What's Up Wednesday: The Where I've Been Edition (With Cat Photos)

Well, hellooooooo there, strangers! If it looks like I'm blinking a lot in the bright sunlight, it's because I've just crawled out of the deadline cave. And I survived! Because I cannot word anymore, I'm easing back into blogging with a What's Up Wednesday (the weekly meme started by Jaime Morrow and Erin Funke, go sign up on either of their blogs!):

What I'm reading:

Not much since early August, but I'm commencing a major reading binge, starting with these lovelies:

What I'm writing:

The sequel to THE LOST PLANET! I turned in my completed draft to my editor Sunday night, and I'm feeling about a million pounds lighter. I had fun writing it, but it's no joke what people say about the first book under contract being a completely different animal than a book you write in your own free time. I learned a lot about what it takes, particularly energy- and focus-wise, to produce a book in a year, and I plan to use what I learned to make writing the next book go a little more smoothly. Because I'm not going to lie, there were some panic moments and maybe even an epic meltdown in there somewhere. Whew! I can laugh now because I'm on the other side.

What inspires me right now:

Having free time for the first time in six weeks where I don't feel the constant pressure of a deadline. I haven't entirely lost that feeling of productive churn, and I'm trying to harness it to pick away at some new projects. More sequel ideas, and one Shiny New Idea that hit me like a hurricane while I was revising and has been vying for my attention ever since.

What else I've been up to:

Um, besides my day job, that's about it. I've been a serious house rat for the past month, swearing off the gym, turning down social invitations, and ordering delivery when my refrigerator ran out of food. Luckily for my productivity, my husband has been out of town for most of the past month.

One thing I did keep up on was my Instagram account (which is all cats and food, because what else?), so I'm going to paste in some shots of from this time period. As you can see, I was not entirely alone. I had my two house goblins, Jack and Simon:

Nothing to see here. 

I don't function without breakfast. Every day.

My desk weasel.

I ate a lot of kale. What can I say? I live in California. And kale is delicious. I pretended I was a vegan for part of the month.

Until my husband came home for Labor Day, and cooked up this 9-lb rib roast.

We took our cat out on the patio on a leash. He loves his leash. Or at least the outdoor time that it brings. The leash is more like a hobble.

My cats are there for me when I'm writing.

There when I'm revising.

There with me burning the candle on those long, late nights.

And finally, a shot from the final stretch. Husband sent flowers and a sweet note of encouragement. Awwwww.

And that's where I've been! What have you been up to?

A Quickie Update

I haven't been blogging much as there's a deadline looming in my near future, but this week I'm up in the Bay Area on a work trip for my day job. Sitting alone in my hotel room at night is making me stir crazy, so I thought I'd hop online for some quick updates.

First and most exciting--we've sold translation rights for THE LOST PLANET in Spain! This is my first foreign sale and I'm so thankful to New Leaf's incredibly awesome subsidiary rights director, Kathleen Ortiz. I'm super excited to share my book with Spanish readers!

Last weekend was the summer SCBWI conference in Los Angeles, which was a blast as always. This was my fourth year attending, and I couldn't help but marvel at the changes that have happened since that first conference:

Year 1: clueless writer with a completed mess of a manuscript and no friends
Year 2: aspiring writer with a manuscript in revisions who'd started to make a few new friends
Year 3: querying writer who had just received an offer of representation the day before the conference
Year 4: soon-to-be-published author with a two-book deal!

These days I don't attend the conference so much for the content being offered as for the chance to spend time with "old" writer friends and make new ones. I also hosted the always-delightful Ghenet Myrthil at my home and had a ton of fun getting to know her better. And as an added bonus, my agent was on the faculty this year and I got to spend a bunch of time with her, which was so awesome. I seriously still have to pinch myself some days because I can't believe I get to work with her. She's the best!

I'm spending the weekend in beautiful San Francisco with my husband, but starting next week I'm going to be on a mega-tight schedule and will probably not be blogging for a while. So enjoy the rest of your summers, and I'll see you on the other side!

Congratulations Jessica!

If you live on the moon, maybe you haven't heard the news yet. Jessica Love has announced her book deal with St. Martin's Press--she's co-writing a YA novel with Chelsie Hill from the Sundance Channel's PUSH GIRLS!!

YAY JESS!!!!

Jessica is one of the funniest and most hard-working people I know. She works long, hard hours in her job as a middle school English eacher, on top of which she is working on her MFA, fits in all this writing, and yet she still has a fun social life! I just get tired thinking about it--I don't know how she does it. Go read more about the fortuitous timing of her incredible book deal and give her a virtual high five here: http://www.jessica-love.net/2013/07/in-which-i-shock-you-all-with-surprise.html

Introducing the YA Buccaneers!

Greetings from Istanbul! I'm jumping online mid-vacation to share something new and fun! Some fantastic writers have been working on a secret project for a while now, and just recently I was thrilled to accept an invitation to join their merry crew.

And now the big day is here!!! We are so excited to announce the launch of our new group blog:

 The YA Buccaneers!

A combined effort by ten amazing ladies, we've put together some pretty awesome content that we hope you'll come on by to check out!

Today's the official day of launch -- over the next two weeks we'll be introducing you to each member of the crew, not to mention, hosting a pretty incredible giveaway for all those that would like to join us on our journey!

Adventure awaits and we can't wait to set sail with you!

What's Up Wednesday

What's Up Wednesday is a weekly meme, started by Jaime Morrow and Erin Funk, that helps readers and writers touch base with blog friends and let them know what's up. If you'd like to join in, you can find the link widget on Jaime's and Erin's blog posts. 

What I'm Reading

I've had to fit my reading in between the cracks lately, so I'm not reading anything very quickly, but at the moment I'm really enjoying the copy of The Fifth Wave I picked up at BEA. I'm also gradually slogging my way through A Clash Of Kings. I'd like to finish all the Ice & Fire books before the next season of the show starts, but holy LONG. It's kind of painful when you read and read and don't even advance 1% on the progress bar. I do have some binge reading time coming up because I'm leaving tomorrow for a 17-day vacation. I've got some fun ARCs, but I don't like to bring physical books on vacation with me, so I'll be hitting the backlog of awesomeness on my e-reader.

What I'm Writing

I'm racing for the finish line right now in the first draft of the sequel to THE LOST PLANET--hoping to get it done before take-off at 7pm tomorrow! I may treat myself to a little champagne on the flight if that happens, because writing a sequel on deadline is to writing the first book like motocross racing on a mudslide is to taking a two-week bike tour of Provence. This is a draft that's for my eyes only--I was figuring it out as I went, so right now the front end doesn't match the back end...at all. But at least the hard part's done!

What Else I'm Doing

As I mentioned, I'm leaving tomorrow for a vacation, aka the European wedding tour. We're going to an old friend's wedding in Bonn, Germany this weekend, and then joining a group from the wedding party to vacation in Israel for a week. I've never been to Israel before, and I'm so excited to see it! Afterwards we're flying up to Istanbul for the wedding of one of my husband's best childhood friends and to spend time with family--including my husband's brand new nephew! I love Istanbul so much and I can't wait for sunny, tea-filled mornings and warm Bosphorus evenings. (And don't worry, we'll be perfectly safe there.)

What Inspires Me Right Now

I can't listen to music while I'm writing, but I do keep a playlist of music for getting into the mood of each book. If you're curious about these kinds of things, here are two of the main songs from the playlist for the book I'm drafting:

(Note: Apparently you need to have Spotify installed for these buttons to work...blerg. Embedded YouTube videos of these songs don't play on Blogger, but if you really want to listen to these tunes, you can check them out on YouTube: Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites, and Allegretto from Palladio.)

Imogen Howson interview over at OneFourKidlit

Hey all! I just wanted to let you know that today over on OneFourKidlit I'm interviewing Imogen Howson, author of the breathtaking YA space thriller LINKED, which comes out tomorrow from Simon & Schuster!! Imogen was super fun to interview and kind enough to send me her very last ARC all the way from sunny England.

LINKED has it all--page-turning action, beautiful writing, crazy twists, and a romantic lead so swoony that even I (who am NOT a romance reader) had a huge crush on him. I highly recommend you check this book out.

To learn more about how Imogen wrote LINKED and what she used as inspiration for describing foreign planets and spaceships, go read the interview here!

BEA recap!

I'm a little late with my BEA recap, but sweet Moses was I exhausted when I got home. I slept on the entire six-hour flight back to L.A., came home, went to bed and slept for five hours, woke up totally disoriented, ate a sandwich and watched Mad Men with my husband, and went back to bed. SO TIRED. (Maybe going to Vegas the weekend before BEA wasn't the best plan...)

Anyhow, I'm caught up on sleep and feeling human again and here to tell you that BEA was excellent! I didn't spend a ton of time on the trade show floor, but how inspiring is it to be surrounded by thousands of book lovers? I got to meet fellow OneFourKidlit authors Susan Adrian and Erica Cameron (who came to my signing and got my very first ever signed ARC!), and lots of other awesome online writer friends. Hooray for meeting IRL!

One of the big highlights of the trip for me was that I finally got to meet and spend some time with my editor, Liz Szabla, who is utterly gracious and cool and reinforced my belief that I am working with the very best people. She also introduced me to fellow Feiwel author James Preller who is the nicest guy ever and has a new MG horror series coming out. Perfect Halloween gifts for my nephews, yes?

My ARC signing was on Friday, and it went splendidly. So bizarre and wonderful to meet people who are excited for my book! Here is photographic evidence of how I grinned like a maniac the entire time, with the delightful Anna Roberto of Macmillan looking on.

(Side note: Yes, I am aware that I hold my pen funny. I've always held it this way, except for a few years in elementary school where I was made to hold it the "right" way with a pencil grip. As soon as I was able to take the pencil grip off, I tried out this old way again, thought Yes this feels better, and never looked back. Sorry, most excellent Bruce Township Elementary teachers--you did your best.)

The whole experience went by so quickly, and I'm very grateful I had the opportunity to be there, meet so many incredible people, and learn so much. Now I'm settling in for the long haul (235 days to go!), and putting nose to the grindstone on book 2. It's definitely a different experience than writing the first book, but I'm learning a lot about myself as a writer (sloppy first draft! revisions are my friend!) and it's going pretty well.

A final word of BEA advice: If you're going to go, go with a friend. The fantabulous Liz Briggs flew out with me, and it was so nice so have someone to touch base with during the day and decompress with in the evening. Also, did you know that she has mad ninja skillz when it comes to getting highly coveted ARCs? I gave her my little wishlist, which included The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater and Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein, and wouldn't you know:

Ninja! <3