Blog.  Blog blog blog.  Blaaaaaaaawg.

Anyway, I’ve been pretty busy this summer with important things like writing my next book.  Well, right now it’s more like working myself into a frothing panic over my next book, but that’s completely part of my process and is expected and on schedule.

I’ve been busy with other important things like putting on a dress and going to very lovely weddings – one of them involved sparklers and no one caught on fire!  Another one had teacups and cupcakes and croquet! – and playing lots of Rock Band (drums on hard level, guys.  Truth.)

I’ve also been reading some incredibly engrossing books which I can recommend:

Vampires. Apocalypse.  Apocalypse VIA VAMPIRES.

And then I’ve been doing slightly more terrifying things, like preparing myself for my impending demise in the wilderness of Canada.  For some reason, I’m going on a week-long canoe trip in a remote park where there are WOLVES and BLACK FLIES and NO INTERNET CONNECTIONS ANYWHERE.  I’m a bit of a wimp when it comes to those three things (among many other things), so I’m expecting that I’ll probably just die.

I’ve asked my family to make up a story about how I died heroically, like as I was single-handedly defending the whole group from a rabid grizzly bear (is there such a thing?  Don’t answer that…

Oh, hey Bear!  What’s up?  Nope, I definitely wasn’t talking about you behind your back.  Heh heh.  Heh.  RUN!)

…instead of just expiring from being a wuss.  A wuss going through severe internet withdrawal. It’s a very serious condition, you know.

If I survive, I will make sure to report back!

The pictures that people tweeted were so cool!  I love seeing where people work.  Especially writers, since we as a species are usually pretty attached to our computers and work-spaces, sometimes to the point that we start to feel panicky if we’re away from them for too long (not that I have extensive personal experience with that or anything).  So when I see a writer’s desk, I feel like I know them a little better as a person.

Here is what I posted:

My preciousssssss - ahem…I mean, this is where I work.

I like it okay.

There is an awesome set of photos up on the Guardian website of famous writer’s rooms.  I think the room where the Bronte sisters talked and worked is particularly interesting (and kind of haunting) (also, I would have been totally distracted and irritable and unproductive if I tried to write in a small room with sisters.  They must have been pretty tolerant of each other).

I prefer to imagine them this way:

GRRRR!

Author of ALBATROSS and BAND GEEK LOVE, Josie Bloss’s FAKING FAITH, about a teen shunned for a “sexting” incident who fakes her identity to fit in online with a community of ultra-conservative homeschooled teenage girls, again to Brian Farrey of Flux, in a nice deal, for publication in Fall 2011, by Kate Schafer Testerman of kt literary (NA).

Guys, I’m so excited about this book.  Partly because I’m stoked to continue working with Flux and my awesomesauce editor, and also partly because it finally justifies a long-held internet obsession of mine and basically makes every minute of said addiction into productive research.  Retroactively! Don’t ever let anyone tell you that long-held internet obsessions can’t be purposeful in the end.  There’s a story in everything.  Even (especially?) in obscure, pastel-colored corners of the internet.

I can’t wait to tell this story.  Bring it on, Faith!

Julia interviewed two librarians at the Monroe County Public Library (which is also my local and much beloved library since Julia and I live in the same town – Bloomington, Indiana). I especially love this comment by Chris Hosler, Teen Programmer/Reference Librarian:

It’s amazing that there’s a job like this out there for people like me, who love to learn for learning’s sake and to meet all sorts of people each day. It’s that curiosity about life and the people we share it with that I think draws many librarians to the profession. I guess I just want people to know that, and to please come talk to us when you’re in the library – we do this job because we love it and love to help folks access the information they need, and yes, the crotchety librarian is a cruel stereotype, so don’t be afraid to ask us for help!

Julia is also donating $1 to everyone who comments on her blog today (April 12), so go over there and comment and make her pay up!  Her blog is also a great resource for writing news and advice and she updates it very regularly (unlike some people we know…ahem) (that would be me), so I highly recommend checking it out.

And come back here soon, because I hope to announce the details of the Best Birthday Present EVER sometime this week!

So…I am not one of those writers.  When I find stuff online about my books, I read it.  And more often than I’d like to admit, I build a house and dwell on the negative things.  Sometimes I’d really really like to respond, to rabidly defend the story and characters that are so dear to me.

But as almost any writer will tell you, responding directly and defensively to reviews is NEVER A GOOD IDEA!  Nothing positive will come of it and the whole experience will likely end in despair and/or you getting made fun of on the internetz.

(It’s much more satisfying to rant to friends and loved ones, who are contractually obligated to make soothing noises, pour you a drink and say you’re right and everyone else is wrong.)

However, when Donna at Bites asked me to write a guest post about Albatross, I took it as a chance to explain some of the background to the book.  Why I wrote it in terms of my own life experiences, and also in terms of certain trends and debates I see going on in the YA world about romance and depictions of what I personally consider unhealthy and abusive relationships.

And also in order to explain Tess, the occasionally self-destructive and super-frustrating main character of Albatross, who is doubly unable to defend herself due to A) her own issues with her self-esteem, and B) because, well, she’s fictional.

I knew I would eventually hear frustrated comments about the story. “I don’t understand why Tess didn’t just stand up for herself! Why didn’t she kick Micah to the curb after ten pages? He’s obviously a terrible person!” I get that disgust, I really do. It sucks to watch someone make bad choices. In fact, it’s downright unpleasant. Albatross was a hard book to write for that reason. So many times I wanted to reach into the story and give Tess a good shake and yell at her to give up on this jackass, that she deserved so much better.

But even if I could do that, she wouldn’t have believed me right away. And I had to stick with what I knew was true because I had lived it.

The whole thing is here.  Thanks for the opportunity, Donna!

There’s also this cool interview that I did with the Indianapolis Star where I talk about similar topics…

Why did you choose to write Albatross?

I decided to write Albatross because I had seen depictions in books and movies of obsessive and emotionally abusive relationships with the underlying message that these are positive and even romantic…I found that really upsetting and I wanted to give a counter-argument.

Sometimes the person we fall for does not deserve it.

On that happy note (?), I hope that you all have wonderful weekends, and eat lots of Cadbury eggs if you’re into that sort of thing!

via nataliedee.com

(Sometimes the world just feels like this, right?)

Perhaps you saw that my writerly hero Meg Cabot interviewed me on her blog?  Here it is if you missed it. Fingers crossed the authorities don’t come after me for admitting that I stole a book from my 7th grade classroom.  I was young!  I didn’t know what I was doing!

I’d make grand and sappy declarations about how Meg is the coolest (not to mention the funniest and the nicest and the prettiest), but I think you all already know that!

I met her the day before I started writing Band Geek Love!  Very auspicious.

(Though apparently she hates her haircut here, whatevs, she’s still the best.)

Meg is running a really great contest to give away copies of Albatross…check it out here.  To win, you’ll have to write in and explain how you’d help extricate a friend from an unhealthy, hurtful relationship without making your friend mad and driving her (or him) away.  It’s tough to do!  I know because I’ve been there (on both sides of the ugly equation).

I also want to point out this kickass Albatross review and giveaway over on the book review blog Bites.  The whole thing is so thoughtful and awesome, but I think this is my favorite bit because it talks about something other reviews haven’t really mentioned:

There isn’t a prince that saves Tess’s day. Only Tess did that and that just reiterated the overwhelmingly powerful message this book has. No one else can get you out of it except you. You need the strength to do it. You just need to listen to that inner voice of yours.

Yes.  Sometimes, my friends, you just have to be your own damn hero!

I had a great time at the East Lansing Public Library, where I met some girls who are current members of my old high school marching band (they even have the same band director!).  They gave me the highest praise possible about Band Geek Love – “You got it right”.  Thanks, guys!  Good luck with drum major try-outs!

And then I visited Haslett High School, where we had a fun talk about bad relationships and boy drama and throwing off albatrosses.  It was not nearly as traumatizing to hang out in a high school as I thought it would be, though I definitely still have a Pavlovian response to the class-change bells.  Not in the form of drooling, at least, but definitely some panic.

And THEN I had a wonderful reading/signing at Schuler Books.  It involved my favorite question of the weekend.  A woman in the audience asked me what are my favorite themes to write about and I answered “A girl finding her inner-badass”.  Then she asked me if I had found my inner-badass yet, and someone else interjected, “Sure she has…look at her boots!”

Me explaining my Badass Boots.

This was a valuable lesson, as it turns out.  Whenever you are anxious and nervous about something, try wearing Badass Boots.  I swear they’ll make you feel ready to take on the world.  Or at least take on public speaking.  Truth.

Here is a great write-up and interview from the Lansing State Journal wherein I admit to printing out IM conversations in high school because I thought they might be useful material someday.  (They ARE.)

Thanks everyone for a wonderful visit!  And for those who I missed this time around, I promise I’ll be back!

Anyway, while I’m home, I’ll be involved in two events that are open to the public and I hope to see you there!

On Saturday, February 27 at 2 p.m., I’ll be talking about my books at the East Lansing Public Library (info about the event can be found here) as part of their Young Adult Author Series.  This was my local library as I was growing up, and I’m so excited to go back and have my first Albatross-related event there.

Then on Monday, March 1st at 6 p.m., I’ll be hanging out and signing at Schuler Books at Eastwood in Lansing (more information about that is right here).  I’ve been told there will be PIZZA.  Pizza + books…if there’s anything better than that I don’t want to know because I might get addicted to it.

Later in the month, on Saturday, March 20th, I will be in Indianapolis at the River Crossing Borders (details here).  First Indy event…hooray!

And some more Albatross love, Publishers Weekly said my “descriptions of lust and envy are honest and captivating”.  Which is so exciting to hear because, in my opinion, lust and envy are pretty much the the most fascinating sins in existence.  Well…except for maybe pizza and book related gluttony.

The other night I was looking through my old journals for research purposes, and found the entry I wrote on Valentine’s Day when I was sixteen. It got me thinking about Albatross because it a) involved Solo & Ensemble Festival (me = band geek, of course) and b) was about angsty, unrequited love.  Both of these are experiences I blatantly stole from myself for Albatross.

I totally made up the part about having a hot accompanist, though.

Long backstory short, on Valentine’s/Solo & Ensemble Day in 1998 I was ENTIRELY smitten with this guy who had recently told me “oh I just want to be friends because you’re really cool and I don’t want to ruin our awesome friendship blah de blah lamesauce” and my feelings about that development were demonstrated by how I noted the date:

(I still can’t spell February without spell-check)

I’ll let 16 year-old me take it from here:

With all this upheaval in my life, I still managed to get it together for solo and ensemble. My solo went okay, by no means my best playing, but I got a one.  The duet was supposed to be a joke, and we thought we wouldn’t get a rating, but the judge was so into it he didn’t care.  He gave us a one! So the day, so far, has been a triumph.

But if today will be all around wonderful remains to be seen. I’m going over to [Name Redacted to Protect the Semi-Innocent]’s house tonight, where I suppose I’ll find out if my heart is to be totally broken, or sewed up at the tears. Your guess is as good as mine.

In any case, if my heart is to be ripped apart, the last few days have convinced me I’ll be able to recover. I don’t need his love to keep on living. I don’t need to be certain of his devotion to become an adult, and succeed. In any case, he is just a nice little detour on the road to real loves.

Just need to remember that.

I think that slightly-over-dramatic 16 year-old me would be pretty excited about the concept of Interplanetary Be Yourself Day.  And that’s what older-and-wiser current me is going to celebrate in 2010.

Have a lovely weekend, wherever and whoever you are!