PIECES OF US Summary:

At home in Philly, Alex is angry. Angry at the dad who offed himself rather than stay around; angry at the mom who goes from one guy to the next without a thought for her family. Alex may be a player and a bully, but his little brother Kyle will do anything for his approval.

At home in the suburbs, Katie is Miss Popularity, the golden girl that everyone expects too much of, the one who will always be the prettiest and best in her parents eyes, and everyone else’s. Her shy little sister Julie just wants a bit of the attention that Katie gets so easily. 

But during their summers at lake houses in Upstate New York, all four teens have a chance to leave their old identities behind. They can be anything here.

Here, no one knows the truly disturbing nature of Kyle and Alex’s dysfunctional relationship. No one knows that the girl Katie pretends to be is a lie. Julie never worries that Kyle is only spending time with her to get to her prettier sister. And the secrets that are threatening to destroy each of them seem are safe.

But secrets have a way of getting out…

And like any proud mom I want to show her off. So…please buy a copy. Should be at B&N, Borders, and Books-A-Million. If yours doesn’t have it, please ask them to order it. If your indie doesn’t have it, please ask them to order it as well. I’m just so proud of her! I think she has my eyes. OH and it’s also on Amazon.com and the online versions of the stores above. AND even though she’s super special, she only cost $9.95. How do you beat that?

Below are some reviews and interviews to hopefully whet your appetite! Thanks for all the support!!

A wonderful review from Shaun David Hutchinson.

An interview and GIVEAWAY on Spotlight for AuthorsNow!

An interview on The Crazy Bookworm.

Had an amazing but busy weekend and will recap. In the meantime, here’s a lesson I learned from it on AuthorsNow!

Coming up on my blog this week: Tuesday–another blog chain (my writing space); Wednesday–pics of my ARC lounging about in actual INCONVENIENT settings; Friday–thoughts on ALBATROSS by Josie Bloss (preview–terrific, thought-provoking book). Stay tuned!

This is a library-loving blog challenge, mine focusing on a NJ school library!

For every commenter on this post between now and March 27th, I will donate $1.00 to the Burlington City Junior School library. Regardless of comments, the minimum I will donate is $25.00, and the max is $50.00.

How easy could it be? You comment, I cough up the money, the library gets a gift! If you don’t know what to say in your comment, “I love libraries” will do.

Note that my pledge is “per commenter”—so if a single person leaves 50 comments, that still only counts once! But you can do more by spreading the word … please link to this post, tweet about it, and send your friends here so they can comment and raise more money.

If you’re moved to make a flat-fee donation to your library, or to start your own challenge, you are quite welcome, and please leave that information in the comments.

For a complete list of participating bloggers (and to visit other sites where you can help libraries just by leaving a comment!) visit the writerjenn blog at http://writerjenn.livejournal.com/

In cartoons this is very cute, and the character always bounces off the wall and then keeps on running. In my world, it’s not cute. I stare at the screen, minimize it, maximize it, look at it from another angle. But that doesn’t work. Then, I minimize the screen again and play Bejeweled Blitz or Scrabble on Facebook. Surprisingly, that doesn’t help either. Through all this, I wonder what happened. Where did I go wrong? When the wall smacked me in the face in the past, I thought my story was flawed. Maybe there were holes. There always are in the first draft. But that itself wasn’t enough. And just because there were holes, was no reason to scrap the idea (which is where my brain often went–into a sprial like on those water slides, thinking that there was nowhere to go now but down, into a centimeter of water. Ouch!). I’ve grown as a writer enough to know that the story does have promise but I will have to dig to find out what happened. And, most important, not give up on it–which would be the easy way out.

Part of the problem may be that I detest outlines. But, when the wall rushes at me, that’s what I always end up doing: stop the staring contest with the screen and make a mini outline. What happened so far, where do I see it going, what’s stumping me? It’s not a huge, three page outline, just a few paragraphs, and sometimes this helps. With my current WIP, it did not. This story is totally plotted. I know the characters. I know what has to happen to create the climax and add suspense. My issue with the WIP is that I don’t know how to move the story quickly enough to get it to the climax. So I have a different solution. My next plan is to just write random scenes I know–the big climax scene, the 3 scenes before that that set everything in motion, the ending. I don’t normally work like this, but it’s better than the alternative and at least I’ll be working on scenes that interest me.

What do you do when the wall emerges from the curtain and pops you in the kisser? How do you bounce back?