team, even though I was one of the oldest girls on it. I had a nasty habit of saying out loud whatever came into my head, which is inadvisable at any age. (Come to think of it, that part hasn’t really changed much. Sigh.) Struggling to fit in, I did a lot of things I’m proud of, and a few things that I’m not at all. In fact, I look back on some of the things I did to get attention in high school and just cringe.

Despite all of it, I’m lucky that I emerged from that experience with a solid group of at least 20 close friends. People who looked past my flaws and loved me anyway. People I have stayed in touch with, and would have done even without Facebook, etc. Many of my important life events have been, at least partly, high school reunions. Maybe that’s why I had never attended an official reunion before this one. I felt I was already in touch with the people I cared most about, and not enough time had passed to make me curious about the others. I’m really glad I changed my tune this year.

I don’t know the final numbers, but it seemed to me that nearly half our class turned out for the party Saturday, which was held at a bar/restaurant, and a smattering for the football game Friday night. If the old rivalries were there, or if people were trying too hard to show off how wonderful their lives were, I didn’t see it. I found myself chatting easily with people I was either intimidated or plagued by in high school, and realizing that while our lives have all taken different trajectories, we have more in common than not.

In twenty years, some people have moved around and returned, some are still scattered across the country/around the world, and a few have never left the area where we grew up. We have all had some triumphs: graduate degrees, beautiful children, happy marriages; and maybe some stuff we’re not so thrilled about, too. Each of us has had our hearts broken at one time or another. For some of us it was a divorce or the loss of one or both parents, or even a child. Family drama, career setbacks and health issues have kept many (most?) of us from being exactly who we thought we’d be when we graduated. Other things have been pleasant surprises.

Once we were all together, however, the details didn’t seem to matter much. We chatted, and maybe shared some of the ups and downs of the past two decades; but from everything I saw/experienced/overheard, there was very little judgment being passed around. No one seemed to be there to try to show up or outdo anyone else, and if people were gossiping I didn’t hear that either. What I did see was old friends drinking, dancing and laughing. While people did seem to cluster in their old groups a little bit (myself included), the groups intermingled well and most everyone I talked to was unabashed and friendly. In other words, nothing like the high school cafeteria.

It’s too bad high school itself can’t be like that.  I guess that’s all part of growing up — to some extent, we form our identities by pushing against other people. Plus, being accepting of others means first learning to be comfortable with yourself; for many of us that takes a loooong time. Okay, it’s still a work in progress for me, but I’m glad this weekend was more fun than I’d imagined it could be.

Looking forward to the 25th!

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Regrets Only Blog Tour, Giveaway, & Smashwords Book Links

Hey, guys! Just checking in to say that I’m having a ball touring with Suzanne and Regrets Only. Her high heels and broken arm have only slowed us down a little. You can see what’s to come and any posts you may have missed by checking the schedule at the RABT Virtual Book Tour Schedule.  Round up of guest posts coming soon!

Leave a comment or tweet about the tour and enter for a chance to win $25 at amazon.com via Rafflecopter below through October 7th. If you have a Kindle or Kindle app, that’s a lot of reading money! It takes a few seconds to register with Rafflecopter, but many many sites use them for giveaways if you’re into that…

Also, I’m excited to announce that both The Marriage Pact and Regrets Only are now available in many formats on Smashwords. I’ll be posting links to Apple, Sony, Kobo, etc. very soon, and there will be permanent links on the main book pages of the site. In the meantime:

The Marriage Pact on Smashwords

Regrets Only on Smashwords

Things are trucking right along for the release of Baggage Check in November! You can add it to your Goodreads bookshelf here: Baggage Check on Goodreads.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

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REGRETS ONLY Blog Tour & Amazon Card Giveaway!

I’m hitting the virtual road again… this time taking my second child – I mean, book – to see the world! Join us, won’t you? We’re going to play the license plate game!

Of course there’s a giveaway (enter below to win $25 at amazon.com) and lots of fun stuff: reviews, guest posts, interviews and more. I’m also going to try to loop back and round up some of the guest posts in case you missed them. I always love hearing from you guys, so keep the comments coming. Not sure what to say? Hello is great, or a little comment about something you liked about one of the books. If you haven’t read the books, you can say how you found my blog tour; or if you don’t know that, you can just ask who I am! I do try to check the blog tour posts at least a few times a day and I will answer questions there.

The schedule is here: https://sites.google.com/a/myaddictionisreading.com/fall-2013-tours/m-j-pullen

Good luck with this…

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

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Why I Love My Beta Readers

As I head into the home stretch on my third novel, and the rigor of revisions, it’s time to give some

Revisions – a grueling process requiring a stout heart. And stout.

attention to a group of people who normally only get acknowledged, well… in the acknowledgements. Each time I have written a book, I’ve had a group of friends and family who have volunteered their time and attention to read the first or second draft, and in a selfless act of friendship, shared both their positive and negative opinions to help make those books better. So, while I won’t call them out by name here, you can find them listed (in growing numbers)  in the back pages of every book I write. This go-round there are about twenty of them, and I count myself lucky to have each one.

So without further ado, here’s why I love them:

Beta readers are the best cheerleaders and greatest reality check.

Writing a novel is an enormous undertaking. (My shortest draft thus far was about 72,000 words). In the time it takes to write a novel, particularly if you allow your characters to make organic decisions on the fly as I do, it’s easy to get lost and/or discouraged. Beta readers are a specific audience of people who know you, like your work, and are cheering you on to finish. They’re the folks you know will read your novel, even if it’s crap and you don’t sell a single copy. They’ll also gently tell you when timelines don’t match up, scenes are confusing, or when something that seems very clear in your head doesn’t come across that way on the page.

Betas give me a unique sense of what works and what doesn’t.

While several of my beta readers have English degrees or are writers themselves, most of them are not professional reviewers or critics. They’re readers, and each of  them brings a different perspective to a book. I like to get opinions from a variety of people who enjoy different genres. Many of my betas, for example, are not primarily romance readers (though some are), and several are men. I don’t automatically change things based on any one person’s feedback, but when I hear a trend of responses about a particular portion, I know that’s something I need to look at more closely.

They are not my husband.

Hubs reads everything I write, often more than once. With BAGGAGE CHECK, he has read for the first time along with the beta readers, which was fun. He is the most amazing sounding board for ideas, questions, criticism (from others) and more. He makes my writing life possible, honors my time, and lifts my spirits when I am discouraged. He’s definitely involved in this venture. But never as a critic. In my opinion, the person who sleeps next to you and shares dish duty and parenting, should not be a person who picks apart your life’s work, even constructively. Maybe there are couples who do this successfully, but to me it seems like a recipe for marital disaster. Or at least some unnecessary tension.

This is the stuff your proofreader can’t do.

I have a wonderful proofreader. I could do an entire blog post on the importance of having an objective (paid) expert go over your manuscript with a fine-toothed comb to look for grammar, punctuation, usage and consistency errors. Beta readers are not proofreaders. Sure, they sometimes catch typos and find distracting phrases (in the first draft of The Marriage Pact I used the phrase “clucking her tongue” in several places for some reason). But the main job of a beta is to give you an opinion: a subjective response to their reading experience, which you can synthesize in the way that helps your work best.

Better than a punch in the face.

My work has flaws. Your work has flaws. Even on revision #12, and especially if it’s a first novel. As writers, we become blind to the imperfections in our books just like parents do with their children. We get a little caught up in the miracle of producing them, and it’s only natural that we can’t exactly be objective. Which, in the privacy of your desk drawer, is fine. But once you put on the shiny shorts and take your work into the fighting ring by clicking ‘publish’, there are hundreds of readers – thousands, if you’re lucky – out there just waiting to punch you in the nose, and tell you everything that is wrong with your sweet little baby. [For instance, the number of mixed metaphors in this paragraph].

This betta fish gave The Marriage Pact four stars.(Photo credit: ibelieveinamy)

Unlike your betas, those readers don’t know you, they don’t love you, they have no reason to spare your feelings. They don’t care if you’re new at this, or have a newborn, or that your mom reads all the reviews of your books and cries when they are unjust. They don’t see your publishing a book as an act of bravery and self-expression, but as a product to be judged.

Some of them will love your book despite the flaws. Some will judge you fairly and review both the good and bad points, and the best of these can also separate their personal preferences from flawed storytelling. Some will simply put the book down or delete it from their e-reader, and you’ll never know why. Others will just rant, leaving you spitting out teeth on the mat and wondering what the hell just happened. Maybe they had a bad day, or an unhappy childhood, or maybe whatever was wrong with your book irked them so much that they couldn’t move on with their day until they let the Internet know.

When someone takes the time to buy, download and read your book, and they feel disappointed in the end result; that person may feel (right or wrong) entitled to trash you, your book, and your whole view of the world in a review. As authors, we have to develop thick skins about this and learn from it where we can. But even when we’ve learned our lessons and maybe even revised again, those one-star reviews are with us FOREVER. Good beta readers won’t protect your book entirely from bad reviews. In fact some negative reviews are simply a matter of taste, rather than reflective of mistakes or errors, which is fine.

The goal is not to avoid any negative feedback, but to ensure that your book is the best possible version of itself before it hits the public eye. That’s where beta readers can help. If something confuses or turns off my beta readers, I know others are likely to feel the same way. If more than two people whose opinions I trust dislike something about my book, that’s worth noticing. My job as a writer is to defend my choice — to myself, not them — basically to justify why a word, paragraph, scene or plot point needs to be there. If I can’t, it’s gone.

Hug a beta reader today!

They have a tough job: reading work that’s not yet in its best form, and being able to be gently honest with a friend about their baby. Whether you’re an author or a reader, they make our experience with books better. Thank you!

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THE MARRIAGE PACT is #free for Kindle Sept. 16-20; PLUS amazon card giveaway!

The Marriage Pact (2011), free on amazon Sept. 16-20.

Do you love love? Do you love love triangles? How about love triangles that span four states, three cities, ten years, and every complication imaginable? If you said “yes” to any of these questions, then THE MARRIAGE PACT is the book for you. Even better, between Monday, September 16 and Friday, September 20th, THE MARRIAGE PACT is the free book for you and your Kindle or Kindle-app friendly devices (phones, iPad, etc.). You can also win a $15 amazon card just for sharing the love with others (see below).

The book has been newly revised for a smoother, more streamlined read, but all the funny, sweet and crazy-making moments have been left intact. Please visit http://www.amazon.com/The-Marriage-Pact-ebook/dp/B0055LH79Q/ to download THE MARRIAGE PACT for free this week.

Those of you who have already read TMP and the sequel REGRETS ONLY should know, too, that the third and final book of the series, BAGGAGE CHECK, will be coming out on November 20, 2013. So this is a great time to re-read the original book or share it with friends! It’s also the last time I will be doing a free promotion for a while, since I am taking the book out of the KDP select program so that I can make the whole series available on Nook, Smashwords, and other platforms.

In other words, get ‘em while they’re hot! Feel free to test out my spiffy new share buttons at the bottom of this post. Come on, you’ve been trying to figure out what to put on Twitter anyway.

As always, thanks for sharing, commenting, reading, reviewing, and just generally being you. See you soon!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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THE MARRIAGE PACT is #free for Kindle Sept. 16-20

The Marriage Pact (2011), free on amazon Sept. 16-20.

Do you love love? Do you love love triangles? How about love triangles that span four states, three cities, ten years, and every complication imaginable? If you said “yes” to any of these questions, then THE MARRIAGE PACT is the book for you. Even better, between Monday, September 16 and Friday, September 20th, THE MARRIAGE PACT is the free book for you and your Kindle or Kindle-app friendly devices (phones, iPad, etc.).

The book has been newly revised for a smoother, more streamlined read, but all the funny, sweet and crazy-making moments have been left intact. Please visit http://www.amazon.com/The-Marriage-Pact-ebook/dp/B0055LH79Q/ to download THE MARRIAGE PACT for free this week.

Those of you who have already read TMP and the sequel REGRETS ONLY should know, too, that the third and final book of the series, BAGGAGE CHECK, will be coming out on November 20, 2013. So this is a great time to re-read the original book or share it with friends! It’s also the last time I will be doing a free promotion for a while, since I am taking the book out of the KDP select program so that I can make the whole series available on Nook, Smashwords, and other platforms.

In other words, get ‘em while they’re hot! Feel free to test out my spiffy new share buttons at the bottom of this post. Come on, you’ve been trying to figure out what to put on Twitter anyway.

As always, thanks for sharing, commenting, reading, reviewing, and just generally being you. See you soon!

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Cover Reveal: BAGGAGE CHECK

First of all, I want to say a BIG thank you to everyone for your support of the blog tour for The Marriage Pact, and for entering the giveaway. You can see the wrap-up of the blog tour at the RABT site. You can also still enter the giveaway for cute coffee mugs, an Amazon card or Starbucks card through midnight EST tonight (Sept. 4th 2013). If you missed it, don’t worry, I’ll be taking Regrets Only on tour at the end of the month and you’ll get another chance.

Now on to other business: La la la! It’s here!

My wonderful designer Marla Kaplan has outdone herself this time, and here is the wonderfully simple and beautiful cover for BAGGAGE CHECK (coming November 20, 2013). Won’t this look lovely on your bookshelf (Kindle or actual)?

Coming November 2013!

I love it! Hope you do, too.

Meanwhile, I am scurrying to finish the first round of major revisions on the stuff that goes inside that beautiful cover. It will soon be in the hot little hands of my amazing team of Beta readers. They wade through all the awkwardly-worded, grammatically incorrect and chronologically inconsistent stuff so you don’t have to. Everyone say, “thanks, Beta readers!”

Then it’s on to several more meticulous rounds of edits, and finally to my fabulous proofreader for polishing and corrections. After that it will be on its way to you just in time for your post-Thanksgiving dinner relaxation. Woo-hoo!

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THE MARRIAGE PACT Blog Tour and Super-Caffeinated Giveaway!!

Alright, lovies, here it is… I’m officially going on tour! (Well, virtually, anyway).

For the next two weeks, I’ll be blog-hopping with THE MARRIAGE PACT. Come with me, won’t you? This is a great chance to “meet” other readers and maybe find some bloggers whose reviews you would like to follow (and other books to read, too). You can also make comments on the reviews and posts about THE MARRIAGE PACT and find out what other readers think. And of course I’m going to make it worth your while with a giveaway!

Scroll down to access the Giveaway widget (it will also be on my Facebook page, you can use it either place) – and every time you tweet, like or comment between now and the end of the tour, you’ll get entered to win a super-cute coffee mug. With this mug, you can announce to the world your love of staying up all night… reading, of course! I’m giving away a few of them, so your chances will be pretty good.

Here is the link to the official tour schedule (I understand it is subject to change, so I will try to keep you posted here as well). Stop in! Comment, like, share, win, and drink victory coffee or tea!

Current Scheduled Tour Stops:

August 24 - Reading Addiction Blog Tours - Meet and Greet [image error]
August  25 – Pink Fluffy Hearts – Review
August  26 - Rose & Beps – Excerpt
August  27 - Inside BJ’s Head – Review
August  28 - Alway’s Jo Art – Guest Post
August  29 - Lauries Thoughts and Reviews - Interview
August  30 - Book Suburbia – Excerpt
August 31 – Reading Past My Bedtime – Guest Post
September 1 – Faerie Tale Books – Review
September 1 – Lets Get Booked - Review
September 2 – What’s On The Bookshelf – Guest Post
September 3* - The Book Faery Reviews – Review
September 3* – Up all Night Reviews - Excerpt
September 4 -  RABT Reviews - Review

*This is my 7-year wedding anniversary, so how about adding a shout-out for the always patient and supportive hubs for being such a trooper?

And don’t worry, I’ll be touring with REGRETS ONLY in a few weeks as well. I want everyone buzzed and ready for the release of BAGGAGE CHECK in November!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Renaming the Seven Dwarves

In the car this weekend, my family and I were discussing some very important topics, led by my four-year-old, who has a new-found interest in princesses, superheroes, pirates and fairy tales. He’s increasingly interested in the characters of these tales – and where he does not know the details, he fills in with his imagination. He has never seen any shows or movies with Batman or Superman, for example, but he can talk about them for hours. As someone passionate about stories and the characters that inhabit them, I love that he’s reached this stage of life and hope he never outgrows it.

Dopey – photo credit Disney

As part of this conversation, hubs and I were trying to recall (without aid) all of the Disney princesses – can you do it? I got ten out of eleven — and the Seven Dwarfs from Snow White.  Poor Dopey, I always seem to forget him.

When we finally broke down and referred to the internet, we learned some fascinating Dwarf Trivia. Before the Disney Film, the dwarfs had different names, given to them by a 1912 playwright. And in the original Grimm fairy tale, they had no names at all! Do you realize that means you or I have just as much right as Walt Disney did to name the dwarfs? Well, my four-year old did just that, without being prompted. He just started reciting names from the backseat, which at first I thought were just random and silly, but he actually kept track and repeated them until he sold me on them.

I may be a bit biased, but I think Monkey’s dwarf names are Tolkien-esque and pretty damn great. Here they are:

Magus
Biggun
Gimmi
Zooma
Voomie
Daguk
Gommick

Magus is the leader, Monkey says. Zooma and Voomie are the fast ones, obviously. I love that, other than Magus, he seems to have created them in pairs.

Here are the names from the 1912 play:

Blick
Flick
Glick
Snick
Plick
Whick
Quee

And here are the Disney Seven, in case you’ve forgotten a dwarf or two.

Bashful
Doc
Dopey
Grumpy
Happy
Sleepy
Sneezy

You can also find a comprehensive listing of various iterations of the dwarfs’ names . Apparently my child is not the only one who felt they could use some creative renaming.

I posted this because — well, okay, yes, sometimes I can’t resist sharing cute stuff my kid says — but also because I think it speaks to the role of character in a story. Even secondary characters or those who function as a group are more interesting and realistic when they have their own identities. In the original tale wherein they are not named, the dwarfs are interchangeable. They function only as a group, and only to serve the real star of the story, Snow White. But in the Disney version (and the version in my head being created around Monkey’s names), those little guys practically steal the show.

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