Tuesday Tip...Keep Your Chin Up

Lastnight and for a brief stint this morning I was making the rounds on the Query Tracker Forum. There are some awesome people over there! Anyway I read a few of the comments from members about finding an agent and how down and frustrated the whole process can make you. They're right. It downright sucks at times.

Now I don't pretend to have all of the answers, but here is my five cents worth of advice. (Trust me that's about all it's worth!) Keep your chin up. I can't explain how it works or when, but finding your dream agent is possible! I was just about ready to give up querying my book when out of nowhere I found mine. And it happened just like you dream. You send out a query and hear back quickly...with shaking fingers you press the send button whisking your manuscript off to what you hope will be the answer to your prayers. Dream agent replies with good news and before you know it your signed!

So don't give up! Keep writing. I had been told that I don't know how many times and I didn't believe it. But I was proven wrong.

Now let's get to the really good stuff! I apologize ahead of time for the long post, but I just had to share this! I found another contest and a challenge, so read on if you're interested.

The contest...

Laura Fitzgerald has started a new blog Ink:In All Forms. Awesome title! She is hosting a kickoff contest. The prize 12 YA novels! Yep you heard me right! 12! The prize pack contains a mix of both hardcovers and ARC's. There is something for everyone in this prize pack; from paranormal romance to contemporary to dystopian.

To enter here's what you do:

Visit her blog and +1 Answer one of the questions: "Who is your favorite author?" or "What is your post-apocalyptic society survival skill?" (Or both if you like. Points will only be awarded once.)
+1 Link to her contest from your blog (provide link)
+1 Link to her contest from your Twitter or Google Buzz (provide link)

That's all you do!

And last but not least...

The Challenge

Pretty Little Liars starts tonight! I am so excited for this series.
To celebrate, I am posting this fun challenge that I managed to stumble across On Trisha's Book Blog.

The Challenge... to read all of the Pretty Little Liars series. You can not count books that you have read prior to the start of this challenge. Sept. 24, 2009. Challenge closes Dec. 31, 2010. Here are the books:
*Pretty Little Liars
*Flawless
*Perfect
*Unbelievable
*Wicked
*Killer
*Heartless (Which will be out on January 19th,2010)
*Wanted (June, 8th, 2010)

-You must have some form of a blog. You must create a blog post with links back to this post to sign up for the challenge.
-eBooks and Audio Books count.
-You can join anytime. As long as you will have time to finish all of the books.
-After creating your blog post please sign up with the Mr Linky on Trisha's blog here. Please leave the link to the actual post of this challenge. Not a link to your main blog.
-Please refer to her post at anytime and link your reviews so others can read them.
PRIZES!!! For everyone who completes this challenge, they will be entered to win all of The Pretty Little Liars books. The whole series. How awesome is that?? Sign up!
And, the author, Sara Shepard, is sending Trisha the first 4 books in the series, signed. So there will be 2 winners. One will win the whole series, the other will one the first 4 books in the series!