Perilous by Tamara Hart Heiner & don't forget the GIVEAWAY, people

*CONTEST details at the end of the post!!!*

This is my Perilous blog post where I see how many times I can use the word perilous while I blog about Perilous author Tamara Hart Heiner's book Perilous and don't forget the Perilous Giveaway of a Perilous Kindle. I guess the Kindle is not necessarily Perilous, it would all depend on the sort of books you download.

Here's Tamara Hart Heiner (THH), looking all not perilous, unless that's a roof she's sitting on, then I would say "Be careful, that's a perilous situation, THH."


I wish I would have asked her what perilous things have happened in her life, but no matter, my novel is about a student body president who loves Flamin' Hot Cheetos--two things I cannot relate to. I only hope THH has not faced anything as perilous as the girls do in her book. Kidnapping and other intense and scary things--totally perilous. YIKES! I think that's where she got the title.

Here's the backcover blurb:

Jaci Rivera has plans for her sophomore year: Go to regionals with the track team, make the honor roll, and eat too much pizza with her best friends, Callie and Sara. Her biggest concern is Amanda, the pushy girl who moved in a few months ago.

What she doesn't plan for is catching a robber red-handed, or being kidnapped.

The desperate thief drags her and her friends 2,000 miles across the Canadian border. They escape from his lair, only to find that he has spies and agents watching their path home, waiting to intercept them and take them back.

Then Jaci finds something out about her family. Something which irrevocably connects her to their kidnapper, and makes her question their chances of escape.

There's enough twisty-turny events and who-are-we-going-to-trust situations to keep you hooked till the end. It ties up neatly, but I hear there's more to come. A Perilous sequel, perhaps?

Here is the ebook link: www.amazon.com/dp/B0045JLQCI

Here are the pre-order links:
http://www.amazon.com/Perilous-Tamara-Hart-Heiner/dp/0979607086/ref=sr_1_1?s=gateway&ie=UTF8&qid=1285706174&sr=8-1

http://productsearch.barnesandnoble.com/search/results.aspx?WRD=perilous

http://tamarahartheiner.com/books.html

Visit THH's blog HERE to read an excerpt from the book. AND check HERE to find all the stops on her blog tour. Why, you ask? Because she's giving away a KINDLE!

!!!Here's how YOU can win it:
The contest is point-based and begins Oct. 15 and ends Dec. 15. Whoever has the most points wins the Kindle. There will only be one Kindle given away.

Here how the points add up:
1 point: blog comment (can comment on all the blogs, multiple times on the tour)
1 point: follow THH's blog (again HERE)
1 point: retweet
2 points: blog about the blog tour
5 points: purchase the book (ebook or paperback, must email Tamara, the author, the confirmation email)

Add up all your points as well as your proof (links, etc) and email it to THH at the end of the blog tour (tamara at tamarahartheiner dot
com)

You can earn an infinite number of points!

That's anything but Perilous!

WIN A KINDLE!

I'm part of the Perilous blog tour that is already underway. I'll be blogging about Tamara Hart Heiner's novel on Thursday, but till then you can start racking up points to win a KINDLE! Go to the author's blog HERE to find all the spots along the blog tour. It's basically a Perilous Kindle Giveaway!

Kindle giveaway (sponsored by Tamara Hart Heiner): The contest is point-based and begins Oct. 15 and ends Dec. 15. Whoever has the most points wins the Kindle. There will only be one Kindle given away.

Here are the points:
1 point: blog comment (can comment on all the blogs, multiple times on the tour)
1 point: follow THH's blog (http://tamarahartheiner.blogspot.com)
1 point: retweet
2 points: blog about the blog tour
5 points: purchase the book (ebook or paperback, must email Tamara, the author, the confirmation email)

Add up all your points as well as your proof (links, etc) and email it to Tamara at the end of the blog tour (tamara at tamarahartheiner dot
com)

You can earn an infinite number of points!

Way exciting!

WIN-A-T-SHIRT-DAY CONTEST WINNER ANNOUNCED!

YOU! YES, YOU, Sheila...

YOU ARE A WINNER OF A T-SHIRT

Please email me your address, plus your specs for a t-shirt--like, size, color, phrase wanted (and even vinyl color and font for the phrase if you have a preference). Email is in my profile.

Thanks everyone for playing and visiting my daughter's blog.

It was fun to read your comments and it made my daughter's day.

Now a t-shirt is nothing.
I'm part of a book blog tour where you (yes, you) can win a KINDLE!

I'll get some info up about the tour tomorrow and then Thursday

I'll be reviewing the book right here on my blog.

wRitinG iS FuN?

Oh, what a tangled web we weave...

when we attempt to write a novel!

I've been moving a few things around in my novel during the revision stage, but the thing is, when you somewhat innocently move one scene to another spot because you decide it will make the story better, it affects all these other scenes, and then you have this big tangled mess. Now my story board is looking like this...

and my brain is looking like, well...yeah... Let's just say when I'm done with this I can stick my brain in a giant pickle jar and loan it out for Halloween parties or psychiatric study.

Despite pickled brains I'm SO excited to update my current word count--now appearing on the sidebar: Da, da, da da... 74,696!!!!!!!!!

IT'S WIN A T-SHIRT DAY!

Just for fun and following my blog and because Fall Break is over and the kids are back in school and because I want to and actually said on this blog a couple of times that I would do it, YOU HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO WIN A T-SHIRT! It can be this one, which I love love...



OR, it can be one of your choosing...meaning you choose the phrase you want on it.

Here are the guidelines:

1. BE A FOLLOWER! I know that goes against what your parents and Sunday School teacher taught you, but humor me. It's okay when the crowd is doing a good thing like following my blog, right? :D

2. VISIT MY DAUGHTER'S NEW BLOG here (yes, my daughter's now a blogger...*TEARING UP*) and tell me something interesting you learned there. Feel free to comment or follow her--that will really surprise her.

3. LEAVE A COMMENT stating the above two things.

Easy enough. And if you want to Tweet or Facebook this opportunity-to-win, please do and mention it in your comment...I'll tack on an extra point for you towards winning.

Save the Child--new release by Margaret Turley

From the back cover:

"You are not going to pour poison straight into her heart!" Nancy's determination to protect her daughter from the chemotherapy doctors insist she needs is fueled by boundless fury. She has seen cancer patients successfully treated with naturopathy. She wants the right to do this for Sharon, her eight year old child suffering from Leukemia.

Cancer is the enemy. Love is the remedy and Grandma is the angel who glues the family picture back together again.

Author Margaret Turley says:

While I was traveling to work one day the news broadcast a story about a mother who was refusing chemotherapy treatment for her son. Because I am a nurse I asked myself why would a mother decide against the best that medicine could offer. The doctors insisted the boy had a virulent cancer that needed immediate attention. Even when threatened with jail and loss of custody the parents did not want him to receive chemotherapy. After they were charged with kidnapping their own child because they crossed state lines [with him] a judge listened to the parents and halted the medical community and government forces.

What the parents wanted was an independent, out-of-state medical work-up for their son. The judge allowed them to seek this consultation. The result was that the child was discovered to be free of cancer. I sighed with relief. The judge saved this boy from the horrible side-effects of chemotherapy which include nausea, pain, sores, compromised immune systems, sterility, major organ damage, secondary cancers, and even death.

One of the most important roles of a nurse is to be a patient advocate. During my thirty-four-year career I have observed more than one situation where a patient and/or their family were not listened to. This can cause grave problems and errors, not the least of which being patients and families enduring procedures they do not understand or agree with. It is my hope that the medical community and the law can expeditiously come together to serve the best interest for the child and family.

Purchase Save the Child at Amazon.com.

Adverb's Revenge

I don't know if you non-writers out there realize that adverbs = bad.

I know. Your high school English teacher never told you. You probably received high marks for beautifully decorating your verbs with all those -ly wonders.

Well, it's something you pick up on the street when you hang with the creative writing crowd. Beef up your verb choice and then who needs an adverb. Ran quickly becomes raced. Cried loudly sounds better as wailed. And glitters brightly is just plain redundant. And repetitive.

It's beautiful in its simplicity: Kill the adverb.

But wait. Don't sentence it to death row just yet. (At least not till you read this blog post.) Adverbs don't only modify verbs, people. They have other reasons for living.

In Spunk & Bite-a writer's guide to punchier, more engaging language & style, by Arthur Plotnik, he devotes an entire chapter to fresh adverbs. He talks about "adverbs of manner [that] reveal the way in which a thing or quality is distinguished." For example:
"hugely boring or minutely entertaining." (Those don't even remotely describe (most) blog posts found here at Of Writerly Things...right? Right? :/)

Adverbs can become fresh when they modify adjectives. And though they are called "fresh," they have been used in this way (as Plotnik points out) long before Nixon's "perfectly clear" speech, in fact their usage dates back to as early as 1570 with phrases found in literature like "curiously dainty."

Here's a match game taken from Spunk & Bite, pgs. 40-41. See if you can match the actual adverb-adjective pairings taken from print. The subject of the sentence is shown in parenthesis. (See answers below.)

[Note: I added the second list in green to differentiate it, so choose an adverb from the list on the left and pair it with an adjective from the green list--Blogger wouldn't let me separate the two into columns. If anyone knows how to do that, let me know.]

1. dormantly a. ordinary (plot structure)

2. gloriously b. fervent (devotion)

3. scarily c. naive (conviction)

4. militantly d. Mormon (guy from Philly)

5. incongruously e. hostile (speech)

6. juicily f. unclever (writer)

7. resolutely g. ridiculous (role as pirate)

8. wittily h. intricate (dance step)

9. inflammatorily i. prosaic (men's fashions)

10. metaphysically j. uproarious (doings)

ANSWERS:
1. d (Patricia Marx, The New Yorker)
2. j (Kirkus Reviews)
3. b (Sarah Miller, The New York Times)
4. i (Judith Thurman, The New Yorker)
5. a (Janet Maslin, The New York Times)
6. g (David Denby, The New Yorker)
7. f (Bruno Maddox, The New Yorker)
8. h (Richard Eder, The New York Times)
9. e (John Updike, The New Yorker)
10. c (Lydia Davis, Granta)

Now wasn't that fun? I loved trying out all the adverbs with Mormon, just to see the different images they conjured up. Suddenly (since 1570, anyway) adverbs are crazily fun again. And surprisingly useful. And blazingly fresh... okay, I guess I don't need to overdo it. One must still choose wisely. Not all adverb-adjective pairings will be gloriously, resolutely, or wittily fresh.

[This post is a rerun of my Tuesday post at anwafounder.blogspot.com]

READ MY SHIRT

Check out my other blog for information on ordering writer tees. They make great personalized Christmas gifts for all your crazy writer friends.

Are you doing what I'm doing?

So I had brain surgery today, well, okay, it was on my head and it was minor.

So minor I could even drive myself home afterward.

So minor that the doctor had me sit in a normal doctor room chair for the procedure and not on the examination table. (That's a bit demeaning, isn't it, to the purpose of my being there?)

So minor the nurse stuck one of those small circle bandaids on it when it was done.

What? No "Go home and take it easy?"

No resting on the couch with propped up pillows and clear liquids?

No "Can you bring me some ice water and jello, please?" offered up in a pathetic voice?

He said I can wash my hair and, get this, I can swim.

Again. What? I am not submersing my cut-open-head in water, chlorinated or otherwise. I very specifically washed and straightened my hair this morning so that I could go a few days without shampooing.

Sheesh. Surgery these days.

Sorry, but I'm still going to take advantage. I've got a frozen lasagna going in the oven for dinner and at exactly 3 PM, I'm going on the couch with the ice water and propped up pillows. Oprah's interviewing author JK Rowling and I'm not going to miss it.



Yes, I overcame the whole must-watch-Oprah thing a while back when I determined that if I was going to finish a novel I had to give some things up, but I make an exception for authors and especially this one. How 'bout you? Even if a scalpel wasn't taken to your scalp today, I'm sure you can think of a good excuse for plopping yourself in front of the television for an hour. Call it research.