Winner Time!!

And the winner of a signed copy of Leah Clifford's A Touch Mortal is......

lexcade!!!!

Congratulations!! Send your address to us at OperationAwesome6 (at) gmail (dot) com and we'll get your signed book out to you. And thanks so much to all our followers and everyone who entered!

It's been an awesome month of follower love :)

Don't forget! Our next Mystery Agent Contest kicks off on March 1st. Here are the rules again:

1) Entry limit: 75 entrants.

2) Pitch length: 140 characters. Think Tweet. Since we're talking 140 characters, Title and Genre don't have to be part of the pitch -- add them on to the comment somewhere.

3) Genres: YA (especially thriller, cyberpunk, horror, historical romance); MG; women's fiction; romance (especially with a strong, female heroine).

So get those tweet pitches ready for March 1st!!!! 

Follower Love with A Touch Mortal

Today is the 22nd of February which means....Leah Clifford's book A Touch Mortal releases today!!! We did a fun Q and A session with this awesome lady a couple months ago (click HERE to see it). I've had the privilege of reading the ARC and it's fabulous, edgy, different, and just an awesome read. Not to mention the absolutely gorgeous cover!

And, since we are coming to the end of our Love Our Followers month, we thought we'd spread just a little more and give away A SIGNED COPY!

Entering is easy - just

1) be a follower 

and 

2) leave a comment on this post

Entries will be taken until 11:59 pm EST tomorrow and the winner will be announced on Thursday. So hurry and enter and tell your friends! You don't want to miss out on this amazing SIGNED book :D

Q and A with the Awesome Leah Clifford

We have an awesome treat for you today! The amazing Leah Clifford has stopped by the OA today for a little Question and Answer session :D

I first met Leah about three years ago on the then brand new Querytracker.net forum. There were only a few of us back then and we formed a tight-knit group that is still one of my main sources for support and inspiration. We were all just starting out on our querying journeys back then, but it has always been evident that Leah has what it takes to be a rock star :) It has been a pure joy and thrill to see Leah find her incredible agent, Rosemary Stimola, and land an amazing three book deal.

Her first book, A Touch Mortal, will be coming in Winter 2011 from GreenWillow / HarperCollins.

Leah has offered to stop by throughout the day today and answer any questions that you might have. In fact, she said you can ask her ANYTHING, questions you might be afraid to ask another writer :) Bring ‘em on!!!

I asked Leah to tell us a bit about her book to get us started:


LC: This is a mishmash of my query and the PM announcement...

Death isn't what Eden expected. Where the hell is her release? Her quiet ending? Not that Eden remembers the details of her final hours, but one thing is for sure--becoming a Sider, trapped between life and death, was definitely not part of the plan...

For Eden, nothing seems to be coming easy. Somehow, word's gotten around that her power can kill her own kind. With desperate Siders already camping out on her doorstep, the last thing Eden needs is the rumor to spread. Especially since it's true...

When her ability pulls her into a feud between Fallen and Bound Angels, she'll have to figure out who to trust and get to the truth behind her death, even if the answers will alter heaven, hell and everything in-between.

MM: I cannot WAIT to read this book! :)

All right folks! Your turn! Leave your questions in the comments and Leah will stop by to answer them :)

Storyteller or Wordsmith?

Blacksmith removing rust with sand (or fairy dust, if you have any imagination)

Here's a thinker for you this Friday (Happy Friday, by the way, everyone!! Woot!):

Are you a storyteller or a wordsmith? 

I've noticed lately in my reading that some people truly excel at story, like Frank Baum of Wizard of Oz fame, or Rick Riordan of the Percy Jackson series; and others weave words like master artisans in the households of kings, like Libba Bray of Going Bovine and A Great and Terrible Beauty, or Gayle Forman of If I Stay, or my critique partners. ;) (Seriously, you guys are in for a real treat when any one of them breaks through the publishing bottleneck.)

Of course, it would be nice to have it all, but nobody starts out that way. That's why we call writing our craft.

So which part of our craft is your strong suit? Storytelling, with its plot structure, twists, and revelations? Or wordsmithing (how can that not be a real word?), with its heart-piercing phraseology and dew-from-heaven gloriousness?

It's an important question because the answer can tell you where you need to focus your practice. Me, for instance. I've got wordplay down to a hyphenated art. Okay not really, but I became a writer because people told me I write well, not because people said I come up with the most air-tight plots ever. So I fall in with the wordsmith lot. For me, this means my current focus has to be plot. And not just plot. Storytelling includes characterization and setting, so you can see I have my work cut out for me.

Knowing where my strengths lie as a writer gives me focus, but it also reminds me to allow myself a little failure in my weak areas. It's okay if my first draft is filled with plot holes. For me, revision is less about crafting perfect sentences and more about re-imagining the story... over and over again, until it all fits. And, of course, since this is my cross to bear I think storytelling is much harder than spinning beautiful phrases. Which is more difficult for you?

Now you know what to work on this weekend.

On that note, hop on over to my linky for the New Year's Revisions Blog Party. (You can totally cheat and write your revision goals before the 1st. I won't tell, if you don't.)

Psst! The OA blog circle is abuzz with excitement over Leah Clifford's new book, A TOUCH MORTAL. Michelle, Lindsay, and Amparo are all pimping it. The exciting news is that Leah will be HERE on the OA blog doing a Q&A about her upcoming book, her writing, whatever you think to ask, this SUNDAY!

Coming February 22, 2011

See you there!