Guest Author, Sandy Lender

Today's guest is Sandy Lender (gorgeous website, by the way), fellow Polka Dot Banner author and part of the Goddess Fish Blog Tour, who could be my twin lost at birth except for the turtles, the parrots, reading horror, living in Florida, and writing and editing for magazines. Welcome, Sandy!

Who are you?

Sandy Lender: I think this answer varies depending on which personality has come to the keyboard. To be mildly philosophical and as sane as I can possibly sound, I’m a fairly nice chick with an environmentalist bent who writes about characters who have probably driven me “over the edge” without me realizing it. I have four parrots in my home who boss me around, and I anticipate they’ll share my room with me at the asylum because no one else is going to be able to do anything with them. Oh! And I like sharp pointy weapons.

What type of stories do you like to write and why?

Sandy Lender: I love building fantasy stories the best. The characters who visit me typically have elements in their past that belong in a fantasy setting so I have no choice but to work in that genre. Luckily, I love it!

What type of stories do you like to read and why?

Sandy Lender: Ooo. I’ll read just about anything. I love classics such as Jane Eyre (my favorite book of all time), but I enjoy sampling new fantasy and science fiction. Sometimes I’ll pick up a mystery or a romance if I know the author or I’ve been asked to review it. I’m keen on horror (if it’s not just gore for the sake of gore, you know?) and thrillers and suspense. I’ll read young adult fantasy and paranormal stories that have been recommended to me. I’m not into reading memoirs, but I’ve made some exceptions.

When do you write?

Sandy Lender: Anytime, anywhere that I can get the time. I’ll prop a notebook up on the steering wheel and write when I’m in traffic. I keep notebooks next to the bed in case I wake up with an idea that needs to be scribbled down or, you know, written out and fleshed out and worked on until an hour or so later when I’m ready to fall back to sleep. Some weekends I’ll schedule a block of time for just writing like mad; some evenings that happens deep into the night. Typically, I steal bits of time during the week after work and before bed in between all the tasks a person has to do to keep the body alive. It’s good that I can drop into a fantasy world at the drop of a hat.

Where did you get the inspiration for your Choices books?

Sandy Lender: My inspiration for the Choices Meant for Gods and Choices Meant for Kings novels came from the characters themselves at first. Any time the going got tough for them, inspiration came from all around. Just about anything can give me a spark for writing and believe me, I use that. I live near some lovely beaches; I see beautiful sunsets over the Gulf of Mexico. I work with sea turtles, which are majestic yet endangered creatures. I have pet birds that do adorable tricks when you least expect it of them. Just the strangest things happen around me and these things get the creative juices flowing in my brain. So whether I’m noticing something bizarre alongside the road while I’m driving in the Everglades or whether I’ve set up an elaborate medieval setting in my writing den, something’s got me thinking about my writing and my characters and how they’re thinking.

Where do you go to think?

Sandy Lender: Literally? This might sound crazy, but I just go inside my brain. If I’ve got something I’ve got to concentrate on for a fiction story, it helps to put on some writing music—not too loudly—and just look inward. I have to go into the world where the problem is and look at what the characters have as tools for the solution. When I have a real-life problem, I do a bit of the same. I go “inside my brain” and go into this real world we live in where the problem is and look at what I have as tools for the solution.

How did you come up with your title and main characters’ names?

Sandy Lender: The names for the characters have evolved slightly over the years that I was developing the backstories and histories and legends and building the world that Choices Meant for Gods and Choices Meant for Kings take place in. For instance, I used to call Amanda Chariss by the name Sharlee. There’s a notebook in my closet with scenes where her name changes to Charlee. Still wrong. She eventually got me straightened out. Her wizard guardian had to tell me that I was spelling his name incorrectly. For years, I referred to the servant woman Loetha as Leeta. As for the name of the first novel, it comes from the beginning of Chariss’s character arc. She originally didn’t think she could be as important as everyone said she was. She didn’t believe she should have the responsibilities people (and gods) were handing her. She thought the decisions she was being asked to make were choices meant for gods.

How long did you write seriously before your first book was published?

Sandy Lender: This is kinda difficult to answer. I wrote stories for my great grandmother when I was a child, and I was serious about those then. I wrote stories for assignments and contests in school, and I was serious about those at the time. I won a first-place award for writing a sequel to To Kill A Mockingbird in junior high. I took creative writing classes (for grades that counted toward the GPA) in high school and college. After graduating college in 1992, I wrote and edited for magazines, and I (still am) was serious about that because it became my career. ArcheBooks published Choices Meant for Gods in 2007.

Why do you write?

Sandy Lender: It’s like breathing. I have no choice.

Blurb:

Chariss is in danger. Her geasa is hampered by the effects of a friend’s marriage. The dashing Nigel Taiman hides something from her, yet demands she stay at his family’s estate where he and her wizard guardian intend to keep her safe. But the sorcerer Lord Drake and Julette The Betrayer know she’s there, and their monstrous army marches that way.

When prophecies stack up to threaten an arrogant deity, Chariss must choose between the dragon that courts her and the ostracized kings of the Southlands for help. Evil stalks her at every turn and madness creeps over the goddess who guides her. Can an orphan-turned-Protector resist the dark side of her heritage? Or will she sacrifice all to keep her god-charge safe?

A Tense Little Excerpt From Choices Meant for Kings
By Fantasy Author Sandy Lender
http://www.authorsandylender.com/
You won’t find this excerpt anywhere except Sandy’s current online book tour…

As the soldier stepped toward him, Nigel reached out his arm and caught him by the neck. He slammed the captain against the far wall. He pinned him there with his body, leaning against the man as if he could crush the wind from him with his presence.

He brought his face close to the soldier’s ear and spoke lowly, fiercely, so that no one could have overheard him. The menace and intent behind the words was as surprising to the captain as the words themselves.

“I asked you to accompany [Chariss] on this journey tomorrow because I have faith in your sword, and until this moment I trusted you to keep your distance from her. Now, I find her down here at your side with a look upon your face that suggests more than you realize. So help me, Naegling, the only thing that stays my hand is how displeased she would be if she learned that I sliced you open.”

“The look you see is merely my concern for her honor. Nothing more.”

“I’m not a fool. And I’ll use every last piece of Arcana’s treasury to pay the prophets to justify my reasons for marrying that woman, so you can unconcern yourself with her honor.”

Hrazon stepped off the staircase then and saw Nigel pressed against his guard.

“I still believe you’re one of the best soldiers Arcana’s ever seen,” Nigel continued, “and I want you at her side for this journey, but, so help me, Naegling, she comes back alive and well and not confused in the least about her affections for me, or I will string you up from a tree in the orchard and attach your intestines to your horse’s saddle before I send it—”

Hrazon cleared his throat. “Excuse me. Is there an issue here I should address?”

Guest Authors Charity Tahmaseb and Darcy Vance

Today's Guest Authors are part of the Goddess Fish Young Adult Blog Tour, Charity Tahmaseb and Darcy Vance. Charity and Darcy are two friends and collaborating authors who took an unconventional path to publication and finding their own way.

Please welcome Darcy and Charity, who will be giving away a Geek Girl prize basket to one commenter randomly drawn at the end of the tour. They are also offering an awesome Best Friends Forever contest. All you need to do is go here and tell the story of how you met your BFF. If you win, not only will you win a bag, but your BFF will as well. The bags contain:
An autographed copy of The Geek Girl's Guide to Cheerleading, The new iPod Shuffle, A mix tape (CD) of songs about friendship, DeBrand's Chocolates, Matching T-shirts...and a few geeky surprises. Good luck!!

And now, here's Charity!

Writers, I think, have a fascination with publication stories. I know I did--and still do. I think we tuck away this strategy or that in the back of our minds. If only I write my query letter like this, or pitch to editors like that. Then, *then*, I’ll make it.

But it never seems to work that way. I’ve heard other writers remark that publication is no more difficult than the right manuscript landing on the right desk and the right time.

Sure! Simple!

Thing is, if you’d told me five years ago how I’d end up with a young adult novel on the shelf, I wouldn’t have believed you. First, I’d put that project away, never to look at it again. I did this, despite what my good friend and critique partner Darcy thought I should do.

A year or two later, I pulled it out again. This time, it was as a writing exercise. I reworked the entire novel using Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook by Donald Maass. I did every single exercise. What did I have to lose? The manuscript wasn’t going anywhere in its current state and despite my previous banishment of it, I still liked the story and the characters.

I wasn’t necessarily going to send this version out, either. But when I finished the revisions, I gave it another try. At this point, I entered the land of the almost-but-not-quite rejection. I was close, but something was off.

At that time, Darcy was also sending out her manuscript. Through one of those weird twists of fate, she ended up talking to an agent who had rejected my manuscript but remembered it--and urged her to convince me to consider revising and resubmitting.

But I’d already retired the story for a second time. Darcy cajoled. She urged. You might even say she pestered. Then she committed a writer sin: she rewrote my first chapter in an effort to show me what the agent had meant.

She claims I didn’t speak to her for three days.

Truth be told, it was the shock. I wasn’t angry at Darcy, but I was devastated. I could see what she’d done, but was at a loss to do it myself. I was even more convinced that this particular manuscript was a dead end.

Darcy kept on revising, in secret, although a few months later, she confessed by sending me the three or four chapters she’d done. I saw her point. But call it pride, or my own sense of inadequacy, I just couldn’t bring myself to work on the manuscript.

Then something awful happened. Darcy’s twenty-one-year-old son was diagnosed with cancer. He had a tumor on his tongue, one doctors weren’t sure they could completely remove.

Darcy lives a few states away from me and I felt powerless to help her. I couldn’t even give her a hug, never mind bring over a hot dish for dinner, or offer to wash a load of laundry.

But then I realized that I did have a hot dish. I sat down at the computer, printed off the first several chapters of the manuscript Darcy had revised, then created a group on Yahoo for the two of us. I called it YA Hotdish and I sent Darcy an invite: “Let’s work on this together.”

Tragedy can make you reevaluate everything you thought you knew. The only thing standing in my way was me. Learning about Matt’s cancer knocked all the pride and ego out of me. It wasn’t about me anymore; it was about Matt. It was about the possibility of selling the manuscript, of being able to help Darcy with the medical bills I knew were already piling up.

In a way, it was both empowering and freeing. I saw what Darcy was doing could take the manuscript from unpublished to something you’d find on the shelves. It wasn’t quite there yet, but we were getting close.

We worked on it together, learning how to blend our voices while Darcy drove her son to countless doctor appointments. By the time Matt was scheduled for surgery, we were done with most of the book.

When he went into the hospital in late May, I went on a mission. I revised the query letter, compiled a list of fabulous agents, and started sending out letters and partial manuscripts.

The agents who were interested were *really* interested and we had requests right away. By August, we’d selected an agent and were working with her to revise the story.

And by the time Matt’s doctor said everything would be okay, our agent had sold The Geek Girl’s Guide to Cheerleading to Simon Pulse.

If there’s a lesson in this for other writers, I think it’s this: The path is not always the obvious one. Keep an open mind about what you can do and where you can go--in writing and your life. Sometimes going boldly forward is the right thing to do. And sometimes, it isn’t.

As I wrote to Darcy in one of the first messages in our YA Hotdish group:

I'm sorry it took me *so* long to get over myself.

But considering how everything turned out, I’m glad it did.

~Charity Tahmaseb, co-author of The Geek Girl's Guide to Cheerleading

Here's the blurb and a short excerpt to The Geek Girl's Guide to Cheerleading:

When Bethany -- self-proclaimed geek girl -- makes the varsity cheerleading squad, she realizes that there's one thing worse than blending in with the lockers: getting noticed. She always felt comfortable as part of the nerd herd, but being a member of the most scrutinized group in her school is weighing her down like a ton of textbooks. Even her Varsity Cheerleading Guide can't answer the really tough questions, like: How do you maintain some semblance of dignity while wearing an insanely short skirt? What do you do when the head cheerleader spills her beer on you at your first in-crowd party? And how do you know if your crush likes you for your mind...or your pom-poms?

One thing's for sure: It's going to take more than brains for this girl genius to cheer her way to the top of the pyramid.

1
LET YOUR SCHOOL SPIRIT SHINE!
Winter Varsity Cheerleading
Call-Out Meeting
Wednesday
3:15
Cafeteria
Go Panthers!!!!!
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a high school boy in possession of great athletic ability must be in want of...
A bowl of oatmeal.
At least on a cold November morning in Minnesota. And maybe a carton of orange juice on the side, but definitely not a girlfriend. Jack Paulson, mega basketball star and crush extraordinaire, did not date. Just ask any girl in the Prairie Stone High School junior class. The cheerleaders, the preps, the drama queens, the band crew, the art nerds, the skater chicks, the stoners, the loners, the freaks, the cool and the not-so-cool, all of them had tried.
Including me.
I was hoping to try again that day, if only my best friend, Moni, would show up already. Ever since her parents divorced and her dad moved to Minneapolis, it was like he took Moni's punctuality with him. She'd been totally unreliable. So I wondered, could I pull it off? Could a lone geek girl linger by the cafeteria door in a casual manner? Not likely. You see, every school has a danger zone. At Prairie Stone, ours occupied the space in the lobby that was an equal distance between the cafeteria, the gym, and the girls' bathroom. It was the spot where all the popular kids hung out. A place the rest of us tried to avoid. Moni and I called it the gauntlet.
We discovered that term last year, in word origins class. In case you're wondering, gauntlet (noun) = a form of punishment where the victim must endure suffering from many sources at the same time. It comes from the Swedish word gatlopp. In Sweden, apparently, they used to punish reprobates (n. those who are predestined to damnation) by making them strip to the waist and then run between rows of soldiers who were armed with sticks and knotted ropes.
That sounded about right.
And so I stood at the edge of Prairie Stone's gauntlet, close enough to the gym to sniff the delicate aroma of sweaty socks, near enough to the cafeteria to catch a whiff of oatmeal -- and the promise of Jack Paulson. One more step and I would officially enter gauntlet girl territory.
Chantal Simmons, the queen of cool and gatekeeper of popularity at PSHS, stood at the apex of it all. She turned her head in my direction, her blond hair flowing in a way rarely seen outside of shampoo commercials. Her glance made me consider climbing the stairs to the balcony and crossing over the top instead of pressing my way through -- but only a coward would do that.
Which is to say, I've done it plenty.
Chantal had a radar for weakness. One wrong move and she'd find yours and use it against you. Forget those sticks and knotted ropes. Chantal could annihilate the hopes and dreams of your average high school junior with just a whisper. And once upon a time, back in the dark ages of childhood and middle school, Chantal Simmons was someone I had told all my secrets to. In retrospect, that was kind of like arming a rogue nation with a nuclear bomb. No risk, no reward, I told myself. If I wanted an early-morning glimpse of Jack Paulson (and I did, I really, really did), then I needed to cross into enemy territory. Alone.