The Carver: Teaser 6

Welcome to Ten Weeks of Teasers for the YA Fantasy THE CARVER by Jacob Devlin! We're counting down the days before it releases July 19th with a teaser each week. Then we will party all day long on Facebook! Join the party, take part in the blog tour, or just kick back and watch the teasers roll in. Get ready for your #roadtripwithpeterpan!

about the book:

THE GIRL IN THE RED HOOD has been looking for her mother for six months, searching from the depths of New York’s subways to the heights of its skyscrapers . . .

THE PRINCE looks like he’s from another time entirely, or maybe he’s just too good at his job at Ye Old Renaissance Faire . . .

THE ACTRESS is lighting up Hollywood Boulevard with her spellbinding and strikingly convincing portrayal of a famous fairy. Her name may be big, but her secrets barely fit in one world... 

Fifteen-year-old Crescenzo never would have believed his father’s carvings were anything more than “stupid toys.” All he knows is a boring life in an ordinary Virginia suburb, from which his mother and his best friend have been missing for years. When his father disappears next, all Crescenzo has left is his goofy neighbor, Pietro, who believes he’s really Peter Pan and that Crescenzo is the son of Pinocchio. What’s more: Pietro insists that they can find their loved ones by looking to the strange collection of wooden figurines Crescenzo’s father left behind.

With Pietro’s help, Crescenzo sets off on an adventure to unite the real life counterparts to his figurines. It’s enough of a shock that they’re actually real, but the night he meets the Girl in the Red Hood, dark truths burst from the past. Suddenly, Crescenzo is tangled in a nightmare where magic mirrors and evil queens rule, and where everyone he loves is running out of time.

Now available for preorder!

Amazon - Barnes & Noble - Signed Copies - Goodreads

about the author:

When Jacob Devlin was four years old, he would lounge around in Batman pajamas and make semi-autobiographical picture books about an adventurous python named Jake the Snake. Eventually, he traded his favorite blue crayon for a black pen, and he never put it down. When not reading or writing, Jacob loves practicing his Italian, watching stand-up comedy, going deaf at rock concerts, and geeking out at comic book conventions. He does most of these things in southern Arizona.

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Get ready to give up your time to THE SURRENDERED by Case Maynard--a young adult dystopian sure to suck you in further to with every page! Want to be a part of this new release? You can sign up for the Facebook parties, blog tours, or to review. The #taxonkids is coming!

Why Third Person is My Writerly Comfy Blanky

I love writing third person. To me, it is so freeing. I love bouncing around from one character's head to the next. (Sometimes a little too much, as can be witnessed from the earlier drafts of Heirs of War). I've always written in third person. Maybe this habit stems from my first ventures into writing being in the form of scripts, or maybe I just enjoy pretending I'm the ever-omniscient (and in no way benevolent if you ask my characters) god of the world I've created. Who knows?

Either way, third person is definitely my preferred POV when writing. Which is exactly why I decided to write my new WIP (Altar of Reality) from the POV of the main character. Big deal, right? Oh, did I mention the main character is a teenager?

Before my beta readers remind me that Zelene and Ariana were both seventeen when Heirs of War started, I would like to stress that this teenager (sixteen, to be exact) is just your normal run-of-the-mill kinda gal. Biggest problem she has is epilepsy. That changes as the story moves on, but the point is she has no reason to be more mature than any other sixteen year old like Zelene did and like Ariana was forced to become with a quickness.

So, yeah...totally outside my comfort zone right now. And for the first time in my entire life I am having to force myself to sit down and write. With HoW, I had to force myself to stop. 10k days were pretty common to me. But this WIP is just supposed to be a much simpler tale in comparison, and yet it is so much harder to write.

I've been trying to figure that out as of late. I think it boils down to the same reason I don't blog a whole lot. It's not that I don't like talking about myself (well...mainly I just don't have much to say on that front. I write. A lot. The end.), but my personal story is so much more narrow than what I like. I love stories that are rich with characters, and I find that very hard to do with just one character telling the tale. Is it possible? Sure. I loved The Hunger Games and Vampire Academy, both of which have very lively worlds and characters with the story all told from one character's perspective. The question is: Can I do that?

Time (and beta readers) will tell. But for now, the moral of the story is this: Although the comfy blanky is, indeed, comfortable and safe, sometimes you really need to weather the storm without it. Because only then will you be faced with the questions I've talked about here, and only then will you start to grow as a writer.

Writerly Freedom

Now before I start this post, let me just preface it by saying I love my series Heirs of War. I'm on the third of five books mapped out in my head and it is an epic story that has a special place in my heart. But...it is also an extremely complicated story. There's political intrigue, wars, magic, other races, racial tension, love stories, FIVE freaking main characters and about twenty other important characters, growth of every single character, plots, subplots, etc. I've had to spend a lot of time mapping things out and plotting the plots of each character carefully. I've had to do research and create these races, create the magic system, the government...There's been a whole lot more planning than actual writing. But it's necessary to make it what it is. Which I hope to be good.

I've decided to take a breather from my series though. Book three just wasn't jiving for me. So I decided to work on my queries and editing. I never planned on writing a different book entirely that had nothing to do with my series. But here I am, 5k in and loving every minute of it.

The book I am currently writing is pretty far outside of my comfort zone. For one, it is really and truly young adult. The main character is sixteen. Heirs of War is New Adult through and through. The main characters ages range from seventeen (which quickly turns to eighteen) to twenty four. Those ages feel more familiar to me. I can relate to those ages better. So trying to remember what it was like to be sixteen is a bit of a struggle. Another reason it is outside of my comfort zone is because it has absolutely no magic in it whatsoever. There's parallel dimensions, but no magic. I'm a big fantasy geek so my instinct always leans towards magic of some kind in whatever I write.

The last reason this new WIP is so far outside of my comfort zone? Well, that's the biggest one. It is a first person narrative. I'm not even a big fan of reading first person narratives. I find them very limiting. Did I like Hunger Games? Sure. But I think it would have been better as a third person pov because then we'd see a lot more. I might have even liked the books beyond Twilight if they'd been third person. Maybe Bella wouldn't have been so annoying to me in book two if that had been the case. Maybe.

But I digress. Even thought this new WIP is so far outside my comfort zone as a writer, I also find it incredibly freeing. It's a simple standalone book. No series. No magic. No extreme plotting necessary. I have the beginning, middle, and end vaguely outlined in my head and that's really all I need. Then I just sit down and pants it. And 5k into it, I'm pretty pleased with how it's going. And the best part is I am pretty sure my word count will end up being around 70k. If you follow this blog, you know how word count tends to be the bane of my existence. Well, one of them. I like to say a lot of things outside of the actual writing are the bane of my existence, which those of you who follow this blog probably know already.

I planned on writing this new WIP (tentatively titled "Life As I Know It" but I suck at naming things, so it will probably get renamed. Heirs of War was original called The Circle or Sisters of The Circle. My genius friend renamed it to Heirs of War.) for NaNoWriMo. Since I've been writing it for 2 days and already have 5k, I get the feeling that it will be finished by then and I'll end up going back to book three. But I think this might be exactly what I need to get me past the hump that I hit with book three. It's renewing my love of writing and the freedom and cathartic feelings that come along with creating something new.

Writerly Lessons: What I Learned This Week

As I mentioned in my other blog post, I attended WriteOnCon for the first time this past week. I have also had a really eventful non-writerly week as life is taking off in full force the week before classes begin again. So I will be brief so that I can get some time in to actually write today. Stay tuned for the end for a special little announcement!

Lessons I Learned This Week:

Word Count: The New Bane of My Writerly Existence!

A few weeks ago the bane of my writerly existence was synopses, shortly followed by query letters. Now? Well, now it is just word count. You would think that words of any sort--counted or not--would be a writer's best friend. Right? Wrong. At least, not when you are writing something that falls into the Young Adult category and have a word count that is over 70k.

Like, way over 70k. Twice that to be precise.

Writerly Dilemma

For those of you who follow this blog and happen to be beta readers (*coughfamilycough*) of my series and don't want spoilers, stop reading now. For those of you who follow this blog and do not actually share DNA with me and intend on reading my series when I eventually publish it...Well, first of all: ohmygoshiloveyou and second of all, stop reading if you don't want spoilers.

That being said, here's my dilemma: I hate book three. Those of you who know me in real life have heard me bitch about book one in much the same way but it's different, I swear. I am just plain tired of book one because I have rewritten it countless times and edited it even more (and I'm still not done with it). I love book two. Book two is full of awesome. It's exciting, it's sad, and then it's exciting all over again. Book three...well, the plot elements are necessary, but they are also something I am deeply struggling with.

Meet Mara

As this is a new blog, I feel that the best way to kick-start it is by telling you who the heck I am. As you might have guessed by the title, I am Mara Valderran. I am a soon to be self published author currently right smack dab in the middle of writing my very first series, which is titled Heirs of War. I'll be posting excerpts from the books, character profiles, and other fun stuff as well as posting about my writerly exploits in general. And since I am also an avid reader, I will most likely be posting reviews and recommendations on here as well. I look forward to blogging more as it is sure to lessen the amount of time I spend talking to myself about these things!