Amanda Hocking

When did writing blogs become so hard? I think it was when I became aware that people were actually reading them. Pro-tip: Writing is much easier when you don’t think anybody will ever see what you write. Words just comes out, and who cares what they say as long as they were fun to make?

Anyway, before I forget, all the winners for the Under the Seapalooza have been chosen, and emails have been sent out to notify the winners. So please check your emails. We’ve sent out some of the prizes, but some we’re still in the process of getting together, and there’s several that we haven’t heard back from the winners yet. Ideally, I’d like to have everything out by the end of the week, so I need the addresses to make that happen.

Now back onto what will most likely be a slightly rambling post, but I don’t care.

Oh! Good news! The first chapter for Lullaby is up now. It is a bit spoiler-y if you haven’t read Wake yet, but if you have, there’s a link for the excerpt: here. And just as a reminder, Lullaby will be out November 27, 2012.

I haven’t blogged about The Dark Knight Rises yet, but I will. Just not right now. I feel like I should a little more focused on topics like myself and books and what not.

So the book tour was fun. It was neat meeting people, but I need to work on some kind of witty tag to sign books with. Right now, it’s usually, “Thanks” or “Thank you,” and while neither of those are bad, they’re not that much fun.

Today is my first official day back to “work.” After the tour, I took a week off to reorient myself with real life. And also catch up on sleep. Mostly sleep.

I just accidentally took a drink form a can of Red Bull that had to bee sitting on my desk for a month, at least. And it smelled like nail polish remover. And my office is infested with spiders, so there’s probably a dead spider floating around in it somewhere. I’m going to die soon.

That seems like a good place to end the blog. With my death imminent. So with that, I will bid you all good day.

I’m going to do a “meet a character from Watersong” post, along with a giveaway of some of the character’s favorite things. It’s just a quick questionnaire that introduces the characters, as well as a pictures of actors that resemble how I imagined them.

Ellen Page is how I pictured Marcy, but more montone

1. Full Name: Marcy Dayton Baker
2. Birthday: November 13
3. Age: 25
4. Zodiac:Scorpio
5. Boy or Girl: Girl
6. High School:Capri High School
7. College: Some
8. Job: I work at the Capri Public Library
9. Hair Color:Black
10. Eye Color: Brown
11. Height: 5’5″
12. Piercing/Tattoos: One on my hip.
13. Boyfriend/Girlfriend:Yeah, right.
14. Best Friend:Harper, I guess.
15. Last person you talked to:Harper
16. Last person you texted:Harper
17. Last song you listened to: B-52s – “Rock Lobster”
18. Favorite Movie: Plan-9 From Outerspace
19. Favorite Bands: Carly Simon or Bats for Lashes
20. Favorite Books: Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak or Raptor Red by Robert T. Bakker
21. Favorite Food:Beef jerky
22. Favorite Beverage: Red Bull
23. Favorite Possession: My photographic evidence of the Loch Ness Monster from my uncle
24. Favorite Place: Anywhere people aren’t

I’m home again! Both my online book tour, and the real life book tour across the country are over now. It was great meeting everyone, and thank you to everyone that came out and made Wake‘s release so great.

I plan on doing a longer post later about the tour with more detail, but right now, I’m just going to end with a picture of what I came home to:

Elroy and Sophie

I’m going to do a “meet a character from Watersong” post. It’s just a quick questionnaire that introduces the characters, as well as a pictures of actors that resemble how I imagined them.

This week, it’s Daniel Morgan, one of the leads and love interests in Wake.

Daniel Johns as “Daniel.” The former-lead-singer of Silverchair may not be an actor, but he is named Daniel, so its serendipity. Also, he’s foxy. And Australian.

Daniel is on my favorite cover (along with Penn)

1. Full Name: Daniel Grant Morgan
2. Birthday: September 1st
3. Age: 20
4. Zodiac:Virgo
5. Boy or Girl: Boy
6. High School:Capri High School
7. College: None
8. Job: Handyman
9. Hair Color:Dirty blonde
10. Eye Color: Hazel
11. Height: 6’1″
12. Piercing/Tattoos: I had my left ear pierced in high school, but the hole grew closed. I have a large tattoo on my back.
13. Boyfriend/Girlfriend: I’ve been single for awhile now.
14. Best Friend: I’m between best friends, I guess
15. Last person you talked to:Pearl, my occasional boss
16. Last person you texted: My mom
17. Last song you listened to: Elliott Smith – “Miss Misery”
18. Favorite Movie: Jaws
19. Favorite Bands: Led Zepplin
20. Favorite Books: On the Road by Jack Kerouac
21. Favorite Food: Pearl’s Clam Chowder
22. Favorite Beverage: Grape soda
23. Favorite Possession: My boat, The Dirty Gull 
24. Favorite Place: Out in the ocean on my boat

While planning for Under the Seapalooza, I was trying to come up with some fun ideas for things to and asked for input. Nikki Jefford (author of Entangled and the awesome guest post & giveaway, which you should check out: here) came up with the idea for weekly “Show & Tell” memes.

Here’s how it works:

Unlike ongoing meme’s, this one is temporary – every Thursday throughout the month of Under the Seapalooza. Each week, I’ll show off my favorite something (this week it’s bookmarks), then you show off your favorite thing and enter to win a prize.

This is the schedule for Show & Tell Thursdays:
July 25th – Bookmarks
August 2nd – eReader Skins
August 9th – Journals
August 16th – Book Trailers
  
I’ll be honest – I love trailers for anything. Movies, books, TV shows, you name it, and I like it. I’ve seen many book trailers popping over the last couple years, and I’ve decided to show you a couple of my favorite.

The first one is for Jenny Pox by J. L. Bryan. It’s not only a book I really enjoy, but the trailer is also super creepy and very well done.

The second one is for me Shatter Me by Taherehah Mafi, which I think is one of the raddest book trailers I’ve ever seen.

And finally, it’s the book trailer for Watersong. I know, it’s my own book, so I can’t be objective, but it’s definitely one of my favoites.

What about you? Do have a favorite book trailer? Or are you an author with a trailer for you own books? Maybe you don’t have a favorite book trailer, but you do have a favorite movie trailer. Let me know.

The Show & Tell Giveaway this week is for a $50 Visa Gift Card, so after you watch all kinds of awesome book and movie trailers, you can go out and buy yourself some of those awesome books and movies.

Enter in the Rafflecopter below. All Show & Tell Giveaways will run until August 25th. It’s open to the US & Canada only, sorry.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thanks again to Nikki Jefford for coming up with such a fun idea!