Today's Guest Poster...CAITLIN KITTREDGE!

MEOW!

This week our guest poster is the lovely and talented YA/Adult UF author, Caitlin Kittredge!  For those of you who aren’t familiar with her, here’s a bit about Caitlin:

Caitlin started writing novels at age 13. Her first was a Star Wars tie-in. Fortunately, she branched out from there and after a few years trying to be a screenwriter, a comic book writer and the author of copious amounts of fanfiction, she tried to write a novel again. Her epic dark fantasy (thankfully) never saw the light of day but while she was struggling with elves and sorcerers she got the idea of writing a story about a werewolf who fought crime.
Two years and many, many drafts later, she pitched Night Life to a bevy of agents and one of them sold the series to St. Martin's. Since then she’s written a plethora of other novels, including THE ICARUS PROJECT series with Jackie Kessler; THE IRON THORN, a steampunk YA UF series, and the BLACK LONDON series.  The next volume in her YA series, THE NIGHTMARE GARDEN, was released in early February and is available NOW in print and e-book.
When not writing, Caitlin collects comic books, print books, vintage clothes, and bad habits. She loves tea, loud music, the color black (especially mixed with the color pink) and ghost stories. She can drive a stick shift, play the violin and knows more English curses than American ones.

And now…I’m turning the blog over to Caitlin!

Thanks, Rocco!

Folks, since Rocco invited me to guest post on his blog in honor of The Nightmare Garden's release, I figured I'd talk about the book a bit--and then I went on vacation for a week. Now, vacations are important for writers. We tend to be pale and solitary, insomniac and frequently overworked. The sun burns us, and we do not sparkle. For me, the concept of taking a week off from working on a novel, talking about my new book release or otherwise engaging with the publishing industry was, well, weird.

The truth was, as much fun as I have with Aoife, Cal and Dean and their steam-powered, monster -populated world, I needed a little break. Because when I came back I was so excited to get back in the groove of promoting Nightmare Garden and working on the final volume of the Iron Codex trilogy. It's nice to clear your head if you're a writer, drink tropical drinks, go outside when it isn't night time, talk to other human beings in words of more than one syllable, and generally act civilized for a while, but if you're a writer your characters will always call you back.

Aoife was happy to let me have a week off, but she made sure I knew she'd been here the whole time, waiting with all new stories to tell. And I was glad to be back, because when you're a writer you don't want to escape your characters. You may go away temporarily, but you know that your stories will always be there, waiting to welcome you home. - Caitlin

Meow, thanks for the post, Caitlin. We all hope you had a good vacation!  (I’m in the mood for one myself, having just finished MY first novel, Meow! More on that at a future date.) Check out her latest, Book 2 in the Iron Codex Series, on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Nightmare-Garden-Iron-Codex-Book/dp/0385738315/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1330426798&sr=1-1

People – Caitlin is giving away TWO hardcover copies of THE NIGHTMARE GARDEN!  To enter, leave a comment below with your email address (comments without email addys will be disqualified).  To get extra entries, the usual applies:

Tweet about this post and contest

FaceBook about this post and contest

Friend myself, the HUMAN, or Caitlin on FB 

Follow @RoccoBlogger on Twitter

Follow Caitlin on Twitter

Be sure to list all you’ve done in your comment to get extra entries!  FB’ing and Tweeting about the contest gets you double entries! Contest is open to US and International residents, and closes midnight EST March 4! Winners will be chosen using random.org and announced Monday March 5!

So what are you waiting for!  Enter NOW!

And it would appear I did not do too badly on my OSCAR predictions – so disappointed about PUSS N BOOTS!  And Michelle Williams, you really deserved to win. (Although who doesn’t like Meryl Streep – plus she needed the Oscar trilogy, heh heh heh)

Next week:   author Margarita Felices in my hotseat! Meow!