Darlene's Book Nook: Spotlight Saturday: Guest Post and Giveaway with Ruthanne Reid, author of The Sundered

Saturday, November 24, 2012

Spotlight Saturday: Guest Post and Giveaway with Ruthanne Reid, author of The Sundered

Hi, everyone!

Welcome to another edition of Spotlight Saturday at Darlene's Book Nook, where we feature authors and their books!

We will be joined today by Rutheanne Reid.

About Ruthanne:

Ruthanne Reid was raised in the woods, but fortunately her isolation was offset by regular visits to New York City. She was a professional musician for years before realizing she wanted to tell stories rather than sing them.

Ruthanne has lived on both US coasts (she prefers the West one), is distantly related to royalty, and has sung in a thousand-year-old cathedral. Her favorite authors tend to be dramatic (J. R. R. Tolkien, Neil Gaiman, Patrick Rothfuss), but she doesn’t see this as a bad thing.

Writing in and around Seattle, she owns dust-covered degrees in music and religion, and is generally considered dangerous around household electronics. She belongs to a husband, a housemate, and two cats, respectively.

The Sundered is her first novel.

CONNECT ONLINE WITH RUTHANNE:

Blog | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

Welcome to Darlene's Book Nook, Ruthanne!

Ruthanne has written a guest post, so I will now turn the floor over to her!

Don’t be Afraid to Try

by Ruthanne Reid

People talk all the time about hope.

We all hope for something. Everyone has an image in their head of what “should” be, whether that’s what we feel we deserve, or just desperately want. Well, there’s a secret to hope: without action to back it up, it’s useless.

There’s another way of saying it: faith without works is dead. If you have hope in something, if you really want things to get better, you have to act on it.

Fear of Failure

I know all too well about this fear. It gripped me for years, preventing me from trying, because I was sure that if I did, my very best try would produce crap. I wasn’t sure I’d fail. I was sure I’d be mediocre.

Ooh, that’s a shivery-bad word, isn’t it? Mediocre. Forgettable. Another word for worthless.

Here’s the thing. You’re only going to be mediocre if you stop trying.

It’s true. We human beings never, ever stay the same way. We get worse, or we get better – nothing just holds steady without change. This is crucial to how you live life. If something you do is mediocre, or even craptastic, keep working at it… and it will change.

Even a terrible cook can get better.

A writer who can’t write will write better if he or she keeps writing. (Ursula Le Guin took 22 years to get published. Rudyard Kipling was told he didn’t know how to use the English language. Mary Higgins Clark, when she first started writing, was told this from publishers: “We found the heroine as boring as her husband did.” Ouch.)

Anyone can improve at the thing they’re doing – if they are willing to keep trying. Want a healthier planet? Recycle, and teach people around you to do the same. Want better education? Read, let your kids see you reading, and read to them. Want a different government? Vote. Run for office. Do something.

It’s interesting that one of the things we like about characters in books is they’re not just moved by the plot. They actually change it, taking actions that affect the world around them.

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

Mark Twain said that. Clever guy. He had it right.

Be the hero of your story. Your life reflects your choices. What you do matters – always – because everything you do shapes who you are. Hope, and act on it. You’ll never regret that choice.

Thanks so much for joining us today, Ruthanne!

Four lucky winners will win copies of Ruthanne's debut novel, The Sundered.

Grand Prize: Paperback copy (worldwide)

3 Runner-up Prizes: Digital copies (worldwide)

One world, flooded by deadly water. Two species, humans and their broken slaves. Something has to change - and when it does, someone is going extinct.

Harry knows the way things are can't continue. The world is flooded with water that kills on contact. The only sources for food and shelter are Sundered Ones, weird and powerful creatures telepathically bound to human masters. But using Sundered Ones kills them, and there aren't any more in the wild.

Somewhere in that flood, a strange device called the Hope of Humanity might have the power to fix everything, but finding it isn't so easy. Terrorists think it can control the world. Others think it's a Sundered weapon, and want to blow it up - and the Sundered Ones want it really badly, which just might mean it's dangerous.

Harry has to find it first, or he'll have no options. He has to find it first, and if he does, he'll have to decide: who will survive, human or Sundered? The world can't support them both. One way or another, in this flooded world, Hope has a price.

Buy Links:

eBook

Paperback

To enter the giveaway, you must complete the Rafflecopter entry form below.

This giveaway is open worldwide until 12:00 AM CST on December 1, 2012.

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1 comment:

UnknownDecember 7, 2012 at 6:46 PM
Woohoo, I got the eBook! I'm about to start reading it now and I just had to search for this post and thank you again. Thanks Ruthanne! Thanks Darlene! May you both have a wonderful holiday!
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