Wednesday, September 23, 2009

A Tweet is Worth a Thousand Screams

So, I'd like to recap today's editing by showing you my tweets from the past few hours.

sksjflsdkjfaldsjfalkdsfja...@#$@#$. 8 hours ago.

I'm physically afraid to walk away from my edits, in case I have NO idea what I'm doing when I come back. 5 hours ago.

Need an editing break. An episode of Castle seems appropriate. 4 hours ago.

Ah, hello Work. I see you waited for me. 3 hours ago.

UGH. 2 hours ago.

WHY DOES THIS SCENE INSIST ON SUCKING? 2 hours ago.

I love how I somehow think refreshing my inbox will make the scene better. 1.5 hours ago.

Have resorted to hot chocolate. Desperate times. 10 minutes ago.

Yeah. :\

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Busy Beginnings!

Hell, Fall! I'm so happy to see you. Feel free to announce yourself in Nashville with some cool weather and perhaps even some changing leaves if you feel up to it.

A few cool things to kick off Fall!

1. My friend and fellow writing team member SCOTT TRACEY got a two-book deal today with Flux!! Isn't that awesome? You better go congratulate him, AFTER you're done here.

2. I have started my edits. Yes, that was fast. Yes, I have my work seriously cut out for me, and yes, I did spend several hours wandering aimlessly around the house murmuring to myself "it will be okay." I am still murmuring. But I'm ALSO cheering on the inside, because these edits are going to make this book (hopefully) squee-worthy. Future me, the one NOT facing the edits, is squeeing.

3. I'm still working on my Q & A. I need a couple days to get my head back in the vicinity of my shoulders and then I will post the answers to all the wonderful questions that did not make the cupcake video cut.

4. I am loving this song right now. Thank you, Emily, for suggesting this. (And I am working on a NW playlist, fyi, but that also goes under the category of "Oh dear god let me where has my head gone and is it coming back??")






Friday, September 18, 2009

Friday Five: Books/Authors

So, I've read about 40 books so far this year. This Friday Five is dedicated to:

The Five Best Things I've Read This Year (more appropriately the five best AUTHORS).

1. HUNGER GAMES and CATCHING FIRE, by Suzanne Collins. Let me start by saying that I am a HUGE Collins fan. I'm essentially in awe of her ability to NEVER rely on backstory/info dumps, and to seamlessly reveal her world as needed. I love her stories, I devoured HUNGER GAMES, and then I devoured this. I won't say more about it, since many people haven't read it yet, BUT I did have a few qualms about how the book functioned on its own. THAT SAID, I still bow before this author.

1. CITY OF BONES, by Cassandra Clare. I'm a latecomer to this series, but I fell in love with the rhythm, the world, the characters. The story was exciting and flowed so smoothly I had devoured half the book without even noticing.

3. LAMENT, and SHIVER, by Maggie Stiefvater. I really, really liked LAMENT. The book passed in the blink of an eye, but I enjoyed it throughout. And I just kind of fell into SHIVER. It wrapped me up, and I loved Sam, and I loved that, like Jace in CITY OF BONES, he was fascinatingly complex. With both of Stiefvater's books, I just found myself constantly engaged. Very strong storytelling marries with interesting characters and worlds in both books.

4. GRACELING, and FIRE, by Kristin Cashore. FIRE is the prequel to GRACELING. I'm a really hard sell when it comes to the world-building kind of fantasy (NW is magical realism), but Cashore is the kind of writer who makes me eat my words. I had high hopes for FIRE after loving GRACELING, and it did not disappoint. This is one of the only books I have actually forced myself to put down regularly, so that it wouldn't end too soon.

5. CRACKED UP TO BE, and now SOME GIRLS ARE, by Courtney Summers. This book doesn't hit stores until January, but OH MY. It's spectacular. I really enjoyed Courtney's first book, CRACKED UP TO BE, but this new one is even better! If that's possible, which Courtney proves it is. It's at once brutal and uncomfortable and captivating and addictive and impeccably written. Summers' characters walk tight ropes as she balances their lives so precariously, and then does everything in her power to shake the ropes beneath their feet.


Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Cupcake Q & A!!

The time has come. The sprinkles are set, the dollop is on, and the wrapper is foil.






I only got to answer a handful of the questions , so I'll put up another post in a couple days with answers to ALL the wonderful questions! There were A LOT, and some of them just didn't fit into a short Q&A style, but I really want to answer them, so check back for that!




Monday, September 14, 2009

Cupcake Coming Soon

I'm putting up my cupcake Q&A video tomorrow!

I've got to say, you guys, I can't believe I'm actually doing this. And I'll probably say that 1232435 times in the video. I LOOK RIDICULOUS.

All for you.

In the meantime, I did my very first ever interview! It was with the lovely teenage blogger Mary, RIGHT HERE. She's an absolute sweetheart, and I was her first author interview, so give her a browse if you've got time :)

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Stunned.

I'm not going to be one of those authors that gloats, or says lookie lookie all the time, but you'll have to forgive me, because this is a first. 


This post just MADE MY LIFE. The Dreamer Reader featured me on a WoW (Waiting on Wednesday) post. My book doesn't come out until 2011, and she featured me, and she basically made me want to cry with joy. This is still such a surreal thing, to have someone besides my family/agency/editors talking about this book. It was so unexpected and wonderful...

I'm going to go smile myself to sleep now. 





Sunday, September 6, 2009

What is THE NEAR WITCH?

A few people have asked about NEAR WITCH since I mentioned the book deal, so I'm posting a rough pitch here. 

There’s an old ghost story in the town of Near. It tells of a witch that lived on the edge of the village, and gobbled up all the darkness, and sang the hills to sleep, and loved the children almost as much as the garden she kept beside her house.

Sixteen-year-old Lexi Harris, the daughter of a tracker, has heard the stories her entire life, first from her father, and then from old Magda and Marta, who might be witches themselves. Everyone loves to tell the story, but everyone knows a different ending. Some say that the Near Witch blew away on a gust of wind. Others tell of darker things. Of murders and curses and buried bones.

To Lexi, they’ve always been stories, nothing more. But when a strange and silent boy walks into the village of Near, and then the wind begins to lure children from their beds at night, she starts to wonder if there’s any truth in them. Could the Near Witch be more than a ghost story?

Some Very Nice Words for NEAR WITCH

Someone said something nice about NEAR WITCH!!

My good friend 
SUSAN ADRIAN read NW last week, and here in her blog post on worldbuilding she mentions it!

But the most recent book that knocked my socks off with worldbuilding? Sorry, peeps, but most of you can't read it yet.

It's called NEAR WITCH, and it's by my good friend Victoria Schwab. If you liked HUNGER GAMES and UGLIES, and you love to be immersed in a world so real you can breathe it? Watch for Victoria.

Go and see her full post 
HERE