THE LIFE OF GLASS ARC giveaway!!!

I know I've been terrible about posting here lately, and my excuse is that I've been writing. I finished a draft of what will (hopefully) be my third YA book, and then I finished some edits for my adult book, THE TRANSFORMATION OF THINGS. Then I took a little bit of a break, and for the last three weeks, I've spent hardly any time at the computer. I read a few books, watched a lot of movies, and oh, actually cleaned my house. Yes, that was the last straw, and now I'm back -- to the blogging world and getting ready to start on a new book for adults. Right now I'm in the process of researching names -- which I love!

And today I really wanted to blog because when I woke up this morning, I realized that it was the 9th -- which means exactly six months from today my second YA book, THE LIFE OF GLASS will be out and in the world on February 9th, 2010 (If you want to read the jacket description and see the cover, click here). I finished writing this book nearly a year ago, and at the time, winter 2010 felt so very far away. But now, it's just around the corner.

So. . . I decided I'm going to have the first official THE LIFE OF GLASS contest, where I'll be giving away one ARC of THE LIFE OF GLASS. To enter you can do any or all of the following (You get one entry for each):

1.) Add THE LIFE OF GLASS to your list on Goodreads
2.) Follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/jilliancantor
3) Become a follower of this blog.

For extra entries you can:
1.) Tweet about the contest and link to this post
2:) Mention the contest on your blog

Leave a comment on this post letting me know your e-mail and how you entered. (If you already do any or all of the above, leave a comment to let me know, and you can enter that way, too!) I'll leave the contest open until September 1st. Good luck!!

Hello. Goodbye.

It's Tracy Madison's release week over at The Novel Girls this week, so if you stop by and comment on my post or any of the others, you'll be entered for a chance to win a copy of Tracy's first book, A TASTE OF MAGIC! We're blogging about our magical powers this week, so it's lots of fun.

And I have to say that I see I haven't posted here in a nearly month. And I really have no good excuse, except to say I've been writing. A lot. All the time. See, a few weeks ago, I officially quit my adjunct professor job, which has lit a major fire under me to finish my current work in progress, if only so I can make my status as full-time writer/mom something permenant. This means I've been setting lots of unattainable goals for myself, like write 10 pages every day, and then beating myself up when I don't always meet them.

Anyway, I am crawling back into the writing cave. Will be back out in a few weeks with a (hopefully) finished project to talk about.

Happy July!

Back to Writing

I know I've been slightly absent from the blog world this week, but earlier in the week it occurred to me, after a few crazy busy post-release days last week, that I had some actual revising to do. Oh yeah. Right! I'm a writer! Funny, how I lost that for a little while in all the swirl of release madness.

So I've spent some time this week dissecting my latest work-in-progress. It's a novel for adults, and after a little time away from it, I'm seeing it with new eyes. My agent read it a few weeks ago, and pointed out that my main character wasn't likeable enough. And now that I'm going through it again, I see exactly what she meant. Which is funny, because when I wrote the first draft, I saw the main character in my head as this really nice person. But now on the page, I see how she's coming across as too cold. I have a habit of doing this, not being able to see my characters for who they really are until someone else points it out to me. I wonder if I'm the only writer that this happens to?

I did have some more release stuff going on this week, too. An interview with The Frenetic Reader and a guest post over at Look at That Book. Next week I'll be participating in Geek Fest over at The Not So Closet Geeks, On the Outside over at Reading Keeps You Sane, and I'll be doing a guest post with Shalonda.

Last night, I went to Barnes and Noble to sign all their stock copies of The September Sisters! So if you're in Tucson, The Barnes and Noble at the Foothills Mall now has signed copies of the book out.

Fellow Novel Girl, Lisa Patton, also sent me this picture of The September Sisters on the shelves at Davis-Kidd bookstore in Nashville. Yay! I'm in Nashville!

I'm Still Here. . .

I know I've been neglecting this blog as of late, and I have to apologize. But I've been busy, busy busy writing what I hope (fingers crossed) will end up being my debut novel for adults. I'm working on the end now, and when I'm done, when I come out of this writing fog that is consuming my life at this moment, I may get back into other things, like blogging, or say, cleaning my house.

I've also officially finished revising my second YA book, which will be out from Harperteen in Winter 2010. I'm super-excited about this book, and I think the details about it, the writing of it, and the title, deserve their own blog post, which I promise will come soon, probably in January.

For now, it's back to writing for me, back to pushing through this first draft so I can spend my holiday break from teaching revising.

You can still find me every Thursday on The Novel Girls. Last week we blogged about names, and I discussed the importance of nicknames, both for me and my characters. This week we're going to blog about our favorite things, just like Oprah or um, Maria Von Trapp. (Only don't ask me to sing. Really. Don't.)