Mrs. Potter’s Book Publicity Services
Presents:
A Blog Tour For:
DEAD DREAMS
(Book 1)
By: Emma Right
Genre: YA CONTEMPORARY PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER/MYSTERY
YA
for ages 13 AND UP Published AUG 2013
Book Summary
Eighteen-year-old Brie O’Mara has so much going for her: a
loving family in the sidelines, an
heiress for a roommate, and dreams that might just come true. Big dreams--of
going to acting school, finishing college and making a name for herself. She is
about to be the envy of everyone she knew. What more could she hope for? Except
her dreams are about to lead her down the road to nightmares. Nightmares that
could turn into a deadly reality.
Dead Dreams, Book 1, a young adult psychological thriller
and contemporary mystery.
Add Dead Dreams to
your GOODREADS TBR list:
AMAZON BUY LINK:
http://www.amazon.com/Dead-Dreams-Book-1-ebook/dp/
B00ESVEVBQ/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital- text&ie=UTF8&qid=1378078109&sr=1-3&keywords=DEAD+DREAMS
Author Bio
Emma Right is a happy wife and homeschool mother of five
living in the Pacific West Coast of the USA. Besides running a busy home, and
looking after their five pets, which includes two cats, two bunnies and a
Long-haired dachshund, she also writes stories for her children. When she
doesn't have her nose in a book, she is telling her kids to get theirs in one.
Right worked as a copywriter for two major advertising
agencies and won several awards, including the prestigious Clio Award for her
ads, before she settled down to have children.
How
long did it take you to write this book?
I started putting words to paper
for Dead Dreams in January of 2013, but the story was already brewing my head a
couple of months before that. I consider myself a fast worker but even then it
has taken me about 1 whole year from the time of conception to getting the book
out in paperback--which will be in November 2013.
What
was your inspiration to write this book?
We've
all been there--at least those of us who are over 21--revving to grow up, the
world at our feet, the stars reachable. Wonderful ,wondrous future. But in
wanting to get there, we forget to smell the roses, we trample on thorns and we
get sorely poked and pricked, and alas, some of the barbs could be poisonous.
Except for the Grace that watches over me, over you, (whatever you believe in,
call it LUCK if you wish), all it might have taken for any of us was that wrong
turn, that grabbing of something that looked good, and coupled with a strong
desire to make it in life, we might be blinded and grab the adder's tail. That
is the story of Dead Dreams; of Brie O'Mara, a good girl, someone who'd never
even gotten a traffic ticket, even a Miss Goodie Two-shoes. But, let's face it
we can all be tempted, just a tiny bit. And sometimes that's all it takes to
have things spin out of control.
When
did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?
I have always enjoyed spinning a yarn for my friends,
even from as young as eight years of age. But right after college, and before I
had kids, I worked in advertising writing print and Tv ads and I really enjoyed
copywriting. Some of my ads actually won awards. I don't even know where I kept
those dust collectors! But that was ages ago. I now have five children, ages
nine to nineteen. I have four at home now whom I still homeschool. It gets
really hectic at our home. We also have many pets, so something is always
happening. However despite everything that's happening around me I always think
about different plots and story lines whenever i have the time--usually before
I doze off after a long day. So, I guess I'd always wanted to be an author. I
never really consider one particular point in time when I made that decision.
Writing is a part of life--of communicating. It's just a means to get the stories from my brain into someone else's head. Think
about it, I put some squiggly things, called words, down on paper, and you read
them, understand and react/think about these squiggles. And that's writing!
Anyone who writes, in a sense is a writer.
What do you like
to do when you're not writing?
Curl up with a good book.
What
do you think makes a good story?
One that has a great voice, a
compelling plot, imagination, characters I would probably enjoy meeting, even
if I might not personally want them to me my bff , or anything, and most importantly, the story that keeps me
thinking, long after the book has ended.
Tell
us about your next release.
I am currently writing Keeper of Reign Book 2, a
Middle Grade/YA adventure fantasy, hopefully out early 2014. Some readers have
asked me to write a prequel for Keeper of Reign. I might. Time is my enemy
these days. Once I am done with this I will be working on Dead Dreams 2 and
hope to finish this by middle of 2014.
Has someone helped or mentored you in your
writing career?
I'd like to think all those authors who wrote writing books that teach
on the craft of penning a great story and the classic authors I have so enjoyed
reading have in some way shaped my writing and my thought processes. So,
although there has never been a physical person present to mentor me, in the
traditional sense of mentoring, in many ways I've had many mentors through the
books I have read.
Do you have critique partners or beta
readers?
My husband reads my books
at least twice and since he's not much of a fiction reader I value his critique
since I figured if I can capture a non-reader's attention it must be a good
thing, right? My older kids read my books, too, (since my books are usually Young
Adult or Middle Grade fiction.) They pretty much read toward the end when it's
all cleaned up--just so they don't shock themselves at my typos and errors,
especially since I am often times their teacher, too. Then I also belong to a
an author group and we have beta readers who point out issues. Of course, I
find what my editors have to say very helpful as they are the pros and have
been doing this much longer than I have.
Random Questions:
One food you would never eat?
Frogs
What is the last book you read?
Divergent
What was the last movie you watched?
An italian movie I highly recommend, called, It's a Beautiful Life.
Are you a Morning person or Night Owl?
Night owl
As a child, what did you want to be when you
grew up?
Loved and happy.
Do you have a Website or Blog?
What is your favorite line from a book?
Tomorrow is another day!
Guest Post by Emma:
My experience with having kids, homeschooling
and finding the time to write.
As a homeschooling mother of five, I grab any time I can to
write. If I am not doing stuff for my kids, or my pets, or my husband (rare!) I
am either writing or reading. So, it's hard to quantify how many hours I
actually get to write but it could be as often as two-three hours a day to as
little as two hours a week!
As a busy mom I feel it's important to carve out a small piece
in my life for personal growth. To me being organized is the key. When life is
a chaos it's hard to be organized, but it's possible, and in fact, needful to
arrange our lives into manageable sizes to stay sane--at least for me. I'm not
saying it's easy--my husband travels about 60% of the time, and it can be
emotionally draining dealing with whiny kids--but if we can lay railroad tracks
for our daily lives it'd be easier to function and that's what I try to do--and
I stress on "try".
On a week to week basis I
have my tracks laid down--I know which kid is doing what, when and what meals
to be served throughout the entire week--this cuts down on unnecessary time
making extra trips to the grocery store. I do most of my shopping on the
internet--like books, supplies, clothes, and make-up, to save on time--and it's
less expensive too, with free shipping and I can shop at 2am!
Also, on my site, I have
some blogs on using free things to give the kids a great education (and I hope
to input more of such things as time goes by)
but still give us, moms, some time to gather ourselves before we fall
apart at the seams. One example is using Netflix movies to help in the
homeschooling--make movie nights a meaningful and educational experience. And a
mom can take a break as the kids watch something that would benefit them. This
is one of the tricks I use to give myself an hour here or there.
Also, I audit their
time--find out when or which time block I spend my time on doing meaningless
tasks--it's like budgeting with time as my currency.
Another advice I have, and
this may seem unrelated, is I stay away from negative people as much as
possible. There is something draining about being around negativity and this
mental torture will translate to stress, illnesses (which will make me even
busier and serves no purpose) and there is something about the lack of peace
that even sucks out whatever little time and energy I have.
But having said that,
about the homeschooling, it's good to have a schedule but if things fall apart
and some kid really didn't finish up whatever task was given, I'd learned
through almost 17 years of homeschooling that the best thing is to just move on
and not fret. There will always be another day, and in every stormy cloud there
truly is a silver lining.
So,
there you go folks. No magic wand for me to find time. Wish I have something
like this, but at the end of the day it's searching for any time I can find. If
anyone out there have suggestions, please share, so I can write more!
How much of the author is there
in the main character of any novel? And to what extent do authors write
themselves into the stories they tell?
My characters and their human counterpart.
Where do main characters come from? All those personalities,
like Daisy or Jay Gatsby from The Great Gatsby, or Anne of the Green Gables
series, or Katniss from Hunger Games?
It really depends on the story. And I am sure each author
has his or her own take on this.
When I wrote my first book, Keeper Of Reign, I extracted
some of the traits my kids portrayed and quirks I thought were cute and
endearing and included these in some of the conversations and personalities—it
is after all a book for kids. But that is about where the similarities end. As
the story developed and plots took shape the circumstances the characters in
Reign faced helped formed their own personalities. So I can’t say that there
was very much in me at all in the main characters of Keeper of Reign.
Having said that, things got a little different with my
young adult psychological thriller, Dead Dreams. I see a lot of myself in Brie
O’Mara, the main protagonist, and even
in Sarah McIntyre, the anti-hero, even
though both young ladies are very different people.
In some ways, I believe, the author always deposits a
portion of herself into the characters—particularly the main ones. Think about
it: as the plot falls into place, and as the writer faces the questions the
characters are confronted with—what would she do faced with this or
that—wouldn’t it be reasonable that the author would reflect her biases into
how anything is played out?
Of course, the fictitious person would have a basic
personality to start with, say, a moody, pouty girl, used to having the world
offered to her on a silver platter and servants hovering around her, as in
Sarah McIntyre, but when she is faced with a proposal, say to rid herself of a
nagging, persistent boyfriend, how she thinks, is in some part a reflection of
what the author thinks. That’s why I feel fiction is so powerful in influencing
the thinking of its readers. And every fiction has a message no matter how
subtly it has been woven into the story because at the end of the day, it is
the author projecting her thoughts, ideas, suggestions, and world view into how
the characters would act and react.
So, back to the question—how much of myself is in the two
main characters of Dead Dream? I’d say a lot and yet, not so much, too. Because
although some of the choices my characters make are things I could have done, but I probably won’t
due to my moral choices and governing ethics. For instance, would I ever commit
a crime? I could. (For that matter, even the President of the United States
could commit a crime and shockingly some have!) But I won’t—it’s a matter of
choice. I think as humans we are not
all that different from each other, especially for those of us of a particular
culture.
As authors we cannot run away from
the fact that we do breathe some of who we are, or what we believe in, into our
characters –for both the protagonist and the antagonist. Each facet of the
people we populate our fiction with may not necessarily be who we are now, but it can be a glimpse of what the
author could be, or even what the author once was.
Connect with Emma Right
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/emmaright/
Book trailer:
Playlist for Dead Dreams
Plumb - Need You Now (How many times) [2013]
Colton
Dixon - "Never Gone" (Official Lyric Video)
Britt
Nicole - All This Time (Lyrics)
Overcomer
- Mandisa - Lyrics
Amazon link:
http://www.amazon.com/Dead-Dreams-Book-1-ebook/dp/B00ESVEVBQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1380306659&sr=8-1&keywords=young+adult+thriller%2CB00ESVEVBQ
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