Are you ready to join the hunt for THE HUNT!

Not just one, but two chances to win an ARC for THE HUNT.


The first giveaway is from St. Martin's Press. They're giving away 50 ARCs in their sweepstakes. Enter before February 6, 2012, for your shot at an ARC.

The second giveaway is from Goodreads.com. The giveaway runs until February 29, 2012, and they're giving away 100 ARCs.

Good hunting, y'all!

A new cover for THE HUNT!

I've got some news! The awesome team at St. Martin's has given The Hunt cover a facelift! The new, rejigged cover conveys a stronger sense of action and, in my humble opinion, totally rocks! The ARCs (want one? Ask!) will retain the original cover, but the hardcover coming out in May will be graced with this new design. Behold the makeover:

On writing Book Two of a trilogy

The Hunt Book 2 (still untitled) was emailed to my agent today. She'll take a look at it, offer her thoughts, I'll work on it some more before sending it to my editor. Sometime later, the editorial letter will arrive, more changes will be made, more edit notes will follow that, and the back and forth will continue a few more rounds.

In other words, I'm months away from being completely done.

Still, I feel a huge sense of achievement. Hundreds of days, thousands of hours later, after much hair-pulling, frustration, elation, writing blocks, breakthroughs, revelations, I have at last reached a very significant milestone. It may not be the FINISH LINE, but it is a finish of sorts. And so I celebrated tonight with some cold sake.

(Sadly, the Barnes & Noble store where I did a lot of my writing did not live to see the publication of The Hunt II, or even The Hunt, for that matter. Two weeks ago, it closed down. [Cue violin music]).

I started writing Book 2 with quite a bit of trepidation. Caragh M. O'Brien, author of the Birthmarked series, blogged about her experience, and it appears to be an almost universal truth that Book 2 of a trilogy pwns you. It's hard. Way harder than writing Book One.

You can get caught in a rut, a pressurized-rut with a ticking clock. It can bog you down, sap away your joy for writing, siphon away you creative juices until writing becomes a chore and a burden and a contractual obligation and a cubicle job.

There's some really great advice out there for authors tackling the second book of a trilogy. Unfortunately, there's no one-size-fits-all elixir to the challenges and difficulties, and so you'll still need to find your own way. For myself, I came up with a simple test - a single word, really - that helped me stay on (or get back on) the right path: enjoyment. Was I enjoying the process of writing Book Two? Because if I was not enjoying writing Book Two, there was little chance anyone was going to enjoy reading it.

And so: whenever I lost my way, all I had to do was pull back and wonder what path got my heart pumping faster, my brain synapses firing away. In short, what made writing feel like a creative process and not a duplicative or reductive or even deductive process. A simple enough methodology, but one, I think, which did wonders for me. Book Two became more than just another book to write, more than merely a spillover of goodies from Book One, or the table setter for Book Three.

And I guess that's why they call it creative writing. (cue Elton John).

UK cover for THE HUNT and promo material

My editor at Simon & Schuster UK sent me some promotion materials for The Hunt that will be going out soon. It includes the UK book cover, blurbs, and details about a "kick-ass" marketing and publicity campaign. It looks absolutely stunning (both the cover and promo materials) and I can't even begin to express my gratitude for the terrific job the whole S&S UK's team is doing.

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How do you like the UK cover? It's rather different from the US cover; I like the different take, how it wonderfully captures a more immediate sense of the book. Looking at the UK and US covers side by side, I feel like a father to fraternal twins, beaming with pride and joy over both.

The Hunt cover!

I'm so happy to be able to show you the cover for The Hunt. St. Martin's Press and James Porto did an amazing job, and I'm beyond ecstatic over the end product. Here it is:

I've heard horror stories of authors detesting their cover, and of being given zero input by their publisher. So not true in my case. In fact, just the opposite. I love this cover!

And, let it be known, St. Martin's Press (especially my editor, Rose Hilliard) has been incredible. Every step of the way, they were gracious to ask for my (and my awesome agent, Catherine Drayton's) input, even down to selecting the models. The cover has undergone quite a few iterations (perhaps I'll blog about it in detail in the future) and the amazing Design team kept outdoing themselves each step of the way. I think the end result is wonderful. The mood of the cover fits perfectly with the book. I think it's a very unique YA cover with definite crossover appeal.

What's especially neat is the full wraparound dust jacket design (below). The color synchrony between the front and back covers is so pleasing to the eye, and captures such a vital essence of the book. And as for the absence of people on the back? - also a key aspect of the book. My editor tells me that the back cover is going to be blinged with the very generous and kind blurbs I've received from Richelle Mead, Alyson Noel, Becca Fitzpatrick, and Andrea Cremer. Can't wait to see that.

So...what do you think?

cover, music, etc.

As is pretty clear (from the author's printed name, etc.), none of these are the cover for my The Hunt. I was just curious and checked out other The Hunt book covers on Amazon.These are some of the results (turns out The Hunt is quite a popular title!).

Anyway, as I alluded to in my previous post, I'm this close to being able to reveal the cover to my The Hunt. So to my five faithful followers (alliteration!) not in the Fukuda clan, I'll reward your loyalty to my site by allowing you to be the first in the world to view it. Honestly, I can't wait to show it since I think the St. Martin's Press team and James Porto (that's my teaser reveal) have done an amazing job. Maybe in the next fortnight?


Moving on.

Things have been going well on the first draft of The Hunt Book II. I'm going to have to do a lot of chiseling and honing because right now, it's pretty War-and-Peace lengthy. But unlike many authors, I enjoy the arduous task of revising/rewriting because that's the stage in the process for me where my novels always seem to come into their own.

Hmm... hopefully, I didn't just jinx myself.

Anyway, this got me thinking about something. More than I expected, music has been a crucial component in writing book two. The reason: I've done the bulk of my writing in cafes and coffee shops, and have needed music to drown out the ancillary noise (which is often not so ancillary). Babbling gossipers, loudmouth biz dudes, babies crying, even mah jong players are often jockeying for my ear drums. So, with much thanks to Spotify, I've been listening to great music as I write, mostly film soundtracks, Gungor and The National.

Music has helped so much, it seems almost unfair, like taking writing steroids or that drug in the movie Limitless. There are some scenes (mostly action or romantic) which have been enhanced and stimulated and heightened by the music to the nth degree. One day, perhaps readers will have the option to play author-selected music alongside certain scenes. Definitely doable on the Kindle or Nook or whatever ereader has overtaken the market by that point.

If you've seen Warrior (one of the best films of the year), you'll know how the last scene in the wrestling cage was so poignantly rendered by the song About Today by The National. The scene would simply be a whole other scene, less powerful, if this unexpected song hadn't played when it did. You can get a taste of how a song can affect the whole tone of a scene - and movie - by checking out this clip (see below). It features the same song (About Today by The National) that is played in the aforesaid final wrestling scene. Anyway, this got me wondering if one day e-books might not come with an option to play author-chosen music for certain scenes. And if they did, would that dilute/violate or enhance/improve the reading experience?

random thoughts

I'm plunged deep into writing Book 2 right now, so my thoughts are a little scattered, but . ..

• I'm really excited that my short story, lost, will be included in the Tomo Anthology, a forthcoming benefit anthology of short fiction set in or related to Japan for readers ages 12 and up. Proceeds from the sale of Tomo will support teens affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011. It's such an honor to be included in this anthology, and a real blessing to be able to use my talents to help, if even in the smallest of ways.
• It's been a really terrific two weeks, book cover-wise. Both my US publisher (St. Martin's Press) and my UK publisher (Simon & Schuster) have sent me their respective covers for The Hunt. They're both very different, but incredible and awesome in their own ways. Both covers still need to be tweaked, and last-minute brush-ups are still being undertaken, but I can't wait to be able to show you in the near future. I've read so many horror stories of authors hating their covers, so I was a little worried. I shouldn't have been; I think both are terrific.
• I saw the film Warrior this past Friday. I was really blown away by the intelligent filmmaking and acting. Although sometimes almost slipping into the maudlin, it stayed true to its vision. The last few minutes of the film, including that tap, were heart-wrenching.

And that's it for now. More later . . .