Happy Book Birthday to my Critique Partner Christi Corbett and her book: Along The Way Home!!!

Reasons Why My Critique Partner, Artemis Gray, is Awesome!

First, I’d like to give a big thank you to Artemis for allowing me to host her blog. I truly appreciate her sharing her readers with me as I celebrate the release of my debut novel, Along the Way Home.

Artemis is one of my critique partners, and has been a wealth of information as I wrote Along the Way Home. (And a virtual shoulder to whine on during the querying process, but I digress)

We met when I was a guest host over at the blog Pimp My Novel in December of 2009. She left a very insightful comment and a friendship was born! We kept in touch through our blogs and other social media for a while and then we eventually began exchanging chapters, and became official critique partners. 

She is the GREATEST when it comes to explaining how horses eat, drink, act, and how all their gear works. Also, she’s a wealth of knowledge about Virginia, how a horse rears first and then spins once they hit ground again, and how to bury a body (got your attention with that one, didn’t I?!)

And she’s so cool that I knew this would be the perfect “Thanks for being my critique partner” present for her…

Thank you Artemis, for allowing me to host your blog today, and above all for helping me on my journey to publication. 

Kate Davis is intrigued when her father reveals his dream of starting a horse ranch in Oregon Territory. Settlers out west value a strong woman, and though she manages the financials of her father’s mercantile her competence earns her ridicule, not respect, from Virginia’s elite society. 

Jake Fitzpatrick, an experienced trail guide, wants land out west to raise cattle and crops. But dreams require money and he’s eating dandelion greens for dinner. So when a wealthy businessman offers double wages to guide his family across the Oregon Trail, Jake accepts with one stipulation—he is in complete control.

Departure day finds Kate clinging to her possessions as Jake demands she abandon all he deems frivolous, including her deceased mother’s heirlooms. Jake stands firm, refusing to let the whims of a headstrong woman jeopardize the wages he so desperately needs—even a beautiful one with fiery green eyes and a temper to match. 

Trail life is a battle of wills between them until tragedy strikes, leaving Jake with an honor-bound promise to protect her from harm and Kate with a monumental choice—go back to everything she’s ever known or toward everything she’s ever wanted?

About Christi

I’m addicted to coffee, sticky notes, and the Oxford Comma. I live in a small town in Oregon with my husband and our twins. Our home’s location is especially inspiring because the view from the back door is a hill travelers looked upon years ago as they explored the Oregon Territory and beyond.

My debut novel, Along the Way Home, is a Sweet Historical Romance. It released in ebook format on June 11, 2013 and will be available in print July of 2013. It is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Astraea Press (my publisher) and several other retailers. 

When I’m not writing I love chatting with readers and writers alike. You can find me in one of the following locations: 

Email: christicorbett@gmail.com

Blog: http://christicorbett.wordpress

Twitter: @ChristiCorbett

Facebook: Christi Corbett—Author

Along the Way Home Links

Book Trailer: http://christicorbett.wordpress.com/fellow-authors/
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/christicorbett/along-the-way-home/

I have several Pinterest pages, including ones about my inspirations behind Along the Way Home, Oregon Trail landmarks, horses, cowboys, writing funnies, and lots of fun ideas for EASY crafts with the kiddos. 

Amazon
Barnes and Noble

Writers, do you use critique partners or Beta readers? Did it take you a while to find a rhythm? 

Still Here!!!

I know, I know. I'm supposed to be posting at some sort of vaguely regulated intervals. But I'm not. As evidenced by my absence.

What I've been up to:

Working! And loving work.

Weddings... not mine (yeah, right :)

The Writer's Voice Contest! I got four requests from participating agents and was ninja'd by an after-contest lurking agent. *squee*

Getting rejected... one from one of the WV agents (very fast turnaround, and form letter, so they were very obviously totally uninterested) and one by a agent I had queried some time ago. She was very nice, but her rejection left me reaching for chocolate because she said things like 'the story wasn't progressing as quickly as I would like' and 'the characters needed further development' in addition to having issues with a few other things which led me to believe that she just didn't 'get' the story, in part. It wouldn't have bothered me nearly so much, but I'd just finished laboriously plowing through a book that was 'acclaimed' that I found INCREDIBLY boring (nothing happened. I mean NOTHING) and which had completely flat characters, so I inadvertently committed that Cardinal sin of looking at the 'acclaimed' book, and my own ms and thinking WHAT DID THEY DO THAT I HAVEN'T??? IT'S NOT FAIR!!! Yeah, fast forward to a few hours and I got over it. Though I AM eager to hear something from other agents and see if they say anything about story progression and character development. Because that'll tell me whether I need to check myself or not.

Sending out queries!

And finally, WRITING!!! I'm about 3/4 done with the first draft of Rivana of the Twains and it feels SO FREAKING GOOD to be writing again! I'm still not sure if Rivana has what it takes (or the potential to have what it takes) to be marketable, but I love the story and we'll see how it looks after the first transcription edit.

Oh, also, I am now the mother of a pitcher plant, named Bruce, and Venus fly trap named Hannibal... Pictures to follow at a later date.

The Writer's Voice

Query:

Dear Amazing Agent,

Take one shy albino guy named Ansel. Add his two younger brothers, and an injured runaway girl with a hidden past. Shake thoroughly and stand back because things are going to get interesting fast.

Letting the nameless girl with the banged-up ankle sleep in his parents’ book shed for one night *seemed* like a good idea. But Catskin, as Ansel nicknames her, needs more than shelter. She needs someone to help her figure out how rejoin society. Prone to panic attacks and acts of defensive violence, she turns out to be as dangerous as she is fragile. Slowly, the sweetly strange Catskin begins to find a sense of normality and the bond she and Ansel already share blossoms into a mutual attraction.

Then an accident leaves Catskin hovering between life and death. Pressured by doctors, Ansel contacts her estranged parents, reconnecting her with the life she left behind. His actions provoke a shocking confrontation between the wealthy world Catskin was born into, and the starkly average one she now shares with Ansel. When Catskin’s overbearing parents use hospital policy to force their daughter’s return, Ansel takes the drastic measure of kidnapping Cat in order to give her a chance at freedom.

A Contemporary YA inspired by the fairy tale Catskin, GONE MISSING GIRL is complete at 85,000 words.

I have had five poems published in the anthology Poetry Pact 2011 (Volume 1) and several short stories published in the online magazine Underneath the Juniper Tree. In addition, I have had two nonfiction short stories published in the magazine ‘laJoie’. I am a member of SCBWI.

Thank you very much for your time and attention

Happy reading,

Artemis Grey

First 250:

 I have never been that guy. You know, the one surrounded by adventure and covered in awesomesauce. That would be my younger brother, Ethan.

 But Ethan wasn’t in the book shed that night.

 I was.

 It’s not like you get to pick and choose life-altering events the way you do socks from the bargain bin.

 I went out to the shed for a bottle of spine glue.

 Simple, right?

 But when I flipped on the overheads, I found a shrunken zombie lurking just inside the doorway.

 *Insert very macho scream*

 Right about then the broom slid sideways, hitting the light switch and leaving me stranded in the dim twilight of the Alaskan summer.

 Lovely.

 When my brain wasn’t immediately harvested, I took several deep breaths. Convinced myself that I had not, in fact, just seen a zombie in the book shed. Turned the light back on.

 It was still there.

 But it wasn’t a zombie. It was a girl.

 Filthy, tangled, rumpled and undersized, but definitely female. Definitely alive. Her mouth hung partway open now, eyes wide, yet disturbingly empty. Like her entire body was deserted. The void inside her yawned at me. A sort of awful maw that might chew me up, if I got within reach.

 Which, I had no intention of doing.

 Hell, I couldn’t even find my voice to bother asking who she was, where she’d come from or why she was in there.

 Of course, she wasn’t exactly a Chatty Cathy, herself.