Q&A with Sarah Rees Brennan Part 2 - the answers to your questions!

*In case you missed the first part of our Q&A with Sarah Rees Brennan, author of THE DEMON'S LEXICON and THE DEMON'S COVENANT, you can check that out here.

Whew, you guys did an awesome job of leaving questions and comments for the Sarah! We'll pick 5 winners at random tomorrow (Thursday) but we couldn't wait to get Sarah's responses up tonight. She's a rockstar for taking the time to do this. Thank you, Sarah! And thank you to all of you who stopped by to comment. The giveaway is officially closed as of 10:00 pm EST 7/28/10. Winners will be announced 7/29/10. A reminder that only US residents are eligible.

Now that we have that out of the way, I'm handing the rest of the post over to Sarah...

Thanks for all these fabulous questions you guys, I had a blast guesting here! And I hope that you can all handle all this CRAZY ANSWER ACTION I am about to throw at you!

Jamie asks: How do you keep them (characters) vulnerable and still make them tough?

I think that's easy to do, as long as you love your characters, and think of them as real. (Not real in the talking to them out loud or buying them birthday presents way...) All people, no matter how tough they seem, have weak points: someone really physically strong may be easy to wound emotionally. Someone who's tough emotionally and physically usually still has a weak spot: someone they care about enough to be easily hurt when it comes to them. And likewise, there are characters who seem to be outwardly huge masses of vulnerability, and at their core, when you make them hit a certain point, endanger something valuable enough to them - they're steel.

Q&A with Sarah Rees Brennan, author of THE DEMON'S LEXICON

As you all know Jenn and I are huge fans of YA fantasy (running a fansite for the HUSH, HUSH series might give that away) So when we found out THE DEMON'S LEXICON and THE DEMON'S COVENANT were two of the titles S&S asked us to feature for July, we were ecstatic. LOVE these books. And as you will see from the Q&A below, the author, Sarah Rees Brennan, is just as amazing as her writing. *Fangirl warning* Sarah even gave us a cookie (teaser) from the third book. With Nick!

Swoon.

After you've read all of Sarah's fabulous answers please be sure to leave any comments/questions you have for her in regards to writing (writing process, querying agents, life after publishing etc.) or about the demon trilogy. Sarah will be back on Wednesday to answer the questions with the added bonus of a giveaway of 5 sets of the first 2 books, courtesy of Simon & Schuster! Unfortunately, this is only open to U.S. residents. But please feel free to leave questions/comments even if you aren't eligible to win.

A huge thank you to Sarah for taking the time to do this!

Now, on to the good stuff...

FA: Was writing always a passion of yours? At what age did you start writing?

SRB: Yes, always. Well, you know, pretty much always. At five, I was torn between writing and the ambition of many five year old girls - to be a ballerina! But I dance like a hippo on speed, so that dream died pretty quickly, and when I was five, I told my grandfather (who was this giant tattooed ex-soldier dockworker dude) that I had penned a GREAT WORK. He said 'Okay, honey.' I showed him a page full of writing and a picture of a house. He said, 'Amazing, honey.' When I was seven, I finished my first book, which was about pony-loving schoolgirls and ninjas who teamed up to fight crime. This experience taught me that you should always lie to your elderly relatives. Uh, I mean, so was born my great love for crime. Er, I mean, writing. (And crime.)

So I was pretty young when I started writing, but I know a bunch of writers who didn't write at all until their 20s, 30s, 40s. It's not like ballet in many ways - you can always start to write. (A favourite quote of mine: 'Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.')

KISS ME DEADLY CHAT Today 9 PM EDT

                                

Join us for a chat with KISS ME DEADLY authors and editor.  Scheduled to appear.... Becca Fitzpatrick, Sarah Rees Brennan, Michelle Zink, Rachel Vincent, Daniel Marks and Trisha Telep.

CRESCENDO Facebook Contest

We have are running a contest on our Facebook page....

If we reach 2000 Friends by July 31st we will give an Advance Reader Copy of CRESCENDO away at random to one of our Facebook Friends!!!

If you are not already, please become our friend today and help us reach 2000!!!

You can find us here on Facebook! 

Cover Week Contest Winner

Congrats to our winner AMANDA R. (entry #120 selected by random.org)  We have emailed the winner, so if your name is Amanda and you entered make sure to check your email :-)

Thank you to everyone who entered, wish we could give one to each of you.  We will be running a few more contests and giving away a few more books before the official release in October!

CRESCENDO ARC Contest

In case you missed it, we are giving away an Advance Reader Copy of CRESCENDO (courtesy of Simon & Schuster) in conjunction with our Cover Week Grand Finale.

The contest is open Internationally, but you must enter by MIDNIGHT (Eastern Time) on SUNDAY!! 

Enter here in our Cover Week Day 5 Feature!!  GOOD LUCK!!

Cover Week Day 5 - Grand Finale

Our cover week ends in a big way!  Check it out here and then come back to comment, we want to know what you think ... about the cookie, the alternate cover, the actual cover, the contest and even about Cover Week itself :-)

CRESCENDO Cover Week Day 4 - Behind the Scenes

Day 4 of Cover Week, gives us a little peak behind the scenes at the CRESCENDO Cover Shoot, check it out here. 

New Blog Layout / Under Construction

Just wanted to let you all know that we in the process of changing our blog layout to make it a bit more user friendly.  Please be patient with us as we make the changes and if you have any suggestions or recommendations, we (aw always) welcome your comments/emails!! 

CRESCENDO Cover Week Day 3 - Becca Fitzpatrick

On Day 3 of CRESCENDO Cover Week, Becca tells us about what she has always imagined Nora looks like. You can read about it here.  We want to hear from you... what/who do you think Nora looks like??  Tell Becca here in the comments!

CRESCENDO Cover Week Day 1 - Meet the Cover Model

 

Day 1 of Cover Week introduces us to the CRESCENDO Cover Model, Samantha Ruggiero.  Click here to meet her.

Featured Fiction GiveAway: BUFFY Volume 1

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER 1
by Arthur Byron Cover, Alice Henderson and John Vornholt
In Stores Now!

In every generation, there is a Chosen One. A slayer destined to protect the human race. She alone must fight the demons of hell. She alone must risk her life to stop the spread of evil. Buffy is the Chosen One. In Coyote Moon, a typical night at the carnival becomes deadly as shape shifters turn the amusement park into their own house of horrors. Buffy starts having past-life nightmares in Night of the Living Rerun, and must face her historic counterpart before the events of the past repeat in the present. In Portal through Time, Slayers over the centuries are in danger, and Buffy must protect them in order to save her own life and legacy.
 
Courtesy of Simon & Schuster we are giving away 2 copies of BUFFY Volume 1.  You must have a US mailing address to enter, one entry per person.  Contest will run through midnight EST on Sunday, July 11.

THE BUFFY CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED

CRESCENDO Reviews

The very first CRESCENDO Review has been posted by Books Complete Me....  "5 HUGE Stars"..... And you know what?  We couldn't agree more!!  

Check out the review here

(Note: Please read our post about Advance Reader Copies and Reviews)

CRESCENDO ARCs & Reviews

Well, it's official the Advance Reader Copies of CRESCENDO have begun popping up in people's mailboxes!  (thanks Simon & Schuster) We are very excited about this!  We both (Jenn & Rebecca) LOVE this book, we think it's 100% made of awesome!  and are really excited for eveyone to read it! 

Those who have won ARCs from us... they are on their way to you now!! :-)

Things to keep in mind if you are lucky enough to get an ARC.  Remember that the official release is in October, so most people will not be reading it until then.  Becca has asked that, when possible, you hold off on posting reviews until SEPTEMBER.  And to please, please, please keep them Spoiler FREE.  As was the case with HUSH HUSH, this book is gonna keep you turning the pages to find out what is going to happen and we really hope as many people as possible can stay spoiler free :-)

We are seriously sooooooo excited about this - You guys are going to LOVE this book!

CRESCENDO Countdown Widget

Simon and Schuster has revealed this awesome countdown widget for CRESCENDO!




You can grab the widget by clicking on SHARE.  We have working on getting a smaller one, for sidebars, and possible one without sound, will keep you posted!