It's official. Nina is in the library! If you live anywhere near a New Castle County Library you can look up my book and sign it out. :D Pretty cool huh? I will eventually bring in my camera and be a total nerd and take a picture of my book on the shelf. :D *bounce, bounce, bounce*

There's a short interview of me here http://www.gabriellefaust.com/archives/362 enjoy!!

So I didn't buy a new laptop I was going to get the Sony Viao that was on sale...even though I wanted the Pink Sony Viao more than anyone could ever know. But Kurt said that he might get it for me for my birthday. So we'll see what happens. 

Hopefully I'll save enough money to pay for half of it up front and put the rest of it on the Best Buy credit card. Maybe...sigh. 

Another magical thing that happened...I signed up for World of Warcraft. Just to play a little with Kurt. I'm planning on playing an hour every other day or so. So far it's interesting. I can't get used to the controls and that type of stuff. I'm a child of Nintendo and Playstation. I like to have a controller in my hands I'm not good at using the arrow and space keys...too weird. 

On other news I had a chat at Rites of Romance Reviews Yahoo Group and people actually showed up. It was nice to talk to people about my novel Nina and share excerpts and the covers of my upcoming novels and that type of stuff. I ran a contest for a free pdf file version of the book. I think I'll post the same thing on here. Like a raffle or something. I'll have to think of a good question though. ;)

Current word count for Under the Moonlight : 57906

Alright people, I have to go have lunch and head off to work.

 

Hey Everyone:

I finally have some copies of my novel Nina. So if anyone is interested in getting a personalized and signed copy send me an email at lizdejesus23@yahoo.com . The book is $12.99. Shipping and Handling will be included.

Here's a blurb:

Nina is the moving story of a work of art that comes to life and of how she affects the lives of those around her. After several miscarriages, Rachel Ramirez, a brilliant but tragic artist, secludes herself and begins a series of paintings based on her lost child, naming each painting 'Nina'. One of them (the title character) comes to life inside her canvas. She is able to see and hear the world around her. Even though Nina has innate wisdom, there are still many things that she doesn't understand. When Rachel commits suicide, Nina is thrown into the confusing world, and her painting is passed around to others. But as Nina progresses from Rachel's mother to a buyer named Anna, she keeps learning, and eventually is able to leave her canvas and enter the world. She meets Elijah (mostly in dreams or inside her canvas), who acts as her guide, and tells her of her fate. She has one year to decide whether to join the rest of the world, beginning life anew, or to remain a painting forever.

And here are some of the reviews Nina has recieved since it's release:

Many religions believe that the soul exists before birth. What if your soul was created, but you were not born? Nina, the desperately desired daugther of her mother, was left exactly in that predicament. Yet her mother's death leads to the events that lead to Nina's spiritual - and literal - birth into our world.
A child painted by her mother's brush grows into a rich character whose descriptions of the world are as broad and detailed as a painter's own work.
"Nina" is a brief excursion into how the universe may make right what goes wrong. 

Tamara Wilhite Author of Humanity's Edge

Liz DeJesus has captured a true essence with her debut novel, Nina. Not only is it compelling and makes you turn the page every step of the way, the story is told masterfully.
I'm very skeptical about debuts, but not about this one.
This story is of a woman longing to live a life, striving to be her own person, and with that, Liz captured a truly remarkable story.
I would be on the lookout for her for many, many years to come.
Nina is fantastic, heart-pounding and truly amazing. 

--Joseph McGee, author of In the Wake of the Night, Phil's Place, and Snow Hill (June 2008)

Nina is an enchanting novel, poles apart, superb and striking. The voice of mystery is up and running from the beginning. The story never let's go as it paint's a picture of love and anonymity. A fantasy like no other. What better to ask from an author of the genre? 

Eric Enck ~ Author of The Reckoning

 

Here's a short excerpt of an interview I did with Leigh Dragoon 

ldragoon

Q - First off, I have to ask - how did you come up with the idea for Nina?! It's such a wonderful concept, which immediately snagged my attention.

It started by reading about Vincent Van Gogh’s life. I’ve always been fascinated by him and his art. Some people believe that he was schizophrenic and I agree. But the more I read about him the more I wondered…or daydreamed, what if he wasn’t crazy? What if his paintings were talking to him?

Then I got into a whole different set of questions. What is life about? Is it worth living? If so why? What makes us real?

Then I started wondering how I would react if a painting started talking to me. What if I could tell the story of what this painting was seeing? Being moved from place to place, from person to person. What if she wanted to be real? What if she had a year to live life and decide whether or not she wanted to live? Would she choose life? Or seclusion inside a canvas for all eternity?

Q - I've seen you mention that Nina was originally intended to be a short story. At what point did the dawning horror of the realization: "Oh my gawdess, it wants to be NOVEL!" strike you?

At first I was terrified of the idea of turning Nina into a novel, because when I wrote the first twenty-something pages I had no idea where to go from there. The story was supposed to end with the artist committing suicide. But characters have a certain way of talking to you while you’re sleeping. So Nina ‘talked’ to me a lot in my dreams. That’s why in some parts of the book it feels almost as though you’ve stepped into a hazy dream. And that’s basically how Nina turned into a novel.

Read the rest here http://byzarium.com/interview_liz_dejesus


 

I finally got my copies of Nina in the mail along with a whole bunch of other books from Blu Phi'er. I've been having fun stacking my books every way possible. :D :D I took some pictures. I'll probably spend the afternoon stacking my books and pretend they're building blocks or something. LOL *Bounce bounce bounce* I am so happy.

Hey Everyone:

Today has turned into the best friggin' day ever! Successful booksigning and now a great review for my book. I'm sorry, but I can't stop smiling. *face permanently glued to a giant smile*

*dance dance dance*

Shon Bacon http://www.myspace.com/chicklitgurrl from Sister Divas Magazine interviewed me and wrote a spectacular review of Nina. :D

http://www.sisterdivasmagazine.net/media-ldejesus.html

29,865 / 60,000 (49.8%)

Under the Moonlight



moarfunny pictures 

Okay...today was awesome!!! I had more strange people than friends stop by my table and asked about my novel Nina. :D :D :D :D Sold almost half of what the store ordered.





Lizzie in action! Judo chop!

  

Read the rest here

Love, as they say, makes the world go ‘round. This is the basic message of all romances, and as long as there is truth in it, it doesn’t grow stale. (The use of Spanish endearments, especially Rachel’s reference to adult Nina as her “preciosa,” helps make that message work for me.)

This e-novel is easy to read and hard to forget.

Review by Lizardlez

Note: Nina is available in print. It's not an e-book.

"Finally, I'm finished." A deep feminine voice said.

Opening my eyes, I saw my creator for the first time. Her short brown hair was pulled into a loose pony tail and she wore old, comfortable-looking overalls that were paint splattered in a rainbow of hues and colors. She stood in front of the canvas with her arms crossed over her chest examining me; trying to detect any flaw that didn't meet her standards of perfection.

The purple in the background is perfect. The black/brown in her hair matches the other paintings. Bone structure resembles mine. These thoughts belonged to my creator. There were other things in there too, like lyrics to songs from her childhood, Spanish phrases, a grocery list, and memories of her father. They slowly swam along my mind and became one with the rest of me. I could feel as her memories connected with everything in my being.

            I gazed at her face and her body. I began mimicking her movements. They were small gestures. A hand on her hip, tapping her index finger against her lips or the way she arched her eyebrow. I let out a light giggle as I tilted my head to the side the way she tilted hers.

            She was the first person to see me. I knew the depths of her soul just as she knew mine. Her chestnut eyes twinkled when she smiled at me. She was my creator. Looking around I found that my vision was limited to the four walls of her studio. At the other end was a tiny, square window that was close to the ceiling. There was a neatly stacked pile of blank canvases on a corner of the room. There were three easels, all of them covered in paint. A rust colored couch was beside me with a coffee table in front of it.

The top of the table was covered in magazines. Underneath the tiny window were several shelves with dirty jars full of brushes and tubes of paint. It made me happy to see the paint. There was always potential hidden inside the tubes of color.

The sound of footsteps came from up above. It startled me. I took a few steps further inside my canvas and waited for the noise to stop. Carefully I peeked at the person who was making the loud noises.

            I saw that it was a man who walked into the room. He wrapped his arms around my creator. She turned to him and brushed a kiss across his lips and then turned back to me to continue her appraisal. I came to the conclusion that they couldn’t see me moving inside the canvas. I allowed myself to relax a little.

            "Wow," the man said when he saw me.

He stood in front of me, hand on chin. "I can see why you spend more time down here than you do upstairs, Rachel." He took a step towards me and reached out to try and touch my face. I drew my face back slowly. I feared that he would smear my paint, therefore ruining my face. Luckily, Rachel slapped his wrist.

            "You silly ass," she said to him, "Don't touch, the paint is still wet."

            "Oh...yeah. Sorry," he said as he took a step away from me.

I felt myself sigh with relief as I watched him leave. I didn’t like him.

            "You need a name, my sweet," Rachel said as she sat on the blue gray floor in front of me, her brow furrowing.

I was quite entertained because she had a bit of black paint on the left side of her forehead and some light blue on the other side and as she frowned these two colors met each other in the middle of her face ever so slightly.

            "La Nena. La Nena preciosa,"she said.

The Girl. The Precious Girl. That’s what she was saying in Spanish.

            "Nina. You are my girl, aren't you? At least you would be if you were real," she let out a heavy sigh, her voice sad as she spoke. "Since I can't have children the only thing I can do is paint what I imagine they would look like if I had them," Rachel walked away, leaving me to my thoughts.

I spent the next few minutes looking around the studio. There were dozens of paintings and all of them were different versions of me. From left to right there were portraits of me as a newborn child, a toddler, me at six, and so on. I realized that I was the latest in the series. I looked at the other versions and came to the conclusion that I'm pretty or at least as pretty as I can be in a two dimensional sort of way. I have brown hair just like Rachel's, but my eyes are not like her brown ones. No, my eyes are almond shaped, larger than Rachel's and dark green. My lips are full, but not overly large. In every painting there is a different color chosen for background. In one, there was a light pink, in another deep purple, looking about myself in my current version, I was standing in a royal purple room wearing a simple outfit of white blouse with black pants.      

            I took a bit of pigment from my hair and drew myself a bed and an armoire and from the purple on the wall and white from my shirt I created a lilac color. This is the color I chose for my sheets. I sat down on my bed and thought for a moment and tried to think of what else was missing. What else did I need? I drew a chair and a window. Now all I needed was a good view. But what kind of view does one choose when all you have ever seen is the inside of an artist's studio?

© Liz DeJesus

I had originally started writing Nina with the intention of it being a short story, roughly ten pages. But no matter what I did the character refused to stay silent (for those of you that are writers you know what I’m talking about). The story continued to grow.

I had no outline, the only thing that I had was an ending. I had to do everything possible in order to get Nina to that point. It didn’t always make sense but for some unknown reason it worked. But basically all I did for nine months was write this story. I wrote at work. I would then come home and put all my notes in the computer. Seriously, I would even write in my sleep sometimes.

Dreams. Questions. Songs. Shapes in clouds. Sighs. Things people say. Laughter. Facial expressions. Catching a person crying when they think no one is watching. Life.

Anything can trigger an idea for a story. I pay attention to my surroundings and I never EVER go anywhere without my notebook and a good pen.

I like notebooks and gel pens. Especially new pens, I don’t know why. For some reason I like to believe that each pen is filled with inspiration and new ideas.

"Finally, I'm finished." A deep feminine voice said. Opening my eyes, I saw my creator for the first time. Her short brown hair was pulled into a loose pony tail and she wore old, comfortable-looking overalls that were paint splattered in a rainbow of hues and colors. She stood in front of the canvas with her arms crossed over her chest examining me; trying to detect any flaw that didn't meet her standards of perfection.

The purple in the background is perfect. The black/brown in her hair matches the other paintings. Bone structure resembles mine. These thoughts belonged to my creator. There were other things in there too, like lyrics to songs from her childhood, Spanish phrases, a grocery list, and memories of her father. They slowly swam along my mind and became one with the rest of me. I could feel as her memories connected with everything in my being.

I gazed at her face and her body. I began mimicking her movements. They were small gestures. A hand on her hip, tapping her index finger against her lips or the way she arched her eyebrow. I let out a light giggle as I tilted my head to the side the way she tilted hers.

She was the first person to see me. I knew the depths of her soul just as she knew mine. Her chestnut eyes twinkled when she smiled at me. She was my creator. Looking around I found that my vision was limited to the four walls of her studio. At the other end was a tiny, square window that was close to the ceiling. There was a neatly stacked pile of blank canvases on a corner of the room. There were three easels, all of them covered in paint. A rust colored couch was beside me with a coffee table in front of it. The top of the table was covered in magazines. Underneath the tiny window were several shelves with dirty jars full of brushes and tubes of paint. It made me happy to see the paint. There was always potential hidden inside the tubes of color.

The sound of footsteps came from up above. It startled me. I took a few steps further inside my canvas and waited for the noise to stop. Carefully I peeked at the person who was making the loud noises.

I saw that it was a man who walked into the room. He wrapped his arms around my creator. She turned to him and brushed a kiss across his lips and then turned back to me to continue her appraisal. I came to the conclusion that they couldn’t see me moving inside the canvas. I allowed myself to relax a little.

"Wow," the man said when he saw me. He stood in front of me, hand on chin. "I can see why you spend more time down here than you do upstairs, Rachel." He took a step towards me and reached out to try and touch my face. I drew my face back slowly. I feared that he would smear my paint, therefore ruining my face. Luckily, Rachel slapped his wrist.

"You silly ass," she said to him, "Don't touch, the paint is still wet."

"Oh...yeah. Sorry," he said as he took a step away from me. I felt myself sigh with relief as I watched him leave. I didn’t like him.

"You need a name, my sweet," Rachel said as she sat on the blue gray floor in front of me, her brow furrowing. I was quite entertained because she had a bit of black paint on the left side of her forehead and some light blue on the other side and as she frowned these two colors met each other in the middle of her face ever so slightly.

"La Nena. La Nena preciosa,"she said. The Girl. The Precious Girl. That’s what she was saying in Spanish.

"Nina. You are my girl, aren't you? At least you would be if you were real," she let out a heavy sigh, her voice sad as she spoke. "Since I can't have children the only thing I can do is paint what I imagine they would look like if I had them," Rachel walked away, leaving me to my thoughts.

I spent the next few minutes looking around the studio. There were dozens of paintings and all of them were different versions of me. From left to right there were portraits of me as a newborn child, a toddler, me at six, and so on. I realized that I was the latest in the series. I looked at the other versions and came to the conclusion that I'm pretty or at least as pretty as I can be in a two dimensional sort of way. I have brown hair just like Rachel's, but my eyes are not like her brown ones. No, my eyes are almond shaped, larger than Rachel's and dark green. My lips are full, but not overly large. In every painting there is a different color chosen for background. In one, there was a light pink, in another deep purple, looking about myself in my current version, I was standing in a royal purple room wearing a simple outfit of white blouse with black pants.

I took a bit of pigment from my hair and drew myself a bed and an armoire and from the purple on the wall and white from my shirt I created a lilac color. This is the color I chose for my sheets. I sat down on my bed and thought for a moment and tried to think of what else was missing. What else did I need? I drew a chair and a window. Now all I needed was a good view. But what kind of view does one choose when all you have ever seen is the inside of an artist's studio?

© Liz DeJesus