Skip a Starbucks Day!

All we’re asking is that you give up one tiny indulgence today. Like your extra tall mocha latte. Or maybe the price of admission to a movie. Or…well, whatever you’re into. See, CJ needs to raise an additional $8000 to bring Johanna home. If everyone who reads this post (or the posts of any of the other bloggers/writers/authors/friends) who are also hosting giveaways (I did mention I’m hosting a giveaway, right? Keep reading…) donates at least $5, we can all get CJ to her goal and bring Johanna home.

That’s not so hard, is it?

And, of course, you can donate more than $5 (I did! And heck, the price of a movie ticket in some places is closer to $10). Please donate what you can. You can do so at the official entry form (the donate button is on the top right). You have until August 26th at midnight to donate and enter ALL the giveaways. Winners will be announced after all necessary connections are made (i.e. be sure to follow all the directions)!

Now, I mentioned above that a bunch of us have gotten together to support CJ. Besides the absolutely EPIC giveaway on her blog, EVERYONE who donates ALSO gets an entry into all the individually sponsored giveaways that they want to enter. Here’s mine:

Donate to win a Vampire-Themed Giveaway Pack!

The Vampire Prize Pack!

What’s included: a special limited edition Sucks to Be Me vase, assorted Sucks to Be Me book swag (bookmarks, tattoos, stickers), a little vampire guy to hang around your house, glow in the dark fangs, vampire fang whistles, a vampire fang yummy lollipop, and a divining crystal (so you can see if becoming a vampire is the right choice for you).

(Extra: If I get at least 20 entries here, I’ll kick in a signed book as well — your choice of Sucks to Be Me or Still Sucks to Be Me) UPDATE: We hit 20 entries here, so yes indeedy, if you win my prize you’ll get a signed book of your choice too!!

So, what’re you waiting for??

To enter my giveaway, you need to:

1. Donate at least $5 to Skip a Starbucks Day over at CJ’s blog (there’s a Donate button in the top right corner).
2. Leave a comment here, so I know you want to enter to win my Vampire Pack giveaway (and remember, the donation also enters you into her EPIC giveaway and gives you the ability to enter into any of the other giveaways, all linked at the bottom of CJ’s blog post).
3. Get an extra entry for this giveaway by re-tweeting this giveaway on Twitter or spreading the word on Facebook or your own blog (please leave that in the comments as well) + 1 entry.
4. Then be sure to check out all the other associated giveaways and follow their instructions to enter!

Let’s go! Let’s bring Johanna home!

Like most writers, I’ve got a bunch of unfinished snippets of things. So, do you wanna help me pick a snippet to play around with while I’m in limbo-land?

Here are the choices…(and yes, I’m totally breaking my rule about not posting in progress writing, but these snippets are pretty small. And I should mention these are not remotely edited or polished. Just brain dumped.)

Option 1: Serious McElvoy

Note: This would be a middle grade fantasy. I don’t really have much of a plan, other than a character. Not really sure where it’s going at all, honestly. I just like him. I don’t generally do middle grade stuff though, so it would be more of a stretch. But probably fun.

Snippet:

Serious McElvoy was dead. Not hanging-on-to-life-by-a-mere-thread or even Nearly Dead or Almost Dead, as some people in his situation might be, but just plain Dead. Squashed flat. The piano had happened so quickly while he was walking home from school that he hadn’t even realized anything untoward had happened.

You, oh gentle reader, might suppose that a person would notice something as important and life-changing as one’s own death – by piano, no less – but Serious was not your average boy. He wasn’t even your above-average boy or the even much rarer completely-above-average boy. No, Serious was something else entirely. And now, he was dead.

He hadn’t been paying much attention to things this particular Tuesday afternoon, because, in his mental list of Dangerous Things to Avoid, walking home was somewhere near the bottom (approximately number 53). Unlike dodge ball, which was the absolute top on the list and the method he’d always thought would cause his demise.

He’d always thought that the headline would read “Super-Genius Dies in Freak Dodge Ball Accident!” but tomorrow’s paper would, in fact, proclaim that “Local Eleven-Year-Old Dies In Freak Piano Accident!” They would completely leave out the super-genius part, much to Serious’ dismay.

By this time, I imagine you might just be wondering exactly how the combination of a piano and a super-genius resulted in our young hero’s untimely and quite messy death. It wasn’t so much the super-genius part (after all, Serious wasn’t even aware of the piano – though, if he had been, perhaps it might not have had such a messy result), but the part where the piano fell out of Mrs. Fiddleburner’s fifth floor parlor window and onto the sidewalk (and Serious) below.

Now, as a general rule, pianos don’t come hurtling out of the sky, but due to the unfortunate combination of a newly waxed floor, an angry house cat, an unruly and quite abusive parrot, and the butler having forgotten to lock the castor wheels on the piano…well, you get the idea.

Option #2: Hildie

Note: This would be an adult novel featuring a female hit man. Again, don’t really have any kind of plot. I just have a character.

Snippet:

I’m sure I looked like easy prey with my too-high heels, my too-short black dress, and sequined clutch purse.  At least, that was what the junkie holding me at knife point obviously thought. He probably thought I was a well-heeled (pardon the pun) hooker on the way back from a job.

And I was on my way back from a job, but not the kind he was thinking. He’d obviously missed the blood spots on my outfit, but that was the beauty of the basic black dress. It was a very forgiving color.

“Gimme your purse,” he said, and jabbed his knife in the general direction of my pocketbook.

“You don’t want it, kid. Trust me.”

He twitched, either from surprise or from whatever he was tweaking on. “I mean it,” he said. “Hand it over. Now.”

I wasn’t remotely in the mood for this. Tonight’s job hadn’t gone as easy as I’d planned, hence the blood spatter. Besides which, my feet hurt like hell. I’d been walking since 32^nd Street. Cabs tended to avoid this part of town after 2 AM. They were worried about punks like the kid holding a knife on me when really what they should be worrying about was people like me.

I smiled at him and took a step forward. His knife wavered, but then he raised it. “Don’t come any closer,” he said. “Just drop it and go.”

I raised my hands and put a little swagger in my hips as I continued to step forward. “Sweetie, I’m just trying to show you why you don’t want it.” I popped the latch on the purse with my right hand and it flopped open to reveal Lou Russo’s bloody—and very detached—hand.

He took one look and ran for the hills, dropping his knife at my feet. I grabbed a plastic bag from the pile of junk by the trash can and used it to pick it up to examine it. Cheap, with a dull blade. I stuck it carefully in my purse anyway, on top of Lou’s hand. You never knew when a knife with someone else’s prints on it would come in handy.

Option #3: Death’s Only / Adopted Son

Note: I don’t have a good introductory snippet for this one, but this would be from a scene where the kid asks his Dad (Death AKA Charlie) to show him again how he came to live with Death. This would be a YA novel told from a male point of view. It’s ultimately a love story and in a more serious vein than I normally go.

Snippet:

“Can you show me my parents again?”

“Sure,” said Charlie, and put his hand over my eyes. I could smell the chocolate he’d been eating earlier.

Old Route 62, 9:38 PM

The rain was coming down so hard you could barely see the road, but I could just make out Charlie standing off to the side. The rain, of course, didn’t touch him. He was just waiting patiently, still looking like himself and humming that little tune he’s always humming. A pair of headlights became visible, barely, heading north. Charlie’s form wavered for a second and then Death appeared, looking like an old man in long robes and cascading waves of long, silvery-white hair. Charlie always called this the Moses version.

You could just make out the couple in the car now. They were on their way home from a dinner at the husband’s parent’s house. I imagined they were laughing, maybe about a burnt casserole or something funny the dad had said, but that was probably wishful thinking. It wasn’t until the car was really close, right around the time the deer stepped out into the road, that you could really see their faces.

My mother had curly auburn hair and warm brown eyes. They widened as they caught sight of the deer and she screamed something at my father. He had brown hair and wore old fashioned-looking glasses. He swerved away from the deer, which was just standing there in the middle of the road, staring at the headlights and shakings its head back and forth like it couldn’t quite decide where to go in all the rain.

The car hit a pothole on the edge of the road and veered off to the left, aimed directly at an oak tree that must have stood on that spot for at least 50 years. When it hit, the tree shuddered all the way up like an old man. And then everything went quiet again. The deer bounded off into the woods on the other side of the road and Death went over to the car.

My father was already dead, bloody and slumped over the steering wheel, but it wasn’t him that Death was here for anyway. My mother, nearly 9 months pregnant, was crushed between the seat and the dashboard. She was bleeding everywhere – from her mouth, from her ears, from her eyes, but she managed to focus on Death as he came up to her side. She seemed to accept that he was there for her. Death leaned in and took her hand and some of her pain. She closed her eyes briefly and then opened them again, staring directly into Death’s eyes.

“I don’t want my baby to die,” she said. “Don’t let my baby die.”

This seemed to surprise Death; Death who had seen it all. He seemed to consider for a moment.

“I can take him,” he said, “He won’t die, but he’ll become like me. Are you sure that’s what you want?”

“Please,” she said, and managed to grasp his hand, leaving behind a red smear of blood.

Death nodded and leaned over her body. All I could make out were her eyes over his shoulder, which grew wider for a moment and then closed. She was gone. And Death stood up and walked away, carrying me in his arms.

###

“Thanks,” I said.

“It’s always good to remember where you come from,” said Charlie.

Not that he meant that in a factual sense, since he couldn’t even tell me her name.

—————————————

So, any votes?

So, you know, general suckage.

And I had been planning on treating myself to Sims 3 (yes, I admit it…Hi, my name is Kimberly and I like to play computer games) when I finished the book. Then I was looking at my bank account and thinking “Ummmm….maybe not.” Though it *is* on sale for less than $30, so it’s not like it would be *that* bad.

So I’m looking for an excuse to cheer myself up. And that’s when I thought of YOU, Dear Readers.

I thought, “Hey, self, why don’t we have a contest!” After all, I finally broke the 900 mark on Twitter for followers. I’ve been wanting to get to a 1000 since, like, forever. And I’d always said I’d give away one of the Sucks to Be Me vases when I hit 1000.

But I’ve decided to sweeten that pot.

I will give one lucky follower a STBM vase. And another lucky follower will get their choice of A) A signed Still Sucks to Be Me or B) The chance to name a character in my next book.

AND I’ll treat myself to The Sims 3. You know, as a celebratory thing.

So…don’t you want to cheer me up? Follow me on Twitter! Help me get to a 1000 followers! If you already are a follower, please Tweet the giveaway! I wonder…can we do it in one day? As of right now, I need 88 more followers to hit 1000.

Hmmmm….if we do it today…maybe I’ll even give one more additional prize…

I honestly couldn’t think of much that was helpful to say.

So I blathered on a bit.

You can check it out. And did I mention there’s a contest?

So now I’m just gonna do ‘em myself, until supplies run out. I will, of course, include Sucks to Be Me stuff too. AND while supplies last, I’ll also be including a random book (I’ve notified publishers that I’m no longer reviewing books, but it sometimes takes a LONG time to get off of the mailing lists; consequently, I’m still getting in review books, which I’ll be passing on to you, you wonderful librarians you).

Whaddaya gotta do to get a Librarian Care Package?

It’s easy. Do any one of the following and then e-mail me at kim @ kimberlypauley.com with the subject line “Librarian Care Package” and include your name/library address and tell me what you did. Then I’ll send off a care package to you, which will include various book swag-y items (mostly bookmarks) from a wide variety of authors + a random book from my stash (sorry, I can’t accept requests here, but I promise it’ll be cool).

1. Have a blog or library website? Link to my website! Pretty darn easy, eh?
2. Read one of my books? Review it somewhere online (B&N, Amazon, Goodreads, etc.).
3. Email me a picture of you or one of your library patrons with one of my books in your library!*
4. Sponsor a Fan Art contest at your library for Sucks to Be Me-inspired fan art and email or send me (scanned is fine, or a photo or whatever) the entrants and/or winner (if you do this, I’ll include two books in the care package — one for you and one for the winner of the Fan Art contest)*

This is, as I mentioned above, while supplies last. So get your requests in!

*By sending me the photos/artwork, you agree to allow me to post the pictures online on my blog.

Well. I’m happy to report that I finished Cat Girl Saves the Day today. Or rather, I should say that I’ve finished the *first* final draft. Though I guess it’s not really final in that I’ve already got one more thing to write up and include. So, um, well, I finished a draft of the book. Okay?

Finished enough to send a copy off to my agent, Larry Kirshbaum. I’m sure he’ll have some comments back for me. No book, after all, is ever really complete.

I really struggled with the end of this one. I had to jump my outline because I’d basically gotten to the end of where I’d outlined and realized that a) it wasn’t really long enough and b) there were too many things I needed to still wrap up and c) all of those things were necessary, but not a good note to end on. Then I just felt like I couldn’t find a good BOOM moment to end on. I finally did manage to come up with something and overall I’m pretty happy with it. We’ll see if it ultimately stands. It also felt really long and drawn out because we had company pretty much the entire month of July. I do love visitors, but I pretty much got no writing done the entire month. I did, however, see even more of Chicago than I’d ever seen before. Isn’t it weird how people don’t see the sights until visitors come? We need to make more of an effort to get out there and do stuff.

It was actually a nice thing for the book as well, since it is set in the Chicago area. I included a lot of landmarks, most real, but some made up. The Wrigley ballpark tour was Max’s favorite part of researching.

Part of the book’s background is that a movie is being filmed that the main character winds up involved with. So one of the exercises I’d done for myself was to write up a scene or two from the movie. I wound up sticking that in the book too and I think it works, though now I need to write up another one as well and work it in (Larry liked it). So right there you can already see that the book isn’t “done.”

Now comes the pins and needles part. Will Larry like the whole thing? Will the publishers he sends it to like it? Who’s he going to send it to? This is actually my first time having an agent send out a book for me. I sold my first book myself and then, even though I had an agent for the second one, it was a sequel, so there really wasn’t any “shopping” around with it. And this is my first time working with Larry too (if you followed that saga on my blog, I switched agents this last year). So it’s all new. Kinda scary.

I do like this book though. I like the main character, who I named after one of my nieces. I like the supporting characters, one of which is based on a friend of mine in high school.They’re fun. They’re funny. I embarrass them a lot.

Anyway.

Someday, I hope you’ll be out there liking it too.

I don’t really do that anymore. I’ve tried to be more professional and just talk mostly about writer-ly things here.

I’m kinda bored with that.

And I don’t tend to post as much, either, since now I’m always trying to think up something that means something or is useful (ha, ha, it is to laugh) and heaven knows we all know how hard that is.

So I think I’m going to be a little bit more me around here. Just to warn you. In case you pop in one day and read a post and go Huh?

There will probably be a lot of parentheses involved. And more than a few ellipses. And italics. But you might have noticed that already.

In general life news, my older sister and her son went home today. They’d been visiting for a week and it was interesting to be hanging around with a fifteen year old boy for that long. Just sayin’. My sister’s other kids are girls (17 and 11) and I don’t think she’s quite mentally prepared for having a teenage boy. (is anyone?) She wants him to talk about stuff. Like feelings. All the time. The Max is only two, but I already know that isn’t going to fly when he’s fifteen. But I think I’m kind of a weird adult. I actually remember a lot about what it felt like to be a teenager. Which is maybe why I write for them (wow. did you see that? totally made a point that probably actually belongs on this blog.).

"Fast Thumbs" Ryan, My sis Lisa, The Max, The Hubster & Me -- Note that Lisa got the height in the family.

We had a good time though, Ryan’s texting addiction aside. We hit all the big Chicago stuff since they’d never been here before. Even did some stuff I hadn’t done before, like the Water Taxi on the Chicago river. I did learn that The Max has no issue whatsoever with heights yet. He walked right out onto the Plexiglas room (or whatever it’s made of) at the Sears Tower (technically the Willis tower now, but I refuse to call it that) on the 103 floor with no problem.

Max 103 Stories up

And I always love visiting The Bean. I mean, it’s the BEAN.

The Max & Me under the Bean

Without further ado, since I know you’re not here to see me blather on and on, but rather, would like me to just, for once, get to the point:

The Grand Prize Winner is…

Gordon & Lindsey from Bellevue & La Vista, Nebraska!

They wound up with a whopping 47% of the vote (425) entries. So, what did they win? Here ’tis: a signed hardback copy of Sucks to Be Me, a signed hardback copy of Still Sucks to Be Me, assorted bookmarks and stickers, A Vampire/Monster Pack from my Publisher: (including a copy of Monster Slayers, a copy of A Practical Guide to Vampires, and Nocturne), a choice of a T-shirt from the Sucks to Be Me T-shirt Shop, AND a visit from me PLUS a one-of-a-kind Sucks to Be Me wine bottle vase!

The Runner-Up Winner is…

Courtney from Jefferson City, MO!

Courtney was the second highest vote getter (after a last day push, which is when a lot of her votes came in) with 19% of the vote and 172 votes total. So, what does Courtney get: a signed hardback copy of Sucks to Be Me, a signed hardback copy of Still Sucks to Be Me, assorted bookmarks and stickers, A Vampire/Monster Pack from my Publisher: (including a copy of Monster Slayers, a copy of A Practical Guide to Vampires, and Nocturne), a Skype Video chat with me (for however many people she wants to cram into the room), and a choice of a T-shirt from the Sucks to Be Me T-shirt Shop PLUS a one-of-a-kind Sucks to Be Me wine bottle vase!

And now for the Third Place Winners…

Elizabeth R. from Stockton, CA
Karin T. from Huntley, IL
Linda B. from Kingman, AZ

They get: a signed hardback copy of Still Sucks to Be Me, assorted bookmarks and stickers, and A Vampire/Monster Pack from my Publisher: (including a copy of Monster Slayers, a copy of A Practical Guide to Vampires, and Nocturne).

And now for the EXTRA winners…

Paula L. from Athens, AL
Molly C. from Malden, MA
Jocelyn B. from Dearborn Heights, MI
Scott M. from Chicago, IL
Anne R. from Mansfield, OH
Doris M. from Pasadena, CA

And what do they get? These winners weren’t in the original plan, so I’m actually going to give them a choice between

1. A Skype Visit from me,OR
2. A Signed Hardback copy of Still Sucks to Be Me, OR
3. A one-of-a-kind STBM vase
4. PLUS assorted bookmarks & temporary tattoos.

Whew.

Yikies. This contest really took it out of me. It made me wish that authors really were as rich and famous as a lot of people think we are (well, some of us are, I’m sure…I’m just not one of them, but as my hubby says…”maybe someday!”). I really wanted to give a Grand Prize to everyone who entered. It was fun though, and I hope that the winners (and the other entrants) had a good time too.

Thank you to everyone!

I’m actually pretty sure at this point that I know where I’m going, unless a ton of new votes come in. There have been over 850 votes (yay!), but there’s a pretty clear winner now.

Sigh. It’s bittersweet though. I really wish I could afford to visit all of the entrants. And not even just the ones that I narrowed it down to. Everyone had such great entries. I’ll have to remember this for the next time I launch a book (fingers crossed!). Hopefully it’s been fun for everyone else too.

In other news, I’m almost done with my latest book (Cat Girl Saves the Day is the working title). The ending was giving me fits and there’s still some revisions I need to make, but I’m on the last chapter. The really really last chapter (not the previous last chapter that turned out to not be the last chapter). I will be SO glad to be done. Not that I don’t like these characters (they’re great fun), but I’m just itching to take on some new things.

Anyway, more soon!