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!

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!

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.

So I’m ready to move on to bigger playwriting things and I recently incorporated two of my short pieces into an outline for a full-length play.  It was just as scary as when I decided to try and write a book, but opening that new document and declaring my intentions felt like a big step.  Which means, of course, that it involved lots of arguments with my jerk of an internal critic.

See?

(Disclaimer: They are slightly cuter in this video then they are in real life. That one dude’s voice is just as lovely live, though.)

One guy, the blond in the video, played like every instrument there is and some that are not (a radio tuned to white noise?).  The venue was nice and relaxed and the music was good and I started thinking over this plot of a cool new story and decided Grizzly Bear would be the soundtrack and everything was going great…

…except we just so happened to sit behind the biggest Grizzly Bear SUPER! FAN! in all of Bloomington, Indiana.  Seriously, this girl was excited.  She screamed during the silences and yelled out requests at inappropriate times and she flailed…literally.  She actually got in a fight with her boyfriend, right there in front of us, because she hit his head so many times with her flailing arms that he asked her to stop so she started yelling at him because telling a SUPER! FAN! to calm down is always a mistake.  High drama.

There wasn’t anything else for to do except make her a character in this new story, silly barrettes and all.

So I figured I need to express gratitude toward the computer programs that made this possible…(sadly, all for only for Macs).

1.) Scrivener.  I heard about it first on Justine Larbalestier’s excellent blog and, I’m not gonna lie, it helped tipped the scale toward switching over to a Mac last summer.  I wrote almost all of Albatross on Scrivener and cannot fathom how I lived without it.  It just made organizing my brain and formulating plots about a hundred time easier, and an organized brain is kind of nice for novel writing.  Seriously, enthusiastically and highly recommended.

2.) Freedom.  This program, quite simply, breaks the internet on your computer for as long as you ask that it be broken (I can usually only stand an hour at a time or else I get twitchy).  For people like me who have, um, a kind of hard time not being distracted by the internet (IT’S SO SHINY) Freedom could not be more aptly named.  I don’t think I could have finished Albatross in a timely manner if it weren’t for all the internet breaking that I did in those last few weeks.  Recommended!

Oh, one more!

3.) MacJournal.  One of my oldest friends (from elementary school on) began working on this program when we were in college and won some big student design award for it and now he’s like computer software hotshot out in California but he totally deserves it because this journaling program rocks.  I’ve found it incredibly handy for keeping a writer’s journal, jotting down ideas, doing free-writing, further brain organization, etc.  And it has a ton of other features, too…so very, very recommended.

Freedom is free, and Scrivener and MacJournal are both under $40.  Worthy investments, all.

Band Geeked Out is officially off to the printer (huzzah!) so I’ve been chin-deep in Albatross for the past few weeks. It’s going pretty well, except the story is RUDELY INSISTING on taking off in directions I had previously not considered.  And I sat the story down, and calmly explained this concept of a synopsis, and then it got all hostile and defensive like a guest on Jerry Springer “You don’t know me!  You don’t know my life!” and I said, “Well, actually, yes I do.  I brought you into this world, story.  I CAN TAKE YOU OUT” and then there was hair pulling and someone had to call in security before it got too ugly.

But later we were able to talk out our differences, and I’ll grudgingly admit that the story is probably right about some things.  Albatross needs to be a bit…lighter.  A tad less mopey and a touch more snarky sweet.  So I’m giving the story a chance to wander and I’ll see where it takes me. Hopefully not to stupid places.

Writing!  It’s always an adventure.