New!

So much NEW to tell you about!!!

Did you see my NEW website? I'm still working out the kinks but it sure looks awesome, no?

Aaaand NEW editions of Game Plan and Aptitude!!! Aptitude is now available :D Did you see the NEW deets to the cover? I love love love it. And when you open it up and re-read Aptitude, you'll find my favourite NEW touch, the notes Aubin and Hessa write are shown in their own handwriting! I'm absolutely tickled purple about that.

Game Plan will be re-released soooooon! I have my expert designer making the inside look awesome and then the cover will be done.

And that's not all that's NEW... Februrary brings out a NEW release! Take These Broken Wings will fly on February 28th! Of course there'll be a GoodReads Giveaway! Seems like a good way to weather the end of winter.

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Second Edition

Happy Birthday to Aptitude!!!

And to celebrate a first birthday, every girl needs a new outfit, right?

Can you spot the difference?

How 'bout a closer look?

Emma Dolan is such an artist - I made a suggestion to update the cover for this second edition and she made it perfect! 

I'm tying up loose ends and the Second Editions of Aptitude and Game Plan will be out soon, available online and from me. I'm so excited to see them in 'real life' again :)

N

Quill & Quire Part Deux

So now that the print magazine has been out for a bit they've posted the review of Aptitude online!

Reading it makes me smile :)

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Quill & Quire? No way!

I'm learning there are certain events that act to legitimize this effort of mine to carve an existence as A Writer (capital A, capital W). Typing "The End", signing on with a publisher, working with an editor that is not MS Word Spelling & Grammar check, seeing the cover (still my favourite), holding a real book, finding it in the library or bookstore, hearing a review outside the obligatory readers (family and friends)... so last week I got to check another off my list. Aptitude was chosen as the Editor's Choice and reviewed in The Quill & Quire!

The review will go online after a few weeks, but I've got my hardcopy to stare at now :) The editor, Dory Cerny, spent the first half of the review setting the story up and explaining some of the background, then she jumped into the fun stuff — her opinion of the story! She used words like "complex", "delightful", "lustre" and "vividly" and finished the review by saying: "Sampson's dystopian tale is a multi-layered and thought-provoking examination of the concepts of free will, duty and what it means to truly love someone." She got it.

I'm getting there...

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Time Flies

Good morning!

How is it already August 24?

Bad news: School starts in just over a week.
Good news: Aptitude comes out in less than a month!!!

Can you believe it?

Today is about editing my story that is coming out in February - can't wait to share it with you. It seems like such a long time away but here we are a month away from Aptitude's release and *that* used to be worlds away so I'm sure it won't take long.

Don't forget Aptitude is available for preorder, and if you show the Fierce peeps your receipt you can be entered to win an Aptitude-minded prize package.

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Cover!

I've been AWOL I realize, lots of summer events - a week writing in PEI, two weeks not writing in Toronto, a week home with a new furry baby who comes with all the baggage expected with a soul who has had his trust broken over and over.

Lots has happened in the meantime!

Here's the biggest one:

Isn't it awesome???

Aptitude comes out NEXT MONTH!!!  Jo Treggiari, who wrote Ashes,Ashes said this:

"Akin to the haunting subtleties of Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, and Lowry's The Giver, Natalie Corbett Sampson delivers in Aptitude, a richly-imagined dystopian world which seems scarily all to plausible."

It's available for preorder right now! And if you do preorder it you can enter a contest with Fierce Ink Press for a super cool prize. Check it out HERE.

Now, back to editing :) Vacation time is over.

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Reluctant Post

It's Friday. I typically post here on Mondays and Fridays, so pattern suggests I should post something.

But posting something will bump other posts down, so the last post - Monday's - won't be at the top. Move on. Move past. It brings out my inner toddler - I want to kick my feet and scream 'don't wanna!'

I've had four nights of uninterrupted sleep. No trips outside, no requests for a snack, a water top up, no restless 'I-don't-know-what-I-want' wanderings. I'd rather be tired. I poured my cereal this morning without being stared at. Or barked at. Without having to explain that cereal is for people and you've already been fed. It's a lab thing.

And I'll be able to sit in my chair all morning and get stuff done without getting up a hundred times to  open doors, fill water bowls, move beds, scratch ears. I'm sure I'll get lots done, right? If I can turn off my heart.

In the weird world of timing and coincidence my task today is to work on my new story. Both Aptitude (September release with FIP) and Henry (Indie release in February) are back to editors to be spruced up so I'm free to move on. Move on.

Sure. I'll get right on that.

N

Glimpse of a Cover

Monday I talked about how art and writing are two forms of the same force, that the process of making something imagined into something real is intoxicating.

Yesterday I experienced the other side of the coin - I had the opportunity to see the suggested comps for the cover of Aptitude!

When we started the design for Game Plan there was a lot of discussion about what would be a good idea for the cover. I had input too. So when I saw the suggested covers, they were layouts developed from the ideas we had discussed - nothing surprising, nothing new. Don't get me wrong, it was very very cool, but the designs were developed in part from my suggestions and interpretations of the story.

I haven't been involved in any planning for the cover of Aptitude. Two comps were sent to me yesterday. They were both so amazing... it was incredible to see how someone else interpreted MY story. One seems to be the favourite... That cover is a piece of art and is absolutely perfect for my story. I can't wait to share it! Here's a hint - it looks nothing like this one :D

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Voices in my head

Aptitude is off to the editors at Fierce which makes me incredibly nervous... I'm actually *more* nervous on a second round edit than the first. The first time around, the editor can chalk it up to, "well, she's just a bit of a moron" as they mark up my errors and make obvious suggestions for improvement that I never though of... but the second time around I have no excuse - they've already  made the suggestions, all I have to do is make the changes. So what if I don't make the changes enough, or make enough changes, or make them in the right way? So I tend to picture my editor glaring and muttering about how s/he already gave me the tools to fix that and thinking I'm some diva maverick writer who ignores reason and experience to do it my own way.

Anyway, those aren't the voices.

My task this week is to work on differentiating the voices in Henry - four different characters need four distinct voices. This goal has been the primary focus since the first draft and yes, I've heard editors' thoughts saying 'They still sound the same!' The problem is, they all came from MY head. They all sound the same because in many ways they all sound like ME. Every character I've written has been an extension, an example of me. Ella was me as a high schooler, Kat was me as an adoptive mom. I don't get the voices whispering to me like other people seem to... And this time it's been a very academic, technical approach to separating them out. Amputations. Poor editors.

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News!!!

Did you see my news? Didja didja didja???

I've known for a bit and let me tell you sitting on it was very prickly.

Sooo, ICYMI (I like that one), my second novel will be out September 22!!! Guys, I LOVE this story - it might be my favourite, but then again, they're all my favourite at some point - like the kids, it depends on who did the dishes last.

Here's a bit about it: It's called Aptitude... maybe. It's set in the future where work and careers have driven and defined lives (sounds frighteningly familiar?). A Quantifier, someone trained in math and numbers, is just at the start of her dreams with her Quantifier match and her job and her allotted house... and then she meets a poet. It's a love story about different kinds of love, of choices, of figuring out who you're supposed to be, and why... it's about words and the power of creativity... The manuscript has been acquired by Fierce Ink Press - the lovely publishing house that brought Game Plan to reality. There are new peeps working there now with some changes since Game Plan was wrapped and I'm thrilled to get to work and get to know them as we work through Aptitude (or whatever it ends up being called but not sure I can actually call it something else now b/c that's just what I think of it as...)

I'm giddy!

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