Socially networking

I'm on Facebook, who are you?

Are you on Facebook too?

Then there's a pair of us

Go share--with everyone you know!

How vexing to be on Tumblr!

How befuddling--like a maze--

I search for friends but hit dead ends,

and tear my hair out in a craze!

http://www.facebook.com/RachelSearlesAuthor

Grateful

I want to take a second here to say a huge, huge thank you to everyone who commented, tweeted, emailed, DM'ed, liked, followed, and was just generally awesomely nice to me in response to my book deal news. Every year at the SCBWI Summer Conference, Lin Oliver calls kidlit people "the tribe," and to me that's the perfect expression for all of the wonderful and supportive people I've met in the book world. This also marked the first time I shared my writerly side with a lot of other people (Hello, old friends clicking over from Facebook!), which took some guts and about half a day of dithering. Since I took up creative writing again a few years ago, I've felt more like "me" than I've felt in a long time, and I'm really looking forward to the coming year, even the hairy scary parts. I've worked so hard on this and I'm so excited to share Chase and THE LOST PLANET with everyone.

Anyway, enough with the emoting. In other news, I got my bionic vision installed yesterday and everything went great. Although I'm pretty sure lying tightly swaddled on a table with your head taped down and your eyelids taped open has got to be someone else's nightmare, at least it went quickly. I'm pretty sure I'll still be reaching for the saline solution every night for a while still, but I'm not complaining!

NEWS!

If you happen to subscribe to the Publisher's Weekly Children's Bookshelf newsletter, you might have seen this little tidbit earlier today:

AHHHHHHHHHH I AM SO EXCITED TO BE ABLE TO SHARE THIS!!!!! My book is going to be published by Macmillan!!!!!

We got our first offer about two weeks after we went on sub, so I've been sitting on this news for a few months. Remember my post about flying to Turkey for a family emergency? Yeah, that's when the auction was going down, a testament to Why You Want To Have An Agent, because while I was a jetlagged, dazed, rambling mess, my fabulous agent was handling everything like the amazing pro she is. I am SO grateful to her and the awesome New Leaf team for giving me great support and advice on a really big decision. Since then everything has been going really fast--like, greased lightning fast--and I've been having a great ride with the excellent people at Feiwel & Friends. I'm SO happy to be there!

My friend Jack is going to help me sum up my feelings on everything:

Currently:

Good morning, my coffee-bearing friend!

I know I did this meme a few months ago, but I just saw that the delightful Katy Upperman recycled it, and so I'm blatantly copying her (thanks for the idea, Katy!):

Loving:
It's film awards season, which I know is not everyone's cup of tea, but I love both the glamour of the shows and the awkwardness of actors trying to act funny in front of a room of their peers. Jodie Foster's Cecil B DeMille speech, anyone? I'm sure she knew what she was trying to say--too bad the rest of us didn't. Still, the babbling seemed very heartfelt. This year my husband and I have been trying to see more of the nominated movies, and last Sunday we fit in a Silver Linings Playbook matinee and an Argo late showing. Both were excellent.

Reading:
I'm multi-booking it right now. Just about finished with Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi--I wasn't pulled in immediately, but once things got going (about the time Roar hit the scene, I'd say) I really got into this one. Rossi's got talent fo sho. Also reading Victoria Forester's The Girl Who Could Fly, a very fun middle grade read that I want to share with my nephew. He mailed me his copy of Wonder on loan a few weeks ago, and I want to pay back the favor with a book of my own. And finally, I'm also reading The Barbarous Years, an excellent history of the brutal settling of North American by the Europeans. That one's more for research purposes, but I'm enjoying it a lot.

Watching:
My husband and I have been sick the past couple of weekends, and we used that time to tear through every episode of The Walking Dead. It. Is. Awesome.

Thinking about:
My WIP, every day, always. I've started writing it, and I'm hoping for a quiet, solitary MLK day next week to make some serious butt-kicking progress. Which would be so much fun. I know you know what I mean.

Anticipating:
Flying out to NYC in about two weeks for the SCBWI Winter conference! Who's with me?

Listening to:
I've been putting together a "getting me in the right place" playlist for my new WIP, which so far consists of mostly Skrillex (don't ask why, it just works for this one...). Also enjoying this catchy song (profanity warning for the young or delicate):



Wishing:
For more time, as usual. Who isn't? Or maybe I just need better time-management skills. Anybody have any tips?

Making Me Happy:
So after 28 years of being a spectacle-wearer (well, 23 years of being a contact lens-wearer, but yes I was one of those little kids in thick glasses), I've finally decided to pull the trigger on getting corrective vision surgery. This was something I promised myself a few years back if I ever hit a personal milestone, which I did, huzzah. I can't get Lasik though, because once your eyes hit -9.0 or thereabouts, your cornea is stretched too thin to start scraping it away. So instead I'm getting ICL, implantable contact lenses that will be permanently inserted in my eye. I've had to wear my glasses for the last week or so to prepare--you may have seen me griping about this on Twitter, but when your vision is that borked, going from full-time contact wear to full-time glasses is a rough adjustment. The surgery is in two weeks, and people, I am SO HAPPY to think of a life without corrective lenses. YAY SCIENCE!

Happy New Year!

Puerta del Sol, panorama-style

I'm a few days late with this post, but I just got back from holiday travels and my brain is finally catching up to the local hour. The trip was great--first we spent a few days in NYC being shown the sights by some friends who used to live there, eating great food (the pastrami, omg) and walking until my legs declared mutiny. I even got the chance to swing by the New Leaf office to meet Joanna, who was delightful and enthusiastic and made me all the more excited about working together. After New York we flew to Paris for Christmas, and I am now making a concerted effort to convince my husband that that city should be our next home. Love. I could totally see myself strolling in the Tuileries and eating lemon macarons every day, because that's what everyone there does, right? We finished up our trip by flying to Madrid for New Year's, which we celebrated in the freezing rain in Puerta del Sol, jamming a dozen grapes into our mouths at midnight per tradition (only they had all these tiny seeds and there was no time to spit them out, so I don't think I actually choked down my grapes until about 12:03).

Overall it was a fun vacation, but you may have noticed that all the cities I mentioned are in the colder climates, and since we are soft little Anglenos, of course we got sick--my husband considerably moreso than I. So it's with several levels of gratitude that we returned home to rest up and snuggle with our warm furry cats. And now it's 2013, hooray! I've been reading everyone's New Year posts and getting inspired by all your resolutions and words of the year. I've got my own resolutions lined up too--some boring and ordinary, others scary and for my eyes only. I'm writing a new book, and that's going to be the focus of early 2013 for me. Looking forward to a quiet January full of hard work, and the reward at the end will be that I'm flying out to NYC with my critique partner Liz for the SCBWI Winter conference! Will I see you there? Let me know!

Year's End

Happy holidays! Are you all surviving them? I've finally finished all my shopping, packing, and shipping, on the very last possible day available to me. I know this process would be more enjoyable if I didn't leave it until the last second, but I just...it's just not in my nature. My husband headed to the airport this morning for some meetings on the East Coast, and tomorrow I'm joining him for a three-city vacation. It's been a big, complex year for both of us, and a little wandering time together will be just the thing to wrap it up.

This fall has been insanely busy, but I'm not complaining--I'd much rather feel like I'm running a marathon to fit in all the things I want to do than feel like I'm not taking advantage of the time I've got. At the moment I'm preparing to start writing a new book, and as I have not drafted a book since 2010, I'm pretty eager to get started. Back in school, I was that weirdo who enjoyed taking tests--not because I loved schoolwork so much (give me some credit), but because I liked the challenge of seeing how much I could remember and how well I could apply it. This is kind of similar--I learned a lot about writing a book on the first one, but how well will that knowledge serve me now? I'm optimistic, but also well aware that I may be rocking in the corner by the time I hit the second chapter. *cue nervous laughter* Anyway, I'll be working out the tricky bits on notepads during my vacation, to hopefully begin hammering away on my keyboard come January. What are your writing plans for 2013?

I won't be posting again for the rest of the year, so seasons greetings, dear writer/blogger friends--I wish you all a very happy holiday season, and a joyful and productive new year! I posted this video last year, but as a Yooper ambassador to the rest of the country, I feel the need to post it again. Please enjoy a little bit of goofy Northern Michigan holiday cheer (skip to the 1:00 mark to get right to the song):

SipSwap Report!

Fellow #sipswap participants: last week while the rest of you were unpacking your new mugs, a crumpled, coffee-stained note arrived at my home, scrawled on a torn scrap of paper delivered by carrier pigeon. I'd post a picture of it but the penmanship was truly atrocious, so I'll transcribe its contents instead:

Dear Rachel,

Greetings from your Mug! I hope that you are well this fine holiday season! Perfect time for hot chocolate or buttered rum, yes? Right then, so I suppose you've noticed by now that I'm not there...

Rachel, I'm just a young Mug who's never seen the world. While I'm delighted at the prospect of a lifetime in the service of your daily latte, I must confess I wasn't ready to commit just yet, and so I've decided to take a little sojourn in the South first to sow my wild tea leaves.

Currently I find myself in the beautiful rolling hills of Tennessee. Nashville was fabulous! I went to the Country Music Hall of Fame, and strolled along the Cumberland River. I've been eating Cracker Barrel biscuits n'gravy like they're going out of style. No, seriously, I kind of hope you plan on filling me up with sausage gravy when I get there.

My dear coffee-swilling Rachel, I promise I'll come out to California as soon as I'm ready. I trust you'll find an acceptable substitute until I arrive--I hear those Starbucks chaps are a dependable, if rather unexciting sort.

Until then,

Your devoted Mug 

Well, Mug, I understand. The world is a big and exciting place, so enjoy your travels. I'm looking forward to meeting you! Get here safely! And many thanks to my lovely mug buddy Sarah L. Blair for sending you on your circuitous journey.

(P.S. If you want to read about the mug gift I concocted for a certain someone, click here.)