Total Book Geek: Guest Post: Favorite Quotes by Nya Jade + Giveaway

Singer-songwriter and debut author, Nya Jade, discusses three quotes from authors of books she loves.

Thank you for hosting me today and featuring my book trailer! I hope your wonderful readers enjoy watching it.

I love inspiring quotes. When designing my new website, I decided to dedicate a section to some of my favorite quotes from authors. I thought it would be fun to highlight a few of them and tell you why they spoke to me.

“We, and I think I’m speaking for many writers, don’t know what it is that sometimes comes to make our books alive. All we can do is to write dutifully and day after day, every day, giving our work the very best of what we are capable. I don’t think that we can consciously put the magic in; it doesn’t work that way. When the magic comes, it’s a gift.”

—Madeleine L’Engle, (A Wrinkle in Time)

I really savor the moment when a great idea falls into my lap. Sometimes I wish they would fall like a hail storm. But I probably wouldn't appreciate them as much if they did. There's nothing like writing and getting that oh-my-God-this-is-working feeling. And I know that feeling only registers on the "magical moment radar" because of all of the agonizing what-the-hell-am-I-doing hours that came before it. So when that gift comes, I accept it gratefully.

"The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips and spreads like wildfire."

—Malcolm Gladwell, (The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference)

Can you imagine creating something - a book, a song, a movement - that hits that magical tipping point? We're all creators. And I think we should try to imagine our own personal tipping point. I say "personal tipping point" because it doesn't have to be grand (unless that's what you want). It could simply be that moment when someone other than a friend, or a relative, buys your book or your painting. That moment could very well be the spark that creates the wildfire!

We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.

—Ernest Hemingway (A Farewell To Arms)

This quote from Hemingway has given me a sense of ease. We all strive to do the best we can with whatever talents we have. Some are innate and others are acquired along the way. The fact that a Nobel Prize winner in literature, considered himself an apprentice—and not a master—in his craft, gives me permission to just enjoy the creative process. This thing called writing is dynamic and will continue to evolve. At this moment in time, I'm grateful for the opportunity to be an apprentice.

Thank you again for today's feature. I appreciate the opportunity!

xoxo

Nya

The students of Green Lane Academy roam their halls unaware that below their manicured campus exists a prestigious school of an entirely different kind . . .

Sixteen-year-old Phoebe Pope has enrolled at the Campus Below: a spy academy for shape-shifters hidden deep beneath the grounds of a boarding school whose humans unknowingly protect it. There, thanks to a carefully planned schedule, she leads a double life: spy trainee Below and normal teenager Above.

As if two course loads, concealing a secret power she alone wields, and coping with her father’s recent death weren’t enough, Phoebe finds herself developing major feelings for actor and teen heartthrob Colten Chase, who attends the Campus Above and appears to be majoring in winning Phoebe’s heart. But when officials learn that Phoebe may be at the center of a startling prophecy, she becomes the target of shape-shifting assassins who will stop at nothing to suppress the truth.

Now Phoebe’s lessons about Shaper’s enemies and spycraft take on great importance as a menace stalks the campus, with Phoebe as its target. Meanwhile, what began as an unlikely relationship with Colten, quickly morphs into heartache when she suspects that something sinister lurks beneath this movie star’s glitter and fame. Suddenly, Phoebe’s caught in a mesh of lies, betrayals, and danger where she doesn’t know who to trust, and needs to rely on herself—and her secret power—to get to the truth and to stay alive.