NYT best selling author

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Heading to the east coast

Going to Maryland to visit my dear friends and to speak to classrooms full of 9th graders about writing. Woo hoo!

Back next week to tell you about it.

Saturday, May 26, 2007

Shocked, I tell you. Shocked!

There's a common thread among YA and Middle Grade authors that has turned into a bit of a joke for those of us who have children in the age groups we write for: our own kids don't read our books.

This was true for me until yesterday.

I've been working on a middle grade fantasy novel. Just finished the rough draft the other day, woot! What happens then is that my hubby and I sit down with it. He reads it, tells me what works and what doesn't. Only this time, when the kids heard us talking, first one and then the other perked up. Since I had the first 100 pages printed out, the first kid picked it up and started. By evening, both were reading different parts of the manuscript while hubby read on the computer.

And then.
Suddenly.
Out of nowhere.

I had three beta readers bombarding me with nits from three different sections of the manuscript. Oy! I was both delighted and, to tell the truth, a little bristly. (I don't think the kids have learned the value of the "critique sandwich" theory yet. Ouch!)

But by bedtime, I had two kids urging me to hurry with my edits so I could print out the rest of the manuscript. Even the kid who doesn't like to read. I am shocked.

How cool is that?

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Lizard season

We've definitely entered lizard season out here in the desert. So far we've rescued two from drowning in the pool. A third one didn't make it, even after I made my son do chest compressions on it. Those darn big ones -- they don't float nearly so well as the little guys. Sad day.

Manuscript copyedits are done on WAKE, yay! I feel like I learned a new language with all those proofreading marks. I also learned that I, use, too many, commas. And I'm terrible with bring/take. Yikes.

Monday, May 07, 2007

A new title?

It looks that way. YAY!

Introducing Janie book 1 under its new title:

WAKE.*

Book 2 is still a go with FADE.


*please note: This is the third time we've changed the title for this book, and I've found that it's not the easiest thing to go through. So if you hate it? Lie to to me, baby, because I don't think it'll change again.