It is Monday again already. How did this happen?! So you may have noticed I haven't blogged much, and I swear I have a good reason! You know, besides being up to my eyeballs in edits and trying to balance that with summer vacation with my kids.
We've had a major heat wave here in NYC and because of this extreme heat, our power was down for nearly three days. No Internet. No TV. No lights or air conditioning. It was brutal. But I survived! And so did my family and my pets. There were no casualties, save for one fish that is unaccounted for. But I am blaming his disappearance on the monster belly of my growing catfish.
*sigh*
Today is my dad's 60th birthday!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAD! I LOVE YOU! And he's stuck in a hospital two states away. I tell ya, moving away from home is not all it's cracked up to be. But not to worry, he's a tough old biker. He'll be fine.
Back to that heat wave. We were all a little loony in my house those days when the temps were above 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Loonier than usual. My daughter (7 years old) was crouching on the couch with her knees bent up by her ears, making *ribbit* noises and pretending to catch flies with her tongue, (this is really a totally normal thing for her, not at all heat induced) and my husband walked by and she said, "Daddy, I'm a frog."
Really? A Frog? Not a chicken? I was totally leaning toward chicken.
This got me thinking about writing, as most things do. Especially when my whole body feels like melty goo and I CAN'T work on my book because I have no electricity and my laptop is a tiny dinosaur who has the battery life of... something that only has a 30 minute charge. I can't even think of anything that sucks battery life that bad.
So. Writing. It was obvious she was pretending she was a frog, right? You got that too? And yet she still felt that she had to tell my husband. We do this in our writing. We all do this. Don't fib. I can see your soul.
We tell. Even when we think we're showing.
We can describe something, a feeling or emotion, so perfectly, and then we still end up tagging it with the emotion we're trying to describe. (ex. My heart raced with fear.)
This is where amazing crit partners, and lots of hours spent in the revision cave come in handy. Turning yesterday's crap into a little less crap.
I had a point here. I know I did. I think it was something like "trust your reader." Readers are a highly intelligent breed. They'll pick it up.
If it walks like a duck...or hops like a frog.
Winners!
Guys, thank you all SO much for the well-wishes and congratulations. You made celebrating my good news completely awesome, and I could never thank you enough. But you don't want to read all my gushy thoughts, so on to the winners!!!!
Thanks to the Truly Random Number Generator, the winner of an ARC of Marie Lu's LEGEND is
Mary B!!!!!!
And the winner of the signed pre-order of Miranda Kenneally's CATCHING JORDAN is
Yasemin!!!!!!
I will be emailing both of the winners today! Thanks again for helping me celebrate and an extra big thanks to those of you who helped spread the word via twitter, facebook, and blogs. You rock!
Hopefully we'll be celebrating lots more good news in the future!
News! And The First Post Where I Use The Words “My” and “Agent!”
Sooo my title probably ruins the surprise a little bit, huh? This is the news I have been promising you on twitter and facebook! I’ve signed with an agent!
Me!
A real, live agent! Not to be confused with a not-live one. Like a plastic one. Or rubber.
My story is a short, fast-paced, crazy-lucky one. The condensed version: I received offers! And I accepted one!
Miranda Kenneally (author of CATCHING JORDAN, Dec. 2011) had already read my manuscript. And she kinda loved it, even though she’s a contemp writer, and my manuscript is...not contemp. And Miranda knows I’ve always fancied her agent, Sara Megibow.
***You all probably remember when Sara Megibow was a guest judge on the Sisters in Scribe blog, yes? If not, that post is here. Sara is fantastic! She’s professional, assertive, super nice, and about a zillion other gushy things.***
My situation was a little different than most, so Miranda emailed Sara and gave me a referral! Sara read my query letter, and requested the full. There were phone calls, and thoughtful consideration of all of my agent options (options!), and in the end, it was Sara Megibow who won my heart.The perfect match for me and my fledgling career.
I have signed with Sara Megibow of the Nelson Literary Agency!!!!
And to celebrate, I’m giving away books from Nelson Agency authors!
First up, an advanced reader copy of Marie Lu’s YA dystopian, LEGEND (Putnam Children's, Nov. 2011), courtesy of Sara Megibow! Thanks, Sara!
ANNNND I’ve also got a SIGNED pre-order of CATCHING JORDAN (Sourcebook, Dec. 2011) by Miranda Kenneally up for grabs! This will be a final copy, but you won’t get it until Nov-Dec. Thanks, Miranda! *squishy hug*
To enter, fill out the form below. Contest ends Wednesday, July 20th at 11:59pm EST. TWO winners will be randomly chosen and announced on Thursday, July 21st. I’m not requiring you to be a follower of any blogs, or to spread the word via social networking sites, but I’d sure appreciate it if you did. Giveaway IS international. Yay!
Thanks, y’all!
And if for some odd reason that form didn't load for you, you can find it here.
And, and if you want to double your chances of winning a copy of CATCHING JORDAN, Miranda is having a contest at her blog. You can win an ARC of her book, or a crit from our agent, Sara Megibow, or a crit from YA authors, Sarah Skilton or Jennifer Shaw Wolf, and a number of other awesome prizes. Ends July 10th at 11pm EST.
Me!
A real, live agent! Not to be confused with a not-live one. Like a plastic one. Or rubber.
My story is a short, fast-paced, crazy-lucky one. The condensed version: I received offers! And I accepted one!
Miranda Kenneally (author of CATCHING JORDAN, Dec. 2011) had already read my manuscript. And she kinda loved it, even though she’s a contemp writer, and my manuscript is...not contemp. And Miranda knows I’ve always fancied her agent, Sara Megibow.
***You all probably remember when Sara Megibow was a guest judge on the Sisters in Scribe blog, yes? If not, that post is here. Sara is fantastic! She’s professional, assertive, super nice, and about a zillion other gushy things.***
My situation was a little different than most, so Miranda emailed Sara and gave me a referral! Sara read my query letter, and requested the full. There were phone calls, and thoughtful consideration of all of my agent options (options!), and in the end, it was Sara Megibow who won my heart.The perfect match for me and my fledgling career.
I have signed with Sara Megibow of the Nelson Literary Agency!!!!
(I am also REALLY bad at photoshop)
*confetti*
And to celebrate, I’m giving away books from Nelson Agency authors!
First up, an advanced reader copy of Marie Lu’s YA dystopian, LEGEND (Putnam Children's, Nov. 2011), courtesy of Sara Megibow! Thanks, Sara!
ANNNND I’ve also got a SIGNED pre-order of CATCHING JORDAN (Sourcebook, Dec. 2011) by Miranda Kenneally up for grabs! This will be a final copy, but you won’t get it until Nov-Dec. Thanks, Miranda! *squishy hug*
To enter, fill out the form below. Contest ends Wednesday, July 20th at 11:59pm EST. TWO winners will be randomly chosen and announced on Thursday, July 21st. I’m not requiring you to be a follower of any blogs, or to spread the word via social networking sites, but I’d sure appreciate it if you did. Giveaway IS international. Yay!
Thanks, y’all!
And if for some odd reason that form didn't load for you, you can find it here.
And, and if you want to double your chances of winning a copy of CATCHING JORDAN, Miranda is having a contest at her blog. You can win an ARC of her book, or a crit from our agent, Sara Megibow, or a crit from YA authors, Sarah Skilton or Jennifer Shaw Wolf, and a number of other awesome prizes. Ends July 10th at 11pm EST.
Elvis Lives!
It is summer! Finally! The warm weather is here, the kids are home until September, and I am in full mom mode. Which, unfortunately, leaves very little time for blogging, reading, and writing. If I post infrequently, please forgive me. I've got the summer fun bug.
As you may know, and if you didn't you do now, I am a big Elvis Presley fan. I think he's the most beautiful man that ever lived, and his voice belongs to some supernatural being of awesomeness. Sooo naturally, when I hear that an Elvis impersonator is doing a free concert at the beach fair, I HAD to go. Even though it was Father's Day and I'm pretty sure my husband was a teensy bit jealous. Seriously, babe, the real thing is long gone and nobody compares to you. Mwah. So we took the kids to the beach for the day and then parked on the grass for the concert. I saw "Elvis" when they were setting up the stage and had to run up there and say hello. He was super nice and took a picture with me. I warn you, he looks nothing like The King, but still, he was awesome.
I give you Elvis, the Italian version from Jersey.
He told me if I came back up after his concert, he'd take another photo wearing his costume, but we left an hour into the show. Kids needed to go to bed, although my oldest did not want to leave. She stood by the stage the whole time we were there. "Elvis", by day known as Anthony Liguori Jr., waved at me from the stage while he was singing and then brought me a scarf, which my girl confiscated and wore all night.
This is the very short (battery died) video I took where he waved at me. :) It's a small wave, and then my camera got all shaky because...well because he waved at me.
As you can hear from that short clip, he was awesome! Sounded VERY much like Elvis, and he was a great performer. If he's ever in your area, check him out!
I hope you're all enjoying your summer!
Announcement of Awesome!
For a friend. This particular announcement is not my own.
Remember when we (Valerie, Natalie and I) decided that we were going to write one story a week at Tangled Fiction? And everyone said we were crazy?
Natalie has proved to be the craziest of our bunch. Stop by her blog and congratulate her on her big announcement, and to partake in her blind joy!! You don't want to miss it.
Remember when we (Valerie, Natalie and I) decided that we were going to write one story a week at Tangled Fiction? And everyone said we were crazy?
Natalie has proved to be the craziest of our bunch. Stop by her blog and congratulate her on her big announcement, and to partake in her blind joy!! You don't want to miss it.
Hiatus
I know my blog posts here are sporadic at best, but it is summer and I am outdoorsy. I won't be doing a whole heck of a lot of blogging over the next few months--very busy schedule!
But for great posts about books and writing you can check out Sisters in Scribe. My scribe sister, Valerie, is out of the country for a while so she might not be posting much, but Kristi is an admitted over-achiever. You can always count on her Tuesday posts! And my Thursday posts will be there as well as a Contest Monday and a Friday Book Recommendation.
Hope you're having a fantastic summer!
*back to baking my strawberry pies*
But for great posts about books and writing you can check out Sisters in Scribe. My scribe sister, Valerie, is out of the country for a while so she might not be posting much, but Kristi is an admitted over-achiever. You can always count on her Tuesday posts! And my Thursday posts will be there as well as a Contest Monday and a Friday Book Recommendation.
Hope you're having a fantastic summer!
*back to baking my strawberry pies*
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