More Good Fun

Go see this loop of covers on The Tenners. Now permanent on the sidebar! Thanks Suzanne!

How about a review from the One ARC Tour: Pirate Penguin's Reads.

Another one? Okay. This is from Rebecca's Book Blog.

Thanks folks!

Oh, yeah, and my second round of galleys are DONE!

Tenner ARC Giveaway

Signed ARC of The Secret Year by Jennifer R. Hubbard!

Synopsis: After his secret girlfriend's death, 17-year-old Colt finds the notebook she left behind, but he is unprepared for the truths he discovers about their intense relationship.

Leave a comment on her Tenner post by Thursday.

Some of the Goodness Coming Your Way in 2010

Eventually this will be a permanent feature on my blog and website, but until then a sneak peek at the Class of 2k10 trailer.

Wanna Hear Some Good News?

Check out Tenner Buzz. Some debuts are almost here.

Thanks for the Waiting on Wednesday (WoW) Frenetic Reader!

Little Leaf #1 reviewed 3RR for school. Her comments to me: "I like Estrella" (the sister) and "I think the dad is a big tough man" and "Are Peter and Celestia going to marry?" After reading for several hours, she said when interrupted, "Rats, I was FINALLY getting to a good part where the dam breaks." Finally?!! Haha.

Well, she's not exactly the target audience. It's not a middle-grade book, but what if you have a precocious reader? I say to this to any parent---your preteen kid CAN read it and get the jist. (In fact, the readability score from my software says it has a second-grade reading level, mostly because the lines are so short (verse). But each line is not a complete thought---several make a sentence.) Where you have to use your judgement as a parent is in the sophistication of the ideas. Disowning. Chaperones. Society. My daughter's school chums tell me they can't wait to read it and I think, "Good, by the time it comes out you'll be old enough to understand it."

My galleys arrived yesterday, so it's right back to the woodshop for me.

Have You Got Your Act Together? What Are You Waiting For?

Do you ever think to yourself, What if I'd started sooner? What if I'd really gotten my act together with this writing thing when I was twenty instead of fo...something else. Where would I be now all those years later? I do think it, sometimes. I know I'm supposed to be bigger than that and say, This is my journey blah blah blah, I'm where I'm supposed to be yadda yadda.

My act was so NOT together at twenty. I'd like to say it was in scattered little pieces, awaiting assembly with one of those confounding metric IKEA allen wrenches. But, no, my act was a vapor cloud hovering somewhere over New England. This is why I'm so blown away (not my twenty-year old vapor cloud, me now) by my fellow debut writers who are college-age students. Some of them even have movie options. I just think it's pretty remarkable to write a book while pursuing an education: those two acts use really similar parts of your brain.

Other news: my WIP was launched into my editor's orbit last night. Then I promptly clicked something that sent up flares and flashing and red lights for a possible computer virus. Still wondering if I dodged that bullet or if there's something percolating behind the scenes. Then I poured hot boiling potato water all over my foot. Yeah, I know how to party. I know how to celebrate. (*edit*: I didn't see the humor in this before now: poured boiling hot potato water on myself after finishing a manuscript about post-famine Ireland. Maybe that's actually good luck.)

After being very restricted in my reading for my WIP, I'm reading for leisure again. Crossing Stones by Helen Frost---that's only semi-leisure reading because it will be in My Mom's Mock Newbery. Frost is a long-time favorite (The Braid, Diamond Willow). She has great focus and awesome ability to keep a story under control, even within the confines of very tightly controlled poetic forms.

So much emotion. The characters were so developed. And the different poems were shaped like a meandering stream for one character, and stepping stones for the others. When I read the note at the end, Frost said the stones were sonnets with interwoven rhyme schemes. And I'd missed it all because I was so involved in the story and so busy wiping my eyes. Maybe I should rate books on how many tears actually fall off my face. I'll be looking at it again, anyway, closer to Mock Newbery time. (What a cover, huh?)

Hey, You Like Stuff, Right?

You like swag: bookmarks, stickers, postcards, and other book-related goodies, etc. Who doesn't right? Well, get over to Tenners and leave a comment. Then think positively or say an incantation or do whatever you do to improve your chances.

But wait there's more! And it ain't a set of Ginsu knives (they slice, they dice, they even cut through tin cans...) There was a really fun Tenners Tell All: The Casting Call (great idea Bree). One of the most fun questions for writers is Who would play your characters in the movie version?

Another fun question, though not necessarily for writers is Who would play you in the movie of your life?

Or the one I used to ask my English 101/102 students (partly to help me tell them apart early in the semester): What famous person are you told you look like?

I'd love to hear your answers: give me something to read besides my own WIP! Even better if you have a profile pic.

Read with Your Ears

I used to say I wished I could read Braille so I could read while I drive. The library had just coughed up the latest by Louise Erdrich and it felt practically alive on the passenger seat next to me. Lucky for life and limb, and for anyone who's ever been near a highway, it eventually dawned on me that I could listen to books and have both hands on the wheel.

Still, sometimes I forget for a while.

Until I remember again. Or until I have a huge backlog of reading to catch up on. Like after a long stretch of research when I don't allow myself very much leisure reading.

I just listened to Tropical Secrets by Margarita Engle on audio. This is one of the few performed by multiple actors. Four voices. Favorite turns of phrase: "liquid hatred" and "a danceable sorrow."

And I was all unraveled by the young Daniel following the Cuban tradition of adopting an orphan with the same name. Imagine the circumstances that would make adoption by a 13-year-old child look like a viable proposition.