Author: Tanya

It’s that time again, folks! As every year, I’m running a poll to decide what book I’m going to be writing for NaNoWriMo this year. I ended up writing a couple of the options for last year over the course of 2017, so there’s a few new options for this year to check out.

You may choose up to two book options. Poll closes midnight on October 24th, so get voting!

Looking Glass Saga: Beauty Sleep
With the end of middle school approaching, Alice is getting ready to deal with her bet with the Bandersnatch. She’s done everything she can, but when her roommate, Adrianna, falls into a deep sleep and no one can wake her up, Alice has to put the bet aside. She hopes the answer to waking her up lies somewhere in Wonderland, but time is running out and if she doesn’t find it Adrianna may never wake up.

Cloned Evil: First Steps
Fredrika and Beatrice know their mother is in prison and they need to get her out, but Auntie Jezebel insists that they are too young. They haven’t even been alive a year yet, and there is still too much they have to learn. If they are very good and finish all their studies, however, she might let them join her in the breakout. Unfortunately, Auntie Jezebel is hearing nothing but trouble from the one daycare she could find that would take them.

Thornbrooke 
It seemed like perfect timing. Bree was accepted into an accelerated program to accomplish her dreams of becoming a doctor, and her mother took a long standing offer to relocate to Iverson. Though they are both hoping for the best, the city is a hotspot for superhero activity, and it’s very hard not to get caught up in it all. Making it even harder for Bree is the parting gift from her friends: A secret identity of her own.

Genetically Impaired
They were looking for a test subject. It was fortunate that one drove right in and died on their floor. Seeing this as an opportunity, they took it upon themselves to see if they could reanimate the corpse. The young man didn’t have a name, so they called him Damon and decided to keep him, whether he wanted to stay or not. After all, they had many more things they wanted to try with their newly reanimated cadaver.

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Apparently a lot of people in my own region don’t even know this story, so it’s time to gather round to answer one of the questions of NaNoWriMo. What is with Timmy and those fridges?

The short version: It’s my fault.

For those who don’t know, NaNoWriMo has many avenues to connect with people during the month, and one of those is via the IRC Chat rooms. In these chat rooms, there is a bot named Timmy1 and the bot was originally created right here in the Vancouver region by a user who… I don’t know if they want to be named.2

I believe the year was 2012, and I wanted to be ambitious and decided that writing two books in a month was a good idea. I may have gone a touch loopy. It all started at a New West write in about mid-month during a lot of people’s two week slumps. I was just starting book number two and someone was having problems with their book, and I, being the helpful genius that I am, asked if they had tried throwing a fridge at it. This suggestion went over very well and we all ran with it. But I wasn’t done with it.

Two things you should know about me: I am very annoying when I get an idea in my head and I don’t know how to let a joke die. Ever.

This advice continued for the month, to the point where it is now if one of my own books as a recurring plot point throughout the series.3 For the month4 it was sort of an in joke within Vancouver, and it was added to Timmy so we could continue to throw fridges at each other.

And that is how I ended up making my mark on NaNoWriMo. You’re welcome.

1. His full name is There Are Some Who Call Me Tim, if I’m remembering right [↩]
2. If you’re reading this, let me know [↩]
3. Different coloured fridges and everything. That’s how you know if a fridge is ripe! [↩]
4. What was left of it [↩]

Thank you everyone for voting! It looks like we have a book for the year to write, and that book is…

Arcleo! It’s been a long time coming and I’m looking forward to seeing what happens with the story. Stay tuned for some excerpts.

But we’re not done yet, because I also have to mention that I have a book out today as well! I’m sure you’ve all been waiting for it1 and now the fourth part of the Looking Glass Saga is finally out!

Looking Glass Saga: Wandering Hearts

Check it out now on Amazon!

And now I’m going to go drown in Facebook notifications…

1. Because I’m just that good at marketing and scheduling… [↩]

It’s getting close to NaNoWriMo1 again, which means it’s time to make the internet choose my novel once more! This is my eleventh year participating2 and another year where I cannot decide for myself what to write, so I’m leaving it up to everyone else. Because there’s only four options, you can pick your favourite two.

Looking Glass Saga: Beauty Sleep (Book 6)
With the end of Middle School approaching, Alice is getting ready to deal with her bet with the Bandersnatch. She’s done everything she can, but when her roommate, Adrianna, falls into a deep sleep and no one can wake her up, Alice has to put the bet aside. She hopes the answer to waking her up lies somewhere in Wonderland, but time is running out and if she doesn’t find it, Adrianna may never wake up.

Arcleo
Mirabella knows she is a princess. She knows because she doesn’t want to be an innkeeper’s daughter. When a group of people come through the inn looking for the real princess of a conquered kingdom, Mirabella sneaks out to join them on their quest to fulfill the prophesy to retake the kingdom. The journey isn’t quite what she had hoped, full of danger and uncertainty, and she is not the only potential princess they’ve picked up in their travels.

Sky of Butterflies
Deciding to try their luck on their own, Mateo and Serafina venture out of their orphanage and into the wide world outside, only to be swept up in a revolution. The robots have caught their world up in a tyrannical rule while the rich remain safe behind gilded gates. The kids, however, soon learn that the resistance is not all that it seems to be… and neither are they.

Static
Roughly a year after the events of White Noise, Willow suddenly recovers from her vegetative state and takes Max with her, provoking H&R to try and deal with the situation. Harrison is not a fan of what that means and starts to learn just what H&R have been up to, the real reason of their research, and how far they will go to keep their research private. He still doesn’t know what Willow wants and still can’t quite remember what happened the last time he went into H&R.

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Poll closes on my birthday, October 25th. Happy voting!

1. National Novel Writing Month [↩]
2. Is it actually eleven? That seems like a ridiculously long time… [↩]

Go to the YA Scavenger Hunt page to find out all about the hunt. There are NINE contests going on simultaneously, and you can enter one or all! I am a part of the GREEN TEAM–but there are also RED, BLUE, GOLD, ORANGE, TEAL, PURPLE, SILVER, and PINK teams for a chance to win a whole different set of books!

If you’d like to find out more about the hunt, see links to all the authors participating, and see the full list of prizes up for grabs, go to the YA Scavenger Hunt page.

SCAVENGER HUNT PUZZLE

I am hosting Lisa T. Cresswell for the YA Scavenger Hunt!

Lisa T. Cresswell is an archaeologist by day, young adult writer by night. She has a healthy addiction to books, coffee, and drama-free zones.

Find out more information by checking out her website or in the following places:

Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads

Everyone’s heard of Blackbeard, right? The terrible pirate? Hollywood staple pirate character? But did you know that Blackbeard was a real person named Edward Teach? I remember as a kid thinking he was just a cartoon-ish character and being amazed to learn he was real. You can read all about him on Wikipedia.  Born in 1680, he only lived to be about 35 or 40 years old because he was finally captured and beheaded in 1718. Perhaps because it was so long ago, he’s become the stuff of legends? Even his flag is kinda creepy.

The ghost of Blackbeard is the main baddie in my new novella The Color of Water. He was such delicious fun to write, re-imagined as a modern day biker. Here’s a sneak peek of my heroine, Samantha, unexpectedly seeing Blackbeard, aka Teach, on the streets of Beaufort ~

The summer sun was still hot enough to make me sweat, but it was cooling down as the shadows got longer. The rain had left steamy puddles along the sidewalks, but the sky was clearing just like Matt said it would. Seeing nothing unusual at the Queen Ann’s, I kept walking, turning down an alley to avoid all the tourists on Front Street. That’s where I saw them – a man and a woman having a hella fight in the alley. My heart jumped up into my throat when I realized it was Harley man – Teach.

I ducked behind a dumpster and tried to blend into the back of a building. It didn’t seem to matter to Teach and his lady friend because their screaming argument suddenly dissolved into a groping, kissing thing. I couldn’t stop staring at them. Teach’s beefy, tattooed arms wrapped the woman like an octopus’s tentacles, his fingers snaking through her God-awful, red-orange dye job. She didn’t seem to mind. She kissed him like she was starving and he was a steak dinner. After coming up for air, they stumbled back inside the building.

I saw the door was printed with ‘No one under 21 admitted’ as I hurried past. If he was going to kill her, he would have done it right there, wouldn’t he? I resolved not to tell Matt about it, since he obviously didn’t want me anywhere near Teach. I didn’t want to risk making him mad again. I picked up my pace, running a few blocks so I wouldn’t be late.

And don’t forget to enter the contest for a chance to win a ton of books by me, Lisa T. Cresswell, and more! To enter, you need to know that my favorite number is 35. Add up all the favorite numbers of the authors on the green team and you’ll have all the secret code to enter for the grand prize!

To be clear: I am not a fan of the romance genre in general. It’s a genre that’s been targeted at me my whole life that I have never liked. I don’t mind it as part of the narrative where it isn’t the most important thing, but on its own, I find it irritating and predictable, often playing mostly on gender tropes that I’d rather would just die.

But I have a lot of supernatural romance on my Kobo. I downloaded a lot of free books once upon a time and they looked like they would have more supernatural than romance in it. Plus, I know romance is a bit of a weak point for me, so I wanted to see how other authors with more experience handled it. I figured reading them would be an educational experience and I would get something useful out of the experience, even if I knew it would end predictably.

I’ll give them this. I didn’t see any of these endings coming. Mostly because most of them made no goddamn sense.

So let’s go through what appears to be the rules of the genre, near as I can tell. I read three of these books so far all the way through1 and I’ve noticed a few trends that they all share. Please note, I didn’t read anything with a love triangle.

1. Straight female protagonist, probably in her 30s. Most have some sort of job that allows them to be independent.
2. She’s gotta be hot, but she probably doesn’t know it.
3. She also has no parents. She can have grandparents or parental figures, but her direct parents are dead.2
4. She’s married at the start3 to a guy who is an alcoholic. He’s probably also cheating on her. If he is, he’s gotten the other woman pregnant.
5. It is definitely his fault the relationship is failing/has failed. The main lady is absolutely,100% not at fault for the failed relationship.
6. The woman has no friends who could be potentially romantically threatening. All potential male friends are either gay or in relationships.
7. The love interest has some sort of female fetish type job, or at least one with a super sexy uniform.4
8. It’s set in a small town, or it feels like it must be a small town.
9. The love interest is completely perfect. At least, the book will really try to sell this guy as a completely perfect man, no matter his actions.5
10. When she hooks up with the love interest, she is still somehow married to the unrepentant douchebag she was with before.
11. Children are always important to the main lady in some way.
12. At about the 2/3 – 3/4 mark, she will have a heart to heart with the unrepentant douchebag ex and they will come to an agreement of some sort. And then he will die soon after. They will still be married.6
13. Even if the main lady ends up killing someone, it will absolutely not be her fault that it happened. It was probably even something out of her control.7
14. There should be minimal if any scenes in a hospital. If the main lady is hospitalized, she can definitely just walk out of there.
15. The reveal that leads into the climax will make me want to throw my book out a window.8

While I think I could definitely write one of these books at this point, I am not going to. This is not my genre. I’ve seen positive and glowing reviews for all of these books and I just can’t with this type of escapist fantasy. I understand why, but it’s just not my thing.

On the other hand, I still have more on my Kobo. And I have no plans to delete them.

1. And gave up on others [↩]
2. I think this is supposed to be the grown up Disney princess genre [↩]
3. Even if you don’t know it right away! [↩]
4. I got a doctor, a fireman, and a sheriff [↩]
5. Letting the protagonist off of crimes that she’s definitely guilty of, taking her to a romantic cabin in the woods instead of a hospital [↩]
6. This still technically happened in the one potential exception. [↩]
7. The sea murdered people for her! [↩]
8. A HOUSE THAT EATS LOVE [↩]