Happy Birthday to you, Tears of a Clown!

It took 3 months of initial writing, a reading, edits, copies to betas, more editing, another reading, another copy out for editing, more corrections made, yet another copy for MORE editing, MORE edits made, a proof copy sent, FINAL edits made and *WHEW* a book was born! Anyone who thinks this is a quick and easy process isn’t doing it right.

It’s taken time and a lot of corrections but finally Tears of a Clown is ready for reader consumption everywhere! But uhh..remember, don’t eat the clown…they taste funny! (Yeah…I groaned as I typed it too.)

For those that don’t know the story behind the story (I should make this a regular feature for authors! Think MTV’s Behind the music, but about books!), let me go into it a little. I belong to a fairly popular internet site that allows people to post weird and unusual websites with your own hilarious headlines and then everyone can comment on the stories.  There are other general chat areas of the site, places we call the “Cafe”.  The idea for Darcy came to me while I was talking with a friend on the site about the somewhat recent trend in YA lit of love triangles with plain Jane girls being the object of affection. I jokingly said “Wouldn’t it be funny if I wrote a story about that and the girl was something crazy that guys would never normally go for, like a clown?” We laughed and I came up with all these ideas like that one love interest has some weird clown kink and that’s why he’s attracted, etc. I thought it was funny but knew that I couldn’t write something that was totally ridiculous and unbelievable. Then it hit me. What if she wasn’t a circus clown but someone who wore the face makeup, like a fan of the Insane Clown Posse, a Juggalo?  I’m not a fan myself, but I did find it interesting that the Juggalos paint their faces like clowns/mimes to attend concerts. Why couldn’t my character be like that? The only twist would be that she  would be such a fan that she’d wear the makeup *EVERYDAY*. Thus, Darcy was born!

While there is certainly a lot of humor and comedy in the book, there are also lessons well learned about bullying and not judging a book by its cover.  There’s typical teenaged angst and some steamy parts as well. What’s a love triangle without some action, right? Don’t worry though, Darcy is a good enough girl that she keeps her V-Card. I don’t think I could have written a scene like that with a “clown” and been able to keep it serious.

Since we’re celebrating a birthday, there ought to be presents, right?

For the locals (US & Canada residents) I’m going to offer 1 signed ARC of Tears of a Clown and 1 signed print copy of Near Death.

For those who are international, I’ll offer a digital versions of both books and Kindlegrams (which you don’t actually need a Kindle for).

Since Rafflecopter hates WordPress.com sites, I’m going to make this super easy.  Leave a comment below stating whether you love or hate clowns and why (and an email address!). That’s it! You have until Monday July 23rd 10pm EST.  Good luck and thanks for helping me celebrate!