Category: Contest Alert

Whatever happened to the laziness of summertime? I am trying to finish major expansion/revisions before S.A.M. gets back from Italy (again!! In Italy without me AGAIN!!!) while prepping thoughts and notes for our blogger’s panel at SCBWI the first weekend of next month, while also spending time with family, writing groups, and getting decent amounts of sleep and exercise. It’s not really working to do all of the above at once, even though they seem to be reasonably simple things. It has something to do with sunshine and maybe chlorophyll, but I suddenly just don’t have the bandwidth to wrap my brain around everything that’s going on.

This is my wordy excuse for being slow on the uptake on any number of things, one of which is the latest Bookslut in Training, which is Bookslut’s celebration of creative young adult types. Don’t miss the cool 1000 Journals Project, and Colleen’s foray into escapist fiction next month. By then, my to-be-read stack may have fallen over and killed me, but I look forward to it anyway… Also, be sure to drop in at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast. They have an awesome review of Before I Die, which is also going to be added to my TBR, as soon as it comes out in the fall. It sounds really interesting, and I can’t wait to read it with Crutcher’s Deadline, also out this fall. Whoo hoo!

The 7 Imps interview Nancy from Journey Woman who is doing a very cool contest through July. Do check it out!

Via Not Your Mother’s Book Club, the Spiderwick Chronicles movie trailer!! Okay, we can MAYBE get a little squealish about this movie – somehow it looks like it’s a little harder to utterly ruin this series. Maybe. (Nickelodeon Movies, we’re counting on you!) Release date is February 15 – definitely a better Valentine’s gift than bad chocolate! (& YES. There IS a such thing! Trust me.) Especially creepy and atmospheric – the wind and leaves and the hoarse whisper, “Give …me… the book…” Moving directly to the TOP of my To Be Read Before February list: finishing the Spiderwicks. I ADORE the work of Holly Black, and I will count this as a treat!!


I did mention that the Australian YA writing site, Inside A Dog is being hosted this month by the Peeps and Magic or Madness duo… and today, they’re talking about revisions. Check this out from Scott Westerfeld:

“My definition for a first draft is the first thing I show to another human being-editor, friend, or wife. And under that definition, my first drafts are usually in pretty decent shape. Here’s why:

I write about a thousand new words a day. But I start each day by reviewing the previous three days’ work.

This has two effects. One, it means that I ease into my writing day, editing and rewriting those 3,000 old words before facing the deadly blank page. By the time I finish that I’ve got a head of steam up, I remember what’s going on in the story, and writing new words doesn’t seem impossible, like it did right after coffee.

It’s like getting a running start.”

Revise. And revise again. And then revise three more times after that: it makes good stuff better. Please note that this man writes ZERO drafts, so his actual first drafts – they’re a bit more …evolved than what you might expect. He goes through FOUR before the first draft. I’m pretty sure that involves negative numbers and other things I slept through in Algebra.

Speaking of which? Back to MY revision… (sigh).

Now that the last Tolkien book has been completed by Tolkien’s son (oh, horrors and blasphemy!), the Guardian reports that it has actually bumped Harry Potter from the top seller space at Amazon, which is bizarre when you consider that a.) the newest HP hasn’t even been released, and isn’t due for another three months, and b.) Tolkien died in 1973, and this is the first Tolkien book in 30 years.

It is a truly strange world, but I’m having a good chuckle at the idea of Tolkien gently elbowing Rowling from beyond the grave.

Cynsations has posted an intriguing interview with Ysabeau Wilce (isn’t her name just fabulous?) and word is, her book, which is on my TBR list before June, is also fabulously intriguing. The full title of Ms. Wilce’s recently published novel is Flora Segunda: Being the Magickal Mishaps of a Girl of Spirit, Her Glass-Gazing Sidekick, Two Ominous Butlers (One Blue), a House with Eleven Thousand Rooms, and a Red Dog. And here is an excerpt from this fantastically titled adventure.

(Cynthia also reminds us to stop by Vampress and register to win a free copy of her latest novel Tantalize.)

Not Your Mother’s Book Club, is celebrating the May 1st release of Dramarama, by e. lockhart and giving away three books, two books-on-CD, and a bunch of other cool stuff. Poets, lyric writers and general witty types, get on over and find out how to play!

A couple of fun Bay Area National Poetry Month events can be found at Poets.org. A screening of a documentary film on the life of Nobel-winning poet Pablo Neruda, narrated by Chilean author Isabel Allende happens tonight, but if you, like me, aren’t there, you can still enjoy one of his poems.

Don’t miss the contest at Lisa Yee’s. It’s a short one… a really short one. As in, write a 25 word story. Sadly, I am already stumped.

Meanwhile, the Disco Mermaids, together with their agents and the folks from Razorbill, want you to come play. Theirs is a hilarious contest helping the less fortunate… that is, celebrities without ideas… and help them to write… a children’s book. Because really – don’t they all want to? So that they can follow the A#1 writer’s rule of Write What You Know, your instructions are to give them a title for a book only they could write. Their example makes William Kotzwinkle’s Walter, the Farting Dog turn into: Al Gore’s Walter the Ozone-Depleting Dog. Despite the DM’s inexplicable prejudices against French hens and turtle doves, this is an awesome contest – and has some awesome prizes. Do check it out!

Chasing Ray offers a plethora of writing inspirations… I am more than willing to try the chocolate. The axe? Not so much…

(As you may have noticed…) Books that include food are a big draw for me. My carb-addicted soul still loves the toast description in The Wind in the Willows of hot buttered toast. Ratty’s buttery toast is second to none, not even hot, buttered popcorn (yum…) Ahem. Anyway, from The New Yorker comes theories about what the food means, and the question of what the draw is of imaginary or real food in our favorite novels.

Over at Fuse#8, the dreaded question of author photographs arises. Where/how/who takes those? And, like Fuse, I won’t mention names, but some of them, er, stump me. My first two short novels (very out of print), the author pic was taken by the husband of the registrar of the school at which I taught. He is a photographer for PG&E (and who knows why they need photographers?). He took two rolls of B&W and color, and I found four I liked — in B&W. Needless to say, the publisher wanted color, of course. It was, I felt, revolting, but whatchagonnado? The question thus far has not yet been broached with my current publisher and book designer… and I don’t think it will, thankfully. Trying not to angst about the COVER (although I have a FABULOUS cover designer) is bad enough.

The Potter bloggers reminisce about this heady time in their lives, and wonder what to do next. Meanwhile, via Fuse, I shudder to think of the Harry Potter Theme Park. Oy. Just… oy.

My Cybils Sisters are already reading away on Laurie Halse Anderson’s Twisted (link has an interesting podcast and Halse Anderson reading) and Cynthia Leitich Smith’s vampire book, Tantalize; YA Books Central still has the make-a-vampire-recipe contest going… check out contest rules and cook up something… rare. (Sorry. Had to.)

And speaking of the lunch lady, you know there’s something weird about her, don’t you? Then it’s time to speak up. Check out this short horror story contest at Pinestein Press, which is seeking short stories for kids centered on the lunch room. Deadline is April 25th, so go to the website for details, and have fun.

Meanwhile LAST DAY for the free copy of Margo Rabb’s book! To qualify, send email to contest@margorabb.com. She has been giving away a copy of Cures for Heartbreak every day of her blog-tour.

Illustrators (and book arts people) who love discussing bindings and the artwork that goes into them will enjoy Jill Oriane Tarlau: Embroidered Bindings, the artist’s retrospective show in the gallery of Arion Press at the Presidio in SF. I’d love to see what she could do with Harry Potter in embroidery…

Via Galleycat, never turn your back on a publisher with a copy machine. Wow.

Last night at a New York bookstore (where apparently all intelligent conversation takes place), a group of authors who write about young adult issues met to discuss “the difficulties of telling truthful stories about youth in a world that wants to see them either as over-achieving super-kids or dangerous, violent losers and uses either a pious parental perspective or a leering sneer in media coverage.” I am verrry interested in the outcome of this conversation, as it does seem that — like people who condemn books without actually reading them? There are a whole host of people who have all kinds of information on young adults… without actually knowing any or speaking to them. As authors and YA book people, that’s worth noting. I still love the idea of the Mermaids going chaperoning Prom. I’m not doin’ it, but I love it…(via YPulse.

(Completely randomly, I ran across piece on “this generation” of parents (and teachers) over-praising kids. Some food for thought… lots of thoughts…)

The other day, Bookshelves O’ Doom had these really …nightmare inducing dolls… In response, I give you Gali Girls — and please note, they’re not silver, mustachioed, or sold with knives and shower curtains… nor come with cringe-inducing back story… They’re just… dolls. Add culture and imagination and play.

And it’s back to work for me, happy weekend, y’all!