Shark Bait; An Anniversary & Birthday History

One year ago today yesterday, I published my first novel, Shark Bait. It was insanely emotional and the result of more than two and a half years of writing. Writing that began roughly in late December of 2009. Although what I began writing was nowhere even in the same vicinity as what I published, none of it would've ever made its way out of my brain without my BBF (Bibliophile Best Friend, abbreviated to save space), Kelly. Or as the members of my household call her, K-E-L-L-Y.

Now, one of the reasons I make special mention of Kelly in my publishing anniversary is because not only did she play an integral role in the advent of the whole Grab Your Pole series, but Shark Bait also happens to share its special date with Kelly, as June 15th is her birthday. And yes, I planned it that way. Here's why:

From my research, it looks like I began writing Shark Bait, what would eventually become the first book in the Grab Your Pole series, somewhere in the realm of January 29, 2010, and what was that research? Well, it involved pouring through and scouring the thousands of emails I have hoarded archived between two laptops and Cox Communications's webmail server. The treasure trove of correspondence between Kelly and me however, was on my old PC laptop, the one that is behaving as if it's just about ready to join the dinosaurs. I'll be uber-sad when it does though, because the emails on this thing...? Fucking epic AND priceless!! So much so that I'm extraordinarily tempted to start printing them out so I have them forever and ever amen. Which is probably where my tendency to screen cap all kinds of shit has come from, because seriously, stumbling across something like this —>
makes for some extreme giggling.


Kelly and I used to email CONSTANTLY. <—That ain't bullshit or even a small exaggeration, folks. Before she took a new job that had her working in the field, Kelly and I emailed each other back and forth about ALL kinds of nonsense (mostly books, Buffy, and...well, mostly that stuff) many upon many times throughout the day and not only that, our email titles very rarely had ANYthing to do with the content of said email. It was fun for us to come up with amusing and giggle-worthy subject lines and if you didn't have a guess before now, Kelly and I can on occasion, be very creative. It was our habit that every single word I ever wrote in the beginning was copied and pasted into an email and she would then read it and give me feedback immediately (instant gratification FTW!) via email. Now what I find sort of funny about all of that is that the email documenting the honest to God beginning of the GYP Series was titled, new story. That's it. It wasn't even capitalized.

Also, if you happen to be able to read the actual email, you'll see that not much was changed from this very first draft to what made it into publication. Not only that, but according to the email history, I had the entire first chapter completely written by the following day at 2:30 in the afternoon. Although it underwent several rounds of editing afterwards and prior to publication, the first draft of Shark Bait was completed on April 1st, 2010 when Kelly very sweetly yelled at me in email, essentially telling me to leave it the fuck alone.

I finally listened to my BBF and VoR (<—see the acknowledgements of both SB & TOFitS as well as the dedication of TOFitS) and began writing The Other Fish in the Sea immediately. The first chapter which then included the prologue was completed on April 5th, 2010 when the whole process of needy author syndrome and copying and pasting snippets into emails began anew.

Since its inception, Shark Bait has undergone some major changes, up to and including a cover overhaul, all of which Kelly has been either consulted on, present for, or instrumental in bringing about, and truly, the book that you've all read and come to love wouldn't be what it is without her. So, in honor of both Shark Bait's one year publishing anniversary and

my dear BBF & VoR's birthday, I would like to give away one print copy of Shark Bait with the winner's choice of either the original cover or the new one, autographed by both Kelly and myself. To enter, please see the Rafflcopter below, and for more Shark Bait Anniversary/Kelly Birthday fun, visit these two GYP Street Team blogposts, GYP in the Blogosphere - Birthday Special and BB&ST S1E3!

        Oh and

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, K-E-L-L-Y!   

I heart you dearly and deeply.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The 2013 #YACushTourney Is Upon Us!

5/25/13 Crush Tourney Update:

WE DID IT!!!

Thanks to the hard work of the @GYPStreetTeam (pimping ain't easy you know), and the support of readers and fans alike, our GYP boy, Tristan, made it into the YA-Sisterhood's YA Crush Tourney!!

Thank you all SO much for your time and support, but it's not over! Now, Tristan along with 28 other drool-inducing guys (once the wildcard entrants are chosen) are in need of a "Book Blogger Advocate" to represent them and fight for them in the head-to-head rounds of the tournament which will begin on June 10th. So, if you're a book blogger and want to represent #TeamTristan or another guy in the tournament, keep your eyes peeled for the opportunity to do so! Advocate sign-ups will start this coming week after the 28th (I believe sign-ups are slated to run from May 28th thru June 1st) so make sure you apply QUICKLY—doing that will help you have a better chance at the yummilicious crush of your choice!! And, I know in the past there have been co-advocates, so if that's something you're interested in check with the YA Sisterhood now to see how you would go about doing that!! 

We're also in need of you folks who are uber-talented in the art of Photoshop!! Tristan's advocate will need pictures of hot guys who "look" like him and then they should be manipulated in some way to include quotes or just plain cool shit so that they stand out. We all know I'm deficient in that area so if that's something you're into and want to help out, I encourage you to do so! You can email your designs to me or the GYP Street Team, or you can simply post them to my Facebook Fanpage wall. Also, if you already have them highlighted or have the time and desire to go back through Shark Bait and The Other Fish in the Sea, #TeamTristan could probably use some awesome and swoon-worthy quotes and snippets for his advocate to use in the battle. Again, you can email those to me directly or to the Street Team, but please, in the interest of preventing spoilers, do not post quotes and snippets on a public forum like Facebook. Whatever quotes are chosen to be used in the tourney posts will be of course be seen by tournament participants and voters, however we don't need to spoil too much for readers so those quotes will be reviewed for length, "true" spoilers, and so on prior to using them.

I would also like to strongly urge you to join in the crazy-fun shenanigans that Twitter can be home to, and not only that, encourage all your friends and followers to do so as well! If you're not yet on Twitter & are concerend about not having followers, don't fret, you can follow all the Twitter peeps who follow The GYP Street Team and I'd be willing to bet a lot of them will follow you back, which also happens to be an excellent way to make new reader friends! Plus, Twitter is an excellent resource to find some of THE best book bloggers and reviewers in the blogosphere who might turn you on to a book you've never heard of or one that you've been putting off and want to kick your own ass for not reading sooner, AND they do some fantstic giveaways as well! Once you're on Twitter, make sure you follow @GYPStreetTeam in addition to me and use #YACrushTourney as well #TeamTristan in your crush tourney tweets!

Once again I'd like to thank you all for your endless support and enthusiasm. You guys make my heart happy sigh, and I know if we all do our part in regard to pimping and voting, Tristan can move forward in the tourney, so come on, guys, let's pimp our boy with #NoShame!!

Don't forget to grab your #TeamTristan badge!

______________________________________________________________________

So...

YA Sisterhood's YA Crush Tourney is upon us. For those who are familiar, you know what crazy-exciting fun this event is, for those who don't and are GYP fans, you're about to find out. Your Twitter and Facebook feeds will most likely be blown the fuck with tweets and posts pimping and encouraging you and everyone on the planet to nominate and then vote for your favorite YA Book Boyfriends (of course if you're a GYP fan, I'm going to hope your faves will be Tristan, Jeff, Pete, and Brandon :-p).

Again, for those who are familiar and have participated in the shenanigans in the past, there are some changes this year to nominations and where and how it's all going down and you definitely should read the rules (especially in regard to the categories), but to make it easier on you, I've sort of broken it down below to ensure no one's votes are summarily thrown out.

Tristan and Jeff qualify for the Debut category with Shark Bait (you have to cite the book they're representing) which is at Page Turner's Blog: http://www.pageturnersblog.com/2013/0...

ALL 4 guys qualify in the categories of Realistic and Indie, but if you vote for Pete and/or Brandon in either of these, make sure you're citing The Other Fish in the Sea as the book they're representing b/c neither of them really had much to do in Shark Bait. If you nominate Tristan and/or Jeff in either of these categories, you can choose either book. The blog for Indie nominations is:http://www.stuckinbooks.com/2013/05/i...

The blog for Realistic nominations is: http://fictitious-delicious.blogspot....

You can only nominate each guy once in each category so for example, I'll show you how I voted:

Debut:
Crush #1 Tristan/Shark Bait
Crush #2 Jeff/Shark Bait
Crush #3 
Crush #4
Crush #5
Crush #6

Indie:
Crush #1 Tristan/Shark Bait (I might've cited TOFitS, but can't remember—both books qualify but you can only vote with one)
Crush #2 Jeff/The Other Fish in the Sea
Crush #3 Pete/The Other Fish in the Sea
Crush #4 Brandon/The Other Fish in the Sea
Crush #5
Crush #6

Realistic:
Crush #1 Tristan/Shark Bait (I might've cited TOFitS, but can't remember—both books qualify but you can only vote with one)
Crush #2 Jeff/The Other Fish in the Sea
Crush #3 Pete/The Other Fish in the Sea
Crush #4 Brandon/The Other Fish in the Sea
Crush #5
Crush #6

(Yeah, even though you can nominate up to 6 Book Boyfriends in each category, I left all the others blank b/c I'm selfish and don't want to create anymore competition for my guys. :-p How you fill in your form is totally up to you though, as long as it's only one vote/reader/qualifying character/qualified category.)

I know many of you aren't happy with a certain character right now, but think big picture and try to put the good of the series before your what your personal feelings might be at the moment. Plus, there's a reason why the GYP Street Team is pushing him. Not only has he been the Main GYP Book Boyfriend thus far in the series, but the new rules stipulate that although you can nominate several characters from the same author, only one character per specific author will be able to make it into the tournament. That means that if Tristan makes it into the top 6 of a given category with 76 votes and Jeff for example gets 68 in another, they'll place Tristan and not Jeff. So, in looking at the possible competition, we were strategizing and are thinking the Debut category will be the easiest way to get into the actual tournament and Tristan is *the* Book Boyfriend in the debut of Shark Bait. And by the way, getting into the tournament at all is HUGE. This thing trended worldwide on Twitter last year, so it's a really big deal (and a lot of fun)!! However, after some initial numbers updates, the 3 categories the GYP boys fit into is really pretty much anyone's game at the moment, so if you have the time and/or inclination, go ahead and vote them where they're qualified to be nominated and we'll see what happens.

Right as of this minute (according to the last update), Tristan is sitting at #3 in the Debut category, which is excellent, however he can get booted easily by Friday (May 25th) when the nominations close, so don't put it off! None of the guys are showing in the top 10 in Realistic at the moment, but the #1 dude is there with only 25 votes so if we really want to and pimp HARD, we can crush this shit! Also, there is no public listing of top 10 for Indie right now, but it would be nice to see if we can get someone to place there as well, again with the understanding that only one of the guys will be able to make it into the actual tournament regardless of how many categories he's nominated in. I know I've outlined it fairly well here, but just make sure you all read the rules for each category, and be sure to use a real name and a valid email address when you nominate/vote, and keep in mind that anyone with an email address can participate including your moms, dads, aunts, uncles, spouses, children...you get the point, which is that literally anyone can nominate and vote as long as they're real, have a valid email address, and fill the nomination forms out correctly. ;-)

If you do decide to participate and are on Twitter, make absolutely sure you're pimping with the hashtag #YACrushTourney (this goes for Instagram as well), and if you can, think about following and then tagging @GYPStreetTeam in your tweets so that they can help. Plastering Facebook is awesome too, and using any other social media outlets like Tumblr, Pinterest, Instagram, and so on to rally support and votes is encouraged as well. You can even simply get on the phone or drive your ass over to your BFF's house and make them get on the bandwagon as well. And don't forget, this is YA—meaning Young Adult, so if any of you have NA/Adult author friends you feel comfortable enough to ask for their support, I say do it. This is the kind of thing where I myself and the Street Team will be pimping with #NoShame and we can use all the support and backers that we can get our newbie/greedy little hands on. We also had someone make a button/avatar that's on my FB fanpage and here on my blog up on the righthand side for anyone who really wants to show their #TeamTristan support!

Additionally, if we get one of our boys in the tournament, we'll be needing everyone to continue to vote in the March Madness-style head-to-head rounds, AND we'll need a blogger advocate for him, so if you're a die-hard fan and a blogger, think about whether this might be something you'd like to do! Sign-ups for advocates will take place May 28th—June 1st, after the nominations for the crushes are over, which is this Friday, May 25th.

If you'd like more info on the tournament you can go to the YA Sisterhood and read up on it a bit! http://ya-sisterhood.blogspot.com/201...

Again, I just want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart for what will hopefully be a bonafide deluge of #TeamGYP/#TeamTristan crap flooding your personal posts and your feeds, as well as all of your encouragement and support of me and this series. Really, I'm truly humbled and honestly, I'm uber-giddy about the possibility of being in this tournament with some of the authors I'm up against...it's an incredible honor and I wouldn't even have the chance if it weren't for all of you, so seriously, thank you. :-* 

The 8th Member of the GYP Gang Character Reveal

Okay, all the GYP guys are yummy, yes? Tristan, I mean, uh helloooo? Holy fuck. That's all I got. Jeff...? Black hair and green eyes, with a smile that could melt an iceberg being continually worn? Yeah. And Pete...*sigh* Pete is just...I don't know. I mean he's good looking, but that's not what it is. He's just so laid back but when a situation truly means something to him, he's so very intense that you just know without a doubt that if he were to find you worth the effort to kiss, your lips would never recover.

Although you were introduced to him in Shark Bait, that introduction was at the most, brief. However, with The Other Fish in the Sea, be sure in the knowledge that I remedy that and allow me to formally introduce you to the 8th member of the Grab Your Pole gang; a SA-WOON-worthy guy to pant over and make sure you have a decent supply of clean delicates on hand after you have yourself a licentious fantasy or seven. He's what Camie and I (and pretty much every female on the planet) would call "Dirty-Hot." Here's a description straight from Book 2 in the Grab Your Pole series, The Other Fish in the Sea:

...looks pretty much like what you’d expect a guy who’s in a working rock band to look like. He has, actually, kind of pretty, icy-gray eyes and super dark brown hair that’s on the longer side in the middle because it’s still growing out from the Mohawk he had the first time I met him in October. His hair also perpetually looks like he just rolled out of bed, but it looks good, if that makes sense. He’s not especially tall and even though he’s not especially muscular either and his upper body is depicted with art that I gather wasn’t drawn on with Crayola washable markers, you can see he does have well-defined muscles—all of which was noticed when he was shirtless this afternoon. Both his ears are pierced two or three times each and there’s a very definite edge to him, like you know without a doubt that he totally walks on the wild side of life and probably always will. Like a dark, untamable horse. So yeah, he’s totally what I would call the epitome of “dirty-hot.” And yes, in my opinion he’s pretty damned nice to look at, although I do still get that “tread carefully here” feeling about him.

Yeah. He's in a band. He's pierced. He's inked. And, he's a little unnerving and potentially a ticking time bomb. Ladies and any gentleman who might so happen to swing that way, I give you...

BRANDON

*Disclaimer: Fictional book boyfriend DIBS have been called*

Oh yeah. Did I mention that he's sort of based off of someone I personally know and dated for a short time way way back in the day? Yeah. I know, right? The real-life guy honestly isn't too much like my character, and I wrote Brandon with a lot of J's physical attributes without even realizing I was doing it until one of my OBs (Original Bitches, abbreviated to save space) pointed it out. I was like, "I did wha—?*facepalm*" J is actually in not one, but something like three rock bands and I have had the good fortune to see him live more than once. He's also an uber-sweet guy; someone I told once that he deserves to be loved with reckless abandon, and I truly hope that he's finally found that with his new wife. But don't let knowledge of his relationship status keep you from drooling over him to the point where you have to guzzle Gatorade to rehydrate. I mean he *is* something of a rock star, and after all...that's part of the gig. ;-)

 Along with the rest of the GYP gang, you can now follow Brandon either on Facebook or on Twitter. Enjoy!

*all photos are either the property of the individual pictured, who has given me permission to use them, and/or have been copyrighted by David P. McCarter of www.heavymetaldave.net*