Guest Post & Giveaway: Yokai by R. Weinstein

Today on the blog, I have author Rebecca Weinstein guest posting, and a giveaway for her book Yokai.

Sixteen-year-old Kit Maguire has never met her mother, made lasting friendships, or had a permanent home, and she’s always known that she was a little different from others. When Kit and her father move to Kyoto, Japan, her father insists that this time will be better, but Kit is reluctant to give it a try. The kids in Kyoto seem to be the same as everywhere else: judging her for her looks before they get to know her. She figures it’s just one more short stop that she won’t make friends, so why bother?

With the appearance of her thought-to-be-dead mother, Kit yearns to find out more about her mom, their family, and why she has the ability to conjure green fire. When a girl named Yoriko insists on becoming friends and two of the hottest guys in school vie for her attention, things get complicated. Kit learns just who she is and what she’s capable of, but with that knowledge comes the realization that she may never be able to have a relationship with Riku; as their clans are bitter enemies. Kit hopes that their love will bring the clans together and that she’ll get everything she’s ever wanted: family, friends, and a place to call home.

 Guest Post:

The Insomniac Author

Most authors feel compelled to write. It's their driving force. Usually it's during waking hours, but what happens when a story just won't leave you alone? What happens when your story is just aching to get out, when it permeates all of your thoughts? You lose a lot of sleep by writing until the story has completely bled itself out of your head. That's just what happened when I wrote my latest novel, Yokai.

It was the day before Easter Sunday, and as it normally goes, my best ideas pop into my head whilst in the shower. I'm sure some of you have heard Alec Baldwin speak on the “shower principle” of thinking on 30 Rock, right? No? Basically, it's that by putting your mind elsewhere, inspiration will follow. And that's usually the case with me. Ideas pop into my head at random times, usually when I'm doing something completely unrelated.

So into my head popped the idea of Yokai. Being a big fan of manga and anime, I had been reading a series called Black Bird, which is about tengu, or in layman's terms, birdman demons. In the series, kitsune, or fox demons, played a very minor role. So I got to thinking...couldn't I write a story where kitsune are the main act? The idea stuck. A little too much.

Two days later, I started to flesh out my story. It was spring break and I had literally NOTHING to do. My daughter was on vacation with her grandmother, so all I had to do was write and come up for food once in a while during my writing frenzy. Fingers on fire, I banged out a good 5,000 words a day during daylight hours.

But the story persisted into the wee hours, turning over and over in my mind. Often I would peek at the clock, noting two more hours had gone by, and all the while, Kit, Riku, and Daisuke were running through my thoughts. It was a very short nineteen-day writing frenzy in which I completed the book, but it was much too long to go with too little sleep. It was such a relief to wrap up the story, because then, I finally could sleep. Who knew that a story could be so pervasive?

Now that Yokai is available as an ebook exclusively from Amazon, the task familiar to many a writer begins: promotion. My promotional efforts start with blog hops and giveaways and never truly end. Promoting an author's work is often as difficult and time consuming as the actual writing process, although it's not accompanied by sleepless nights!

So many non-writers think that being a writer is a cushy job, that you get to sit back and sip margaritas next to the pool and write all day. Very few writers do just that. For most of us, it can be an agonizing labor of love, often going hand in hand with a day job. But when the final draft is shining in our arms (or on our laptops), and the reviews and emails come in, we realize that all the sleepless nights and all the chores that were left undone were totally worth it.

Sometimes, though, the story never truly leaves you alone, even when it's completed and out there for the world to read. The characters stay with you, running through your head every now and again. And sometimes, as is the case with Yokai, they bang on the inside of your skull to get out and onto the pages of that sequel. More insomnia? Bring it on.

Rebecca Weinstein lives in central New Jersey with her husband, daughter and two pesky rabbits, Cream and Double Stuf. When she isn't writing, she can be found painting, cooking, or at her day job: teacher, moderator, and coach.

More about Weinstein and her work can be found at:

http://epublishingconsortium.com/modules/profile/userinfo.php?uid=152

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0050WSCQW

http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/rweinstein




Giveaway:

One winner US only will win an e-book copy of  Yokai.

Yokai is in ebook format only, available in a .mobi for the Kindle or a .pdf for other ereaders
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