I'm excited to have another author stop by to share their thoughts on writing. Please join me in welcoming Merrie Destefano to Thinking to Inking! Her latest release, LOST GIRLS is out today from Entangled Teen. Don't forget to scroll to the bottom of the post for a chance to win a Kindle Fire and a copy of Lost Girls!
Thank you very much for the kind words about Lost Girls! I love the cover too. (Yay!)
Lost Girls is different from other books that I've already released in a few ways. First, it was written for the young adult market. My two previous, traditionally published books were written for the adult market. That said, my second book, Feast had a teen character in it—Elspeth—and I really enjoyed writing her scenes. In fact, a lot of people told me she was their favorite character in the book. She seemed to come alive on the page better than many of the other characters. So, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when the next book I wrote was a young adult novel, Fathom (self-published). After that, I was hooked. YA books had stolen my heart.
Lost Girls is also different from my other books because it's my first contemporary novel. It didn't start out that way, though. In the first draft, it had many science fiction elements. When those were taken out, the story became much stronger—a result that surprised me. I hadn't realized what a powerful story line I had hidden beneath all the fantastical elements.
If I was going to give advice to other writers who hope to be published one day, I'd say, don't give up. There is a group of writers I've been friends with since I first started writing book-length manuscripts. Guess which ones have published their books? The ones who kept writing. Those that stopped, for whatever reason, are not published yet. The only way to become a better writer is to keep writing. The only way to get published is to keep writing. Of course, you'll need to study the industry, work on your craft, perhaps join a writer's group and go to a few writer's conferences, but ultimately the thing that will make your work stand above the work of everyone else is that you have been serious about your desire to write. And if you are a writer hoping to be published one day, I say, Yay for you! Go for it! I hope I see your book on the shelves one day!
About LOST GIRLS:
Lost Girls by Merrie Destefano
Publication Date: January 3, 2017
Publisher: Entangled Teen
Fight Club meets Black Swan—Rachel wakes up in a ditch to find she doesn’t remember the last year of her life, and that everything—including herself—is vastly different than she remembers.Yesterday, Rachel went to sleep listening to Taylor Swift, curled up in her grammy’s quilt, worrying about geometry. Today, she woke up in a ditch, bloodied, bruised, and missing a year of her life.
She doesn’t recognize the person she’s become: she’s popular. She wears nothing but black.
Black to cover the blood.
And she can fight.
Tell no one.
She’s not the only girl to go missing within the last year…but she’s the only girl to come back. She desperately wants to unravel what happened to her, to try and recover the rest of the Lost Girls.
But the more she discovers, the more her memories return. And as much as her new life scares her, it calls to her. Seductively. The good girl gone bad, sex, drugs, and raves, and something darker…something she still craves—the rush of the fight, the thrill of the win—something she can’t resist, that might still get her killed…
The only rule is: There are no rules.
About Merrie Destefano
CURRENTLY A FULL-TIME NOVELIST and magazine editor, Merrie Destefano’s next novel, LOST GIRLS, releases on January 3, 2017. Her other novels include AFTERLIFE and FEAST, both published by HarperCollins, and FATHOM, which was self-published. The editor of Victorian Homes magazine, she has also been the editor of American Farmhouse Style, Vintage Gardens, and Zombies magazine, and was the founding editor of Cottages & Bungalows magazine.
With 20 years experience in publishing, she worked for a variety of publishing/broadcasting companies that include Focus on the Family, The Word For Today, and PJS Publications (now Primedia). Besides editing and writing, her background includes print buying, writing/producing radio promos, directing photo shoots, developing new products, writing jacket copy for books, creating sales media packets and organizing direct mail campaigns.
Born in the Midwest, she currently lives in Southern California with her husband, two German shepherds, a Siamese cat and the occasional wandering possum. Her favorite hobbies are reading speculative fiction and watching old Star Trek episodes, and her incurable addiction is writing. She loves to camp in the mountains, walk on the beach, watch old movies, listen to alternative music—although rarely all at the same time.
Giveaway:
All prizes listed below will be given to one prize winner. Prizes listed are for a US winner only; if an International winner is chosen, the prize will be a $50 Amazon gift card.
The danger and mystery make me want to read this exciting book.
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