Alicia K. Leppert's Blog: http://www.aliciakleppert.com/

It’s been shamefully long since my last post, but I’m FINALLY working on my next book (not the sequel to Emerald City) and thought I’d tease you all with a few visual hints as to what I’m writing about. Enjoy!

Let’s try this again! I haven’t heard from Heather, so I’m picking a new winner! I used random.org again and this is what it gave me:

And number 44 of my followers on Facebook is Vanya Drumchiiska! Congratulations Vanya! You’ve won the Scentsy warmer and scents! Email me your mailing address (you can do it through my contacts) and I’ll ship it off to you!

So sorry for the delay in announcing the winner of the giveaway. Better late than never, right? By the end of the giveaway I had 186 followers on my Emerald City Facebook page. Woo hoo! Thanks, everyone! I used Random.org to generate a random number for me, and here are the results:

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And number 136 on my list of followers is HEATHER HOOTON! Congratulations Heather! Email me your mailing address through my contact page and I’ll ship it off to you asap. Thanks everyone for participating! You’re the best!

Do you love good smells as much as I do? Do you love the color green as much as I do? Well, if so, you’re in luck. Because I have in my possession a brand new gorgeous green Celtic Love Knot Scentsy warmer with three Festival of Trees bars to go in it, and a little wax-remover spatula, all donated by my dear friend Julie in honor of my book. It goes so perfectly with the theme, set in the city of pine!

Here is what the warmer looks like:

Beautiful, isn’t it? All you have to do to win this amazing giveaway is one very simple thing, and maybe–wait for it–nothing at all! The very simple thing you have to do is “like” Emerald City on Facebook. That’s it. You don’t even have to leave a comment here. And if you’ve already “liked” it, you’re golden. A week from now, next Thursday, I will randomly choose one of my Facebook followers to win this awesome prize. So make sure you’ve “liked” Emerald City (if you haven’t already, just click up in the upper right hand corner of this page on the little F icon under “follow me”) by next Thursday and then check back here to see if you’re the big winner!

Good luck!

Hey, look at me! I’m the featured author over at my publisher’s website this week! Pretty cool, no? Check it out:

http://www. cedarfortbooks.com/events/ feature-authors/

So I have a confession. I am in a serious writing rut. Okay, that’s not the total truth. I’m in a serious writing-the-book-I’m-supposed-to-be-writing rut. I have put off starting the sequel for so long now, for so many reasons. 1) Fear of not making it as good as the first book. 2) Already guessing what the critics will hate about it. 3) Unable to decide which direction to take it. To name a a few. I did finally, actually, start it a couple weeks ago. I think I got four sentences written in an hour. They were pretty good sentences, if I do say so myself, but still…haven’t touched it since.

That’s not even my real confession, at least, not the juiciest one. Here it is:

I’ve been cheating on my sequel.

I’ve had this horrible cold, see, and I’m miserable and achy and, well, miserable. So I’ve barely gotten out of bed during the day, which means I can’t sleep at night. And when I can’t sleep at night, my writer brain goes crazy and I start getting all kinds of ideas. Also, I listen to my iPod to try to get tired, but it never works. It just gets me all inspired and stuff. So I was listening to a particular song and something suddenly clicked in me and I jumped out of bed and tiptoed to my computer and…um…started writing. A different book. I know!! I have so much guilt, I haven’t told a soul, not even my husband. But I’m so insanely excited about it I did the same thing the following night. And I can’t stop thinking about it. And this is not the book I’m supposed to be thinking about writing!! But it’s a book I’ve always wanted to write, one I had the idea for forever ago, when Emerald City was still just a fetus in the womb, not fully developed. And the other night, with the insomnia, and the song, and the creative mind going crazy…it just clicked and I had to start writing. I tell myself maybe I can do both. One book by day, the other by night. Then I remember that I have to sleep sometime, and, who am I kidding? I sleep much more than the average bear. Literally, bears, who hibernate all winter. I sleep more than them. So…*she sighs sadly* I know I have to somehow force myself to put this new book on a figurative shelf until my sequel…and prequel…and other sequel…are finished. It may be years before I can write this!

I feel so much better getting that off my chest. Please don’t tell my sequel, it would never forgive me.

Better late than never, huh? Here’s some pics of my first signing at Costco and my launch party at Barnes and Noble the next day (sorry about the screwy alignment. I have no idea why it’s doing that):

COSTCO

My fan club

BARNES & NOBLE

Me and my mom

Both events were so much fun and huge successes! Thanks to everyone who came out for them!

I will be at my local Costco (in Kennewick, WA) tomorrow, Friday the 27th from 1-5 pm and the following day, Saturday the 28th, from 1-5 pm signing my book. Also, coming soon: pics from my launch party and first Costco signing!

For all my local peeps, I’ll be signing books at Costco (Kennewick) today from 1-5pm and I’ll be at Barnes and Noble tomorrow, Saturday, at 2pm doing the same. Stop on by and get your book signed or just say hi!

Thank you everyone who entered my giveaway and shared their favorite book(s) with me! I so enjoyed learning your favorites! Well, the time has come to reveal the winner, and for this I turned to Random.org. If I was smarter I'd figure out a way to show you what the result actually said, but since I'm not, you're just gonna have to take my word for it that it said number 15, which is super ironic since that's my absolute favorite number in the whole world! And the 15th comment came from Meagan who had a whole list of favorites! Congrats Meagan! I will sign your newly-won hardcover copy of Emerald City and get it in the mail as soon as you email me your mailing address. Thanks for playing!