Book Update--the marketing department strikes again

Does it seem like my latest book is taking forever to come out, or is that just the effect of me wading through 1,200 revision comments? And by the way, that number is not an exaggeration. I showed fellow writer, Kristy, my first two drafts (435 comments and 407 comments) and she said, “Wow, I thought you made up those numbers on your blog for the comedic effect.”

I wish.

Anyway, now the title has gone through the revision process. Marketing wasn’t thrilled by Faking It. They changed it to My Secret Life as a Pop Star. I wasn’t thrilled by that title. I felt that calling the book that name would make everyone remember the title as: Yes I’m Trying to Cash in on the Hannah Montana Phenomena.

The Bowed-Tied One and I had several conversations about this in which he told me that I was wrong. Very wrong.

Luckily, the title has changed once again. I’ll pretend it was because of my input and not because someone in marketing decided a shorter title would fit on the cover better.

It is now . . . drum roll please . . . My Double Life

I like it.

The Bow Tied One also sent me some cover mock ups that are being test run with the sales people. I'll put them up as soon as Technology Bob converts them into files that my computer will recognize.

I suspected as much

The good folks over at the institute of We Have Too Much Time On Our Hands have done a study on word usage. Specifically which words we use the most in the English language. The number one word is no surprise--I've already used it four times in this blog--it's the ever popular, totally unassuming, cute as a button: THE.

But the second word may surprise those of you who aren't writers. As for we writers--yeah, we know it's number two on the list, we're always trying to pull this pesky fellow out of our prose. It's sort of a weed word. It pops up when you're not looking. It has already shown up seven times in this blog and will assuradly score much higher than that before I'm done typing. (*Ping* Now we're up to ten times.)

It's the ever present To Be verb with all of its tag-along little brothers: is, was, are, am, and were. I just went through my manuscript and plucked quite a few off the pages. But never fear all you Hamlet lovers (To be or not to be) there are still plenty to go around.

I also have to go through pulling out THATs and JUSTs. I sprinkle JUSTs through my stories like they were chocolate chips. This time I also noticed a lot of gazes. As in: His gaze ran over me. His gaze zeroed in on me. His gaze flickered to my eyes.

His gaze obvioulsy is very busy and athletic to boot (running, zeroing, flickering--it makes me tired just to think about it.) His gaze most likely does pushups in its spare time.

Oh well, it's on to the next draft.

How are you at blond jokes?

The bow-tied one and I are having a disagreement. This is usual for the revision process. We have many disagreements, generally because he does not see nor appreciate my artistic genius. (At least that is what I keep telling him.)

The latest thing is a blond joke problem. Here is the situation: (SPOILER ALERT--this next part contains some of the plot for my next book, which will be aptly named: Yes, I Stole This Idea From Hannah Montana. Okay, that is actually not the title--that is just what I'm afraid people will think when they see the book, but I digress. If you're one of those people who doesn't want to know about the plot before you read the book, don't read on.)

Alexia, the main character is secretly a double for famous rock star, Kari Kingsley. She is even lip-synching some concerts while Kari is busy with other things. Kari Kingsley is half Latina but has dyed her hair blond and also has been known to say some stupid things to the press. During the course of the story, the press thinks that Kari is cheating on her boyfriend, soap star Micheal Jung, because they see what appears to be Kari out with another rock star, Grant Delray.

Kari can't fess up that she has a double and so when a cameraman catches up with her and asks if she is dating both Micheal and Grant, she answers, "Not at the same time."

A couple pages later I say:

The entertainment shows gave Kari's botched dating explanation a lot of play time. the late night shows commented on it too. They said things like: "Well, who would have thought it--it looks like Kari Kingsley is a natural blond after all."

The bow-tied one wrote that he didn't get this joke. (By the way, he is blond, so that might have something to do with it.)

So my question is: Did you get the blond joke and if not, can you think of a better one to use?

Muchas gracias

One more reason to wish you were Barbie

Forget the fact that even at 50 Barbie looks great. Forget the dream house, convertible, and an endless supply of evening gowns (and apparently somewhere to wear them all). Even forget Ken, her always smiling, six-pack abs boyfriend.

This is why your really want to be the doll.


In case you can't read the numbers. This is Parade's issue of what people make. In between a math teacher who makes 66,000 and a public housing analyst who makes 65,000 Barbie makes 3.3 billion a year.

I noticed that Parade didn't report on any writer's salaries. That's probably for the best. No need to disillusion people about our glamorous lives . . .

Teen Writing Classes

For any of you teens out there who are interested in taking some writing classes—you’re in luck. Or at least you’re in luck if you live near Tempe Arizona, because that’s where I’ll be teaching.

The classes will be held at Changing Hands Bookstore
6428 S McClintock Dr
Tempe, AZ 85283
480-730-0205
McClintock at Guadalupe

TEEN EVENT: WORKSHOP: WRITING THE NOVEL 4-5:30pm
Do you have a great idea for a novel? How do you get started? In this five part workshop, Janette Rallison, author of more than 10 middle school and teen novels including My Fair Godmother and Just One Wish, discusses the building blocks of novel writing. Learn how to outline the plot, produce chapters, and build the story that turns your idea into a page turner.

When: Mondays and Wednesdays July 1, 6, 8, 13, 15 from 4-5:30pm. Cost: $75 for five sessions. Registration and pre-payment required at 480.730.0205.

the BYU writers conference--it rocked!

The writing conference at BYU was great this year. There’s just no other way to put this: Writers are cool people. They’re fun to hang around with, they’re fun to teach. And I’m not just saying that because several of my students gave me chocolate (thanks guys!) and tried to set up my single daughter. (Extra credit for Ally and Erin!)

I taught the romance class this year—perhaps because I kept trying to insert romances into all of my students’ novels last year. It was great. Here you can see we were totally getting into the romance theme.


And here again we’re trying to personify the perfect romantic heroine. All of us are murmuring Ben Barnes name at this point. He made an appearance in Stacey’s manuscript and just hung around the class after that.


Here I am, probably pondering my old nemesis: to be verbs.


My lovely assistant, Heather, saw from my blog that I’ve always wanted Mattel to make a Barbie doll out of one of my characters. So Heather created a Chrysanthemum Everstar doll for me. Is that cool, or what?


Now I'm back home, wearing my pajamas while I write and trying to convince the children not to trash the house, flood the backyard,or mindmeld with the Playstation. And no one cooks yummy meals for me. I miss you, writers conference!I miss you, Ben Barnes! Sigh.

We interupt this blog for the following announcement:

It's book signing time again. That means it's time for me to beg friends, strangers, and potential stalkers to come to the Barnes and Noble at Chandler Fashion Mall so that I look like I have a following. Tomorrow, June 20th, 3:00.

Lisa McMann will be signing there too and since she is a NYT best seller she will no doubt have hordes of fans screaming, "Lisa! Lisa! Sign my book!!" (Okay, probably not--book readers don't tend to be a wild group--but you know what I mean.) And I will be twiddling my thumbs and examining the table cloth.

I know how it goes. I've been through this before.

Here are a list of the mega selling authors I've done signings with:

Gary Paulson (Hatchet and a gazillion boy books)
Christopher Paul Curtis (two Newberys)
Barbara Park (Junie B Jones)
Stephenie Meyers (Twilight)
Brandon Mull (Fablehaven)
Shannon Hale (Newbery, Goose Girl Series)

I'd write more but frankly this is just a depressing list.

So come. Even if you have all my books. They make good gifts and Christmas is just six short months away. Besides, if you do I'll come to your Tupperware party. See, it's all good.

Now I just need to find and post a picture of Robert Pattinson so people will stop by this blog . .

And the winner is . . .

First off, sorry it's taken me so long to post this. I was teaching a writing workshop at BYU (the subject of my next blog) and fell into bed every night around midnight. But let me say I was blown away by all the responses I got to the Mind-Rain give-away. Should I be offended that I didn't get 56 comments the last time I gave away one of my books? Hmm. I will tell myself that it was due to the interesting nature of the question and not the fact that you all like Scott Westerfeld better than me.

I was surprised with the thought provoking and often poignant responses that so many of you gave. I was also surprised that most people took the five years, hands down.

Apparently the rest of you are not nearly as vain as I used to be. I still remember those awkward years when I had braces, glasses, hair that I had no idea how to style, and zero fashion sense. Not surprisingly, I also didn't have a lot of self confidence and social situations--like talking to guys--baffled me. (Really, if I dug out my eighth grade picture and posted it here, you would understand. But I'm not putting that out on the Internet. Nope. Sorry. You'll have to use your imagination.)

During high school I shook off the feathers of the ugly duckling years, and it was like a whole new world opened. Guys paid attention to me. Girls treated me with more respect.

True story: (which will sound like bragging but is really just illustrating a point)I went to visit my parents in California one year when I was about 21. They were renting a house and the (fairly young) landlord was constantly rude to them,complaining to them about this or that and not taking care of things that needed to be fixed.

So during my visit, the landlord rang the bell and I answered the door. He looked at me with this sort of stunned expression on his face and mumbled that he was there to take care of a few things. My parents introduced me to him and he was completely nice to everyone while he went about taking care of his landlord things.

After he left, my parents laughed about the change in him and told me I should visit more often, but it puzzled me. Clearly, the landlord changed his behaviour because there was a pretty girl around even though there was no actual benefit for him to do so. I never saw him again. But it did teach me that being pretty is like going through life with bonus points. I liked that. I never wanted to lose it. If really given the choice when I was young, I would have gone for beauty instead of the five years.

(I tried to find a picture of me when I was young--but where the 80's hair wasn't too prominent. Don't ask me what I was doing with my arms.)

That said, one day as I was getting ready for college classes, I realized it was a trick question. In between clothes shopping, clothes ironing, showering, shaving, blow-drying, hair-curling, and putting on make-up, I realized that I probably would spend more than five years of my life "beautifying" myself. I'd already made the choice.

Now in my older years, I make the opposite choice. I can't tell you how many days I walk around looking like a bag lady because I'm so intent on getting my writing done. These days, I take the time over beauty.

Still it's made for some interesting discussion here and also as I've visited my daughter this week. You can actually get a lot of mileage out of those five-year jokes.

Me walking into the room looking like something the cat dragged in: Hi!
Her: So, I see you've decided to take those five years back.

Gotta love her.

Anyway, it was hard to pick a winner because everyone was so profound. Really. I'm in awe of all of you. But I'm going to go with Jenilyn because I liked the way she picked the beauty but made it look like she was doing it for altruistic reasons. (making life easier for the nursing staff.) I think it was a reason New Pretty Town could totally support. So, Jenilyn, send me your snail mail at rallison 1 at cox dot net. And I'll send you you're book!

And the rest of you--I'm proud of you! Just don't waste your five years watching tv.

Mind-Rain book give away!

One of the fun things about being a writer is getting to rub shoulders with other authors. (Another is living vicariously through your characters while they do things like tell off people who remind you of your home owners’ association board, but I digress.)

I was happy when Ben Bella Books asked me to write an essay for a book they were doing on Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies series. I really enjoyed the books, so not only did I get to pontificate on the role of beauty in our society, but I also got the thrill of knowing that Scott Westerfeld himself read and edited my essay. (Yes, This is how much of a book geek I am. I was like, “Scott Westerfeld’s eyeballs read the words I wrote!” I think this means I am allowed to hang out socially with him now, you know, assuming I ever meet him in real life.)

So the book is officially out now. It’s called Mind-Rain and is available at your local Borders.

Here is a blurb from my essay about the role of beauty in our society:

When I was a teenager I read a book of difficult questions. One of them was: Would you choose to be beautiful if it meant you’d lose five years from your life span?

Would you?

The question bothered me because I knew the answer should be easy—who in their right mind would trade part of their life—1,825 days—just to look good? Looking good doesn’t have anything to do with the quality of your life.

But I kept finding myself wanting to refine the question. Exactly how ugly would I have to be to have that extra five years? And were we talking about a life span of seventy years? Eighty years? Perhaps only forty? The question just wouldn’t go away. The answer hovered around, revealing all sorts of uncomfortable things about myself and my society--because let’s face it we do judge people based on looks.

Oh, as a society we like to pretend that we aren’t really all that vain, that we don’t obsess about our appearances, and that we’re capable of seeing past all the superficial stuff. As Martin Luther King Jr. would say, if you know, he happened to live in a Scott Westerfeld novel: People should not be judged by the prettiness of their skin, but by the content of their character.

We throw around phrases to emphasize the point. Beauty is only skin deep. Beauty is as beauty does. It’s what inside that really matters. You can’t judge a book by its cover.

Any high school freshman will tell you differently. As will your local plastic surgeon, or the person in charge of hiring models for advertisements.

If you want to sell something, you show a beautiful person holding, eating, wearing, or driving it. There is a reason we call beautiful people attractive. We are attracted to them just because of their looks. As a society we want to be them so badly that we will buy the soda we see them drinking, the clothes we see them wearing, and the cars we see them driving.

Okay for those of you who are still with me, to be the winner of a free copy of Mind Rain, answer the question: Would you trade five years of your life to be beautiful? Why or why not?

Beauty tips for the writer

I have stumbled upon a sure-fire way for writers to make themselves feel beautiful.(This probably only works for women writers, but hey, the guys don't have to worry about being beautiful anyway.)

Step one: have revisions due on a certain date.

Step two: ascertain that you will not make this date unless you give up several things in your life like showering or grooming.

Step three: repeat step two for several days.

Step four: by the time you finish your revisions you will resemble the troll-like figure on the front cover of Brandon Mull's first Fablehaven book.

Step five: now that your revisions are done, shower, dress in something besides the lifeless sweats you've been wearing, and do your hair and makeup. You will be astounded by how good you look. In fact, you will be downright stunning in comparison to how you've looked for the last few days.

It works every time.

In which I terrorize the office staff of my son’s school

I blame it on revisions. When you’re working nonstop for a month on rewriting your novel for the third time, you get testy. I’d told the bow-tied one that I’d have the manuscript to him today, which means that in the last week I showered approximately twice.

So I wasn’t happy yesterday when son number 1, code name Gaston, called and told me he forgot his tennis shoes. He asked if I could bring them so he could participate in football practice. I nearly told him, “Forget it. Just skip practice and come home with the rest of the carpool.”

I didn’t want to take forty minutes out of my work day (twenty minutes there, twenty minutes back) to bring them to him. The deadline was looming and I still had quite a few of the bow-tied ones 407 comments to go through. Instead, I gave myself a pep talk about being a good mother (see last blog) and told him I’d try to get them to him. First I called around to the other carpool mothers in the neighborhood to see if they could bring up Gaston’s shoes when they picked up the other kids. Four phone calls later I found out that carpool turn fell to one of the fathers, who picked up the kids on his way home from work. So that wouldn’t work.

I got in the car, unshowered and covered in cat hair. (One of the cats feels it’s her duty to lie on my chest while I write.)I brought the shoes to the school’s front desk, explained the situation, and asked if they could give them to Gaston.

Imagine my surprise when Gaston came home with the carpool kids instead of staying for football practice. “What the heck are you doing home after I spent forty minutes to bring you your shoes!” I said lovingly. Because that is the type of mother I am. (see last blog)

“You didn’t bring me my shoes,” Gaston said.

“I gave them to the front office and they said they’d give them to you,” I said.

“They didn’t,” he said.

I called the school and left a message for the front desk. Which is probably something I shouldn’t do—leave messages when I’m angry. When you do that, you have to worry that your message is being endlessly replayed while people mimic you and do gargoyle impersonations. Not that I’m saying the office staff did this. But just, you know.

Anyway, the secretary called me this morning and apologized. She said she had called Gaston’s teacher and told him to send Gaston up to get his shoes. Apparently the teacher hadn’t passed along the message.

“Didn’t you notice that he never picked up his shoes?” I asked. Gaston doesn’t have small feet. He wears a size twelve.

“Yes,” she said. “So we sent his shoes to football practice with one of the other mothers.”

Which would have been nice if Gaston had gone to football practice, but he hadn’t because he had no shoes.

I pointed that out to the secretary, and then we hung up. That was the phone call.

Today when my husband came home he said, “I think the office staff is afraid of you now.”

“Why do you say that?” I asked. I had sent off my manuscript, showered, cleaned the downstairs, went to the grocery store to pick up frosting, baked a cake, and taken seven junior high kids to the movies for a party. I was back to loving mother mode. (See last blog.)

“The school didn’t know what happened to Gaston’s shoes after they were sent to football practice,” my husband said, “so they went out and bought him new ones.”

Oh.

Now I feel terrible. I suppose the office staff thought after I called to complain because I had to drive forty minutes to deliver the shoes and they didn’t give them to him, there was no way they were calling me to break the news that Gaston once again didn’t have shoes for football practice, and they didn’t know what had happened to them.

“The whole school knows about it,” Gaston told me with irritation. “The football coach came up to me and asked me what the shoe problem was.”

Turns out one of the football carpool kids had taken them home last night and he’d forgotten to bring them back to school today.

We have them back now, along with new shoes that the office lady bought. I really do feel bad about it. I told Gaston to ask the secretary how much they cost so I can repay her.

On the bright side, probably no one at that school will ask me to volunteer for the PTO.

My real job

During Project Book Babe one of the questions that was asked of the panel was: When did you know writing had become your career? Shannon Hale had a great answer. She said, "It isn't my career. Being a mom is my career."

I've always felt the same way. I'm a mom first. I hardly did any promotion or travel before my kids went to school all day. If truth be told, I didn't do a lot of writing before my kids went to school. It was mostly done during nap times, favorite kid TV shows, or sitting beside soccer fields pretending that I cared which way the ball went.

Sometimes I forget this though. I imagine we all do. We have a goal to get xyz done and our kids seem to be the thing standing in the way of getting xyz done, so they seem like a job-hinderence instead of our real job.

But today I'm remembering. Being a mom is my real job. I will make cupcakes for my daughters class, and take another daughter shopping for the shorts she needs, and make dinner.

I can't complain. All in all it's a great career.

Writing Class

Hey, for any of you around the Casa Grande area, I'm going to do a writing class on May 30th. Here's the vital info:

Writing a Young Adult Novel?
Get the Foundation Right: Point of View, Plot, and Characterization With Janette Rallison, Author of Books for Young Adults

Saturday, May 30, 2009
10:00 AM to 2:30 PM

Holiday Inn - Canyon Room
777 N Pinal Avenue
Casa Grande, Arizona 85222

Writing a young adult novel? Learn how to use the most important building blocks of fiction: point of view, plotting, and characterization. Did you know that 90% of the manuscripts in publishers' slush piles have point of view problems and as a result, are immediately rejected? Don't let your novel be one of them. Learn about point of view and how to use it effectively. Also, find out how to save time and effort in the revising stages by setting up your plot and characters right the first time around.

Janette Rallison is the award winning author of 15 novels and has sold over 800,000 books, including Fame, Glory, and Other Things on My To Do List IRA Young Adults' Choices List 2007 and It's a Mall World After AllIRA Young Adults' Choices List 2008.

Most of her books are romanticcomedies because there is enough angst in real life, but there Is a drastic shortage on both humor and romance. She lives in Chandler, Arizona with her husband, five kids, and enough cats to classify her as eccentric. Some of her other titles include My Fair Godmother, Just One Wish, and How to Take the Ex Out of Ex-Boyfriend.

Registration is limited.
For more information, contact Michelle Parker-Rock at
RegionalAdvisor at scbwi-az.org

book giveaways

I’ve meant to do a blog give away of a couple of my friends’ latest books for awhile. What can I say, when I’m doing revisions a lot of things fall through the cracks. This is mostly because I’m sitting by my laptop rocking back and forth, mumbling things about certain editorial comments, but I digress.



First up is Kersten Campbell’s book, Confessions of a Completely Insane Mother. I immediately liked this book because I am often a completely insane mother. If you’ve ever taken a group of boy scouts to the police office for a tour, you can relate. It’s a book full of Erma Bombeck-like vignettes, you know, supposing Erma Bombeck had five kids that she had to get ready for church in ten minutes because she overslept. (I have done this. I can relate. One day I’ll have to tell you about my two-year-old son who refused to wear pants to church. Ahh, happy memories. Well, not really.)

The odd coincidence about this writer is that although I’ve never met her in person, she is now living in my old hometown of Pullman, Washington and is married to my friend’s little brother. It’s weird to think of him as a grown man since he was about six when I left home.

I suddenly feel old.





The second book is for all of you regency romance lovers: Donna Hatch’s The Stranger She Married. It has a guy in a mask. That’s always cool. Alicia, our heroine is in dire straits (or maybe straights, I can never keep all of those dire places, um, straight) and vows to marry the first wealthy man she meets. Enter Cole Amesbury, a dashing lord. Personally, I think there are not enough dashing lords around when you need them, so I was glad this book was doing its part to help the shortage. Plus I liked it because I love romance, but not bodice rippers. So potential readers, rest assured you will not be impaled by flying bodice parts if you read this book.

For this give away tell me one insane mother moment, or one romantic one (or a romantic one you’d like to have some day) and I’ll enter you in the giveaway.

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!

Book signings then and now

When I first became an author I thought book signings were all about meeting my public, finding out what they wanted, and making them happy.

Sorry public, I gave up on making you happy long ago.

Now it's all about not looking bad in front of the book store personnel. If that means begging everyone I know to come into the store then I will do it unashamedly. Because there is nothing worse than having the book store personnel think you are a friendless, readerless author who can't draw a crowd.

So, although I know it seems like I just told you about a book signing, (because I did,) now I'm telling you about another one. I'll be at Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe with super fun author Janni Simner doing readings and a signing.

This is your official invitation begging you to come!

Tuesday, March 31
7:00 PM

Changing Hands Bookstore
6428 S McClintock Dr.
Tempe, AZ 85283.
480-730-0205

Want to hang out with Stephenie Meyer? (Okay, that got your attention, didn't it?)

Come to projectbook.babe on Saturday, April 4th 2009, 2:00PM to 5:00PM at
Marcos de Niza High School Auditorium,
6000 S. Lakeshore Dr.,Tempe, AZ 85283

Look at this a-list of authors who will be there (in alphabetical order):

Frank Beddor-The Looking Glass Wars series
Chris Gall-There’s Nothing to Do on Mars
P.J. Haarsma-The Softwire series
Shannon Hale-The Princess Academy
J.S. Lewis-The Revenge of the Shadow King
Dean Lorey-Nightmare Academy series
Stephenie Meyer-Twilight saga
Brandon Mull-Fablehaven series
James A. Owen-Here, There Be Dragons
Janette Rallison-Just One Wish
Laini Taylor-Faeries of Dreamdark series

And it’s all for a good cause too. We’re helping out our very good friend and YA advocate, Faith Hochhalter, who is going up against cancer—a nasty villain in anybody’s book.

Everyone who buys a ticket will receive an autographed copy a book. Really, it is going to be a ton of fun, and I won’t let the cat out of the bag, but Shannon Hale is busy at work guaranteeing that we will all make fools of ourselves. Also Stephenie is auctioning off some Twilight memorabilia, which as you all know, has an ample sprinkling of vampire dust on it. I’m pretty sure Edward Cullen has touched all of it, so touching it is just like being caressed in his marble cold embrace.

You can buy tickets to this fab, once-in-a-lifetime event by going to projectbookbabe.com

Hope to see you there!

Book signings and teaser

Despite the fact that I'm always afraid my book signings will turn out like a bad version of a Junior High dance--me standing idly around trying to look like I'm perfectly happy to not be doing what I came to do, but desperately wishing that I could be on the dance floor--I have two book signings set up this month. (Where I may be sitting idly around trying to look like I'm perfectly happy to not be doing what I came to do, but desperately wishing that I could be on the dance floor--er, I mean, signing books. Although the dance floor would be a great reprieve too.)

Here are the dates/times/places:

Tuesday March 24th at 7pm
Barnes & Noble
Desert Ridge Marketplace
21001 N. Tatum Blvd. Suite 42
Phoenix, AZ 85050
480-538-8520

Tuesday, March 31st at 7pm.
Changing Hands Bookstore
6428 S McClintock Dr, Tempe, AZ 85283,
Cross streets: Guadalupe and McClintock



Just One Wish

It seemed like a good idea at the time, a foolproof plan, and not something that was likely to get Annika Truman, say, thrown in jail. All she was trying to do was help her six-year-old brother, Jeremy, beat his cancer. He’d been so afraid of his upcoming surgery that she was trying to use some of that “Power of Positive Thinking” everyone keeps talking about.

Annika told Jeremy that she had a genie and still had two wishes left. He could use one for anything he wanted and one to make sure his surgery went well. She knew he’d ask for the new action figure of Teen Robin Hood. It’s all he’d talked about since he started watching the TV series.

But there is no such thing as a foolproof plan where six-year-olds are concerned. Instead, Jeremy asked for the real Teen Robin Hood to come teach him how to shoot arrows. And now Annika has just a couple of days to drive to Hollywood, find the actor who plays Teen Robin Hood—incredibly hot and way too famous Steve Raleigh—and convince him to visit her little brother.

At times like this she could use a genie herself.

More thoughts on revisions

I was just at the Tucson Book Festival last weekend where I got to hang out with many fun writers including political cartoonist David Fitszimmons. He gave me this cartoon that he used during his presentation. No particular reason why. Nope, none at all.

Round two of revisions for Faking It

I got my second revision letter and manuscript comments from the bow-tied one. I will share some of it with you and interpret it for you along the way. In his email to me, he said, “You’re doing great! We love it!”

Ohhoho. I know better than to believe those words. He is not taking me in with those pretty exclamation points. He always says those sorts of things right before he butchers my manuscript and sends me back the bleeding entrails.

I opened the revision letter and braced myself. I read a few lines and then he said, “We can discuss deadlines after you’ve had a chance to sit with all of this.”

Ahh, the truth first peeks out with its beady little eyes. The bow-tied one knows full well that when I read what follows I will be so torked out of shape I will not speak to him for a solid week. It is going to be bad my friends, very bad.

He then says, “You will be relieved to see that there are fewer comments on this pass (only 407 this time, down from 435), so clearly you are moving in the right direction!"

AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

I would make some other sort of statement about his 407 comments, but I haven’t read them yet. I can’t. I’ve made a bargain with myself. I will only read his revisions notes until I get so upset that I want to scream, then I will walk away from the computer and do something else for the rest of the day. It is the only way I can get through this.

It will take me at least another day to finish his revision letter before I even open the manuscript.

I have finally figured out why he wears a bow-tie instead of a regular one. Bow-ties are harder to grab a hold of when you want to strangle people.

Just One Wish is out! Well, maybe sort of . . .

The long awaited and much anticipated (at least by me) release date of Just One Wish is here! According to the Amazon and Barnes & Noble websites, my latest book was released March 5th.

Unfortunately someone emailed me that their book store didn't have it yet, which made me call my local book store and they told me that although they had the book on order it hadn't come in.

I emailed the bow-tied one to see if there was a distribution problem--I also haven't gotten my author copies--and he told me not to sweat it because we hadn't reached the release date yet.

Which proves what I've said all along, that editors have no concept of time.

So anyway, I'm not sure if your store has copies yet, but it should, and if it doesn't, then you should demand in a loud voice that they get it in soon because obviously there is going to be a rush on the limited first edition copies and things could turn ugly like they did years ago when shoppers were trampling each other to get Tickle Me Elmos.

Maybe we can create a frenzied shopping demand for the book. I'd be happy with that.

Utah trip--the first family wedding.

Okay, I'm finally blogging about my Utah trip. I went up for my niece's wedding, did three school visits and basically had a blast hanging out with my family. Because my family is hilarious. Some people think I'm funny. This is only because they haven't met my family. The rest of them are way funnier which means that every time we get together I usually laugh until I cry.

My brother-in-law, Dante, was telling us about the overpriced four-dollar pastries being served at the luncheon, and how even though he was paying an exorbitant amount for the catering, the wedding-palace-place was only serving enough pastries for 60 people. Unfortunately they had invited 125 people so the night before the wedding we were devising solutions to this problem. Our best idea was to have a rating system for the gifts, and only people who'd brought really nice ones got to get in the pastry line.


The most expesive blackberry my daughter will ever eat.

My oldest daughter (code name Serena, after her favorite cartoon character) was assigned to sit at the check-in table, take the gifts, and have people sign the guest book.

I've always found those guest books intimidating. I mean, here is this keepsake that the bride and groom will cherish forever and you want to write something deep, meaningful, and unique but after standing with the pen poised in your hand for long enough that the line backs up, you finally scrawl out, "Best Wishes!" and move on.

So the family got to talking about that too. Or rather, we talked about the things that you should not write in the bride and groom's guest book.

Here is the top ten list of things you shouldn't write:

1. This was really nice for your first wedding.
2. It's not too late for a pre-nup.
3. The office pool is giving you two years.
4. And who says you can't find nice bridal dresses at Sears?
5. Apparently she couldn't have done better.
6. We don't actually know you. We just came for the four dollar pastries.
7. He must be a good catch; his first three wives had no complaints, God rest their souls.
8. For your wedding gift I got you that supply of penicillin.
9. At last, you found a way to get your green card!
10. Don't worry her ex didn't make parole.

I bet after hanging out with all of us, Serena will never want to get married.



This is a picture of Serena and her cousin who was the namesake for the main character in How to Take the Ex Out of Ex-boyfriend. Isn't she gorgeous?

Another cool night to be an author--meeting Avi

First of all, let me say that I don't recommend you take an active six-year-old to an author presentation. Really, what was I thinking? Well, I guess I was thinking she was invited so why not take her? They had a build-a-book activity going on for the kids and I really wasn't clear about the fact that afterward she would have to sit politely on a chair while Avi spoke.

But let me backtrack, because I'm skipping over the coolest part of the evening. When I got to the Arizona Natural History Museum where the build-a-book activity and Avi presentation was happening, all the 3-hour parking was taken so I had to park in a 1-hour parking space.

No, that isn't the cool part.

The cool part is that when I left my kids building books--with strict instructions for my older kids that they were to WATCH YOUR LITTLE SISTER AT ALL TIMES SO SHE DOESN'T TIP OVER THE REFRESHMENT TABLE, KNOCK OVER THE BOOKS, OR SCALE THE DINOSAURS BECAUSE I HAVE TO REPARK THE CAR, I walked out of the room and who did I see standing by the stairs waiting to give his presentation? Yup, Avi.

At first, I just walked by because I didn't want to bother him. I mean, I'm sure he's constantly bombarded with people telling him how much they love his books and most likely he hadn't gone into the room full of teachers and librarians because he wanted some private time.

But then I thought, private time is overrated. And maybe he's just shy. And when am I ever going to have the chance to talk to him again? I mean, I would probably kick myself for the rest of my life if I at least didn't say hello. Besides, most authors I've met, even the really famous ones, are down to earth, nice people.

So I walked back up the stairs and introduced myself, and we spent about ten minutes talking about writing and editors. (Yes, Tim, I told Avi you were a great editor.)

After that I had to hurry to go repark my car, retrieve my kids, (little sister was parked in front of a book case reading a book while her older siblings finished up their book projects--hello, would they have even noticed if she disappeared?) made a pit stop at the bathroom because little sister drank way too much lemonade and I didn't want her having get up in the middle of the presentation, and then were in time to find chairs in the back of the room.

Avi gives a great presentation, by the way. He does cool voices while he reads his books.

Little sister was fairly good--at least for her. This is because I bought her a new toy dog and told her she could only have it if she was good. If she wasn't, I was taking it away and she'd have to wait until her birthday to get it back. So she wasn't loud, although she kept lying down on her chair, and then on the floor, and managed to spill the contents of my purse on the ground. And she still had to get up to go to the bathroom after 45 minutes. (I knew I shouldn't have let her drink the lemonade.)

The plus side to having a wiggly six-year-old with you? The kind Scholastic lady told us we could go to the front of the very, very, long signing line. It was probably a wise choice. I don't think anyone would have liked to see what a bored, active six-year-old would do while her mother was waiting in line next to dinosaur replicas.

And here is a picture of Avi signing our books.

Impulse buy

Okay, I was at the store today buying all that reduced price Valentines candy. (Discount chocolate--it is my siren call.) and I saw this and had to buy it. It is so true.

How you know you're a seasoned author

I was thinking about this as I got ready for my panel last night at Changing Hands. My how things have changed since my first book event!

First book event an author does:

You have dreamed about this day for years. You spend two weeks shopping for the perfect dress. You count down the days. You have your hair done by a beautician. You go out with your friends beforehand to celebrate. Your husband is there to take pictures.

After a few years:

You buy a new shirt for the book event. Hey, it's time you went shopping for yourself and this gives you a good excuse. You mark the event on your calendar with pride but don't obsess about it. You make sure you color your hair before the event so you have no gray roots showing. You barely remember to take your camera so someone can snap your picture with the other authors there.

After a few more years:

You mark the date on your calendar to make sure you don't forget. (How embarrassing would that be?) You figure what you have in your closet is fine to wear and iron something nice looking the day before. Your hair? Well, you probably can squeak by another day without anyone noticing the gray. Only a little is peeking out. When you get to the event you realize you forgot your camera and ask one of the other authors to forward a picture to you.

After 12 years:

You write a memo to yourself on your hand so you won't forget. (Yes, it's on the calendar but that's no guarantee you'll remember to go when it's time.) You wonder if it's possible to color your gray roots with an eyebrow pencil. You find yourself an hour before the event rifling through your closet looking for something clean. Forget the camera, if you're lucky you will remember to zip your fly. (Because how embarrassing would that be to have you're fly down again?)

And by the way, my fly was zipped last night, but while I was sitting on the panel I realized that I had forgotten to change my socks form when I was sloughing around the house earlier in sweats and they didn't match my dressy shirt.

Oh well, authors are supposed to be eccentric right? And hey, Michael, if you're reading this, forward me that picture you took of the authors so I can use it on my blog!

Thanks!

Changing Hands Author Panel Tonight at 7:00

Hey fellow Arizonians,
If you're looking for something fun and free to do tonight, stop by Changing Hands Book Store for the Teen Author Panel Discussion at 7 pm.


Explore how to write, market, and publish first-rate teen literature with authors Lisa McMann (Wake), James Owen (Indigo King), Janette Rallison (My Fair Godmother), and Laurie Brooks (Selkie Girl). Joining them is literary agent Erin Murphy. Panel moderated by Changing Hands Bookstore’s children’s book buyer Brandi Stewart.

(Did you notice it called my book first-rate literature? This is validation. I'm first rate.)

Changing Hands is located at:

6428 S McClintock Dr
Tempe, AZ 85283
480-730-0205
McClintock at Guadalupe

Princess of the Midnight Ball

When I was little I always wanted to be a princess. In fact when adults asked me what I was going to be when I grew up, I always told them I was going to be a princess. My older siblings tried to dismiss this career choice by pointing out that you had to be born a princess, and besides, queens had the real power.

But I was adamant. I wanted to be a princess.

This is because I adored fairy tales and princesses were always the ones wearing poufy dresses, looking gorgeous, and having fun and adventures. I wanted all of that. Especially the poufy dresses.

One of my favorite fairy tales was The Twelve Dancing Princesses. The short synopsis of this story is: Although the twelve beautiful princesses are locked in their room every night, every morning their dancing slippers are worn through. The King, vexed by this mystery, offers the hand of one of his daughters along with his kingdom to any man who can find out where his daughters go. If they fail, after three nights they will be beheaded. Many kings’ sons come to try and solve the riddle but they all fail.

Finally a soldier comes through town. He meets one of those kindly old magical women who just hang around street corners waiting to help the pure in heart. She tells him not to drink anything the princesses give him (which is laced with a sleeping potion) and gives him a magical invisibility cloak. He follows the princesses to an underground world where they dance with twelve princes (The Grimm brothers don’t say for certain, but I’m pretty sure these underground princes all look like the Jonas brothers.) The soldier brings back proof of this magical place to give to the king. Having solved the riddle, he wins the princess of his choice and the kingdom.

If you had asked me what the moral to this Grimm fairy tale was when I was a child, I would have said that it was either a) your father does indeed want to stop all your fun or b) if you are going to dance the night away with secret princes you should get sturdier shoes.

Now that I’m an adult I clearly see that this story is a cautionary tale for men: If you can’t figure out women and their secret worlds, you don’t stand a chance. Your head might as well be rolling on the floor. However, if you can stay awake long enough to discover the inner world of a woman, you get the whole kingdom.

And a very good moral it is too, men, so listen up.

This by the way, is not what Jessica Day George’s book, Princess of the Midnight Ball is about. At least not moral-wise. She does follow the fairy tale pretty closely, except that her version makes a lot more sense than Grimm’s did.

She explains who the underground princes are, why there are twelve of them and twelve princesses, and why they must dance every night. She also explains why the princesses have to keep it a secret, why the princes who fail to solve the riddle end up dying, and why there was that kindly old lady hanging around the street with magically items. (I don’t know about you, but even though I occasionally give money to beggars on street corners, not one of them has ever produced a magic cloak for me.) Jessica Day George even supplies what was missing in the original fairy tale, a villain who is capable not only of dooming the princesses but their whole kingdom as well.

The story is both believable and enjoyable and you will like the twelve princesses—especially the heroine, Rose. Galen, the soldier, is also a great character. (You have to love a man who not only sends flowers to a woman but can also knit his own socks.)

This is one book that the whole family will enjoy reading.


Here are some questions I asked Jessica:

Were you like me as a little girl--did you always want to be a princess? If not, what were you going to be when you grew up?

I did want to be a princess! I had a whole imaginary world I lived in. I had a horse, and a pet wolf, and a dragon, and I had hair down to my ankles (can you imagine actually having to wash hair that long? ugh!), and I lived in a marble palace with a huge pool in my room for bathing. There was more, it was very elaborate.

What is your favorite fairy tale?

East o' the Sun, West o' the Moon, which is the basis for my book Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow. Polar bears, trolls, and magic, oh my!

Did you imagine any specific person when you wrote about Galen or Rose? If so who?

I didn't, actually. Galen just popped into my head one day, marching along and wearing about five scarves because he was a knitter as well as an ex-soldier , and then I asked myself: what kind of girl would Galen fall for? What kind of girl would the oldest of twelve cursed princesses be? And Rose came from that.

I know you have small children. What's your writing schedule like?

Any free moment I can get! Usually the afternoons, now, when my four-year-old is watching a movie or playing, and the baby's sleeping. I used to write in the mornings, but with the late night feedings, I usually sleep until almost eight, and meanwhile the four-year-old has started waking up at 6:30! He just hangs out in his room, chatting with his toys and monkeying around, until I get up. What a nut!

What's next?

Dragon Spear, my third and final book about the seamstress Creel and her dragon friends!


Sounds great! Thanks for stopping by my blog!

Where I get my characters' names

I love choosing my characters' names. I get to use all the really cool names that my husband wouldn't let me name my children. (I tried to strike a deal with him that he could name all of the children he pushed out of his body, and I got to name all of the children I pushed out of my body, but he wouldn't go for it.)

He's sort of a traditionalist about names. In his mind a name has to be around for at least as long as the Bible for it to be considered a valid name. Which is why 4/5of our children have Bible names. (After 18 hours of labor with our last daughter, and a spinal headache, he patted my hand and said, "You can name her whatever you want." I should have named her Chanel, because then she would be our Chanel number 5, but no, that idea didn't occur to me until long after the ink was dry on the birth certificate.)

Anyway, while I was writing My Fair Godmother (and Just One Wish) I was teaching the nursery class at church. The kids were sooo cute and had such hip names, that I admit I stole several of them for my novels.

Here is a picture of Savannah

And here is a picture of Hunter. (Although the Hunter in the book never wears rabbit ears)

Aren't they so darling? And as a bonus, both of their parents want to buy the book. I should have thought of this idea long ago. My next character may be named Oprah . . .

Optioned!

Good news! My Fair Godmother was just optioned! This basically means that a very brilliant producer wants to make the book into a movie. Now I'm waiting and crossing my fingers that everything else will come together, because I've always thought this book would make a great movie.

Statistically speaking, most books that are optioned don't actually make it to the box office, but I'm happy regardless because the fact that it got optioned feels like validation to me. Someone else in the business saw the potential in this book. Yay!

professional jealousy

I was going to put up pictures of my Utah trip, but alas, Techno Bob is on a scout camp-out with one of the offspring, and I am pathetically unable to upload pictures onto my blog. (And no, I don't know how to work my cell phone or our DVD player either. I have mastered the toaster, even though it came with three additional buttons that didn't used to be on our older, less techno-savvy toaster. Seriously, the new one has a cancel button--I suppose for people who change their mind about making toast and want to retrieve their uncrispened bread, yet have never figured out how to flip the toast lever up.)

However an interesting subject came up on one of the writers' lists I'm on. Someone who hasn't seen any nibbles on their novel was bemoaning the fact that a high school friend submitted a book to an agent and two weeks later had a contract.

Yeah, that happens. And it's hard.

I remember how badly I wanted to be published. It wasn't just a want--like you want ice cream, or you want that new dress. It was an actual physical ache that I couldn't really explain to anyone else or to myself.

Pre-published authors tend to see that book contract--or better yet, that fresh new book--as the finish line: the accomplishment of the goal.

It's not though. It's just the beginning.

And that whole jealousy/want cycle doesn't end when you get published.

Once you're published you'll have friends that get this award or that award, or the book tour, or that speaking engagement, or that movie deal, or that Newbery, or hit the bestsellers list, or um, get constantly compared to J.K. Rowling. (And yes, in fact I did know both Shannon Hale and Stephenie Meyer before they became ultra-famous.) And I don't think any of us want our friends not to do well, we're thrilled when they do, we just feel a little left behind.

For me, I've decided that it's much more important for there to be good literature out there for kids than it is for me to be famous/rich/compared to JK Rowling. I have a good life, a wonderful family, a husband who loves me and who thankfully can support our family. I have no cause at all to complain. So I can applaud the success of all of the authors that I love and realize that all gifts (talents) no matter how big or how small are equally important if we're striving to make the world a better place. It's like the parable of the widow's mite. I may only have two pence to contribute but it's still enough.

Win My Fair Godmother

I like to have contests that match the book I'm giving away, but I'm drawing a bit of a blank on this one. Hmmm. Tell me a story about when you defeated an ogre? Nah. Best tips for getting rid of those pesky dragons that keep chomping on villagers? I probably wouldn't get a lot of entries on that one . . .

How about this: leave a comment on where you would ask your fairy godmother to send you, and why. Answers can include real life places or fantasy ones. (Personally, I'd like to visit Battlestar Gallactica . . . but yeah, we won't go into my crush on Apollo.)

After the week is up I'll pick one winner and send them a copy. And just so that you really want the book, here is the teaser:

After her boyfriend dumps her for her older sister, sophomore Savannah Delano wishes she could find a true prince to take her to the prom. Enter Chrissy (Chrysanthemum) Everstar: Savannah’s gum-chewing, cell phone–carrying, high heel-wearing Fair Godmother. Showing why she’s only Fair—because she’s not a very good fairy student—Chrissy mistakenly sends Savannah back in time to the Middle Ages, first as Cinderella, then as Snow White. Finally she sends Tristan, a boy in Savannah’s class, back instead to turn him into her prom-worthy prince. When Savannah returns to the Middle Ages to save Tristan, they must team up to defeat a troll, a dragon, and the mysterious and undeniably sexy Black Knight.

Oh, and the YA Fresh blog will also be giving a book away on Friday so if you'd like to double your chances you can visit:

www.yafresh.blogspot.com.

Just One Wish interview

Despite the fact that my expression in the beginning of this interview makes me look like I am about to discuss something extremely distasteful (politics, grout stains, Paris Hilton) I am actually talking about something fascinating--my book. Okay, at least it's fascinating to me. I am frequently fascinated by myself.

Cool technology? (In which I reveal my secret identity)

Okay, I admit it. Just like Clark Kent and Peter Parker and other extremely cool people, I have a hidden identity. Besides being mild mannered Janette Rallison YA author, I am also Sierra St. James, exotic romance writer. Not that any of my romances were exotic, just my persona as a romance writer is exotic.

I would regularly wear a boa and dangly rhinestone earings, and all of that other glamorous stuff romance writers wear. I would also swish my luxurious auburn curls around my shoulders and lower my lashes while speaking to wry, brooding men. (Okay, I am totally lying about that. I wrote those books in my pajamas and my husband only gets wry and brooding when I inform him that once again we're having cold cereal for dinner.)

Anyway, I haven't been Sierra since 2002, but one of my Sierra books, Time Riders--which is a science fiction LDS romance--is going to be picked up by Deseret Book and rereleased in 2010. (Wahoo! Wahoo!)

DB wanted me to make some changes and one of the things they asked was, "Will you be updating the technology in the book? With all the latest, greatest techno gadgets that materialize these days, are there things in the future setting that don't seem as cool now as they did when you originally worte the book?"

True, I wrote the book in 2001 so a lot has changed since then. When I wrote about a GPS-like device that not only steered cars to their destination, but had an electronic map that showed the destination and the car's progress, I had never seen or heard of a Garmin.

Here is a list of technology that I already have in the book:

1) the time machine (sort of)

2)cell-phone like communicators that can also track where people are (GPS will get us there quickly).

3)Voice activated computers

4)hologram recreational rooms.

5)crystals in their hands which work like credit cards (and also can be used to track them)

6)laser guns, of course! What would the future be without cool laser guns?

7) instead of cars they have community owned pod-like cars on rails that they call whenever they need to go someplace. When they're done with the car it sits there until someone else calls it. People program in their destinations, but because the cars move on rails, there are never car accidents. (I actually think this is a good idea--someone go out and invent this.)

8) I have added restaurant chairs that moniter and tell the diner what their weight, body fat, blood pressure, heart rate, etc are.

Do you guys have any other ideas of cool things you'd like to see in the future?

Let me know!

The other thing that bothers me about a lot of contemporary YA literature.

Okay, I get that the teen years are turbulent , emotional times, and that many teen girls are drawn to drama. I am embarrassed to admit that I, myself was that way as a teen. I even wrote ultra melodramatic (and bad) poetry that I unfortunately shared with a few of my boyfriends. Which is why I always tell budding writers to ABSOLUTELY NOT share your ultra melodramatic and bad poetry with your boyfriends (especially if it rhymes, or sort of rhymes . . . well, you know, assuming that you ignore a few syllable accents here and there).

Because if you actually ever do become a writer you will always be worried that should you get really famous your bad poetry will show up on ebay.

It just isn’t a situation you want to put yourself in.

But even when I was a melodramatic teenager often drowning in self pity and cynicism, I still liked to read cheerful books most of the time. I devoured romances and loved comedies. I did read Go Ask Alice, (Everyone read that book.) and probably a few other edgier books, but truly, if they had all been that way, I would have stopped reading after about the fifth book and never picked up another novel.

Which is why it worries me that all of the non-fantasy YA books I’ve read recently are excessively turbulent, dark, and angsty. I’ve read book after book and not only is the reading material depressing, I’m wondering if all teenagers have awful, horrible lives. Oh and as a corollary, I’ve also learned that guys are basically evil and untrustworthy. Girls aren’t much better—at least not if they are pretty.

I’ve compiled a list of situations that I’ve found in the last oh, about ten high selling YA contemporary books that I’ve read. You may set this to the tune: The Twelve Days of Christmas. (But I will not make you go through all twelve verses.)

On twelfth day of reading, I found in YA literature:
Ten cheating boyfriends/fathers
Five betraying friends
Four drug users
Three fatal car crashes
Three alcoholic, neglectful mothers
Two abusive boyfriends
Two overbearing violent fathers
Two date rapes
Two anorexics
Two undeserved slutty reputations
One unplanned pregnancy
And a suicide.

And mind you, this is the stuff that sells well. Probably better than my books. Which makes me wonder if I’m in completely the wrong genre. Maybe teenage girls just don’t want to read romantic comedies any more. Maybe kids who don’t want angst and edginess stopped reading long ago. Maybe they all just switched to other genres.

Fantasy readers still seem to like happy books. And yes I know there are dark and edgy fantasy novels too, but I imagine if you picked up ten random well selling fantasies they wouldn’t all be that way.

So yeah, I’m definitely thinking about making a full time jump to fantasy. My Fair Godmother was a super fun book to write and it’s already getting great reviews. I think I could be happy doing fantasy.

Interviews

I currently have a couple of interviews at different sites up. You can check them out at YA Fresh

http://yafresh.blogspot.com/2008/12/whats-fresh-with-janette-rallison-some.html

and

http://www.innovativeteen.blogspot.com/

Why you should buy a book

I’m going to interrupt my grumblings on the things I don’t like in certain YA books to give you an important message: buy a book. In fact, buy several.

Book publishing has always been an odd business due to the fact that stores are allowed, at the publisher’s expense, to return unsold books. For the sake of example, let’s say a bookstore has 1000 books that it’s paid 10 dollars for, and when they don’t sell, the bookstore returns them to the publisher. Not only does the publisher have to pay the bookstore 10,000 dollars, it also has to pay the shipping—let’s say 200 dollars.

And that’s what has happened a lot in the last couple of months as the bookstores have felt the effects of the recession. One editor’s blog I read said that several publishers saw all their profits from 2008 vanish in October due to returned books.

Now we’re hearing about lay-offs at the publishers and freezes on acquiring new manuscripts. Scary.

So if you’re looking for a gift for someone this holiday season, try a book, a gift card for a bookstore—or even better, one of my books (which as you know from my website, make readers instantly skinny and rich.)

And really, reading is way more fun than that pair of slippers, new tie, or DS game that is all about blowing things up.

Happy reading!

My pet peeve in fiction

There are many benefits to being a writer, but one of the best is that you can read books and tell everyone that you’re working. I love that. My husband is stuck in meetings and trying to fix overruns and explaining to various branches of the government why his team is behind schedule and I’m lying in bed reading. Yep, it’s hard work.

The Bow-tied One is an especially cool editor because he sent me over a dozen bestselling books that he thinks I should read. (The message apparently being: figure out what these authors are doing and then do it.)

When I got his package full of books I clutched them to my chest and murmured, “I love this job!”

I’ve read five of them now. I will not tell you the titles or the authors because I’ve pretty much hated them all.

One of them read like a handbook on how to have sex. Seriously, it even gave instructions on how to put on a condom. Is that really necessary? Don’t the boxes come with directions? Unfortunately there were no instructions on how to avoid sexually transmitted diseases; in fact, there was no mention of them at all.

I have to call my fellow writers (for both books, TV, and movies) out on this subject. It’s irresponsible to pretend like STDs don’t exist. According to some research I did for one of my Sierra St. James novels, 80% of sexually active people over the age of 14 years old have at least one STD. 50% of these people have genital warts—which condoms don’t prevent. Ditto for Herpes, which one in five people have. At first when I ran across these figures I thought they couldn’t be accurate. They sounded way too high. I actually even called two STD hotlines to find out what the real numbers were.

And those were fun calls.

Me: Hi, um, I’m an author doing research for a novel and I wanted to ask you a few questions . . .

Them: Yeah, yeah. You’re calling for a friend. We know. What are your symptoms?

Each time, they confirmed the numbers—80% of sexually active people have STDs. I still couldn’t believe it so I called my obstetrician. And yep, he confirmed the numbers too.

If 80% of people had any other ailment (and there is no cure for many STDs) we wouldn’t be silent about it. We would be warning people night and day. But when was the last time you read or watched any story where this issue was addressed in any fashion?

James Bond? Yikes, I hate to think what he has. Sam Malone of Cheers? Even worse. I’ll admit that one of my favorite TV shows ever is Frasier and I can’t count how many different women he slept with during the show. All with no consequences. That is not real life, and we shouldn't pretend that it is.

And then there’s AIDs. How many millions of people has that killed? I have a friend who’s a drug rep and does work in some of the African nations. In one of the countries he visited, 40% of the population had HIV. That’s almost half the people.

Look at the houses on your streets. Think of the people at your work, at your classroom, that crowd at the football stadium--can you imagine if 40% of them had a deadly disease?

That could be our nation if we aren’t careful, if we aren’t responsible, if we don’t let kids know that yes, they too are at risk.

Okay, this blog has gone on for too long. I’ll let you know the problem I had with the other books next blog.