Guest Author Carolyn Crane & Giveaway!

I am very excited to welcome debut urban fantasy author Carolyn Crane! Carolyn's first book in The Justine Jones: Disillusionist trilogy is titled Mind Games.

It was released on March 23, 2010 and the second book Double Cross will be out on September 28, 2010. Please welcome Carolyn Crane!!

Hey Rachael! Thanks for having me on your blog today! So, now that all the publishing mayhem is winding down, I was feeling like I wanted to look back on my newbie author experience. Because I’ve learned a lot of interesting things.


Top 6 cool things about being a series author that I never expected

You go from book loner to book collaborator

One thing about being a writer is that it is such a solitary endeavor (aside from CPs, of course). But, when you sell a book, suddenly, all these people you never met—people who have dedicated their careers to books and publishing—are in it with you. It’s so cool! An artist interprets your book into a picture for the front, and an agent, if you have one, is like your ally, and an editor gets in there and wrangles with your text, and somebody is thinking about publicity, etc. Suddenly you’re on a team.


You go from blog loner to blog collaborator

The team thing extends to blogs, too. Doing guest posts is so collaborative. Every one of them involves a bit of emailing back and forth, and sometimes direct creative collaboration, or else, just thinking about a person’s blog and what they’ve created and how to work in. And you get to know people a little through that. Or, in the case of Rachael here, who is one of my oldest and first blog pals, I got underwater with deadlines I was like, can we move the date! And she was gracious. It’s fun to collaborate like that.


Your houseplants suffer

OMG, my poor houseplants. All these domestic projects got mowed under as my book came out. Things are a bit messier. Wait, that’s not a good thing! That’s not a cool thing! My husband’s a writer too, and we used to have this joke where we’d look at our place and go, “oh, well, what can you expect? We’re artists!” But honestly, NOW it’s like, a crazy person’s place. We need a new joke.


Readers are creative partners

Before, when I was a book blogger and not a published author, I’d get excited about various authors and make a big deal about them, or discuss their books, but I didn’t understand how much it means to authors until I was on this side. Readers complete an author in a way. I still think it’s so amazing just that somebody would pay their hard-earned money to buy and read my book. Or check it out of the library and read it. Just that act alone is so huge. Even when people don’t like my book, I still feel that sense of goodwill, because they paid money and/or invested time reading it, gave it a whirl. And then if they wrote a post after, that’s even more time. Also, they brought their own sensibility and taste to it, so that makes them a kind of creative partner. It’s another type of collaboration, with the reader.


You are responsible for secrets

One of the things about writing a series is that you TRY to create questions for people: what will happen to this person? What decision will that person make? And it’s really really bad if you have a big mouth like I do, because you really want to tell. Sometimes, people beg you to tell. I have actually told two people in private some secrets of the series—people who begged, and they needed to know! But now I regret it. I am weak! Also, OMG, there are these big things coming up that I SO want to tell! But I am trying to turn over a new leaf on that and not have such a big mouth.


You learn new things about why you write

It’s easy to get hung up on the numbers. I did this whole post about watching Amazon rankings, because I was getting obsessed with them, worried that if the book doesn’t sell well enough, that the publisher will not buy book #3. And then, the trilogy will not be complete! And then no publisher will work with me! Etc. Writers, or at least this one, can fall into doom and gloom scenarios. Or, a week or so ago, there was this flurry of negative Amazon reviews and I thought, oh, no! (run doom and gloom scenario etc). But all that stuff is really out of my control—the book is in print. It’s out of my hands. It’s made me reach into myself and think about why I’m writing. And it’s a reason that comes from inside, and not outside. It was good to get clear on that after so many years.

CONTEST RULES
Carolyn is giving away one copy of Mind Games to a lucky commenter.  The contest is open WORLDWIDE so everyone is elgible to enter.  Contest will end June 7th at 7:00 pm EST. Please leave a comment or question for Carolyn about her new series to be entered.

Summary of Mind Games from Author's website:
Mind Games heroine Justine Jones isn't your typical kick-ass type - she’s a hopeless hypochondriac whose life is run by fear.

She's lured into a restaurant, Mongolian Delites, by tortured mastermind Sterling Packard, who promises he can teach her to channel her fears. In exchange, she must join his team of disillusionists - vigilantes hired by crime victims to zing their anxieties into criminals, resulting in collapse and transformation.

Justine isn't interested in Packard's troupe until she gets a taste of the peace he can promise. Soon she enters the thrilling world of neurotic crime fighters who battle Midcity’s depraved and paranormal criminals.

Eventually, though, she starts wondering why Packard hasn’t set foot outside the Mongolian Delites restaurant for eight years. And about the true nature of the disillusionists.