Lisa A. Koosis's Blog

 

Well, it feels strange to venture back into the realm of contests and querying, but also, strangely, good. And who knows. I might even be inclined to revisit my poor abandoned blog now and then. 

So with that, here is my entry into the Fall Writing Frenzy. To find out more about the contest, please visit Lydia Lukidis's blog.

Now, onto my entry:

The Unbecoming

Perched high behind a sheltering wall, the chapel stands silent. I imagine I can still hear the priest’s soft words, the swish of robes, the creak of old knees as they fall to velvet-lined kneelers. I imagine I can still hear the rhythmic clang of the brass censer as it swings, a curl of fragrant smoke guiding prayers up toward heaven.

Did they have time to wish for a miracle? Did they wonder if God even heard—or cared?

I might have had a wedding here someday. I might’ve stood at the altar in a white dress, while sunlight transferred the colors of stained glass onto the people I loved most.

Beneath the golden trees, I lie down on an endless bed of leaves. On my ankle, the mouth-shaped wound throbs, cold pinpricks of drying blood where teeth pressed into my skin. Already, fever makes me shiver.

I spread my arms and legs, moving them until I create the shape of an angel. When I’m done, I realize I was wrong. The chapel isn’t silent. From inside, there’s a soft shuffling, a hundred pairs of feet moving among the pews.

I close my eyes and wait for my turn.

💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀

My little story, which is intended for a YA audience, was inspired by the following photograph:

Credit: Julia Solonina / Unsplash

Welcome to the YA Scavenger Hunt Spring 2019 edition! First organized by author Colleen Houck, this biannual event lets readers access exclusive bonus material from their favorite authors...and gives them a chance to win some awesome prizes! On this hunt, you not only get to enjoy exclusive content from each author, but you also get a clue for the hunt. Add up the number clues, and you can enter to win our prize: one lucky winner will receive one book from each author on the hunt in my team! But play fast: this contest (and all the exclusive bonus material) will only be online for 120 hours!

Go to the YA Scavenger Hunt page to find out all about the hunt. There are SIX contests going on simultaneously, and you can enter one or all! I am a part of the GREEN TEAM--but there is also a red team, a gold team, a blue team, a purple team, and a pink team. Enter each team's contest for a chance to win a whole different set of books!

If you'd like to find out more about the hunt, see links to all the authors participating, and see the full list of prizes up for grabs, go to the YA Scavenger Hunt page.
SCAVENGER HUNT PUZZLE
Directions: Below, you'll notice that I've listed my favorite number. Collect the favorite numbers of all the authors on the GREEN TEAM, and then add them up. (Don't worry, you can use a calculator!)



Entry Form: Once you've added up all the numbers, make sure you fill out the form to officially qualify for the grand prize. Only entries that have the correct number will qualify.
Rules: Open internationally. Anyone below the age of 18 should have a parent or guardian's permission to enter. To be eligible for the grand prize, you must submit the completed entry form by Sunday, at noon Pacific Time. Entries sent without the correct number or without contact information will not be considered.
SCAVENGER HUNT POST

Today, I am hosting Cheyanne Young on my website for the YA Scavenger Hunt! Cheyanne lives near the beach with her family, one spoiled rotten puppy, and a cat that is most likely plotting to take over the world. Her newest book, The Last Wish of Sasha Cade, is available now.
Find out more information by checking out Cheyanne's website or find more about The Last Wish of Sasha Cade here! 
EXCLUSIVE CONTENT

The day Raquel has been dreading for months has finally arrived. Sasha, her best friend in the whole world, has died of cancer. Overwhelmed and brokenhearted, Raquel can’t even imagine life without her.

And then a letter from Sasha arrives...

~~~ BONUS CONTENT ~~~


I love setting my novels in fictional towns, so that I can control the locations and not be tied down to real roads, places, etc. However, one of my favorite things to do with my fictional towns is to base them off a real ghost town from my home state of Texas. When I was writing The Last Wish of Sasha Cade, I did a lot of research on ghost towns and found Peyton Colony. The story of the former town, as well as this picture of an old church, helped inspire the setting of my novel. You can find more here: Peyton Colony


Sasha's House
Sasha's beautiful waterfront house was inspired by a vacation home I once stayed at on Canyon Lake in Texas. I can't remember the exact home, but found this picture (from this website) that is a good representation of what I pictured Sasha's back porch to look like. This is where Sasha and Raquel would feed the deer, and it's where Raquel has lunch with Mrs. Cade shortly after Sasha's death. 


Gigi's Cupcakes
You guys... no novel of mine would be complete without sugary comfort food. When Sasha and Raquel have something to celebrate, they go to Gigi's Cupcakes. Why? Because that's where I went to get a celebratory cupcake after finishing the first draft of this novel. And then again after I got an agent. And then again after getting my book deal. Cupcakes are my favorite way of celebrating. Here's what a cupcake from Gigi's looks like: 

The Marina
Here's the real life marina at Lake Conroe that inspired the marina scene in The Last Wish of Sasha Cade. Every time we go here (just to walk around... I wish we had a boat, but we don't!) I think it's cool that the docks have a gated entry to get in. I took this picture myself the last time I was there. 


Sasha's Funeral Flowers
This was one of the first photos I added to my Pinterest inspiration board when I was plotting this novel. I knew Sasha wanted colorful flowers at her funeral, and when I searched for it, this image was my favorite! I like to think her entire funeral was as colorful as this. (Photo from Pinterest)


The Book
How far would you go for your best friend?

The day Raquel has been dreading for months has finally arrived. Sasha, her best friend in the whole world, has died of cancer. Overwhelmed and brokenhearted, Raquel can't even imagine life without her.

And then a letter from Sasha arrives. Has she somehow found a way to communicate from beyond the grave?

In fact, Sasha spent her final weeks planning an elaborate scavenger hunt for the friend she would have to leave behind. When Raquel follows the instructions to return to Sasha's grave, a mysterious stranger with striking eyes is waiting for her. There's a secret attached to this boy that only Sasha and now Raquel knows.

This boy, Elijah, might be just who Raquel needs to help her move on from her terrible loss. But can Raquel remain true to herself while also honoring her friend's final wish?

Add The Last Wish of Sasha Cade to your Goodreads list!


And don't forget to enter the contest for a chance to win a ton of books, including one by me, Lisa A. Koosis! To enter, you need to know that my favorite number is 33. Add up all the favorite numbers of the authors on the green team and you'll have all the secret code to enter for the grand prize!CONTINUE THE HUNT
To keep going on your quest for the hunt, you need to check out the next author, Joshua David Bellin !

I'm experiencing technical difficulties. Please bear with me while I get my website back up and running.


In the meantime, if you're looking for more about my debut novel, RESURRECTING SUNSHINE, you can find more at the following sites:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Kobo

IndieBound

...or add it to your "Want to Read" list on Goodreads


You can also find me here and there on the web, so please come visit me at:

Twitter

Facebook


If you'd like to check out some of my short fiction, you can click here.

And if you'd like to check out some interviews with me, or guest blog posts, you can click here.



Finally, if you're trying to contact me, or if you'd like to be added to my mailing list, please contact me through my social media sites or via a comment on this blog post.

I hope to have my website up and running soon, so I hope you'll come back and visit again, to check out the new design.

Welcome to my little corner of the YA Scavenger Hunt! This biannual event was first organized by author Colleen Houck as a way to give readers a chance to gain access to exclusive bonus material from their favorite authors...and a chance to win some awesome prizes! At this hunt, you not only get access to exclusive content from each author, you also get a clue for the hunt. Add up the clues, and you can enter for our prize--one lucky winner will receive one book from each author on the hunt in my team! But play fast: this contest (and all the exclusive bonus material) will only be online for 72 hours! (Please note: the YA Scavenger Hunt officially starts on April 4th at noon, Pacific Time. My post is up early!)

Go to the YA Scavenger Hunt page to find out all about the hunt. There are five contests going on simultaneously, and you can enter one or all! I am a part of the GOLD TEAM--but there is also a red team, a pink team, a blue team, and a purple team for a chance to win a whole different set of books!

If you'd like to find out more about the hunt, see links to all the authors participating, and see the full list of prizes up for grabs, go to the YA Scavenger Hunt page.
SCAVENGER HUNT PUZZLE
Directions: Below, you'll notice that I've hidden my favorite number. Collect the favorite numbers of all the authors on the gold team, and then add them up (calculators are allowed!). 
Entry Form: Once you've added up all the numbers, make sure you fill out the form here to officially qualify for the grand prize. Only entries that have the correct number will qualify.
Rules: Open internationally, anyone below the age of 18 should have a parent or guardian's permission to enter. To be eligible for the grand prize, you must submit the completed entry form by April 9th, at noon Pacific Time. Entries sent without the correct number or without contact information will not be considered.
And now for the really good stuff...


Today, I am hosting Sharon Huss Roat on my website for the YA Scavenger Hunt! Sharon Huss Roat grew up in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and now lives in Delaware with her husband and two children. She worked in public relations/communications for twenty years before pursuing her dream of writing a novel. She is the author of BETWEEN THE NOTES (June 2015) and HOW TO DISAPPEAR (August 2017), both from HarperTeen. When not writing, she can usually be found reading, gardening, or cooking. Also napping. (Naps are key.) Visit her on Twitter @sharonwrote or Instagram @sharonhussroat.


Find out more information by checking out her author website or find more about her book (and pre-order it) here!


EXCLUSIVE CONTENT

HOW TO DISAPPEAR by Sharon Huss Roat
From the author of Between the Notes comes a story that shines a light on our love of social media and how sometimes being the person you think you want to be isn’t as great as being the person you truly are.
Vicky Decker’s social anxiety has helped her master the art of hiding in plain sight, appearing only to her best friend, Jenna. But when Jenna moves away, Vicky’s isolation becomes unbearable. So she decides to invent a social life by Photoshopping herself into other people’s pictures and posting them on Instagram under the screen name Vicurious.

Instantly, she begins to get followers, and soon, Vicky has made a whole new life for herself without ever leaving her bedroom. But the more followers she amasses online, the clearer it becomes that there are a lot of people out there who feel like her—#alone and #ignored in real life. To help them, and herself, she must stop living vicariously and start bringing the magic of Vicurious back to life.



From Sharon Huss Roat: HOW TO DISAPPEAR doesn’t come out until August, so I thought it might be fun to share five of my favorite quotes to give a sense of the main character, Vicky, and what the book is about. Since social media plays a big role in this story, I’ve presented the quotes in an Instagram-style graphic, featuring the main character’s user name, Vicurious. 


And don't forget to enter the contest for a chance to win a ton of books by me, Sharon Huss Roat, and more! To enter, you need to know that my favorite number is 27. (Okay, so it's not really my favorite number but it sounded good. Seriously, do people really have favorite numbers?) Add up all the favorite numbers of the authors on the gold team and you'll have the secret code to enter for the grand prize!
CONTINUE THE HUNT
To keep going on your quest for the hunt, you need to check out the next author, Robert L. Slater!

RAFFLECOPTER GIVEAWAY
And as a little thank you for stopping by, I'm giving away an additional signed copy of RESURRECTING SUNSHINE plus swag! (U.S. only for this one!)
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Announcing the Spring 2017 YA Scavenger Hunt teams...
If you love finding new and exciting books to read, here's something you'll enjoy. The YA Scavenger Hunt runs twice a year, in the spring and in the fall. The hunt showcases new and upcoming YA releases, with authors releasing special bonus material related to their books. Plus, there are a ton of prizes!

This spring, the YASH will have one hundred authors split into five teams of twenty. Each team is assigned a color. (I'm on Team Gold!) 

The blog hop begins April 4th and runs through April 9th. It's easy to play. You can either start on my blog or you can head directly over to the YASH website. There you'll find a list of the participating authors as well as an answer sheet you can print and use to gather the info you're hunting for. You can also use it to keep track of any bonus contests you may have entered.

So...are you ready to see all the books featured this season? Here they are...






Which teams are you most excited about?

ARCs are here!

Here's your chance to get your hands on a copy...

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The Writer's Voice: Where Is Lisa A. Koosis Now?  (Guest blog on perseverance)
I Spy with My Critical Eye: Let Yourself Get Lost In Your First Draft  (NaNoWriMo Blog)
Quit Blocking the Road: How I Got Out of My Own Way with Camp NaNoWriMo (Writer's Digest)
In the hammock with YA author, Lisa A. Koosis (Interview)

We have our first The Writer's Voice 2014 #TeamMonica FTW SUCCESS STORY!  (My guest blog on how I got my agent)

Soul Blossom , Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine Issue #55 (2013)
Neptune's Garden , Dark Pages Anthology, Blade Red Press (2010)   
  Low Tide , Murky Depths Issue #11     
All Sales Final , Bards andSages Quarterly (April 2010) 
Our Atlantis , Family Circle Magazine (March 2010) (Grand prize winner,2009 Fiction Contest)
How We Fly , Abyss & Apex Issue #33 (1st quarter 2010)        
Side Roads , A Fly in Amber, (featured fiction, November 2009)  
Panthera , New Fables (Summer 2009)  
The Midnight Girls , Abyss &Apex (2nd quarter 2009)   * a storySouth Million Writers Award Notable Story of 2009
Creature of the Sea , TheDunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine (Episode 20) 
The Gatekeeper , Neverlandsand Otherwheres Anthology, Susurrus Press (2008)
Pearl , Murky Depths Issue #5       
Atlantis Rising , Touched byWonder Anthology, Meadowhawk Press    
Cucumber Rain, Flash Me Magazine  
Waltz in E Minor, Not One of Us: Home and Away     
The Pastapocalypse , Dog VersusSandwich  
Identities , The Poughkeepsie Journal (2nd place, Hudson ValleyTalespinners contest 2006)

Yesterday, while having lunch with my mom, I had the holy crap thought that in exactly two weeks I will be at Book Expo America signing advanced reader copies of my young adult novel, RESURRECTING SUNSHINE . (And in a little over two weeks I'll be signing at BookCon too!)

That two-week mark sort of crept up on me. I’ve mostly been counting down to the day I leave here to drive out to Chicago, primarily because that’s my drop-dead date to get everything done.
And I guess I’ve fallen into more of a road-trip mentality. You know how that goes, right? The car needs new tires and an oil change. There are haircuts to be had, clothes to be bought, suitcases to air out, pet-sitters to be sought. Practical things that need to get accomplished before I pack up the car and go.
But yesterday’s realization came with another thought—one that I haven’t really entertained yet (maybe my mind’s way of protecting my sanity just a little longer)—the thought that in two weeks, people will potentially be reading my book.
Wait…what?
Let me try that again.
In two weeks (minus one day, now) people will potentially be reading my book. They will be having it signed by me. They will be bringing it home. They will—maybe just maybe—be opening the cover and turning to Chapter 1, and then maybe (hopefully) Chapter 2 and beyond.
 They’ll be meeting Adam and Marybeth. They’ll be meeting Dr. Elloran. They’ll be meeting characters (I have to stop myself from saying people because that’s what they are to me) and reading about events that have existed only for me and a few select readers up to this point.
They might love it or they might hate it (or maybe a little bit of both), or they will be painfully indifferent.
And granted, this is just the advance reader copy, but still, it will be my book—my book—out in the world. It’s still a little hard (read: impossible) to wrap my mind around, but it will happen just the same.
Whoa!
I mean, really, what more is there to say?

A few years ago my significant other and I took a vacation to Cape May, where there’s a gorgeous lighthouse open to the public. It’s a tall, slim building, and to get to the top means climbing 199 steps on a narrow spiral staircase. The stairs aren’t solid, either. They’re made of an open-work metal. Essentially, at any point in the climb, you can look straight down, pretty much to the bottom.


Though you’ll rarely catch me talking about it, I have a vestibular disorder, which makes a climb like this—going around and around and around—daunting at best…and kind of a carnival-funhouse-gone-wrong at worst. It was also, I’ll confess, all the more reason I wanted to do it. So we paid our admission fee and we climbed.
Stepping out onto the platform at the top was a whole different kind of scary. So high up, the shore winds are strong, and the metal no longer feels like metal, solid, but thin, and amazingly fluid. And if you step to the railing, which seems unbelievably flimsy, you can lean over. You can look straight down.
I was surprised at how few people stepped out of the lighthouse and onto the platform that day. Most people hovered inside, listening to a staff member talk about the history of the building. A few folks ventured a step or two outside before hurrying back in. A very few of us ventured to the edge. Only one or two of us leaned over and looked down.
With my significant other hovering inside asking me to please, please don’t do that, I leaned over and looked down. I could feel the drop way down in my stomach, as if I was already falling.


I remember being afraid, in some undefinable, visceral, primal way. I also remember being afraid in small, silly ways, that I would drop my camera, that my glasses would fall off. And yet below all that, there was something else, something that I could identify immediately. Exhilaration.
The last few months I feel like I’ve been climbing that lighthouse all over again—around and around, up and up—in a more metaphorical way. If you follow me on any sort of social media, you probably know that I sold my book. And though the official announcement only came at the end of January, it’s something I’ve been sitting on for the better part of a year, so it isn’t new to me.

But things have started ramping up recently. My book has showed up on Goodreads (people have even added it to their want-to-read lists). I’ve been invited to attend BEA (Book Expo America), to do an in-booth signing. I’ve worked on developmental edits and thought up alternate titles and filled out cheat-sheets with characters’ eye and hair color and all sorts of information for the cover design people.
And as exciting as it’s been, it’s also been a little bit dizzying. So much is coming up, so many beautiful, amazing, wonderful things—things that are way outside of my comfort zone—and I know I’m about to step out onto the platform outside the top of the lighthouse all over again. I’m guessing it will be as scary as it was the first time…and hopefully as exhilarating.
I think it’s good sometimes to do things we’re afraid of, especially as creative people. It challenges us to go farther. It stretches us. It pushes our boundaries. It’s how we grow.

But there’s another reason, too. An even better one. Because from the rickety, windy, scary-as-hell platform, there’s also the most amazing view.