LDStorymakers conference--fun, fun, fun without the T-Bird

Granted, I know it makes for a boring blog to just go on and on about how much fun a writing conference was--but I can't help it. I'm a writer and therefore live a boring and solitary life until I go to conferences. Then I not only get to hang out with other writing adicts, but I get to be around people who actually think I'm cool.

It's such a nice change from hanging out with my children, who rarely think I'm cool.

So here are some pictures of me with other cool people. Try to pretend like you're interested, because that's the polite thing to do.

Here I am with James Dashner, whose book Maze Runner is Random House's lead book for the fall. His publisher is sending him on a book tour where he'll be given VIP treatment, the works. After he becomes Stephenie-Meyer-famous, I'm going to use this picture on my Christmas cards to make other people jealous. Some My Fair Godmother readers may notice that his name popped up in the book. (James still hasn't read my book though. Thanks, James. Next time I use your name for a character he will be turned into a toad in chapter four.)

Here I am with ANWA founder, Marsha. She rocks!

Okay, here are more pictures of me.

This is me with James, Jeff Savage, and Rob Wells. I'm in the middle of reading Jeff's book Farworld right now (unless you happen to be my editor, in which case I'm not reading anything at all; I'm working diligently on my revisions for Faking It.) So far Farworld is great. Jeff is the master of the cliff-hanger chapter ending. Plus he's an all around wonderful guy and has an incredible wife. I want her to come live in Arizona and work for me.

Rob is a crack up. He did a presentation of how the LDStorymakers came to be and I laughed until I cried. I would put his phone number on my speed dial so I could call him at random times and make him tell me jokes, but unfortunately the restraining order forbids that sort of thing.

This is Jennifer Savage and Annette Lyon. I'm just guessing, but I think Annette may have been up late working on her presentation.

Here is a more alert Annette with Elodia Strain and me. Elodia made my day by telling me she loved my books and then laughed when she realized I'm Sierra St. James too, because she's also a fan of those books. Elodia clearly has great taste in literature.

Here I am with the amazing Kerry Blair. Kerry walks on water. Seriously. Kerry's only failing is that she hangs out with Jeff, Rob, and few other malcontents on the Six Writers and a Frog, blog. Maybe it's just me, but I've always found that frog annoying. Sadly, it mysteriously disappeared from the conference table. Don't worry frog bloggers, I'm sure a ransom note will show up soon.

Stupid things celebrities say

I've finally started doing the revisions on Faking It. One of the things the bow-tied one wants is for my celebrity diva, Kari Hale, to say more stupid things. Believe it or not, it's actually hard to come up with stupid dialogue so I googled some real celebrity quotes for inspiration.

Here are a list of my favorites as reported by other blogs: (And we all know you can't get more reliable news from random celebrity bloggers)

Brooke Shields - "Smoking kills. If you're killed, you've lost a very important part of your life." (Glad to see that tuition to Princeton wasn't wasted.)

Britney Spears - "I get to go to lots of overseas places, like Canada." (Well, some people consider Lake Superior a sea . . .)

Christina Aguilera - "So, where's the Cannes Film Festival being held this year?" (I think they keep the location the same every year so blond celebrities can find it.)

Mariah Carey - "Whenever I watch TV and see those poor starving kids all over the world, I can't help but cry. I mean I'd love to be skinny like that, but not with all those flies and death and stuff." (Mariah has obviously been talking to Brooke about death.)

Pretty bad, eh? Personally I think the politicians are worse.

"Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the lowest crime rates in the country." - Marion Barry, Mayor of Washington, DC. (I'll stay in Arizona, thanks.)

"I haven't committed a crime. What I did was fail to comply with the law."
- David Dinkins, New York City Mayor, answering accusations that he failed to pay his taxes. (And the thing is, I bet he paid his publicist a lot of money to come up with that answer.)

"I'm not going to have some reporters pawing through our papers. We are the president." - Hillary Clinton commenting on the release of subpoenaed documents. (Come to think of it, my editor uses the royal 'we' too . . . coincidence?)

And even after all of that, I still can't think of a stupid line for my character. It's something she should say in a library to a guy she's trying to pick up. Any of you with celebrity or political aspirations--comment away!

And for those of you attending the LDStorymakers conference this weekend--see you soon!

Taxes--even Robin Hood isn't spared

Paying taxes as a writer is a hassle (all those expenses and mileage to keep track of)and also really painful. Taxes don't get taken out of royalty statements, advances, or school visit payments, so there's always a big chunk to pay at the end of the year.

Never fun. When you have to pay the check, it becomes real money not just numbers on a paycheck.

Luckily my husband, Techno Bob, patiently pours over the tax code--which by the way is so thick it could be used as a step stool. Also it's written in legalize a language about as coherent as computer code.

But at least the good folks at the IRS have a sense of humor. I mean they had to be joking when they defined income to report.

They wrote--and this is a direct quote: "If you steal property, you must report its fair market value in your income in the year you steal it unless in the same year, you return it to its rightful owner."


Do you suppose a lot of criminals are going, "Oh, Dang I guess I have to report those stolen cars after all . . ."

Sorry Robin Hood, but you owe a lot of taxes.

Project Book Babe

Where do I start about Project Book Babe? I would have blogged about this earlier, but for the last few days my computer joined my children’s labor union—meaning it only worked when it wanted to, which was about three minutes a day.

Project Book Babe actually started the night before when Stephenie Meyer, Shannon Hale, Laini Taylor and I went over to Jon Lewis’s house where his lovely wife fed us dinner and made us feel at home while we signed roughly a gajillion posters.

Laini shares an editor with me: the illustrious bow-tied one.
Here she is posing with My Fair Godmother. Maybe it's just me, but I think there’s a striking likeness to Chrissy.

The next day we went early to Marcos De Niza High to practice our fab dance number where James Owen would be singing Baby Baby I Love You, by Aretha Franklin. Shannon had sent us backup dancer instructions earlier, which my six-year-old and I practiced faithfully.

Unfortunately the band was practicing on stage plus we found out that we had not in fact signed all of the posters and there was another bajillion waiting for us.

So we had to go on stage and do the song without ever practicing it. As you can see I came up with a gold sequined top to wear because I am just that cool.

Despite not having practiced together, the dance number went pretty well. Okay, there was a moment when Brandon Mull thought we were doing our free dance portion of the song, and we had to tell him that no, actually we weren’t to that part of the song yet, but that sort of thing adds to the ambiance of our free spirits.


Next we did the author panel. Since we were running behind we were told beforehand at our author pow wow

(and yes this is what our pow wow looked like from underneath) that we shouldn’t all answer every question and that in fact we should only speak if we had something smart or funny to say.

Luckily we are all very smart and witty people so it went well.(Here we are clearly being smart as opposed to witty.) And the audience laughed at all the right places which goes to show you that we have brilliant fans. (Okay, they were mostly Stephenie’s fans, but they were still brilliant!) They were also very generous when it came to the auction items and we raised lots of money for or dear friend, Faith, and breast cancer. Faith is the lovely lady in blue.

Here is P.J. Haarsma with Dean Lowery modeling one of the auction items, Stephenie’s Eclipse Prom dress.

Didn’t have a chance to come? You can still bid on some cool items at ebay under project book babe.
Next we did a story activity where we let the audience choose the title of a story—they chose Stephenie’s dress-- and then we went down a line and gave a one sentence to add to the story. Yeah, it was bizarre but funny and just goes to show you why there aren’t a lot of books by ten authors.

Anyway, I have to say that all the authors there were wonderful and I was so glad to have a chance to hang out with them all. (And I haven't gotten all my pictures off of my camera so I will add a few more to this.)

Project Book Babe is Saturday, April 4th

Just a reminder that all the hot vampires and ultra cool werewolves will be at

Marcos de Niza High School Auditorium,
6000 S. Lakeshore Dr.,Tempe, AZ 85283
from 2:00-5:00

Stephenie Meyer will be auctioning off her Twilight prom dress and if you can go by some Twi-moms blogs, it looks like the competition will be fierce.

I've offered to auction off my prom dress as well, but somehow the project organizers don't seem to be thrilled with this suggestion.

Ah well, it's all for a good cause.

Hope to see you there!