My Double Life Give Away

Andie, my intrepid rent-a-teenager, has come up with a book trailer for My Double Life. She did an awesome job, and special thanks to Arizona's own Jonnie and Brookie for letting me use their song: Missing Me Crazy. The first time I heard it, I knew I wanted it for the trailer because the chorus: You'd be missing me crazy if you only knew my name, fits so well with the novel.

For a chance to win the book, just watch the trailer and leave a comment about your favorite part. Followers get double chances, with the almighty Random Number Generator, so if you follow, follow me (sung to the tune of: Do As I'm Doing) be sure to let me know.

The Red Carpet launch

In case you missed the big event of the year, I had a fab red carpet launch at Changing Hands. This is the dress I picked up at thrift store when I realized . . . Oh, red carpet means I have to dress up too.

These next pictures are of me and my entourage arriving. Curse the paparazzi! They make my life a living heck!

Okay, that's actually just my fantasy world. Hey, authors are allowed to have fantasy worlds. We even populate them and get attached to our characters. (Tristan is real! I know he is!)

Here we are posing for our adoring crowds. And yes, that is the Book Babe Faith, along with the lovely Babe Brandi and Babe Bethany. (We are all Babes.)

We took lots of awesome pictures of people posing for the paparazzi--and I will say that some of my friends and their kids are quite the hams, but since I wasn't sure if any of them actually wanted their pictures posted on my blog, I'm just posting a couple from a woman who frequently trots her children's pictures out on this blog.

Yes, this is Gaston, and this is what he really would do if paparazzi ever bothered him. (Actually, he would probably grab cameras and clang them together like cymbals.)

And here is my biggest fan--or at least my most up-to-date fan-- since she reads all of my stories as I write them on my computer. Yesterday she asked me, "If you weren't an author, would you be one of those mothers that does housework?"

The world will never know.

And lastly, this was my favorite picture. Babe Brandi appears to be a mild mannered book store employee by day, but she obviously has an inner starlet that is dieing to get out.

Random.org has chosen the winner/ more chances

The random number generator--who boasts of true randomness (as opposed to all that fake randomness you find elsewhere) has chosen Enna Isilee as the winner.

If you feel lucky though, TeenLibris is giving five copies away at their site: www.teenlibris.com/win-me

Congrats, Enna. Send me your mailing address and I'll send you the book . . . well, actually, it may take me a day or two to send you the book because Putnam has still not sent me my author copies, something I am complaining bitterly about since I was supposed to get them last week. I bet Rick Riordan never has to wait for his author copies.

Hopefully they'll come today.

My Double Life giveaway

It is just two short days until My Double Life comes out, so I'll be running a couple of give-aways, but just because I'm putting up a new blog--you can't forget to come to my book launch on Thursday, May 13th at Changing Hands: 7:00 pm. Remember, you're going to lure strangers into your cars and bring them with you. (Details are in the last blog entry.)


Okay, so here's the deal for the free book. Teen Libris and fellow author, Susan Colbank, have interviews with me on their websites and I am just fascinating enough that you'll want to read them both. Then leave a comment on this blog about something you learned about me or the book from one of the interviews. Mention whether you're a follower, since followers get double entries. May the random number generator be with you!


http://www.teenlibris.com/interviews/detail/janette_rallison/


http://susancolebank.livejournal.com/

Red Carpet Book Launch--free stuff!

That sounds like I'm going to throw my book out the window, doesn't it? (Believe me, there were many days during revisions when I wanted to.) But no, I'm actually having a Red Carpet event at Changing Hands.

There will be free stuff: Books, a Changing Hands gift certificate, school visits--and you just might win some of it. I think it will be a lot of fun. Bring your daughters, your friends, complete strangers who you've lured into your car--and go as glam as you want, because we will be taking pictures in front of a 4x6 paparazzi poster.

Here's the info:
Thursday, May 13th at 7:00 pm.
Changing Hands Book Store
6428 S McClintock DriveTempe, AZ 85283(480) 730-0205

All her life, Alexia Garcia has been told she looks just like pop star Kari Kingsley, and one day when Alexia's photo filters through the Internet, she’s offered a job to be Kari's double. She takes the job in order to finally meet the father she's never known.

Alexia lives the celebrity life, even romancing the hottest lead singer on the charts. But is it real love if your boyfriend doesn't even know your name?

Just had to post this

And when I can figure out how to post the whole thing here, I will. But right now you're going to have to copy and paste the link because for some reason the whole thing isn't linking up.

http://www.raisingarizonakids.com/index.php?page=1.library.article_view&ar_id=1236

It is--get this--me in a cooking article. Those of you who know me are laughing right now--or as my husband put it when I told him Raising Arizona Kids was using me for their recipee section:

"So they're doing a humor piece?"

Yes, yes they are. But that's beside the point. It's me in a cooking article. Take that, Martha Stewart.

And the description winners are:

I have to say this was a really hard call. You guys wrote a ton of great description: delicious dips in his throat, muscles, cheesecake, sunlight tinging off his teeth, and Pluto the not-a-planet. I could go on, but you guys probably read the descriptions yourself.

The next time I have to describe an attractive person I will peruse through your comments looking for material. (I did warn you I would do that.) But the judges have spoken (At least one of them did--the other one's wife just had a baby so I'm cutting him some slack, but if he ever gets back to me there might be one more winner.)

Anyway, Jesslyn and Kimberly send me your mailing addresses at jrallisonfans at yahoo dot com and let me know which of my books you want. (With the exception of My Double Life--which still isn't out, but I'll do a giveaway for that book as soon as I get my author copies.)

(Wow, the parentheses are just flying in this post. It's obviously time for bed.)

The Whitney Awards

I bet you thought I was going to ask you to write more descriptions of these very stunning women. No, dear blog reader, actually this is a picture of Julie Wright and I at the Whitney Awards. By the way, I am actually wearing one of Julie's dresses because she has much better taste than I do. (I had planned on buying a dress while I was in Utah but somehow it never happened.)

I know I should tell you who the winners of the description contest are. I'm going to get to that soon--really. I've enlisted the help of two judges and they have yet to get back to me about their choices. (If you're reading this, judges,take this as a subtle hint.)

The reason it's been so long since I've written, is that I've spent the last week in Utah doing school visits, book signings, a writers conference, and the Whitney Awards. My Fair Godmother was up for the best YA novel.

Here is a picture of me after the awards:
You can probably tell from the number of chocolate deserts sitting in front of me that once again, I didn't win.

Here are some other losers after the awards:
At least I'm in good company. Jessica Day George, James Dashner, and Julie Wright are all awesome writers.

And here's what happens when you go for a week with very little sleep. I am leading a group of women in a rendition of Beyonce's Single Ladies.


Dan Wells, who won some award for something, said that all my blog readers would wonder what I was pointing at. He may have made that snarky comment because I commandeered a podcast interview and asked him some of my own questions. Well, what do you expect when you write a book called: I Am Not A Serial Killer? People are going to wonder about certain things. One of the questions I asked him was, "What are you not going to be next?"

According to Dan, he is not going to be a vampire next, but I guess we'll have to see. Personally, I think Dan sparkles. Just saying. Here is a picture of Dan and me. I ask you: Does this man look like a serial killer and should people really be giving him awards?

Oh, all right, I'll post a normal picture of Dan and I.


Next blog I'll post contest winners and more pictures of the conference.

Book Give-Away/ The problem with attractive people

I bet you think I'm going to say that the problem with attractive people is that they're conceited or used to privilege or they see the world differently from regular people. Probably true, but nope, that's not what this blog is about.

The problem with attractive people is that it is so hard to write interesting descriptions of them in books. When the heroine is describing the hero, (or the other way around) she needs to do it in a way that not only gives the reader a basic visual image, but also tells us he's attractive.

However, beyond writing about a few distinguishing characteristics--blond, brunette, square jaw, blue eyes or brown--you can't describe a person's face at all. People look vastly different from one another, but it's nearly impossible to detail those differences with words.

This makes describing a handsome guy or beautiful girl that much harder, and now that I'm revising book number 18, I feel like I've run out of fresh ways to do it. I want to write:

He had two eyes, a nose, and a mouth--and they were placed in just the right areas of his face.

You see my problem.

So here's the deal: Write a description of a handsome guy or a beautiful girl in the comment box. I don't care what color eyes, hair, or skin he or she has--I have a lot of beautiful people in my books. I'll get around to your favorite type eventually.

I may use all or part of your description at some point in one of my books. (Heck, I feel like there are so few ways to write up attractive people that I may have already used your description before you even write it.)

I'll choose two comments and those people can have whichever one of my books they want. (With the exception of My Double Life, which still isn't out yet--but hey, May 13 isn't that far away. Yay!)

Happy writing.

Speaking of Twilight . . .

Ben Bella Books emailed me to say that my Twilight essay from the book A NEW DAWN is up on their website this week. That means you can read what I have to think about it for FREE! (Of course you also do that here, but hey, on their website I'm not only witty, I'm grammatically correct! That, my friends, is what a copy editor will do for you.)

You can see it until midnight next Tuesday at:

http://www.smartpopbooks.com/

Just scroll down until you get to the link to my essay, To Bite, Or Not To Bite; That Is The Question (Yes, I know somewhere Shakespeare is cringing.)

Here's the first two paragraphs to tease you:

What’s your definition of a bad day? A fight with a friend? A speeding ticket? How about being attacked by a vampire and painfully turned into the undead, then realizing you must wander for eternity fighting off a craving to kill people? Yeah, that would pretty much be a bad day.

Carlisle, the leader of the Cullen clan of vampires had this bad day and (we can assume) many other bad days that followed. Stephenie Meyer doesn’t skimp when dishing out problems for her characters. Seriously, if you were Cinderella and could choose someone to be your fairy godmother, you wouldn’t want it to be Stephenie Meyer. Sure, she could come up with the ultimate Prince Charming to take you to the ball, but he might kill you afterward.

Too funny not to share

I laughed so hard when I watched this. I'm sure a lot of husbands can relate!

My Fair Godmother, German style

I just got the German version of My Fair Godmother. They changed the title, of course. (The play on words doesn’t work in other languages.) Their title is Real Fairies, False Princes, which I have to say, is one cool title. I totally wish I had thought of it, and I’m sad it won’t work for the sequel. (Sorry, no princes, but there is a single king.)

When I turned in My Fair Godmother to Walker it was 111,000 words--over 400 pages. They thought this was too long and wanted me to cut nearly a 100 pages out. They did have a point. It needed to be trimmed. I clearly learned my lesson because this time when I wrote the sequel it was only 103,000 words. Yeah, I know, the first revision request I’m expecting is that I cut the text down—which I’m dreading because I already cut 7,000 words from it before I sent it in.

Granting three wishes just takes some time.

Anyway, so the interesting thing about the German version of My Fair Godmother is that it is 419 pages long. I feel strangely vindicated by this fact. I also wonder what is in those extra pages. Is German like Russian and it takes them more syllables to say the same thing? Did the translator go into more depth explaining things? Maybe the romance scenes are more romantic. It makes me wish I spoke German.

In all fairness, the response.

My husband woke me up this morning and said, "Roger Responded."

My first thought was, "Why don't I know when to keep my mouth shut?" Followed quickly by thoughts of the conversation I would have to have with my editor about how I had managed to offend somebody else in the book world. Luckily, Roger was very nice, here is his response:

Thanks for coming by, Janette. I am not picking on your book in particular or on the genre of commercial fiction in general, either, just pointing out that our attitude towards it (as evinced by the comments that follow yours) differs from the way we regard similar books for adults. When you say your editor asked you to write it, do you mean that you were presented with a concept and asked to write a book that would fit? To me, that is definitionally commercial fiction. That's not to say it "needs to go out with the trash" and I'm not sure how Amber inferred that from what I wrote. I read and enjoy tons of commercial fiction (those who know me know I can quote entire passages verbatim from the complete works of Judith Krantz).

But I think librarians who believe that it doesn't matter what people read need to examine that credo closely. First: Really? It doesn't matter what people read? People read all the time on their computers; does that count? Or do you mean it doesn't matter what people read so long as they read books? Why are books special? And so on. My point is that most defenders of the innate value of reading "anything" are in fact far more particular in their definitions than they admit.

And why is reading, beyond the kind of functional reading people need to do to survive in contemporary society, good? Why is recreational reading better than watching TV or playing a game or whatever else a non-reader might prefer to do? Why is reading "something" better than reading nothing? Is "at least they're reading" truly a powerful defense of the practice?

Okay, Janette here again. So of course I couldn't keep my mouth shut after that post. (After all, he did ask me a question and getting-kids-to-read is one of my favorite soap boxes.) Here is my response (unabridged with typos included--why don't I catch those before I hit post?)

Hi Roger,
Putnam likes me to present them with a bunch of plot ideas I could turn into novels and then they choose which one I write. That way, if they already have a novel coming out about a girl who decides to climb Mt. Everest, I don’t inadvertently write another one. This last time I sent in many well thought out and meaningful plot outlines and I also sent in a one line idea: A girl who doubles for someone famous.

That’s the one they choose. I quickly realized it was a very narrow plot idea. For example, if you’re writing a romance about a girl who doubles for a rock star (and there’s very few jobs a teenager could have that she would be famous enough to need a double) there is really only one possibility of who she can fall in love with: another famous rock star. If she fell in love with some guy from the lighting crew there would be no danger for her character, and thus no tension. He wouldn’t care that she wasn’t famous. He might even be glad. Nope, it has to be someone way out of her league so she has something to lose if the truth comes out.

The more I plotted this story out, the more I realized the plot points had already been determined in those original seven words.

I didn’t want the book to just be about fame and money, so I choose a character who is looking for a father who doesn’t know she exists. Her job as a double allows her to meet him. In my mind the story is all about family and the desire kids have to be loved and accepted by their parents. But that doesn’t sound nearly as cool on a flap copy.

As for getting kids to read and what they should read, I could talk for an hour on that subject since I have two reluctant reader sons. Keep in mind that 1 in 5 children have a reading disability. I myself am dyslexic. (Thank goodness for spell check!) When my oldest son was in 4th grade his teacher came to me (after the school refused to get him extra reading help) and she told me, “I’ve seen this happen a thousand times. Kids struggle with reading, then they fall behind in school, then they hate school, then they get in trouble and drop out of school. If you don’t want that to happen, you need to get your son reading help.”

I homeschooled him for fifth grade so we could concentrate just on reading.

My Harvard educated father was aghast that I let my son read Calvin and Hobbes and counted it as reading time, but comic books are a great thing for reluctant readers. The pictures and punch lines keep the kids there reading, and while they’re doing that, they’re learning important reading skills like vocabulary and visualization techniques.

I went from disdaining Captain Underpants to getting every book in the series. And when my son stayed up until 3:00 a.m. in the morning to read The Lightening Thief, I decided that if I ever meet Rick Riordan I’m going to kiss him. A lot. Security will have to pull me away.

This same son is reading The Iliad now. (Okay, not willingly, but he’s still reading it.) My philosophy is that kids need to learn that reading is fun first. It’s not like calculus homework that very few people do for enjoyment. Once we’ve taught kids that reading is fun, we open up a world of possibilities to them. Until they think it’s fun. It might as well be calculus homework.

Again, thank you for the part you play in helping kids connect with books.

Cheers,
Janette

In which Horn Book disses commercial fiction and me by name

Okay, actually Horn Book only dissed the flap copy and premise of my book, which I don't feel too badly about since Tim, the Bow-Tied One, came up with both. And I rewrote the flap copy for the book and was surprised that the older version was on the ARCs. (Note to self, make sure it's not on the real books.)

But this is from the editor in chief at Horn Book's blog:

Not as rhetorical a question as you might have wished

From the promo blurb for My Double Life, by Janette Rallison:

You know how they say everyone has a twin somewhere in the world, a person chance has formed to be their mirror image? Well, mine happens to be rock star Kari Kingsley. How crazy is that?

Not crazy at all, when you, like I, have just spent two days combing through dozens (and dozens) of new YA novels, every other one of which seeming to encapsulate a formula of romance novel plus high-concept commercial hook plus glamorama cover art. In my day we called these paperbacks.

One of the more interesting of post-Harry Potter developments has been the emergence of commercial fiction for young people; that is, books designed to be purchased by kids/teens themselves, written in an undemanding style and with an alluring, quickly graspable premise. Airport books. Except if they were airport books, I wouldn't have to think twice about not reviewing them. And. There. Are. So. Many. And so many that seem to want desperately to be just like some other book that has already been a hit. Little Vampire Women, I'm looking at you.

Okay, now it's Janette typing again.

My first reaction when I read this was to laugh and go write Little Vampire Women. (You know somebody is going to do it, and it will be a bestseller.) But it did get me thinking about the whole issue. Then today I went back to reread the blog and noticed that somebody had left a scathing anonymous comment so I figured I had better leave a comment because otherwise everyone would think I was the anonymous commenter. Here is my comment:

Hi Roger,
To tell you the truth, when my editor asked me to write this book, I had some similar thoughts to yours and joked with him more than once that we should call the book: Yes, Hannah Montana Fans, This Book is for You!

But really, there are no new plots, just new characters to live in them. I asked myself what elements I could add to this much used Prince and the Pauper plot to make it meaningful. Trust me, the issues in the book do run deeper than the flap copy suggests.

As far as the benefits of commercial fiction go, I'll just say this: I've had teenagers tell me they didn't like reading until they started reading my books. I had two reluctant reader sons who learned that reading could be fun by reading Captain Underpants. Whatever works! Now they're reading the classics.

And thank you, Roger, for all you do to bring the wonderful world of reading to kids too!

Now I think I'll sit down and start writing that Little Vampire Women book you mentioned. It's going to be gold!

My Double Life from youngest daughter's point of view

My youngest daughter is still at that point where she reads with Mom and Dad listening to help her with the big words. While we were driving to visit cousins, I thought I would make good use of time and have her read to me from the beginning of the book. Here is the first paragraph of the book: (Which reminds me, as soon as I get someone to update my website, the first three chapters will be on my website along with extra scenes not in the book.)

I didn’t want to write this. Really, there’s a lot that’s happened in the last few months that I’d rather forget. But Mom says I need to have an autobiography on hand, that I need to record all the facts, in case someone writes a trashy tell-all book about me. Mom also told me I should describe her as ten pounds thinner, looking like a fashion model, and being an immaculate housekeeper. So here’s the disclaimer: Whatever else you might think about the events in this story, please keep in mind that my mom is gorgeous and our bathrooms were always clean.

My daughter read the first sentence, I didn’t want to write this, and asked, "Is this book about you?"

"No," I said. "In novels sometimes authors pretend to be the main character."

My daughter thought about this for a moment. "So you really did want to write this book?"

"No, actually I didn't want to write the book. It was my editor's idea. I wanted to write a fantasy book about wizards."

This seemed to just confuse my daughter about the whole real-not real aspect of the book. She read through the rest of the paragraph until she came to the last sentence: Whatever else you might think about the events in this story, please keep in mind that my mom is gorgeous and our bathrooms were always clean.
"Oh," she said, understanding dawning over her, "This book is pretend. Our bathrooms aren't always clean."

And that in a nutshell is the difference between fiction and nonfiction.

Tucson Book Festival March 13-14

If any of you are in the area, I hope you'll stop by and see me at the Tucson Book Festival so it looks like I have fans. (I like to pretend, often bribing near strangers into filling this role.)

My schedule for Saturday, March 13:

1:00-2:00 - Workshop on writing
2:00-2:30, autographing
4:00-4:30 - Teen Author Lounge

You can find out about the other 400 authors attending by checking out the website:
http://tucsonfestivalofbooks.org/

Hope to see you there!

Career Day

Yesterday my daughter told me her school was having a dress-in-the-career-you're going-to-have day. She couldn't decide whether to go as an artist, a crazy cat lady, or an editor.

"What do editors wear?" she asked.
"Bow ties," I said.
"What do the girl editors wear?" she asked.
"Probably business casual," I told her.
She wasn't thrilled with this answer. I have some of those outfits but she didn't want to go to school wearing my "old lady" clothes. "No one will know what I'm supposed to be," she said.

I thought up the perfect solution for her. She went to school with a red pen tucked behind her ear(I told her to use it liberally)and a stack of rejection letters to hand out.

"You don't have to wait for people to submit to you," I said, "just go up and tell random people that you think they have no talent."

Here is what her rejection letter said:

Dear Hopeful Writer,
Thank you for letting us consider your manuscript. After careful deliberation (we looked at it for several seconds) we have decided that your work doesn’t meet our stringent standards. (We all laughed ourselves silly.) We wish you all the best in your writing career. (Give up now and get a job at Burger King.)

Sincerely,
The editor

When my daughter came home from school, I asked her if she handed out all the rejection slips.

"Yeah," she said. "And I wished I'd brought more to give out."

Yep, she nailed being an editor.

Random.org has chosen the winner

I love the Random.org website because it boasts that it is truly random. As opposed to all those other things in life that are only pseudo-random. (Like, say, certain people's editorial comments.) The first sentence on the site says:

Perhaps you have wondered how predictable machines like computers can generate randomness.

Actually, no, I have never wondered that. I generally take randomness for granted.

But not today when I need a number. And today the random number generator chose Brenda as the winner.

You know the drill, Brenda. Send me your address at jrallisonfans at yahoo dot com and I'll send you your book.

And for another chance to win an ARC of My Double Life, supposedly one is being given away on the goodreads.com giveaway page. (I myself haven't figured out how to get to the giveaway page so I haven't actually checked this out, but hopefully it's there.)

Another book give-away

Laura Lofgreen,one of my blogging friends, just did an interview with me that is up on her blog:

http://mydeartrash.blogspot.com/2010/02/janette-rallison-young-adult-author.html

I think all of my followers should read it, because I can actually be insightful and witty when given questions I can write out and then revise. In real life, not so much. In real life, I can never think of the word I want and half of my sentences end with the phrase, " . . . you know, that, um, thing . . .(insert wild hand gesture to emphasize my point)"

So in order to entice you to read the interview, I'll give away a book (I'll let you choose which)to one person who leaves a comment on my blog about something they learned about me on Laura's blog. (No fair asking for My Double Life though, because I don't have copies of it yet.)

And the winners are . . .

After my husband read my rejection contest blog, he stared at the screen and said, "Wow, those stories are really depressing."

Exactly. Welcome to my life. And yet at the same time I think we all have the right to congratulate ourselves, ladies--and you too Ms., I mean, Mr. Jensen. We're tough. We take this and keep trying. Really, you all deserve good things in life for pursuing your love of writing. I wish I could send you all books and boxes of chocolates and warm hugs.

The mighty Random Oracle over at Random.org chose Noble Standing as the winner, but I'm also going to send a book to Danyelle Ferguson, who showed us that getting a bad publisher is worse than getting no publisher at all--be careful when you accept a contract. Don't be so eager to see your book published that you accept a bad contract. It isn't worth it.

I have a friend who writes romances and was so excited to get a contract for her first book and the one dollar royalty she would make off of each book--until after she signed the contract and found out that the publisher's average print run for their books was about a hundred books. Yep, then she realized she'd make about a hundred dollars for all of her work. How much do you suppose that is an hour?

I'm also sending a book to Tiffany Dominguez. 72 queries and 4 requests for fulls on a book that already has an interested editor? There but for the grace of George Nicholson at Sterling Lord, go I.

So winners, send me your snail mail address at jrallisonfans at yahoo dot com so I can send out the books.

And I'll be giving away another book at my next blog, so be sure to try, try, try again!