The Sixth Event Weeklong Release party: Day 5!

Eighteen-year-old Raquel isn't eighteen anymore...

During Raquel's first semester of college, she witnesses the end of the world, only to wake up in her old room at her parents' house two years in the past. Even worse, it seems she's the only one who remembers—until Chris Lyley, a boy Raquel always thought was a loser, tells her he remembers the catastrophe. 

Before long, they both discover new abilities. They're able to understand any language and teleport through time and space.  If Raquel and Chris can figure out what caused the end of their world, maybe they can stop it.

 Buy at Evernight      Buy at Amazon 

All week long, I will be visiting other blogs and writing about the book. There will be excerpts, discussion of writing, and a chance to win a $20 Amazon gift card!

The schedule, so you can check out previous days as well, is here at bridging the gap promotions!

There's a lot today! We have:

Fanatical Paranormal Romantical - Spotlight
Reading in Sarah's Corner - Spotlight
PNR Book Lover Reviews FB page  - Spotlight
Natural Bri FB Page - Top 10/Fav 5--Don't miss my article on the top 10 coolest extinct animals!
Eskie Mama Reads - Spotlight
ARe Cafe - Spotlight

Be sure to check it out!

Stop by tomorrow for one final release announcement! 

Sixth Event Weeklong release party: Day 4!

Eighteen-year-old Raquel isn't eighteen anymore...

During Raquel's first semester of college, she witnesses the end of the world, only to wake up in her old room at her parents' house two years in the past. Even worse, it seems she's the only one who remembers—until Chris Lyley, a boy Raquel always thought was a loser, tells her he remembers the catastrophe. 

Before long, they both discover new abilities. They're able to understand any language and teleport through time and space.  If Raquel and Chris can figure out what caused the end of their world, maybe they can stop it.

 Buy at Evernight      Buy at Amazon 

All week long, I will be visiting other blogs and writing about the book. There will be excerpts, discussion of writing, and a chance to win a $20 Amazon gift card!

The schedule is here at bridging the gap promotions!

For today, we have:

May 19
6 Feet Under Books - Author Interview!
Book Lovers Life - Book Spotlight!

Be sure to check it out!

Sixth Event weeklong release party: Day 3!

Eighteen-year-old Raquel isn't eighteen anymore...

During Raquel's first semester of college, she witnesses the end of the world, only to wake up in her old room at her parents' house two years in the past. Even worse, it seems she's the only one who remembers—until Chris Lyley, a boy Raquel always thought was a loser, tells her he remembers the catastrophe. 

Before long, they both discover new abilities. They're able to understand any language and teleport through time and space.  If Raquel and Chris can figure out what caused the end of their world, maybe they can stop it.

 Buy at Evernight      Buy at Amazon 

All week long, I will be visiting other blogs and writing about the book. There will be excerpts, discussion of writing, and a chance to win a $20 Amazon gift card!

The schedule is here at bridging the gap promotions!

For today, we have:

Cover to Cover - Book Spotlight!
Natural Bri FB Page - Top 10/Fav 5 post by me!
Reviews by Crystal - Book Spotlight!

Be sure to check it out!

Sixth Event weeklong release party: Day 2!

Eighteen-year-old Raquel isn't eighteen anymore...

During Raquel's first semester of college, she witnesses the end of the world, only to wake up in her old room at her parents' house two years in the past. Even worse, it seems she's the only one who remembers—until Chris Lyley, a boy Raquel always thought was a loser, tells her he remembers the catastrophe. 

Before long, they both discover new abilities. They're able to understand any language and teleport through time and space.  If Raquel and Chris can figure out what caused the end of their world, maybe they can stop it.

 Buy at Evernight      Buy at Amazon 

All week long, I will be visiting other blogs and writing about the book. There will be excerpts, discussion of writing, and a chance to win a $20 Amazon gift card!

The schedule is here at bridging the gap promotions!

For today, we have:

An author interview at Passion for Romance!

Be sure to check it out!

The Sixth Event--weeklong release party!

Hello everyone!

The Sixth Event is out!

Eighteen-year-old Raquel isn't eighteen anymore...

During Raquel's first semester of college, she witnesses the end of the world, only to wake up in her old room at her parents' house two years in the past. Even worse, it seems she's the only one who remembers—until Chris Lyley, a boy Raquel always thought was a loser, tells her he remembers the catastrophe. 

Before long, they both discover new abilities. They're able to understand any language and teleport through time and space.  If Raquel and Chris can figure out what caused the end of their world, maybe they can stop it.

 Buy at Evernight      Buy at Amazon 

All week long, I will be visiting other blogs and writing about the book. There will be excerpts, discussion of writing, and a chance to win a $20 Amazon gift card!

The schedule is here at bridging the gap promotions!

For today, we have:

Queen of All She Reads  A guest post by me!
 Book Banshee  A quick playlist of songs I listened to while writing!
My Book and My Coffee  A book spotlight!


Be sure to check it out!

The Sixth Event: Cover reveal!

I've got the cover for my upcoming book, The Sixth Event! 

Eighteen year old Raquel isn't eighteen anymore.

During her first semester of college, Raquel witnesses the end of the world. Ash falls from a green sky, birds die at her feet, and falling rocks crush her. Then she wakes up back at home in her sixteen year old body. She is haunted by the destruction she saw and is disturbed even more when she realizes no one else has any memory of what happened.

But then Chris Lyley, a boy Raquel always ignored in high school, tells her he remembers the catastrophe too. Mysteriously able to understand any language and teleport through time and space, Raquel and Chris set out to find others like them who remember the end of the world. After finding people from nearly every continent, they decide to try and figure out what happened. By traveling back in time to view the five major extinction events throughout Earth’s history, from the death of the dinosaurs to the time all the life in ancient seas perished, they hope to get an answer.

They know that their world will end in two years. If they can find a disaster from the past that matches what they saw in the future, maybe they can use the second chance they've been given to try and stop the sixth major extinction event. 

The Sixth Event will be released on May 13th!

The Sixth Event: Road to publication

Before any release, its fun to talk about the road to getting published. With all the ways to get your writing out there today, each story is a little different. 

No publication happens without rejection first. The first version of The Sixth Event was shorter--much shorter, at 55k words, and paced like a break-neck thriller. I got a whole lot of agent interest, but ultimately, everyone passed. 

In the meantime, I send out the story to beta readers, and fleshed out the book itself. It went from 55k to 73k as I added in more characterization and expanded on the story, and slowed down the pacing a bit. From there, I tried querying agents again, but the interest from before seemed to have dried up. The market had shifted, as far as I could tell, and a few agents even told me the concept sounded cool but that SF was played out. Soon enough I stopped getting requests, as well, and I figured it was time to move on from agents. My beta readers had been positive enough that I knew the book would find a home. 

I never believe that an entire market could be played out, and even if agents weren't biting, small presses might. I tried one or two small ones, and while I did I submitted a pitch to a twitter pitch party, called Pit2Pub. The tweet was 

"#Pit2pub After time traveling to the five major extinction events, Raquel must use the information she finds to stop the sixth #YA #SF"

It was a quick, concise pitch, and got me 14 favorites from various small presses. After researching them all, I opted to submit to Evernight Teen first. They responded with an acceptance in less than two weeks, on February 13th. 

Three months later, on May 13th, the book will be released. It's a fast turnaround time, certainly! But I can't complain. And the cover is perfect! Don't worry--it will be revealed tomorrow!

Extinct animal of the day: Dimetrodon

Long before the dinosaurs, there was a genus of animals called Synapsids. They weren’t dinosaurs, or even reptiles, despite their appearance—they were more closely related to mammals of today.

The largest and most iconic Synapsid was dimetrodon, the enormous lizard-looking creature with a sail on its back. It roamed the ancient United States during the Permian period, over 250 millions years ago. It was the top predator of its time, feeding on fish and small reptiles. Their size ranged anywhere from 5 feet to nearly 18 feet in the largest species, and they could weigh between 60 and 550 pounds. Their teeth were uniquely shaped like teardrops.

Of course, the most unique aspect of these creatures was their enormous sail. Researchers disagree on what function this sail served—some say it was for display purposes for finding mates, while others argue that it was meant to help the animal regulate its body heat. Since Dimetrodon was a proto-mammal, not a mammal like we know today, the sail could be thought of as a sort of primitive way of being warm-blooded.

If the largest extinction event of all time had not happened, life on Earth would have been very different—these synapsids would have continued evolving, and the age of dinosaurs may never have happened. It’s fascinating to consider that our mammalian ancestors had such a good start before a disaster wiped them out for a while, leaving another genus to evolve in their place. In The Sixth Event, I portrayed these ancient ancestors of ours as pretty intelligent—but of course, there’s no way to tell what sort of behaviors they really had. Unfortunately, mysteries of a creature that lived 250 million years ago tend to stay buried.