Rowenna, Writing

Release dates are weird things. See, this book has felt "real" to me for a while now.  From seeing pass pages (and marking up pass pages and wow a novel means a STACK and a half of pass pages!) to getting an ARC of my book, to a box of author copies arriving on my doorstep to handling REAL ACTUAL copies of MY BOOK for the first time... I've met my book as a book.  It feels real.   It's been out there dipping its big toe in the world, too--there have been trade reviews  and book blogger's reviews (like this one , this one , and I'm missing quite a few but I'm typing fast here, this one ).  People have read my book. I've had that stop and breathe moment--*PEOPLE have read my BOOK.* (Whether people liked it or not isn't even registering--people have READ it.) And all that happens before the book releases into the wild of Amazon , Barnes and Noble , your favorite corner bookshop that's hanging despite the odds. So w...

GIVEAWAY!! TORN comes out next week—I kinda can’t believe it! To celebrate I’m giving away handmade-by-me, fabric-accented, signed bookmarks. Open anywhere the mail goes, enter on Twitter or Facebook ! Open through midnight Sunday (ET). I'm giving away five bookmarks minimum in each place, so feel free to enter in each! Good luck!

Two months from today, Torn will be released! I'm already excited--and I want to celebrate ahead of time a little bit and give one you a gift!  In the spirit of the trade employed by the main character, Sophie, in Torn , this is a "Seamstress Prize Pack." I'm giving away a copy of the American Duchess Guide to 18th Century Dressmaking and a sweet little pair of embroidery snips. Why these items? Because my (sometimes obsessive) love of sewing and historical textiles was a huge part of the inspiration for Torn , and I am *loving* how this book by Lauren Stowell and Abby Cox makes the process of sewing historical gowns so accessible.  If you've ever wanted to dive into sewing historical garments, this is a wonderful entree.  And if you've been sewing for ages, there are still excellent patterns, tips, advice, and general prettiness to enjoy, too.  Frankly, even if you never intend to sew a stitch, it's a beautiful book to look at it and it cer...

Orbit unveiled the cover for Torn last week and GUYS. I love this thing!  One thing that's very weird about the cover of one's book is that, unless your circumstances are very unusual in traditional publishing or you're a multi-talented self-pubber who did her own cover, it's, um, not actually your work.  So people are generously complimenting me on it and I can't take the credit at all!  The artists at Orbit are amazing--captured the essence of the story and the vitals of the plot without resorting to anything too trope-y or sentimental.   The other thing that's kinda weird (everything is a little weird for me right now, it's all so new) is that your publisher sends your book to established authors to ask for quotes or "blurbs" about it.  Hopefully these are positive and not, you know, "about on par with the back of my cereal box."  They then feature these on the cover (unless they're the cereal box thing), and let me te...

I've been writing for years.  Even if I only count the years of "this is getting sorta serious, aiming for publication," it's been a long time.  In that time--about a decade--I never identified myself publicly as a writer. I thought of myself that way--if I had to pick a few words that make up my personal self-portrait, "writer" would be one of them.  But I didn't introduce myself that way to other people, or talk about it on Facebook or in those polite small-talk conversations at parties. Some close friends knew that I wrote steadily; a few knew where I was in the long, circling road to publication.  I suppose, if you cornered me, I didn't feel like I'd earned that moniker--I hadn't sold a book, I couldn't claim it as a profession, I wasn't "really" a writer in a way that the world at large would understand. Which is fine--this isn't one of those empowering posts about owning who you are and claiming the name "...

I realize I’ve been a little quiet around here recently.  Moms of toddlers will tell you that it’s when things get quiet in their houses that they know *something* is happening.  With toddlers, silent happenings are usually not a good thing.  In writing? They can be a really awesome thing. Long story short (when does that ever happen writing novels?): I’m incredibly excited to announce that Orbit will be publishing my novel Torn in spring of 2018—and even more exciting, we’ll be publishing a trilogy! The story follows a seamstress who can embed good luck charms into her creations--and becomes entangled in a revolution. Obligatory Publisher's Marketplace screenshot--because this little blurb means this is super-duper, 100%, don't bother pinching me official! Long story less short: Want to have the most exciting day of your career and then sit on the news for months? Then writing and publishing books is for you!  This has been in the works for a wh...

In case I haven't mentioned, I'm expecting.  This post makes a lot more sense with that info in hand. To the point--naming babies is harder than naming characters.  I never considered I'd have such a tricky time pinpointing potential names for The Little Stranger, but here I am, a couple months out from zero hour, still dithering on the name front.  Completely unexpected--because character names are never an issue for me. The Bean hanging with the Giant Bean in Chicago Our temporary placeholder name, to avoid calling the baby "It" or "The Uterine Parasite" (for some reason that bothered my husband), is "The Bean."  This was easy to come up with, probably because it's not permanent.  We aren't stuck with calling another human being "Bean" for the rest of our lives (nor is the Bean stuck with being The Bean).  Plus I had just looked at one of those food-chart-fetal-growth comparisons and the Bean was, at that point, the ...