A Fractured book birthday!

by Teri Terry

Today is the official publication date of Fractured in the UK, the sequel to Slated: time for some more happy dancing!

Isn't it pretty? (in a dystopian kind of way :O)

To celebrate, over on my website you can enter for a chance to have a character in the third book named after you; there are also copies of Fractured up for grabs. This is on teriterry.com here.

I've also blogged on book 2 trials and tribulations, and celebrations, too, over on Notes from the Slushpile. This one is here. 

Fractured giveaways, happy dancing, and general hysteria!!!

by Teri Terry

Fractured is published on 4th of April by Orchard Books in the UK: yippee!! And I'm SO close to finished writing the third book of the trilogy for next year. I'm having trouble concentrating with all this excitement going on, so I thought I'd spend the afternoon dancing about the house and giving things away.

The giveaway is now closed but do read on if you want to! The winner of a copy of Fractured is..... Barmybex!

Leave a comment on this blog post, below, for a chance to win a copy of Fractured: 
The winner will be chosen at random and posted here on Demention. This is international. If you live anywhere in the world besides the US/Canada, you'll get a lovely final copy of Fractured as being published on 4th April by Orchard Books, as above. If you live in the US/Canada you will get a lovely proof copy of the US version of Fractured, published by Penguin with Nancy Paulsen Books; it looks a lot like the cover to the right, but has 'advance uncorrected galleys - not for sale' along the bottom of it. This closes on 4th April at noon (UK time).

BUT wait... there's more!
There are also giveaways on Goodreads!
There is this one, which is international except for US/Canada for FIVE copies of Fractured: 

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Fractured

by Teri Terry

Giveaway ends April 04, 2013.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

AND because I didn't want anyone in the US/Canada to feel left out, I'm doing another one of three copies of US version of Slated as published by Nancy Paulsen Books 24th Jan of this year; this is also on Goodreads. That one I just put up so they have to approve it before it goes live, which should be soon.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Slated

by Teri Terry

Giveaway ends April 15, 2013.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

AND the REALLY exciting news is....
I'm not allowed to tell you yet. This is such torture: I hate keeping things to myself - I'm fairly rubbish at it, too - but I'm going to try very hard not to spill until 4th of April, when it'll get a mention here and go up on my website, teriterry.com.

And events:
I'll be at Heffers bookshop in Cambridge for my very first public signing for Fractured, on 20th April, noon to 2ish. More events will be posted soon on my website, here. 

Don't forget to leave a comment below to have a chance to win Fractured.
Now back to happy dancing...

Breaking the Rules

by Teri Terry

Last weekend I was a Writer Who Rocks: up to my ankles in mud in the pouring rain at Hard Rock Calling at Hyde Park in London. 

The Saturday night was reaching an ecstatic finale, fireworks and all, when some person* literally pulled the plug on Bruce Springsteen and Paul McCartney.
                 *original word edited to avoid offense

Rock History: Springsteen and McCartney, together, on the same stage!
Moments later it all went very, very quiet
(Thanks to another Writer who Rocks, Laura Smith, for the photos)

There were looks of complete disbelief and a great deal of muttering – and that was just up on stage. But this was a polite crowd, and everyone soon stomped or staggered off in the mud.  

Debate followed in the coming days. They went 10 minutes past curfew. They broke the rules, so the promoter pulled the plug. Fans screamed in outrage. Then there was the backlash: why should some rocker be allowed to break the rules? There was Boris (mayor of London) saying, this won’t happen during the Olympics. 

And I couldn’t help but wonder: is this about an absolute slavish following of rules, or who is allowed to break them? 

One question raised was do you expect creatives like musicians to follow the rules? Time keeping is maybe not first on their mind. And this touched a chord with me and some things I’ve been struggling with as a writer:

When should you follow the rules? When should you break them? 

Julie Bertagna’s post last week Who do YOU write for also sparked this train of thought. 

Although Slated is my first book to be published, I’ve been writing for years. I haven’t jumped on trends, not consciously – not so much because I thought about it and decided not to, but more because I’ve never been able to write something that wasn’t from inside, something I had to write. Nothing against vampires, but it just isn’t my thing creatively. That I wound up writing a dystopian novel that hit that trend was pure lucky coincidence. 

But… I have been led astray. Quite a few times. By things like winning a writing competition and then diverting what I wanted to do to an old project, just because there was some interest in it. I have completely rewritten a book once based on feedback even though I felt it wasn’t right (it wasn’t). 

With Slated I wrote the way I love to write – from inside, characters taking over – but the doubts started when I wrote ‘The End’. Slated didn’t follow the pattern with dystopian novels I’d started reading then in a few respects, and not just because it was set in a near-future UK. It is more a slow and tortured build up of tension – not an action-fest. The ending isn’t neatly tied up. Should I rewrite it, or send it out? 

Out it went, and things have been amazing – first getting an agent, then a publishing deal with Orchard Books. Sure there have been a few voices along the way, and a few reviews, that would have liked Slated better if it followed a more usual pattern. But there have been more the other way – and despite the wobbles I’ve felt about it now and then, I’m so happy I stuck with my guts for how it had to be. 

The one critic’s voice I can’t live with if I go a way that feels wrong is my own. 

And now I’m editing book 2, Fractured, and thinking about book 3, and how they tie together. And I’m contemplating a big break of the rules in book 3, much more than any I’ve attempted before. I’m still thinking about it, and will be for a long time. But it feels right.

Another Writer who Rocks - Siobhan Curham - models
best Rock Chick Attire. I gotta get me some wellies for the next fest!