October 16, 2012

Halloween Character Booktacular w/ author Carolee Dean & giveaway!





 
 Add to GoodReads - HERE


FORGET ME NOT GHOST TOUR
Stop #6 – The Poe-Pac Mash Up

In addition to being part of the Things That Go Bump In The Night Halloween Spooktacular  this post is also STOP #6 on Carolee Dean’s FORGET ME NOT GHOST TOUR.


FORGET ME NOT is a paranormal verse novel about a young girl, Ally Cassell, who makes a rash and desperate decision after compromising photos of her are texted around Raven Valley High School. She finds herself trapped on the H-Hall as she hovers between life and death. The only way for her to get off the H-Hall is for someone to leave a door open, but even then, she must decide whether she is willing to walk through the pain that pushed her over the edge or return to the relative “safety” of the H-Hall.


In the scenes below, she visits her creative writing class as a disembodied spirit, listening and watching as her classmates talk about what happened to her.


CREATIVE WRITING CLASS


We walk in late and everyone
is working on the free write that will
consume the first ten minutes of class.


It’s a different prompt every afternoon and I
wonder what today’s subject is, because
every single person in the class
is writing furiously.


Elijah takes his seat
Ms. Lane opens a notebook
and starts writing, too.
I peak over her shoulder
to see if she’s secretly
working on a trashy romance
novel she’s planning to submit to
Harlequin, but what I see
is much more surprising.


She’s writing a letter to me.


Dear Ally, please hang in there.
Come back to us. We want to hear
the rest of your story.


My breath catches in my throat,
or what used to be my throat.
Funny how I keep thinking in
body metaphors even when I
don’t have a body.


I look around the room and realize
that they’re all writing letters to me
and my whole imaginary body begins to quiver.


LETTERS TO ALLY


I walk among my classmates and look
over their shoulders to read what they’re writing.


Dear Ally, We miss you. Please come back.


Hang in there, Ally. This too shall pass.


You can fight this, Ally, and you can win.


Ten percent of the people at this school make
all the trouble and the other ninety percent of
us don’t give a rat’s ass what they think.
—from Corwin, the girl with the Emo haircut
who draws manga figures in her writing journal.


Ally, Homegirl,  
You can beat this rap.
—from Dwayne who looks very stoned
and seems to think I’m someplace
besides the hospital.   


Dwayne walks up to Ms. Lane, points at something
hanging on the wall behind her desk and I see
my poem. “We should have known,” he tells her.


He takes my poem down from the wall
and starts to read it out loud.


DEAD RAPPER RAP by Ally Cassell


Once upon a Friday morning, almost all the class was snoring.
Our teacher left a vocab worksheet for a sub who was a bore.
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
followed by a man’s voice rapping, rapping lines I’d heard before.
“I’m Skandalouz,” the voice he muttered, rapping at the classroom door.
“Open up, or I’ll kick in this door.”


Ah, distinctly, I remember, it was a bleak day in September.
Dude told the sub he came to send her to a class on the second floor.
She grabbed her books and packed her bag, running past the man in black.
And then I saw it was 2Pac, standing at the classroom door.
“All Eyez on me,” yelled the man, standing on the cold tile floor.
“I’m your new sub, Mister Shakur.


“I’m here to wake you from your dreaming, give your simple lives some meaning.”
He smiled at us, his white teeth gleaming, then he pointed at the door.
“If you’re thinking about jetting, don’t want to get caught here abetting,
someone who’ll have you forgetting what the h--- this class is for.
If you get out now, I won’t detain you, block you, trap you, or restrain your
exit.” No one touched the door.


Ah, I see you’ve all decided to listen to your uninvited
guest get down. I must confide that I’ve got a special treat in store.
Forgive me if my words are cryptic. Guess I’m just 2Pacalyptic.
Get off your butts we’re gonna kick it, like you’ve never kicked before.”
And soon he had the whole class rapping and break dancing on the floor.
Dancing on the classroom floor.


He rolled his sleeves and there I saw it, a tattoo of a black bird on his
arm and then I heard the haunted whisper of the raven’s words:
“Keep ya heads up, no regrets, don’t know if heaven’s got a ghetto,   
But only God can judge what debt you’ll have to pay forevermore.
He don’t care if you scream and shout, ‘cause big G knows there’s no way out
Once you’ve crossed the line—you’re down, and you won’t be getting up no more.
Hope you’re open to suggestion, ‘cause there only is one question
left. I’m pretty sure you’ve guessed it. Heard it many times before.”
Ah, distinctly, I remember, it was a bleak day in September,
when I heard the raven whisper      
“What are you willing 2 Die 4?”           


THE LAST VERSE


When Dwayne says
that last line, he just stops—
dead. Then all my classmates
look at each other,
in guilt.


It’s just a poem, guys, don’t
you remember the day I
stood up in front of the class
to recite it and you all
cheered for me?


It was in September. I’d just
hooked up with Davis and
my life was perfect.
I wasn’t thinking
about dying.
I wasn’t.


You’re wrong. Don’t look
at each other that way. Like
it should have been a sign.
I was happy then.
I was.


Okay, I admit I was a little
worried about having to keep
such a big secret.
I didn’t have
anybody to talk to, but
I wasn’t desperate.


I wasn’t.
I really wasn’t.


Was I?


(from pgs. 317-323 of FORGET ME NOT by Carolee Dean copyright 2012)
Contact the author (email link- caroleedean@yahoo.com) for permission to reproduce




To find out how to win this cool 2Pac poster including the poem “Dead Rapper Rap” Visit GHOST TOUR CENTRAL (link to ghost tour page on my blog at http://caroleedeanbooks.blogspot.com/p/ghost-tour.html) where you will also find links to other stops on the tour. The contests are for U.S. and Canada residents only.


And don’t forget to watch the book trailer at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmRD2FoueqM







Don't forget... You can enter to win a Kindle & $25 Amazon GC by simply leaving a comment once a day on our Halloween post. Visit this LINK for details. 



14 comments:

  1. All three of these books sound terrific!

    Thanks for stopping by!

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  2. Very promising author. I'll have to check her out!!!

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  3. Thanks for the giveaway. I would love to read these books. Tore923@aol.com

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  4. That's really powerful - I love her already:)

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  5. wow iliek the cover of the book and then the book are getting more and more better

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  6. Loved that read! I really love 2pacalyptic. lol Thank you for participating in the blog.

    Val
    lastnerve2000 at gmail dot com

    ReplyDelete
  7. Wow -that was an interesting read. Thank you for stopping and sharing the Poe-Pac mash up!

    ReplyDelete

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