Third, if you enjoy reviewing for book tours, visit the Partners In
Crime Book Tours page for The Mistaken and email Gina to participate in my tour
in March. I’d love to have you along and
read what you think of my book!
Ratings and reviews are exceptionally beneficial to authors
and the sales of their books, so if you’ve purchased The
Mistaken, I’d love to hear your opinion.
You don’t have to be nice, just honest!
For all my author friends who've rated or reviewed for me, I will return the favor. It's quite the list and I'm a slow reader who's also an author with lots of marketing to do, so please be patient. But I will get there. Promise!
That’s it for 2012. Thank
you all for your support during one of the single most exciting years of my
life! May 2013 bring you all happiness,
good health, and the answer to all your prayers. God bless and…
Giveaway Prize: One (1) Apple® - iPad® 2 with Wi-Fi – 16 GB –
White. No purchase necessary. This contest is void where prohibited by law.
Entrants must follow Rafflecopter instructions. One (1) winner will be picked
via Rafflecopter and will be notified by email within three days of end of
contest. If a winner is unreachable after seven (7) days, or if that winner is
unavailable for prize fulfillment, an alternate winner will be selected. Odds of winning depend on the number of
eligible entries received. Contest entrants agree to abide by the terms of these
Official Rules and by the decisions of the contest commissioners, which are
final on all matters pertaining to the contest. Entrants grant to Sapphire Star
Publishing the right to use and publish their name online. All results posted
are unofficial until winner responds to e-mail notification. Contest ends on
January 2, 2013 at 12:00 a.m. PST.
Second, my pub sister, Nicky
Wells, has bestowed upon me the 2012 Blog of the Year Award!
Do
you know a blog that deserves an award? Do you have special blogs that you love
to read? Which blogs do you bookmark and follow? Would you like to give them an
award this year? Then the ‘Blog of
the Year 2012’ Award is for you!
The
‘rules’ for this award are simple:
·Select the
blog(s) you think deserve the ‘Blog of the Year 2012’ Award
·Write a
blog post and tell us about the blog(s) you have chosen – there’s no minimum or
maximum number of blogs required – and ‘present’ them with their award.
·Please
include a link back to this page and include these ‘rules’ in your post
(please don’t alter the rules or the badges!)
·Let the
blog(s) you have chosen know that you have given them this award and share the
‘rules’ with them
·As a
winner of the award – please add a link back to the blog that presented you
with the award – and then proudly display the award on your blog and sidebar …
and start collecting stars…
Yes – that’s right – there are stars to
collect!
Unlike
other awards which you can only add to your blog once – this award is
different!
When
you begin, you will receive the ‘1 star’ award – and every time you are given
the award by another blog – you can add another star! There are a total of 6 stars to collect, which
means you can check out your favorite blogs – and even if they have already
been given the award by someone else – you can still bestow it on them again
and help them to reach the maximum 6 stars!
As I sit here and write this post, I can’t help but wonder
what the point is. I mean, if I believe
the apocalypse is actually going to happen today, then why go through all the
effort to write something no one is even going to have the chance to read?
That’s right. The
5000 year Mayan calendar has come to an end and we are all doomed to die a
fiery death. Er…WHAT? Who said it has to be fiery? According to Chuck and Shannon:
While
many people think the world really is going to end on Friday, the 21st, most of
them can't agree on HOW. Will it be an alien invasion? Zombies? Collision with
a mighty meteor? The super flu? Solar flares? Oh my, there are so many ways the
world could conceivably end, but what we want to know is how you, yes YOU,
think it will happen.
The rules are simple:
1.
Choose your apocalypse
2.
Sign up on the linky (see Chuck or Shannon’s blog)
3.
Tell us how you prepared for your survival amongst everyone else's demise
4.
Describe your apocalypse and how it's going down
5.
Make sure the badge is displayed on your blog
6.
Visit your fellow survivors and see how their world ended
Other than that, make it whatever you'd like!
Well, I had all kinds of silly ideas run through my head, the most self-indulgent of
which was the earth being sucked into nothingness by the black hole that is my
book. Nyuk, nyuk, just kidding.
Honestly, I’m not really a pessimistic person,
so my gut tends to lead me toward a rosier kind of ending.
Yep, I’m a person of great faith, and while I know the Book
of Revelations talks about earthquakes, plague, pestilence, fire, and all that,
I believe, if the world were to come to an end tomorrow, that God, in His
infinite kindness and love, would allow the world and all the beings He created,
to pass in an instant of blinding light, of pure love and total understanding,
a moment where we are not afraid, when we are surrounded by loved ones who have
passed before and all those we now hold dear.
Sure, it might happen in an explosive nanosecond much like
Creation, but we will be oblivious, totally unaware of any physical violence as
our souls merge together into an army of empathetic consciousness.
I’m on the verge of starting my second book. And by that I mean, literally ready to sit
down at my desk and type the whole thing out.
I’m almost done with my outline, which, in reality, is more like a first
draft, albeit handwritten and sans setting and most dialogue. But, even though I prefer to finish my
outline before I get started, I’m a bit antsy and raring to go.
I think it’s because the story excites me so much. But part of it’s because, even though I’m
seventy-five percent done—and that doesn’t even include the climax, which I’ve already
figured out in my head—I’m just not sure how to get that small remaining percentage
down. It’s only like maybe twenty
percent of the story, yet, even though I know how it ends, I can’t quite see
how to get there from here.
I hope that sitting down and pounding it out from the
beginning will enable this small fraction of the story to emerge and complete
itself. But I’m worried. I’ve never been blocked before, and I’m not
even certain this is actually what blocked looks like. I mean, I sat down last night and handwrote
another chapter. And boy was I
surprised. It was so dark, so gritty, so
violent and emotionally draining, I had to take a step back, it upset me so
much. That can’t be blocked, right?
I’ve been worried about this for a while now, yet every time I
sit down, I manage to progress, to move forward, to write another chapter. And I still have plenty of notes. But still, this veil shrouding my last few
miles concerns me. Hell, it downright
disturbs me. But I guess this is what
writing by the seat of your pants feels like.
Right?
I’ve heard being a pantser is freeing, but I don’t like it
one bit.
What about you? Ever
had your vision so cloudy,
you can’t quite determine the path your story should take?
I’M SO EXCITED! Thursday was the launch of Finding Claire Fletcher, the poignant tale of a young woman who was kidnapped at
the age of fifteen and held captive for ten years. This incredible novel of love, loss, and hope
was written by my very best friend, Lisa
Regan.(Read my
review of FCF here.)
I was lucky enough to have read this book as a critique
partner a couple of years ago, and since then, I’ve read it an additional three
times. That’s how much I love it! I know you’ll love it, too. As a preview, I’d like to give you a bit of
insight into Lisa and her novel so you can see just how wonderful and talented
she really is. So here is an interview I
conducted. Enjoy!
Why the obsession
with missing children?
I think it was from being bombarded as an adolescent by
missing child stories. Jacob Wetterling
and Jaycee Dugard were both abducted within two years of each other and the
news coverage was extensive. Certainly
something I’ve never forgotten. Right
around that time, that TV miniseries I Know My First Name is Steven about
Steven Stayner came out and that had a big impact on me. I was the same age as Wetterling and Dugard
and I think it was a that-could-be-me kind of thing that started the obsession.
You’ve been writing
since you were a child, so what is it about Finding
Claire Fletcher that made you want to seek representation and a publishing
contract?
It was the first thing I wrote that had a discernible
plot! As an adult it was the second
novel that I finished. In my first novel
I was trying to do too much. But FCF was
pretty simple: girl is abducted. Here’s
what happens. Man tries to find
her. FCF seemed much better written than
everything that came before it. I just
had this feeling that after all those years of trying, I had written something
worth reading.
How long was it from
the day you started writing Finding
Claire Fletcher to the day you finally signed your publishing contract, and
was there ever a time you just wanted to give up, tuck Finding Claire Fletcher into a drawer, and move on? If so, why didn’t you?
I started writing it sometime in early 2004 and I signed my
contract on 4/3/12 so it was eight years from first word to contract. If I had a dollar for every time I wanted to
give up, I wouldn’t have to work. Yes,
there were times I wanted to put FCF into a drawer. There were times I felt like I should put it into a drawer and move
on. But Claire’s voice was so compelling
to me that I simply couldn’t. The whole
time I was writing it, I felt like she was standing behind me with her hand on
my shoulder, whispering the words into my ear.
She became like a real person to me, and I felt like I owed it to her to
see her story through. Maybe because she
represents all the children who have lived through an abduction whose stories
most people turn away from.
What is the most
important lesson you learned during this time between writing and publication?
Ask for help. When I
was growing up, I approached so many teachers asking for help or direction with
my writing, and I was consistently blown off.
So by the time I started writing as an adult I had a bit of a chip on my
shoulder. I didn’t want to ask for help
because I was sure no one would give it.
But my college professors were wonderful, and, later, after I started
querying unsuccessfully, I found plenty of other writers willing to help me
(wink, wink, nudge, nudge).
Unfortunately I didn’t have critique partners or beta readers until after I started querying for FCF. I really believe if I had gotten the type of
feedback I got between 2006 and 2010 from CPs and betas before I sent out my
first query, my journey would have been a lot shorter. Plus this is not a journey you want to take
alone. You need other writers to support
and encourage you—only they can understand the unique misery you’ll
experience. Get involved in a writing
community—in person or online and accept their help and support.
Do you think the
subject matter in Finding Claire Fletcher
made it a hard sell, and why?
Absolutely. It’s the
element of sexual assault that makes it a hard sell. I’ve found that murder and dismemberment are
easier for people to deal with than rape.
But I purposely did not want to shy away from it. It happens to women all over the world every
day. It is real, and it is
damaging. We shouldn’t pretend it
doesn’t exist. We shouldn’t minimize it.
I think that would be a disservice to women (and men, too) who are recovering
from it or have survived it—and their loved ones whose lives are also affected
by sexual assault. You know, Diane
Sawyer asked Jaycee Lee Dugard why she went into detail about the sexual
assaults she suffered at the hands of her abductor in her memoir and Dugard
said, “Why not look at it? You know,
stare it down until it can’t scare you anymore?” I think that is incredibly brave.
With real-life cases
like Shawn Hornbeck, Elizabeth Smart, and Jaycee Lee Dugard so well-known, why do think the Big Six
turned Finding Claire Fletcher down
on grounds they thought it unbelievable that a kidnap victim allowed to leave her
prison would not seek help from the authorities?
Well obviously I can’t speak for the Big 6 but I think the
real issue is that most people have a hard time believing the real-life
instances. I think a lot of people look
at kids like Hornbeck, Smart, and Dugard and, in the back of their minds, there
is a nagging question as to why they didn’t try to escape. What people don’t realize is that, first of
all, these were children. Do you
remember how you felt when you were 11 or 14?
Do you think you would have been equipped to handle being torn away from
everything you knew and systematically tortured, both physically and
emotionally for a sustained period of time?
Because make no mistake—what happened to these kids was torture. Second, they were completely terrorized and
broken down by their captors. By the
time people see them on the news, they’re grown up. They look like and they are now adults. People forget that they were just kids when
they were taken. So I think a lot of
people want to say, “Why didn’t they just walk away?” But no one looks at a Prisoner of War and
says, “Why didn’t he just bust out of there like Rambo?” They are kids and they’ve been tortured. I think that’s the point people miss. But to answer your question, some publishers
may have reasoned that if people find it hard to swallow that real life kids
don’t leave at the first opportunity, then they won’t buy a fictional account.
After all the hard
work getting Finding Claire Fletcher
a home, what’s been the most difficult part since?
Managing my time. I
had no idea that this part would be so busy!
Don’t get me wrong, I’m ecstatic and euphoric. It has just been hard finding time for everything
on top of working full-time and raising a child. But I wouldn’t have it any other way!
What can we look
forward to next from you?
More of the same!
LOL. Well there is Aberration
which comes out on 6/6/13. It’s about an
FBI profiler working on a serial killer case where she turns out to be the
object of his affection. The WIP I’m
working on now is about a single mom who is a detective in Philadelphia investigating a series of sex
crimes. After that I had planned on
working on a new book that would have Connor and Claire in it, but we’ll see
how successful FCF is—if people like it, I’ll bring Connor and Claire
back. If not, I’ve got a few other
things up my sleeve, but whatever it is you can count on dark and gritty.
·1 signed copy of the paperback of Finding Claire Fletcher
·1 e-book version of Finding Claire Fletcher
All you have to do is visit the Finding
Claire Fletcher Blog Tour & Giveaway page and comment on that page
letting Lisa know whose blog you’ve just come from. Each commenter will be assigned a number and
then the winners will be chosen using random.org. Winners will be announced on 12/24/12!
Have
you ever attended a holiday party where you bump into the one person
who's always been there for you throughout the last year? You’d want
to thank them for being incredibly stellar, right? If there’s one person in
the Blogosphere who you would want to say cheers to, who would it be?
For
us, it was a no-brainer - Alex “no hyperlink needed” Cavanaugh!
Without
being asked, Alex has become a blogging enigma, always helping hundreds of his
fellow authors by announcing book releases, hosting guest posts, guest
interviews and always leaving positive comments. We can’t have a live
party for the Ninja
Captain, but we can host a yuletide BlogFest!
On
those days, answer these four questions as creatively as you'd like:
·In +/- 20
words, what does Alex look like?
·In +/- 20 words,
who could play Alex in a documentary (living or dead)?
·In +/- 20
words, who does Alex remind you of?
·In +/- 100
words, (excluding the title) write flash fiction using all these prompts: Cavanaugh, Ninja, IWGS, Cosbolt, guitar
Here
are the rules:
·Be a
Follower
·Join the
Linky List
·Post your
200 word contribution
·Have fun?
I chose to write my entire
tribute below as a piece of flash fiction, clocking in at 199 words.
Interpret it as you
will. I just hope you enjoy it, Alex. Thanks for all you do! XOXO
~ Nancy
“Your Pain is Self-Chosen”
A single light shone down onto the darkened seven-inch high
platform The Cosbolt referred to as a stage.
A narrow triangle of smoke-filled air glowed above a lone performer’s
head. He sat on a wooden stool, one foot
propped up, a guitar slung across his knee. His chin lowered, his short, dark hair
glistened like a halo. As he raised his hazel
eyes to the black space before him, his broad shoulders lifted, and he drew in
a measured breath.
Silence surrendered to gentle strums of the metal strings
and soft vibrato of Cavanaugh’s recorded voice, a perfect rendition of Layne
Staley’s Nutshell. His gaze held firm to the dark form of the
actress playing his wife, sitting four feet away at a small round table. A knowing smile split her ruby-red lips and a
flash of white dazzled the music ninja as the lyrics trailed away and the music
ebbed.
He mouthed I love you
before the light above faded. The hushed
crowd, still cocooned in darkness, erupted into untamed applause and howls of
admiration. Spotlights flickered on,
illuminating the red IWSG banner behind the stage.
The director yelled,
“Cut! Thanks, Mr. Jackman. You’ve done Alex proud!”
The big day is finally here! Well, actually, I'm a few hours early, but I have friends on the other side of the world, so I thought I'd get started. And really, it's a two-fer, at least for me, so before I get started on the Writers4Writers
campaign, I wanted to remind you that Thursday December 6th is launch day for Lisa Regan’s debut novel, Finding Claire Fletcher I’ll be conducting
an interview with Lisa on Monday 12/10, but head on over to her place for
details on her tour, giveaway, and prizes!
Don’t miss it!
Help
writers bring awareness of their book(s) to tens of thousands of new
people
Help
writers reach Amazon Top 100 in at least one category (i.e., suspense,
free, whatever)
Increase
sales of their book(s) after the promo is over
Drive
new traffic to their blog and increase following
Create
verbal and viral buzz
In a nut shell, the spotlighted author—this week it’s me and
my book, The
Mistaken—will be promoted via Twitter and Facebook. I’ve posted pre-written Tweets below. At your
convenience, simply copy and paste whichever Tweets you prefer into Twitter.
Or go to #W4WS and
Retweet other Tweets.
Imagine, a hundred bloggers over a few days, Tweeting
and sharing links for the featured books, reaching potentially tens of
thousands of new people! I know I’m
excited, and goodness knows, I can use the help.
So choose your Tweet below and have at it.
I’ve arranged them by
categories:
Stephen’s Tweets:
The Mistaken is a first-rate thriller ~Kevin O’Brien, New
York Times Bestselling Author http://ow.ly/fMJ12
#W4WS #Download #read Please RT
The
Mistaken is a fast-paced and emotionally gripping thriller http://ow.ly/fMJdD #W4WS #book #ebook #story
#amreading Please RT!
The
Mistaken is a deliciously slow burn that builds to a ferocious crescendo http://ow.ly/fMJsX #W4WS #fiction #thriller
Please RT!
Nancy
S. Thompson’s The Mistaken: the hell of revenge, the hope of redemption http://ow.ly/fMJDQ #W4WS #novel #Kindle
#ebook Please RT!
Tweets from
reviews:
Amazon
review for @NancySThompson's The Mistaken: “Fast-paced & wildly
entertaining” http://ow.ly/fKeC3 #W4WS
#ebook #amreading Please RT!
Amazon review 4 @NancySThompson's The Mistaken:“Wow! I was completely hooked from page one!” http://ow.ly/fKfcw #W4W #amreading Please RT
Amazon
review 4 @NancySThompson's The Mistaken: “Total excitement from start to
finish.” http://ow.ly/fKeMO #W4WS #Kindle
#ebook Please RT
Amazon review 4
@NancySThompson's The Mistaken:“Wow! I was completely hooked from page 1!” http://ow.ly/fKfcw #W4WS #amreading Please
RT!
Amazon review 4
The Mistaken: “A dark & twisty plot. Great first book by this new author.
More please!" http://ow.ly/fRDEz #W4WS
Please RT
Tweets with quotes:
"I was no
longer a man simply broken. I was destroyed."The Mistakenhttp://ow.ly/fKeg6#W4WS #thriller #Kindle #ebook #amreading Please RT
“It was the
saddest look I’d ever seen in a man’s eyes & I knew I was the cause.” The
Mistaken http://ow.ly/fKeuL #W4WS #ebook
Please RT!
“At
the sight of her, months of rage & bitter loneliness blazed to fiery
life.” The Mistaken http://ow.ly/fKfX8
#W4WS #Kindle Please RT!
“I
faced down every facet of the monster I’d become & vanquished him
forever.” The Mistaken http://ow.ly/fKeAN
#W4WS #Kindle Please RT!
Bonus Tweets:
He
doesn’t know her, but he’ll find her & when he does, he will make her
pay ~The Mistaken http://ow.ly/fKe8X #W4WS #Kindle Please RT!
The Mistaken by
@NancySThompson A psych-thriller w/ great reviews, fast-paced page-turning
action http://ow.ly/fKe2D #W4WS #ebook Pls. RT
Thank you all so very, very much for your support!
I absolutely could not do this without you!
If you're viewing
this in its web version, click on the Goodreads Book Giveaway on the right sidebar
to enter to win a signed copy of The Mistaken or
click here if
you're on a mobile device
And don't forget to head on over to Lisa Regan’s place for details on her tour, giveaway, and prizes!
Today is my birthday, the last before I hit the cringe-worthy half-century mark, and here I sit, six weeks passed The
Mistaken’s debut, and I’m feeling a little…oh, I don’t know… deflated, perhaps. I know, this is a marathon, but still, the
momentum has eased and I’m working hard to regain it.
Honestly, I didn’t know what to expect following the launch
of my book, either from me, or from the book itself. What I’ve learned is something I’ve heard many
times but never truly took to heart:
An author needs to connect with readers.
That probably seems fairly obvious, but I’ve spent most of
my time connecting with other writers.
This was done out of necessity, you see, to learn all I needed to
someday get published. But that journey
went a bit faster than I anticipated, and I didn’t take the proper time to make
more connections, the kind I should’ve made in order to help sell my book. Writers make great friends and give wonderful support and advice, but, for the most part, they're not really buyers. Readers are buyers.
I could blame it on my genre, talk about how hard it is to
break into anything that’s not romance or YA, but that’s only partly true and, frankly, comes off as whiny. And I’m tired of
whining. It doesn't help a dream come true. So now it’s time to buckle down
and make those reader connections.
I’m not quite sure how to do that, but tomorrow, Writers4Writers,
the group led by Stephen
Tremp,Mary Pax, C.M. Brown, and Christine Raines, will be lending me a hand and
featuring me and The Mistaken
on its debut campaign. Participants will
join in and help bring awareness to my novel and hopefully increase sales, as
well as drive new traffic to my blog, increase my following, and create a
verbal and viral buzz.
Besides that, and in addition to those my publisher has
arranged, I’m lining up my own regiment of book reviewers to read, rate, and
review The Mistaken on their blogs, Goodreads, Amazon, and the myriad of other reader resources, because...
Reviews and ratings are the fuel that drives sales, so authors, like me, crave them.
I’ve been learning all about Amazon algorithms
and what it takes for a book to make an Amazon list and how beneficial that is
to future sales. It’s quite a science, it seems, but what it comes down to
is…I need readers, those willing to shell out $3.99 for the ebook, who will
rate and hopefully review on it Amazon.
So let my naïveté be a lesson to all you pre-published
writers out there. While difficult, the hardest part is
not writing the book, or landing an agent, or signing a book deal. It’s finding those readers who will hopefully
be interested in your book. So while connecting
with other writers is beneficial and extremely gratifying, connecting with your
potential reader before you even launch is downright critical.
Do any of you have
words of advice or wisdom for this anxious author?
I sure could use it!
If you’re interested
in the Writere4Writers
promotion tomorrow,
All hell is breaking loose. The first ever true born Fallen Valkyrie, Raven
Aquilus, and her motley crew find out that the guardians of the Nine Gates of
Yggdrasil are being murdered one by one, landing them in the middle of an
ancient war between the Valkyries and the Fae. FBI Paranormal Agent Duncan O'Brien is brought in to investigate the brutal
murders, but he is completely blind to the fact that he has landed in a Eldr
Dygo's domain. Time is running out and Raven must enlist Duncan and his team to
help discover the killer before she loses another one of her precious
Guardians. Duncan is the
epitome of control, but even he is not immune to Raven's beauty and magnetism.
Raven is an enigma wrapped up in the body of lust, and attracted to a human.
Both must fight their emotions to work together. Raven faces losing everything from her life to a new found love in order to
save the Underworld from being ruled by a jealous half-breed. Welcome the XIII Hour™ series. Betrayal, Lust, Love, Murder, Jealousy and
Revenge. The faery-tales that your mother never told you about just came true.
Native of Santa Maria, CA, Blue Remy is the author of The
XIII Hour™Series, and the raw, gritty series Twisted In Love. When she’s
not writing, Blue lives to ghost hunt whenever she can, which tends to help her
imagination and outrageous character ideas.
She was first introduced to the paranormal world through her
Grandmother and her haunting bedtime stories. Blue then found the Grimm’s Faery
Tales, and fell in love with spinning wild stories about the evil characters
that everyone hated, giving them their own past and history to be told. Blue is
a total fan girl when it comes to anything Wonder Woman. She collects Living
Dead Dolls, rubber duckies, Sugar Skulls, stuffed animals and tarot cards which
she is an adept reader of.
Blue currently resides in the paranormal hub of the South
with her husband, who feeds her gourmet coffee and cupcake addiction.
Blue Remy is a member of The Paranormal Romance Guild.
