Top 5 guys for 2010

Favorite guys from 2010

In no particular order.

1. Varen from Nevermore: Dark, tortured, brooding and mysterious is how I like my guys, and Varen Nethers is about as tortured and brooding as you can get. There's just something about his stoic resignation that makes you want to leap in and save him, both from himself and the horrors that surround him.

2. Will from Firelight: Technically, I'm just starting this book, but I already love Will, the young draki hunter out to get Jacinda (in more ways then one). Like I said, I've only just begun, but I expect the romance to get fire-breather hot really soon. :D

















3. Gale from The Hunger Games: No, I am not Team Gale. I am not Team Peeta, either. I will reserve judgment for who I think should get the girl. But Gale is a skilled hunter and a rebel, and I like him slightly more then the soft, somewhat bumbling baker boy. (Team Peeta, don't kill me. I like Peeta, too, just not as much.) I have a sneaking suspicion who Katniss will end up with, but having only recently read Hunger Games (yes, I'm late), I still have two more books to see where the story takes the characters.

4. Kylar Stern from Way of Shadows: Not a YA book, but Kylar starts out as a street rat and grows into a formidable assassin. That's all it takes for massive love from me. Anyone who knows me knows I have a thing for assassins (my favorite YA hero is and remains Valek from Poison Study). I don't know why I love assassin stories so much. Maybe its the mystery, the dark allure, the inner torment. Or maybe its because I'm also a ninja nut.

















5. Mackie Doyle from The Replacement: Mackie is weird. He's different. He's a changeling. And I might have a biased love for all things faery. But Mackie tries so hard to be human, to do the right thing, even though he really doesn't belong in either world, that you can't help but admire his determination.



Those are my top 5 guys for 2010. Who are yours?

Happy Holidays from us all

Ash and Puck need your help

Hey, Ash and Puck fans!









Harlequin TEEN is offering an amazing opportunity. Today at 12pm EST, they are having a poll to decide the models for the cover of THE IRON KNIGHT. You, yes YOU, can vote to decide which Ash or Puck you want to see on the cover.


I have my favorites, but I'm not telling, lol.


Go to The Iron Fey Facebook page to cast your vote. Voting ends January 3rd, 2011.

Teaser Tuesday

Can you believe its less then a week until Christmas? Where did the year go?

Anyway, several people have asked me for one last Teaser Tuesday, as a gift of sorts, and I agreed to one more teaser. The wait for Iron Queen isn't long now; January is right around the corner.

So, here is the last teaser of 2010.


***

If I’d known, I might’ve done things differently. But beyond that moment of regret, I felt calm, certain, filled with a resolve that pushed back all fear or doubt. I was ready. There was no other way.

***

Happy holidays, everyone!

Julie

Webcomic the first. Introducing Chibi Ash, Puck, and Grim

Got some new Prisma Color markers that other day, and thought I would play around with them a bit.

This is the result.
































My doodle skills are a bit rusty, but I'm thinking of doing a monthly or bi-monthly comic, with chibi Meg, Ash, Puck, and Grim. What do you think?

Julie

Christmas theft and fruitcake

Its Christmas time again. And very snowy and icy, down here in Kentucky; our cul de sac has turned into an ice rink and people are in full Christmas panic mode. It reminded me of another Christmas, about two years ago, when I was writing in my LiveJournal blog. It was faintly amusing, so I'd thought I'd share it with you here, too.

***

December 17, 2008

Ah, Christmas. While it makes us want to bake cookies, decorate our yards with inflatable moving reindeer, and stand in fifteen below weather singing to people we've never seen before, it can unfortunately bring out the worst in people, too. With all the shopping and gift buying, fighting mobs of fellow humans in malls, and circling the parking lots like hungry sharks waiting for the raft to sink already, this can stress some people out. It can stress them out so badly that they snap like a dill pickle and do stupid things, like cut in front of everyone else's kid in the line to see Santa, or wrestle old ladies for the last roll of discounted wrapping paper. Or bake fruitcake.















When I was working register in the endless torture of the Store That Shalt Not Be Named, Christmas time always meant a spike in people who wanted to screw you over. Those idiots who thought I was too busy and stupid to notice they still had merchandise on the bottom of their cart, like they could hide it underneath a see-through grate. "Oh," they said, acting surprised and annonyed when I pointed it out. "I guess I forgot about the two-hundred dollar peice of merchandise I stuffed under my jacket. I guess I don't want it after all." "Oh," says the man clutching a roll of bills so fat he could play baseball with it, "you didn't give me the right change. I gave you a five, and I'm supposed to get back a twenty, but I'm hoping you're too busy and frazzled to notice I'm lying through my rotten teeth."

So, Christmas crime is nothing new to me. That being said, I was still mildy surprised when my husband found the contents of somebody's purse scattered in the leaves on the side of our house. This obviously wasn't trash; there were gift cards and a work badge and a 1gig memory card, and pictures of a nice family with three beaming kids. The work badge gave me her name, but there was no wallet or I.D. to tell me who this person was. Long story short, I dug around until I found a list of phone numbers in a coupon envelope, called her friend, who called the husband, who picked up the stuff this morning. Turns out, a thief just snatched the purse from her cart at Wal-Mart and took off. Wal-Mart security chased him through the neighborhoods (we live two minutes from Wal-Mart), but never caught the guy. He was a quick bastard, apparently.

So, I'm glad I could return the stuff to it's rightful owner, and hopefully make someone's Christmas a little brighter. As for the thief, may he run himself straight into an oncoming truck, shatter all of his bones, and spend Christmas alone and friendless in the emergency ward, where they feed him nothing but fruitcake.

Wither ARC giveaway

Who wants a WITHER arc?












I have this gorgeous ARC that Simon and Schuster sent me (thanks so much!), and while I must stick to my No Review policy, I will say that I enjoyed it, quite a lot in fact. So I want to spread the love around, hoping that maybe someone else will read it and love it and post a wonderful review.

So anyway, just leave a comment with your contact info and I'll let Random.org choose a winner on January 1st. (I'd love to send it out for Christmas, but honestly the post office lines terrify me right now.)

(U.S. only this time. Sorry, but tis the season for sending lots of packages, and my budget is feeling the strain already.)

Good luck!

An Iron King trailer

Wow.

I'm in awe. Check out this awesome AWESOME fan made trailer for The Iron King. It has everyone; Puck, Ash, Ethan, even Grim! (And Grim is hilarious.)




Bravo! Very well done.

This seems familiar

Sigh. This is why our house cannot have Christmas trees. (Just imagine TWO cats instead of one.)





I feel your pain, Simon. I really do. :/

Best I've Read

I'm a BIR author!

Woohoo!

For those of you not in the know (like me, a few days ago), BIR stands for Best I've Read, and is being held by several fantastic bloggers all over the blogosphere. Today, I'm featured at a couple of their blogs. Go check them out; some of them have giveaways for cool stuff. And, as we all know, stuff is great.

Page Turners Blog

A Readers Ramblings

Between the Covers (with interview AND giveaway)


And here's an interview with me over at Vampire Book Club , where they talk about The Iron Queen, faeries, and even have a picture of a HBWS (Hot boy with sword).

And yet another interview, this time with Meghan and Ash at Page Turners Blog



Thanks so much, ladies!

The Sims3: Tying the Knot

Disclaimer: Sims3 posts are in no way related to the actual events in the Iron Fey series.


Today is the big day. The guests have been invited, and everything is set up and ready.

















And that evening, the ceremony begins. (I don't know why the guests are standing when there are chairs right there. Sims can be strange sometimes.)


















Everyone looks on


















as Meghan and Ash say their vows,


















exchange rings,

































And finally kiss.


















Perfection.



















Ladies and gentlemen, may I present the newlywed couple, Ash and Meghan Winter.


















Aftermath: Meghan receives congratulations from family...
































and friends.



















Mab leaves as soon as its over, but Sage stays a bit to offer congratulations to his brother.



















And finally, Ash and Meghan share one perfect dance. They're finally married, but their future together is just starting.

















To be continued...?

Winter is Coming.

There are no words for how excited I am.

Except maybe...these:

Winter. Is. Coming.





*Chills*

That is all.

Post NaNo: New goals and congratulations

Today is December 1st.

Yesterday, at 3:35 pm, I crossed the finish line for NaNo WriMo, at 50,024 words.

It was an exhausting, grueling, trying month, but I'm SO glad that I did it. I know this particular WIP would've taken me twice as long if I hadn't NaNoed the first half of it. My plot meandered, my characters did crazy, nonsensical things or nothing at all, and I couldn't count the times I wanted to go back and erase that page or paragraph or chapter of horrid prose that would've made Shakespeare roll in his grave. But erasing even one word would set my precious word quota back, the one I had clawed and cajoled and wrestled to get it this far. You can't look back, in NaNo. You must keep moving forward.

So. If you are among the few stubborn, stalwart, never-say-die people who crossed the NaNo finish line, congratulations! I salute you.

If you didn't quite make it, congratulations! I salute you, too! You tried something most would put off, or would've seen as impossible. You wrote. Whether you wrote 100 words or 49,999, you still put fingers to keyboard and words in front of the other. That is something to be proud of.

But its not over, yet. For me, my novel isn't quite done. I still have another 30,000 words to go. For my fellow NaNoers, that 50,000 word novel isn't done yet, either. Now comes the clean-up, where you go back and fix your plot holes, snip those loose threads, and try to get it looking its best. If you're aiming to get that story published, you have a lot of work to do. Firstly, consider padding your novel with another 20,000--30,000 words. I know *GASP*, that's a lot of words, but 50k is a VERY short novel, and most publishers prefer something a little longer. You can do it--you already have a beginning and an ending. And you wrote 50,000 words in a month; this should be cake.

















Or, if you don't see how your novel can be salvaged, write another one. Yup, just like that. You already know you can do it. That's the most valuable thing NaNo can teach you; you've already written a book. You can do it again.

For those who didn't finish, keep going! What's stopping you? NaNo is a tool, a motivational device to get you started, but you don't need it to finish. You've already begun your story. Completing it is just a matter of putting words in front of each other, little by little, until you're done.

Finish your novel. You don't need NaNo to do it. =)

Julie