Codename's getting attention!

Have you read Codename: Dancer? It was nominated for a 2011 Cybil Award in the Young Adult Fiction category by the Children's and Young Adult Bloggers Literary Awards!!!

I'm ridiculously excited to have been nominated, but I'm certainly not writing my acceptance speech. Looking at the list of the other books nominated, I'm against some VERY heavy-hitters, and fully don't expect to advance any farther. But it's such a huge honor to have been recognized. Yay!

Also super cool is that the book was named an Indie Hot Pick by Romantic Times Magazine in the December 2011 issue. Whoohoo! How cool is that?

So grab your copy today. RT says it's hot. What's not to like?

Guest blogger: Leslie DuBois!

I'm at the RWA National Conference today, so author Leslie DuBois is stepping in. Thanks, Leslie!

________________________________________________________

Mean Girls Meets Center Stage



Two of my favorite things in the world are dancing and teeny bopper movies. I’ve been dancing since I was a kid and even taught dance for a six years. And name a movie starring teens since the 1980s and I’ve probably seen it…a dozen times. So put them together and I am one happy tapper (get it? Tapper instead of camper! Ain’t I clever?) Anyway, so that’s kind of why I decided to write my latest novel The Queen Bee of Bridgeton. It’s like Mean Girls meets Center Stage.

Side note: If you haven’t seen either of those movies go add them to your Netflix queue immediately. I’ll wait.

Okay, great, you’re back.

Those are two of my all time favorite teen movies. I love the comedic cruelty of Mean Girls and the awesomely inspirational dancing of Center Stage.

But one thing sets The Queen Bee of Bridgeton apart. See, the heart of this novel is in the ghetto. Growing up in a poor black neighborhood, ballet was not high on the priority list of most of my associates. But for me, it was something I couldn’t live without. We couldn’t afford the tuition to the local dance school so my mother cleaned the studio in exchange for free lessons for me.

This is where the inspiration for my main character Sonya came from. Like me, she was determined not to let anything come between her and her dream of dancing. Mix in some antics from my own version of Regina George, add a dash of brilliant choreography, and throw in a cow (yes, a cow) for some comic relief and voila, you’ve got The Queen Bee of Bridgeton.

Right now the eBook version of The Queen Bee of Bridgeton is on sale for 99 cents, but only until the end of June. You can win a copy of the eBook (as well as Amanda's eBook) along with a FREE KINDLE through the Kindle INDIEpendence giveaway which is ending soon. (See ticker in lefthand sidebar.)

Thanks for having me, Fictionistas! I hope you enjoy my book!

***
Leslie DuBois is the pen name of author Sybil Nelson. As Leslie, she has written The Queen Bee of Bridgeton, Guardian of Eden, and Ain’t No Sunshine which currently has over 33,000 downloads. As Sybil, she is about to publish the third book in the award winning Priscilla the Great series.

On Broadway!

As you may have guessed from my book cover, I'm very into dance. I've been dancing pretty much my whole life. In fact, the 30th anniversary of my very first dance recital is this weekend!

Growing up in NJ, we used to go to shows on Broadway often. Eventually I started seeing my old friends from the dance studios in the shows, but not until I was a teenager (well, just for one show...Rick Faugno, who was my tap nemesis, played Will Rogers, Jr. in The Will Rogers Follies) and then in my 20s. Now that we're all in our 30s, I'm not certain if any of my old buddies are still on Broadway. Most have moved on to owning dance studios, or dancing at Disney World, or in Vegas, or TV work.

But even so, Broadway is still a thrill for me. So when I looked at my RWA National Conference schedule and realized I had a hole one of the nights, you better believe the very first thing I did was check the listings to see which show I might be interested in seeing.

Every year around this time, I get an itch to go to NYC. You see, the Tony Awards were just this past Sunday, and as always, they managed to remind me of the glitz and glamour of my favorite street in the Big Apple. The performances were wonderful!

If you didn't see the awards show, then you missed out on some fantastic singing and dancing, including host Neil Patrick Harris'...wait for it...LEGENDARY rap recap.



THE hot ticket on Broadway this year is The Book of Mormon, a hilarious and irreverent (yet surprisingly touching) musical from the creators of the trash-talking cartoon, South Park. I've heard it's fantastic, but what do you expect from the guys who wrote the song "Blame Canada"? If you didn't already snag yourself some tickets weeks ago, don't expect to go while you're in town for RWA.

It's been a challenge to score tickets ever since it premiered in February, but now that the show has won NINE Tony Awards, landing a seat is even more daunting. Many performances are sold out weeks or even months in advance, and the day after the Tony Awards, the producers hiked the price of tickets by an extra $13, bringing the top non-premium ticket price to $155 (although during a holiday weekend, you can tack on an extra $20.) If you want to take your chances with scalpers, expect to pay nearly $500 per seat. Each day, a ticket lottery is held outside the Eugene O'Neill Theatre for a limited number of full-price same-day seats, with the lottery drawings hundreds of people ecery day.

So yeah, RWA-goers, The Book of Mormon just ain't gonna happen. But there are still plenty of other fabulous shows. And if you're patient and flexible, you can get your Broadway fix on for 25-50% off!

How? I'm glad you asked. Check out the Theatre Development Fund's famous TKTS booths, famously known as "The Half Price Ticket Booth." You may even be able to see the original TKTS out your window from the Marriott Marquis, in the middle of Times Square. This location is very convenient to the conference, but the lines are crazy. You might be better off venturing down to the South Street Seaport location, where the lines are about 1/10 as long.

Does TKTS have tickets for every show? No. It's hit and miss, to be honest. You never know what shows they'll have from day to day. So it helps to have a list in mind ahead of time, so you can easily choose a replacement if your #1 choice isn't available.

Here's a listing of the shows that appeared on the boards at the TKTS booths last week:
http://www.tdf.org/TDF_SupportPage.aspx?id=68&do=v

Just because something was there last week, doesn't mean it will be available two weeks from now, during RWA, particularly if the show happened to win some Tony Awards a couple of nights ago. But it's a start.

So go forth and patronize the arts!

CODENAME: DANCER is live!

My official launch date isn't until Thursday, but I guess I should start promoting, because Codename: Dancer went live on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords this weekend!



Here's the blurb:

Aspiring ballerina Dani Spevak is thrilled when hit TV show Teen Celebrity Dance Off comes to the campus of her performing arts boarding school. She trades the barre for the ballroom and gets set to cha-cha-cha to stardom with Hollywood wonderboy Nick Galliano.

At first their partnership is awkward, because Dani is in awe of her longtime teen idol crush. But soon their chemistry is heating up the dance floor and the attraction moves into real life.

Her excitement is short-lived, because someone wants her off the show. Bombs, poisoning, arson… Will Dani’s 15 minutes of fame be over before she reaches age 15? Dani and her friends are suddenly at the center of some serious sabotage. And if she doesn’t find out who is behind it, her next pirouette could be her last.

It’s like Nancy Drew in toe shoes in this light-hearted tween mystery, a finalist for Romance Writers of America’s Golden Heart® Award for Best Young Adult Romance.

And here's what people are saying:

"Fans of Pretty Little Liars and Ally Carter’s Gallagher Girls will love Codename: Dancer. Sparks fly, tutus twirl, and a clever mystery unravels in what is sure to become a favorite among teens and tweens everywhere. Amanda Brice’s debut is a must read for every girl who ever danced – or ever wanted to!"
~ Gemma Halliday, award-winning author of Deadly Cool and Spying in High Heels

"Amanda Brice's debut novel Codename: Dancer has something that will appeal to everyone, especially ballet enthusiasts, mystery lovers and fans of reality TV competitions. Even if you don't know a thing about dance, you'll be easily drawn into this quick-paced story with authentic characters and big stakes. I adored Dani and found myself rooting for this spunky heroine. Can't wait for the sequel!"
~ Rhonda Stapleton, author of the Stupid Cupid trilogy

You can read the first chapter here:
http://amandabrice.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/CODENAME-DANCER-EXCERPT.pdf

And check out my BRAND NEW website, that just went live this weekend:
http://www.amandabrice.net

Buy links:

Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004WPOK7S/ref=tag_dpp_yt_edpp_rt?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&redirect=true&redirect=true&s=books%23tags

B&N:
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Codename/Amanda-Brice/e/2940012333575/?itm=1&USRI=amanda+brice

Smashwords:
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/53892

To celebrate, I'll give away an e-book copy (in the format of your choice) to one lucky commenter.

A Blast from the Past

As you may or may not know, my debut YA, Codename: Dancer, will be released 2 weeks from today. (Gulp)

In preparation for the launch, I'm in the process of getting my website completely redesigned. (Yeah, I know, nothing like procrastination...)

Since the book features a teen ballerina, I decided maybe I should show the evidence that I did in fact dance when I was growing up. Of course, all those pics are at my parents' house more than 250 miles away, and not easily accessible.

So I asked my dad to scan some old family photos for me. I received the results yesterday by email. Some of them are quite hilarious. Dad went overboard and scanned more than I asked for. I don't have room to include them all on my new website, but I can include them here, right?

For some reason, he didn't include any dance pics of me as an older teen. Not sure why. They seem to run through my early-to-mid-teens. Maybe 15 towards the end. (And sadly, you can see that I remained rather flat-chested for quite a long time. Something I share in common with Codename's heroine, Dani.)

I'm going to try to ask some friends on Facebook if they have any old dance pics of me, particularly from my ballroom dance team days in college.

Alas, no prom pic (a Fictionistas fave!) but we've got a nice representation of stellar 70s, 80s, and 90s hair for your Wednesday entertainment.

Special Guest C.C. Hunter!

Today we welcome author C.C. Hunter to the Fictionistas blog. C.C. is the author of the upcoming YA paranormal Shadow Falls series that releases next week from St. Martin's. The first book in the series is "Born at Midnight." Some of you may know her by her real name, Christie Craig. As Christie, she writes humorous romantic suspense novels for Grand Central.

CC is here today to celebrate her YA debut and tell us a little bit about the series. Take it away, CC!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Why Ghosts?



In my book Born At Midnight, Kylie Galen has a problem. Well, actually she has a lot of problems. None of them are her fault, either. We writers do that to our characters sometimes . . .We overload them with issues. It’s not easy being a fictional character. On the other hand, it’s not easy coming up with all those issues for our characters to overcome, either.

But let’s face it, issues and problems are what make books and characters special. And Kylie is special and, like I said, she’s got her share of problems. As the book opens, one problem sticks out more than the others--she’s acquired a stalker.

Not just any stalker, either. He’s a very odd man wearing army garb. He just stands there and stares at her, all spooky like.

She didn’t think things could get any crazier, but she’s wrong. When she finally points out this freaky stalker to her mom, Kylie’s life goes to hell in a handbasket. You see, her mom can’t see the stalker. Kylie is certain her mom has lost it. Ahh, but Kylie’s wrong again.

Kylie doesn’t know it yet, but she’s seeing ghosts. When I first started plotting Born At Midnight, I knew I’d have vampires, shapeshifters, werewolves, witches, and faes, but I wasn’t about to let an opportunity go by without adding ghosts.

Why ghosts? Basically, I’m a big fan of ghosts and ghost stories. I like the stories that make my skin turn ultra sensitive--stories that when I’m reading them and hear a creaky floorboard or a whisper, I practically jump out of that ultra sensitive skin. You see, to me, ghosts are scarier than vampires and werewolves. My reasoning is simple. I believe in ghosts. Seen one actually, but I’ve yet to run across a vampire or bump elbows with a werewolf.

Now about that ghost. I was young and my mom and dad assured me I’d been dreaming, but I didn’t buy it then, and I’m not completely buying it now.

I’d just turned ten, and I woke up one night to find my great grandmother hovering over me—again. At eighty plus years, she was hunched over a bit and therefore she always gave off the impression of hovering over you. Granted, she was the hovering type, and never seemed to mind telling you what she liked or didn’t like about how the world had come to be. But that night, the experience was different.

You see, she’d been dead for about a week. And when I say hovering, I mean floating. She was wearing a long white gossamer gown, lots of fabric that almost appeared to be several layers of wraithlike material, and it flowed around her so much it looked as if she didn’t have any feet. She said she just wanted to let me know she was okay. And yeah, being young, I had been a bit worried about the whole death thing. Then she told me that someday I’d have to give up the rags I called clothes (she hated the new fashions we young girls wore) and I’d be wearing a gown just like hers.

Yes, it scared me. Mainly because I really didn’t want to give up my clothes, and as pretty as her gown was, I didn’t think it was all that cool. Then there was the other fear. Granny was dead, so how could she be hovering over my bed? But in spite of the fear, seeing her also fascinated me. And ever since, I’ve longed to write a ghost story. Born at Midnight just seemed like my opportunity.

So what about you guys? Do you believe in ghosts? Have you ever felt that eerie feeling that someone from the other side is close by? Today, I’ll be giving away a copy of Born at Midnight to one lucky commenter, so make sure you leave a comment about your ghostly experiences.

Also make sure you snag my free short story, Turned At Dark. It’s Della’s story and it introduces the Shadow Falls series. You can read the first three chapters of Born at Midnight, too. All you have to do is visit my Born at Midnight page at Macmillan. Or you can download a free eBook copy of Turned at Dark at all major online retailers. The download also has the first three chapters of Born at Midnight on there as well. How cool is that?



Oh, and one final thing. To celebrate the release of Born at Midnight, I’m running a "Tweet my Book and Win a Kindle" contest through March 29th. The grand prize will be the Kindle but I’m also giving away copies of Born at Midnight, some Shadow Falls swag and ARCs of Awake at Dawn, which is scheduled to release in October. All the details are at my blog. So, please drop by and help me tweet my book and you could win a Kindle!

C.C.

Random thoughts

This is just a random collection of thoughts, as I post-and-run here at work:

1) In honor of her 4th anniversary as a Publishers Weekly blogger, Barbara Vey is throwing herself one heckuva party at the Beyond Her Book blog. Each day several e-readers and books will be given away to lucky commenters. So go forth and comment!

http://blogs.publishersweekly.com/blogs/beyondherbook/

2) It's Read an E-Book Week, so head on over to Smashwords for many heavily discounted or free titles.

http://www.smashwords.com

3) Is there a 12-Step program for Groupon addiction?

4) Some people seem to forget that public internet forums are not actually private. And some authors seem to forget that potential readers can be found anywhere.

So when a so-called "literary romance" novelist trashes romance novels and calls them the "literary equivalent of Big Macs" and spends hours implying over and over again that people who genuinely enjoy the promise of a HEA are somehow brainless twits deserving of her scorn, I just have to say thank you.

I do love romance, but I also read broadly. Non-fiction, literary fiction, classics, mystery, suspense, thrillers, paranormal, children's board books, and oh yes, those dreaded kissing books. I happened to have perused her blurbs previously, and thought they'd actually looked good, but her constant attacks on my intelligence have saved me from spending in excess of $12 per paperback. My wallet thanks me.

5) I have 9 prepaid massages coming to me, but only 6 weeks to use them before they expire. What to do? What to do?

What's your randomness for today?

Q&A with author Miriam Wenger-Landis

As you may or may not know, I'm going to be releasing my dancer mystery novel (see cover art in "Coming Soon" on sidebar) this spring. While browsing on Amazon to see other novels featuring dancers, I came across a fabulous new YA, "Girl in Motion."



Here's the blurb:
At the School of Ballet New York, the most prestigious ballet school in the country, aspiring ballerina Anna becomes friends with her talented roommate, Hilary, a French exchange student, Marie, a down-to-earth mid-westerner, Jen, and one of the cutest guys in school, Tyler. The competition is intense and Anna works hard to understand her famous teachers and navigate her ups and downs with her friends. Some of the dancers struggle with eating disorders, injuries, and depression. Everyone's goal is a contract with a professional ballet company, and as graduation nears, the pressure intensifies. Although Anna goes to all the ballet companies' annual auditions, she receives not a single offer. Falling for Tyler complicates things, but with the lead in the annual workshop performance, Anna gets one last chance to make her dreams come true.

When I was a tween, my favorite books were the Satin Slippers series by Elizabeth Bernard. I just devoured this overly melodramatic account of girls at the San Francisco Ballet Academy. I never finished the series as a young girl, but I actually sought out used copies as an adult.

Reading them as an adult, I can see they're very outdated (hello, references to dancers defecting from the Soviet Union!) and very soap-opera-y, but I still loved them.

So imagine my delight when I saw that a former ballerina from the Miami City Ballet, who had studied at the prestigious School of American Ballet in NYC, had written a novel about the ups and downs of life in a ballet boarding school. I snapped it up right away, and soon discovered that I couldn't put it down.

When I learned that Miriam had self-published, I decided I needed to help spread the word about this gem. So please welcome Miriam Wenger-Landis!



AB: Thanks for coming to visit! Tell us a little bit about yourself.

MWL: Well, I was a professional ballerina for 4 years with the Miami City Ballet and a year-round student at the School of American Ballet for 2. My family lives in Salt Lake City and that's where I grew up, and after I retired I went on to complete my degree at Stanford University. I left the company at 22 because I wanted to go to school and felt I'd achieved the things I wanted to in dance. After college, I moved back to New York to work as an assistant editor at a publishing house, and eventually I got a job working with books at Amazon and moved back west. I met my husband in Seattle and we got married about a year ago. I spend most of my free time reading, gardening, hanging with the dog, and fixing up our old house.

AB: I'm curious to hear about your dance career. How many years did you study before dancing for the Miami City Ballet?

MWL: It was about 15 years! I started dance classes when I was less than 3, and trained at local schools in Salt Lake City, including the Ballet West Conservatory and the University of Utah dance department. Between 13 and 18 I went away to bigger summer programs at the San Francisco Ballet School and Pennsylvania Ballet. When I was 16 I went to the School of American Ballet's summer school and they invited me to stay on for the year.
Edward Villella picked me for his company, Miami City Ballet, out of
the School of American Ballet's annual workshop two years later. I
moved to Miami right after I graduated high school. Over the course of
4 years I danced increasingly bigger roles, including the Liberty Bell
in "Stars and Stripes," the Flower Festival in Genzano pas de deux,
the Scotch girl in "Scotch Symphony," and the Ballerina Doll in "The
Steadfast Tin Soldier."

AB: You were a student at the School of American Ballet. Is this book inspired by events from your own life?

MWL: Somewhat. Obviously my experience was a big influence. I was more interested in hitting on the general challenges that everyone faced during that competitive experience, so I created different characters and situations to highlight the individual struggles, from eating disorders to injuries to personality conflicts.

AB: How did your high school experience differ from the norm by attending a ballet boarding school?

MWL: Oh it was very different. There were no sports teams or formal dances. The ratio of girls to boys was about 10 to 1. We all had so much in common and so much focus and passion for what we were doing, and yet we were all in competition with each other. Most of our schoolwork was done as independent study, and the high school we went to was made up of child movie stars, kids on Broadway, and up and coming young musicians. I was across the country from my family at 16 and living my own fast-paced life in New York.

AB: Why did you decide to write "Girl in Motion"?

MWL: I started the book my junior year of college (about ten years ago) when I started teaching ballet regularly and as a way of working through my whole ballet experience. I read so many ballet books growing up and there simply wasn't the kind of book I wanted to read--most of the literature is restricted to stories of the ballets and biographies of great dancers or choreographers. Nothing seemed to encapsulate my experience, and I wanted to write something for the students and aspiring dancers I was watching grow up into the system.

AB: Is there a character you identify with the most?

MWL: Anna is the main character, and the biggest thing about her I relate to is the challenge with her height. That was my challenge too, and as I saw my friends struggle to lose weight I was almost jealous of them. I always knew my height was completely beyond my control. I identify with Anna's friend Jen a lot too, because she has this sense that even when she accomplishes something huge it still isn't good enough. There's a general mentality of that in ballet; that no matter what you do it isn't good enough.

AB: What authors or books have influenced your writing?

MWL: The work I do now in the book industry means I read a ton of books, so there are things I admire about so many authors. For "Girl in Motion," probably the writer I was most influenced by was Curtis Sittenfeld, who wrote "Prep." That book is about a girl coming of age at a boarding school and she completely captured all the feelings, even the ugly ones, that encapsulated the experience.

AB: If you could go back in time and talk to your teenage self, what would you tell her?

MWL: I would say, life just gets better as you get older. The one sure
thing in life is change, and you can count on good things happening
eventually. It's cliche, but things work out--they just do.

AB: What are you working on now?

MWL: At the moment, I'm teaching a little bit of ballet and working at Amazon. We just bought a new fixer-upper house, so a lot of my energy has gone into that and just enjoying my husband and being married. Eventually I hope to write a sequel to "Girl in Motion" and some other things and hopefully I'll find time to do that in the years to come.


Thanks, Miriam for joing us here at Fictionistas!

You can find Miriam's book here: http://www.amazon.com/Girl-Motion-Novel-Miriam-Wenger-Landis/dp/1451591659/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1298411081&sr=8-1

Editing During a Crisis...and Promoting from a Hotel Room

Unless you've been living in a cave the past couple of weeks, I'm sure you've been following the crisis in Egypt.

One of my writer friends, Jenyfer Matthews, has been living it. Jenyfer and her family live in Cairo, and fortunately were able to get out of the country during the protests. Like millions of others, she watched the rioting on TV, but it was personal for her, since that was her city in chaos.

I couldn't imagine what that must be like. I would be terrified. But Jenyfer had a deadline she had to stick to. She'd promised herself she would get backlist up on Kindle and Smashwords by Valentine's Day, and she was going to stick to it, even if it meant formatting and editing from her hotel room in Istanbul.

So I thought I'd help her out, and spread the word to our Fictionistas friends. Each of these titles was previously published by Cerridwen Press, but when she got the rights back she decided to self-publish them.

Jenyfer is a great writer, and I ADORED "One Crazy Summer." Author Gemma Halliday called it "contemporary romance at its best" and said that "fans of Jennifer Crusie will love Jenyfer Matthews' fresh, fun voice."

I can't wait to read the rest of her stories!

Here are the blurbs. You can pop over to her website to find links to the Smashwords and Kindle sites to buy.

Happy reading!



ONE CRAZY SUMMER

Summer Donahue is not Ben Martin’s type of woman. Ben is conservative, thoughtful and the model of self-control. Summer is whimsical, spontaneous and just a bit flaky. So why, when she breezed into his office like a tropical storm, was he so instantly and inexplicably attracted to her?

Summer consulted Ben to have her business’s taxes done. But when it comes to light that Summer’s ex-husband and ex-accountant Malcolm has embezzled most of her liquid assets and put her on the brink of bankruptcy, Ben throws aside all of his iron-clad rules about getting personally involved with his clients. Summer and Ben go to Mexico to find her ex and save her business. But in the process Ben loses more to Summer than his personal credo — he loses his heart as well.

http://www.jenyfermatthews.com/books/one-crazy-summer/



HERE TO STAY

All Julia Sullivan wanted was a fresh start in a new place. But cutting ties with the past and starting over can be a difficult thing to do.

After leaving her husband and quitting her job, Julia was emotionally spent. She needed a quiet place to recharge and to think about what she wanted from life. She thought she had found just that when she inherited her aunt’s oceanfront Victorian house in Haven, New Jersey. It wasn’t going to be that simple, however. In addition to her new house being a complete shambles, her charming soon-to-be ex-husband Patrick, whom she discovers she still loves, arrives with the intention of winning her back. To complicate matters further, it seems as if her aunt’s death wasn’t an accident after all. And there’s just something about her new house that seems to interest all sorts of people.

http://www.jenyfermatthews.com/books/here-to-stay/



ALL THE WAY HOME

Maggie Dean and Sam Callahan grew up in the same town, knew each other in school, admired each other from afar, but never dated. She was just a little too straight and narrow for this bad boy. Now they’re all grown up and back in their hometown – she to deal with a family crisis, he to prove that he’s changed his ways.

After enduring her parents’ loveless marriage and coming home to help her sister pick up the pieces of her broken one, Maggie isn’t interested in relationships. Sam Callahan is not only still gorgeous, but he’s still available. Neither Maggie nor Sam can deny their attraction but they’re still at odds. Maggie’s down on family life — can Sam be the one to convince her to settle down?

http://www.jenyfermatthews.com/books/all-the-way-home/

Date Night

You know you write Young Adult romance when you're watching the State of the Union and are struck by how much it resembled a prom this year.



Or maybe I just have been blogging with the Fictionistas for a while, because you know how much we love crazy prom stories here.



In a spirit of bipartisanship in the wake of the Tucson tragedy that many are criticizing as empty symbolism, members of Congress abandoned their time-honored partisan seating chart and sat with members of the opposing party during Obama's speech to a joint session of Congres.

The last several days here in DC have been like a politican Match.Com as members of Congress have scrambled to find "dates" to the big event.



After all, those all-important prom pictures look that much better when you have the perfect date.

In years past, the State of the Union looked just like a junior high dance, with the Republicans on one side and the Democrats on the other. But now we have a more mature Congress that's graduated at least to high school.

The tradition of partisan seating dates to 1845 in the House of Representatives, with Democrats on one sides of the aisle, and Republicans on the other. But it wasn't until 1913 that it became the practice for the State of the Union. For the first time since Thomas Jefferson, President Woodrow Wilson personally delivered the State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress, and the Representatives and Senators observed the House's partisan seating.

For the next 70 years, partisan seating was the norm, but no overt partisanship during the speech. But in 1983, Democrats mockingly applauded President Ronald Reasan during a line in his State of the Union. From then on we saw an era of one side of the chamber leaping to their feet at various times during the speech, with the other side sitting quietly and sometimes grumbling. At times it looked like the party the president was from was engaged in a weird aerobic workout during the State of the Union, they would get up and down so often.

It was always entertaining, that's for sure. Several State of the Union drinking games were even built around the jovial jumping up and down. (Because let's face it, even for the biggest politics die-hards among us, the only way to get through these things is with a drink.)

But this new seating arrangement really screwed things up. It used to be that members of Congress didn't even really have to listen too terribly hard in order to participate in the political pep rally. If the President was from their party, all they had to do was pay attention to what the sea of politicans around them were doing. If your seatmates are standing and cheering, you do too.

I kept watching last night to see if anyone would mess up, forgetting that their seatmate was from the opposing party and just following along, caught up in the excitement. That would have been funny.

I do know of one person who was very caught up in the excitement of the evening. She kept standing up and clapping whenever she saw the people on TV doing so.

My 1-year-old daughter. :)

Hey, it's DC. We start 'em young.

Marlene Awards is low on entries!

Calling all unpublished writers! The Marlene Awards, sponsored by Washington Romance Writers, is low on entries in all categories.

This is a fantastic contest, with great feedback and stellar final editor judges. And the 1st place winner in each category wins a detailed critique from a published author!

And if you happen to be the winner of the YA category, then your critique will be provided by none other than Fictionistas' own Gwen Hayes!

So don't wait or hesitate! (Sorry, I've been watching too much Sprout network lately.) The deadline is SATURDAY, JANUARY 15.

FINAL ROUND JUDGES AND CRITIQUE AUTHORS FOR EACH CATEGORY:

Single Title Contemporary Romance
Final Editor Judge: Amanda Bergeron, Avon
Critique Author: Jane Porter

Series Contemporary Romance (long and short)
Final Editor Judge: Patience Smith, Harlequin/Silhouette
Critique Author: Amanda Berry

Historical Romance
Final Editor Judge: Leah Hultenschmidt, Sourcebooks
Critique Author: Janet Mullany

Paranormal/Fantasy/Futuristic Romance
Final Editor Judge: Latoya Smith, Grand Central
Critique Author: Stacia Kane

Romantic Elements
Final Editor Judge: Holly Blanck, St. Martin's
Critique Author: Gemma Halliday

Young Adult
Final Editor Judge: Kristin Daly, HarperCollins/Balzer + Bray
Critique Author: Gwen Hayes

http://www.wrwdc.com/ee/index.php/marlene_awards/

To Age or Not To Age, That is the Question

My good friend Gemma Halliday posted a question on Romance Divas yesterday, and it got me thinking.

If you're reading a YA series, do you expect the characters to grow up?

JK Rowling did it in her Harry Potter series, of course, which correlated nicely with how her original readers were aging. But that was a fantasy world, and the characters were dealing with fantasy issues very far removed from our own everyday world.

For a contemporary, if the main character is 16 in the first book, would you expect her to be in college by the end of the series? Is this a good idea?

On the one hand, if you're putting out 1 book a year, and your target audience starts out in the 12-15 age group, then by the time you're 3 or 4 books in, your readership has "outgrown" this type of book, so aging your character might be a good idea.

On the other hand, what about your readers who find you once you already have a backlist? As a mom, would you want your 12-year-old daughter to start off reading books with a 16-year-old protagonist and then continue reading that series all in a row, even if the main character is now in college? It wouldn't be a big deal if your daughter is now 16 or 17, of course, but if she came upon the entire series while she's a preteen, it could get awkward.

But then again, keeping your main character in a vaccuum and never aging her, Nancy Drew style, is unrealistic.

YA writers...what do you do?

YA readers...what do you prefer?

Let ICANN Know What You Think!

Do you remember a time when .com, .org, .edu, or .gov were pretty much the only three letters you'd ever see at the end of a web address? I know, it seems like such a long time ago, and yet, those top-level domains (TLDs) continue to be the most used in the US.

What is a TLD? A top-level domain is the last segment of a domain name. The TLD for our blog is .com.

How many TLDs are there currently? Here's a visual, courtesy of ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, of the world's TLDS...all 280 of them. (I think it's a little bit out of date, because I believe there are actually 21 gTLDs (generic top level domains) currently, but close enough.)



Most of the current TLDs are country codes (.us, .mx .ca, .cn, .ru, .uk, etc).

But see that medium-sized dot that shows 20 "g"s? Right now there are 20, but under a plan that will be voted on at an important ICANN meeting in Cartagena, Colombia on FRIDAY, DECEMBER 10 (2 days from now!), the "g" domains will explode in number. ICANN has not placed an actual number of how many new TLDs will be created, but has said it could potentially be 1000s of new TLDs per year.

No, that is not 1000s of new URLs per year. I mean 1000s of new top-level domains. Come May, we could see .coke, .canon, .fashion, .book, .author, .paris, .xxx, .food, and on and on and on and on.

And on.

And on.

Rather than expanding to one or two new2 TLDs at a time like they've done in the past, ICANN has proposed an UNLIMITED expansion. This poses significan problems for trademark owners because of the possibility of additional consumer confusion and the great costs that will be involved in brand owners protecting their brands.

So what exactly does this mean for the Fictionistas and our readers?

I'm going put on a quasi-legal hat today and do something I rarely do on here or in the greater writing community...give advice. Sure, I frequently dispense legal info, but I generally am pretty careful to steer clear of giving advice, for ethical reasons.

But I'm breaking with the mold here. Today I'm going to talk in an advocacy capacity, but not as "Amanda Brice, Author and Attorney", but rather as "Amanda Brice, Author and Stakeholder."

Say what?

Sure, I may not have a registered trademark for my pen name, but I have established common law trademark rights in my pen name, nonetheless. I've been promoting myself online for years under this name, and have created a brand, so to speak.

As authors, our names are our brands. It's how readers know how to find our books. It can also serve as shorthand for reader expectations. When you pick up a Nora Roberts book, you have a pretty good idea what type of experience you'll get. Or if you pick up a JD Robb -- which as we all know is written by Nora Roberts -- you'll get a completely different experience.

So what the heck does pen names have to do with ICANN's expansion of TLDs?

A lot, actually. As we all know, having a website can be a crucial tool for an author. And more important than merely having a website is having the right website. In other words, you want YourName.Com because that's where most people look.

But many authors have found that although they use the Dot.Com of their name as their primary website, defensive registration of other variations is important as well.

Take for example, my good buddy, Rhonda. She has not only http://www.rhondastapleton.com/ but also http://www.rhondastapleton.net/ which points back to the DotCom. She doesn't want to leave the .net one hanging out there in cyberspace for anyone to take, so she snapped it up when it was available. This way she avoids infringers or cybersquatters. (A cybersquatter is someone who goes around registering domain names in the hopes that whoever actually wants it will pay them money to buy it back from the cybersquatter.)

ICANN's proposal to allow a potentially unlimited number of new TLDs will create an open season for potential infringers and cybersquatters. Now we don't have to worry about policing just a few potential domains, but possibly 1000s.

One of the proposed new TLDs that has been bandied about is .book, which would be a pretty sweet one in our field. And you can buy this TLD and become a registrar for domain names if you have a mere $185,000 to spare, and $2 million over the next 10 years.

Will someone actually buy the .book TLD and create a register? Maybe not, since it's an expensive undertaking. But if the .book TLD does get off the ground, then every author is definitely going to want to snap up their domain name in that register as well, before an infringer or a cybersquatter does.

Right about now, you're thinking, "But I'm a midlister" or "I'm a debut" or "I'm unpublished." Why would someone want to infringe you? How would you even get on a cybersquatter's radar screen?

I'm going to break with convention again, and do something I rarely do...embarass myself publicly.

Go to http://www.amandabrice.com/

Go ahead...take your time. Read some of it. Now click on "about".

It doesn't make a lot of sense, does it? In case you haven't figured it out yet, this is NOT my website.

Sure, I used to own this domain, but due to my own stupidity, I lost it. I thought that I'd renewed for a 2-year period that would come up for renewal in January 2011, but in reality, it was only a 1-year period. I had the January 2010 date calendared on my Outlook at work, so had I actually been there to get the reminders, I would have realized my mistake, renewed it in a timely manner, and all would be well.

But I never went into the office during the month of January. In fact, exactly one year ago today was my last day in the office for several months...rather unexpectedly. My daughter was born 6 weeks early a year ago TOMORROW, so I suddenly went on maternity leave without taking care of anything.

Including renewing my domain name.

A few weeks back, I decided to be all proactive and do my renewal early. Um, wrong. I was about 10 months too late. I couldn't renew and couldn't even register, because after my domain went back for sale on the register, someone bought it.

In checking the details, it seems someone bought it within a few days of my losing it, but they didn't do anything with it for several months. Best I can tell, this someone was hoping I'd contact them and offer to buy it back, and then once I didn't do so, they decided to just put up a blog. A rather haphazard and random blog, I might add. Completely erratic, with no rhyme or reason, although the high heels at the top of the screen are a clear attempt to make it look at first glance like it belonged to me, since I write Chick Lit. If you read enough of it, you can find some references to Duke and UNC...so I think this is intentional.

Yup. They're cybersquatting.

But I ain't biting. Had I noticed this months back, I would lawyer up but I'm just going to sit back and wait for now. The 1-year period ends in January, so I'll revisit this issue then.

So if I, an unpublished nobody, can get cybersquatted, then bigger names definitely can and will. Once there are 1000s of new gTLDS, it is going to be next to impossible to police your brand everywhere at all times, so tons of opportunity for infringers and cybersquatters.

ICANN does have a procedure whereby trademark owners (both registered and common law) can get their domains back, but this is costly and time-consuming, and frankly, small businesses and individuals just won't be able to handle it.

If you agree with me that the risks outweigh the advantages of these new TLDS, then please make your voices heard. I do not believe that a business or public interest case for new gTLDs had been made. No launch of new gTLDs should occure before a meaningful study of the economics of the domain name marketplace has been completed and reviewed. Such a study is necessary so that if a launch does occur, it will benefit consumers rather than create risks to trademark holders. As it stands, nobody even knows the scope of this launch.

ICANN is meeting in Cartagena this week, and will be voting on the proposal ON FRIDAY. Please let them know that as a stakeholder, you do not want 1000s of new TLDs created without careful study and without creating protections for those who are likely to be infringed.

At a meeting the other day, a representative from IPO (the Intellectual Property Owners Association, a trade assosication involved in advocacy for owners of patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets) indicated that the large corporations and lobbying groups have all weighed in, but ICANN hasn't really heard from small business or from individuals. So here's your chance!

Submit your comments by December 10, 2010:

http://www.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtlds/comments-5-en.htm

I Hate Jellyfish

I'm on vacay right now in Hilton Head. It's been a great trip...until I got stung.

So there I was, happily jumping waves with my baby in my arms. She was squealing with delight and we were having a great time. All of a sudden there was a sharp searing pain first in my left leg, then a few seconds later it spread to my right leg. It felt like someone was stabbing knives into both of my legs...or perhaps a shark had dug his teeth in and was gnawing away.

Needless to say, I started screaming my head off. I wasn't scared so much for myself (OK, yes I was), but more for my baby. See, I was convinced I was going to drop her into the ocean at this point.

It probably just took a few seconds before my husband got to me and took her away from me, but in those seconds, I was convinced we were both going to be dragged away my sharks. It was probably the scariest experience of my life.

The whole time, my dad was trying to tell me I'd just stepped on a shell and was fine. Well, he was right that there were no sharks, but it was considerably worse than simply stepping on a shell.

I limped out of the water, because my this point, both my legs had started to swell up. It was low tide, so I had a very far way to go to get to the lifeguard station, and I couldn't straighten either leg, so I was limping with both legs bent, tears streaming down my face.

The lifeguards sprayed my legs down with vinegar and told me to pack it with wet sand. Then a gentleman offered me some shaving cream, which really did the trick.

By the time we got back to the beach house, the welts were still there, but maybe a tenth of what they had been. It no longer felt like a shark was ripping my leg apart, but it still stung badly.

It's been almost 24 hours and now I just have a low-grade stinging sensation left, but it's still there. And the welts are still there.

I think I'll pass on the beach today.

I Don't Have Time to do That...I'm Tending My Homestead!

"Glorious time-wasting fun for our modern times."

That's how my friend Tiffany describes her newest addiction, Frontierville. In fact, sometimes it seems I'm the only one on Facebook who isn't working on my homestead in my spare time.

I keep getting Facebook requests from friends to become their "neighbor" but I've been resisting the temptation. I am the world's worst procrastinator and I know if I get sucked in, it'll be the beginning of the end. As it is, I haven't written more than a handful of pages since my daughter was born...in December!

But even though I haven't joined the madness, probably close to 50% of my friends' status updates on Facebook talk about their crops or livestock. As a result, I get sucked in whether I want to or not.

So what exactly IS Frontierville? Wikipedia says:

"Frontierville is a simulation, role-playing video game available for play on social networking sites such as Facebook. It is developed by Zynga.

The player creates an avatar which resembles a pioneer. The player then may complete a total of 46 collections which can be traded for coins, experience points (xp), decorations, livestock, trees, craftable items, energy and horseshoes (rare money). The player can also finish goals which include tasks such as gathering money, buying energy, clearing land, chopping down trees, raising livestock and trees, creating items such as beds, furniture, and clobbering unwanted pests like bears, snakes, foxes and groundhogs. Eventually the player may acquire a spouse and produce children. The player can also have them perform tasks.

Other tasks include collecting from buildings, building inns, wagons, general stores, cabins, schools, chicken coops, barns and sawmills and seeding, growing and harvesting crops. Completing goals yields rewards."

So now you see why I refuse to get sucked in. The whole concept really appeals to the old-skool Oregon Trail lover in me.

Tiffany, a fellow Oregon Trail fanatic describes Frontierville as "Oregon Trail on steroids...But FV is better...it just has more stuff to keep me entertained. I probably do spend more time at work on my homestead that I should, but I can still get my job done. Maybe that's more telling of my job than my "addiction", though. I avoid playing it on the weeknights when I'm home with my daughter, because I want to spend as much time with her as I can."

Jeanette says: "I play these games when I'm at work as well, but can get my job done too. It's a nice little bonus of having my own office and working for a small company. I also play when I'm at home on the weeknights, but only after my daughter goes to bed. And, usually when I'm playing we are watching our shows on the DVR or my husband is playing his PS3, so it works out nicely for me."

Joanna says "I probably play a total of 2 hrs a day. It's very sad. I could be working out or reading. It's addictive because of all the different missions. Once you complete one, you get another task. It's fun because you can have your neighbors help you. I had no idea that collecting poop from animals and harvesting crops could be so much fun! I really need to stop playing though and get my ass off the couch. Oh, and feel free to quote me. Please mention that Tiffany was my drug pusher and it's all her fault that I'm a pathetic loser."

Laura says: "I have never been into games, but this game has gotten to me. I am so ashamed of it, that I do not tell people that I play. But I love how it is task-oriented, and you have to think about your next moves. I'm sure that some people are very strategic about how they play, and it probably advances them faster, but it's just a bit of fun for me that's not reading."

But not everyone is loving it. Angie says, "Frontierville is a life-sucking addiction that clutters up my friends' Facebook pages and makes my babycenter addiction less exciting."

Now, my friends are responsible adults who just use this time-sucker to blow off some steam, but unfortunately not all simulation gamers know how to draw limits and their escapism can have some very serious consequences.

In March, a 3-month-old South Korean baby girl starved to death after her parents repeatedly left her home alone for 12-hour stretches while they went to an internet cafe to play a simulation game called Prius Online, where you raised a virtual baby. And Google abounds with sad tales of shattered marriages as a result of World of Warcraft (WoW) or Second Life obsession.

Now that the Fictionistas are focusing on goals and being Accountabilibuddies, I know that there's no way I can join in Frontierville.

So if you see me tending crops, yell at me, OK? Or better yet, sabotage them and burn my homestead.

RWA Conference

Half the Fictionistas are in Orlando this week, having a wonderful time at the Romance Writers of America conference. The other half of us are stuck at home.

Can you guess who is where? OK, I'll help you out...I'm not in Orlando. :(

But Mel, Kristen, and Gwen are! Mel signed LOVE SUCKS last night at the Literacy Booksigning. My copy arrived in the mail from Amazon yesterday and I'm SOOOO excited to read it! BITE ME was really good, so I know this one will totally rock!

Are you at RWA? Having fun? Attending any good workshops?

Changes Are A-Comin'

As you probably know from Kristen's post the other day, the Fictionistas blog no longer focuses solely on YA books. Of course, it probably never did even when we said it did. We've always talked about a wide range of topics, but we did try to always bring it all back to YA when we could.

Anyway, most of us 'Nistas write more than just YA, so we decided to make this a more diverse blog open to all topics and books. Now rather than a group of YA writers focused on promoting and talking about YA books, we're a bunch of writers gather to chat about books and life.

So as a reader of this blog, what topics would you like for us to discuss? While we're changing things up, now is the time to give us ideas!

Gwen's daughter came to visit this weekend. She's 17, but very mature and smart. And she's at the Washington Journalism and Media Conference this week, having a blast! We're so proud of her for getting accepted!

We had a lot of fun hosting her this past weekend, and she was really great with my infant. Aren't they cute?



You can see the schedule of her conference here: http://wjmc.gmu.edu/
It looks really awesome, huh? They just met with the deputy White House Press Secretary and are meeting with their members of Congress now.

She's blogging her experiences here: http://hayleypearce.wordpress.com/

Have you ever had any cool conference experiences?

Choose Wisely...

I recently sat down with (and by "sat down", I mean that I assume we were both sitting as we emailed) Shannon Gilligan, publisher of the relaunched "Choose Your Own Adventure" series.

Our adult readers probably remember these books from when they were kids. Our teen readers might have read some of the relaunch titles. Personally, I LOVED these books. So much fun!

The Choose Your Own Adventure (CYOA) series was originally published by Bantam in the 1970s/1980s but is now published by Chooseco, a company started by two of the original writers, R.A. Montgomery and Shannon Gilligan.

Please welcome Shannon Gilligan!

AB: Which was your favorite title that you wrote?

SG: I would say Case of the Silk King. I have family in Thailand that I am very fond of and I just love the Thai spirit and heart. It was funny because years after I wrote this, I actually became friends of one of Jim Thompson’s nephews. Unbeknownst to me at the time. Jim Thompson of course being the Silk King in question!

AB: How did you get your start?

SG: My start as a writer? My first book was a CYOA called The Search for Champ. We recently re-issued it as Lake Monster Mystery with four color illustrations. Before that I wrote a couple of dreadful children’s books about talking bears who fought in the French and Indian Wars. They were dreadful and thankfully never published.


AB: What can you tell us about the relaunch of the series?

SG: We had to do it ourselves to get it right. It’s been a big effort but we are really glad we did.

AB: Why did Chooseco decide to relaunch the series?

There was this demand developing among the original fans who were having their own kids. It was a demand that we were uniquely privy to. One of the reasons we published ourselves was that we could never get an editor to understand how big this demand was. I remember when we were shopping it around, we got an offer for four books to be published over two years. And I said, “What!?! Four books? For this big handsome sexy series, four books?!!” That was when I knew we were going to have to do it ourselves.

AB: Is Chooseco going to add new titles to the series, or are you only reissuing the classic titles?

SG: We have added a couple of new titles in both our classic series. These are Forecast from Stonehenge by R.A. Montgomery, Track Star! Also by R.A., and the just released Zombie Penpal by Ken McMurtry. There weren’t as many original titles to choose from for our younger readers’ imprint so there are more brand new books for that one. They include Your Purrr-fect Birthday, Always Picked Last, Return to Haunted House and the upcoming Monsters of the Deep by R.A. Montgomery and Your Grandparents are Zombies by Anson Montgomery.

We also have experimented with a longer form of interactive story with CYOA: The Golden Path. Volumes 1 and 2 are out and Volume 3 is still being written. The series is by R.A.’s son, Anson, who is a tremendous writer.

AB: Are you accepting submissions?

SG: We get contacted about that all the time. We will look at a proposal once a writer has signed a release. You can download the form from our website cyoa.com, or contact us for a copy. Other than that, we can’t look at unsolicited material for reasons of legal protection. We are about to make an offer on the first proposal from a brand new writer who came “over the transom” shortly.

AB: How is the next generation of readers responding to books that their parents read?

SG: I don’t see a big generational difference in the response, but I must admit to being much more moved than I used to be when someone comes up and tells me that the reason they learned to read was CYOA.

AB: Do you find that the CYOA concept works well for a generation that has grown up playing on the internet?

SG: Yes, if anything it’s more obvious to them. It makes perfect sense that you can control the story!

What Are You Reading?

It's almost summer, so that means summer reading! Laying by the pool, relaxing with a good book, and a nice cold drink...ahhh...

It's been months since I've really read anything other than board books or books on baby development, so I'm looking for some reading suggestions!

I plan to hit up Borders this weekend to buy Rhonda's latest, so I'm looking for some other suggestions.

Speaking of Rhonda, the last installment of the STUPID CUPID trilogy hit the stores yesterday. Go pick up your copy!



And Mel's new book will be available in July.



If it's ebooks you want, be sure to check out Kristen's and Gwen's latest!





Other than these awesome titles by our Nistas, what is on your summer reading list?