This wonderful promo was done for me by Black Christian Book Promo!

When I signed the contract for Up Pops the Devil in June, I was given a September 1 deadline.  I hate to confess this but I missed my deadline.  The good news is that I knew I was going to miss it so I was able to inform my agent who informed by editor who gracefully gave me a three-week extension. 

I made the September due date and submitted my manuscript via e-mail at 7:30 am on Monday, September 24.  I’ve figured out that I do better with Monday due dates, as they give me the weekend to focus totally on the manuscript.  Since I have a full-time job, this is very important. I can’t take full days during the week to work on my writing so weekends are precious.

For those of you wondering, I submit my manuscript as a single Word document with one-inch margins, using Times New Roman with a font size of 12.  As I’m writing the manuscript, I have a separate file for each chapter (Using Word’s master document feature to view/print them as a single document), but once I send it in, I consolidate the chapter files into a single file and that’s the way I work on the manuscript from that time forward.

So I turned my book in on September 24 and settled back thinking it would be around Thanksgiving before I got back a revision letter.  Now Thanksgiving is a perfect time for me because I’m out on Thanksgiving break.  Well, guess what happened?  You’ve got it. 

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I found this graphic for the 2008 Soul Expressions Author Tour that I’ll be a part of in August. You’ll notice that there are a variety of genres represented, with Up Pops the Devil and Rhythms of Grace, by one of this week’s guest bloggers, prominent in the mix. 

I hope to see you on the road so check out the dates below the image for a stop near you.

TOUR STOPS

Thursday, August 7th INDIANAPOLIS area

10am - 11:15am, Wal-Mart in Lawrence, 10735 Pendleton Pike

2pm - 3:15pm, Wal-Mart in Fishers, 8300 East 96th Street

4:45pm - 6pm, Wal-Mart in Indianapolis, 3221 West 86th Street

Friday, August 8th NORTHERN INDIANA area

10am - 11:15pm, Wal-Mart in Fort Wayne, 7502 Southtown Crossing Blvd.

2:30pm - 3:30pm, Wal-Mart in South Bend, 3701 Portage Road

5pm - 6:15pm, Wal-Mart in Hammond, 1828 165th Street

Saturday, August 9th CHICAGO area

10am - 11:30am, Wal-Mart in Country Club Hills, 4005 West 167th Street

2:30pm - 3:30pm, Wal-Mart in Joliet, 2424 W. Jefferson Street

6:30pm- 9:00pm, Free Reception, Holiday Inn in Matteson, 500 Holiday Plaza Drive CANCELLED!!

Sunday, August 10th CHICAGO area

11:00 am- noon, Wal-Mart in Crestwood, 4700 W. 135th Street

3pm - 4:00pm, Wal-Mart in Lansing, 16771 Torrence Avenue

You may want to bookmark this page for easy reference.  You can also find the dates on my Event Calendar.

If you think you’re going to make it to a stop,  please comment on this post and let me know where on the tour I should expect you.

Drum roll, please! The winners of the Another Book Giveaway contest for the the week ending Friday, July 18, are Rhonda McKnight and Jeanette Wallington. Congratulations, Ladies! Please send me mailing addresses so that I can get your books out.

Rhonda and Jeannette, I can’t believe you two won. I almost did a re-drawing (smile). Just so you know this doesn’t let either of you off the hook for buying a book when I see you in Atlanta (Rhonda) or Indiana (Jeannette). You’ll just have to buy one for a friend. I’ll make sure to bring you a special addition to go along with it. You’ll have to wait until we meet to find out what it is.

Don’t forget that the contest starts anew today. Next Friday I will give away two more books to folks to comment on blog posts between now and then.

I also gave an unplanned prize today. I got my 200th friend over at shelfari.com so I gave a free book to that lucky friend.

NOTE: For those of you wondering how I picked the winners, I used a the random number generator at http://random.org/integers/. All you do is enter the number of entrants (A) and how many winners you want to pick (B). The program then spits out (B) random numbers. I had 33 entries this week from which to pick two winners. The random number generator spit out 30 and 7 so I picked the 30th comment and the 7th comment as winners.

It’s raining books! Enjoy!

In 2006 when I signed with my agent, Natasha Kern, I was in the middle of a two-book contract with Walk Worthy Press and Warner Books (now Hatchette Book Group). With the demise of the Walk Worthy / Warner agreement in late 2006, I found myself with an agent but without a publisher.  For a while, it looked like I might be staying with Warner but by the end of the first quarter of 2007, we knew that was not going to happen.

At that point, Natasha began aggressive action to find me a new publishing home. We talked extensively about the possible paths she saw for my writing career and my personal goals for where I wanted to be. Independently, we came up with lists of publishers that we thought positioned to get me to where I wanted to be. As an agent, Natasha was knowledgeable about which editors would be most inclined to like and appreciate an “Angela Benson” story.

Natasha then went to work contacting editors. The good thing about an agent is that they can do simulatenous submissions. That means they can send a proposal to editors at multiple publishing houses at the same time (letting them know, of course) while authors submitting their own work are required to submit to one publisher and wait for an answer before submitting to another.

The feedback started flowing in pretty quickly. Natasha had conversations with the editors who expressed interest in the proposal. These conversations were crucial in learning the ideas and strategies the editors had for the book and for my career. By early May, we had accepted an offer from Carolyn Marino at HarperCollins.

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If anyone had asked me if I had any writing rituals, I would have answered with a resounding NO. I would have been lying.

As I was reflecting on how I started on Up Pops the Devil , I realized that at some point early in the process, I pulled out Donald Maas’ Writing the Breakout Novel and gave it a review. Then I realized I do this with EVERY book!

As one would expect, the book is BIG on conflct. One of the things Mass talks about is  "inherent conflict." The best examples I can give of this are the growing numbers of books set in churches, or what I call, "church fiction." Placing characters with severe moral problems and hypocrisies in a church immediately heightens the conflict. It’s one thing to have adultery, fornication, lying and deceit going on, but it’s taken to a whole other level when it’s going on among folks in a church because church is not the place you would expect to find such activity. Or most people wouldn’t. The same could be said for the "urban lit" phenomenon. If your story takes place on violent streets or in violent neighborhods, you’ve heightened its conflict. With "inherent conflict" you add to the tension of your story because of the setting you choose. John Grisham did it with his mob lawyers in The Firm.

You can do this in Christian fiction by putting your Christian characters in situations that are or seem to be at odds with their faith. In Up Pops the Devil, my protagonist, Preacher, has a jailhouse conversion. Right off the back, you begin to wonder if it’s real.

Another thing that Maas discusses is "advanced characters," or something like that. Here he talks about having characters take on multiple roles to enhance conflict. For example, the antagonist and protagonist are related or have some shared history. Or the hero and heroine come from fueding families.

I used this one a lot in Up Pops the Devil . The story is about Preacher, his sister, his fiancee’, one of his old girlfriends and a new friend. It’s one thing to become a Christian and have to deal with friends who aren’t Christians. In that case, you can cut them off. It may be difficult, but you can do it. You can’t exactly cut off your sister or your fiancee’ or doing so is much, more difficult. Because of the difficulty, the conflict/tension is heightened in the story. Then there’s Preacher’s old girlfriend. Well, it’s one thing to have to deal with her, but it’s a whole other thing if she’s married to his Christian mentor. Again, heightened conflict.

Those are just two points from the Maas book. I think it’s good reading for any writer so consider giving it a try.

Now that I’ve told you about my writing ritual, you can tell me about yours. Who’s going first?

Friday was a great day! My author copies of Up Pops the Devil arrived. It’s real, y’all. Come July 29, you should start seeing it in bookstores. Be sure to look for it.

As we lead up to official release date, I thought I’d tell you the book’s story, starting with how and when it soul on through the writing and editing process and now finally the marketing and publishing. I can do this mainly because I haven’t met an e-mail message that I could easily delete.  Therefore, I have all the email communication that i’d had with my agent and editors about this book.  I look forward to reflecting back on the process and I hope you enjoy reading my musings.

To whet your appetite for Up Pops the Devil a bit, I’ve placed an excerpt HERE .  Take a read and let me know you think.  I should have a book trailer coming soon so I’ll keep you posted on that.  Oh, yes, I may test you on the excerpt in an upcoming contest so read carefully.

Don’t forget to look for my stories of Up Pops the Devil "over the coming days.

Okay, gang, the visitor stats for this site tell one story but the number of comments on posts and pages tell another. So to get you all back in posting mode, I’m going to start another little contest. Every Friday until the release of Up Pops the Devil, I’m giving away two autographed advanced reading copies (ARCs) of Up Pops the Devil .

To enter the contest all you have to do is make a comment on a post, any post on this site, during the week leading up to the drawing. In other words, to be considered for next Friday’s drawing you have to comment between today and the time I announce the winner next Friday. The contest starts anew next Friday.

If you make multiple posts, you’ll have multiple chances to win for that week. And you’re encouraged to participate each week. If you win more than one time, you get to choose an item from my Online Store as your prize instead of another book. UPDATE: When choosing from the Online Store , you must select an item under $25. The Amazon Kindle at $359 is not a choice. I love all of you, but that’s a bit much.

You can comment on any of the blog postings on the site, regardless of how new or old they are. I have access to a list of the most recent comments so yours won’t be missed. You can also post a comment on a page. For example, you can ask a question in the Comments section of any of the pages linked from the For Writers page. Comment on what interests you. And if nothing interests you, write a comment about that and I’ll try to fix it!

Be sure to tell your friends about the contest. If your friend is a winner and mentions your name in his or her comment, then you’ll be a winner, too.

Let the commenting begin. I want to hear from you.

You all did a good job of guessing what Up Pops the Devil was about by just looking at the cover. You did so well that I had to pick THREE winners instead of two. Drum roll, please! The winners are: Areen, Vyta and Dera . Ladies, please send me your mailing addresses so I can get the books out.

For those of you who can’t remember their responses, I’ll list them here followed by the back cover copy from the book and let you be the judge.

Arean:
I think this book is about relationship problems-and the devil is the person who is causing these problems. She goes up unexpectedly, bold with no remorse for her/his interference.

Vyta:
I think the novel will be about a married man with a less than perfect past. He has been caught in infidelity in past relationships and in his current marriage but has been forgiven by his wife. Currently, a woman from his past has returned. He has always had a problem with resisting her. She walked out of his life and although he was devastated at the time, he’s is grateful because God blessed him with a wonderfully loving wife and mother to his children. This woman of his past tries to re-enter his life as a “Friend.” He allows (ignoring his conscience) her not only back into his life but into the lives of his family members. No one knows of their past together. But when he doesn’t agree to ALL of her demands, she changes and threatens to expose the truth.

Dera:
I think it is about a man who while he would do good, evil is always present, hindering his walk with God. But he refuses to fully give in; he realizes he is a work in progress and will see it to the end.

Back Cover Copy:
Two hard years in prison have changed Wilford “Preacher” Winters for the better. He did his time, now he’s going to “do the right thing.” But the women in his life have other ideas.

Tanya, the sleek and sexy mother of his two kids, is much too comfortable with her pearls-and-Porsche lifestyle, and she’ll do whatever it takes to keep it going–even use Preacher’s small sons as weapons…

His sister, Loretta, kept “the business” running smoothly while Preacher was inside, and she can’t believe he’d trade Easy Street bling for a nickel-and-dime dead-end job…

His one-time girlfriend Serena, now married to his main man Bernard, is hiding a secret–and if past sins come to light, they’ll ruin several lives and a very new, very precious friendship between Preacher and Bernard’s beautiful-inside-and-out sister, Natalie.

With his world about to explode all around him, Preacher’s going to need every ounce of his new-found faith to remain strong. Because it takes a lot to become a new man, sometimes even a miracle.

Good news!  I’ll be participating in the 2008 Soul Expressions Author Tour, where I’ll be signing copies of Up Pops the Devil.  The tour visits ten WalMart stores in the Indianapolis and Chicago areas during August 7-10.  I’ve posted the tour schedule on my Event Calendar.  I hope I get to see some of you at one or more of the events. 

The tour group consists of the following 13 authors (NOTE: I’m not sure why I’m listed as romance instead of fiction or Christian fiction):

Angela Benson, Up Pops the Devil (romance)

Beverly Jenkins, Jewel (historical romance)

Brenda Jackson, Just Deserts (romance)

Donna Hill, Chances Are (romance)

Earl Sewell, If I Were Your Boyfriend (young adult)

Geneva Holliday, Seduction (romance)

Kimberla Lawson Roby, One in a Million (fiction)

L. Divine, Drama High: Lady J (young adult)

Rochelle Alers, Taken By Storm (romance)

Seven, Gorilla Black (urban lit)

Wahida Clark, Payback is a Mutha (urban lit)

Victoria Christopher Murray, Too Little, Too Late (Christian fiction)