Oh. My. Gosh. Today I am honored to have not only one of my very best friends on my blog, but also an amazing author. Her name is Courtney Cole and her latest book, If You Stay, is tearing up the charts like a Tazmanian Devil. Whoop! And honestly, it couldn't happen to a better person.
She's done a guest post in honor of her book birthday, which is technically today. It released early, though, much to the pleasure of us readers. You can find it just below the picture and blurb for her book, which I'm going to show you now.
The last thing I'll say before I give you over to Courtney is that if you haven't read this book, WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU WAITING FOR? It's raw and passionate and Pax is amazingly flawed yet intensely lovable. It really is an incredible story, and for those of you who fear it will end badly, fear not! It has a wonderful ending. *happy sigh as I remember it* So, read this post then hop right on over to Amazon or Barnes and Noble and get your copy. You won't regret it:)
Okay, here's Courtney! Happy reading!!
xoxo
24-year old Pax Tate is an asshole.
Seriously.
He’s a tattooed, rock-hard bad-boy with a bad attitude to match.
But he’s got his reasons.
His mother died when Pax was seven, leaving a hole in his heart filled with guilt although he doesn’t understand why. What he does know is that he and his dad are left alone and with more issues than they can count.
As Pax grew up, he tried to be the kid his father always wanted; the perfect golden boy, but it didn’t work. His dad couldn’t overcome his grief long enough to notice and Pax couldn’t keep up the impossible perfect façade.
So he slipped far, far from it.
Now, he uses drugs and women to cope with the ugliness, the black void that he doesn’t want to deal with. If he pretends that the emptiness isn’t there, then it isn’t, right?
Wrong.
And it’s never more apparent than when he meets Mila.
Sweet, beautiful Mila Hill is the fresh air to his hardened frown, the beauty to his ugly heart. He doesn’t know how to not hurt her, but he quickly realizes that he’s got to figure it out because he needs her to breathe.
When memories of his mother’s death resurface from where he’s repressed them for so long, Mila is there to catch him when the guilt starts making sense. Mila is the one…the one who can save him from his broken troubled heart; from his issues, from the emptiness.
But only if he can stop being an asshole long enough to allow it.
He knows that. And he’s working on it.
But is that enough to make her stay?
**Warning -Contains sex and violence**
Five Things I wish I knew when I started Writing
By Courtney Cole
Oh,
Lord. This is a huge question. And there are SO MANY things I wish I’d known
back then. Let me think on this… hmm.
1. You can’t please
everyone nor should you try. ßThis is true. If you pleased everyone, then it means that
your book is so vanilla and bland that it lacks passion or zest. You should always write what is in your
heart, what your muse is steering you to write.
Don’t write what you think people might like and don’t change what you
are writing to suit every little thing that people say. Write what you want to write. Period.
2. Start your book in the spot where the story begins. Too much backstory is bad. Too little backstory is also bad, but you have
to sprinkle it throughout the book.
Start each book in a point where it is worth telling.
3. It’s okay to work in yoga pants. I quit my full-time job in corporate America
to stay home and write full-time. At
first, it seemed strange to work in comfy clothes and a ponytail. Now, I wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s a true perk of the job. J
4. Build a team. You
can’t do everything alone. You always
need more than one pair of eyes on your MS as you are writing it. So, find a critique partner whom you trust (I
was lucky enough to find Michelle), and a small group of beta readers who are
willing to give you honest feedback. It
takes a village to raise a child and it takes a village to write a great book.
5. Develop your own process.
Make a storyboard, research, write, re-vise, edit, polish, submit to
betas, re-vise, edit, re-submit, etc. etc.
Whatever your routine is, just do it.
Don’t skip steps to save time.
The reader will know if your work is sloppy.
So,
anyway… there’s a bunch of things I wish I’d known, but these are what spring
to mind right off the bat. Thanks for
having me, M. I love ya bunches and
bunches!
Courtney Cole is a novelist who would eat mythology for breakfast if she could. She has a degree in Business, but has since discovered that corporate America is not nearly as fun to live in as fictional worlds. She loves chocolate and roller coasters and hates waiting and rude people.
Courtney lives in quiet suburbia, close to Lake Michigan, with her real-life Prince Charming, her ornery kids (there is a small chance that they get their orneriness from their mother) and a small domestic zoo.
Author Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3112212.Courtney_Cole
