A lyrics intervention--Train does it again

Long time blog readers know that I started the Enrique Awards--an award for songs with bad pickup lines.

(To see the five contending songs for last years award, you can follow this link: http://janette-rallison.blogspot.com/2011/04/vote-for-worst-song-pick-up-lines_26.html


This year, Train won hands down (or wheels down, since we are talking about a vehicle) for it's song Drive By.

http://janette-rallison.blogspot.com/2012/06/worst-pick-up-lyrics-award-2012.html

In it, lead singer Patrick Monahan sounds like he's stalking some unfortunate woman who's greatest desire is to flee from him. She moves across the country (or at least tells him she does) in order to get away from him. Sadly, he still doesn't get the hint.  And then there is the touching chorus where he proclaims that he is just a "shy guy looking for a two-ply Hefty bag to hold my love."

Yeah, it's always the quiet ones that you don't suspect who end up being led away by the police in handcuffs after the grisly remains are found in their basement.

So in a clear attempt to redeem themselves from the I'm-not-a-danger-to-society category, Train has come up with another song called Fifty Ways to Say Goodbye.  (Catchy song, by the way. I frequently hum it.)

For Pat, saying goodbye entails coming up with fifty imaginative ways to say his girlfriend died.  Here's a sample:


She went down in an airplane
Fried getting suntanned
Fell in a cement mixer full of quicksand
Help me, help me, I'm no good at goodbyes!
She met a shark under water
Fell and no one caught her
I returned everything I ever bought her
Help me, help me, I'm all out of lies
And ways to say you died

Yes, Patrick, I think we can all agree that you are no good at goodbyes.  Most people go with, "Let's just be friends." It's a little less violent.

Note to any women who are interested in Train band members: Don't. Just don't even go there. It will not end well.

Note to the Feds: Check the Hefty bags. That's where he keeps his love.

Note to people who don't know me: I'm just joking about all of this.

Note to Patrick: Seriously, I love you . . . so you don't ever need to like, um, come looking for me.

Writing—it’s sort of like budgeting

Time and money never add up like I think they should. I’m always amazed at the amount of money my family spends. It seems like we should have lots of moeny left over at the end of the month, and yet we don’t.

This year I took on an insane amount of writing. Why you might ask?  Because I have no grip on reality. It’s like all those times when I walk into Michaels and see cute scrapbooking stuff on sale and suddenly think I’m Martha Stewart—or someone with scrapbooking talent.  Which I’m not.  But that doesn’t matter, because I see said cute stuff and I think, “I should buy that because one day I’m going to put together cute, touching scrapbooks that are a tribute to my kids and their innate darlingness.

No, no I’m not. What I’m actually going to do is buy the stuff and put it in a box in my closet with the rest of the scrapbooking stuff I will never use until Armageddon or the zombie apocalypse hits.  Yep, while all the electricity is down and we’re all holed ourselves in our houses with nothing else to do I’ll have plenty of scrapbooking stuff to keep me busy. (Assuming of course that I’ve previously downloaded pictures . . .)

Anyway, when my publishers both wanted a book within the same 6 month period, I thought I could do it.  Here is my reasoning: If I type two pages an hour and work an average of five hours a day, I’ll produce ten pages a day. If I work twenty two days a month, I’ll have the first draft of a 300 page book done in a month and a half—easy. Then I can take the other month and a half to revise it.  Bingo. Two books in six month.

Why is real life never like a math equation?

Perhaps because when all is said and done I write slower than two pages an hour. I actually average more like one page an hour (poof—I just gave myself ten hour days instead of five hour ones.)  And my books are closer to 400 than they are to 300. (Poof—there went my Saturdays) And you don’t have a six month period without things like family reunions, holidays, birthdays, conferences, school visits and other things that don’t allow you to write for ten hours a day.

So what actually happened is I was ensconced in myroom without showering, cooking or cleaning. I was frequently up until 4:00 AM. But the worst is over now, I think.

 Echo in Time is at the copy edits stage. I’ll have revisions for Slayers Two in a week or two. Masquerade's copy edits should be back to me any day now. And I’ll hopefully have revisions for The Wrong Side of Magic soon too.

And when I’m done with all of that, I’ll start working on the third fairy godmother book.

The truth about revisions

The problem with writing a story is that for the author, the story doesn't occur on the page. It occurs in the author's head.  And the story is always good there. I've got some awesome scenes in my mind. I do my best to translate those scenes on the page.  When I write a  novel, I always think the writing is good because I'm still seeing the scenes in my mind.  This is why authors always need to take a break from their manuscripts.  The longer, usually the better.  After a couple of months, I reread what I've written and I can see all sorts of problems that I then fix.  

And then I think it's good . . . until I read it the next time.  Apparently the same is true  in drawing because this comic says it all.

More Erasing Time give-aways

Here are the rest of the blog tour stops. Enter all of them for a chance to win--and also, you can still go back to the previous ones and enter. Sopme of them have a lot of comments, but some only have a few which boosts your chances of winning. good luck!

October 8- LDSWBR   http://www.ldswomensbookreview.com/wordpress/
October 9- PageTurners Blog   http://www.pageturnersblog.com/
October 10- Reading Teen  http://www.readingteen.net/
October 11- YA Bliss   http://www.yabliss.com/
October 12- Wastepaper Prose  http://www.wastepaperprose.com/

for your next chance to win Erasing Time

Head over to Portrait of a Book. Oh, and by the way, it seems that a lot of these blogs are taking comments for a week, so if you missed some of the blog stops, go back and leave a comment because you may still have a chance to win.

http://www.portraitofabook.com/

Next blog stop the Mod Podge Bookshelf

The Mod Podge Bookshelf asked me for a deleted scene. A lot got deleted from the manuscript, but not a whole scene. So I wrote a bit from Taylor's point of view  and sent that over.  You can read it at:

http://themodpodgebookshelf.blogspot.com/

Next blog stop at Books Complete Me

And of course there will be a chance to win a book. You can see BCM's review at:  http://www.bookscompleteme.com/

Blog tour--celebrity fashion and another chance to win

The next stop on the Erasing Time blog tour is the I Am A Reader, Not a Writer blog. On today's guest post, I talk about future fashion. Are today's celebrities crazy or are they just fashion forward?

You can read it all at:

http://iamareadernotawriter.blogspot.com/2012/10/guest-post-giveaway-erasing-time-by-cj.html

Also, you'll have a chance to win the book.

Win a copy of Erasing Time at Fiktshun Blog

Day three of the blog tour is at Fiktshun's blog.  She gave Erasing Time a rave review, so I know she's very smart.  You can read it at: http://www.fiktshun.com/fiktshun/

Blog Tour Day Two

Today hop on over to Tales of the Ravenous Reader for an Erasing Time excerpt and a chance to win the book at:

http://www.lushbudgetproduction.com/

Erasing Time Blog Tour begns!

Hey reader friends,
For the next 12 days (sort of like the Twelve Days of Christmas) I'm going on a blog tour. Today, head on over to Fire and Ice's blog to see what sort of playlist (or lack of one) I have going when I write.

You'll have multiple chances to win a copy of Erasing Time along the way, so be sure to check out the posts! I'll post a link to each day's stop.

Here's a link to today's--and the schedule of future stops:

http://fireandicephoto.blogspot.com/

What the kids did during revisions/ sledding in Arizona

While I was busy doing revisions, the kids found ways to entertain themselves.  This was one activity I found out about after the fact. Yeah. Love how safety conscious the kids are. On the other hand, who says kids can't have sledding-like activities in Arizona?

Which cover do you like best?

I know I said I was going to do another--what the kids were doing while I revised blog--but then I got these lovely cover proofs from Earthly Charms for the ebook cover of Masquerade--which I'm in the process of rewriting for the national market. Hopefully it will be released in a month or two (depending on how much time I have since Putnam and Feiwel will both send revisions to me on other novels soon).

So which cover do you think works for a romantic comedy?  Also, let me know if you actually like to read romances. (One of the interesting things I've found is that people who don't like to read romances prefer the middle cover. But the thing is--if they like it because it doesn't seem 'romancy' then maybe it's not the best cover since romance readers are my target audience.) So yeah, let me know if you actually read romances. 

Thanks!

The art of mothering during revisions part one

When I say there's an art to mothering during revisions, the art I'm talking about is the equivalent of those modern art statues you see which resemble tangled coat hangers, or giant erasers, or someone's pile of  recyclable milk cartons. You know the ones I'm talking about--the ones you see and think, "That's art?"

That's pretty much how my mothering has gone for the last few months while I finished writing Slayers Two and did revisions for Echo of Time. (Erasing Time's sequel.)  I've stayed up until four in the morning on more than one occasion, and Techno Bob has had to get our youngest daughter off to school.  There's only one problem with this system. Techno Bob is an engineer, which means he was born without the gene for fashion. I'm never sure what youngest daughter will be wearing when her father gets her ready. You can imagine how thrilled I was when I picked her up the other day and saw this ensemble. And her hair hadn't been touched with a brush either.

Yeah, this is pretty much why children need mothers.  After our first child was about two years old, I took my husband aside and lovingly told him, "If I should die, I want you to remarry. And let her dress the children." This advice still stands.

Next blog: How the children have entertained themselves.

Clean Fiction give-away

Inspired Kathy emailed and reminded me that I had signed up to be part of her clean fiction give-away. Kathy was obviously inspired to remind me, since I forgot. So hey, I'm doing one more give-away.

First of all, I want to say I love clean fiction.  I listen to a lot of audio books and I can't tell you how many times I've had to run to the CD player because a book I thought would be clean is suddenly blaring a steamy love scene or swearing up a blue streak. My elementary school daughter is very serious about reporting all such infractions to me, should I miss them.

**True story** I have a weakness for catchy pop songs and tried to convince my youngest daughter that the All American Rejects song I was listening to actually said, "Hope it gives you help." I would sing these lyrics loudly whenever the song came on.

Middle daughter always shook her head at me with clear disgust when I did this. "No, Mom," she said. "That is just wrong."

Finally, I had to delete the song from my ipod.

Anyway, I am back on the straight and narrow now and you can see why none of my books have swearing in them. 

I just did a giveaway where I gave away about every single title I've written . . . so it's hard to chose one to give away. So here's the deal: should you win this lovely give-away you can have your choice of: 

Seventeen-year-old Annika Truman knows about the power of positive thinking. With a little brother who has cancer, it’s all she ever hears about. And in order to help Jeremy, she will go to the ends of the earth (or at least as far as Hollywood) to help him believe he can survive his upcoming surgery. But Annika’s plan to convince Jeremy that a magic genie will grant him any wish throws her a curveball when he unexpectedly wishes that his television idol would visit him. Annika suddenly fi nds herself in the desperate predicament of getting access to a hunky star actor and convincing him to come home with her. Piece of cake, right? Janette Rallison’s proven talent for laugh-out-loud humor, teen romance, and deep-hearted storytelling shines in a novel that will have readers laughing and crying at the same time. 

Her whole life, Alexia Garcia has been told that she looks just like pop star Kari Kingsley, and one day when Alexia?s photo filters through the Internet, she?s offered a job to be Kari?s double. This would seem like the opportunity of a lifetime, but Alexia?s mother has always warned her against celebrities.

Rebelliously, Alexia flies off to L.A. and gets immersed in a celebrity life. Not only does she have to get used to getting anything she wants, she romances the hottest lead singer on the charts, and finds out that her own father is a singing legend. Through it all, Alexia must stay true to herself, which is hard to do when you are pretending to be somebody else!

Finding your one true love can be a Grimm experience! 

After her boyfriend dumps her for her older sister, sophomore Savannah Delano wishes she could find a true prince to take her to the prom. Enter Chrissy (Chrysanthemum) Everstar: Savannah’s gum-chewing, cell phone–carrying, high heel-wearing Fair Godmother. Showing why she’s only Fair—because she’s not a very good fairy student—Chrissy mistakenly sends Savannah back in time to the Middle Ages, first as Cinderella, then as Snow White. Finally she sends Tristan, a boy in Savannah’s class, back instead to turn him into her prom-worthy prince. When Savannah returns to the Middle Ages to save Tristan, they must team up to defeat a troll, a dragon, and the mysterious and undeniably sexy Black Knight. Laughs abound in this clever fairy tale twist from a master of romantic comedy. 

Leave a comment telling me your favorite song that you're embarrassed you like . . .

Being a follower gets you an extra chance.

I'm also doing the give-away on my CJ Hill site: http://www.cjhillbooks.blogspot.com/

Erasing Time book launch pictures

Erasing Time is set 400 years in the future, when as you know the world will be populated by dystopian governments that are trying to kill you. (Not all that different from today, really.) In my futuristic society, people dye their hair, skin, and wear outrageous outfits.  Sort of like this:

See, Lady Gaga isn't odd, she's just 400 years ahead of her time.  Anyway since Echo, one of my main characters in the book, has blue hair, I decided to dye my hair blue as a visual effect. I was a little nervous about doing this because it is one thing to do something flashy like that when you are a young, cute bee-bopper and quite another to do it when you're a middle-aged woman. Middle-aged women who do flashy, hip things tend to look like they are in old-age denial. But hey, how many times do I have a legitimate reason for dying my hair blue? So I took the plunge and sprayed on bright blue hair color:

You can't really tell in this picture how blue my hair is so I added the bottom one--as you can see it really was noticeably blue.

The presentation went well and everyone who came was awesome! But here is the thing--I sort of forgot my hair was blue. I mean, I wasn't looking at myself. And I also forgot to mention during my presentation that one of the book's characters had blue hair. Yep.

No one asked about it during the question and answer session either.  They must have all thought I was just one of those artistic types . . . the kind that is in old-age denial.

Here I am showing off my glitter tattoo. It's sort of a Rosie the Riveter moment.

Anyway, so besides the don't ask, don't tell blue hair moment, it was great! I was glad to see old friends and new faces.  And then I went home and realized that it was late, we were out of milk, and I was the only one of driving age awake. The kids need milk for their breakfast cereal and they start leaving the house at 5:30 am.

So I had to go to the grocery store with blue hair and a glittery tattoo. And the cashier and bagger did ask about both. Sigh. Yeah, I am so cool.

Erasing Time book launch and Book Trailer

Hey Reading Aficionados,
My new release, Erasing Time comes out August 28th!

 You can buy it any of your finer bookstores. (If your local one doesn't carry it, tell them they won't qualify as a finer bookstore until they order it, which they should do immediately.) If you're in the Phoenix area, I would love to see you at the book launch on:

Tues, Aug 28th, 7:00 PM at Changing Hands Bookstore

I'll talk about vital and important topics such as:

The future (Will the government want to kill you?  Ha! Do you really doubt it?)
Secret symbols in store logos: (Seriously, they're in a bunch. I'll show you some.)
And Rank (You can be one of the cool, early adopters.)

Also get a glitter tattoo so you can fit in with the High Rankers of 2447.

Time travel is optional.


Here's the book trailer:

Dramatic twists and turns to the very end ensure readers’ attention and the possibility of an equally thrilling sequel--Kirkus

Erasing Time countdown/ My Double Life Giveaway

Welcome to another day of my book a day giveaway. It's only six more short days until Erasing Time comes out. You can buy a copy at the book launch on Aug 28th, at Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe, AZ. I'll be there, and probably be coherent at the time--but that sort of depends on how my Echo in Time revisions are going.

Today I'll be giving away a copy of an awesome book--My Double Life. Yep we are back to the book that started off the giveaway (sort of--it was part of a blog hop) which means that unless I've forgotten one of my titles that I meant to giveaway and didn't (entirely possible--I have had that whole lack of sleep thing going for me) Then the book I will be putting on the lineup tomorrow night will be Erasing Time--and I'll be showing you the very cool trailer I had made for it. (There is fire. Things poof!)

Until then, you'll have to satisfy yourself with living the secret life of a rock star and having a famous rock star boyfriend.  You know, the rough life.

Leave me a comment about the moments in your life that you wouldn't want the paparazzi to show up. Let me know if you're a follower, as that will earn you an extra chance.  Blogging or tweeting about the giveaway will earn you another chance.  I'll ship to the US or Canada, other winners will get an ebook.

You're allowed to comment on both blogs--and you might as well, as it doubles your chances.
Now I've got to go to sleep before I start typing gibberish . . .

Erasing Time countdown Revenge giveaway

Welcome to another day of my book a day giveaway. It's only ten more days until Erasing Time comes out. You can buy a copy at the book launch on Aug 28th, at Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe, AZ. And yes, I have already started having anxiety dreams about not being prepared for this event. In the last one, I couldn't make it to the store in time and knew I would miss the whole event.

One more perk of being an author--stressful dreams.  (Still waiting for a hot vampire to show up and inspire me.)

Today I'll be giving away a copy of Revenge of the Cheerleaders.  Okay, I admit this isn't one of my better covers. For some reason the characters are oddly yellow.  But it's still an awesome book, and you have my full permission to glue a different picture on the cover.

 I don't want to make you leave a comment telling me about a revenge episode, as really, I hope you haven't had any . . . so just leave me a comment about who you would shake a pompom at, should you ever need commit such an act. Let me know if you're a follower, as that will earn you an extra chance. Tweeting about the giveaway and mentioning that you love me even more than One Direction will earn you another chance. (Okay, you don't actually have to do that--but I would appreciate you telling other people about the giveaway.) And yeah, if you tweet/blog you'd better put in the link for that. Twitter and Google search are supposed to let me know when my name pops up in the internet, but it only works about a third of the time and I'm too untechnical to figure out how to fix that problem.  I'll ship to the US or Canada, other winners will get an ebook.

You're allowed to comment on both blogs--and you might as well, as it doubles your chances. http://www.cjhillbooks.blogspot.com/ (I'll throw the Goodread comments into the mix too.)

My Unfair Godmother giveaway along with Assignment to Earth

The countdown to Erasing Time continues!  Just . . .um . . .what the heck is today--just 11 more days until the book release.  (Hey, I'm in a revisions marathon right now.) Come to Changing Hands on Aug 28th at 7:00 pm to hear me talk about the world in the future and secret signs and cool stuff like that.

Oh, and a note to paperback winners: Your book will probably come to you in a recycled bubble wrap mailer. I'm recycling them because I'm being green, not cheap. Well, okay, actually I'm being cheap too, but think of it as being awesomely green. Instead of the landfill getting my old poofy envelopes--you get them.

Today for the giveaway, I am giving away two--yes two-- great books.  My long-time writing friend Anne Marie Jenner emailed me and volunteered to give away a copy of her Indie book Assignment to Earth for the blog. (I don't think Anne will mind me mentioning that this book started out as fan fiction for Battlestar Gallactica. Anne, like me, has an incurable crush on the original Apollo. Mmmm. Richard Hatch.

Now I'm in my happy place . . .) Anyway, so today's lucky winner will get both that and a copy of My Unfair Godmother

Here's the fine print: Leaving a comment about something in life that's unfair will get you one entry, following the blog will get you another. Tweeting about the giveaway will give you one more. Here's book blurbs:

Assignment Earth


When Captain Skylar gets an assignment to locate a missing scout on the planet Earth, he doesn't realize his mission will be so complicated. His own ship damaged, finding Rantek is his only way home. 

A chance encounter with Lt. Jenna, a stranded Cavalier, leads him to a Klodfon base buried in the sands of the Nevada desert. 

Now he has to rescue Rantek and Jenna, escape the base, and warn the Fellowship of the Klodfon presence on Earth...and time is running out, if he doesn't want to end up stranded himself!


My Unfair Godmother

Tansy Miller has always felt that her divorced father has never had enough time for her. But mistakenly getting caught on the wrong side of the law wasn't exactly how she wanted to get his attention. Enter Chrysanthemum "Chrissy" Everstar, Tansy's fairy in shining, er, high heels. Chrissy is only a fair godmother, of course, so Tansy's three wishes don't exactly go according to plan. And if bringing Robin Hood to the twenty-first century isn't bad enough for Tansy, being transported back to the Middle Ages to deal with Rumpelstiltskin certainly is. She'll need the help of her blended family, her wits, and especially the cute police chief's son to stop the gold-spinning story from spinning wildly out of control. Janette Rallison pulls out all the stops in this fresh, fun-filled follow-up to the popular My Fair Godmother.