Nicole Winters's Blog, page 3
October 29, 2015
THE JOCK AND THE FAT CHICK: Wins cover award contest
The Romance Writers Association’s Yellow Rose Chapter, located in Texas, awarded The Jock and the Fat Chick with their First Place Cover Design Award. Congratulations goes to the designers at HarperCollins for making such a great cover!
October 18, 2015
Guest Interview at: alockwoodbooks.com
Audrey is the author of YA fantasy books, including a trailer teaser to her latest works:
The Never Silent – A 17-year-old con artist from 1840s Manhattan impersonates
his best friend to board an old sailing ship in order to find his friend’s killer.
Audrey interviewed me for my book, THE JOCK AND THE FAT CHICK: HERE
It’s going to be a two part series where she’ll also be interviewing author and educator, Kari-Lynn Winters who will be answering body positivity questions send in from Audrey’s readers.
October 16, 2015
THE JOCK AND THE FAT CHICK: Where did the story idea come from?
THE JOCK AND THE FAT CHICK: Where did the story idea come from?
I once had a discussion with a friend whereupon discovering he couldn’t cook, I asked, “Come on, not at all? Didn’t you ever watch your mom in the kitchen?”
His somber response shocked me. He said, “In my household, dinner consisted of two things: a can opener and a microwave.”
This hit me pretty viscerally. Days later, I was still thinking about it. Imagine, living off nuked canned food? How sad; as a child, he never had the chance to discover or create a relationship with living growing fruits and vegetables in their unprocessed form, but instead ate things like canned pasta, tinned meats, fruits in syrup, and vegetables in brine.
So it got me thinking: what if I had a YA character whose mom was like that? Perhaps it was a single income, single parent household and she worked long hours (night shift) to support her family so there was no time to learn how to cook? Okay, now how can I up the stakes?
What if my hero, Kevin – I’ll make him a talented athlete – thought he was eating better than his mom’s cooking, but in reality, it wasn’t much better? So what would be worse? Okay, what if all he ate every day (meals and snacks) were energy bars, powdered energy drinks, and energy gels (all with artificial imitation flavours)? Themes were developing quickly and I knew I had something here. I know people whose diets consist of a lot of powdered protein. Hell, I’ve tried dehydrated/crusty or chalky/chewy protein bars and drinks that left a strange coating in my mouth. They’re gross. This was also when I discovered something called Soylent, a greyish-beige drink known to be consumed by video gamers, which apparently meets all the nutritional requirements for an adult. I’ve never tried it and I don’t wish to.
So how do I make the scenario I imagined better and worse? That’s when the opening chapter came to me: Kevin fails a gym class food diary assignment and to keep his grades up, so he can score a hockey scholarship, Coach makes him take the cooking component in Domestic Tech for extra credit.
The horror! He has to take a cooking class! If his friends knew about this, they’d tease him badly. So now Kevin’s got a secret.
At the same time I was thinking about this idea, I’d been watching and reading stories that happened to have overweight girls in them and they all seemed similar: depressed, bullied or the bully, comic relief, or abused. Where was the story about a confident girl who didn’t think she needed to lose weight in order to feel good about herself?
Then I wondered, what if Kevin’s got a second secret he’s keeping from his friends:
He likes big breasts, hips and thighs in a society that only reveres big breasts. Everywhere we look, Hollywood, corporations, books, music, fashion, etc., play a massive part in shaping society’s mindset. It’s a barrage of messages, particularly to young people, telling them what to think, act and feel. You won’t be cool unless you use a particular product or wear a certain piece of clothing (sold in X store with limited sizes), or look a certain way. And Hollywood? I was wondering the other day what would have happened in the romantic teen comedy SHE’S ALL THAT if the geeky (so called) “unattractive” artist Laney remained who she was and didn’t get the cliché makeover and it was Zach who had to change, and it ended with them as a couple, but Laney was exactly how she appeared in Act I.
At times, Kevin has a hard time expressing his feelings, finding the right words or trying to process what he’s experiencing, but that’s part of who he is and his quest to understand himself. Sure, it would have been more fun to have him spout poetry like other guys in YA romances, but that would ring false.
Falling in love is new to him and knowing that Claire is unacceptable to his peers places his world on shaky ground. If Kevin were an adult with a wealth of experience, I’m sure the novel would go something like this: Shut your face, I like her, I don’t care what you think. The End. But it’s not.
Writing the scenes with Kevin and Claire were a lot of fun. I really dug their energy and positivity. I have no clue if I’ll ever write another romance, but I’m glad this one happened and I hope I get to experience this much joy in the future.
Cheers,
Nicole
October 15, 2015
October 14, 2015
Guest Interview at stephengeigenmiller.wordpress.com
Stephen Geigen-Miller is a writer of comics (like Cold Iron Badge and Xeno’s Arrow) in addition to science fiction and fantasy prose. His website features breaking in interview Q&A’s with amazing authors such as: John Scalzi, Charlene Challenger, Claire Humphrey, Gemma Files, Leah Bobet, Heather Jackson, and more. He asks about their experiences breaking in as writers — how they did it, what it felt like to get there, and how it differed from what they were expecting.
Thanks for interviewing me, Stephen, I’m honoured to be included with such esteemed company!
–Nicole
October 13, 2015
THE JOCK AND THE FAT CHICK: It’s officially launched and there’s a lot of people I’d like to thank
Today my book, The Jock and the Fat Chick, officially launches and I wanted to take the time to thank some special friends who’ve helped me along the way. It was two years ago when the idea for this story came to me and from that point until now, there’s a list of people I’d like to acknowledge for their advice, contribution and feedback.
I wouldn’t be where I am today without you.
My second (American) family: Wildacres Writing Retreat
My second (Canadian) families: CANSCAIP, TorKidLit and Romance Writers Association – Toronto Chapter
Nachos and Narratives writers group (cool name, huh?) Stephen Geigen-Miller, Claire Humphrey, Melanie Fishbane, and Heather Jackson
Talented photographer friends Kim Yanick and Lucy Camputaro who took photos for my site
Chris at CitrusMedia for making my website and book promo cards look good
All my friends and family
All the folks on Facebook I’ve met on my travels, along with fellow writers on the Twitterverse
All the chefs, food bloggers, and romance and YA diversity writers
My superb agent, Marlene Stringer
My wonderful Editor at HarperCollins, Catherine Wallace
My beta readers & feedback fiends: Naomi Gurarie, Michael McMaster, Lori, Shade, Ib, and Trent.
Last, but certainly not least, thank you to one of my dearest friends, Stephen Geigen-Miller, whose kind and encouraging words got me through draft, after draft, after draft. You’ve helped me far more than you’ll ever know. Thanks, buddy.
October 9, 2015
Guest Interview at yabuccaneers.com
What a fun writing website!
Check out these awesome pictures of their contributing crew:
YA Buccaneers offers lots of articles, giveaways and other fun stuff like Walk the Plank – Flash Fiction Challenge and their current Fall Writing Bootcamp, containing a very supportive community of writers.
Somehow I managed to avoid walking the plank and ending up in Davy Jones’s Locker; my guest interview is here.
— Cheers, (or rather, “Skull!”) Nicole
October 7, 2015
Guest Post at alexbledsoe.com: Writing for teens
I was thrilled to guest post on Alex Bledsoe’s website. He’s a talented author of multiple books, including the Eddie LaCrosse novels (The Sword-Edged Blonde, Burn Me Deadly, Dark Jenny, Wake of the Bloody Angel and He Drank, and Saw the Spider), the novels of the Memphis vampires (Blood Groove and The Girls with Games of Blood) and the Tufa novels (The Hum and the Shiver, Wisp of a Thing and the forthcoming Long Black Curl).
He updates regularly, makes himself available for book club Skype talks, has book trailers, a newsletter, is on Facebook and there’s even a cool Swag Shop where you can download free songs and drink your next cup of coffee from an official Catamount Corner coffee mug.
I wrote a post called Writing for Teens. Click here.
–Cheers, Nicole
October 5, 2015
Guest Post at writersinthestormblog.com: How I kicked research in the butt
I just had a terrific opportunity to guest post at Writers in the Storm. It’s a terrific site that focuses on writers who weather the storm within (self doubt, rejection, deadlines) and from without (the paradigm shift in the publishing industry).
Founding members, Laura Drake, Jenny Hansen, Orly Konig Lopez and Fae Rowen, launched their blog in 2010 and consistently bring high quality content to their readers. Their site has even won several awards from Writer’s Digest for having one of the best websites for writers and I can see why.
My post was on how I kicked research in the butt.
You can read it HERE.
Click here to visit their Facebook Page
Twitter
Laura Drake – @PBRWriter
Jenny Hansen – @JennyHansenCA
Orly Konig-Lopez – @OrlyKonigLopez
Fae Rowen – @FaeRowen
Thanks, ladies! It was a lot of fun!
October 2, 2015
THE JOCK AND THE FAT CHICK: Pre-launch sale!
Check out these sweet-sweet deals from EpicReads, especially this one $1.99
(nudge, nudge, wink, wink.)
About the Book
No one ever said high school was easy. In this hilarious and heartwarming debut, one high school senior has to ask himself how much he’s willing to give up in order to fit in.
Kevin seems to have it all: he’s popular, good looking, and on his way to scoring a college hockey scholarship. However, he’s keeping two big secrets. The first is that he failed an assignment and is now forced to take the most embarrassing course ever–domestic tech. The second is that he is falling for his domestic tech classmate, Claire.
As far as Kevin is concerned, Claire does have it all: she’s funny, smart, beautiful, and confident. But she’s off-limits. Because Kevin knows what happens when someone in his group dares to date a girl who isn’t a cheerleader, and there’s no way he is going to put himself—or Claire—through that.
But steering clear of the girl of his dreams is a lot harder than Kevin thought…especially when a cooking project they are paired together for provides the perfect opportunity for things to heat up between them outside the classroom….
#YALIit #YARomance #hotYARomance #booksforboys #YAlitchat #bodypositive #fatacceptance #oppositesattract #SweetRomance
Links to find the book online
HarperCollins
Amazon
iBooks
Barnes and Nobel
Chapters
Kobo
Google Play
