Showing posts with label Documentary book 2. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Documentary book 2. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

TEASERPALOOZA! - "Remake" teasers

Are we calling this Teaser Tuesday? Anyway, I have teasers from "Remake" today. Nope, neither explains what happened at the end of "Documentary." You'll just have to wait and see...

A little info to ground you - Naomi, as you may remember, is Erica's (older) sister. In "Remake," she is recently engaged to Hayden Van Der Bausch. His younger brother, Fitz, is the one in this scene. They're at Hayden's house for a small get-together/meeting about Naomi and Hayden's upcoming engagement party.

Teaser #1) 
“E, you’re going to love your maid of honor dress,” Naomi said, beaming with encouragement and reassurance, but Erica was skeptical, especially if it was still based on that tattered and flimsy magazine cut-out Naomi had pasted in her 'Fantasy Wedding' book twelve years ago. She and Naomi had vastly different tastes. “It’s going to look awesome on you.”
“It better,” Fitz said, adding a wink at Erica. “She’s my partner after all.”
“Well would you look at that incentive? I’ll be Fitz’s arm candy!” Erica said with sarcasm. “Which means you have to raise the hem another two inches, regardless of where it is right now, and push my boobs together.”
“That is how I like dresses.”
“No, you like them on bedroom floors,” Erica countered as she turned to the bar to pour herself another glass of champagne. Fitz scoffed behind her, though she had expected some kind of confirmation from him, and when she turned back, he was scrolling through his phone. “Am I wrong?”
“No, it’s not that…it’s…have you guys read this story about your friend, Jeremy Bunyan?”
 
Teaser #2) Bryson, who was mentioned a few times in "Documentary," is Erica's maybe fiance'. This happens at the engagement party that was being planned in Teaser #1. SURPRISE this is actually a double teaser within a teaser. These two happen in the same scene but aren't back-to-back.
a) Erica flinched at the sudden sound of the voice behind her, but she refused to turn around; it’s not like she didn’t know who it belonged to. To say everything about the man approaching was so infused in her memory, in her soul, in her bones, to say everything about him had possessed her in a way that frightened her before, would still only be capturing a fraction of the reality. Erica could detail all of him in her mind with specificity: the cool way he would stride across a room and pull the attention of every woman in it into his orbit, his captivating, warm smile that preceded every first word he spoke to someone, the scar in his right eyebrow, comma-shaped and deep, and the spot on his face where the skin was so delicate he always nicked it when he shaved. She could build him from scratch herself.
Bryson had come; after an entire week of her worried speculation, he was actually there.

b) “I'm right here. I'm right here, and only one of two things is ever going to make me leave: an act of God or...you taking off that damn ring right now.” Bryson looked up at the ceiling then back at her in a stare of defiance. “Doesn't look like He's interested, so take off the ring, Erica. Make me go.” He jutted his hand out in front of her, palm up.
“Bryson, I—”
“Forever was the only condition I ever put on us. So if it ends here, you’ll have to take that off. Now. Take it off, if it's really over.”
 
 

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Book two info...and MAJOR SPOILER if you haven't finished "Documentary."

 Happy Valentine's Day or Single Awareness Day or just Thursday! 
I've been reading reviews, and I got the sense that if I don't tell you anything about this second book soon, then...



HAHA, I'm kidding! I'm glad you care =)


Also, I know what I promised in exchange for 25 reviews/ratings and we've actually doubled that? Seriously, that's crazy and amazing and thank you to anyone who emailed me or tweeted me or liked me on Facebook. Whether "Documentary" bothered you, made you swoon, made you unable to put it down, made you put it down right away, made you angry, made you "meh"...whatever your emotion, I'm grateful you gave it a chance in the first place!

So the teaser from the next book will come next week.
The second book is called "Remake," and there's good news and bad news.

BAD NEWS: I LOVE THAT YOU LOVE DYLAN AND KAI, BUT... for now--maybe ever--I'm done with Team Dick. I'm not going to force a story where one doesn't exist. No drug addiction. No conniving groupies. No baby mammas coming forward, no long-lost siblings, no going on tour and the two of them being tempted by others, and jealousy and cheating. And all those things are juicy and salacious, and I like reading about them, but that's not for me as a writer. I don't trust myself at creating that type of drama without it coming across as really, really, unnecessarily contrived or even a poor regurgitation of the well-crafted stuff you have read that manages to effortlessly spin those tales. And I can't in good faith manufacture drama for them for reading sake.

This was never meant to be a "rock star" series, and "Documentary" wasn't really intended to be a "rock star" novel (if I'm comparing it to the books about rock stars that I've read). Kai and some of his friends just happen to have pretty unusual jobs, and I wanted Kai different. Music and concerts and extravagance and lavish consumption and surfing and all those things about their lifestyles will certainly still be there going forward, but it's far more like Abbi Glines' Sea Breeze series and Bella Andre's The Sullivans series, though, in terms of how this will work (characters from previous books becoming main characters and those previously main characters then making appearances). 


I hope to finish it completely (as in ready to go for publication) before "Walking Disaster" (by Jamie McGuire) comes out because I will be doing NOTHING but eating and showering until I finish reading WD. =)

GOOD NEWS: Kai and Dylan are in the 2nd book (heavily), and since it doesn't follow either of them, it's probably no mental stretch to figure out who it's about... It's Erica Evigan's story. It was left purposefully really open-ended in "Documentary." The two stories are way too connected for me to not have mentioned in the description of "Documentary" that there was a 2nd book because it is a continuation of the story that was always at the center of "Documentary," and really what set in motion everything that happened in "Documentary" in the first place. This was always the plan.
If you're thinking, But, A.J., are you about to put me through the ringer emotionally with this story? Will it still have romance and fun and friendship and laughs and other stuff? It will be chock full of everything you loved (and maybe hated lol) about "Documentary." That I can promise.

The last little boost of courage to finish "Documentary" in the first place came from reading this Tumblr post by the AMAZING, insightful and talented Cassandra Clare ("Mortal Instruments" author). I go forward with "Remake" with that post in mind. [Please note that her post discusses sexual assault and may be triggering]. 

And I'm doing so without changing one bit of the content. Abandon hope all ye who enter here: There's sex, crude language, drinking, fighting, Elliott twins, melodrama, awful people, assholes, and messy and trainwrecky behavior because this is life. As much as I believe in fiction being just that--fiction, where a lot of liberties and artistic license are allowed--as Ms. Clare puts it, "[I]t’s your job as a writer, even if you’re writing fantasy, to reflect reality."
 
I'm not sure I know how to do "light," and I'm not sure that's really my thing as a writer anyway, but I do have other stories planned for other characters that won't necessarily deal with as heavy of a subject matter going forward; I say this with a caveat though. 

While I'm definitely not writing a how-to guide for life in your twenties (I really couldn't; mine have been a mess in a good and bad way), and I certainly don't think that by writing about certain things one is condoning or intending to glorify them, I don't want anyone who has been through the things that hurt us and make us sad and sometimes change who we are forever, to ever not see themselves reflected in fiction. I may be in the minority, but I don't want the fictional world to be one where everyone only exists in a vacuum of awesomeness, and where real pain and really bad things don't exist. 

Seems a little unfair to people who have been dealt circumstances in life that a lot of us will hopefully never have to know.


Anyway, shutting up now.  

Look out for the "Remake" teaser here and on my Facebook page.


Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Cool mention!

So, I didn't expect you guys to like "Documentary," at all...but there's no reward without risk, so I went for it. And thank you for reading and rating and reviewing and sharing your insightful and amazing opinions about it. I really can't say that enough! It's crazy!

Pretty cool mention: The other night/morning, I was Googling myself (there was wine involved), and randomly came across this Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/WhatToReadAfter50ShadesOfGrey. And they mentioned me last Friday! Whoa! So cool.


I know tons of other books are listed, too, but I'm completely overwhelmed. Again, just completely taken aback that a book I just decided to take a chance with is being read and liked and listed on things. And Abbi Glines was listed, too, so NIGHT MADE, clearly.

Admittedly, I have yet to read FSoG, and not because I don't want to, but because I just have a huge TBR list that I'm cheating on by reading some of my favorites over again.  But then I was freaking out because I was like, "Oh crap, what if people think there's more sex in it than there is. OH CRAP. There's, like, none! Ooooh no!" (See: wine) And then I realized they include books from explicit to mild in terms of sexual content, so I drank some more and stopped freaking out anyway. So everything was fine because THE WINE.

Anyway, I thought this was awesome. They have a pretty comprehensive list of great books you may want to check out.

On Thursday, I plan to drop some info on the second book, so please look out for that!

P.S. Don't forget that a way cute necklace is up for grabs! Enter to win it on the top right sidebar of my blog through March 8th 12 A.M. EST.