Big News!

Happy Saturday everyone!

   Today I'm coming to you with big news in regards to my writing. Ever since Echoes came out in August, and even before that, people have been asking me if I was planning on writing more. Will there be a sequel? Please write more. I saw it in kind messages sent to me personally, and was told about these requests and wishes being voices in reviews. 

   For weeks and weeks I didn’t have an answer, and even when I said something, it was just some vague, wishy-washy deflection along the line of ‘there’s potential but I don’t know’. The truth is, a sequel was in discussion for a while. Once Echoes came out, I started working on a synopsis and everything for what the sequel could potentially be. But things weren’t set in stone for a while, until they were.

   Three days ago the following announcement went live — 

   FISSURES, the sequel to ECHOES, is coming winter 2020!

   I know, 2020 is still a while away, but I hope the wait will be worth it. Thank you to each and every one of you kind readers who got interested in Echoes and decided to buy it, read it, and sometimes even review it. Thank you also to everyone who reached out to me on IG (@alicereedsbooks) or twitter (@Alice_Reeds) to let me know how much you enjoyed the story and fallen in love with Miles and Fiona. Your support means so much to me, and certainly helped to make the sequel happen. Thank you for giving my book a chance, and thank you to my amazing publisher, Entangled Teen, and brilliant editor, Lydia Sharp, for giving me the opportunity and support to write the sequel.

   I can't wait for you to read FISSURES, even if the wait seems long now. 

Thank you and have a lovely weekend!

So this happened...

   I didn't think I would get to write a post like this any time soon, especially not for this particular manuscript, but here we are and I am beyond excited. But, let's start at the beginning, shall we?

   As you guys know I've been writing, as in taking writing seriously and everything, since somewhere between age 17 and 18. In those past almost six years I've completed eight manuscripts ranging between 72.000 and 112.000 words across various genres. One of them was a YA manuscript that is now known as ECHOS.

   I've written ECHOS about two years ago, queried it with marginal success getting a few partials and full, but ultimately all of it led to rejections. So, in true Alice Reeds fashion, I decided to shelf this manuscript and move on to other projects. But than #PitMad rolled around sometime September 2016. I didn't plan on pitching ECHOS but a different manuscript of mine, one that ultimately landed me a spot during Pitch Wars. But, my mother who always loved ECHOS urged me to give it a shot because what's the worst that could happen? So I did. And lo and behold, I got a request from an Entangled TEEN editor and right about died.

   Of course used to rejections upon rejections I didn't promise myself too much off of this request, but I went on and submitted it. A round of revise and resubmit later, along with some help from my brilliant friend Mia Siegert (JERKBAIT), my manuscript was accepted.

*queue the happy freakout right about now*

  Basically one of my biggest dreams came true, one of my manuscripts finding a home at one of my absolute favorite publishers. It's been over a week and I still can't believe it, still find myself occasionally wondering if it actually happened.

   So, take it from someone who's been in the query trenches for years, who wrote story after story, who received rejection after rejection, who barely got any requests during pitching events on twitter: don't give up. It might be hard to keep going at times, but if you keep going, keep writing, keep fighting for your stories, you will eventually get there. Feeling shy of participating in #PitMad or similar events because you don't think you'll get any requests? Try anyways because you can never know.

   Also don't be afraid to make some friends along the way. For years I sat in the query trenches alone until I got to know Mia and Judi (who was my Pitchs Wars mentor and is now a dear friend) and somehow everything started to feel that little bit easier. I'm basically the personification of 'someone with exactly zero social skills' and social anxiety, so if I can do this, you can, too.

   If you love writing, don't give up. Maybe your first stories will suck and, looking back at them years from now you'll want to set them on fire (at least that's how I feel about a bunch of my first manuscripts) but keep going. Practice makes perfect.

   As always this post has turned into a way longer thing than I originally planned, bravo me. Basically all I want dot say is OMG MY BOOK IS GOING TO BE PUBLISHED BY ENTANGLED TEEN AND I'M FREAKING OUT but it somehow turned deeper than anticipated. 

Announcement: Blogmas 2015!

   It's almost December, a couple more hours, and that means many bloggers like me are getting ready. For what you ask? We are getting ready for the madness that is blogmas. What does that mean you ask? Well, it basically means that starting on December 1st until December 25th we will be posting stuff on a daily basis, much like vlogmas over on YouTube.
   As you guys know I've never done this before, which only makes me more excited to participate this year. I've only found out about blogmas yesterday, meaning that my brain currently trying to figure out all the things I could post about on overdrive, since I didn't have much time to prepare, but don't worry, I have lots of ideas.

   Among the things you can expect will be:

• Waiting on Wedesnday
• Cover Lust Friday
• Ask the Author
• Three or four giveaways (unfortunately the three main ones will be Germany only since the books are in German)
• A couple of reviews and possibly recommendations.

   I'm working on planning out more fun things, but if you have any suggestions as to what you'd like to see, leave a comment below (no need to log in or anything) or tweet me @Alice_Reeds.

   To kick off blogmas on December 1st I will post review for "The Awakened" by Sara Elizabeth Santana, so get excited. I hope this is going to be a fun experience and you'll enjoy it just as much as I hopefully will. And wish me luck on actually making it, 25 posts in 25 days!