Goodbye, sweet 2012 (and a giveaway)

This year has been such an incredible ride for me, one full of surprises and excitement. In fact, in my entire life there hasn’t been a year with as much change.  If you had told me back in January that I would land both an agent and a publishing deal, I’d have thought you were crazy (um, in a good way, of course). I’m so grateful that it is exactly what happened.

But it’s not without hard work, of course. I spent the previous year on overdrive, honing my writing skills, going to conferences, learning from agents, editors and fellow authors—all who were kind enough to share their knowledge with newbies. I joined Twitter, which opened up a whole new world to me. I pounded the proverbial pavement—bearing rejections—to find the perfect agent for me. I revised, revised, and revised again to make my manuscript better.  I joined two critique groups and recruited many beta readers, finding out that I still needed to revise.

Heck, I’m still revising.

But hard work pays off, and I am so excited about spending 2013 not only writing and editing but working on publicity for OLIVIA TWISTED. I can’t wait to share it with the world!

So to that end, I want to thank everyone who has supported me through this journey, starting with my fellow Chicks. If not for them, I might not have found my path to writing in the first place.

And as a special thanks to our blog readers and to end 2012 with a bang, I’d like to offer up a very special ARC (thank you, Agent P!) of a book that won’t hit the shelves until February 2013—UNRAVEL ME by Tahereh Mafi, the sequel to the bestseller, SHATTER ME! As a bonus, I’ll throw in a copy of SHATTER ME as well. If you haven’t read this wonderful young adult dystopian, now is a great time to fall in love with Adam and Juliette.

All you have to do to enter is leave your email in the comments on this post and we’ll draw a winner (to avoid freaky spammers, spell out words like “at” and “dot”). You have until midnight on Friday, January 11 to comment for the drawing (enter only once, please). That way I have time to read it first. =)

Here’s to just as much wonderful in 2013…for all of us!