Guest post: How to shut up your inner editor

Probably the most important lesson I learned from taking part in the wonderful torture that is NaNoWriMo - that's National Novel Writing Month - was to keep going, keep putting down words, and to get the first draft finished so that you canstart having fun with the revisions all the sooner.

You can read more of my thoughts about switching off your inner editor - you know, that voice in your head that keeps telling you what you have just written is awful and should be changed immediately? - here on ReadWriteLove28, a fun blog for readers and writers.

My guest post is part of the blog's Sweet & Swanky event which is running throughout September. Thanks for having me on the blog, Nori!

Giveaway Winners!

I am delighted to announce the winners of the three fantastic prizes in my Cover Reveal Giveaway, hosted recently by the wonderful team at YABooksCentral.com. Congratulations to all three winners. Your prizes are already in the mail!

The winner of a signed ARC of WAIT FOR ME, along with some of 

my book swag, and a goody-bag of Scottish treats is

Austine Decker, Pennsylvania

  The winner of a trio of the newest YA historical fiction reads

from Harper Collins and WAIT FOR ME swag is

 Nicole Osadacz, New Jersey

The winner of $30 Barnes & Noble gift card 

and WAIT FOR ME swag is 

Gwen Cole, Virginia

 And in case you are interested (and I'm sure you will be!), Gwen’s own YA historical fantasy debut, COLD SUMMER, will be published on May 2^nd 2017!

And if you entered the giveaway, but didn't win this time, don't worry, there will be numerous other opportunities to win advance copies, or real copies, of WAIT FOR ME over the next few months. Please like me or follow me on social media, or join my mailing list via the Contact Me button on my website to make sure you receive all the details! 

New website and 6 months to publication

This Sunday, July 31st, marked six months until the publication of WAIT FOR ME, my debut YA novel. To mark this milestone on the countdown, I am delighted to reveal my new website - www.carolineleech.com - on which you can find more details of my books, events, news and contact details, as well as link to my existing blog.

I hope you'll come visit me on the new site. I'm particularly pleased to be able to include some photos of Aberlady Bay, where WAIT FOR ME is set, taken by my friend Elizabeth Martin and by me on my last visit home.

The ARCs are here! And you've only 4 days left to win one!

 

There's been huge excitement round here this week at the arrival of the WAIT FOR ME galley proofs, also known as ARCs (Advanced Reader Copies). These are not the final version of the book, but they are very close to it, and they have been created by the team at Harper Teen to send out to 'influencers' in the book industry - booksellers, librarians, reviewers and bloggers. 

But you don't have to be one of these influencers to get hold of one of my ARCS - you can just win one!

You have just FIVE DAYS left to enter 

my Cover Reveal Giveaway... 

... hosted by my lovely friends at YA Books Central, so please head on over there and put in your entry. Remember, there are three fantastic prizes to be won, and they are:

• One winner will receive a signed Advanced Reader Copy of WAIT FOR ME, along with an author-curated goody-bag of some of the best Scottish treats that were definitely not available under wartime rationing! 

• A second winner will receive a trio of YA historical novels from Harper Collins (see photo above) along with some WAIT FOR ME swag. They are the comical and fantastic retelling of the story of Lady Jane Grey, MY LADY JANE by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton and Jodi Meadows, the alternate World War Two history of FRONT LINES by Michael Grant, and the first book in Rae Carson’s sweeping new Gold Rush trilogy, WALK THE EARTH A STRANGER.  Three perfect reads for fans of historical re-tellings, in whatever speculative or comedic style they appear.

• A third winner will receive a $30 Barnes & Noble gift card and some WAIT FOR ME swag.

TO ENTER THE GIVEAWAY - CLICK HERE!

(Sorry, this one is restricted just to the US and Canada, but I will do some international giveaways very soon!)

Want to support your favorite authors?

Well, here's how!

One of my fellow Swanky 17s, Kim Ventrella has created this wonderful infographic to help you, as a reader, support your favorite authors. Of course, we'd love you to buy our books - that's why we wrote them, after all - but there are other ways you can help spread the word to other readers too about the books you love most. 

Liking, following, posting, voting, recommending, fangirling - or fanboying - is an important way you can help other readers to find a book they might enjoy. But more than that, it might help get a book into the hands of a reader who might really need to hear the message held within its pages at a moment in his or her life when a book might feel like the only thing they have to turn to.  

So I'd love you to come find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest or by sending me a message through the contact form on this page. Once WAIT FOR ME is published, I will be doing some signings, readings and writing workshops, as well as school visits and book club meetings, so I hope I'll meet you at one of those. And if you are in the Houston area, or if you hear that I will be travelling to your part of the world, let me know and perhaps I might be able to come to visit your school, library or club, because I am really looking forward to meeting you!

And if you'd like to know more about the amazing Kim Ventrella, visit her website or her Goodreads page to find out more about her middle grade novel, THE SKELETON TREE, which will be published by Scholastic in the fall of 2017.

Cover Reveal & Giveaway - WAIT FOR ME

At last, I can proudly share with you the beautiful cover for my debut novel, WAIT FOR ME, which will be published on January 31^st by Harper Teen. A huge thanks goes to YA Books Central for helping me to unveil this gorgeous thing this morning, and for hosting the biggest giveaway I'v ever done.

So if you would like to win an advance copy of WAIT FOR ME, or some other amazing books, look for details of my giveaway down below!

... But first, a little about the cover ...

You might remember that WAIT FOR ME is set in the spring of 1945 – the last few weeks of World War Two – when Paul, a young German prisoner of war comes to work on a Scottish farm, where Lorna, the farmer’s teenage daughter, holds the fort while her older brothers are away at the war. I love the way that the Harper Collins team, and in particular, the cover’s designer, Aurora Parlagreco, caught the nostalgic romance of the story in this cover, taking you to a warm spring day walking through a field of long grass, though one that is tainted by the ever-present threat of war.

When my lovely Harper Teen editor, Alice Jerman, first sent me a draft of the cover early this year, I must admit, I had a tear or two. I really had no idea what to expect, so its atmospheric power really caught me by surprise. It was virtually perfect from the start, and with only a couple of tiny tweaks, it was done, and approved. And now it’s public!

So, if you are ready...

... Steady...

... Ta dah!

I really hope that you can hear this beautiful and evocative cover calling you to Scotland, in the same way it calls me home.

But wait, there's more...

Yes, there's a Giveaway!

To mark this next step on the path to  publication for WAIT FOR ME, my friends at YA Books Central are hosting a fantastic giveaway for me, including an advanced copy of WAIT FOR ME!  To win one of the three prizes, all you need to do is visit the cover reveal page.

The prizes are: 

• One winner will receive a signed Advanced Reader Copy of WAIT FOR ME, along with an author-curated goody-bag of some of the best Scottish treats that were definitely not available under wartime rationing! 

• A second winner will receive a trio of YA historical novels from Harper Collins along with some WAIT FOR ME swag.

• A third winner will receive a $30 Barnes & Noble gift card and some WAIT FOR ME swag.

TO ENTER THE GIVEAWAYCLICK HERE!

(Sorry, this one is restricted just to the US and Canada, but I will do some international giveaways very soon!)

WAIT FOR ME cover to be revealed this Monday!

This Monday, June 20^th, YA Books Central will help me reveal the cover of my debut novel, WAIT FOR ME. The cover reveal is the next major milestone in the life of this book and it really begins the countdown to publication day on January 31^st 2017, and and to celebrate, there will a fantastic giveaway competition you can enter.  

The design team at Harper Collins has done an amazing job in capturing in one image the atmosphere of the story, which is set in Scotland in the last few months of World War Two, and I can’t wait to show it to you. I hope you'll like it as much as I do.

From Monday, if you are in the USA and Canada, you will also be able to pre-order your copy of WAIT FOR ME from indie booksellers like Houston's Brazos Bookstore as well as from Barnes & Noble, Amazon and the other major booksellers.

In the meantime, I thought I would share, very belatedly, another visual treat. The beautiful aesthetic palette below was created by another YA debut author – also a Swanky 17 and my agency sister at New Leaf Literary – the lovely Emily Bain Murphy whose novel, THE DISAPPEARANCES will be published by Mifflin Harcourt for Young Readers in June 2017. She created this collage for WAIT FOR ME as part of our Instagram challenge in May, and I was so thrilled. Thank you, Emily!

See you at YA Books Central on Monday for the cover reveal!

Cover aesthetic for WAIT FOR ME, created by Emily Bain Murphy,
as part of our Swanky 17 Instagram Challenge in May