WHY WON’T ANYONE BUY MY BOOK ROASTED CHERRY TOMATO SAUCE
Recipe by CarrieCourse: Uncategorized
Servings
4
servings
Prep time
30
minutes
Cooking time
40
minutes
Calories
300
kcal
Stuff That Goes In It
2–3 lbs cherry tomatoes, stems removed just like how traditional publishing has removed your heart through their constant rejections.
1/4 cup best-quality olive oil you can afford, and a bit more for roasting, so basically whatever brand is cheapest at WalMart because YOU HAVE NOT SOLD YOUR BOOK YET!
1 large yellow onion, diced up. Be careful with the knife, okay?
1 Tbsp fresh garlic, minced. Seriously. Be careful. Knives and round things don’t always go together, much like your book and Harper Collins apparently.
Fancy herbs! A small bunch of fresh basil leaves; 3–4 sprigs, fresh thyme, stems removed; kosher salt and freshly-ground black pepper, to taste; steak seasoning if you can’t find any herbs–you can improvise here just like you improvised the use of a semicolon 7,777 times in you 50,000-word novel. Just kidding! Just kidding!
How to Make It
Find the oven and turn it on. No not that way! Power it on and set the temperature to 400 Fahrenheit or 204 Celsius.
Feel good about that positive action step towards your goal.
Think of other positive action steps towards your goal of traditional publishing.
Possibly cry by the sink as you clean your cherry tomatoes. Wash your tears down the sink. Add this to your novel and then come back to the kitchen.
Take your beautiful little baby tomatoes and use just enough of that expensive olive oil to lightly coat them. You might want to toss them around.
Do not take out your frustrations on the tomatoes. Realize you and your books are the tomatoes, totally at the whim of a subjective industry.
Spread your tomatoes out on a baking pan or sheet. Something rimmed. You don’t want them to tumble off into the abyss of the stove.
Realize that thought/image really makes your heart hurt. Definitely get a rimmed sheet.
Cook for about 25-30 minutes. Roast until they’ve bursted or started to shrivel.
Oh, salty unicorns! This metaphor hurts!
Take them out of the oven.
Put all that olive oil into a sauce pan or pot that has a heavy bottom. Ponder your own heavy bottom because you followed the experts’ advice and kept your butt in chair to write your novel. AND FOR WHAT? A heavy bottom.
Cry into the sink again as you heat that oil on medium and wait for it to shimmer in a way that your writing career isn’t, damn it.
Put onions into the pot so you have an excuse to cry. Stir them a bit for around 4-5 minutes.
Add garlic. Realize you should have put freaking vampires in your book to get it to sell. Vow to do that.
Put those shriveled tomatoes and their cooking liquid (aka tears) and herbs in with the garlic and onion. Add salt and pepper. Add a handful of sugar if you’re feeling naughty.
Put the heat on low. Put a lid on the pot, but turn the heat down to low.
Make it so the cover isn’t on tightly, but has a one-inch gap.
You can simmer it for 25 minutes to one hour.
Use that time to add a vampire to your novel.
Take the pot off the stovetop. Let it cool for 10-15 minutes.
Use that time to add a love triangle to your novel. And maybe a zombie?
Being super careful, transfer the cooled mixture into a blender. Blend.
Notes
This amazing recipe that I’ve used every week since the tomatoes have come in, is from the delightful and lovely website, forkknifespoon, you should go give them some props!
Sometimes the treasure is not worth the hunt . . . .
When a little boy goes missing on a large Maine island, the community is horrified especially almost-lovers Rosie Jones and Sergeant Seamus Kelley. The duo’s dealt with two gruesome serial killers during their short time together and are finally ready to focus on their romance despite their past history of murders and torment.
Things seem like they’ve gone terribly wrong. Again. Rosie wakes up in the middle of the woods. Is she sleepwalking or is something more sinister going on?
What at first seems like a fun treasure hunt soon turns into something much more terrifying . . . and they learn that things are not yet safe on their island or in their world. If they want to keep more people from going missing, Rosie and Seamus have to crack the puzzle before it’s too late.
So yeah . . .
I have a new book coming out in the beginning of October! It’s the fourth book in the Bar Harbor Rose series and . . . well . . .
THE PLACES WE HIDE combines the best of two worlds: Carrie Jones and suspense. The characters are fun, the storyline is interesting and it kept me engaged til the end. It’s rare that I don’t guess who did it, so I appreciate that wasn’t the case here. Highly recommended. – moi
Thoroughly enjoyed this mystery with plenty of twists and a strong sense of atmosphere. Would love to read another mystery starring Rosie! – 417writer
This is a great tale of suspense set in Downeast Maine. It’s full of great characters that you’ll wish you had as your own friends – mix in the excitement and nervousness of new love and perhaps a killer on the loose and it makes for a super read! – Laurie E. Flood
I’d intended to draw reading “Places We Hide” out because Carrie Jones is always a fantastic read, but sadly, I could not put this one down. Well-written, engrossing story line, and the characters are immediately relatable. Carrie Jones has a talent for really drawing you into her universe and by the end of the book, you can’t help but care about her characters even after the story is over. I’m hoping we’ll get to hear more about Rosie, Seamus, and the rest of their crew in the future. – countessdekay
And here’s an excerpt! I hope you’ll check it out!
As with all my work, this novel’s story and characters are fictitious. Certain long-standing institutions, towns, states, species, agencies, and public offices are mentioned, but the characters involved are wholly imaginary.
Chapter One
A bonding experience, Seamus calls it, the fun of going on a treasure hunt created from a small book that you can download off the internet.
The whole island has been buzzing about it honestly: the possibility of finding a tiny treasure going off eight pages of pdf-clues that legitimately make absolutely no sense. Illogical rhymes, random words, and a couple of drawings on one page with arrows connecting different parts of images.
Seamus, Lilly, and I are scouring the foundation of the old Dorr mansion up in Cromwell Cove, also known as Compass Harbor. People around here seem to use the words and labels interchangeably, so I’m not sure what is the proper proper noun for this little peninsula run by Acadia National Park where there are trails and an ancient foundation and floor of one of the old summer mansions of one of the park’s founders.
George Dorr has another title, Father of Acadia National Park, and he’s one of the reasons the park actually exists.
As I stick my hand into a hole in the brick foundation of his home, I wonder if I would have another title if I was famous and if it would be Reporter Who Attracts Danger.
“Mommy! Find any treasure?” Lilly yells over. She’s covered in dirt. Mud has soaked through her leggings. She wipes her fingers on her face and scampers over to me, holding out her hand. “I found the most perfect stone ever!”
“Wow.” I stand up from my squat and admire the tiny pebble in her palm. “Look at how smooth it is.”
“I think it’s a beach stone.” She turns from me and yells to giant man we love. “Seamus! Is this a beach stone?”
Seamus strides over. There’s no dirt on him anywhere somehow. His dark gray fleece is immaculate. His jeans don’t even have a wayward pine needle stuck to the denim.
When I think about the bad men of my past—and the bad women—I always wonder if there was some sort of hint or clue that I initially missed about them, a warning or inkling that should have tipped me off that they were capable of massive evil and hurt. Do I gloss over the signs?
Seamus is good, I remind myself. People can be good.
“It’s a beautiful stone. It’s lucky.” Seamus taps Lilly on the end of her nose with his giant finger and she giggles. “Just like you.” He redirects his gaze to me. “My two beautiful, lucky ladies. Actually, no–I’m the lucky one.”
“Yeah, you’re messing up your compliment, silly.” Lilly arches one of her eyebrows, a new trick that she’s mastered and doing constantly. She wipes her messy hand across her cheek, smudging even more dirt on her skin and in her other hand she keeps the stone. Her palm is flat and the stone stays in the center, almost like an offering to the sky or the trees or the world.
“You can keep it,” I whisper.
“That’s breaking rules! You can’t take anything from the park.” Lilly’s eyebrow falls down.
“Yes,” I say, “but this is a special stone. A fairy stone. They brought it here for you as a gift.”
An eyebrow raises, but her voice quivers and suddenly she’s so young again, a girl without all the evil in her life, no killers, no bad dads, no broken moms, just her and her goodness. “Really?”
“Really.” Seamus closes her fingers around her fist. “I promise I won’t arrest you. The fairies wouldn’t take too kindly to that.” He pauses and winks at me over Lilly’s head. “Your mom wouldn’t take too kindly to that either.”
I snag Lilly in a big hug, “Nope. Nope. No arresting my baby girl, Sergeant.”
“Never.” He winks. “Unless she does something horribly illegal like snagging the last samosa and not sharing.”
“What? Me never.”
“You just did it with a corndog.” “You ate five of them!”
“I’m a big man. It takes a lot of corndogs to fuel me.”
I let go of both of them. “Wait. You fed her corndogs?”
Seamus pivots Lilly around so her back is to him and she’s facing me. She’s smiling in a huge way that takes up her whole adorable face. His hands stay on her shoulders.
“She fed them to me,” he says. “Tell her, Lilly. How you insisted. How you told me that you’d never let me marry your mom if I did not give you the scrumptious, decadent sausage on a stick.”
“Breaded and fried,” Lilly adds. “So bad for us.”
“A fine, gourmet highlight of American cuisine,” Seamus adds. He gives her a fake false shake and continues in a ridiculously over-the-top imploring tone, “Tell her, please! Admit to this treacherous act of gluttony.”
Lilly does a thumb point backwards. “Totally him.”
“I am betrayed!” Seamus says reeling backwards dramatically, arms flailing and plopping on one of the different brick walls that made up the foundation of the estate. “All is lost!”
“You are such a dork,” Lilly says, hands on her hips as she stares at him. She turns back to me. “Mommy, you are marrying a dork.”
“I know,” I tell her, reaching a hand out to Seamus to help him up. It’s my good arm. The one that hasn’t been shot and doesn’t ever ache or remind me of bad things. “That means your bonus dad is going to be a dork too.”
She does the eyebrow wave and spirals off. “I’m going to go check this wall over here!”
Seamus pulls me down to his level on the mossy brick floor. For a few moments we just sit there, happy beneath the sunrays coming through the canopy of oak and ash leaves. I try not to think about ticks and spiders and about how we’ll have to change clothes when we get back home and inspect each other for ticks, try not to think about how too many corndogs could hurt Seamus’s cholesterol levels and heart health. I think the rule is something like every hotdog you eat takes thirty-five minutes off your life expectancy. How much would corndogs take?
“You’re worrying again, aren’t you?” he asks as he tucks me into his side.
I lean my head against the front of his shoulder. “Maybe.”
“About what?”
“Unseen threats. Mainly ticks and cholesterol.”
He pulls away a bit. “You aren’t going to lose us, honey.”
“But I’ve come so close to—”
“And we’re still here.”
“True.” I let his words comfort me for a minute and we yell back when Lilly yells about things like how she’s totally going to find the treasure or says ‘ick’ really loudly. It’s all lovely and calm and it does—it feels safe.
After a minute and out of nowhere, Seamus starts talking about George Dorr again.
“The thing people don’t know is that Dorr died without any personal fortune left and nearly blind,” he tells me. “He spent almost all his money making sure that this park was preserved. He kept buying more and more land, adding it to the park.”
“That’s sort of sad,” I say.
“I think he was okay with it. He got his wish. He made an entire park, preserved all this land.” He pauses. His hand strokes the top of my arm and the good kind of goosebumps rush through me. “Do you know that he swam in the water every single day of the year to prove to Congress that it was not too cold in Maine to have a national park?”
“I did! Lilly wrote a paper on that!”
“A paper?”
“It was more of a project,” I admit. “Because you know—grade school.”
He laughs. “Well, did you know that he didn’t really swim every day? Instead, sometimes in winter, he just dipped in his toe. So he just told them ‘I go in the water every single day of the year.’”
“That’s sneaky!”
“So sneaky,” he admits. “But that’s part of what life is, right? Reality is manipulated. We believe what we want to believe.”
He takes a moment and grabs my hand in his. This is when I know Seamus is being all serious. It usually terrifies me. But I swallow down anything I want to say and try not to imagine worst case scenarios like his divorce didn’t actually go through, he’s fallen in love with the gross firefighter who always talks about being naked; he’s leaving me; he has a terminal disease; he’s decided I’m not worth it.
There are so many possibilities . . . horrible possibilities.
“Baby?” His voice is a strong whisper. “What are you thinking?”
“Nothing. What were you going to say?”
“You’re a horrible liar.”
“I know.”
He smiles. “It’s a good trait.”
“Harrumph.” My harrumph sounds like my long-dead nana, all frustrated and annoyed even though I’m not. I’m just feeling too studied, too known.
And then to make it even worse he says, “I know you’re having nightmares. I know you’re still scared.”
“I’m working through it.”
“You don’t have to expect the worst all the time, Rosie. You can depend on people. Michelle, me, Gunner, Hannah, Summer. We have your back, you know?” He pauses. “You can quit your job at the paper. I know you hate it.”
“I like it.”
“You’re lying again.”
“I kind of like it?” I offer. “I like learning new things and meeting new people. I just don’t like taking pictures of accidents and stuff. And I don’t like that people think I’m biased because of you and because I dispatched.”
“People will always think things. You can’t care about that. You just have to be you.” He pulls me into a hug even though I’m dirty and he’s not very pro-dirt. “That’s not what I wanted to say. I just want to say that Gunner thinks you might need to get a little help with the nightmares.”
“Therapy.” I sigh. “I’ve gone to therapy.”
“Medication?”
“I am fully functional!” I object, pulling away, but managing to resist the urge to stomp off. “My brain is just working through things.”
“I’d lift an eyebrow at you if I was capable.”
I grab onto his belt loop and pull myself back towards him, trying to be sexy. “I think you’re capable of a lot of things, Sgt. Kelley.”
He kisses the top of my head and murmurs, “Just you wait and see.”
Want to read more? Just want to support a random author? Here’s the link to the ebook and you’ll be able to order paperback and hard cover too.
Share this if you want and also because it would be super nice of you!
I ended up talking to some of my writers about this, this past weekend, so I thought I’d share it with everyone. It’s pretty fun stuff and a helpful thing to know.
“If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it,” said novelist Elmore Leonard.
Sometimes writers fall in love with words, and that seems like a lovely thing, right? Words are writers’ commodity. Writers are word merchants. They deal in words, flinging around and ordering about on the page in the hopes of creating an army of sentences that become a story.
But sometimes writers (like everyone else) show off.
And that showing off makes readers go, “Blech.”
Readers who go ‘blech’ are readers who probably aren’t going to keep reading. No writer wants that because then their words and stories don’t have a chance to motivate or distract or move the reader. Plus, crap reviews.
In his book, Writing Tools, Roy Peter Clark writes:
“Most writers have at least two modes. One says, “Pay no attention the writer behind the curtain. Look only at the world.” The other says, without inhibition, “Watch me dance. Aren’t I clever fellow?”
He likens these to understatement (the first mode) and overstatement or hyperbole (the second mode).
You don’t want your readers to be noticing all your writing adroitness and flourishes and showing off.
You also don’t want to be so underwhelming during really important moments that the reader shrugs and says, “Should I care that the universe imploded and Lassie died?”
Clark creates a little rule that he says works for him.
“The more serious or dramatic the subject, the more the writer backs off, creating the effect that the story tells itself. The more playful or inconsequential the topic, the more the writer can show off. Back off or show off.”
Here are a couple of examples where I’m writing about the same thing.
So, I was at the Boston Marathon today to take pictures of my friend, Lori, running and then crossing the finish line. Before the marathon I had lunch with my daughter Em. She was nervous.
“I have a bad feeling,” she said. “You need to be careful.”
“You have no faith in me. I am a perfectly capable person.”
“I just am worried.”
“I will be fine,” I told her. I insisted it, actually.
But I did several things that I don’t normally do. I didn’t take the T. I chose to walk from Cambridge to mile 25.5 or so of the race route. I figured out the T route and everything, but I just didn’t want to go on it. Walking was healthier, I figured. I was going to watch a marathon.
Pretty understated, right?
Here’s me writing that flamboyantly.
It is the kind of day where people blossom into heroes in Boston and become a part of a legend, a story bigger than themselves, the day of the marathon, a day of heaving chests, heartbreak hills, strangers cheering them on for just moving forward, step by step, mile by mile, until the make it (or don’t) to the finish line. My friend Lori was one of those people—the hopefuls, the push-your-way-through-its, the runners.
While she was on mile eighteen or so, my daughter and I were having lunch in Cambridge before I’d leave her to the doldrums of college and head out to the race route, somewhere around mile 25.5.
Before I left, my daughter hugged me. She smelled of hummus and coconut shampoo, her windblown hair flinging itself into my cheek as she said, “I have a bad feeling.”
You see the difference, right?
How do you work on this in your own writing?
Look at other people’s writing. Newspapers are great examples of this. What stories are on page one because of how they are written versus how newsy they actually are.
Take one of your own scenes and rewrite it like it’s spare bones. Then rewrite it like you’re trying for a very flowery Pulitzer.
Read humor. Great humorists have really mastered the difference between hyperbole and understatement and use it so well.
I took this when I was running this week. It’s so beautiful here.
BE A PART OF OUR MISSION!
Hey! We’re all about inspiring each other to be weird, to be ourselves and to be brave and we’re starting to collect stories about each other’s bravery. Those brave moments can be HUGE or small, but we want you to share them with us so we can share them with the world. You can be anonymous if you aren’t brave enough to use your name. It’s totally chill.
Want to be part of the team? Send us a quick (or long) email and we’ll read it here and on our YouTube channel.
LET’S HANG OUT!
HEY! DO YOU WANT TO SPEND MORE TIME TOGETHER?
MAYBE TAKE A COURSE, CHILL ON SOCIAL MEDIA, BUY ART OR A BOOK, OR LISTEN TO OUR PODCAST?
This week’s episode is called THE BEAUTY OF NOT FITTING IN. And one of the big aspects of understanding that is understand what it is to feel belonging.
They quote psychologist Abraham Maslow, who worked on human motivation and created a ‘the Hierarchy of Needs’ models, saying that he “saw ‘love and belonging’ as so important he placed them third only to our basic ‘physiological needs’ like food and shelter, and ‘safety needs’ like employment and good health.””
So feeling like you belong is important, but it’s also a way a lot of us feel and there’s a certain freedom and beauty in not belonging.
“Feeling like you don’t fit in with the crowd teaches you to see and appreciate differences in people. It teaches you empathy and compassion for others who are on the outside. It gives you eyes to see things that the crowd, can so easily miss.”
“Everybody tries to fit in because they desperately want to feel at home wherever they are. But fitting in will never get you home. Fitting in is about trying to adapt to a world that’s not your own. You don’t belong there.
“Belonging is about inhabiting the world as the real you. And the hard reality is that you’ll never fit in where you don’t belong. Here’s what it actually takes to truly belong where you’re meant to be—even if you don’t seem to fit in anywhere.”
Writer Marianne Cantwell has made a life work out of telling people that ‘weirdness is your edge,’ and ‘your hidden advantage.’
We look at people with a million followers and have perfect hair and smiles and speaking styles, but those people often didn’t start like that or felt like they belonged or felt comfortable who and where they were.
She said often, “they were the different ones” who didn’t fit in. She looked to her own identity as an empathetic, very sensitive person, who didn’t fit in the business world, which was a bit more straightlaced. And once she adapted and adopted that, she began to be successful.
Anna Wintour – who was allegedly fired for being too edgy is now a fashion editor at Vogue
Oprah – who was allegedly fired for being too emotional when reporting is now Oprah!
Taylor Swift once said: “I remember when I was in school, the whole reason I started writing songs was because I was alone a lot of the time. I’d sit there in school and I’d be hearing people like, ‘Oh my god, this party that we’re going to is gonna be so awesome on Friday. Everyone’s invited except for [Taylor],”
Lady Gaga – wanted to be Boy George and often talks about not fitting in when she was in school
Zayn Malik – has spoken a lot about not fitting in and feeling bullied
Hunter Hayes – cried himself to sleep because of not fitting in and bullies.
1. Finding your tribe is more important than ‘fitting in’
2. Learning what makes you happy is more important than trying to fit someone else’s idea of a successful life
They write,
“It sometimes takes great courage to stop and think about this path and decide what elements we truly choose for our own lives. If we define accomplishment as having these things, we limit what success can be for us. Perhaps success for you is having an afternoon each week to paint, or hike in nature. Or maybe it is having a great circle of friends who really ‘get’ you and where you truly fit in.”
3. Aim for a meaningful life
“Much of our focus on outward signs of success such as making money or shopping might come from an underlying fear that our lives are meaningless. Viktor Frankl, the Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist as well as a Holocaust survivor, said that ‘When a person can’t find a deep sense of meaning, they distract themselves with pleasure.’”
So, ask yourself, what is meaningful? Does this thing that I’m doing right now mean something to me?
4. Choose to serve your own values rather than society’s
We grow up in families usually and those family’s praise some things and others? Not so much. One family might think competitive sports are the bomb. Another family might not. Even if your own family you could have those divisions. Those systems of attention and reward push all certain ways, so it’s good sometimes to step back and think, “Holy crap. Am I only a writer because of this thing that happened to me in second grade or because my mom praised it a lot?”
Do I play softball because my mom did? Do I art because the only thing my dad praised me for was that?
As they say on learning-mind.com,
“And countless studies have shown that materialism doesn’t make us happy anyway. I’m not saying that having a steady job or buying nice things is wrong, I’m simply suggesting that you question everything and act upon your own desires rather than society’s expectations.
“When you choose to do the things that serve you, rather than politicians, big businesses, and even family and friends, you will being to live a more authentic life and discover a deep sense of belonging that can never be found by merely fitting in.
That feeling can come from abusive relationships, medical issues, and trauma, but sometimes it comes from a lack of confidence or belief that who you really are is unworthy, which is why we’re going to talk about some awesome stories from Buzzfeed compilation by Allie Hayes about dumb things people do even when their smart.
Look, we all have moments of dumb and weird. It’s better to just embrace that stuff and be the person you were meant to be, the person you are, and be proud and joyful that there are things about you that make you beautiful and unique and so shiny.
Hey! We’re all about inspiring each other to be weird, to be ourselves and to be brave and we’re starting to collect stories about each other’s bravery. Those brave moments can be HUGE or small, but we want you to share them with us so we can share them with the world. You can be anonymous if you aren’t brave enough to use your name. It’s totally chill.
Want to be part of the team? Send us a quick (or long) email and we’ll read it here and on our YouTube channel.
LET’S HANG OUT!
HEY! DO YOU WANT TO SPEND MORE TIME TOGETHER?
MAYBE TAKE A COURSE, CHILL ON SOCIAL MEDIA, BUY ART OR A BOOK, OR LISTEN TO OUR PODCAST?
Awesome warnings: Braveness. Persistence. Facing your fears.
BE A PART OF OUR MISSION!
Hey! We’re all about inspiring each other to be weird, to be ourselves and to be brave and we’re starting to collect stories about each other’s bravery. Those brave moments can be HUGE or small, but we want you to share them with us so we can share them with the world. You can be anonymous if you aren’t brave enough to use your name. It’s totally chill.
Want to be part of the team? Send us a quick (or long) email and we’ll read it here and on our YouTube channel.
LET’S HANG OUT!
HEY! DO YOU WANT TO SPEND MORE TIME TOGETHER?
MAYBE TAKE A COURSE, CHILL ON SOCIAL MEDIA, BUY ART OR A BOOK, OR LISTEN TO OUR PODCAST?
Awhile ago, I had this nasty bad cold and when I was almost better, I tried to write and realized that everything I was writing was absolutely horrible and would always be awful and what was the point.
This is called Writer Insecurity Syndrome. It usually happens when you’re sick, when you feel like you’ll never get 50,000 readers, or when someone trolls you on Twitter.
“What am I doing?” I whined to S. who pulled the laptop off my lap and gave me tea.
He smiled at me and shook his head.
“You’re not suppose to look at your work when you’re sick,” he said. “No matter what you do or how good it is, when you’re sick it always looks hopeless and pointless and it seems like you stink.”
I said, quite intelligently like the woman of words that I am, “Oh.”
“It’s like eating a bean burrito,” he said.
“What?”
“You never want to go look at yourself naked in the mirror after you’ve eaten three or four bean burritos,” he said. “It’s like that with doing your job or thinking about your life when you’re sick.”
It makes sense.
Sort of.
“You can eat three or four bean burritos?” I asked.
“Yep,” he said, all proud.
“And you’ve actually looked at yourself naked afterwards?”
He quietly left the room.
When things are bad, it’s easy to spiral down. Try to lift out of it. Most of the time, our feelings and circumstances change. Hang onto that and believe in yourself even after you’ve eaten four bean burritos.
Hey! I hung out over at Dad Without a Dad’s podcast this week. Check it out here.
NEW BOOK ALERT!
My little novella (It’s spare. It’s sad) is out and it’s just $1,99. It is a book of my heart and I am so worried about it, honestly.
The Dude Goodfeather Series – YA mystery by NYT bestseller Carrie Jones
TO TELL US YOUR BRAVE STORY JUST EMAIL BELOW.
CARRIE’S TEACHABLE CLASS!
I have a quick, pre-recorded Teachable class designed to make you a killer scene writer in just one day. It’s fun. It’s fast. And you get to become a better writer for just $25, which is an amazing deal.
And thank you SO MUCH to all of you have been so lovely and supportive about this little story. It’s really not like most of my writing, but it’s helped me win a couple of awards and things and it’s a story of my heart. Those are always so hard to release into the world.
Order Carrie Jones’s new book. It’s not BE BRAVE FRIDAY anymore, but I like this image. 🙂
The soul-wrenching story starts here….
Becca’s young life is about to change when she meets a boy in the playground, a boy who seems too magical to be real. Barely surviving at home, Becca’s new friend quickly teaches her what it means to have hope and faith.
A compelling novella that’s sure to resonate from the international and NYT bestselling author.
IMPORTANT BIT
It’s a really emotional small story so if you have any childhood abuse or trauma you may not want to read it.
Share this if you want and also because it would be super nice of you!
So, I am terrible at promoting myself because apparently I am an introvert. I know! I know! I don’t present that way at all, but I am a person who cringes when the phone rings.
But I am going to be brave and try because I love this story so much. Why? Because it’s about hope and faith even when things are impossible.
I HAVE A NEW NOVELLA!
But I have a book coming out October 1. It’s just an ebook because it’s small. It’s incredibly different from all the other books and stories that I’ve published, but I hope you’ll take a chance on it anyways because I love it terribly much.
It will be .99 on pre-order and 2.99 once it’s live.
And did I say I love it very much?
HOW YOU CAN HELP ME.
You can spend .99 cents and make Amazon think, “Wow! People are buying Carrie’s book.”
That will basically give me .35 cents. I can buy a stamp with that! So, that means when I send everyone holiday cards, you’re helping! Oh! You’re helping me and the post office.
You can write a review on Amazon after you read it. This actually really helps authors a lot. So much. Insert begging voice, “Please buy my book and review it.”
THE BOOK
WHAT IT’S ABOUT
The soul-wrenching story starts here….
Becca’s young life is about to change when she meets a boy in the playground, a boy who seems too magical to be real. Barely, surviving at home, Becca’s new friend quickly teaches her what it means to have hope and faith.
A compelling novella that’s sure to resonate and leave a lasting impression.
HOW I AM BEING BRAVE
This story won a few awards a long time ago, but it’s too short for traditional publishing really and it’s so different than what my readers expect from me that it feels…? Scary. It feels scary.
It’s hard to write something radically different sometimes.
And it’s also the story that helps me through my own grief, which is a deeply personal thing. So, maybe the reason I’m so scared is because it just feels so incredibly personal? Who know.
But I hope you’ll take a chance on it, check it out, and like it. And if you don’t like it? I hope you’ll still like me after you read it anyways.
HOW ABOUT YOU?
How are you doing this Friday? Are you being brave? Scared? Is there something you’d like me to cheer you on about? Just let me know!
Share this if you want and also because it would be super nice of you!
Vivian Garcia Rodriguez is a secretly the queen to pixie Astley from my NEED series, but we’re not really going to tell anyone, right? Sadly, fate currently has them in different worlds but luckily for us, Vivian is in our world today! Math tutor, cosplayer with a flare for everything, I’m so psyched to have Vivian with us today.
Vivian talked to us while she was in lockdown because of Covid-19 and in her home in Puerto Rico. We talk about how cosplay makes her more confident and forces her not to pick the farthest seat away from the board at school and how different books help build up people and friendships.
So many apologies for not posting a bonus episode. I (Carrie) have epilepsy and I had a bit of a seizure last week after a really long time of no seizures (Yay!) and posting a bonus podcast was the thing that had to fall off my to-do list.
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I have a new book out!!!!!! It’s an adult mystery set in the town where we live, which is Bar Harbor, Maine. You can order it here. And you totally should.
It’s with Steve Wedel. It’s scary and one of Publisher’s Weekly’s Buzz Books for Summer 2019. There’s an excerpt of it there and everything! But even cooler (for me) they’ve deemed it buzz worthy! Buzz worthy seems like an awesome thing to be deemed!
Share this if you want and also because it would be super nice of you!
