Friday 2 March 2012

The Forever Girl Book Tour - Guest Post & Giveaway


I first met Rebecca Hamilton on Authonomy, a writer's site run by Harper Collins. We chatted and bantered on the forums and then she gave me some very insightful advice on writing, specifically to do with a character's viewpoint, and how readers will often connect more fully with your protagonist if you write from inside their head and show events unfolding purely from their point of view.
Out of the hundreds of excerpts I read on the site, Becca's is one of the one's which stuck out most vividly and I'm beyond excited to see her novel has finally been published. It's on my kindle to read asap!

GIVEAWAY!!!
Rebecca has kindly agreed to give away an ebook copy of The Forever Girl  to one lucky winner. And if you live in the US, you'll also get this fantastic Forever Girl scented candle - gorgeous! 


All you have to do to win is leave your name in the comments box below.

The Forever Girl
Sophia Parsons’ family has skeletons, but they aren’t in their graves... Solving the mystery of an ancestor’s hanging might silence the clashing whispers in Sophia's mind, but the cult in her town and the supernaturals who secretly reside there are determined to silence her first. As Sophia unknowingly crosses the line into an elemental world full of vampire-like creatures, shapeshifters, and supernatural grim reapers, she meets Charles, a man who becomes both lover and ally. But can she trust him? It’s not until someone nearly kills Sophia that she realizes the only way to unveil the source of her family's curse: abandon her faith or abandon her humanity. If she wants to survive, she must accept her who she is, perform dark magic, and fight to the death for her freedom.



Rebecca Hamilton On Writing

I probably spend about 10% of my writing time actually writing. Writing is the easy part. All you have to do is follow your emotions, put your imagination to paper, and keep asking the ‘what if’ questions you’d never want to answer yourself in real life.

Beyond that, there’s listening to your beta readers, rewriting, trading critique, re-writing, revising, editing, copy-editing, proofreading, deciding that it still needs another re-write, having to revise, edit, copy-edit, and proofread again. And on it goes, with not one of those steps being as easy as they sound to those who don’t know what each of those skills entail.
Of course, we get all the help we can. Sometimes it’s free…other times, it only requires we sign over our life.

And it doesn’t stop there.

Writing isn’t a job. Some can say they will sit at their desk from 9:00 to 5:00 and write—or work on any of the above mentioned writing activities. But writing is a lifestyle. You are working on your writing while you read. You’re working on it while you shower. While you sleep, change a baby’s diaper, do the dishes…you’re writing. When you walk through a forest trail and you notice a large oak tree that looks completely out of place among a forest full of redwoods or when you notice the receptionist at your optometrist’s office is squinting to read her paperwork … you’re writing.

Writing is just one of those things that, in my experience, consumes you. It becomes part of who you are. You live your life, same as before, but everything means more now. Everything is valuable. Writing becomes an outlet for life.

This is where you can find Rebecca:
Website
Facebook
Twitter
Goodreads

Don't forget to leave your name in the comments box below if you'd like to win a copy of The Forever Girl and that gorgeous scented candle!
The contest closes at midnight on March 9th