Amanda Hocking

Wake has been out for a week, and I can’t thank you guys enough for all your support. You guys are all amazing.

Lullaby is the sequel to Wake, and it’s coming out November 27, 2012 – so just over 3 months from now. The ARCs are already out, which means I have something fun for the giveaway, and I’ve decided to do a Teaser Tuesday with Lullaby, revealing a few select lines from it.

If you’re not familiar, here’s the trailer for the whole Watersong series:

Here’s the cover and description for Lullaby:

Harper only wanted a safe, normal life. But when her younger sister Gemma runs off with a dangerous clique of beautiful girls, everything changes. Vowing to get her sister back no matter what the cost, Harper must face dangers unlike any she’s ever experienced. Fortunately, she has Daniel by her side, a gorgeous guy who’s devoted to helping her find her sister—and who’s immune to the girls’ dark powers.

While Harper searches for her sister, Gemma struggles to adjust to her new life. Gemma’s powers are growing by the day, and the longer she lives with her new “sisters,” the harder it is to resist entering their magical world. It’s a realm both dark and beautiful, and where she’s plagued by strange hungers and unspeakable needs. Just as she’s drifting far away from her old life, Harper and Daniel find her…but no one can deny how much she’s changed. All she wants is to return to her family and the mortal world, but how can she do that when she’s become something else entirely—and will they still love her once they learn the truth?

Music plays a really important role both within the Watersong story and when I’m writing. This is the soundtrack for Lullaby:

1. Florence + the Machine – “Spectrum”
2. Agnes Obel – “Riverside”
3. Black Lab – “Remember (acoustic)”
4. Crystal Castles – “Not in Love”
5. Death Cab for Cutie – “Transatlanticism”
6. Fefe Dobson – “Can’t Breathe”
7. Foo Fighters – “Everlong (acoustic)”
8. Frou Frou – “Let Go”
9. Helene – “Where Do You Go to When You Disappear”
10. Lana Del Rey – “Video Games”
11. Nico Vega – “Iron Man”
12. Regina Spektor – “Samson”
13. Ryan Adams – “Do I Wait”
14. Sia – “Breathe Me”
15. Stars – “Your Ex-Lover is Dead”
16. The xx – “Islands”
17. Kathleen Edwards – “A Soft Place to Land” 
18. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – “Runaway”

And finally, here is the teaser from Lullaby:

As she was washing her hair, something tangled in her fingers. She pulled her hand out to inspect it in the ever brightening morning light. It was a whole clump of her own hair, and Gemma yelped in shock.

She reached up and touched her head. Without even really trying, another chunk of hair fell out.

I’m giving away TWO autographed copies of Lullaby. Enter in the Rafflecopter below. The giveaway runs until August 25th. And it’s international! So enter away.
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Every Friday throughout Under the Seapalooza, I’m going do a “meet a character from Wake” 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.

This week, it’s Harper Fisher, one of the main characters and Gemma’s older sister in Wake.

Emmy Rossum as “Harper.” I saw her on Shameless, without makeup, all harried taking care of kids and the house, and I was like, “Yep. That’s Harper.”

Harper is also on the cover of Lullaby

1. Full Name: Harper Lynn Fisher
2. Birthday: January 9th
3. Age: 18
4. Zodiac: Capricorn
5. Boy or Girl: Girl
6. High School: I graduated from Capri High School
7. College: I start at Sundham University at the end of August
8. Job: I work part-time at the library
9. Hair Color: Dark brown
10. Eye Color: Gray
11. Height: 5′ 7″
12. Piercing/Tattoos:My ears are pierced, but no tattoos.
13. Boyfriend/Girlfriend: I don’t have time for a love life right now.
14. Best Friend: Alex or Marcy
15. Last person you talked to: Marcy
16. Last person you texted: Alex
17. Last person you watched a movie with: It’s been awhile. The last time I went to movie was probably on my failed date with Luke, but I can’t even remember what it was.
18. Last song you listened to: Ryan Adams – “Do I Wait”
19. Favorite Movie:The Devil Wears Prada
20. Favorite Bands: Death Cab for Cutie & Adele
21. Favorite Books: Little Women by Louisa May Alcott or Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
22. Favorite Food: Spaghetti with meatballs
23. Favorite Beverage: Cherry Coke
24. Favorite Possession: My laptop
25. Favorite Place: Bernie’s Island – this cute little island out in the bay where our family friend Bernie lives.

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

This week, it’s journals. With blogging and other online journals, hand written journals probably aren’t as popular as they once were. But there’s something about putting pen to paper that I can’t resist. It’s more active, more personal, and far more private than anything on the internet.

All my books start out on paper, with my writing down ideas in notebooks or journals. In the beginning, it’s usually just a setting or a character name, along with many doodles, but eventually it grows into a full blown outline.

I journaled every day from middle through high school, but now I only journal sporadically. Still, it’s something that I enjoy doing, and it’s helpful when I want to vent or work something out in my head.

Right now, I use a lot of Five Star Notebooks. I know, it’s not exciting at all, but I’ve kinda obsessed with Five Star for years, and now I’m stuck on them. They’re the only notebook I’ve used since I was like 13, and I feel like if I change now, it might ruin everything.

Here’s my current journal:

It’s kinda boring, so I made Sophie be in the picture to spice it up.

So what about you? Do you use an old notebook? A fancy covered journal? Or do you use Microsoft Word?

Whether you love journalling or not, here’s your chance at winning one of two awesome journals that will hopefully inspire all your creative juices.

The first one is this fantastic “under the sea” inspired journal from Nikki Jefford. (Thanks again, Nikki!)

The second one is a cool journal that I chose because it reminded me of Daniel from Wake.

Enter in the Rafflecopter below to win one of the journals. 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!  

Today I have a guest post from Julie Cross, the author of Tempest. On Friday, she and I will both be signing at Anderson’s Bookshop in Naperville, Illinois at 7:00 PM. She’s also going to be at LeakyCon during the day in Chicago (as will I) on Friday, so you should definitely stop out and see us.  For more info about the event, click: here.

And now to Julie’s post:

 The year is 2009. Nineteen-year-old Jackson Meyer is a normal guy… he’s in college, has a girlfriend… and he can travel back through time. But it’s not like the movies – nothing changes in the present after his jumps, there’s no space-time continuum issues or broken flux capacitors – it’s just harmless fun.

That is… until the day strangers burst in on Jackson and his girlfriend, Holly, and during a struggle with Jackson, Holly is fatally shot. In his panic, Jackson jumps back two years to 2007, but this is not like his previous time jumps. Now he’s stuck in 2007 and can’t get back to the future.

Desperate to somehow return to 2009 to save Holly but unable to return to his rightful year, Jackson settles into 2007 and learns what he can about his abilities.

But it’s not long before the people who shot Holly in 2009 come looking for Jackson in the past, and these “Enemies of Time” will stop at nothing to recruit this powerful young time-traveler. Recruit… or kill him.

Piecing together the clues about his father, the Enemies of Time, and himself, Jackson must decide how far he’s willing to go to save Holly… and possibly the entire world.

Coming January, 2013, VORTEX (Tempest #2)

About Julie Cross:
Julie Cross is the internationally bestselling author of Tempest, the first novel in a thrilling time travel trilogy. Tempest received starred reviews, is nominated for the 2012 YALSA Teens Top Ten list, is available in seventeen territories, and has been optioned by Summit Entertainment. The forthcoming sequel, Vortex releases in January, 2013. Julie lives in Central Illinois with her husband and three children. She never began writing until May of 2009 and hasn’t gone a day without it since.

What inspired TEMPEST?
For me, it started with the love story…two people from very different backgrounds who have this amazing summer fling and get to the end thinking it was just for fun and then have to decide what it really means and accept the fact that you are always susceptible to falling in love whether you want to or not.

Most of this happens before TEMPEST begins and it’s trickled in little bits throughout the book. But the love story alone wasn’t big enough. I needed something epic and more original to add to this plot. That’s where time travel came in. And then, just for fun, I tossed in the mysterious division of the CIA and some pretty crazy spies.

For those not in the know, give us the 411 on ‘Tempest’ and the series it kicks off.
I like to describe Tempest as The Time Traveler’s Wife meets Bourne Identity…but with teenagers. Oh…and everyone seems to get excited that my main character is a guy. So, that’s probably worth mentioning, too.

How long did it take to write Tempest? How many drafts did you have by the time it was ready for publication?
It took about three and a half weeks to write the first draft of Tempest, but it took about a year to get a final version. Probably over a dozen drafts…I lost count after five or six.

The time travel aspect of Tempest is quite complex at times. What was your process in formulating this aspect of the book? Was it difficult to keep track of everything and to make sure that you never broke your own time travel rules?
I’ve honestly surprised myself with how much I can remember. But the complexity came in layers through many, many drafts. What happens after all those hours spent in a character’s head is you suddenly feel as if you’ve lived their life and we all remember our own lives just fine, but try and explain what you’ve been up to for the last fifteen years to a stranger…it will sound crazy and bizarre to them and totally normal to you. That’s kind of how it is for me. I have broken some of the rules in earlier drafts but once they were established, most of the issues came from me having to explain to a new reader or someone doing line edits why I’m right and how to easily get that across to the reader.

Tempest is told from the POV of 19 year old Jackson Meyer. What was it like writing from the male POV and how did it differ from telling a story through the eyes of a female protagonist?
At first, I used to spend lots of time writing diaries for my main female character, Holly Flynn because all the time writing Jackson was exhausting and I needed some time in the girl’s head as a nice mental break. Now I’m just writing Jackson…yes he’s a guy, but he’s Jackson and I know him well enough to know what he’ll do or say in about any situation. Now it’s easy.

—
 Julie Cross Tempest (St. Martin’s Press)

“Julie Cross’s thrilling debut is brimming with excitement, romance, and intrigue. I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough!” —Beth Revis, New York Times-bestselling author of ACROSS THE UNIVERSE

“Equal parts adventure, romance, science fiction … readers will turn the last page and find themselves wishing they could “jump” to the future and read the sequel.” —KIRKUS REVIEWS, starred review

“Debut author Cross launches a trilogy with an exciting and complex page-turner … a story packed with moments both tender and electric—Cross’s zippy writing and fresh plot are an exhilarating combination.” —Publishers Weekly

Today Wake is finally out – in hardcover, ebook, and audio book – and I am crazy excited. To celebrate Wake‘s birth, I have not one but TWO giveaways and an fun video that Eric and I did, in which we talk about Wake and the upcoming book tour (which also kicks off today).

For all the information on where to get Wake online, click: here. If you physically go to a store, most book stores and major retailers should have it, and if they don’t, ask them to stock it.

(P.S. Did you see my awesome shark shirt? It’s Shark Week on Discovery Channel starting August 12th. It’s their 25th Anniversary this year. Set your DVRs accordingly.)

I talk about the tour in the video, but this is a link to all the tour info: here. If you’re in the are of: the Twin Cities, Chicago, Philadelphia, NYC, Dallas, San Diego, San Francisco, Portland OR, or Seattle, you should definitely check out the tour, because I will be in those places!

Now for the giveaways. The first giveaway is for an autographed hardcover of Wake.

The second giveaway is for an autographed audio version of Wake on CD. It’s neat because Watersong is has music in it, so it’s cool to hear.

Enter in the Rafflecopters below. US and Canada only, sorry. The giveaway runs from today until August 14th.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Thanks again to everybody for being so supportive and making Wake‘s birthday so awesome! I hope to see you all out on the tour.