TWO Giveaways & InsomniaDare Report!

Elsie, Ellen and I did a super fun Insomnia-Dare promotion last week. We were joined by a few other awesome writers/readers/bloggers (Bridget, Gillian, Octavia, Kierra, etc - thank you!) We talked trash until our sentences were barely coherent... and we had so much fun!

We stayed up until at least 4am and reported in hourly on some basic details:

* number of yawns 

     steadily increased hourly across the board *gasp*

* words written (or other things accomplished)

     steadily decreased hourly across the board. The last hour was truly pathetic

* number of caffeinated beverages consumed

     another increase...although it was less effective than you might expect

* $ amount donated to The Swear Jar

     Also increased the more tired we got. Shocking, no? We ended up with a nice donation for the JDRF which is great. Some of the participants also donated (Thank you, Gillian!) so not sure how much the total raised was, but every cent helps. 

In case you missed it in my Friday post, you can click here to see the result of my sleep-deprived vlogging with no microphone.

Silent movies are totally coming back into style...you just wait. 

We planned to do a giveaway during the InsomniaDare, but we decided to wait and do it here instead.

Leave a comment below on anything Dare - Silent Movie - Insomnia related, and you'll be entered to:

Win a signed ARC of Insomnia and a signed copy of Dualed!

For those listed above that participated in the InsomniaDare with us, you each get a bonus 5 entries for your participation and general awesomeness. We'll select a random winner and announce it in our post on Friday!

And for the SECOND Giveaway: don't forget to pre-order Insomnia and enter my NookHD giveaway!

Pre-order from any of these sites:

B&N ~ Amazon ~ IndieBound ~ BAM ~ The Book Depository

**It is absolutely acceptable to enter one giveaway and not the other, we don't care, we just like to give our stuff to other people. It's a sickness...really. **

a Rafflecopter giveaway

____________________________________

J.R. Johansson loves reading, playing board games and sitting in her hot tub. Her dream is that someday she can do all three at the same time. She is a YA thriller author published with Flux and FSG/Macmillan. She's represented by Kathleen Rushall of Marsal Lyon Literary Agency. Her debut novel, INSOMNIA, is due to be released in June 10, 2013. You can find her on twitter, goodreads, her website, or her personal blog.

DUALED. This is it. This is the day.

DUALED.
Elsie Chapman.
Today.

Check out what Publishers Weekly said about Elsie's dead awesome dystopian-with-a-twist YA: 

“Stylish, frenetic, and violent, Chapman’s debut is the textual equivalent of a Quentin Tarantino movie.” 

And in homage to that gorgeous quote, I give you the below:

There is no frying pan scene in DUALED, but if there had been it would have gone like this.

Pg. 142?

West plus swords.

How West and Chord relax after a long day of Alt hunting.




I flew through this book. Intense. Gritty. Perfect. And to top it off there's a tree house. I have a thing for tree houses.

Happy debut day, Elsie. I wish you and your book all the gosh darn luck in the world. Not that you'll need it.

-April

Where to find DUALED:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

The Book Depository

Where to find Elsie:

blog

tumblr

twitter

facebook

Elsie Chapman Commissions Some Cover Art

Even though I'm up for a Truth or Dare this week, I decided to do something a little bit different. Because it's my last post before 2013 and our debut year (!!!), I thought it would be interesting to do a year-end wrap up post of some sort. Cue a preteen desperate to work for extra clothes money my daughter who's always loved drawing and the idea of having her artwork officially commissioned and then put on display.

I think Gillian did a fantastic job! Each cover is clickable for a closer look. Comments are awesome and will be passed on to her. And while it would have been fantastic if she could have drawn all thirteen Thirteener covers, we'll just have to suffer along with the rest of you and wait for them to be revealed!

Up next week is Erin, so please feel free to send her some truths or dares!

_______________________

Elsie grew up in Prince George, BC, before graduating from the University of British Columbia with a BA in English Literature. She currently lives in Vancouver with her husband and two kids, where she writes to either movies on a loop or music turned up way too loud (and sometimes both at the same time). She's repped by The Chudney Agency, and her debut novel, DUALED, will be published by Random House in February, 2013. A sequel, DIVIDED, will be published February, 2014. Find her online at at her Website elsiechapman.com, her author Tumblr at elsiechapmanauthor.tumblr.com, or on Twitter!

Elsie Chapman Takes the Dare!

When in Rome, do as the Romans do, right? So when I was in Tokyo recently for vacation, fellow Thirteener Ellen Oh dared me to vlog myself eating something a little...out of the norm. Which was pretty much the perfect dare, considering not only do I love eating (especially Japanese food!), but Japan does wacky well. So part 1 is me eating chicken sashimi, and part 2 is me drinking a selection of rather uniquely flavoured Japanese sodas. Enjoy!

Come back Tuesday for our next guest poster! 

_____________________________________________________________________

Elsie grew up in Prince George, BC, before graduating from the University of British Columbia with a BA in English Literature. She currently lives in Vancouver with her husband and two kids, where she writes to either movies on a loop or music turned up way too loud (and sometimes both at the same time). She's repped by The Chudney Agency, and her debut novel, DUALED, will be published by Random House in February, 2013. A sequel, DIVIDED, will be published February, 2014. Find her online at at her blog elsiechapman.com or tweet with her on Twitter!

Elsie Chapman Takes the Dare

WARNING: This vlog is a reading of material that is of a sexual nature. So if you're under the age of 13, please do not watch.


All right, now that I've gotten that out of the way, I'm taking the dare this week. It comes courtesy of my friend and fellow Thirteener, April Tucholke, who dared me to do a reading from Flowers in the Attic. With its touchy themes, I'm not sure how it would do today, but back when I was a young teen it was the book to read. Not only was this the book we hid from our parents, it was also the one we hid from our teachers at school.

Up next on Tuesday, June 12th, is the lovely Jenn R Johansson! Got a humiliating truth or dare for her? It'll be her very first as a Thirteener, so go here to submit!
_______________________________________________
Elsie grew up in Prince George, BC, before graduating from the University of British Columbia with a BA in English Literature. She currently lives in Vancouver with her husband and two kids, where she writes to either movies on a loop or music turned up way too loud (and sometimes both at the same time). She's repped by The Chudney Agency, and her debut novel, DUALED, will be published by Random House in February, 2013. A sequel, DIVIDED, will be published February, 2014. Find her online at elsiechapman.com.

Elsie Chapman Takes the Truth

My first vlog, folks. Not just for Friday the Thirteeners, but ever ever. Please be kind.

So a couple of weeks ago I was in NYC for spring break. After I got to meet my amazing editor and agent, it just seemed like the perfect time to tackle a couple of truths about the writing process. And then vlog about it. (I'm sure there's a connection between the two...somewhere.)

Also, you know what they say about how everyone hates the sound of their own voice? I realized that THIS IS TRUE. SO, SO TRUE. I also swear I'm not nearly so valley-girl-sounding in real life.

Still, I hope you enjoy!

Okay, now that you're done laughing at me, got any burning truths or dares you'd like to submit? Do so here. And come back next Friday, April 6th, when the fabulous Erin Bowman takes her turn at Truth or Dare!

Elsie Chapman Takes The Truth

As writers, we really do have to live in our heads a lot of the time. It’s how we get to know our stories, our characters, figure out the best way to breathe life into them. And just like every writer works differently, every book comes about in its own way, too. So it was this Truth submitted by Joan that got my attention:

Why did you write this particular novel (the one debuting in 2013) and how many had you written before this one?

I’m going to start with the second part of the question, since it really loops back around into the first.

Before DUALED, I’d only ever written one book. Which I was actually just finishing querying (I’m going to call it the Hella Crappy First Young Adult Novel Which Shall Not Be Named for the sake of this post) when I was suddenly, wondrously struck with a Shiny New Idea.

Well, okay, not so much. It was actually my son who asked me a question about doppelgangers—though I can no longer remember how or why it came about. The question was, How did we know for sure we didn’t all have one somewhere in the world, simply because we never saw them?

This was pretty much my thought process afterwards:

Hmm, that’s an interesting question, I don’t know the answer but…you know what, that would make a pretty cool book, I wonder if anyone’s ever…hey, wait, I could write that book!

I’m going to say something now that might sound crazy (and probably is, but I’ve been told all writers are crazy to some degree, anyway): I don’t think I chose to write DUALED as much as it kind of…sort of…chose me. Wired on little more than caffeine and adrenaline, I pounded out that sucker over a period of five weeks. No one knew I was even writing, so I wrote while the kids were in school and at night when everyone was sleeping. Though I’ve since discovered the beauty of outlining (especially when it comes to revisions and realizing that plot holes are just not that much fun to fix), DUALED was pretty much pantsed the whole way through.

It just…worked. Things came together. For me to have written DUALED, it was this strangely perfect combination of getting the aforementioned HCFYANWSNBN out of my system, an offhand question from a curious then-eleven year old, and a plot that just seemed to fall into place, more or less.

It’s very cool and a bit scary to realize that each and every book out there is more than just pages and ink and a nice, glossy cover. Here’s some possible hows and whys behind a book being written:

1) It’s an idea that first reared its head when the writer was a kid, a teen, an adult, slowly percolating in the back of their mind until it was finally ready to take shape.
2) It’s one vivid image that steamrolled and somehow took on a life of its own.
3) A dream one night.
4) Years of brainstorming and research and outlining.
5) Cobbled together from scavenged parts of older, trunked novels.
6) Countless hours of lost sleep
7) Even more hours of said writer committing to Butt-in-Chair in order to finish what they’ve started.
8) Following a trend.
9) Wanting to start a trend.
10) The ultimate proof that it’s really not nuts to go for broke.
11) The most satisfying told-you-so to naysayers.

So here’s the thing, what it comes down to—books happen in all kinds of ways, for all kinds of reasons, and just like writers and how they work, no two are the same. It keeps this whole writing thing so very exciting and challenging. It’s what drives us to insane lengths even while it keeps us grounded. And I think we’re so very, very lucky to be able to be a part of the process, both as writers and readers.

Thanks to Joan for submitting this Truth. Because it's my first Truth or Dare, your prize is a $13 gift card to B&N or Amazon! Please email me at elsie.chapman@gmail.com so I can get it to you asap.

Up next on Friday the Thirteeners, for your Valentine’s Day viewing pleasure, we have a seriously fantastic guest coming by. YA author Chris Howard will be in the house on Tuesday, February 14, to vlog us a song inspired by his debut novel ROOTLESS (Fall 2012)! Bring lighters. See you all then!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Elsie Chapman grew up in Prince George, BC, before graduating from the University of British Columbia with a BA in English Literature. She currently lives in Vancouver with her husband and two children, where she writes to either movies on a loop or music turned up way too loud (and sometimes both at the same time). She is represented by The Chudney Agency and DUALED is her debut novel. It will be released by Random House in Spring, 2013.