Nailing down a release date, Danny Ocean style.

Here we go guys. Are you ready for the madness of releasing another book? Because I'm sure not. Now here's the thing. This is kind of a sloppy release... we'll just say I've watched "Ocean's 13" a few too many times and now I want a Soft soft open before letting a bunch of grifters into my hotel/casino.

In other words (because really that was a horrible example) "Finding June" will not be released on all available platforms at the same time. Why? Do you ask... well... honestly it's pretty much just because I overestimated/underestimated how long certain platforms take and so now the release is going to be scattered all over the place. I'm nothing if not unprofessional.

So right now, at this very moment, it's available to purchase as an e-book on a site called Smashwords, which can be found here.

In the next day or so it should be available on Kindle and Nook and the second it is I'll be posting another incoherent blog post to let you all know!

THEN, hopefully in the next week or so it'll be available to purchase as a paperback on Amazon. Again, I'll annoy you with a blog post detailing this lovely semi-release once it's up and running!

In the meantime, guess who has a giveaway contest going on? Yep, me! So go enter the Goodreads giveaway and keep checking back for more info on the actual release date, other giveaways, and... well... with me who really knows what.

 
 

    Goodreads Book Giveaway
 

   

       
   

   

     

          Finding June
     

     

          by Shannen Crane Camp
     

     

         
            Giveaway ends December 20, 2012.
         

         
            See the giveaway details
            at Goodreads.
         

     

   

   

      Enter to win

Until next time!

Shannen

Happy Thanksgiving! Cover Reveal :)

All right guys! It's the moment you've all been waiting for! Or at least... the moment I've been waiting for, which is probably a more accurate statement. Here's the cover for my newest LDS YA Fiction book "Finding June" which should come out sometime in mid December (Just in time for Christmas *hint* *hint*). The cover was designed by the very lovely and very talented Jackie Hicken who also writes some amazing fairytale books that you guys should get on her case about publishing.

Also, for those of you who don't know about my June series, here's a brief synopsis :)

Hope you enjoy the cover as much as your Thanksgiving turkey and football!


Standing up for what you believe in is hard for any teenager in the battleground known as high school. It's even harder in the world of Hollywood, which is where sixteen-year-old June Laurie dreams of being. Thanks to the constant training from her agent/grandmother and the support of her best friend Joseph, June is positive she's ready. But is an innocent little Mormon girl like June ever really ready to be cast as the love interest for the country's hottest star, Lukas Leighton? When June lands a role in Hollywood's most popular crime drama, Forensic Faculty, she finds herself caught off-guard by the fast-paced world of tabloids and paparazzi, and swept off her feet by her gorgeous co-star. Now June must decide what she's willing to give up to achieve the title of Hollywood starlet—or more importantly, what's too sacred to lose.

Tag, I'm It!- The Next Big Thing

I was tagged by author Cindy C. Bennett to discuss my WIP.
 
What is the working title of your book?
Sugar Coated (It's a trilogy along with "Rose Tinted" and "Silver Lined")

Where did the idea come from for the book?

A lot of different places actually. I was driving home from Idaho to Utah with The Husband one night and said "I love dystopian YA books. I wish I could write one." And he said, "Why don't you?" So the next three hours were spent with us throwing ideas around for a cool plot and by the end of the drive we'd come up with a trilogy! A lot has been added to the plot since then (Twists and turns!) but I'm just so excited to write a series where I can invent my own world with its own technology and social norms.

What genre does your book fall under?

Dystopian Young Adult Fiction.

Which actors would you choose to play your charcters in a movie rendition?
Brynn would be played by Emily Browning since I modeled the character after her :) Eris would be played by Charlize Theron... she's good at being pretty and creepy all at once. Ty would be Xavier Samuel. Jonah would be played by Logan Lerman. And Amber and Bennett I wrote as my friends Amber and Whitney Bennett sooooo they could play themselves. 

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
A perfectly contained world doesn't always equal safety for Brynn, whose constant nightmares hint at an unsavory truth about her reality.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
I'm shopping it around right now at a few agents but I may still self-publish it.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript? May we see an intro?
It took about three or four months to write it. Working full time is a beast when you're trying to write a book as well!

Blinding white lights flashed into life, revealing a room less cavernous and imposing than she had expected. Instead, the room with the white walls, ceilings, and floor was quite small; small enough for her to run from one end to the other without ever breaking a sweat. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust and once they did, she still couldn’t be sure of what she was seeing. There seemed to be a complete lack of color in this small room, as if it had been drained right before her arrival and was shining more brightly because of its recent purge.

            Brynn blinked her eyes a few more times, trying to clear the spots that sprang into existence when the less-than-subtle lights had ignited. Now that she had a proper hold on her surroundings, she could see the impossibility of the room. There were no windows. There were no doors. There was no way in or out. So how had she gotten there?

            “We apologize for any inconvenience your death may cause you at this time,” said a smooth, soothing female voice over what Brynn could only describe as a loudspeaker. If the woman’s voice hadn’t been so calm and collected, it may have taken her less time to understand exactly what she was saying before the sickly sweet smell of sugar hit her nose; like cookies right out of the oven.

            This wasn’t just a room. It was a death chamber.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
I would compare it to the Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld and the Matched series by Ally Condie. Also I was playing A LOT of Portal when I wrote it so I'm pretty sure that video game crept in there a few times.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?
Loving dystopian YA WAY too much for my own good made me want to write this.

What else about your book might pique the reader's interest?
It's set in a dystopian future on a planet where there's no such thing as money, politics, or hardship. It seems like it would be a pretty amazing place to live but when everything is handed to you there's also no progress or creativity and Brynn seems to be the only one in the world who's bothered by that... until she meets Jonah. It's full of adventure and lots of mystery (I love murder mysteries but I don't feel clever enough to write one so I made this book a little bit of a non-murder mystery) which unfortunately makes it difficult to describe. Too many twists!

Here's who I'm tagging:
Jolene Perry
Mandi Slack
Jackie Hicken
Jenni James

Misty Moncur

*Use this format for your post

*Answer the ten questions about your current WIP

*Tag five other writers/bloggers and add their links so we can hop on over to meet them

The Problem with an X-Men marathon

Every time I make my usual rounds to visit a few awesome blogs by my fellow authors and readers I think to myself, "Wow Shannen you really need to step up your game and update your blog more often than once a month." And it's true. I really should update more often. The thing is, this is a writer's blog for a writer who's talking to other writers or readers. So it seems like I should probably be writing about... well... writing.

But here's the thing.

I don't like to write about writing. If I'm sitting down to write, I want to write a story, not a blog post about writing itself. Granted, I do like to answer questions so if people had specific writing questions I could write 15 blogs on that. But to just sit down and write a post out of the blue is probably not going to happen.

Which brings me to the point of this blog.

If you could be one of the X-Men, which one would you be?

Or maybe, if you could have one of their powers which would you have?

I've been thinking about this a lot recently because, as stated many times before, I'm a huge nerd. The kind of nerd who tries to talk to my husband about what I should spend my skill points on in a game or quotes a murderous AI named GLaDOS constantly.

That being said, if I could have any power in the X-Men, I think I would want Nightcrawler's power. Admit it. It would be pretty awesome to teleport! Though I don't think he can teleport over long distances. But still. Pretty cool :)

Though I don't know if I'd want to be blue and have a tail and really big hands.

I'd also love The Pheonix's power to be made of awesome, but without the side effect of being a complete psychopath.

So that's my very informative writerly blog post!

What X-Men power would you want? 

Until next time!

Shannen

PS: I'm working on a new website that's still very work in progress. What do you think?
http://shannencranecamp.weebly.com/

Online File Saving FTW?

Leave it to me to always use things practically. At work my friends were always talking about Pinterest and how great it was and I was thinking "Yeah it is pretty nice that you can have an online file to save your pictures in instead of taking up space on your computer huh?"

Why was I thinking that? You may be asking yourself.

Because that's what I thought Pinterest was. Yep. I saw the amazing website and thought, "Awesome! Online file saving FTW!".

It's a pretty embarrassing thing to admit now that I know you can look things up on Pinterest and get ideas from it. But the good thing that came from this misunderstanding is I have a whole online database of my own personal cast for my books! As well as some spoiler-filled board where I keep things while I'm actually writing a book. I like having a visual aid for things I'm describing so if you guys are ever in need of some similar visual aids, might I suggest checking out my Book Cast and #Amwriting board?

Happy Accident right?

Until next time,

Shannen

Why being a writer is not a dark silent room

I'm kind of an anti-social person. I can admit this. I'm an anti-social person who married another anti-social person and together (or apart) we make one full anti-social person.

I know what you're saying to yourself (because apparently I can read minds. Just one of the perks of being a writer). You're thinking "Well Shannen it's a good thing you became a writer so you can stare at your computer screen all day while locked in a room by yourself." And for the most part I would reply, "Why yes, random person who reads my blog and is probably related to me because I'm pretty sure only my relatives read this, I do enjoy sitting in a dark room by myself and making odd facial expressions to figure out how to describe the weird face my character is making. How did you know?"

The only problem with this is that writing is not ALL about sitting in a room by yourself. The thing I didn't understand about writing until getting my first book published is just how much collaboration is involved in the whole process.

The most obvious source of social interaction in writing is book signings. Now if any of you have ever been to one of my book signings you'll probably think I'm some sort of manic because I smile like a crazy person and try to give a bookmark to any innocent bystander within two feet of me. And of course, because I'm a socially awkward person I might scare off more people than I invite over to my table. But that comes with the territory of being a writer, I'm allowed to be socially awkward!

My latest source of anxiety inducing social interaction has been the constant hunt for an agent. It's a well known fact that if you'd like your book to do well, an agent is a HUGE help! The only problem is, the more writers I talk to about finding an agent, the more responses I get that sound a little something like this: "Oh yeah I had to get 60 rejections before I got an agent", or "Just keep sending out your query letters and eventually you'll find one." or the less frequent but much truer, "You want to find a literary agent? Why don't you just find a way to get to the moon using only a toothpick and a vinyl Mickey Mouse toy while you're at it."

OK... I might have made that last response up, but you get the point.

Also, I totally forgot the point of writing this blog post. Not sure if you (meaning the random family member who reads this) has noticed but I seem to do that a lot. That's why I make an outline for my books! So they don't end up like my blogs.

Anyway. All of those movies with authors staring at a screen by themselves and being brilliant and smelly and wearing the same bathrobe for days and only eating Doritos and drinking Mountain Dew are a total crock. Well... I guess they're actually pretty true, they just conveniently leave out the part where you learn how to network and market and do book signings and find an agent and speak at schools.

But really? It's kind of wonderful.

Yep. That's right. I just completely changed the entire mood of this blog post.

Yes I whine a lot about how hard it can be to deal with the business side of writing. But I wouldn't have it any other way. If you love something don't you fight for it? And I definitely love writing.

So I'll fight for it :)

Also, I REALLY hope I get an agent for "Sugar Coated" soon because it's so flippin epic that I can't wait for you all to read it!

I really wish I could say more buttttt I don't want to give anything away.

And lastly, The Husband and I will hopefully be getting a battery charger for our camera soon so expect some awkward video blogs in the near future!

Until next time when I write another barely coherent blog post at 1 in the morning.

Shannen

Sugar Coated

Lovely picture taken by Shadarium

Well I've done it. I've finished my first draft of my Dystopian novel "Sugar Coated".

I'm still ages away from it being completed since I have to re-read it and make sure I didn't change my character's eye colors half way through (like I did with pretty much EVERYONE in "The Breakup Artist") and make sure that I actually made sense. Then it's time for a billion people to read over it and find my MANY typos and then.... Drum roll please... it's time to slowly wear down every literary agent in New York until their resistance is weakened and they have to accept my book :)

That's about how the process goes.

But I figure now that I've written the book I can tell you a bit about it... butttttt I can't give anything away. So that's a problem. Let's see, what can I say without alluding to the fifteen billion twists in the book?

Well, I can tell you that It's a dystopian Young Adult novel set in the future on a plant called Halcyon. It's about a girl named Brynn who feels like maybe a society where everything is given to you in the blink of an eye isn't such a good thing. And it's about some creepy purple eyed Angels that Brynn can't seem to stop dreaming about.

It has misinformation, fear of water, too much technology and too much leisure time, not to mention the ominous feeling that the utiopian society you live in may not be as perfect as you first believed.

So what does all of this mean? It means this book will be full of action, danger, romance, conspiracy theories, and a computer named Charlie who I absolutely love.

Hopefully the grueling editing and agent wearing down process won't take too long so that you can read it for yourself since, as stated above, there are too many twists to really explain much. I guess I'd better figure out a better pitch for my book than that huh?

All in good time!

Now, despite the danger of being sued for continually putting pictures up on my blog that I find on Google images, here are some things that remind me of "Sugar Coated".

Anyone who knows me knows all about my Emily Browning obsession so of course my main character Brynn would be based on her.

Pretty much any picture of Tron reminds me of my book. Let's just say there's lots of neon lights and creepy women :)

And last but not least, this woman's hair was the inspiration for the extremely creepy Eris, who you'd never want to meet in a dark alley... though she wouldn't be caught dead in a dark alley anyway. You'd never want to meet her in a bright white sterile hospital room full of implements of torture. How's that?

The series will be three books long and the title of book two is "Rose Tinted" though to talk about that particular plot would require revealing all of the things that happen in book one.

So no plot for you!

Until next time!

Shannen

I walk to the car, I open the door, I don't write in present tense.

I realize that lately I've been neglecting my blog. Granted I've been neglecting it to write a book that I'm really obsessed with. But still. It's no excuse and I apologize to the two people who actually read my blog :)

So I thought to make up for it I'll start being a good writer and actually talk about some writing on here. Good idea right? We'll see.

I started writing my first dystopian YA novel (the one I'm very obsessed with right now) and felt that I needed a challenge. Of course, writing something that isn't peppy contemporary YA fiction was quite a challenge but it needed to be more than that. I'm kind of a lazy writer and I didn't want to get stuck in the rut of always writing the same type of thing. So in challenging myself with this dystopian novel I also decided to change up my writing style. No more comfortable first person past tense. Instead I thought I'd go with third person past tense. Not a huge jump I know but still out of my comfort zone.

How has this been working out? Quite well actually. I find that writing in third person past tense I'm actually able to be much more descriptive. I feel like it's more of a challenge to be funny which is sad for me... I love writing funny books. But since this is dystopian I figured I didn't need to be quite as humorous as a lighthearted contemporary YA book. So it works.

This little self-proclaimed challenge brought me to a realization. I hate writing first person present tense. Or really any present tense if I'm being honest. I can't do it.

Go ahead.

Call me a bad writer. Say I have no skills.

I. don't. care.

I won't write in present tense. That's not to say that books written in present tense are bad (The Hunger Games are present tense and they kick butt). But me writing present tense sounds a bit like this:

I walk to the door. I open the door. I look inside. I try to decide which seat I should take.

I basically sound like Rebecca Black.

No bueno.

Soooo my big writing challenge ended up being a little writing challenge since I'm not branching out enough to reach all the way to present tense.

Oh well... maybe one day.

What about you? What's your preferred writing style? Do you try to branch out? Is there some style you just CANNOT master?

Let me know :)

And be prepared for an epic dystopian novel because this book is totally kicking my butt.

Until next time (which hopefully won't be 3 years from now)

Shannen

Out of Valentine's ideas? Problem solved.

What are you doing for Valentine's Day? Ohhhh that's right it's on a Tuesday.

Hmmmm

So you probably need to do something the Saturday before right? Just to make sure you get to make the most of it.

Well I was just thinking, what better way to spend Valentine's Day weekend than being surrounded by a bunch of PINK and RED books? Hello Valentine's Day colors AND content!

Tomorrow (Saturday February 11th) I'll be doing two signings. We'll see how this works out going to one right after the other. Hopefully I won't have a complete meltdown of the face muscles from smiling too much. Although I guess that's never really a bad problem to have right?

So, the first signing is at Seagull Books on Redwood Road (1720 S. Redwood Road) from 2:00pm to 4:00pm! I'll be signing with the lovely Cindy C. Bennett, author of "Geek Girl", which I thought was basically amazing! So come join us for some exciting times, sparkly bookmarks, heart shaped candies, and fun!

The second signing is at Barnes and Noble in Sandy (10180 S. State Street, Sandy, UT 84070) from 5:00pm to 8:00pm. I'll be with the very fun and inspiring Jenni James who wrote "Pride and Popularity". She's currently writing more in the series (I believe she said there will be 6 altogether). I sat with her at authorpalooza and LOVED her. She's seriously a blast so you should all come out just for that! Not to mention there will be PRIZES! Some yummy Valentine's Day candy for your sweetie and other fun prizes! Plus we can't forget the other candy and sparkly bookmarks. (I know I go on about those all the time but I love that they sparkle. I'm such a girl.)

So come have some V-Day fun tomorrow!

See you then!

Shannen

So what exactly is a "Palooza" anyway?

I'll tell you what it is! It's a front!

Barnes and Noble wants you to think this event coming up on February 4th is some kind of a massive book signing but it's a lie! The whole thing! It's actually a test to weed out the unlikely's for a really big and exciting dystopian, end of the world, "Uglies" meets "Matched" type of... ok.... I couldn't do it.

I was going to lie to all of you wonderful readers out there but I just can't.

Sorry!

But I can at least tell you what this whole Authorpalooza thing WILL be.

It'll be epic.

I feel that the term 'epic' is overused nowadays... Being a gamer I reserve the right to use it on a regular basis but even I can use it inappropriately sometimes.

But not today.

Today I use it perfectly when I say:

This. Signing. Is. Going. To. Be. EPIC.

Want to know why?

Let me demonstrate with the following list.

1. Barnes and Noble does this every year. They're not banging rocks together here, they know how to do this shindig right.

2. There will be over 40 authors there. Yes. That's a four with a zero after it. (And if Shannon Hale is in attendance I'm definitely going to tell her we should do an international book tour together and call it "Shanno(e)n squared"... or maybe "Camp Hale!" We'll throw some ideas around)

3. I will have fastbreaks there. Like the candy. The delicious candy that happens to be one of my favorites and also happens to be clever when placed next to my book title. That was just a happy coincidence. Or a delicious one. Whichever.

4. You love me. OK fine so maybe you don't love me but I sure do love you. And I want to see your bright shining face! I want pictures with everyone, I want to sign some books, and I want to talk about everything under the sun (though in this case it will be under the roof).

5. FREE BOOKMARKS! I have these cute little sparkly bookmarks that my lovely cousin Whitney designed. They sparkle. Seriously. So come to the signing just for that!

I'm sure there are other reasons you should come, but I'll keep the list at 5. That seems like a nice number.

Hopefully soon I'll have some news for all of you on NEW books coming out so that I'll shut up about "The Breakup Artist" and you guys will know what the heck I'm talking about when I mention "Catching June" or "Pwned" which I've just realized I have to change the title of because even though I'm an avid gamer and I think it looks cooler to write "Pwn'd" that's APPARENTLY not the right way to spell it. So much for a book title with no vowels. I was so excited!

Also, one of these days I'll get a proper camera and when I do I'm thinking video blog! Thoughts? I'd like to hear them! Whether they're "That would be so awesome as long as you don't break out your guitar and sing songs to us" or even "Please no. It's bad enough hearing your crazy thought process in text, we don't need it in video format too!"

Annnnnnd last but not least. I think I may finally do a Q&A blog. One of these days. So if you have questions on "The Breakup Artist", writing, publishing, marketing, or how to destroy the monitor in test chamber 16 (which I finally did) then e-mail me or leave your questions in the comments!

OK now I'll leave you all alone.

Don't forget to come to Authorpalooza on February 4th at Barnes and Noble!
South Towne Marketplace
10180 S. State Street, Sandy, UT 84070, 801-233-0203

Until next time,

Shannen

The problem with being an author who's easily distrac--- does that shirt say Aperture Science???

I've already whined incessantly about how I work too much to have time for writing (though the alternative is living on the street eating nothing but old saltines so I'm fine with the working thing, especially since I'm surrounded by cute baby pictures all day) so I'll stop harping on that. But the problem with that whole situation is that when I get home from work (and I've been spending all day thinking of different things to write) I'm so tired that I just want to relax and writing can seem like a daunting task.

Not such an unusual situation I'm sure.

So why are you writing this blog Shannen? You may be asking yourself... or... I guess you'd be asking me since you just addressed me. Well, since you asked I'll tell you where it gets tricky.

See these little guys?


And her?

And them?

They're all awesome. And that's a problem. I happen to be VERY easy to distract. I also happen to love video games and puzzles... so what happens when I learn about a video game that's all about puzzles?

Bad things.

That's what.

My free time after work that I should spend writing, I start spending trying to decide if GLaDOS and Wheatly are my friends or not, all the while solving puzzles and internally yelling at myself for neglecting June's sequel and Regan's entire story that you guys don't even know about!

Fail.

No wait... epic fail.

So what's the solution?

Any ideas faithful readers? I mean, besides the obvious 'stop playing video games you big nerd' answer?

Until next time,

Shannen

Oh and just in case you can't figure out a solution to my little dilemma, just watch this instead :)