Burn For Burn ARC Giveaway!!!!

I posted a review of Jenny Han & Siobhan Vivian's upcoming book earlier today. You can find it here.

Now it's time to show some Blog Reader Love by hosting a Burn For Burn ARC giveaway. *Oh, yeah, it's happening!!!*

Which, by the way, is REALLY hard to do so soon, because I already started reading the book again. So, to give me time to re-read at a much more relaxed pace, and with a little more sleep this time, I'll run the contest until next Friday, May 4th at 7PM EST.

Open to US residents only.

To enter:

1. Follow me on Twitter: @scriptedYA and retweet my giveaway message, "Want an ARC of #BurnForBurn by @jennyhan & @siobhanvivian? Yeah, you do! Go to http://samanthasessoms.blogspot.com/2012/04/burn-for-burn-arc-giveaway.html for details."

or

2. Comment on this post by answering the following:

Did you ever want to get revenge on someone in high school? If so what was your plan?

or

3. Do #1 and #2 for double entries!

Winner will be announced on Friday, May 4th at 9PM EST. (possibly a few minutes after 9 or before, as this is my first giveaway and I have no idea what I'm getting myself into! haha)

Good Luck!

Need to know more right now? Check out the authors: Jenny Han & Siobhan Vivian. And to read the latest on Burn For Burn before it releases Sept. 18th check out the tumblr: Burn For Burn.

Review of: Burn For Burn by Jenny Han & Siobhan Vivian

Oh. My. Badass Girl Power. (can I say that? ...hope so)

I received* Burn For Burn yesterday and started it immediately! When I stopped reading, everyone in my house was asleep and I didn't know what to do with myself - I needed to tell someone how AWESOME this book was! It crossed my mind to do a review right then and there, but I couldn't figure out how to include all of it's splendor without spoilers.
I'm still not sure I can do it, but here goes:

Jenny Han and Siobhan Vivian have created a diverse group of three unlikely-to-get-along girls - Lillia, Mary, and Kat - each with their own secret hurt, who come together for the sake of making all the wrongs right. And the best part is you want them to do it. Then you don't, then you do, then you don't, and before long you're wrapped up with them in the deceitful tangle that is revenge - and far too involved to back out when things reach the breaking point.
This intricate story is told in the girl's rotating voices, while we watch the other characters evolve in new shades through each girl's POV: Who can we trust? Who's telling the truth? Who really deserves what's coming for them, and who doesn't?
My favorite parts of the book in no particular order:
lyrical story telling, summers at the ocean, the Voices - each so distinct and relatable even though maybe unlikable, intrigue - Oh The Intrigue, fresh and snappy language, high school hierarchy, and something 'different' among the Revenge Girls.
I can't say much about the 'different' without spoilers, but I'm sure if you're interested in this book you know it has been billed as supernatural on certain sites. If this was the intention, I'd instead say, it's supernatural for readers that don't like supernatural (or, readers that are burnt out on it), and at the core it is a suck-you-in-never-let-you-go story of heartbreak, love, friendship, loss, broken promises, and getting even, above all else. (with an innovative spin on ______: a classic I can't name or it'd give too much away. But I'm really curious if Jenny and Siobhan were thinking of said classic while writing it!)

My overall review for readers: Get your reader-butts to a bookstore, electronic device, and/or library on September 18th and fall heart first into Lillia, Mary, and Kat's story. You will be entranced page by page - Burn For Burn!


*I received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads. And couldn't have been happier! I may or may not have ripped the package open on the front porch and danced around cheering to no one in particular. The Mail Guy will never look at me the same again, I'm sure. 

Today is a day for Inspiration

Made this and wanted to share with you, Dear Readers. It speaks for itself...

(photo: Samantha Sessoms. Quote: The Genius a.k.a. Steve Jobs.)

That Night Friday

As always, if you'd like to submit your own That Night story, send them to samantha(dot)sessoms(at)gmail(dot)com

Don't forget to come up with a sign-off, leave your state and/or city, and which category your story falls under. You can include names if you'd like (and it's helpful to the reader, as too many pronouns gets confusing!), but last names will not be published for the privacy of those involved.

The categories are: best, worst, crazy, embarrassing, and bittersweet.

Today's That Night Friday story:


I remember that night when I discovered that a childhood rival passed away.   The term friend isn’t appropriate, so I can’t use it.  I’m not certain that he had any.   He was named Bradley.  We basically occupied the same artistic world in our youth.  Youth—fuck, I’m still young, and he was certainly too young to be dead--dead for over 2 years.  “Rival” is a bit strong too.  We weren’t bitter rivals.  Maybe that’s because the last time we went head to head (for a role in a musical), I was cast and Bradley wasn’t.   I remember the feeling of walking into the audition and seeing him sitting there.  The competitive juices started to flow.   He stayed to watch all the auditions.  I swooped in at the last half hour, and seeing him made me work all the harder.   I wasn’t confident that I came out on top until the director called me.   I think Bradley should be happy for that.  In a way, it’s a sign of respect.  

I wondered what he was up to, so I “Googled” him.  I couldn’t find any hits, which is odd since he was into theatre and music.  There are always links from performances, etc.  I had to really dig, and I still couldn’t find anything.   Then, I stumbled across a link to a classmate on Facebook who had posted his obituary two years ago.  She thought the obituary was thin, so she was asking people to write something about Bradley.  Thin?  The obituary was ten sentences long.   No one from Facebook even bothered to comment on her post.  Granted, he was annoying.  Bradley had developed that annoying type personality that comes from having been picked on too much.  At least that’s what I think.  For the record, I only picked on him once.  If it makes it any better it was behind his back and he didn’t know.   I had lost in a regional contest, and he wasted no time at feigning his surprise.  I was already wounded and he salted the wound.  So in all honesty, I don’t feel bad for that incident.  Except, I do.  I am better than that. If the cosmos allow you to feel my thoughts or read my words Bradley, I’m sorry.  I feel worse though that I stood by and watched this slow train wreck called his life.  


Now, I sit trying to gather my thoughts.  I am sad.  I guess my world was happier knowing that he was somewhere out there in it.   I thought that he was journeying through life pretty much alone.  His obituary only being 10 sentences confirms my belief.   Couldn’t his mother have written something that showed he was loved?   His father died young, and his mother was more into herself than her children.   I heard they used drugs together.  Either way, he ended up a drug addict.  People knew too, but they didn’t do anything about it.   I suppose you can’t stop an addict that doesn’t want to quit.  I don’t even know if they tried.  I am also disturbed that his sparse obituary was edited.  It mentioned that he liked singing with the Madison Chorus. There isn’t a Madison Chorus as my next Google search showed.  It’s the Madison Gay Men’s Chorus. I wonder why his mother left that out.  We all knew that he was gay.  I mean word got around when he kept inviting groups of straight men to a circle jerks...Seriously!  He wasn’t without his issues, but whatever.   High school is high school right? He was picked on for that though.  I had a friend who once told Bradley never to touch him.  Now that is ridiculous, but my friend is a decent guy.  I flashed a smile and joked that he was just insulted that he wasn’t one of the people invited to the circle.  Humor defuses situations.   He stopped picking on him in front of me.   I can’t help wondering if Bradley’s obituary was so loveless because his mother couldn’t accept the fact that he was gay?  Does that still happen?  If she wasn’t ashamed, why was it edited?   


The saddest part of all was that he died in his home.   It was one of the 10 sentences.  It didn’t say from a battle of cancer or from a congenital heart defect.  It just said he died at home.   I know what this code language means.  It makes me very sad. It was from an overdose or worse…that he just was tired of a world that didn’t care or love him.  I’m also afraid that he might have been right.   If the cosmos allows you to sense this Bradley, I want you to know that you did a stupid thing.  You were wrong.  Two years later, someone did care—me.


Only an acquaintance, Wasn't enough
Washington
(sad)

Ultimate Blog Party 2012

Hello Fellow UBPartyers!

This will be a quick introduction, as my posts reveal more about me than I could think to say.

1. I'm a writer of YA fiction. (prose and screenwriting) To read my journey with magical words you can go here.

2. I love RED ink. Seriously, I would forgive almost anything if a red fine-tip Sharpie was the peace offering.

3. This blog is my way of sharing with others the many adventures of writing, the journey to get your writing out there, and life's little surprises along the way. Have fun looking around!

That Night Friday (on Saturday)

As always, if you'd like to submit your own That Night story, send them to samantha(dot)sessoms(at)gmail(dot)com

Don't forget to come up with a sign-off, leave your state and/or city, and which category your story falls under. You can include names if you'd like (and it's helpful to the reader, as too many pronouns gets confusing!), but last names will not be published for the privacy of those involved.

The categories are: best, worst, crazy, embarrassing, and bittersweet.

Today's That Night Friday story:

The night I was driving and Doing What Guys Do to Find Pleasure and a cop pulled me over. Most embarrassing night by far.

John Doe

Wyoming
(embarrassing)  

That Night Friday

Check out the details of That Night Friday in the first post.


As always, if you'd like to submit your own That Night story, send them to samantha(dot)sessoms(at)gmail(dot)com

Don't forget to come up with a sign-off, leave your state and/or city, and which category your story falls under. You can include names if you'd like (and it's helpful to the reader, as too many pronouns gets confusing!), but last names will not be published for the privacy of those involved.

The categories are: best, worst, crazy, embarrassing, and bittersweet.

Today's That Night Friday story:

I remember that night...It was the last night when I believed that the world was governed by the rules and morals that parents and schools and churches try to impart on us as we grow. I sat in my metallic blue firebird outside an empty movie theatre. The film had been good. I was happy. A temperate February wind whipped Shelly’s clothes around her slender body revealing some very pleasant curves as she stood outside my car door. I was surprised…pleasantly surprised. I didn’t realize that someone so slender could possess those curves. Damn! Now, the wind was warmer than most February winds, but this was Maine. She soon stood shivering. Shelly had something that she wanted to tell me. Tears filled her eyes as she confessed how lonely her life had become. Her hair looked so soft. Even now, I can almost smell her shampoo. I would have expected her hair to tangle and snarl against the wind, but her long hair moved in one fluid motion with the wind. She was married. She was getting a divorce, but she was still married. A person doesn’t date a married woman…let alone perform any type of action that would make more than adequate use of those beautiful, sweet curves. I believed that within my soul. It was just a rule. It was who I was. Of course, we had just been to dinner and a movie, but I didn’t call it a date. We had been doing this for the past month. I was naïve. Just because a person doesn’t call any particular activity a date…doesn’t mean that a person isn’t on a date. My rules had blinded me to the most amazing experience. I was falling in love, and she was falling in love too. I invited her into my car as a friend, and I comforted her as best I could. I should have invited her into my car and leaned in to sample her pink lips. It would have been a true, beautiful expression of our belief in one another. For a brief time, we were each other’s Santa Claus. Oh, Shelly, we would have been such a pair. John Greenleaf Whittier was correct, "For of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: 'It might have been!'"

Heart on Sleeve

Maine

(bittersweet)

51 Days of... (FYI, I have a lot to say in this one)

(photo: Samantha Sessoms. For you, Dear Reader, because our family loves putt-putt, and the lake, and especially putt-putt above the lake. Oh, and this post is about crossing metaphorically bridges, even if they're scary...)

In the last 51 days the following happened:

a. I started to unravel at the seams and my graduate Thesis Script contracted my anxiety.

b. Mr. Sessoms was told the company he worked for would close in June.

c. The entire outline and first act of Thesis Script were tossed in a drawer. Never to be heard from again (not now anyway). Seriously. I had a momentous sit down with my writer-self and realized that the anxiety was because I had nothing to say for that particular movie idea. I let others hype about how good the idea was influence my decision to write it instead of Secret Idea I'd been passionate about for the last year and half.

d. Little Man and Baby Girl became socialites of their elementary school, for about three weeks straight, it was something everyday it seemed. Including Little Man's field trip to his future Middle School. I'm not ashamed to admit I went all raving-mother, or, Is That Profanity On The Bathroom Stalls, These 8^th Graders Are Going To Corrupt My Angel. I say this because of course My Son will never turn into a hormone-raging, obnoxious teenager like ALL of the kids I grew up with. *wink, wink *

e. I worked at, and was laid off from, two part-time temporary jobs.

f. I pulled out all the outlines (there were SO many) for Secret Idea, and all the notes (on receipts, post-its, junk mail, junk mail envelopes, memo pad paper... I mean you name it and I'll write on it if a scene/line/motive/character/description comes to me) Any how, I gathered all Secret Idea's notes/outlines and got to work creating a coherent updated version. Then I gave myself permission to write Secret Idea instead of Thesis Script, which was HUGE because I was afraid to tell my Thesis Advisor of the change. What if he thought I was just being lazy, whiny, writer-distracted-by-new-shiny-idea? I had to approach him with something serious to show Thesis Advisor that Secret Idea was meant to be my new Thesis Script II.

g. Mr. Sessoms was laid off (along with everyone else at the company, but still). As you are aware, if you have a calendar, it is not June. This was not good.

h. Little Man and Baby Girl participated in their school's science fair. Little Man created a tornado in a box. It took four different tries with fan types, and more dry ice than anyone should buy in a weekend (I think Mr. Sessoms is on a Special Watch List now at our local market), but it worked! He was very confident and articulate in front of the judges, receiving excellent marks and a gold medal. Baby Girl partnered with a friend in her class to make the classic project: Volcano. But, wait, this was not any run-of-the-mill science fair volcano, this was a volcano that bordered the ocean. Play-doh waves and palm trees made an appearance, along with real lava rocks. The judges loved the creativity, but wished the girls would have spoke up more (they're still kind of shy and soft spoken), not to be fazed, the girls ran around the room holding their silver medals high!

i. I finished the outline for Secret Idea/Thesis Script II. Then I discovered SCRIVENER. Oh My Drafting! I've never been able to describe my writing style before because I jot notes everywhere I can, in all their out-of-order glory (if you remember), but I also can't write until everything is organized. Then, I need to see it, all of it, laid out in a visual way (not a word document I have to scroll through). See how that could wreck havoc on a writer?! Me too - it's so 3-deminsional character of me! Enter Scrivener - think: Sexy Kick-Ass You Want Me theme music – Scrivener sashayed into my life all shaved-short hair, brooding guy rocking 12 pack abs – it was HOT! Seriously, this program rocks my writer world. I can attach note cards and outlines to specific scenes, and then I can move within said scenes whenever I want without scrolling. For the first time ever I was able to write which ever scene I wanted with the click of my mousepad. I was writing my writer-tail off! (sadly, Scrivener did not pay me to write this post, shame on them)

j. Mr. Sessoms went to NC for a week to look for work, so we could relocate. I was elated, y'all. It seemed the dream of beaches and writing under Spanish moss-covered old Oaks was right around the corner. It really turned the job lay-off into the most positive experience one could have from such a situation. Then...he came back with not many leads, or hopes to move soon. I'm still keeping my fingers crossed because I'm into unrequited tragedy like that, and I just want the ocean to need me the way I need it!

k. Mr. Sessoms was called for interviews in our hometown. This should be a good thing. I have nothing else to say about that.

l. Today, on April 5^th 2012, I completed Secret Idea/Thesis Script II. All 150 pages of it. I'm not even kidding. Another cool thing about Scrivener is that you can draft novels, screenplays, teleplays, plays, essays, etc. That being said, there was no regular Final Draft page number in the corner while I wrote. I just got everything out and now I have more than enough material to work with in revisions. I. Loved. This. It may not be for some, but I can't stop smiling – seriously, it's like someone gave me a thousand dollars to go buy office supplies, I have perma-grin! Though, I shouldn't give the page count and the 'I finished' aspect all the credit, there is another reason I'm overjoyed. For the first time ever I'm relieved to be finished with a project (especially before deadline), AND at the same time I can't wait to get back into it. Not even joking, I had to put the hard copy in a drawer to keep it from my greedy fingers and eyes. Now I know what everyone's been making a fuss over. I love this project. I know my characters inside and out. You could throw any event at me and I'll be able to tell you how each of them would react. I even have so much love for it, I can't wait for my betas to tear it apart so I can make it that much better. This has never happened to me before – I've only ever written for plot and created the characters around my main idea. What a heady difference. I'm addicted!

Our last *51 days have been a roller coaster of stress and sheer joy, but it was the best 51 days I've had in a long time simply from being around people I love more than anything in this world, opportunities knocking at our door in the face of bad times, and finally giving myself over to my dream – trusting it to take me further than I could have imagined.

*There is nothing significant about 51, other than the day I could no longer write Thesis Script. Wish it was cooler than that. You have my permission to make something up, if you'd like :)