Release party!! LOVE, LATTES, AND MUTANTS by Sandra Cox. AND giveaway

I’m thrilled to be a part of Sandra Cox’s blog tour for her newly released YA paranormal, LOVE, LATTES, AND MUTANTS.

I love the cover! And, the blurb sounds amazing—I mean, super cool. Check it out and be sure to enter her fantastic giveaways as well.

Blurb: Finding love is hard, even when you aren’t a mutant.

Like most seventeen-year-olds, Piper Dunn wants to blend in with the crowd. Having a blowhole is a definite handicap. A product of a lab-engineered mother with dolphin DNA, Piper spends her school days hiding her brilliant ocean-colored eyes and sea siren voice behind baggy clothing and ugly glasses. When Tyler, the new boy in school, zeroes in on her, ignoring every other girl vying for his attention, no one, including Piper, understands why...

Then Piper is captured on one of her secret missions rescuing endangered sea creatures and ends up in the same test center where her mother was engineered. There she discovers she isn’t the only one of her kind. Joel is someone she doesn’t have to hide from, and she finds herself drawn to the dolph-boy who shares her secrets. Talking to him is almost as easy as escaping from the lab. Deciding which boy has captured her heart is another story...

Bio:

Multi-published author Sandra Cox writes YA Fantasy, Paranormal and Historical Romance, and Metaphysical Nonfiction. She lives in sunny North Carolina with her husband, a brood of critters and an occasional foster cat. Although shopping is high on the list, her greatest pleasure is sitting on her screened in porch, listening to the birds, sipping coffee and enjoying a good book. She's a vegetarian and a Muay Thai enthusiast.

FOLLOW SANDRA: 

Blog   Twitter  Facebook

BUY LINKS:    

  EKensington    Amazon   Barnes and Noble   Kobo

GIVEAWAY!!

First prize:

A Piper-approved necklace and $10 Starbuck Card

Second Prize:

A Piper-approved bracelet

TO ENTER FOLLOW THIS LINK: 

http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/927e5e0011/Rafflecopter

Preparing for Revision: Checking a Novel’s Emotional Arc

Last week, I finished the first draft of book 2 in the MOONHILL series.  I fast wrote it and it’s a crappy as heck. Fortunately, I love revising and am dying to dive in. But the general notes I’d made as I drafted led me to believe that the emotional arc of the story was most likely off.  Namely, I didn’t think there was enough kissing and sex, and I wasn’t sure if the flow of the main character’s emotions worked or not.

Below are the revision notes I took while drafting. 

So, I first updated my barebones chapter-by-chapter outline. Then I took that outline and listed the emotions experienced by the main character and her love interest as they happened.  I highlighted specific emotions I was concerned about so I could see how they flowed and where gaps were. I also highlighted where romantic scenes happened.  The truth is, once I pushed all the other elements of the novel out of my mind and focused only on the emotions, it quickly became easier to spot where things were off and think up solutions. So the yellow highlights are changes I noted as I outlined the story’s emotional arc.

Here’s what the emotion outline looks like:

Now it’s time to light my new jasmine candle and start revising!