Thursday, April 19, 2018

Release Blitz: The Weekend Bucket List by Mia Kerick (Guest post, Excerpt + Giveaway)

WBL ReleaseTitle: The Weekend Bucket List

Author: Mia Kerick

Release Date: April 19th 2018
Genre: Young Adult, LGBT


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High school seniors Cady LaBrie and Cooper Murphy have yet to set one toe out of line—they’ve never stayed out all night or snuck into a movie, never gotten drunk or gone skinny-dipping. But they have each other, forty-eight hours before graduation, and a Weekend Bucket List.

There’s a lot riding on this one weekend, especially since Cady and Cooper have yet to admit, much less resolve, their confounding feelings for one another—feelings that prove even more difficult to discern when genial high school dropout Eli Stanley joins their epic adventure. But as the trio ticks through their bucket list, the questions they face shift toward something new: Must friendship play second fiddle to romance? Or can it be the ultimate prize?


  Find The Weekend Bucket List on Goodreads



SKINNY-DIPPING_



EXCERPT

She acts as if this was my big idea, but The Weekend Bucket List has got Cady LaBrie’s name written all over it. She’s persuasive, though—the girl has almost got me believing I came up with the idea to do everything we never did that “normal” kids do in high school, all in the forty-eight hours before graduation. We have a lot of lost time to make up for.
“These fries are so good.” Cady’s eyes are closed like she’s in goddamned ecstasy. I’m not sure why, but I look away.
“How can you eat so freaking much and stay so freaking skinny?” I ask, as Cady starts in on her second large order of french fries. And these are just appetizers.
“I’m petite, Cooper. Not skinny... and you’re skinny, too.”
I shrug and suck futilely on the straw that stands straight in my vanilla shake.
“Whatever.” It doesn’t matter how thick the shake is; I’m in no rush to suck it down. Cady’s the talker in this relationship, so all I’ve got to do is sit here and listen.


_True friendship is never serene._— Marquise de Sevigne

Guest Post



I find inspiration in quotations. A line or two, stated aloud or in print by a person celebrated for his or her accomplishments or courageous life experience, provides me with direction in my writing. Brainyquote.com is this author’s best friend. And at the risk of mixing metaphors, Pinterest is an essential instrument in my writer’s toolkit. Goodreads topic searches also engross me enough so that I forget to swallow, providing me with hours of analysis… and drooling.



Here is how I use quotations to shape my writing:

1. I start with a general topic search on the subject I plan to investigate. “Quotations about friendship.” The results are predictably overwhelming and I invest every waking hour over the next three days pouring over them. In doing so, I gain a sense of the profound value of the friendship bond and become eager to translate this into my fiction. And to go out and make some friends… because I have never been one to share my life with those outside my family.

2. I select the quotations that best express my intention in the novel I plan to write. In the case of The Weekend Bucket List, I plan to draw a comparison between the value of romantic love and platonic friendship in teen relationships. Here are the six statements I chose:
* “Rare as is true love, true friendship is rarer.” ~Jean de La Fontaine
* “Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing.” ~Elie Wiesel
* “A friend is one that knows you as you are, understands where you have been, accepts what you have become, and still, gently allows you to grow.” ~William Shakespeare
*Friends are the family you choose.” ~Jess C. Scott
*Eros will have naked bodies; Friendship naked personalities.” ~C. S. Lewis
* “Love is not only made for lovers, it is also for friends who love each other better than lovers. A real friend is very hard to find, difficult to leave and impossible to forget.” ~Anonymous


3. I conduct general research on the authors of the chosen quotations. This helps me to focus in on the life on the author, providing depth to the quotations.
According to Wikipedia, Jean De La Fontaine was a 17th C French fabulist and poet with a questionable reputation and an ability to charm, eventually admitted to the French Academy. Elie Wiesel was an American Jewish writer, professor, activist, Nobel Laureate, Holocaust survivor, and author. William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language. C.S. Lewis was, among other things, a British novelist, poet, academic, literary critic, essayist, lecturer, and Christian apologist. And Jess C. Scott, according to the Literary Underground of Wikipedia, is an author/artist/non-conformist who writes edgy, contemporary fiction. There is also the anonymous quotation to consider. These are brief summaries of their biographies, but in my research, I try to gain a sense of the speakers’ characters and goals.

I am drawn to several bio’s, which helps me focus on the quotations that will most shape my work. In the case of Weekend Bucket List, I’m most drawn to Elie Wiesel, and his quotation that places friendship on a higher plane than romantic love. However, I’m also drawn to the anonymous quotation, as it defines friendship as a better love than that of lovers. However, the meaning and significance of all the above quotations find a place in my book.



4. Now I must decide how I will use the quotations to shape my story’s plot and themes. In The Weekend Bucket List, I incorporate Elie Wiesel’s quotation into my character, Cooper’s, valedictory speech, where he attempts to send a less-than-subtle message about the high value he places on friendship to his best friend and, sometimes romantic interest, Cady. I use the anonymous quotation as the book’s front matter. But all of the quotations find their way into my story. In particular, Jess C. Scott’s statement about friends being chosen family, is my character, Eli’s, perception of Cady and Cooper.



Time for a confession: I transformed The Weekend Bucket List from its original state of a YA romance to its current, more vital version of YA fiction focusing on the magic of friendship. In my rewrite, I wanted to express a more profound bond between my characters than the original, more limited bond they experienced in a romantic relationship. I used the above quotations to become sufficiently inspired to create a captivating mood in my protagonists’ relationship. I think it worked.

Check out The Weekend Bucket List and revel in the joy of teen friendship.





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About the Author 


Mia Kerick is the mother of four exceptional children—a daughter in law school, another in dance school, a third studying at Mia’s alma mater, Boston College, and her lone son still in high school.  She writes LGBTQ romance when not editing National Honor Society essays, offering opinions on college and law school applications, helping to create dance bios, and reviewing English papers. Her husband of twenty-four years has been told by many that he has the patience of Job, but don’t ask Mia about this, as it is a sensitive subject.

MiaMia focuses her stories on emotional growth in turbulent relationships. As she has a great affinity for the tortured hero, there is, at minimum, one in each book. As a teen, Mia filled spiral-bound notebooks with tales of said tortured heroes (most of whom happened to strongly resemble lead vocalists of 1980s big-hair bands) and stuffed them under her mattress for safekeeping. She is thankful to Dreamspinner Press and Harmony Ink Press for providing alternate places to stash her stories.
Her books have won a Best YA Lesbian Rainbow Award, a Reader Views’ Book by Book Publicity Literary Award, the Jack Eadon Award for Best Book in Contemporary Drama, an Indie Fab Award, and a Royal Dragonfly Award for Cultural Diversity, among other awards.
Mia is a Progressive, a little bit too obsessed by politics, and cheers for each and every victory in the name of human rights. Her only major regret: never having taken typing or computer class in school, destining her to a life consumed with two-fingered pecking and constant prayer to the Gods of Technology.
Contact Mia at miakerick@gmail.com. Visit http://www.miakerick.com/ for updates on what is going on in Mia’s world, rants, music, parties, and pictures, and maybe even a little bit of inspiration.
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7 comments:

  1. Travel to Europe is the top thing on my bucket list.

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  2. Congrats. This sounds great. For me, going to the moon, or at least into space (I grew up during the early space program). - Purple Reader
    TheWrote [at] aol [dot] com

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  3. Thank you so much for posting xx

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  4. Thank you for the post!

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  5. I want to see the Northern Lights...

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  6. Great post. Congrats on your work both at home and in writing. I would like to go to New Zealand.

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