LOVE the idea of this antho! When I heard about the tour, I thought, I wonder what these authors would do in a similar situation. I just had to ask & here's what they all had to say.
Be sure to check out the excerpt from headliner, L.S. Murphy's, contribution to this awesome antho!
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L.S. Murphy
I’d totally be Bill Murray in the movie Groundhog Day. Every single time I see that movie, I think “I’d do
that!” Learning an instrument, eating as much crap as I can, and read ALL the
books. Seriously, I’d go to the library and move in.
Before I did any of that though, I would spend endless days
with my daughter. We’d color. We’d bake. We’d do whatever her heart desires. I
could enjoy something every mother dreams of: more time with her child. They
grow up too fast, you know. Every moment is special.
Marissa Haverson
Groundhog day, huh? So, I’m waiting for the groundhog to
peek his head out of his burrow, and just as he has done so, everything
freezes. Time freezes.
NOOOOOO!!!! How do we
find out if it’s going to be winter or spring now? I can’t live with winter for
another second!
Okay, well, that would be what I’d be thinking. What would I
do? Well, I want spring to be on its way, of course, so....
I think it’s time to fish out my childhood fort-making
skills. I’ll grab some blankets, and some pillows, and maybe gather together
some furniture to drape it over. I’ll set all of these items up around the
groundhog, and create a protective shelter for him.
Just kidding. It’s not to protect him (although I can
pretend). It’s to protect me from winter and to encourage the arrival of
spring. When time unfreezes, there’s no way the groundhog will see his shadow.
He’s protected from the sun and I, therefore, am protected from winter!
Erika Beebe
If my life suddenly boiled down to one day and one day only,
I would freeze a typical Saturday in my life. Saturdays, first of all, are one
of my all time favorite days. I’m on a high from Friday, and I wake up to the
coffee pot brewing, slip on my fluffy slippers and shuffle out to make a cup. I
usually get a few minutes to myself before my two wee ones wake up, so I use
every minute of that time working on my writing, marketing, and staring out the
back porch window at whatever morning is lifting up across the east sky. Once
my kiddos wake up, I make breakfast, we get dressed and hustle off to the YMCA
where I teach Yoga, and boy, is it also a great way to wake up. After Yoga, we
pack picnic lunches and go to the park when it’s warm, or we take a nature walk
outside and talk about all the wonderful things we see. If it’s cold, game
time, or dance party in the living room. Sometimes we clean our rooms too. :0)
Naptime quickly follows, and I get to write for a couple of hours. Grandma and
Grandpa usually watch the kiddos in the evenings on Saturday so my husband and
I can have some down time. It is my perfect sort of day. A day of balance
between all the things I love to do, a perfect day to repeat over and over
again. Now where is my magic fairy dust to make it so?
Thank you for having me Terri.
~Erika
~Erika
Danielle Shipley
To
mind my, there’s only one thing to do upon realization that time has frozen:
Dash out in search of more magical, impossible things! What better time than a
time that defies time to uncover
portals to other dimensions, catch sight of mythical creatures, or learn to
fly? Something amazing is clearly going down – time doesn’t slam to a stop for
no reason! – so once I get over my pessimistic panic about the worst this could
possibly mean, I’m going after the best I could possibly dream.
Anna Simpson
Thank you Terri for having me here today. It means a lot.
Thank you Terri for having me here today. It means a lot.
So if I was stuck in a Groundhog
Day type of freeze, what would I do?
You know this sounded so easy when I first read the
question. But the more I thought about it the more I realized this wasn't easy
at all. What would I do? I think of Bill Murray and he learned piano, pulling a
few stunts along the way. He had to remember everything, because it all
disappeared by the next morning.
I live in a very small town. From the outside my life is
boring. In here—I'm pointing at my temple—is where all the action is. With Groundhog Day, Bill Murray stayed in one
place and woke up to a new day ready to try to win over Andie MacDowell.
I'm sorry but I have to change the rules a bit and travel to
another place. We make our own fun in a smalltownsville and every day does kind
of feel like being in a never ending time loop except for the aging part—that
never stops.
Oh, and births, death and taxes.
Point made, I think I'll move on.
So how does everyone feel about libraries? I happen to love
them, because that's where they keep all the great books. And since I'm going
to have a Groundhog Day experience I
want to wake up all excited and ready to get my read on.
But first, I need a hotel. Five star all the way because
it's Groundhog Day and I'll only have
to pay for one, or maybe two nights. Ah to be spoiled.
It will have a fitness centre so I don't dissolve into a
puddle of flab BECAUSE five star hotels have great food and I'll have to try
everything on the menu at least once.
The rest of the time I'll have my nose in a book.
I'll start in horror and work my way through the genres.
What about you? What would you do? I know! Not as easy as it
looks.
Have a great tomorrow.
Contact Links:
J. Keller Ford
Hmm, if I was stuck in a
Groundhog Day sort of scenario, what would I do for the day? That’s
difficult as there are sooo many things I want to do that can’t all be done in
a day. I know one place I would love to go back to is Neuschwanstein
Castle in Germany. I visited the palace as a child and remember it
through a child’s eyes. I’d love to see it as an adult. What would
be even cooler is if there was a way to go back in time. If there was,
I’d visit King Ludwig II. I’d sit and talk to him for hours. We’d
take a night ride in his carriage in the snow. I’d stay at the castle
when it was new and fresh, during the only eleven days he lived there.
There would be a live opera in the Singers Hall. Perhaps I could meet
Richard Wagner himself and see if he was really the devil many believed he
was. Maybe I could even be there on the day of Ludwig’s death and solve
the mystery of whether he committed suicide or if the Mad King Ludwig was murdered.
I believe it was the latter but would love to find evidence and proof.
Even as a child, I felt quite eerie near the lake where his body was found
along with his doctor’s. It was such a tragedy for a man who wanted to
escape the nuances of the world and live in his fairytale castle, away from all
the pomp and circumstance. Was he truly mad? I don’t think
so. I think he was a very lonely, misunderstood, eccentric spirit who was
simply trying to find a place to fit in. This castle is a grand escape
and one that I would love to explore over and over again.
Kimberly Kay
I’ve often reflected on how lucky it would be to end up in
that sort of situation because this would give me a LOT of time to work on my
novels and perfect them—I mean, one never ending day is as good as stepping
right out of time. However, the problem would be that all my hard editing work
would be nixed the next day. So after trying that a couple of times, I’d
slip into studying different ways to edit my work, so that when I finally
escaped the time flux, I could apply them. I’d eventually realize I could do
the same for any information that would last long term: how to get a query
letter that really shines, and researching agents or publishers that would be
likely to represent my future publication. And all this while eating A LOT of
cookies. Plus, I’d eat at expensive restaurants for every meal, since all the
money spent would simply end up in my bank account again the next day.
Heheh.
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The Purdy!
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| Click on image to add on Goodreads |
One More Day
by Erika Beebe, Marissa Halvorson, Kimberly Kay, J. Keller Ford, L.S. Murphy, Danielle E. Shipley, Anna Simpson
Release Date: December 2, 2013
Target Reader: Young Adult
Keywords: Contemporary Romance, Fantasy, Fiction, Romantic, Science Fiction, Urban Fantasy
What if today never ends?
What if everything about life—everything anyone hoped to be, to do, to experience—never happens?
Whether sitting in a chair, driving down the road, in surgery, jumping off a cliff or flying … that’s where you’d be … forever.
Unless …
In One More Day, Erika Beebe, Marissa Halvorson, Kimberly Kay, J. Keller Ford, Danielle E. Shipley and Anna Simpson join L.S. Murphy to give us their twists, surprising us with answers to two big questions, all from the perspective of characters under the age of eighteen.
How do we restart time?
How do we make everything go back to normal?
The answers, in whatever the world—human, alien, medieval, fantasy or fairytale—could,maybe, happen today.
Right now.
What would you do if this happened … to you?
What if everything about life—everything anyone hoped to be, to do, to experience—never happens?
Whether sitting in a chair, driving down the road, in surgery, jumping off a cliff or flying … that’s where you’d be … forever.
Unless …
In One More Day, Erika Beebe, Marissa Halvorson, Kimberly Kay, J. Keller Ford, Danielle E. Shipley and Anna Simpson join L.S. Murphy to give us their twists, surprising us with answers to two big questions, all from the perspective of characters under the age of eighteen.
How do we restart time?
How do we make everything go back to normal?
The answers, in whatever the world—human, alien, medieval, fantasy or fairytale—could,maybe, happen today.
Right now.
What would you do if this happened … to you?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Excerpt from “The 13th Month” by L.S. Murphy coming
soon in ONE MORE DAY!
“Stop being a douche,
Jackie. This end of the world crap is nothing but a load of … well, crap. Get
over it.” I snatched our shared laptop from my little brother and closed the
lid, not bothering to check out the site he’d become fixated on during the last
hour. Jackie’s conspiracy theories were a constant pain in my ass.
“Give it back, Nixon.”
He whined, reaching across my body as I shoved the ancient computer behind my
back. “This one’s real. I’m telling you; it’s gonna to happen.”
“Just like you said
Rapture was real, right? Or the Mayan prophecy of December twenty-first in
two-thousand twelve?” I shoved his thirteen-year-old body away from me. “Guess
what, dipshit? Twenty-twelve has come and gone with the world still spinning.
Get outta here so I can chat with my girl.”
Jackie stood, brushing
invisible dirt of his green plaid shorts. In a few years, he’d either be
modeling or coming out of the closet. I swore my brother got all the looks in
the family—Mom’s California blonde hair, Dad’s bright blue eyes, and
at least two inches
taller than I was.
Me? I inherited Dad’s
brown hair that curled if it got too long and Mom’s brown eyes the color of dry
dirt. In other words, boring.
“One of these days,
you’ll believe me,” Jackie said, his voice deeper than normal. His eyes
sparkled like ice held up to a light bulb. “The end is coming. Everything will
stop. And there’s nothing you can do to prevent it.”
“Dude, did you forget
your Zoloft, or something? What’s with the voice?” I fell onto my twin bed,
wishing for the millionth time I had my own room. The computer lay across my
thighs, warming the
denim beneath it.
Flipping me the bird,
Jackie left the room and slammed our door behind him, rattling the windows from
the force. The little shit must’ve started lifting weights. I glanced over to
his half of the room but saw no sign that my brother had suddenly decided to
add to his martial arts workout. Instead, his side was spotless, with a
perfectly made bed, organized desk, laid-out clothes, and his lined-up tae kwon
do ribbons. Jackie switched disciplines when he was seven, while I stuck with
karate. I would’ve quit, but girls thought it was sexy. Laura included.
My shit was less than
perfect. A box shoved into the closet hid my wrinkled karate ribbons. Homework
and textbooks littered my desk. Even our matching blue plaid comforters were
opposites—mine faded and wrinkled, his smooth and bright like the day Mom
bought it.
Shaking my head, I
opened the laptop and typed in the password. Laura was far more important than
worrying about what was up little bro’s butt. Especially since we had big plans
that night. Her parents would be out ringing in twenty-fourteen at some hotel
soiree, leaving the house to us. Alone. Six years of crushing on her and six
months of dating her were leading to what I hoped would be the best night of my
life.
About
L.S. Murphy:
L.S. Murphy lives in the Greater St. Louis area where she watches
Cardinals baseball, reads every book she can find, and weaves tales for teens
and adults. When not doing all of the above, she tends to The Bean (aka her
daughter), her husband and a menagerie of pets. She is the author of romance
novellas A Reason to Stay and Neighbors. Her debut novel Reaper, a YA paranormal romance, is now
available.
She is
a member of Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) and the St. Louis
Writer’s Guild.
