JESSICA BURKHART: July 2008

Thursday, July 31, 2008

Offical Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince Trailer

So, that's the official Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince trailer. I LOVE it! What do you guys think? It looks veeeerrry creepy and apparently, the young Voldemort is the nephew of the actor who plays adult Voldemort. Cool. Can't wait!

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Stephenie Meyer on GMA July 31

Tomorrow (Thursday, July 31) Stephenie Meyer is going to be on Good Morning America on ABC. Yay! I know she won't reveal any spoilers, but I'm definitely looking forward to it. :)

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Feelin' good!

Yesterday was one of the best days I've ever had since I started this crazy journey as a soon-to-be debut author. (That's why I'm typing in purple--it's a pretty celebration color!)

No, it wasn't a day I inked a new deal--it was actually more than that. It was a fantastic day of chats with Editor K and Agent A and I'm finally starting to feel that I can do this! I've always been reeeaaally insecure about the author gig. You know, we all have those thoughts of I'm not good enough! Eeek, my writing is horrible! Will anyone buy my book?

I know those insecurities will come and go (and will probably be amped up as my pub date approaches) but yesterday, for a full day, I felt great about how far I've come since I started writing and am looking forward to where I'm going. :) It's all a giant learning process and though I've learned a lot, there's still sooo much more!

Agreed?

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Lamar Write Site: Meet Jessica Burkhart

Special thanks to Jessica Ferguson for posting this and this!

Just a reminder--I'll be teaching an online course through Lamar University called "Writing for Teen Magazines." You do NOT have to live in Texas to take the course and it starts August 11 and runs until September 22.

For details, visit the above link! :)

And...check out this week's Entertainment Weekly (the one with Batman on the cover) because inside is writer/friend Kaleb Nation! Yay, Kaleb! :) As if you already didn't know, Kaleb is the Twilight Guy.

Friday, July 25, 2008

Missouri Writers Guild Flash Fiction Contest

Contest alert! Emily Hendricks told me about this:

The Hottest Flash Fiction Contest
$100 1st Prize

Deadline - September 15, 2008

Entry fee: $10

Word Limit 1,000 words.

First Place: $100.

Second Place Winner: $50.

Third Place $25.

For more details, visit the Missouri Writers Guild here. If you enter, good luck! :)

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Fun book meme

I’m stealing this from Sara Hantz.

The Big Read, an initiative by the National Endowment for the Arts, has estimated that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they’ve printed. How do you do?

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.

I cheated because I’m lazy and just bolded the books I’ve read and skipped the other steps. (If you see italics, they're Sara's.) Fun!

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

New TWILIGHT trailer and storm pics

The reason I missed Gossip Girl....

Did you guys see the new TWILIGHT trailer from July 17?? OMG. So. Freaking. Excited. :) It's helping to ease my insane want for BREAKING DAWN.

And those pics were from the out of nowhere storm we had yesterday. We were without power from 7:15pm to 9pm and it was kinda scary. There were insane winds and lots of rain. This tree fell on the powerline right across the street.

Monday, July 21, 2008

Another thing for me to obsess about...

I have an Amazon sales ranking! Woo hoo! Thank you to whoever pre-ordered copies. That's so sweet! :)

Not I *must* not visit that page obsessively. Ha. Right. ;)

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Gators and Emmy nominations

Last week, I blogged that there's an alligator in my tiny neighborhood lake. Well, on Friday evening, I saw him/her!! That's not my pic, but I am planning to go back to the lake this week and try to snap a pic of the gator. She (it just looks like a girl...I don't know why) is less than four feet long and has the coolest way of hovering in the water. A little girl and her dad were feeding bread to the non-existent geese and the gator appeared in the water and eyed us. I kept having Lake Placid flashbacks. Yet, I'll be going back to the lake to capture gator pics. Hopefully. And now...onto other things.

Primetime Emmy nominations!

Yay for Tina Fey's 30 Rock. Seriously. We need to reward more women in comedy. I started watching the show after it had been on air for a while and I love it. Go, Tina!

Ryan Seacrest also got a nod for best reality TV host. I <3 style="font-style: italic;">Idol takes 3 hours to tell us who won. He fills the time well, I think.

But no nod for So You Think You Can Dance?'s Cat Deeley? C'mon! She's funny and she has visible sympathy for contestants when they're in the bottom. Maybe next year...

And what about my Desperate Housewives? The show was back on track last season and Marcia Cross and Felicity Huffman were particularly outstanding. I mean, really, Felicity was going to shave her head (Eva Longoria-Parker stopped her) to better portray Lynette's cancer scenes. Talk about dedication.

Ah, my fav for last. Mr. Spader. How I love thee. I hope he wins again for Boston Legal. He's the dirtiest, funniest guy on the show and I'd love to see him nab another trophy.

What's your take on the Emmy nominations?

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Take the Reins cover proof! =)

Guess what I have in my possession? A cover proof of Take the Reins! Yep, front and back with gloss and everything. Oooh la la. Veeerrry, veeerry gorgeous. (*Waves at Jessica Sonkin*) I'm framing it.

I took a pic of myself holding the cover proof and when I'm allowed to share it, I will!

The Website design for CanterwoodCrest.com is in full swing (woo hoo!) and the new site is coming this September. It's going to be great.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Take the Reins cover is now on Amazon--yay!

The lovely cover is now on Amazon! Woo hoo! :) Another step toward January 27!

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Got a gator

I live in a suburban neighborhood. My city has 100,000+ people and it's not exactly a place to find wildlife. But there are alligator sightings at my neighborhood lake. We have beavers (I've seen 'em), snakes (obviously), fish, turtles and other usual lake-like creatures. Now, people are claiming they've seen a three foot gator in the lake.

I, of course, now have to camp out at the lake to spot said alligator. I've only seen one in the wild once when I was down in South Florida at least ten years ago. I'm considering dragging a lawn chair down there and staying until I spot it. :) So much better than Animal Planet!

Have you seen a gator or other interesting/unusual wildlife before? Share!

Monday, July 14, 2008

Posted at Teen Fiction Cafe

It's promo week at Teen Fiction Cafe!

I posted about something new and exciting that's coming soon. Head on over and say hi! :)

Friday, July 11, 2008

5 Things I'll Do If I Become a Famous Author

I was tagged by Kaleb Nation, so here goes!

Btw, I tag the Lip Gloss Lit Girls! :)

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Beach Read #2: Rites of Spring (Break) by Diana Peterfreund

This is the second pick for my best beach reads for summer! Hope you guys like my review of RITES OF SPRING (BREAK) by Diana Peterfreund. :)

I sooo need her to come up with a SSG name for me. ;)

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Reading binge

I've been reading like crazy this past weekend and now beginning of this week. When I get so wrapped up in writing, my reading time gets restricted a bit. But I've been on a little writing break, so I've been attacking the books in my gotta read pile.

First, Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Don't know WHY I didn't read this book before now. OMG, it's one of those books where I sit up and say, "Damn! I wish I'd written that!" If you haven't read it, it's fun, fantastic and one of the best boy narrated books I've ever read. I've got the second one on order now.

I've also gotten addicted to the Beacon Street Girls series by Annie Bryant. They're adorable tween books and they have this timeless feel because they aren't overly peppered with fast changing pop culture references. Love them.

Then, I read Off Season. It's even better than Dairy Queen. So. Good.

My list is still long with several Class of 2k8 books and various others. I'm getting through it, though.

Oh! I've chosen the second book in my Best Beach Reads. Video number two (to be shot soon) is... Rites of Spring (Break) by Diana Peterfreund. Yay! Look for that vlog review coming soon.

What's everyone reading right now?

Monday, July 7, 2008

Teen Fiction Cafe

I posted about WF vs. NWF (check here to see what I mean) at Teen Fiction Cafe. See you there! :)

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Pics of my writing space

First, thank you all for your kind comments about the Take the Reins cover! If you haven't seen it yet, check yesterday's blog post. :)

Today, I wanted to share pics of my summer workspace...

Note the essentials: Pens that write pink, purple and green, pencils, flash drives, 3 lip-glosses, raspberry tea and the latest issue of Creative Screenwriting.

During the fall, I do lots of writing on the back porch or in my recliner, but during the summer I like to be sandwiched between these two windows so I get lots of sun.

I don't use the keyboard on my computer because of my carpal, so I have to always have my external keyboard and mouse.

My hardy Gateway is almost on its last noisy breath. It has gotten me through three books, a zillion articles, four years of college and other random activities.

Where do you do your best work? Share a pic of your workspace on your blog! :)

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Take the Reins COVER!!!

First of all, I am SO sorry for posting three times today! BUT...my cover is up on S&S's Website, so I think I can share!!!

That's my girl Sasha and her horse Charm.

ISN'T IT BEYOND FANTASTIC?! OMG! :) I'm soooo happy to share with you guys!!

Thank you, thank you to Agent A and everyone at S&S, especially Editor K, Jessica, Russell, Karin, Monica and the rest of the crew at the shoot.I heart you guys!

View the cover at S&S here.

Beach Read #1 (Chasing Harry Winston) at Lip Gloss Lit

Mary, Suz and Mandy were nice enough to let me guest vlog over at Lip Gloss Lit with this video today. Check out their awesome blog! :)

Burkhart's Beach Reads...coming soon!

Coming soon to a screen near you. :) (Yeah, I spent waaaaaay too long making that thing, but it was fun.)

Do y'all like the new blog header, btw? I got hooked on Fireworks.