Monthly Archives: January 2011

I talk about YA fantasy, Witches of East End and Wolf Pact here.

And a bit about fashion and Blue Bloods here.

xoxo
Mel

I’ve been on a blog tour for Bloody Valentine, which has been a lot of fun!

I started over here at Bookworm Barista, talking about the book, Warning there are spoilers, so make sure you have read the book first before clicking.

At Dreaming Books, I write about the challenges of writing series.

Over at Monster Librarian, I talk about how libraries influenced my books!

I am not a Romantic, I write, for SitThereAndRead. But I sort of am since it’s a love blog to my husband. (Avert your eyes!)

Writing is Hard, it’s not for the weak, I write about the experience of writing Witches of East End, for My Pile of Books .

Enjoy!

xoxo
Mel

Thanks all for all your wonderful art, trailers and poems for the Make-up Bag Giveaway! Giveaway is closed as of today, January 26, 2011. Do not worry if you have not yet received a confirmation email, as we are still going through the pile, but our email account tells us we’ve received enough for each of the bags that we have on hand.

In other news, I am on the blog tour for Bloody Valentine starting today!

Today I’m on Blue Duck Book Reviews talking about why I wrote the stories I did. There are some spoilers in my comments, so don’t click unless you’ve already read the book! More to come…

xoxo
Mel

More of my fan art favorites from the makeup bag giveaway! It’s not really a contest since everyone who sends me a link to a drawing, a collage, a fan-made trailer, a review, a poem, or anything creative, gets a signed Blue Bloods makeup bag! Just please DO NOT SEND FAN FICTION. It is not part of the giveaway as I cannot read it. We still have a bunch of bags left so send them over! Send to my email: melissa at melissa dash delacruz dot com, subject ART CONTEST.

On to my faves!

This is a fun collage by Jessica A. I love the bleeding heart!

Another fun collage by Chelsea, I like the view of Florence and the mask! So cool!

Lauren did a rendering of the Archangel marks: Lucifer and Michael’s. They actually look pretty bad-ass here, which we could never get right on our side. Thanks Lauren!

We got a couple remixes of our covers, and this one I liked a lot from another Jessica A:

And here’s one the best manga-inspired fan art by Seosa. Pretty awesome:

All of you, not just the ones shown here, are so talented!! I’m so glad to hear this has been fun for you, it’s been very fun for me too!  Thanks for sending them in. I promise I’ll get to the poems soon. Just easier to post the art right now.

xoxo
Mel

Friends are so important for a happy life, and I am so blessed to have so many wonderful friends. I have old friends from college who remember me from my class president/club kid days, friends from the fashion and magazine world who remember me from my crazy-obsessed-fashionista-who-would-die-to-get-photographed-by-Bill-Cunningham days, mommy friends with whom I can commiserate on the difficulties of marriage and child-rearing (SO difficult! which is why you need mommy friends to complain to), and lately I have been lucky enough to have become friends with a wonderful group of writers. I’ve never had very many writer friends (outside of the journo and fashion worlds) and I’m so happy to have gotten to know the lovely ladies (and a few gents) from the YA world. What a fun, funny and supportive bunch! And whenever I get the chance to see them, I JUMP.

I’m here in San Diego for my pre-sell tour for Witches of East End. Here’s the view from my hotel of the San Diego Harbor. Loverly.

It was fun meeting everyone at ALA Midwinter conference – I can’t wait to hear what you think of the book!! And a few of my writer friends were holed up in a villa overlooking the sea.

Here they are!

L-R Kami Garcia of Beautiful Creatures fame (note headphones and cute smile!), Carrie Ryan (Zombie queen of Forest of Hands and Teeth stardom) holding up an ARC of Witches (thanks Carrie!), our fabulous den-momma Melissa Marr (who is Wicked and Lovely just like her awesome dark-faerie books), Cat Caine (sweet artist hubby to Rachel Caine) and Rachel Caine (vamp goddess of Morganville Vampire acclaim, who is in the zone in this pic, Rachel gets up at 5AM to write, she is a PRO).

Anyway, it was a fun day full of writing and gossip with friends…and tonight I get to meet some booksellers and talk up my book… and maybe make some new friends!

xoxo
Mel

The cover for Witches of East End, the first book in my paranormal series for adults, is revealed on Entertainment Weekly’s Shelf Life blog.
Go click on it to see!
Nice right?

More soon!

xoxo
Mel

First off, just heard that Bloody Valentine debuted at #4 on the New York Times Bestseller List!!!! YAY!!! Go Bloody, Go Bloody, GO, GO, GO, BLOODY. And it also hit the USA TODAY list at #666. I mean #66. Heh.

The best way to celebrate? With some fan art!

I asked, you sent. You guys rock!

Here are some great pieces so far for our make-up bag giveaway. It’s not really a contest, you create something, and we’ll send you a signed Blue Bloods makeup bag. Good deal no? Please send your entries to me at Melissa AT Melissa DASH Delacruz DOT com. (Sorry I have to put it like that, spammers abound.)

From Natalia. A drawing of Mimi. In her white dress for the Masquerade ball! Fabuloso!

From Brittney, who made an album cover for her Song Mix. I love the title!

From Caroline, another rendition of Mimi at the masked ball. Saucy!

From Tina, who did a drawing of a vampire and a sexy girl. (If that’s not Blue Bloods I don’t know what is, heh!)

From Alicia, who drew Bliss. So great!

From Maria, who drew Jack. So cute!

From Molly, who did a cool dreamcast on YouTube! I like the photoshopped photos to make the actors look more like the characters!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dl_l3e_S2Cc

From Christine, who did a nice banner, kind of like a “team flag”. Awesome!

Tomorrow, or later in the week, we’ll post the poetry! Please DO NOT SEND FAN FICTION.

Thanks all!

xoxo
Mel

Post-Holiday, Pre-Valentine’s Day, Blue Bloods giveaway!!!

So, I have 200 beautiful black patent shiny Blue Bloods makeup bags in my possession. What am I going to do with all these makeup bags?? Give them AWAY of course. To YOU. The vamperatti, the Blue Bloods faithful, the vampire elite!

The bags say “Red Blood” or “Blue Blood” or “Silver Blood” on them, and they are so handy-dandy to have in your purse to store your lipgloss, iphone, keys, whatever you need right away and don’t want to keep rooting in your large voluminous handbag for (it’s certainly helped me!) I put one in all my handbags and I put the same thing in each: sheer lipgloss, blotting papers, and Kleenex. I read about some lady who did this in a fashion magazine and it is so helpful! Now you don’t have to go around looking for your lipgloss (Is it in the leopard Lanvin? The Celine shopper? The Muse? The Birkin? Where the eff is that lipgloss?!?) 

So how do you get one of these uber-chic little things? Well, remember back in the day (2008) when we did that poetry contest for the Van Alen Legacy chapter sneaks? Yeah! That was fun! This is sort of like that, except I’m opening up to other artists, not just the poets out there. And YES we will ship internationally because why not? And also I grew up abroad and it always seems so not fun when you can’t be part of whatever is happening. And it’s so fun to hear when the books hit the bestseller lists abroad. So hello, international readers! We’re always thinking of you!

Okay. So how to win one. Oh, and I’ll sign them all. I have a silver sharpie. And yes. They look cool signed.

I just want to see some fan art, some fan poetry. No fan fiction though. Sorry, but that’s not part of the contest. Also, homemade trailers are cool.

Send a copy of your Blue Bloods inspired art project:

1) Poem.
2) Drawing. (Fan Art). Whatever. A Visual Thingy.
3) Book Trailer. You know one of those visual thingies that move. Can be a dreamcast. That’s cool.

Oh also, since this is a promotional giveaway, your entry must live online somewhere, either on your Facebook page, or blog or YouTube, or whatever. Because this is also supposed to spread the word about the books. You know, like, virally or whatever.

And we’ll choose 200 of our favorites to send a handy dandy Blue Bloods SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR makeup bag to your home!

So, when you send your entry, and it should be a LINK to your entry – since again – this has to live online somewhere. You can post it on Deviant Art or some other public site. Send your snail-mail home address. Your physical address. As in where in the world we should send your makeup bag. That is all. To my college readers: Darlings, whenever you enter one of my contests and my office tries to send you something, many of you forget to pick it up from your college mail center and it gets sent back to me. This annoys my assistants, who then have to keep sending it back to you in a never-ending loop. So please just send us your home address. Since we all know you’re too busy “studying” to pick up mail. And by studying I mean bar hopping and skipping class of course.

Send entries to me at this address: melissa at melissa dash delacruz dot com. Subject line: ART CONTEST.

Contest is open until we say it’s closed. We have 200 bags, and we’ll give em to everyone who wants one and makes us a cool art thingy or writes a cool poem.

Happy 2011!

xoxo
Mel