Please allow us to reintroduce ourselves.

Hello, our names are erica and christy. We used to live here. No, really, we did. What, you don't recognize us? erica's the tall one with long hair, christy's the short one with short hair? Not ringing any bells? Well, okay, fine. . .please allow us to reintroduce ourselves, courtesy of this blogfest.



Erica (the aforementioned tall one - see picture on the side bar for proof and please ignore that I look like I'm both drunk and tipping over. It was the 3rd day of my first writing conference, so I was a little woozy! I have no explanation for why christy looks normal. dang christy!) lives on a farm in west-central Wisconsin with her husband, two sons, three dogs, one guinea pig, and a bunch of cows. One of her sons turns 12 next month. Let's all hope they both live through the preteen years because so far it's been tough on her. She teaches Head Start and Early Childhood Special Education at the local grade school, where her youngest attends 1st grade. Oh, and she writes books that hopefully you get to read one day.

Christy lives in a house on the complete opposite side of the state as Erica. She has a husband, three sons, and a dog that doesn't get enough attention. She teaches 1st grade at a parochial school where she has her oldest son as a student in a class full of the smartest kids she's ever taught. She's a runner, which means if she only gets 2 miles in per day, she feels yucky and actually wishes it was 5 (and that it was outside - spring can't come fast enough). Oh, and she writes books that hopefully you get to read one day.

Together, erica and christy wrote aYA adventure/mystery/thriller (hmm, we should probably narrow that down) book called The Text Message. And then took many, many, many weeks (months? let's go with weeks) to edit it. THANKS again to our critique partners who looked at the first 30-60 pages for us. Now that christy's report cards are done and erica's aren't due for another month, we hope to finish the last, well, 150 pages or so of editing. You'll know when we're done because we'll be bugging you asking for someone to read the whole dang thing and tell us how wonderful it is. :)

Go ahead, click the link above and allow others to reintroduce themselves to you. But first, let us know in the comments that you stopped by so we can return the favor! Don't worry, no word/number verification system here, so it's easy-peasy! Easier then going to school on a Monday morning after an ice storm, which is what both of us (yes, on opposite sides of the state and everything!) are up to today!

2012 BOOKS IN REVIEW (2/2)

A few days ago erica shared her 2012 reads with you.  Here's my list!  (I linked the author's name to her goodreads page.)

              

chelsea fine


          

ally condie


     

becca fitzpatrick




andrea cremer



rachel morgan

 

jessica shirvington

              

cassandra clare

 

cynthia hand

  

lauren oliver


 

veronica roth



lois lowry



lisa and laura roecker



kiersten white



elana johnson

I totally thought I read waaaaaaaay more books than that.  Maybe some titles are hiding in the cobwebs of my mind.  If I get around to dusting and vaccuuming up there any time soon and uncover any, I'll be sure to let you know. 

There are some amaaaazing books to look forward to reading in 2013!  We may just share some titles and linkage with you in a feeeeeew days.

(Jeepers, are some of my vowel keeeeys sticking?)

Have a great weekend, friends!

~ a very young christy

Happy 2013!!

Yay! Bubblies!

So, 2013 will not be the year that erica and christy are published, but we still have hopes and dreams that we make progress toward being published! We've seen a few lists of who IS being published in 2013, though, and we're excited to pick up and read some of these fabulous authors. We did do some reading in 2012, but not nearly enough (is there ever such a thing?)


erica: First of all, I want to point out my husband is taking me out for New Year's Eve for the first time since the new millenium. I know, I'm OLD. Hopefully I can stay up until midnight!

Anyway, 2012 for me was "The Year of Sports" because my 11-year-old was in basketball, baseball, and football this year and my 6-year-old was in basketball, t-ball, and soccer. The older one played exactly 4 (out of what seemed like hundreds) of his various games in our home town and most of them on weekends (my husband works weekends) and I spent A LOT of time driving in the car. And no, I haven't made the switch to audiobooks yet, so my reading time was pretty restricted. Plus, you know, Christy and I WROTE A BOOK this year. So, that was big. :)

(why oh why is Blogger saving this post every 5 seconds, causing my computer to freeze up and all my words to run together and ohmygoodness a ton of typos??!! BLAH, BLOGGER!!)

I should also mention I'm cheap, so most of my purchases were Amazon Deals of the Day on my Kindle or Indie books by people I know when they had them on special or rereads of ones I own. Yes, I have an Amazon Prime membership, and yes, I know I can borrow books for free on my Kindle, but no, I never remember to actually do it! So here you go, Erica's "read in 2012" list, in no particular order, except this is the order they appear on my Goodreads bookshelf or my Kindle list. Yes, some were great. Yes, some were stinkers. No, I won't tell you which were which. :) Thanks for stopping by! (all pics link to Goodreads)

                                                                                                                                              

Hmm, it felt like a lot more. . .I did read a TON of sample pages looking for possible comps and/or to see what the hype was about and put it on my TBR (meaning get at the library or wait until it's on sale) pile, such as Gone Girl, The Fault in our Stars, and Wonder. Care to share your "best book read in 2012" in the comments - or feel free to link to your own blog if you posted a list!