People I like: Marley Gibson (new book! win stuff!)

First up, I must preface this post by saying I love Marley Gibson.

She is fun, she's sassy, and she let me sit on her lap at our first meeting. What more could you ask for? For me...not much!

So check it out, Marley's fourth installment in the Ghost Huntress series! And a contest!



ABOUT THE BOOK:

GHOST HUNTRESS: THE COUNSELING - in this fourth installment of Marley Gibson's popular GHOST HUNTRESS series, THE COUNSELING finds heroine, Kendall Moorehead at a crossroads in her life. Kendall has just discovered who her spirit guide really is, lost her boyfriend, and nearly died doing the thing she loves most–ghost hunting. It’s time to take a break and try to reconcile all the changes she’s going through. So Kendall heads to the Sierra Mountains, where there’s a camp especially for young people with gifts such as hers. It’s a time for reflection and self-discovery. But when she gets to California, she once again finds restless spirits–and the boy in her last vision. It may be the end of one chapter of her life and the beginning of a new one.

What people are saying about GHOST HUNTRESS:

"Real life ghost huntress, Marley Gibson, pulls no punches in this series." - Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson, SyFy's GHOST HUNTERS

"Every young woman needs to read this!" - Steve Gonsalves, SyFy's GHOST HUNTERS and GHOST HUNTERS ACADEMY

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Marley Gibson is the author of the hit young adult paranormal fiction series, “Ghost Huntress,” from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s Graphia line.

Gibson has been a lifelong paranormal enthusiast. She started conducting paranormal investigations in August 2007 as research for her “Ghost Huntress” teen fiction series and has captured some very compelling pictures, videos, and sound files. Gibson was featured on the premiere episode of The Biography Channel’s “My Ghost Story,” as well as being interviewed by CNN.com for a Halloween feature on ghost hunting in 2008.

ENTER THE GIVEAWAY HERE!

And in other, Stacey Jay news, I've made a big decision. Find about that decision, the future of the Megan Berry series, and a new contest for Zombie Month here on the blog on Thursday. It all goes down on Thursday, people!! Thursday!!! Thursday...Thursday....<---fading volume, indicates impending awesomeness.

See you all in a couple of days!

Stacey Jay

Five on a Friday-Running w/Scissors Edition

Hey!

Only a few minutes to spare, so let's get right to it.

1. I'm trying to cut the fat on the latest manuscript, but I think it's going to be close to 100,000 words by the time I'm done with this new draft. Ugh! I need literary scissors.

2. I've been eating too much raw cookie dough. I'm probably going to die of salmonella, but I can't stop. The white chocolate cranberry oatmeal is getting me through the long day at my desk. Cookies are good. They are even better raw. Still...I need dietary scissors.

3 and 4. I thought I made a new friend here in California, but now she hasn't called me back in almost a week. I've spent way too much time imagining all the CRAZY! things that must have happened to keep her from calling me back. I've decided she probably had a wreck on the freeway, her cell phone flew from the car, and now her hands are in a cast--and her fingers too, so she can't even dial!--and has been forbidden to bend her neck to talk on the phone.

(Because obviously I didn't do anything to drop the friendship wand. I am a super fabulous friend and soon this town will realize it, for real<--what my mother told me on the phone because I called my mother and was all "I used to have lots of friends in high school and college, right? I'm not dreaming that up or something? What happened? Why is it so haaaarrrrrddddd to make grown up friends when you're a stay at home mom-writer who never leaves the house?"<---duh, I think that explains it, stupid, stay at home mom-writer.)

I need the scissors that will sever the clutching vines of low self esteem. I also need the scissors of not calling my mother to tell me things I already know (like that I don't get out of the house nearly enough.)

5. I just need some scissors. Real scissors.

I've got an appointment this afternoon to take off about 10 inches of this crap. Good-bye hair. It's been real and fun, but you are annoying to me. (This is only the second time I've cut my hair short-short. The first time I cried. This time, however, I am a big girl, with big girl panties, and it take a lot more than hair to make me cry. So take that hair! Feel my wrath!<--don't know why I'm mad at my hair, I think it might be Displacement or maybe Passive Aggressive Hair Disorder or maybe just Aggressive Aggressive Hair Disorder because I'm not being passive, I'm being aggressive, unless you consider the fact that I'm hiring someone to cut it instead of cutting it myself passive. I don't. I consider that good sense because I stink at cutting hair. The end.)

<--Weird person who can't just smile sweetly for a camera and has to growl like she's a freaking troll or something, and who also needs the scissors of not making dumb faces when she takes a picture.

Happy Friday!

Stacey Jay

California! And Sadistic Tendencies...

Hello blog friends!

Long time, no see. How I've missed you all! I was thinking of you as I drove across the country with a baby and six year old in tow, writing down the daily amusements of the road so that I could share them with you when I arrived in California. (The kids were not amused by my thoughts about the grammatical correctness of road signs. Silly children.)

And then I arrived in California...and so did a rather hefty edit for my Fall 2011 release. Ack!

So I've been working, my lovelies. Working, working, working. There's so much work that I've taken to punishing myself more than usual to get it done (here's where the sadistic tendencies come in). Here are some of the "rewards" I've been giving myself for each little milestone on the way to a complete edit of this book:

1. One chapter edited=a meal. (If the edit takes longer than 4 hours, I start to get REALLY hungry, but I do not allow myself to eat until the chapter is complete.)

2. The first 500 new words of the day=my morning coffee. (Do you know how painful it is to write without coffee? Very. Very painful. But I've found this gives me a nice jump start on my new words. I want that coffee so badly that I fly through my first 500...then go back and rewrite them when I'm properly caffeinated.)

3. 800 new words=a bathroom break. (After all the coffee, I start to crave that bathroom break, but I don't get it if the words don't get on the page. This is a particularly unpleasant bit of torture and one that's probably not healthy...even if it does get the job done.)

4. Word count and edit for the day accomplished=a moment in the sunshine. (I take my kids to the park or on a long walk, blinking in the California brightness like a mole ripped from her tunnel. Oh but my desk is a sad place to be with all that lovely lurking just outside my window. Sniff. But hopefully it will all be worth it when this rewrite shines like the top of the Chrysler Building<--we've been watching a lot of ANNIE, the musical. My 21 month old is in love with that movie. It's like baby crack to him, which is good because there have been a few days when I've needed a few extra hours to work and "Nannie!"--as he calls her--has saved the day.)

Now, you might ask why I don't give myself rewards instead of punishments. Sadly, I've found that the promise of goodness doesn't motivate me as strongly as the threat of badness, especially when I need to get something done quickly. I have, however, promised myself an entire week off--with no writing, no editing, and no packing or unpacking--the first week of October. No matter what comes, I'm going to take that week off. It will be my first week off in nearly two years and I can already taste how awesome it is going to be. But first, the grindstone...I'd better get back to it.

Hope you all are well and enjoying the end of summer/start of the school year. I swear I will be back with those amusing notes from the road--because I know you are as EXCITED! about funny road signs as I am--very soon.

Happy Tuesday,

Stacey Jay