Countdown To The Dark Divine Contest: Help me title my new book!

(Note: If you came here looking for info about the street team, click here.)

Shout outs to some awesome friends:

1. Congratulations to bff Emily Wing Smith for winning The Utah Book award for her exceptional YA novel THE WAY HE LIVED. The awards ceremony was neat, and our adventures afterward were some of our wackiest--complete with blood, gore, cheesecake, and Brodi Ashton walking barefoot down 4th South and me screaming things like, "Don't smell that, you might get hepatitis!" I'm sure Brodi will blog about it in much funnier ways than me, so be sure to pop over there.

2. Congrats to James Dashner and his whirl-wind tour of the USA to promote his new book THE MAZE RUNNER. Plus, he was featured in two articles in PW Daily yesterday, and according to them, the book is doing A-Mazing.

3. And huge congrats to new friend Becca Fitzpatrick whose novel HUSH HUSH is debuting at #10 on the NYT bestseller list!!! YAY! She'll be signing at several Utah Costcos over the weekend, so if you are in the area, check out her schedule here.

Shout out for myself:

Did you guys see my beautiful ad in PW Daily? It's run three times over the last week. It's so beautiful. Click here to see it, then scroll down until you see it in its purple glory.

Okay, on with actual post:

HOLY CRAP, SO I JUST REALIZED THAT IT'S ONLY 2 MONTHS UNTIL THE RELEASE OF THE DARK DIVINE!!!! Excitement! Joy! Fear! Trepidation!

So, this next month is going to be a bit crazy. I am attempting to finish the first draft of the sequel to The Dark Divine in the next 32 days. As a result, my brain power failing....words not coming.... loosing ability to type...

Sooooo, yeah. The rest of this blog post will be short and too the point (I hope) and my posts will likely be a bit sparse between now and November 23rd. Never fear, though. The Street Team will still be announced a couple days after the deadline (which is the October 26th btw if you have not yet applied. And if you haven't applied, why not? And if you have no idea what I'm talking about, click here).

Ok, on to the point. Time to celebrate only 2 months left! This month the prizes are as follows:

Prize #1: signed copy of WAR DANCES by Sherman Alexie, and a signed copy of THE MAZE RUNNER by James Dashner
Prize #2: signed copy of ONCE WAS LOST by Sara Zarr
Prize #3: signed copy of HUSH HUSH by Becca Fitzpatrick

So here's what you gotta do for me if you want to be entered in the contest. As I mentioned, I am in the middle of writing the sequel to THE DARK DIVINE. I am loving spending more time with the characters from TDD and am very excited about where the story is going, but here's the deal, it doesn't have a title yet. Got any suggestions? (No titles with spoilers please!) (UPDATE: I'm thinking of things that either play of the words "dark" or "divine" or "desire" or "Grace" or "temptation" or some variation of similar words--yet not something that sounds like a steamy Harlequin romance novel.) Post a comment to be entered into the contest. Rules are below:

1.) Must be a follower of the blog and post a comment to qualify (UPDATE: You don't have to suggest a book title . . . you can always just say"hi")
2.) Answer question = 1pt
3.) Already a follow of blog = 2pt, Become a follower = 1pt
4.) Already a twitter follower = 2pt, Become a twitter follower = 1pt
5.) Tweet contest = 1pt.
6.) Post contest on your blog = 1pt

The contest ends at 11:59 pm on October 28th. Winners will be announced sometime within the next two days after that. . . I promise . . . assuming I'm still alive.

Okay, back to my writing cave. And don't forget to spread the word about the STREET TEAM!!! We need you!!

The Denver Post (A.K.A. I got a lot of really cool stuff that I'm giving away)

Update: This contest is now closed.

So here's what I have to say about my trip to Denver for the Mountain & Plains Independent Booksellers Association Expo: FREAKING AWESOME!

Seriously, it was one of those once in a lifetime moments that I'll remember forever. I was so so nervous, but it was still really really cool. I got into Denver around 11:30 am and then met my marketing director, Mary, for lunch, along with 2 other Egmont authors: Lindsay Eland from the 10ers, author of SCONES AND SENSIBILITY, and Victoria Hanley, author of VIOLET WINGS, for lunch.

Then Lindsay and I met Becca Fitzpatrick at the trade show and walked around to check out all the publisher's booths. Not only was my book prominently displayed at the Egmont booth, but it was also displayed at the Random House booth with a big poster with the cover and my author photo on it that said, "Author signing tonight." That was really surreal to see and I couldn't resist taking a picture of it.

(Also couldn't help snapping a pic of THE DARK DIVINE displayed with friend James Dashner's THE MAZE RUNNER--which launches tomorrow, October 6th, btw!)

After the book fair, we went to a signing reception/charity event. Each of us authors sat at a table and signed books for 2 HOURS!! Mary kept bringing me water while I was signing, and about a 1 1/2 into it, I really had to pee! It is really hard to smile and nod and and talk to booksellers when you are afraid that you are about to wet your pants.

After the signing, we drove out to The Brown Palace (a Victorian hotel built by The Unsinkable Molly Brown in the 1890s) in downtown Denver for the most amazing dinner. It was me, Lindsay, Victoria, Mary, and 9 key booksellers from Texas, Arizona, and Colorado. They did a cocktail hour before hand, and then we ate a 5 course meal in a private dining room. The food was absolutely amazing and I loved how everything was served, and how cool the room was. There were these fabric murals on the wall from the 1890s (the only one's like them left in the USA are in the White House) and the table and chairs were very Victorian meets Art Deco, but the food was all very progressive and delicious. They even had a separate Bree-friendly menu just for me.

The booksellers were all really cool, and they kept raving about how this was one of the best/most memorable publisher dinners they'd ever been to. The event went from 7:00 until 11:30 pm, and nobody wanted to leave when it was time to go. It was so awesome to get to talk with all of those booksellers, and I even had quite a lengthy discussion with a bookseller from Changing Hands about how I someday want to write a book about the Armenian genocide. It was just one of those nights that you want to last twice as long. I remember sighing after it was all over and thinking how awesome it was have that experience . . . and then sighing again because I realized that many authors might not ever have an experience like that. I'm feeling very blessed at the moment.

(Lindsay Eland, Becca Fitzpatrick, and me--all holding our books)

And not only was I blessed by a great dinner, but I was also blessed with a bunch of cool swag and goodies that I'm going to pass on to one of you.

The package includes:

A signed hardcopy of HUSH HUSH by Becca Fitzpatrick
A beautiful HUSH HUSH locker poster
An ARC of SCONES AND SENSIBILITY by Lindsay Eland (I already have one of my very own, so I'm giving this one away)
SCONES AND SENSIBILITY scone mix! (Wish I could eat these! I bet they're tasty.)
A hardcover copy of VIOLET WINGS by Victoria Hanley
And a poster for SENSE AND SENSIBILITY AND SEA MONSTERS
All you have to do to enter is leave a comment on this post. If you need a suggestion of what to say . . . um . . . how about you tell us about the book you're reading right now.

I'm reading THE CLOCKWORK THREE by fellow Tenner Matt Kirby. It doesn't come out until Fall 2010 from Scholastic, but Matt gave me a sneak peak at the manuscript . . . and it's really good! It's a story about 3 teens in an alternate Victorian Boston/NYC, searching for a treasure--complete with a steam-punk talking head and a green violin.