Blessings: Thursday, November 21st, 2013

I live a charmed life.

Well, not really.  I have my ups and downs like everybody else, and I've had to climb over many hurdles on my road to publication.

But right now, in this moment, I have everything I could possibly want, or need.

Right now, I'm sitting at my kitchen table while my daughter sings and dances in a circle, waving a blue crayon around.  One of my cats is perched next to my computer and when I reach out to pat him, his soft fur warms my hand.  My fridge is full with delicious food just waiting to be made into a meal.  My husband will be home from work soon, and we'll snuggle on the couch and watch Parks and Recreation.

I spent half of today with a dear friend who just had a baby, after struggling with infertility for the last few years.  And tomorrow I'll go to yoga in the morning and then camp out at my favorite coffeeshop to write.  This weekend I'll see another dear friend in a play at a theatre that she's worked for years to get cast at.

My life is full and rich with my family and their many blessings, with my friends who bring me so much joy, and my work to fulfill two multi-book contracts with two different publishers - a goal I've worked for for years.

I lost my mom when I was a young teenager, an event that reverberates in every aspect of my life.  And while I miss my mom every day, I also feel very strongly that she is always looking out for me.  I even think that she put those hurdles in my way, so that when I got over them I would know what accomplishment feels like.  Suffering that huge of a loss at such a young age made me realize very early on how important it is to appreciate what I have.  How important it is to stop and look around on an ordinary Thursday evening, see the blessings in every little moment, and say thank you.

The Class of 2k14

I'M BACK!!!!
Yes, it's been almost a year since I've blogged.  I'll catch ya'll up over the next couple of weeks.  Today, I'm here to talk about the launch of the Class of 2k14!

The Class of 2k14 is a group of diverse YA and MG authors who have banded together to support and promote each other's books over the next year and a half.  I'm thrilled and honored to be part of this group.  And today is the launch of our shiny, brand-new website.  We're celebrating with a giveaway - you could win a $100 gift certificate to the bookseller of your choice!

The Class of 2k groups were started in 2007 by Greg Fishbone as a way to connect authors with booksellers, librarians, teachers, and readers.  All of the previous Classes have webpages that list their authors.  The Class of 2k13 is active right now and I encourage you to check out their website and attend any events in your area!

But first, check out the upcoming Class of 2k14 and get to know us.  Enter our giveaway and follow us throughout 2014 as our books debut.  Follow us on Twitter, Tumblr, and Goodreads.  There will be lots more giveaways over the coming months so be sure to keep checking in!

Here's to The Class of 2k14!  Long may we reign.

Guilty Pleasures

So, today I made myself a playlist titled "Guilty Pleasures."  It consists of songs (mostly from the '80's, the decade in which I spent most of teenage years) that unabashedly make me happy.  But, they're also songs that I would probably get ridiculed to no degree for loving.  Hence the playlist title.

Sample track:

Now, I can honestly say that I never had a poster of Rick Springfield on my wall, although I did have a "Dirty Dancing" poster of Patrick Swayze - on his knees, crawling towards the camera, wearing those black pants and that black tank top - hanging right over my bed.  YUM.

Back in the days before iTunes, I used to keep a blank tape (a cassette tape - remember those?) in my dual radio/cassette player so that if I heard a song that I loved come on, I could just hit RECORD and voila!  Song recorded.  Yes, that's how we made playlists in the 80's.  This was one song that I remember chasing down for days until I finally caught it (so important to get the opening guitar line):

And of course the ultimate love letter of high-schoolers in the '80's was The Mix Tape.  I got a particularly memorable one from an ex-boyfriend who wanted to get back together (we did, briefly).  He'd written a paragraph for each song, explaining why he'd included it.  For this one, he wrote that one night he called me on the phone...but there was no answer:

 There are several more tracks on the playlist I made today, but these are the only ones I'll admit to including...and I can already hear the teasing coming my way!

So, I 'fessed up - your turn!  Tell me your ultimate guilty pleasure song.  Bonus points to anyone who names one that's on my list!
 

What Price Are You Willing to Pay?

Recently, a friend of mine on Facebook posted this blog (The Sheila Variations: It's Got to Cost You Something) and it really struck a chord in me.

At last year's SCBWI Conference, one of the speakers said the same thing.  A reader needs to feel that the book they're reading cost the author something to write.  Otherwise, why should they read it?  If the author didn't care enough, why should the reader?

I can tell you that all my favorite books are books that feel like they cost the author something very dear to write.  Before I Fall, by Lauren Oliver.  My God, that book came out of someplace deep and personal within her.  I Capture The Castle, by Dodie Smith.  Her heart is sprawled out all over the pages of that book.  And two of my very favorite books, Gone With The Wind and To Kill A Mockingbird, cost the authors so much to write that they never wrote another book again.

On the other hand, The DaVinci Code reads like Dan Brown wrote it with one hand tied behind his back while smoking a cigarette and reading The Times of London.  (Of course, he's laughing all the way to the bank, so that says more about what it cost US to read it than what it cost HIM to write it.)

Sure, we could become authors who blithely write dozens of books a year, churning them out without ever really falling in love with the characters or worrying about their destinies.  And maybe we'd make enough money doing this that we wouldn't care about caring.  I don't know about you, but I couldn't live with myself if I did this.

The thing that I love most about writing IS the caring.  The obsessing over my characters' fates.  The feeling of complete exhaustion and exhilaration I get after I've written an emotional scene.  I want to leave my blood and guts all over the page.  I want to put my heart out there and have every single one of my characters wear it on their sleeves.  Yes, it's scary; terrifying, actually.  But it's the good kind of scary.  It's the emotionally-satisfying kind of scary that comes from creating true, meaningful art.

And that is not to say that prolific writers can't also be the kind of writers who put their blood, sweat and tears into every book they write.  I've never read any of Stephen King's novels - I can't read horror; it scares the absolute bejesus out of me - but I have read On Writing, and I've flipped through enough of his books to know that his heart is pulsating out of every page.  I've read (and met) Anne Perry, the prolific mystery writer, and I know that she spills herself into every character. 

As Sheila O'Malley says in her brilliant blog post, it's got to cost you something.  That is the deal you make when you become an artist.  The best art doesn't look pretty.  (In fact, sometimes it looks horrifyingly ugly, like Munch's The Scream).  It looks like it was dragged out of the artist's soul and splattered onto the canvas or page or stage or film or CD, almost against their will.  That an imprint of themselves is left there, forever.  Forget alchemy; that is how we truly achieve immortality.

But the amazing and wonderful thing about being an artist is that for each piece of yourself you leave behind in your art, you gain back by continuing to create more art.  Give, and you shall receive.

Watch the footage of Elvis in the blog post above.  You can literally SEE the price he is paying with each note that he sings.

So the next time you sit down to write, take a deep breath, and pay up.

Sound The Trumpets!

When I was a little girl, I used to pick dandelions, make a wish, and blow, watching all the seeds scatter onto the wind.  I truly believed that the wish I'd made would come true.  And some of them did, and some of them didn't.  But all the ones that did had something in common: I made them come true.

Now as an adult, I still believe in wishes and dreams.  But I also know that in order for my wishes and dreams to come true, I have to make them happen.  It's not enough to wish for publication; I have to write the book.  It's not enough to dream about hitting the bestseller list; I have continually work on my craft in order to write a book worthy of the list.  It's our actions that make our dreams and wishes come true.

That's why I've redesigned and renamed my blog Making A Wish & Making It Happen.  To inspire other artists to close their eyes and make a wish, dream a dream...and then go out and take action and make it happen.

And with the big redesign comes big news.  I made a wish, and I (along with some help from my family, my friends, and my awesome agent) made it happen.  I am thrilled to announce that my novel, WINTER FALLS, will be published by Medallion Press in 2014.

As the followers of this blog know, it has been a long, hard road to this moment.  I made the wish a long time ago, and through a lot of hard work, sweat, blood and lots of tears, I made it happen.

And I fervently believe that any writer out there can do the same.

So that's why this blog is here.  Tell me your wishes and dreams, and I'll tell you mine.  And together, we'll make them happen.

A Night To Remember

I've been obsessed with the Titanic since I was a little girl.  Long before the Titanic was TITANIC: THE MOVIE!, long before there was Jack and Rose and Celine Dion, before there five hundred specials like TITANIC: THE FINAL MYSTERY SOLVED!, on the History or Discovery or Learning Channels.

I've been obsessed with the Titanic before they even found the wreckage of the ship.

For anyone who doesn't know, that was in 1985.  I've been obsessed with it since about 1983.  That's when the brilliant-but-cancelled, short-lived, one-season television show starring now-sadly-deceased 80's heartthrob Jon-Erik Hexum, VOYAGERS, did an episode set on the Titanic.  In that episode, the time-traveling Hexum, along with his kid sidekick, had to set history right by getting the Mona Lisa off the doomed ship.  Kid Sidekick tries to save the ship, but Older And Wiser Hexum tells him that he can't change history.  Sometimes tragedies happen.

I'm not sure exactly what it is about the Titanic that has fascinated for nearly thirty years.  I suppose it's a combination of things: that it was the largest moving object in the world, that it was supposed to be "unsinkable," that it was the most luxurious ocean liner ever built, that it was a floating example of a terrible class system, that it was one of the last bastions of chivalry (I doubt it was women & children first on the Costa Concordia), that the band played on as the ship went down.  Because I'm so far removed from that era, it's easy to see the romance of it (as the box office numbers can attest to).  And at the time when I first learned about the Titanic, they hadn't found the wreckage yet.  People had died trying to find it.  It was largest moving object in the world and no one could find it.

Also, in the early years of my obsession, I checked a book out my school library about ghosts and curses, and in it there was a story about how there was a cursed Egyptian mummy being transported from The London Museum to New York on the ship.  An Egyptian curse?!  It really doesn't get any cooler than that.

So, yeah.  I've been obsessed for a long time.

The backyard is transformed

A few years, it occurred to me that the 100th Anniversary of the sinking was coming up, and that there was no way in hell that I was going to let that date pass without doing something.  Something big.  Something like...I don't know...inviting a bunch of my friends over, making them dress up in costume, turning my backyard into a wonderland of candlelight and recreating the final dinner served in the first-class dining saloon.  You know, something simple.  Ha!

Host & Hostess

So on April 14th, 2012, my most wonderful and intrepid friends indulged this crazy whim of mine and were treated to the most elaborate dinner that will probably ever be served in my house.

Course Five: Beef, Lamb, Duck

Guests arrived at eight, and entered the Grand Saloon, aka the backyard, which had been set up with an elegant table and soft lighting.  Period-appropriate music filled the air (via an iPod; sadly, the budget did not allow for the live string quartet I originally wanted).  Champagne flowed all night.  Six courses were served.  Oysters, cream of barley soup, poached salmon, duck, filet mignon, lamb, eclairs, peaches in chartreuse jelly and French ice cream.  A different wine for each course.  And champagne.  Did I mention the champagne?

Merriment

It was one of those nights were time stops and nothing matters but good friends and good food, the stars above and the laughter around the table.  At 11:40 pm, the exact time the Titanic hit the iceberg, we played "Nearer My God to Thee" (the hymn the band supposedly played while the ship was sinking) and had a moment of silence.  I'll be honest, though, we were all extremely, uh, merry by that time and the moment of silence was rather giggly.

I've never lost sight of the fact that over 1500 people lost their lives that terrible night 100 years ago.  Part of my fascination with the ship comes from the incredulous question How could they let this happen?  How could they put lifeboats for only half the people on board?  How could the Californian, less than ten miles away, ignore the distress calls?  How could they lower lifeboats, built to carry eighty people, with only twelve people aboard?

The Wreckage

But oh, it's hard to think about that when you're sucking a delicious oyster out of its shell.

Happy Book Birthdays!

April showers bring May flowers, and with the flowers come books!  I want to highlight three book birthdays today from three wonderful debut writers:

STRUCK by Jennifer Bosworth

Mia Price is a lightning addict. She’s survived countless strikes, but her craving to connect to the energy in storms endangers her life and the lives of those around her.
Los Angeles, where lightning rarely strikes, is one of the few places Mia feels safe from her addiction. But when an earthquake devastates the city, her haven is transformed into a minefield of chaos and danger. The beaches become massive tent cities. Downtown is a crumbling wasteland, where a traveling party moves to a different empty building each night, the revelers drawn to the destruction by a force they cannot deny. Two warring cults rise to power, and both see Mia as the key to their opposing doomsday prophecies. They believe she has a connection to the freak electrical storm that caused the quake, and to the far more devastating storm that is yet to come.
Mia wants to trust the enigmatic and alluring Jeremy when he promises to protect her, but she fears he isn’t who he claims to be. In the end, the passion and power that brought them together could be their downfall. When the final disaster strikes, Mia must risk unleashing the full horror of her strength to save the people she loves, or lose everything.

HEMLOCK by Kathleen Peacock

Mackenzie and Amy were best friends. Until Amy was brutally murdered.

Since then, Mac's life has been turned upside down. She is being haunted by Amy in her dreams, and an extremist group called the Trackers has come to Mac's hometown of Hemlock to hunt down Amy's killer:

A white werewolf.

Lupine syndrome--also known as the werewolf virus--is on the rise across the country. Many of the infected try to hide their symptoms, but bloodlust is not easy to control.

Wanting desperately to put an end to her nightmares, Mac decides to investigate Amy's murder herself. She discovers secrets lurking in the shadows of Hemlock, secrets about Amy's boy-friend, Jason, her good pal Kyle, and especially her late best friend. Mac is thrown into a maelstrom of violence and betrayal that puts her life at risk.

 

 

CHAINED by Lynne Kelly

 

After ten-year-old Hastin’s family borrows money to pay for his sister’s hospital bill, he leaves his village in northern India to take a job as an elephant keeper and work off the debt. He thinks it will be an adventure, but he isn’t prepared for the cruel circus owner. The crowds that come to the circus see a lively animal who plays soccer and balances on milk bottles, but Hastin sees Nandita, a sweet elephant and his best friend, who is chained when she’s not performing and hurt with a hook until she learns tricks perfectly. Hastin protects Nandita as best as he can, knowing that the only way they will both survive is if he can find a way for them to escape. 


Congratulations to these three authors on their debuts!  All three books are in stores TODAY!

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