Madhuri Pavamani's Blog, page 49
December 8, 2013
Top Ten YA Favorites
I’m in a list kind of mood this weekend, so here’s my latest – my top ten favorite Young Adult novels (in no particular order):
1. The Harry Potter series
2. The Outsiders
3. The Infernal Devices trilogy
4. The Book Thief
5. The Usual Rules
6. Daughter of Smoke and Bone series
7. The Lord of the Rings
8. The Fault in Our Stars
9. The Hunger Games trilogy
10. A Separate Peace
Agree? Disagree? What would you add? Remove? Add your list to the comments, post them to our Facebook page or Tweet them and let’s compare notes.
Are you in #TheSanctum?
Are You in #TheSanctum?
Are you in #TheSanctum? madhuriblaylock.wordpress.com Updates, giveaways, excerpts, swag, all things #TheSanctum R/T—
Madhuri Blaylock (@MadhuriBlaylock) December 09, 2013
I spent a lot of time writing BOOK TWO yesterday, but I also spent quite a bit of energy promoting BOOK ONE, thinking about ways to promote BOOK ONE and then thinking about more ways to promote BOOK ONE.
And around two in the morning, typing feverishly away at my Mac, you know what I realized? The whole promotional aspect of this endeavor pretty much sucks.
I feel as if I am constantly harassing family and friends, I wonder if anyone really wants to read anything I have to say, and am beginning to think my Twitter campaign will never really happen. I find myself often wishing I knew someone famous who could just say the right words about BOOK ONE and I would have a million fans overnight.
Alas, that’s not going to happen since last time I checked, this girl does not have any famous friends. I’m going to have to do this thing all on my own.
So my question for you is: ARE YOU IN #TheSanctum?
If you like deadly secrets, cold-blooded killers, hybrid demons, heavenly warriors and a Southern-fried, Chanel-wearing vampire thrown into the mix, then #TheSanctum will suit you just fine.
All you’ve got to do is post to Facebook or Tweet, post comments on my blog or comment on your blog. A quick “I’M IN #TheSanctum, ARE YOU?” and you’re in, privy to all things The Sanctum, from blog tours, interviews and giveaways to blog posts, updates, excerpts, swag and anything else I can conjure.
It’s an easy way to reach me – #TheSanctum – and tell me what you like about the books, discuss the characters, air your complaints or just share your favorite hip-hop lyric. Anything you want, just use #TheSanctum and you’re good.
So…what are you waiting for?
ARE YOU IN #TheSanctum?
“Hit me!” Jay-Z
December 7, 2013
Ten Randoms
10 Random Facts about Me:
1. Tequila is my poison before 5 pm
2. Christy Turlington is my girl…forever and always
3. I have a blood sister, a real sister and a sister from another mother
4. Growing up, I had a dog named Porky, a guinea pig named Fran, a hamster named Omar, a rabbit named Kukumundo and a horse named Mrs. Murphy; post-college, I had a pit bull named Bonita (after Applebaum, of course) and a rottweiler named Suge (not after Knight, thank you very much); I just got a fish and named him Carmelo Anthony
5. I have 6 tattoos and two more in the works
6. I’m from a small town called Snellville, Georgia, where “everybody is somebody”
7. I spent a summer studying at the Sorbonne
8. I unabashedly love Coach Taylor, so much so that he’s quoted in BOOK ONE: THE GIRL
9. In my humble opinion, there is no place on earth quite like New Orleans
10. Lisa Bonet made me love my brown skin
Week in Review
We tweeted
"What does it mean when kids don't see themselves on, or in, the books intended for them?" thewire.com/entertainment/…—
Madhuri Blaylock (@MadhuriBlaylock) December 07, 2013
★★★★★ "Fantastic novel I just loved every page of the story!" BOOK ONE: THE GIRL amazon.com/Book-One-The-G… #sanctumtrilogy—
Madhuri Blaylock (@MadhuriBlaylock) December 07, 2013
How do the Yanks give a Red Sox player more $ than their own?! Ellsbury chases Cano out of town. Yanks r trying my loyalty.—
Madhuri Blaylock (@MadhuriBlaylock) December 07, 2013
Everyone in the house is asleep but me. I'm wide awake, typing away at BOOK TWO: THE BOY #amwriting #sanctumtrilogy #writers—
Madhuri Blaylock (@MadhuriBlaylock) December 07, 2013
We must self-publish thebookdesigner.com/2013/12/why-wr… #indieauthors #ebook—
Madhuri Blaylock (@MadhuriBlaylock) December 06, 2013
And of course, we wrote. Unfortunately, a lot of what I wrote this week wound up being deleted. But hey, that happens. You delete one chapter, resulting in even better work afterwards. It’s cleansing, gets the creative juices flowing, keeps you on your toes.
Oh, and we ate a lot of Cap’n Crunch.
HOLLA!!
December 5, 2013
Interview and Giveaway With Madhuri Blaylock
Hey everyone, so you might've seen my review of Madhuri Blaylock's THE GIRL a few days ago. Recently, I got the chance to ask her a few questions about her book, what the publishing process has been like for her and what she enjoys most about writing. You can read the synopsis below and be sure to check out Madhuri Blaylock on Goodreads…
Eli Madison of RealityLapse was nice enough to interview me last week about writing THE GIRL, my thoughts on publishing and any sneak peaks for my next book in The Sanctum trilogy.
December 3, 2013
Pet Peeves
This is another way of saying, if you don’t know these simple rules, puh-leeeez stop posting on Facebook. You’re making my eyes bleed.
Oh, and this too:
December 2, 2013
Best. Video. Ever.
Those of you who know me also know that Jay and I recently broke up. Ask the 1996 version of myself if this would ever happen, even the 2012 version of myself, and I would tell you breaking up with Jay was an absolute impossibility. However, stranger things have happened and these days, Jay and I just aren’t seeing eye-to-eye.
That doesn’t mean I don’t like going through old love letters from him, my favorite being his video for “99 Problems.”
You know this video, right? If you don’t, I am so sorry because hands down, this is the best music video ever. Yes, I just wrote that. And I’ll write it again: BEST. VIDEO. EVER. Don’t even bother arguing this with me.
99 Problems is pure perfection, one thousand percent Brooklyn and EVERY SINGLE SHOT brings the joy. I can watch it again and again, it’s that good.
Watch for yourself if you don’t believe me.
I mean, seriously, is there anything better than Jay’s jab at the end?
December 1, 2013
Interview with RealityLapse
Book Two: The Girl has been reviewed (first official review!) by Eli Madison of the blog RealityLapse and will be accompanied by an interview with yours truly, soon to be published.
Keep your eyes peeled for updates. Everything should be posted in the next few days.
In the meanwhile, if you want to check out Eli’s blog, here’s a link. Go for it.
http://rea1itylapse.wordpress.com
November 29, 2013
Holiday Postscript (aka Snippet III)
Just got back into town late this afternoon after spending Thanksgiving at my folks’ place in Georgia. My cousin and her husband from Plano, Texas came into town with their two kids and my other cousin, her husband and two kids also crashed at the house. Add my wild man to the crew and you’ve got all kinds of madness.
The best part was that the kids basically took care of themselves the whole time, and when they needed ANYTHING, my parents were so psyched to have a house full of screaming kids again after all these years, that they handled everything, giving us overworked, sleep-deprived parents a nice break. Of course, we used the opportunity to ingest vast quantities of tequila and moonshine.
Oh yeah, that’s how we get down.
So now I’m back to reality and need to blog but am kind of wrapped up in my Book Two writing and if I’m being really honest here, am just really fucking tired. Which, of course, means I’m going to cheat and publish a snippet from Book Two.
Here you go:
Ava sat cross-legged in bed with her blade resting in her lap, watching every move Carter made as he prepared to leave. Good riddance, she thought to herself, amazed it took this long for them to reach this point of no return, relieved it finally happened.
“Don’t come back to this room,” Ava spoke to Carter’s back as he dressed, “ever again.”
He remained silent.
“And once you get settled in one of the other wings in this building or wherever it is you plan to live, you might want to think about getting back to your share of the leadership of this Academy. I cannot constantly be expected to handle everything.”
“You don’t handle everything, Ava,” he turned back to her and replied flatly.
“Oh, but I do, Carter,” she smiled as if they were the closest of lovers, “you know it as well as I. Your father implored us to get married because he knew he couldn’t entrust the family power to you alone, his weak-minded, easily-tempted, malicious, only son. And your dearly departed mother, that monster of a woman, always understood I was a necessity to the family well-being, for you do nothing properly and have absolutely no foresight. The bottom line is everyone knows who is leading this family and unless you start holding your own and doing as I see fit, you will lose the little authority you have left.
“So you take that information with you, love, wherever you are headed tonight and you think on it, long and hard. And you keep telling yourself that Maxwell botched New York if that makes it easier to sleep at night, but we both know that is hardly the truth. Your son has eclipsed you, Carter, in all ways as a leader of this family. I know it, you know it and The Sanctum knows it. I can either act on that and publicly strip you of everything or I can allow you to continue your figurehead ways. The decision is all yours.”
November 25, 2013
The Year of the Appliance
Apparently the appliances in my home all got together last year and agreed that, one-by-one, they would conk out in 2013.
The first casualty was my dryer. This past January, my babysitter called and said the dryer wasn’t putting out any heat; I told her to call my handyman, Gabriel, and have him take a look. He checked it out, explained the problem and also explained that because the part needing repair is so expensive, I would be better off simply buying a new one. I trust Gabriel one hundred percent, so $500 later we had a new dryer.
And not the fancy, bubble-looking one that Henry wants, mostly because I can’t see spending all that money on something that sits on my basement, away from prying eyes, but rather a simple, workhorse of a machine that I’m hoping will last a bit longer than its predecessor.
Next up on the dead-appliances list was my air conditioner. This passing particularly annoyed me because it was so premature. I only bought the thing four years ago so come on, really??! This is how you’re going to do me? Add on the fact that it’s a bitch to install and now I’m super irked. The thing sits in a box carved out of my kitchen wall and requires a handyman and an assistant to install. So there I was, calling Gabriel again.
[By the way, if you're going to own an old house, with all its charm and quirks, trust when I say, you better have a Gabriel in your life. Otherwise, don't even bother.]
Third in line was the water heater. I didn’t even see this one coming. We’ve only owned the house since 2006, so I figured we had a couple of more years on the heater. Again, the babysitter calls, only this time to say she went into the basement to do the laundry and it’s flooded.
These are words no homeowner wants to hear, especially a weary one like myself.
She tells me the water is coming from the water heater and she will put a bowl underneath to catch the spill. I tell her to call Gabriel and then proceed to pack up and head home from the office to assess the damage. I’m hoping it’s an easy fix.
I am such a fool.
On my walk home, Gabriel calls to tell me I need a new water heater and his friend, a licensed plumber, can purchase and install it for me that night. “Sure thing,” I say as I tally up my out-of-pocket costs and cringe. I then spend the next three hours cleaning my flooded basement.
Which leads me to the clincher. At 5:30 this morning I was woken by an enormous crash in my house. I mean, this thing was so loud, I literally shot out of bed, thinking something had exploded downstairs. After rubbing the sleep from my eyes and gathering my bearings, I called downstairs to my stepdaughter, who was getting ready for work, and learned that the large, condiment-laden, absolutely-necessary, heavy French door had fallen off the fridge.
Wha? Huh?
Oh, no you didn’t.
Un-freaking-believable.
I walked downstairs and sure enough, there she was and there it was, sprawled on the floor, completely unattached from the rest of the fridge and in fact, cracked on the bottom, thus ensuring it could not be reattached, lest I try to get handy. At this point, suffering from a serious case of appliance-fatigue, I simply unloaded everything from the door, reloaded it somewhere else or tossed it in the trash, propped the door back on its hinge and bought a new fridge. It’s being delivered tomorrow.
2013 will be remembered as the year the appliances won.
Post-script:
For those of you wondering why Henry never messes with this stuff, it’s because these are the things that fall under that annoying phrase that goes something like this: You wanted an old house, you deal. And I can’t even say anything because he’s right: we had an ultra-modern, huge loft and I wanted the old house. So now, here I am. Me, my house and my freaking appliances.
“I like the way you die, boy.” – Django
