To List or Not to List

It's up! Contest Alert! Win An ARC of Born At Midnight. Today, February 15th, Macmillan is hosting a giveaway of 25 ARCs of Born at Midnight, the first book in my new Shadow Falls YA paranormal series. That’s pretty cool but they’re also releasing the first chapter, which everyone can read. So here’s your chance to check out my new book. Just click on the link to Words N Stuff - www.wordsnstuff.net - to enter to win a an advanced copy of the book, click on to the sweepstake button, or go straight to: http://us.macmillan.com/smp/promo/bornatmidnight and register. To read the first chapter go to wordnstuff and scroll down until you see the cover of Born at Midnight and click on excerpt.

To List or Not to List

As my life gets busier and busier, and since cloning myself hasn’t worked out so well, I’ve begun to attempt to find ways to accomplish more. Not necessarily to work more hours—I’m working too many already—but to work smarter. And one way I seem to achieve this is to make a To-Do list. Actually, it’s not even a To-Do list, it’s filling out my day planner. For me personally, seeing my chores written out and being able to check them off as I complete them offers me a sense of accomplishment and seems to have a positive effect on my daily output. Now, because I often get so overwhelmed with work, it’s not uncommon to see things like, Take A Long Hot Bath, Flirt With My Hubby, Take A Cat Nap, or Listen To The Birds, penned on my To-Do list. I see this as a way to make sure I’m still nurturing my spirit. Hey…my spirit is important to me. If I stop taking care of her, my daily output really suffers.

However, several years back, I remember a dear friend of mine telling me that she refused to do a To-Do list because it prevented her from being spontaneous. That a To-Do list meant she was too regimented, not allowing herself to live life to the fullest or to enjoy the little surprises in life. She believed even penning out the list would have stressed her out to the max.

While her point made sense, I argued that by accomplishing the things I needed to do, it lessened my stress. And if something was really important to me, it got on my list and therefore I was less likely to forget to take care of myself while trying to take care of other responsibilities. For me, making a To-Do list is like writing down the items I need at the grocery story so I don’t get there and buy tons of things I don’t need, or end up leaving and forgetting the toilet paper, which is the real reason I went there in the beginning.

Now, I’m not so certain that one of us is right and the other is wrong. I think maybe this may be one of those individual things that depends on the person’s personality. And just to give you an idea of what I’ve been doing with my time, here are the results of my labors:

Turned at Dark, available March 15 at http://us.macmillan.com/bornatmidnight for your reading pleasure. On March 29, the same release day as Born at Midnight, my short story Turned At Dark will be released as a free eshort story/novelette on all sites, such as BN, Borders, Sony, Googlebooks, IBookstore. How cool is that?

Independent and strong-willed Della Tsang hadn’t believed in ghosts until she saw her dead cousin darting into the shadows of an alley. She hadn’t believed in vampires until in the dark of that same night she is turned into one. Introduced to a strange world of supernaturals, she struggles to accept this new reality. Unfortunately, the boy she loves senses something different about her and can’t accept her. Should she follow her vampire cousin’s lead–walk away from everything she’s knows and loves—and fake her own death? Or should she set her pride aside and ask for help from the camp leader of Shadow Falls—a camp where supernaturals go to learn how to cope with their powers. Either way, her life as she knows it, will never be the same.

Born At Midnight--March 29^th

One night Kylie Galen finds herself at the wrong party, with the wrong people, and it changes her life forever. Her mother ships her off to Shadow Falls—a camp for troubled teens, and within hours of arriving, it becomes painfully clear that her fellow campers aren’t just “troubled.” Here at Shadow Falls, vampires, werewolves, shapshifters, witches and fairies train side by side—learning to harness their powers, control their magic and live in the normal world.

Kylie’s never felt normal, but surely she doesn’t belong here with a bunch of paranormal freaks either. Or does she? They insist Kylie is one of them, and that she was brought here for a reason. As if life wasn’t complicated enough, enter Derek and Lucas. Derek’s a half-fae who’s determined to be her boyfriend, and Lucas is a smokin’ hot werewolf with whom Kylie shares a secret past. Both Derek and Lucas couldn’t be more different, but they both have a powerful hold on her heart.

Even though Kylie feels deeply uncertain about everything, one thing is becoming painfully clear—Shadow Falls is exactly where she belongs…

Don’t Mess With Texas--August 23^rd

Nikki Hunt thought her night couldn’t get worse when her no-good, cheating ex ditched her at dinner, sticking her with the bill. Then she found his body stuffed in the trunk of her car and lost her two-hundred-dollar meal all over his three–thousand-dollar suit. Now not only is Nikki nearly broke, she’s a murder suspect.

Former cop turned PI, Dallas O’Connor knows what it’s like to be unjustly accused. But one look at the sexy—though skittish—suspect tells him she couldn’t hurt anyone. The lead detective, Dallas’s own brother, has the wrong woman and Dallas hopes a little late-night “undercover” work will help him prove it . . .

Awake at Dawn—October 2011

Discovering who you are is one thing, discovering what you are is another.

Now that she’s settled in at Shadow Falls, Kylie Galen’s determined to discover the answer to her supernatural heritage. But with a ghost insisting someone Kylie loves is about die, a rogue vampire on a murdering rampage, and her six sense telling her someone is watching her, Kylie’s quest for answers is on hold. As if her life isn’t difficult enough, just when she’s about to give her heart to Derek, a half-fairy, he starts pulling away. When Lucas, a werewolf with whom Kylie shares a secret past, returns, Kylie’s feels more conflicted than ever. Her weekend with her mom should have been the just the break Kylie needs, but it turns out to be her breaking point. Someone from the dark side of the supernatural world has plans for Kylie--plans she would die to avoid. Finding out her heritage may not even matter if she doesn’t survive.

So, now you see why I’m having to write a To-Do list. What about you guys? Do you make To-Do lists or do you just wing it?

CC