The stages of a blog tour...

If I start to sound a little brief and distracted on the blog in the next week, it's because I'm actually promoting two books this month-- Freckles and Summer Lessons. 

That being said, I am currently writing blogs in the morning for my blog tours, and then writing in the evening for Nanowrimo.

So, yeah.

I'm desperately afraid of running out of things to say...

So tomorrow is Kermit Flail-- yayayayayayay!!!-- and right now?

I've got the five stages of a blog tour...

Cause I'm at stage three.

Stage 1--Denial: Blog tour? I don't have no stinking blog tour! There are politics to worry about and kids to shuttle to soccer and oh yeah, I'm trying to write/edit/freak out about this book I"m working on, and who has time for a blog tour. Besides, it's not due for--*checks phone *-- another two days.

Stage 2--Ideas: That's it. I'm going to have to write fifteen posts of teeny tiny excerpts, because dude. I'm not that interesting. People are tired of my bullshit. And I don't have anything interesting to say. What am I going to talk about--I already wrote the book! I mean, I spent a month or so, writing the damned book. I mean, it wasn't, you know, like I spent a month completely immersed in this world, and Carter and Sandy or Mason and Terry didn't dominate my thoughts, my conversations, my waking dreams until I was quoting them and thinking like them and bursting into illogical laughter over nothing because I imagined something they would say...

Yeah. Okay.  I might have a few ideas.


Stage 3--The actual writing: Bring me chocolate, caffeine, and takeout. The diet can wait, the heart problem's just a theory, and dammit, I've got shit to do.

Oh! And pull out your old college and high school style guides to expository essays, because essentially, you are writing a personal expository essay--complete with thesis statement and conclusion leading to your book--every time you write a blog post.

Unless you get clever, and then, remember that everything you want to do from a top-ten list to a character interview to improv beat poetry via the internet has some sort of precedent and some rules to help it go smoothly.

Stage 4--Organization: I have to admit--sometimes, I just have to send the whole package to one person and say, "Uh, hereyago!"  But sometimes I have to send it to all the different bloggers myself. I know, I know, for some of you, it's like, "But, you just send them one at a time, what's the difference?"

For me, it's a nightmare of talking to myself while sticking my tongue out from between my pursed lips as I regard my word program and my e-mail like foreign entities that have taken over my computer. I don't even have any tips for this but, "Make a list, check it twice, and cross your fingers to hope for the best."

There you go.

The end.

And finally, Stage 5:  Check every blog for replies for at least three days and comment back at least once on each blog.

Okay--I had a lot of grandmas and I'm telling you--that whole etiquette thing goes a long way in correcting the fact that you wrote these blogs at four a.m. while pounding ibuprofen after aggravating a chronic blog injury. (Yes, these are a thing--shoulder splangs and calf cramps abound from hunching over your computer for hours at a time.)

Be nice. Thank the nice bloggers for hosting you. Thank the nice people for showing up and, hopefully laughing, crying, or somehow responding to what amounts to a series of personal expository essays you wrote so they'd think you were an interesting person and would buy your book.

-  -  -

So there you go.

The five stages of a blog tour.

I'm on Stage 3. 

BRING ON THE COFFEE, PEEPS, I'M GETTING THIS SHIT DONE!