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Merry Christmas from my Santa-filled house to yours!

Originally published at alexandra bracken. You can comment here or there.

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Well folks, wrapping up the blog tour year is rhondastapleton !

Rhonda Stapleton started writing a few years ago to appease the voices in her head. She has a Master’s degree in English and a Bachelor’s degree in Creative Writing. Rhonda works as an editor for a legal publishing company and enjoys offering editing workshops. Rhonda lives in Northeast Ohio with her lovely, energetic family, who are more than enough to keep her busy when she’s not writing.

In the twelve minutes of free time she has each day, Rhonda enjoys reading, photography, writing poetry, singing in the shower (and in the car, at work, or basically anywhere that provides oxygen), drinking chai tea, and playing on the Internet.

Felicity Walker believes in true love. That’s why she applies for a gig at the matchmaking company Cupid’s Hollow. But when Felicity gets the job, she learns that she isn’t just a matchmaker…she’s a cupid! (There’s more than one of them, you know.)

Armed with a hot pink, tricked-out PDA infused with the latest in cupid magic (love arrows shot through email), Felicity works to meet her quota of successful matches. But when she bends the rules of cupidity by matching her best friend Maya with three different boys at once, disaster strikes. Felicity needs to come up with a plan to set it all right, pronto, before she gets fired…and before Maya ends up with her heart split in three.


Here we go for the last time!

1. If you had a time machine and could go back to the early days of your writing career and give yourself one piece of advice, what would it be?

Ooooooh hard question! Maybe it would be to stop waffling around so much and just finish the darn book. haha

2. If you weren't a writer, what would you want to be (or what do you think you would be), career-wise?

I'd totally love to be a lounge singer. It would be awesome.

3. What did you do to celebrate your book deal? Pop some champagne? Extravangant purchase? Dinner out? Pizza delivery?

My plan is to hit every bookstore in the area. And also to do something super-delish for dinner!! Maybe even get a massage. Ooooh!

A lounge singer would be so fun! I'd come to watch you for sure, Rhonda. Thanks for stopping by!


Learn more about Rhonda Stapleton here.

Order Stupid Cupid here or here.

Thanks for coming along for the ride, everyone. It's been a great year, and I'm so proud of all the Debs!

Happy Holidays!!

latteya

If you lived near me, you would get this from me at Christmas time:

Yes, fairly boring, I know. But don't judge a book by its cover, because this is what is inside:

Here are the rest, 13 boxes in all ( not counting the 17 my husband took to hand out at work. )



My holiday baking superseded my writing the past couple of weeks, but baking can be just as creative, and frustrating, as writing. My first batch of Never Fail Caramels failed miserably. Epic irony. And sometimes I need a critique on my baking, just like my writing. I had used up all my Kraft caramels in the caramel brownies, so decided to use some generic ones on my pretzel rods. Dumb. I tried one this morning, then said to my husband, "Those taste really weird. " He sighed and said, "Oh thank god, I had one last night and didn't want to tell you they taste like crap." So I just did my second batch of those. ( Which are delish, as they should be.) And my nut goodies are actually waiting to be cut and then they'll take their place of honor on top. 

So I'm almost to the point where I tuck in the aluminum foil and tape on the lid. Delivery will take place tomorrow. Then all I have to do is sit back and wait for reviews...

Happy Holidays to you all!

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You may remember this post I did a while back about writing while in college. I’ve noticed, over the past few months, that people have been responding to it (though they never link back to my original post–if you have an opinion, stand up for it and for yourself). I knew going into it that the post was probably going to be torn apart and ripped to shreds by the same set that it was addressed to, but I still stand by what I was saying then. I just feel like I need to elaborate.

My opinion on this changes all the time depending on how “homesick” I feel for college at the time. But I just want to clarify that I would never, never, NEVER discourage anyone from writing at any age. The only reason I was able to publish was because I began writing at an early age and haven’t stopped since. What it comes down to is really this: if you know in your heart that what you want to be is a writer, then you will always find the time to write. There is never going to be a “the best time” to write in your life, though you arguably have a lot of free time to write while you’re in college–once you graduate you’re hit with a whole new set of concerns. Grades, exams, life decisions fade into finding a job, paying for groceries and rent, and even harder life decisions. Writing will always entail some kind of sacrifice, because it can be a very lonely, emotional, stressful profession. But you should never regret that you didn’t start writing early, or that you weren’t published at a “young” age. There is no expiration date. You have not failed if you were not published in your teens, your twenties, or your thirties. If publishing is meant to happen for you, it will–everyone just needs to get there on their own time, when they’re ready. All of these life experiences have, or will, play into developing your view of the world and your writing voice. You have not “wasted” time not writing, not under any circumstances.

I know that the original post comes across as very negative–it was never my intention to discourage anyone. But at the same time, I think it would be incredibly unfair of me to sugar coat my publication experience for you. And that’s exactly what I was sharing–my experience. My experience with being published while in school included the following: eating most of my meals by myself or getting them to go so I could make revision deadlines, trying to balance extracurriculars and a horrible reading load with writing, staying up until 4 or 5 AM, getting four styes on my right eye from stress:

… I think you get the picture. That’s not to say that the hard work isn’t worth it, but realize that being published does involve sacrifice. And being published in college is NOT a guarantee that you can come out of college with the ability to support yourself on your writing alone, regardless of the first advance you get. Write because you love it and when you feel ready–when you feel that your writing is also ready–then seek out publication. But please, please, PLEASE do not feel like you have somehow failed if you do not land an agent by the time you’re eighteen, or if your book isn’t on the shelf by the time you’re twenty-five. It happens for all of us at different times and for different reasons, and no one’s experience is more valid than anyone else’s. Life is all about balance, and it’s very easy to become obsessed with the idea of being published or miss out on life because you want to spend every free moment you have writing.

I’m very, very, very hard on myself. If you couldn’t tell from the other post, I feel a sense of failure that I wasn’t more social (in the “traditional” sense) in school, and that I didn’t walk out of there with five thousand best friends. But also know that part of the reason I cut a lot of “traditional” social activities out of my life was because I was busy balancing a zillion other things: double majoring in reading-intensive subjects, student government, a sorority, yearbook, being an RA, interning my senior year, volunteering, etc. Not everyone is going to be like Scary Overachiever Alex, not everyone will feel the same intense, perfectionist desire that I did to succeed (and really succeed). That was my experience, and I want nothing but to be completely honest with you about it. A large part of the reason I originally posted the first post was to say that I wish I hadn’t been so hard on myself, and that I wish others wouldn’t be so hard on themselves because we live in a society where it’s no longer enough to succeed–you have to super-succeed. I managed, I spent most of my four years very happy, but OF COURSE I still wish I could have had my cake and eaten it, too.

Publishing is a commitment, and if you really want it, you WILL get there, but don’t lose sight of your life and having fun in the process.

And for those of you who think that I’m unhappy or miserable because I’m published, or that I’m an ungrateful wretch when it comes to the opportunities I’ve been blessed with–this IS the extent of my negativity on the subject. I don’t post about how happy, amazed, or proud of myself I am for doing it because it’s not really in my personality to do so. I love being a writer, I have hopes to one day be in the position to write full time, but I also need to manage my expectations. This is all part of the great wheel of ups and downs that come with being published. Some days you love it passionately and you’re sure you’ll never love anything more, others you want to stick a pen through your eye.

Originally published at alexandra bracken. You can comment here or there.

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Thank you so much to everyone who entered the KidBuzz giveaway. I randomly selected five winners (I have to double check with my publisher to make sure that I can’t give away five more…) and they are:

1. Liyana

2. Michelle/GalleySmith

3. Natasha Goodall

4. Yan

5. Deb Lester

I probably could have done that with a lot more flourish, but thank you so much again to everyone who entered!! I’ll be emailing the winners later this afternoon to notify them again in case they didn’t see this posted and to double check addresses.

Originally published at alexandra bracken. You can comment here or there.