Rose Cooper's Blog, page 2

I Text Dead People Countdown

Pssst....guess what? The countdown has officially begun for the release of I Text Dead People!  I thought this day would never get here!



I Text Dead People, the first book in the new Dead Serious series, will be out June 9th. That's less than a month, people!  
If you're in the area, come to the launch party! And yes, there WILL be cake. 
The book release launch info:June 9th 2015 @7pmBirdcage Barnes & Noble
If you're not in the area, you can still pick up a copy at any B&N or purchase online. Oh, and be sure to stop by this blog for some fun and giveaways on June 9th!
I TEXT DEAD PEOPLE is still available for pre-order...and for those of you who already have-THANK YOU! 

SKETCHY CHICS GIVEAWAY

Previously known as Doodle Divas, these girls have transformed into the Sketchy Chics. What better way to kick off this new brand than with a giveaway? How about two?  
Prize #1: Sketchy Chics Party PackEverything that defines a Sketchy Chic. Bling, bacon, whimsy, bright & bold! Your pack will include Sketchy Chics products  and a ton of fun surprises!

Prize #2:  Custom Sketchy Chic on Canvas You decide what your sketchy should look like and this one of a kind girl will be painted on canvas and sent to you. 
Contest ends March 20th! Use rafflecopter below to enter and earn multiple points every day!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

How I Took Down A Monstrous Spider (by myself)

Warning: may contain graphic spidery material not suitable for the squeamish. 
Early this morning...so early I had that squinty face going on where everything is not quite yet  in focus yet...I had a long, difficult battle with a gigantic, menacing spider (gulp).

Yeah, that woke up real quick. There he sat. On my bathroom wall. Probably planning and plotting his next move. Do you see this thing? Can you tell how this practically screams for a freak out?

So I did what any spider-fearing girl would do...I moved very stealthy across my bathroom floor (don't want to alert this monster with an sudden moves) and ever so casually grabbed my nearest hair product. 
I doused that spider with my can of hairspray.  He ran. I sprayed. He ran faster. I sprayed until I almost passed out from the fumes. 
Then he dropped to the floor and crumpled into a tiny, lifeless black ball. Ha! Take that you sneaky little sucker!
But no. The moment I claim victory is the moment that heathen rises from the dead, unrolls himself and crawls across my floor like he owns the place. 
Yes, he was coming back for more. So of course I use the remaining half can of hair spray. 


Nope...didn't even slow his roll. 
Time to take out the big guns. And by big guns, I mean extra hold, volumnizing mousse. 

Spider down, spider dow--wait, is he seriously crawling out of his foamy grave? More mousse, more mousse!

So with little more mousse....guess who won this war...BAM!!
How would you describe your spider combat skills?

LITTLE DEAD RIDING HOOD

I am so excited to be a part of the Little Dead Riding Hood blog tour! Mother-Daughter writing team, Amie & Bethanie Borst have written another amazing book in their Scarily Ever Laughter series. 


You know things are going to suck when you’re the new kid. But when you’re the new kid and a vampire… well, it bites!
  Unlike most kids, Scarlet Small’s problems go far beyond just trying to fit in. She would settle for a normal life, but being twelve years old for an entire century is a real pain in the neck. Plus, her appetite for security guards, house pets and bloody toms (tomato juice) is out of control. So in order to keep their vampire-secret, her parents, Mort and Drac, resort to moving for the hundredth time, despite Scarlet being dead-set against it. Things couldn’t be worse at her new school, either. Not only does she have a strange skeleton-girl as a classmate, but a smelly werewolf is intent on revealing her secret. When she meets Granny—who fills her with cookies, goodies, and treats, and seems to understand her more than anyone—she’s sure things will be different. But with a fork-stabbing incident, a cherry pie massacre, and a town full of crazy people, Scarlet’s O-positive she’ll never live to see another undead day.   Not even her Vampire Rule Book can save her from the mess she’s in. Why can’t she ever just follow the rules?
Add Little Dead Riding Hood to your Goodreads to-read list here.  Purchase LDRH at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or your favorite Indie bookstore!

***
Q: Tell us a bit about your MC, Scarlet.Amie: Scarlet is a FANGtastic main character. She's funny, a little awkward, hot tempered, and a little self-deprecating. Oh, and she's a vampire.Q: Does she have any fears?Amie: Fears? Since when do vampires have fears? Only when you're talking about werewolves, and the dark, and being alone in the woods.Q: So being a vampire, she must love blood. It's gotta be her favorite meal.Amie: Yes and no. Only animal blood. She's been banned her entire afterlife from ever drinking human blood again. She mostly survives on Bloody Toms (that's tomato juice) and Cheetoes (made with real cheetas!)Q: Any last things you'd like to tell us?Amie: Scarlet has issues with sweets. It's not pretty. About us: Amiee Borst is a PAL member of SCBWI. She believes in Unicorns, uses glitter whenever the opportunity arises, accessories in pink and eats too much chocolate. 
Bethanie Borst is a spunky 14 year old who loves archery, long bike rides and studying edible plant-life. She was only 9 when she came up with the idea for Cinderskella!

Little Dead Riding Hood is their second book in the Scarily Ever Laughter series. Their first book, Cinderskella, released in October 2013.

You can find them on facebook. Amie can be found on twitter, pinterest, and her blog. 

***
They are having two great giveaways as part of their  blog tour! The first is for a copy of LITTLE DEAD RIDING HOOD! So be sure to enter the giveaway by following the steps on the rafflecopter form below.

a Rafflecopter giveawayTHEN - as soon as you finish that, be sure to stop by Amie's Blog for a second contest! She's having a SCAVENGER HUNT that you won't want to miss with lots of extra great prizes! All you have to do is make sure you enter the contest below first then hopping over to her blog and filling out the rafflecopter form there! Super easy! Here's the rafflecopter form for my blog just in case you missed it!   a Rafflecopter giveaway


See you soon!

I TEXT DEAD PEOPLE COVER REVEAL

Super excited to finally show off my new book cover for I Text Dead People! This is the first book in the new Dead Serious series by Random House.


About the book: You can’t block the dead. 
Annabel Craven hopes she’ll fit in—maybe even be popular—at the Academy. She’s worried she’ll stay friendless and phoneless (it’s true). But when she finds a mysterious phone in the woods near the cemetery, one of her problems is solved . . . and another one is just beginning. 

Someone won’t stop texting her. And that someone seems . . . dead. How is Annabel supposed to make friends when her phone keeps blowing up with messages from the afterlife? And what will happen if she doesn't text back?
And here's the back cover...


I already got my ARCS and I'm so in love with it! This is a story I've wanted to write nearly forever and it's gone through soooo many changes to become what it is now. 
About ten years ago it was a dark YA titled, Confessions of a Morticians Daughter. After putting that back on the shelf for a few years, it was a lighter version but still YA, called Deadies Don't Gossip. But then my Blogtastic Novel series took over and after finding my true voice in MG, I Text Dead People was born. And yes, I do realize now how inappropriate the second title was because Deadies do gossip. And they love every minute of it! 
I TEXT DEAD PEOPLE will be released June 9, 2015. But don't worry, you can totally pre-order it now :)
Pre-Order Hardcover  
Pre-Order Kindle
P.S. Keep those receipts if you do because details on a  pre-order giveaway coming soon!

Lazy Daisy

I just got a puppy...my first puppy ever (I've always been more of a cat person) and adopted Daisy from the SPCA. She's nine months old, and already a handful. 
For instance, I took her on a walk....

Whoa! Calm down girl. So I finally got her to walk again, but then she was like....

Don't over do it, Daisy. So in a firm voice I told her "C'mon shmoopy" and urged her on her back up and walking.
By this point we had been out for 20 min and had walked a total of half a block. I know what you're thinking...slow down, don't over do it!
No problem. Because in that next instance Daisy spotted a squirrel, got so excited and was all...

BAM! Excitement sucked the energy right out of her little body. So much, that I could not get her to stand up and walk. 
So what's a girl to do? This walk was apparently over so I scooped Daisy up and carried her home. 
As soon as we got home, she did this incredible act of excitement...

She had a hard day...can you blame her?

Building Your Author Platform

On August 2nd I will be speaking at the Placerville Library in Placerville, CA. I love speaking with other writers so I'm really excited to be a part of this. If you're a writer in the area...join us!

What questions do you have about building an author platform? 

When life gives you lemons...

Enter to win an awesome "when life gives you lemons" prize pack that includes a signed copy of one of my books! Just leave a comment and say what you do when life hands you lemons. 
Did life literally hand you a lemon today? Get five extra entries in the giveaway! Just comment where you were when you were given your lemon. Be sure to give your email address so you can be contacted if you win!
Want to be updated when our video is released or have a funny suggestion that you'd like to see taped?  Click the link below! 
http://rcoopauthor.wix.com/lemons

EMS 5th Period: Zylock and the Bionic Werewolves

Character and story collaboration by the creative minds of
 Enterprise Middle School's 2nd Period art class. Read about the activity HERE!


As the story goes, when Zylock was born, his parents were forced to protect him and catapulted him
into the skies, away from the danger. Others say they threw him on a rocket and launched him into space. Nobody can be certain which is true. His parents were unavailable for an interview.

Regardless of how it happened, Zylock crash landed on a nearby planet. A planet that was also a nuclear site.  If you were to view this planet from earth, it would look like the moon. It was round with craters and gave off almost as much light as the moon. Other might say it looked like a cookie.

Maybe it was.

Because of the nuclear waste, Zylock didn't look like earth kids. Even some of the other nuclear kids looked different from him. Some had two heads. Some had four arms. Some had none.

Zylock spent his nights nestled tightly inside cocoons, hanging from the family of trees high above the ground. In his cozy cocoon, he was warm. And safe. Safe from the roaming bionic werewolves that hunted nearby.


In the distance, Zylock could hear the hungry cries. He knew what they searched for. What they hunted. He looked down at the box held tightly in his grasp.

A box. Not a mystery box, but an exclamation point box that looked very much like a treasure chest. And inside that box, besides rotten slices of pizza which were a delicacy to the bionic wolves, there was something else. A bigger secret. So secret, in fact, that not even Zylock knew what it was.

He only knew the bionic werewolves wanted it. Needed it. It was important for their survival.

Whatever it was, the smell attracted hundreds upon hundreds of fish from all over the cookie-looking planet. Fish that were vicious (and bit his big toe) and could live for several days washed up on the land without a drop of water. It became such a problem that Zylock could barely walk without stepping in a puddle of fish.

Zylock knew he wanted a better life than this. So one night after the passing of a storm, when the cookie shower turned into a mere drizzle of sprinkles, Zylock took the treasure chest looking box and went off in search of the secret factory. A factory so secret, not even Zylock knew where it was located.

This lack of information made the journey for Zylock extremely challenging, he even lost the box along the way. But finally, he found the secret factory and went on to make Canadian toasters and become a secret millionaire.

And whatever happened to that non-mystery, treasure chest-looking box?
 To this day, it is still lost and if you look hard enough into the sky late at night and see a slightly orange glowing object that may or may not be moving, it could quite possibly be Zylock's missing box.

EMS 4th Period: Chanel from Norway

Character and story collaboration by the creative minds of
 Enterprise Middle School's 3rd Period art class. Read about the activity HERE!  Chanel, a foreign exchange student from Norway, danced under the dizzying disco ball that hung and spun from the skinny branch of the twisted tree. Chanel was exhausted, her arms ached and her legs burned. She wished more than anything she could this dancing.

But she was cursed. Literally. Chanel had to pay for what she did, and she was sentenced to a lifetime of dancing by a Norwegian Witch.

Chanel sighed, remembering how awesome that night was suppose to be. After all, she had been planning a party. Not just any party, but THE party everyone would be talking about. It was her birthday and she had been determined to have the best of everything. The best cake, best decorations, and definitely the best music.

The family Chanel lived with seemed to have everything. Big house, fancy cars, and all the best things money could buy. So while the family was out, Chanel did a little snooping to look for items she could use for her party.

Chanel had tip toed up the winding staircase, searching the first floor of the house. Nothing.

Then the second floor. Still nothing.

When at last she reached the third floor, she opened the creaky door to the attic and that's when she saw it--the most fabulous party decoration. And she had to have it.

Chanel carefully lifted the disco ball, running her fingers over the smooth, reflective glass. Nobody would care, or even notice, it she took this one little thing. And it wasn't exactly stealing. She just planned to borrow it and give it back after the party.

Little did Chanel know, someone was watching her every move. The family she stayed with had a daughter, Shanee, exactly her age. But that was where any similarities between the two ended. Shanee was unhappy all the time. And very, very angry. She had a secret that she held onto, a secret that included Chanel.

Chanel's leg started cramping from the dancing. She wished she could go back to that night and choose differently. She would choose to not take the disco ball. Or have the party.  Because the night of the party, although Shanee wasn't invited, she still showed up. That was when she told Chanel exactly who she was.

"We're Twitches!" Shanee had yelled at her.

Chanel raised an eyebrow. "We're...what?"

"Twin witches!" Shanee stomped her feet like a kid throwing a tantrum. "We were separated at birth, but we are definitely twins."

Chanel laughed in her face. "There is no such thing as witches!"

"Well if I'm not at witch, then I shouldn't be able to curse you," Shanee threatened, as she muttered words under her breath and pointed at the disco ball. And in the blink of an eye, Chanel began dancing.

And she couldn't stop. Her evil twin sister made certain of that. And because Chanel was definitely not a witch, there was no way to break the curse. So everywhere Chanel went, she took the disco ball. She made it look like she was trying to dance wherever she went, and not because she didn't have a choice.

Chanel's leg cramped up even more, as she lost her balance and slammed against the tree. The branches moved with the force and Chanel's legs and arms kept twitching in rhythmic motion.

The disco ball swung side to side on the edge of the branch. It dangled at the very tip, ready to fall at any moment. Coming up with an idea, Chanel threw her body up against the tree again. It was enough to knock the disco ball off the branch and fall to the ground, shattering into a million tiny pieces.

And as simple as that, Chanel stopped dancing. She collapsed from exhaustion and watched with wide eyes as smoke poured from the shattered pieces of the ball. Except...it wasn't smoke. It was Shanee's happiness. It had been taken away from her and locked up inside the ball. Releasing her happiness meant destroying anything evil...including the curse.

Maybe now Chanel could get to know her real sister. As long as she never had to dance or see another disco ball for the rest of her life. Could you really blame her though?

Other characters & stories by Enterprise Middle School: 2nd Period: Bubbles
3rd Period: Marlon Barry Jr.