YA Indie Carnival ~ The Big Tease...or a little one...

Max is a vampire knight from The Fateful Trilogy. He was one of the first knights to join The Order that Beon and Seth started. To get to know him, and see why he's probably one of my most popular characters--deserving his own story--then check out The Fateful Trilogy by clicking on the book cover on the left.






Here is the first paragraph from Max and Nadia's story:



“Why can’t you just let me die in peace?” rasped Max using up a large measure of his waning strength, resenting the men standing beside his bed for making him force out the words at all. Drawing a breath that wheezed into his failing lungs, and rattled on its way back out, Max closed his eyes again.

All right, I won't tease you too much... Want more?
Visit this post to read the entire opening scene of their story!
http://cherischmidt.blogspot.com/2012/03/ya-indie-carnival-max-and-nadia.html

Check out my fellow carnis in the links below:
New! Maureen Murrish
New! Liz Long, Just another writer on the loose.
Also new!!! Ella James author of Stained
Laura A. H. Elliott author of Winnemucca & 13 on Halloween
Bryna Butler, author Midnight Guardian series
K. C. Blake, author of Vampire Rules and Crushed
Heather Self
T. R. Graves, Author of The Warrior Series
Suzy Turner, author of The Raven Saga
Cheri Schmidt, author of the Fateful Trilogy
Rachel Coles, author of Into The Ruins, geek mom blog
Patti Larsen, The Hunted series and The Hayle Coven series
Amy Maurer Jones, Author of The Soul Quest Trilogy
Dani Snell's Refracted Light Reviews
Fisher Amelie, author of The Understorey
M. Leighton, Blood Like Poison Series, Madly, The Reaping
Cidney Swanson, author of Rippler
Gwenn Wright, author of Filter
Melissa Pearl, Author of The Time Spirit Trilogy
Heather M. White, author of The Destiny Saga
Courtney Cole Writes

YA Indie Carnival ~ Sequels

New releases in the works!!!

I love to know what my readers want in my sequels. Which is why I asked you what you wanted to see in Forever, the final book in the Fateful Trilogy. I worked really hard at incorporating what you'd asked for. You said you wanted to see more mystical creatures, and you wanted to know how Ethan and Danielle recognized each other. As I work on more sequels, please tell me, what do you want to see, or rather, read? Let me know in the comments of this post!

To get your imagination going, here is a preview of what I'm working on:

The Fateful Trilogy is Ethan’s and Danielle’s story only. But I know many of you fell in love with the side characters as well. To be honest, in some cases, that really surprised me! They were just side characters, after all! But I’m also very flattered and my head is still in that world as well as with Ethan and Danielle. So I simply can’t stop myself from writing about these “side characters” that you’ve fallen in love with. While the Fateful Trilogy was just for Ethan and Danielle, the Fateful Series is for all of them!!!

(If you haven't read The Fateful Trilogy yet, I'll tell you a secret. If you buy the three books together as one by clicking on the picture to the right, then it's just like getting Fateful for free. If you're not sure if you'll like the book, then read the excerpt first...)

I have so many books planned, it’s really hard for me to list them all especially since I don’t know how soon their releases are, but I’ll do my best to give you a preview. Note: The titles of all of these could change...and these are not in order of release:

Sophia's Cookbook for Mortals: A fun and real recipe book featuring recipes Sophia likes to mess up her apron with. This one will be released in a a week or two! (Check my previous posts to get a copy of her scone recipe.)

Maximilian: A novelette on how Max joined a new Order of Knights and then met Nadia. This one will start out in a historical setting and move to a modern one. (For an excerpt of this story got to the blog post right before this one!)

Becoming Cursed: A novelette in a historical setting on how Beon became a vampire and then courted Sophia by kidnapping her.

The Black Prince: A novelette on your favorite surly prince.

Little Red: A novelette about the red-headed witch in Forever and her forbidden love for a werewolf.

I have plans for some of the other Fateful side characters as well, like Brianna, Danielle’s cousin. I just haven’t worked out all of the details yet. so please stay tuned! ;)

The Trapping Club: I have a lot of handwritten notes for The Trapping club—this is the sequel to Fair Maiden, or book 2 in that series. Beginning with a magical masquerade and a kidnapping, The Trapping club is the tale of second sons as they struggle for survival in a society that leaves such forgotten. Those who’ve read the first book will be surprised to find that the hero of this next enchanting tale is the brother of the villain in Fair Maiden, and the heroine will be a grown-up Emma...

The Mistaken Reformer: This is book 3 in the Fair Maiden series. Peter, Christian’s brother will be the hero and the heroine is still a mystery as of yet...

The Fairy Ring Enchantment: This is the first story I dreamed about, thinking it would be a short picture book. But when I started writing, it was turning into a novel. With no plans of becoming a writer, I was extremely confused by that. I never thought I'd have a novel in me. This is a story about fair rings and why you shouldn’t step inside them...

I’m also working on a steampunk story and, believe it or not, a new twist on Peter Pan! But a gown up Peter Pan. Just like a grown up Jeremy Sumpter as shown in the photo on the right. LOL In truth, the Peter Pan one totally took me by surprise and came to me in a dream a couple of weeks ago. Both of these stories should appeal to those of you who loved Fair Maiden. I'm sure I'm forgetting to list a few, but this is all I can recall at the moment.

Check out my fellow carnis in the links below:
New! Maureen Murrish
New! Liz Long, Just another writer on the loose.
Also new!!! Ella James author of Stained
Laura A. H. Elliott author of Winnemucca & 13 on Halloween
Bryna Butler, author Midnight Guardian series
K. C. Blake, author of Vampire Rules and Crushed
Heather Self
T. R. Graves, Author of The Warrior Series
Suzy Turner, author of The Raven Saga
Cheri Schmidt, author of the Fateful Trilogy
Rachel Coles, author of Into The Ruins, geek mom blog
Patti Larsen, The Hunted series and The Hayle Coven series
Amy Maurer Jones, Author of The Soul Quest Trilogy
Dani Snell's Refracted Light Reviews
Fisher Amelie, author of The Understorey
M. Leighton, Blood Like Poison Series, Madly, The Reaping
Cidney Swanson, author of Rippler
Gwenn Wright, author of Filter
Melissa Pearl, Author of The Time Spirit Trilogy
Heather M. White, author of The Destiny Saga
Courtney Cole Writes

Guest Post ~ Unfurl by Cidney Swanson Release Tour and Giveaway!

Hi Cheri! I’m so excited to be here today as part of my Unfurl Release Tour. I thought I’d share something today about how I got started writing full time. I hope you will enjoy!

It took two fifteen-year-old boys to convince me to follow my heart and start writing full time. Fifteen’s this great age. You’ve survived the battle arena of middle school and probably made it through your first year of high school. And in some part of you that maybe doesn’t hover on the surface, you know—absolutely know—that you can do something great.

Yeah, maybe a person or circumstance in your life has shoved that knowledge down to the deep end of the pool and tied it there with a big rock, but you still know it’s there, it’s true, and it really doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks because you know it.

Look around at the adults in your life: how many of them still know this, carry it around in their pockets? One? Two? Zero? We get old and we get tired and we forget that we ever felt this way once. I mean, adults write sentences like “It’s never too old to be what you might have been” precisely because we have to see it spelled out in black and white to even remember what we knew at fifteen.

Four years ago I found Eragon by Christopher Paolini. I was standing in my Costco, looking at the books table (the coolest part of Costco.) As I browsed, I overheard these grandmas talking.

“Wrote it when he was a teenager, and he’s a real nice kid. He home-schooled with one of my grandchildren.”

Well, you can bet that caught my attention. This gorgeous book was written by a teen? Whaaat? Anyway, I bought the book and loved it. And I thought to myself, Wow. This kid: he’s like, fifteen, and he didn’t have any issues with writing a freaking long book. He just did it. And then did it again.

That same year, I noticed another fifteen-year-old (my son) knocking out a couple of novels every couple of months. And I thought to myself: Wow. Where do you get that kind of belief in yourself and your abilities that lets you just do what you want to do?

And it’s like this light popped on, blinding me: when you’re a teenager, you know that you can do anything. Seriously, Teens. Can. Do. Anything. As a late-bloomer, I’m probably not the best person in the world to convince you of this fact, but look: someone else said it too! (Better than I did.)

So on March 20, 2009, I told myself: “No more ‘I’m-going-to-write-a-novel-someday;’ I need to just write. Like those fearless fifteen-year-olds. Forget ‘someday.’ This is someday.”

You know how adults or teachers say that their kids teach them so much? (Yeah, we do say that, and if you’re a teen and the adults in your own life aren’t saying it, that sucks—they should, because it’s true!) So anyway, it took a pair of undaunted teenage boys to teach me that if I wanted to do something bad enough, I needed to just start. Today.

No matter what your age is: be that fifteen-year-old version of yourself. And if you are fifteen? Do what you know you can do. Do it now before you get old and forgetful and busy doing things that don’t really matter to you anyway. Take it from a late-bloomer. Nuff said.

Thank you, Chris Paolini, for showing me that it’s okay to do what you dream of doing and that if you weren’t too young to do it, then maybe I wasn’t too old. And thanks to my son, the ‘JWS’ to whom I dedicated my first book. Because if it weren’t for him and Paolini and their teenager-ability to just do stuff, I wouldn’t be writing novels today.

And that would just be sad.

Thanks so much, everyone, for the chance to stop by and visit today! Come say hi anytime!

Linkies:
cidneyswanson at gmail dot com
http://cidneyswanson.blogspot.com/
https://www.facebook.com/cidneyswanson
http://twitter.com/#!/cidneyswanson
Books for sale: http://amzn.to/x8grXl
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/search?query=cidney+swanson
Librarything: http://www.librarything.com/author/swansoncidney

YA Indie Carnival ~ What Reading Teaches Me...

Welcome to another YA Indie Carnival Post! Our Theme today: What Reading Teaches Me....
It teaches me how other people think.
It teaches me about life, history, faith, and facts, as well as myth.
It teaches me how to write.
It also teaches me how not to write, sometimes...
It teaches me to not give up on myself.
It teaches me that we all have different strengths and weaknesses as writers. From both, I learn more about my own writing style and it strengthens me as a writer. At least I think so...
It also teaches me that we can't be so hard on each other as writers! Find the good in each other's writing, and praise them for it. Everyone needs that little pat on the back sometimes because it's easy to doubt yourself in this very fiercely competitive market.


With that said, check out the other AMAZING writers and reviewers in YA Indie Carnival:
1.Laura A. H. Elliott author of Winnemucca & 13 on Halloween
2.Bryna Butler, author Midnight Guardian series
3.Heather Self
4.T. R. Graves, Author of The Warrior Series
5.Suzy Turner, author of The Raven Saga
6.Cheri Schmidt, author of the Fateful Trilogy
7.Rachel Coles, author of Into The Ruins, geek mom blog
8.K. C. Blake, author of Vampires Rule and Crushed
9.Patti Larsen, The Hunted series and The Hayle Coven series
10.Amy Maurer Jones, Author of The Soul Quest Trilogy
11.Dani Snell's Refracted Light Reviews
12. Fisher Amelie, author of The Understorey
13.M. Leighton, Blood Like Poison Series, Madly, The Reaping
14.Kimberly Kinrade, Bits of You & Pieces of Me, Forbidden Mind
15.Madeline Smoot, Missing, Summer Shorts, and The Girls
16.Cidney Swanson, author of Rippler
17.Gwenn Wright, author of Filter
18.TG Ayer
19.Melissa Pearl, Author of The Time Spirit Trilogy
20.Heather M. White, author of The Destiny Saga
21.Roots in Myth, PJ Hoover
22.Courtney Cole Writes