I'm forever constructing my "can't wait to read" list months in advance, so I was psyched to see the Spring preview from Publishers Weekly (which you can read here. After a quick skim, I can for sure say that I'm looking forward to:

The Iron King by Julie Kagawa (YA about a fairy king's daughter)
The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place, Book One: The Mysterious Howling by Maryrose Wood (MG about a very proper governess charged with taking care of children who were raised by wolves- hee!)
The Body Finder by Kimberly Derting (YA: girl has a power that helps her find murderers)
Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver (YA: girl relives her death seven times)
Tangled by Carolyn Mackler (Really, all I needed to see was "Carolyn Mackler")
The Clearing by Heather Davis (YA paranormal romance about a girl in love with a guy from the 1940s)
This World We Live In by Susan Beth Pfeffer (final sequel to "Life as We Knew It")
Sisters Red by Jackson Pearce (YA paranormal based on Little Red Riding Hood)
The Wager by Donna Jo Napoli (YA historical fantasy)
The Baby Code by Caragh O’Brien (a dystopian book about a midwife- how cool is that?)
The Naughty List by Suzanne Young (YA with girls spying on cheating boyfriends)
Gimme a Call by Sarah Mlynowski (YA in which a girl starts getting cell phone calls from her future self)
The Dead-Tossed Waves by Carrie Ryan (sequel to Forests of Hands and Teeth)
The Unwritten Rule by Elizabeth Scott (I love everything by Elizabeth Scott)
Strange Fate by L.J. Smith (final volume in the Night World series)
Gone by Lisa McMann (sequel to Wake and Fade)
Chasing Brooklyn by Lisa Schroeder (companion to "I Heart You, You Haunt Me")
Infinity by Sherrilyn Kenyon (Sherrilyn Kenyon is writing YA? I *love* her adult books!)
Shadow Hunt by Mercedes Lackey and Rosemary Edgehill (paranormal boarding school book)

And that's not even counting the books I'm looking forward to from my own publisher (which I fully plan to obtain before they come out, starting with BRIGHTLY WOVEN by Alexandra Bracken, a romance set against the backdrop of a subtle fantasy world, which I read last night and thoroughly enjoyed).

Any of the books on the list (mine, or PW's) pique your interest?

A couple of days ago, a commenter asked for book recs, seeing as how I didn't post my "just read" list for June. It was a mighty long list comprised mostly of adult romance titles and advanced copies of YA books that I picked up at BEA. Rather than post the whole list, I thought I'd just give you guys the highlights. Justine Larbalestier's LIAR is an awesome and mind-warping thriller, told from the point of view of a self-professed liar. It's creepy and thought-provoking and a page turner in the extreme- one of the most unique books I've read in a long time, and one that I am DYING to talk about with other people. I've already pimped BEAUTIFUL CREATURES by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, which is an awesomely complex Southern gothic paranormal love story that lives up to each and every one of those adjectives. Also in the "books that aren't out yet but you should read when they are" category is FIRE by Kristin Cashore, which is sort of a prequel to GRACELING, but primarily stands on its own, with a unique fantasy mythology, a layered plot, and a romance I found super compelling.

While reading ARCs from BEA, I also discovered Shannon Hale's books, as I'd received an ARC of FOREST BORN. I read it without having read any of the previous Books of Bayern and the went back and read the others, and Forest Born is still my favorite. The connection between the main character and her powers was seamlessly written and incredibly compelling- totally worth checking out, even if you're not familiar with the rest of the series.

So there you go- book recs. Except that I'm an evil person, because I'm fairly certain that I've just recommended four books that haven't been released yet, so to make up for it, I have two more that you CAN go out and read today, if you so choose.

THE YEAR MY SISTER GOT LUCKY by Aimee Friedman is a contemporary story about two ballet-dancing sisters who move from NYC to a small town and have to adjust, and it's pretty much pitch perfect. I'd recommend reading it back to back with PEACE, LOVE, AND BABY DUCKS by Lauren Myracle, for a sisters-pa-looza of awesome sibling relationships and coming of age goodness.

And finally, I'm going to rec (again) MY SOUL TO TAKE by Rachel Vincent, which is a YA urban fantasy about a teenage banshee- it's got a fabulous (and very rare) mix of real world teen stuff and the supernatural, and having gotten a sneak peak at the sequel, I can tell you that the world only gets better the more time you spend in it. The bad news is, it's not out yet. The good news, however, is that you can read the prequel for free online! 87 pages of Kaylee! Trauma! Supernatural creepiness! Check it out here: http://rachelvincent.com/mysoultolose.pdf

I'm back in Oklahoma for a few weeks this summer, visiting my parents and hanging out with Ally. Last week, my mother asked me if I could go through my old "book closet"- which is lined with shelves and is home to a few thousand of my favorite books (no exaggeration on the numbers). I obliged, and nine hours later, I had everything organized, had collected five bags of books to donate, had boxed up six boxes of books that I didn't need constant access to while in this house, and then managed to get the rest of the books (still 1000+) on shelves. I felt accomplished and was rewarded with the following treasures, all of which were found buried in the closet:

Old Magazines

I have 3-4 years worth of back issues of SEVENTEEN, circa the late nineties, and they are a thing of beauty. My favorite is the one with the entirety of N'Sync on the cover, though Katie Holmes in her Joey Potter guise is also a total mind warp. Needless to say, I kept them all. I am convinced they will just get funnier as more time passes.

Old ARC's

Granted, none of the ARCs are *that* old, because I only started getting them after I sold Golden, and that was a mere five years ago, but still! A lot can happen in five years, so it was totally trippy to look back at ARCs of books like Twilight and The Clique.

Tween Favorites

Most of my books from elementary school and earlier were packed up years ago, but I did find some quality favorites from when I was about twelve- like the SWEET VALLEY HIGH super special where the Wakefield twins find out there's some third chick who's identical to both of them, and she's a murdering psychopath. Or the sequel, wherein it turns out that psycho murder chick ALSO has an identical twin, who is also psychotic, so there's four of them running around. Good stuff right there. I also found a bunch of Christopher Pike books, including THE LAST VAMPIRE series (being reissued in a couple of months... whoohoooo!) and REMEMBER ME, and such quality R.L. Stine classics as "Cheerleaders: The First Evil" (and like seven of its sequels). I may or may not have already started re-reading.

Juvenilia

I found a good dozen journals in which I wrote stories when I was but a tiny Jen. I never got more than about ten pages into them and can't for the life of me remember what most of them were about.

**

All in all, I'd say it was nine hours very well spent. Especially because afterwards, I discovered I had room for more books and went out and bought FAIRY TALE by Cyn Balog, EYES LIKE STARS by Lisa Matchev, THE STOLEN ONE by Suzanne Crowley, BLUE MOON by Alyson Noel, and...ummm... L.A. CANDY by Lauren Conrad.

Last week, I stumbled across what I believe to be the Dutch cover for PLATINUM- I actually really like it. Here it is, compared to the U.S. and Australian covers.

U.S. cover



Australian cover



Dutch cover




So, poll time. Which one is your favorite (and, if you feel so compelled, why)?

Another truly random scene taken from a conversation with my roommate (who has been my roommate since we were nineteen).

* Jen reads one of Maureen Johnson's tweets out loud to roommate. Is funny tweet comparing the British royal family to the Cullens, and suggesting that Prince Harry might have Jasper-like trouble controlling his urge to eat babies. *

Roommate: That means he’s your soul mate.
Jen: What?? Why?
Roommate: Remember how I used to tell people you ate babies?
Jen: Huh? Oh… wait… I do remember how used to do that FOR NO PARTICULAR REASON.
Roommate: Actually, I still do that.
Jen (squeaks): What?!
Roommate: You’re just usually not around. That’s probably why it’s more on the forefront of my mind than yours.
Jen: You don’t say.
Roommate: You think I’m kidding, but I’m really not. Sometimes, I’m just like “Oh, my roommate Jen- the one who eats babies- blah, blah, blah.” Or, like, I’ll be working in the infant cognition lab and be like ‘Yeah, my roommate can’t come to visit us here. She eats babies.’
Jen: I do NOT eat babies.
Roommate: Suuuuuuuure you don’t.
Jen: I mean, what is it about me that says ‘I eat babies.’ I am like the LEAST likely person EVER to eat babies.
Roommate (ponders): I guess it was just something random I said once, early on in college, when you said you weren't really a baby person. And I was just like- you don't like babies? I bet you eat them! (more pondering) Also, sometimes when you’re around babies, you look hungry…

End Scene


PS: My roommate just made me promise that if I ever collect all of my stories about her in a book, I have to promise to dedicate it to her. And I was like "Man, if I were you I'd be asking for a share in the royalties." She just smiled and said, "Nope. Just the dedication, please." Which I think is more than fair.

Since I turned in the revision on RAISED BY WOLVES, I've been taking it easy on the writing front, but I tend to go crazy if I'm not writing SOMETHING, so I've been playing around with building the series bible for a TV pilot I'm going to play around with in July. There's something really freeing about switching mediums, because while I often write books just for the fun of it, enough of my Just For Fun books have gone on to sell that labeling new ones as REALLY JUST FOR FUN requires some suspension of disbelief on my part. But I can TOTALLY write a TV pilot just for the fun of writing it, without even thinking about whether I will or will not ever do anything with it. Wheeeeeeee!

Ahem.

Anyway, I started off using the series bible and pilot script for THE SQUAD as a point of reference. (Side note, because I know someone will ask: there's still no news on that front, other than the fact that there's a show-runner attached, and she's written a pilot and put together the series bible, which has things like an index of characters and continuing plot lines for the potential first season). But lately, I've also been reading a lot of pilot scripts for shows I watch here. And I've been kind of shocked at my reactions to the scripts on paper versus my reactions to the show- especially since some of these are relatively early pilots that were then substantially revised. My favorite of the ones I've read so far is EVERWOOD, which was a thing of absolute beauty- great structure, great characters, tons of funny moments, sets up an entire season worth of conflict perfectly. The most surprising to me (tie) were 90210 (because I liked it a lot better in written form than when I watched it) and VERONICA MARS (because it described the character of Veronica as a "young Angelina Jolie" type and took a totally different approach to Lilly's murder than they did in the show).

All in all, it's been a totally interesting experiment. I highly recommend it!

I just wrote a really long blog entry and then deleted, because it didn't feel like enough of a conversation. And I'm kind of in the mood for a conversation, so I thought I'd throw out a question that I was talking about with one of my writer friends the other day. The question centers on tropes (as in common themes/plotlines used in movies and books). I know I've mentioned before that I love this site, which catalogues TV tropes, and I'd love to see a similar one for YA books or romance novels (anyone need a summer project?), but I thought I'd throw out the following questions for the blog:

1. What is/are your favorite trope(s)?

2. What is/are your least favorite trope(s)?

Examples of my favorite tropes: slightly crazy, waiflike characters who are more than people give them credit for being (a la River in Firefly or Luna in Harry Potter), stories which contain characters who have an older brother or sister as their legal guardian (ie Lock and Key by Sarah Dessen, The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton, The Last Silk Dress by Ann Rinaldi), and characters who are drawn to each other romantically based on some bone-deep similarity (drawing a blank at the moment, but I'm sure I'll think of an example shortly).

Some of my least favorite tropes (though I can still give you at least one example each of books that do it well): the best friend character who seems to have a vested interest in the main character losing their virginity; stories which revolve around an overachieving female learning to loosen up; the surprise werewolf (in which a male character in a known supernatural world, who acts very wolflike and disappears on the full moon, is revealed at the very end of the book to be a werewolf).

So what are your favorite and least favorite tropes? Any takers?

SCENE: JEN, hard at work on her revisions, hears the sound of a little dog barking incessantly on the street below. Jen turns to ROOMMATE, and comments morosely on the situation.

JEN: Yippy dog.
ROOMMATE stares at JEN like she is crazy.
DOG: Yip-yip-yip-yip!
JEN (reiterating previous point): Yippy dog.
DOG: Yip-yip-yip--yippity-yip!
ROOMMATE (tentatively): Yippy dog?
JEN: As in that dog, on the street, barking. It's yipping. (The words WOE IS ME go unstated).
ROOMMATE: Ohhhhhh. Okay.
JEN: What did you think I was talking about?
ROOMMATE: I thought maybe it was a phrase.
JEN: A phrase?
ROOMMATE: You know, kind of like "yippee!" (Roommate pumps fist in air) Yippy dog!
JEN: Uh-huh...
ROOMMATE: It sounded like an Oklahoma thing.
DOG: YIP YIP YIP!

End scene. Is it sad if this is the most blog-worthy thing in my life right now?

This is what passes for wisdom in Casa Jen these days.

Writing Wisdom: Sports metaphors work really well for revising. Having played every sport known to man growing up (most of which I kind of sucked at, but always had lots of team spirit for), this has manifested in several ways while I've been revising RAISED BY WOLVES. Mainly, I keep reminding myself that sometimes things get worse before they get better. Like if you're playing golf (I was Junior Club Champion when I was nine and again when I was eleven, but only because there were only like four little girls in all of Oklahoma who played golf and we basically took turns winning), and you're doing well, and then a golf pro comes along and adjusts your grip on the club, and suddenly, you SUCK. But eventually, you'll be better with the new grip than you were with the old one. Same goes for when a kindly old man on the sidelines corrects your free throw technique (I was dreadful at basketball. Really. The coach used to beg me not to run laps with the rest of the team, because I had a habit of getting really pale and passing out)... anyway, the moment someone made me shoot right, I stopped making any baskets at all. And don't even get me started on what my toe touches looked like when I was cheerleading and I first learned how to rotate my hips mid-jump.

In any case, I've discovered with this revision that it's THE EXACT SAME THING. My editor has come through and changed my grip on the club, and for the first few weeks, I sucked. And now, slowly but surely, the manuscript is getting better. I just had to beat my head into a few walls first. Thank goodness my parents had me in so many sports when I was little! Otherwise, my metaphor well might have run dry before I hit the downward slope.

Animal Wisdom: My roommate thinks that we need a moat, so that we can get a pet beaver, because I showed her this video of a baby beaver getting his ears scratched. She also wants a baby penguin. If our apartment allowed puppies, we wouldn't have so many hypothetical animal conversations in the first place.

Creepy Wisdom: If you get creeped out every time you hear your roommate sing the Toys R Us song, don't sing the first two lines and then cut off suddenly, because she'll have no choice but to finish singing it in an imitation of the bad seed. And then you'll have no one to blame but yourself.

Television Wisdom: If you ever get a chance to watch the ABC Family original movie "My Fake Fiance" starring Melissa Joan Hart and Joey Lawrence... DON'T DO IT! You may never recover.

Movie Wisdom: If you still haven't seen Stark Trek, I recommend you remedy that immediately. Amazingness.

Book Wisdom: Keep an eye out for the December release BEAUTIFUL CREATURES by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl. It is six hundred pages of paranormal intrigue and gothic romance AWESOMENESS, written from the point of view of a boy and set in the South. *Happy Sigh*

Lazy Wisdom: Ordering lots of Thai food on Sunday means that you won't have to cook any meals for at least a week. I like my Thai food cold, so I haven't even been using the microwave. So yummy. So little effort.

Yesterday, someone in the comments asked me if I managed to obtain Suzanne Collins' CATCHING FIRE at BEA, and the sad news is that I did not. Normally, this would not necessitate its own blog entry, but there are a few related issues I wanted to discuss.

Issue the First

My older brother is going to kill me. I got him THE HUNGER GAMES for Christmas, and he's been harassing me to get him the second book for several weeks. As he is much larger and stronger than I am, I am somewhat afraid. Despite my impeccable tackling skills (see also: Skippyjon Jones video, last blog entry; brawl with Sarah Rees Brennan in Ireland, several entries down), I still do not like my chances for coming out of this in one piece. So if anyone has any suggestions for YA books to give my 27 year old brother in the meantime to hold off his wrath, I'll gladly take them. Last time I was home, I gave him CITY OF BONES, and to my endless amusement, he's read the entire Twilight saga. I believe I shall next give him THE DEMON'S LEXICON by Sarah Rees Brennan (out today!) and possibly GRACELING, but depending how long it takes me to get CATCHING FIRE, I may need more reinforcements.

Issue the Second

At one point, I came very close to getting a copy of CATCHING FIRE, but unfortunately, that darn moral compass of mine got in the way. Elizabeth Scott, Sarah Cross, and I were standing in line to get Aimee Friedman's Sea Change, and just as we got to the front of the line, Suzanne Collins showed up at the table next to us. The fine people at Scholastic started stacking copies of Catching Fire on the table, and I was a mere 3 feet away! "Take it," Sarah Cross told me. "Just reach over and take one. No one is looking." I glanced back at the hoards of people in the (ticketed) line, who were being held a good twenty feet away. "Do it," Sarah said, knowing quite well that I am very susceptible to those words when they are repeated over and over again in a certain cadence.

"I can't just take one!" I exclaimed, resisting the urge. "That's against the rules."

To which, I swear to you, Sarah replied, "Did Katniss follow the rules at the end of The Hunger Games? No." And then she gave me a very knowing look.

"That's the most compelling argument I've ever heard," Elizabeth commented, staying fairly neutral even though she was laughing pretty hard at the time.

But then I got worried that if I took one, they might not have enough for everyone standing in line, and I figured that would be just about the saddest thing ever. This logic was met with another Hunger Games example, and then the moment passed, and I got my copy of SEA CHANGE and walked away from Catching Fire forever. Or at least until it actually comes out next fall.

Issue the Third

Of all the books I was looking forward to at BEA, Catching Fire was number one. And yet, when I didn't get a copy, part of me was strangely relieved. This is an incredible state of affairs, because I'm not a "wait and savor it" kind of person at all, but The Hunger Games is such an awesome, perfect book in my mind that I found that the idea of spending a few more months knowing what happened in that book and not knowing what happens after, was actually kind of appealing. This has never, ever happened to me before, so I've been wondering what it is that threw me into this state of mind now. Not that I'd object if someone came out of the woodwork and handed me a copy of Catching Fire. I'm sure I'd devour it whole, but still... the idea of waiting doesn't seem like a bad thing to me, and I'm not sure why.

*ponder*

As is typical the Monday after a conference weekend, I feel rather like my body has been trampled by a conga line full of rowdy elephants. I am also tired, have a scratchy throat, and seriously don't want to move from this couch ever again- but I had a wonderful, awesome, amazingly good time.

The people at EgmontUSA, my new publisher, were SO incredibly awesome to me all weekend. The office is small enough that I got to meet everyone who works there, and they're just this extremely tight knit group of people whose passion for their jobs (and all of their books, including mine) just sort of flows off of them in waves. Plus, I got to meet some of their other authors, and that was great. I was particularly psyched to meet a list-mate, Tricia Rayburn, whose dark and twisty paranormal YA, SIREN, comes out within a few weeks of RAISED BY WOLVES.

The rest of BEA was a blur of old friends, books, amazing speeches, occasional starvation, art, and late-night antics in the hotel room I was sharing with Ally and Sarah "Savvy" Cross. I'm not sure we ever got to bed before two in the morning, even though we were always in before midnight... hazard of sleeping in the same room with good friends you never get to see in person. Now, in order to try to convey the "blur of..." I will fall back on using bullet points, because that somehow gives me the illusion that I'm not just babbling incoherently, but cohesively addressing a finite number of Very Important Points.

*Thursday night, I went to the Teen Author Carnival in New York City and represented as a member of Team Cotton Candy, along with Maureen Johnson (who was recovering (sort of) from Leaky Flu), Robin Wasserman, Lauren Barnholdt, Robyn Schneider, and more. There were TONS of authors there... it was great fun, but I also kept thinking that part of me wished I was a teen, because if I'd had an opportunity to hang out with somewhere in the neighborhood of forty YA authors when I was a teenager, I probably would not be alive today, because I would have simply died and gone to heaven.

*And I finally got to meet Elizabeth Scott! I love her books and read her blog, but had never met her in person. Found out that she's another odd one like me who prefers to write on spec.

*Also Thursday night, we had a partial castle reunion, and I went to dinner with Savvy, Holly, Cassie, Robin, Barry Lyga, and Cassie's fiance. My side of the table spent at least forty-five minutes discussing how to best dispose of a body and another good chunk of time discussing orchestrating the perfect crime in the first place.

*Once I got back to the hotel room and reported the aforementioned Perfect Crime debate to Ally, she immediately and without blinking told us EXACTLY how to pull it off. She claims she was able to do this because of all the "research" she's done for her the Gallagher Girl series and her new "Ocean's Eleven meets Veronica Mars" heist book, but clearly, she has a dark and sordid past that has escaped my attention up until now.

*Friday morning started off with a breakfast at which I got to hear both Julie Andrews and Meg Cabot. Squee!

*Then I spent several hours walking the floor with some combination of the following people: Ally, Savvy, Melissa M, Jenny Moss, Rachel Vincent, Jordan Summers, and teens belonging to a few of the above. I acquired a variety of books I'm very excited about, including Justine Larbalestier's LIAR, Kristin Cashore's FIRE, and Amy Friedman's SEA CHANGE.

*At lunch, I organized my books. I tend to do this obsessively throughout conferences, so that when I get home, I already have the books organized according to when I'm going to read them.

*After lunch, there was more book hunting and then I went to Egmont's COFFEE AND KRINGLE launch in the booth. Kringle is a danish pastry (or, I suppose, a Danish danish). I did not try it- too busy talking to fun folks in the booth. And too much of a chicken.

*Then it was time for the Not-A-Dinner auction. They really weren't lying. It wasn't a dinner. I'd had a late enough lunch that I wasn't starving, but poor Justine came very close to eating a table leg or something. But even in the midst of starvation, she was kind enough to give me my first "mean lesson." Apparently, I am sometimes a tiny bit too nice for my own good, and therefore Justine altruistically volunteered to put her "PhD in mean" to use and offer some tutelage. Lesson number one involved a story that Maureen and Savvy had told her about our time in the castle, WHICH WAS TOTALLY NOT TRUE (or, okay, maybe only partly).

*The speakers at the auction were Shannon Hale, Mike Lupica, and Katherine Patterson. Laughter and crying both ensued. I'm usually not much for speeches, but I truly enjoyed each and every one of these.

*After the speeches, I went to check out the silent auction, for which illustrators had donated art. I did not bid on anything myself, but I did play Devil On the Shoulder for Ally, who ended up getting an adorable picture that reminded us of her oldest niece. I also got to meet a woman who runs an independent bookstore in Houston, which was very exciting, because my brother and sister-in-law are moving to Houston in just a couple of weeks, and I already plan on going to visit and now know where I may obtain books and related awesomeness while there.

*On Saturday morning, Savvy and I went out to breakfast with Rachel Vincent, who was very tricky and ended up stealing the entire check. I tried to wrestle her for it, but she just gave me this look of quiet dignity and said "Please don't." I am defenseless against such maneuvers (perhaps this can be remedied in one of my future mean lessons). Seeing Rachel was great. We began to plot our giant mission to get a plethora of YA authors to move to Oklahoma in three years, turning it into an epicenter of awesomeness, where we can have our own drinks nights and readings and adventures, all within a rock's throw of Sonic or Chick Fil A.

*After breakfast, Rachel went off to her (super successful sold out) signing for MY SOUL TO TAKE, which I highly recommend, and Savvy and I hit the floor again, but with very specific plans. Our surgical strike proved very successful- there were exactly three books on my list, and I picked up all three- a new paranormal YA called ANOTHER FAUST, the much-buzzed about BEAUTIFUL CREATURES, which I've heard described as "southern gothic literary with a parnormal twist," and Sarah Dessen's new release, ALONG FOR THE RIDE, which I read on the train ride home and loved-loved-loved, which isn't a surprise, because I love all of Sarah's books. This made it extra neat when, after standing in line for forty minutes (the only line I stood in all weekend long) to get her to autograph a copy to my roommate, she looked at my name tag and said "I know you!" And then she was super friendly and asked about my books and signed copies of ALONG FOR THE RIDE to both me and my roommate. Based on our interaction and tales I heard from other authors, I think it's safe to say that Sarah Dessen is just about the nicest person ever. She truly made my day.

*Then, Savvy, Ally, and I went to lunch with one of our favorite superstar librarians, who- in addition to being a great advocate for books and reading- also provides valuable fashion advice and endless amounts of entertainment. Tons of fun.

*Saturday night was the Egmont party. Again, met tons of booksellers and librarians and authors and agents- and spent a lot of time talking to Chris Myers about our random academic interests, from the philosophy of time and its use in race relations to the neuroeconomics of temporal discounting and monkey science. It's always fun to find someone as random and out there as I am.

*After the party, I went to the YA author drinksapalooza and got to see some more friends. I am somewhat afraid that I may be seen as a teeny bit zombified, because by this point, I was exhausted and might have been somewhat glassy eyed and slow on the uptake. But it was nice to see everyone all the same.

*At some point later that night, Ally, Savvy, and I may have made a home video reenactment of WOLVERINE: ORIGINS which involved me standing up on the bed and flying tackling people while wearing a Skippyjohn Jones mask. Or I could be totally making this up. You might never know.

*Sunday was the perfect wind-down day. I had a lovely lunch with my editor, who was super easy to talk to and clearly passionate about RAISED BY WOLVES, and then I braved traffic to meet up with Jenny, Melissa, and Savvy at The Met. I'd never actually been before, and I don't generally consider myself a huge art person, but it was really amazing. I've already decided to go back the next time I'm in town.

Here end the VERY IMPORTANT BULLET POINTS. All in all, it was a great weekend- well worth the "trampled by elephants" feeling clinging to my very bones today. There are a ton of people I wish I could have seen more of, and I'm sad that I don't have another author event planned for a while, because I don't know when I am going to see a lot of them again. I hope that your weekends were all just as good, wherever you were.

This weekend is Book Expo America! I'm super excited, except that everyone else I know has been planning outfits for a while, and I'm just now turning my attention to the question. It has been suggested (*cough* Justine *cough cough*) that gold lame might be just the thing to make me stand out from the crowd. Luckily, my roommate ACTUALLY OWNS gold lame hotpants, purchased on a shopping trip during one of our Monkey Island stints. I'm sure she'll let me borrow them.

But, on the off chance that I'm not wearing bright and shiny gold lame, and you'd like to find me in NYC this weekend, here's where I'll be. Even in the absence of shiny hotpants, I should be easy to spot on account of the hair, which has destroyed four ponytail holders this week alone .

THURSDAY: 4-6 PM: Teen Author Carnival

Join dozens of awesome YA authors for signing, Q&A, and miscellaneous hanging out and AWESOMENESS at the Jefferson Market Branch Library. More info here.

FRIDAY: Book Expo America

I'll be at BEA for most of the day- I'm doing the breakfast in the morning and the not-a-dinner auction at night, and in between, I'll be scouring the floor for free books. And most excitingly, I'm helping my new publisher launch their fall list! For guaranteed awesomeness (and/or to keep me company) stop by the Egmont booth (4458) for Coffee and Kringle (and an introduction to Egmont for all attendees) on Friday at 3:30 p.m.

Beyond that, I'll be in town through Sunday, doing nefarious author things with author friend types, but I'm still trying to settle the details of where and when...

Happy Wednesday!

I have long been a fan of Post It notes. They are one of five categories of items (purses, scarves, post it notes, books, pajamas) that I really enjoy shopping for and therefore buy frequently. It's probably part of a larger fascination with office supplies (If I accidentally got locked in a Staples over night, I would totally be okay with that), but Post Its are quite possibly my single biggest weakness. If I see some, I *have* to buy them. Colored, oddly shaped, teeny tiny, ginormous... doesn't matter. I own them all and yet still have the problem of never being able to find an adequate Post It when I need one. They're rather like socks that way.

Anyway, my top three uses for sticky notes of all varieties are: To Do lists, Book ideas (which I then stick to my wall), and doodling while I'm on the phone. And, as it turns out, I can do two of those three things virtually, with the Stickies program on my Mac!

It won't be the same, I thought.

But it kind of is! Stickies is simply an application that provides you with virtual Post Its to place on your desktop. They look just like the real paper kind! And you can have as many of them as you want! I find this hugely exciting. I'm not an organized person. At all. I'm kind of a mess, but I love graphs, charts, color coding, and making To Do lists instead of actually DOING the things on the To Do list.

All of which means I seriously heart the stickies on my desktop. Also, I have a feeling that if I started downloading applications for my iPhone, I would never, ever stop.

Remember how two days ago, I rec-ed Sarah Cross's debut novel, DULL BOY? The superhero extravaganza written by my sometimes-evil partner in crime? Well, right now, fellow Team Castle member Diana Peterfreund is running a contest where you can win a copy of Dull Boy by building your own superhero.

I already own Dull Boy, so I am not entering the contest. But unless you missed the part where you can BUILD YOUR OWN SUPERHERO, it's probably not a surprise that I'm playing along anyway. This whole "Superhero Factory" thing rocks my socks, even when I'm wearing flip flops (I know, I know- I'm a total dork. This is a thing I have come to embrace. Just go with it. Also, in case there was confusion, I don't actually wear socks with flip flops. I'm a dork of the babbling variety, not the sock-wearing-with-flip-flop variety. Just, you know, FYI).

ME AS A SUPERHERO



The Hero Factory provides a name for you, but I'm not one hundred percent sold on mine and thus will be taking suggestions. I'd like something that sounds a little more girly, with a side of sparkly and a healthy portion of kick @$$.

To make your own superhero, follow the link to Diana's blog, and she'll take you to the Superhero Factory (and give you up to three chances to win DULL BOY!)

I've been promising book recs for forever, so here you go. Pick and choose the categories that apply.

Thing the First: Middle Grade Adventure: I read the final PERCY JACKSON book last week and loved it. Riordan had to get a lot done in between the covers, and I thought the book delivered nicely on a series that has been top notch since the beginning. I'm now a major shipper (though can't tell you what ship for fear of spoilers), and there was one plot twist that I saw coming, but loved nonetheless. I'm not sure what the future of this 'verse holds, but the author's note at the end referred to the Percy Jackson series as the "first Camp Halfblood" series, so I'm taking that as an indication that there will be more. I'll certainly be on board if there are! Since I've finished with the Gregor the Overlander series, too, I'm in the need of new middle grade adventure reads. I read and quite enjoyed the first RANGER'S APPRENTICE book earlier this week, so I suspect that might be next, but other recommendations are welcome!

Thing the Second: Young Adult (contemporary): I have two contemporary YA recs, both recently released. TWENTY BOY SUMMER by Sarah Ockler is a lovely YA about first love and loss and friendship and a million other things- the set-up is that a girl falls in love with her best friend's older brother, they don't tell the best friend about it, and the older brother dies. The book picks up a year later, with the main character still mourning her lost love and unable to tell anyone she loved him, while trying to help her friend through her grief by agreeing to a plan in which they have to date twenty boys in one summer. I read an ARC and am so excited that it's out so that other people can read it, too. The same thing goes for my next rec, which is Lauren Myracle's PEACE, LOVE, AND BABY DUCKS, which is a really poignant, sometimes heart-wrenching, sometimes funny look at family and the relationship between two sisters as the younger one enters high school. The relationship between the sisters is subtle and textured, and it's a book I'll probably re-read.

Thing the Third: Young Adult (fantasy): I've already waxed poetic about Clare Dunkle's THE HOLLOW KINGDOM, which is one of the only comfort reads I've ever discovered in adulthood. I've already read it twice and suspect I will read it a third time before the year is out. It has one of those feels that's magical for me- slightly old-fashioned and fantastical and not overdone ever, in any spot, for even a word. It's got an engaging main character who's strong without seeming like she fits some kind of Strong Character mold, and the romance (with a Goblin King no less) is compelling in both its good moments and its bad. This is a book that will rest beside my most beloved of Tamora Pierce's on my shelf- and that's high praise. If you like fantasy and haven't read, I insist you do so immediately. It's been out a while, so you might not be able to find it in stores, but you absolutely must order it anyway. Must.

Thing the Fourth: Young Adult (superheroes!) I'll disclaim up front that evil mastermind Sarah Cross, the author behind my next rec, is a very good friend. She's one of fewer than a dozen people in the world that I will actually call on a telephone of my own free will. And, as fellow team castle member recently pointed out, she's also evil, but hides it under a sweet and innocent veneer. She's also-also my Comic Book Friend, with whom I discuss comic books, and I will gladly 'fess up that Sarah Cross knows way more about the X-men than I do (side note: how excited am I that I just bought seasons 1 and 2 of the old school X-men cartoon on DVD? VERY). What all of this means is that Sarah is the PERFECT person to be writing a smart, funny, sarcastic YA superhero book that does the super tightrope-walking balancing act of (a) seeming original and distinct from the superhero stories out there now (I heart Sophie's power! And Nicholas!), and (b) fitting in perfectly with the superhero canon in terms of tone, team structure, and the mixture of elements she brings to the table. As someone who is currently in the middle of trying to write a superhero book (see future blog re: Writing Updates), I can tell you that it takes a master to pull it off, and Sarah did it beautifully. Although, if you read the Sarah Rees Brennan review, you will see that I still owe Sarah Cross one for betraying me at the castle and failing to come to my defense, when she's SUPPOSED to be my partner in superhero crime. So, yes, I will talk up DULL BOY and tell those of you who enjoy the humor in my supernatural books to try out hers, but I will also PLOT MY REVENGE.

Ahem.


Thing the Fifth: Adult Romance: Lately, I've been on a Susan Elizabeth Phillips kick. A friend sent me one of her books a few months ago (among others) and in the past week, I've hunted down at least half of what she's written. Last week, to celebrate finishing a revision (see future blog entry re: Writing Updates), I read three in one night- HONEY MOON was my favorite, but I got a kick out of FIRST LADY, too. In both, the books read more like in depth portrayals of the primary character than a romance per se- the whole 'falling in love' thing is part, but not all, of who the main character is, which I love. They've also got quirky supporting casts, and Phillips writes children very well (and includes them in a large percentage of her book), and a good little kid character in a romance novel is one of my favorite tropes (even though it can be done badly very easily). SEP also seems to tend towards either Southern or over-the-top settings (Hollywood, Washington, D.C., etc) and sometimes achieves both in one novel. I also really appreciate the fact that the protagonist's family (and often the love interest's family, too) play a major role in most of the books. I've found that I like to get a sense where characters come from, and getting to know a character's family really helps me to do that. In short, these books tend to hit on all of my favorite tropes at once and they're well-written to boot. They make me a happy Jen.

There! Five things and way more than five book recs. And for once, I didn't tempt you with anything that's not out yet! I have others (I didn't even get to touch my list of adult urban fantasy recs, or my "not yet released" recs), but I'll save those for a future entry. As always, your book recs are welcome- my TBR pile is insurmountable, but I'm starting to make a dent anyway...

I'm in the middle of grading finals at the moment (why am I so much slower at this than anyone else? Why?), but as soon as I finish, I promise reviews of at least four books on this list. Possibly more. Cross my heart. But until then, here it is, list-style- the books I read in April.

Adult Books

Shades of Grace by Barbara Delinsky (contemporary)
A Fool and His Honey by Charlaine Harris (mystery)
A Highlander of Her Own by Melissa Mayhue (time-travel romance)
Heaven, Texas by Susan Elizabeth Phillips (romance)
Kitty Raises Hell by Carrie Vaughn (urban fantasy)
Magic Strikes by Ilona Andrews (urban fantasy)
Curse the Dawn by Karen Chance (paranormal romance)
The Iron Hunt by Marjorie Liu (urban fantasy)
Some Girls Bite by Chloe Neill (urban fantasy)
Prey by Rachel Vincent (urban fantasy)
Three Days to Dead by Kelly Meding (urban fantasy)
Red-Headed Stepchild by Jaye Wells (urban fantasy)

Young Adult

My Soul To Take by Rachel Vincent (urban fantasy)
Burned by Ellen Hopkins (contemporary/verse)
The Hollow Kingdom by Clare Dunkle (fantasy)
Close Kin by Clare Dunkle (fantasy)
In the Coil of the Snake by Clare Dunkle (fantasy)
Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow by Jessica Day George (fantasy)
Distant Waves by Suzanne Weyn (historical)
Night World: Volume Three by L.J. Smith (paranormal romance)
Quantum Prophecy 3: Born to Be Heroes by Michael Carroll (superhero)
Lament by Maggie Stiefvater (paranormal romance)
Ghost Huntress: The Awakening by Marley Gibson (urban fantasy)
The Awakening by Kelley Armstrong (urban fantasy)

Middle Grade

Chasing Blue by Jessica Burkhart

Don't worry. This post isn't what you might predict from the title. Nor is it a virtual panel inspired by one of the real panels at RT- but it was inspired by RT nonetheless. One day, at lunch, I happened to mention something about good-looking monkeys. As a person who has spent an excessive amount of time in the wild, with over a thousand monkeys roaming free all around me, I can tell you for a fact that there are good-looking monkeys and ugly monkeys and everything in between. One would think this would seem perfectly rational to most people- after all, there are ugly dogs and cute dogs and so on. So imagine my surprise when all of the writers I was talking to started laughing and giving me very strange looks and making monkey innuendos!

"No," I said. "There really are some monkeys that have more aesthetic appeal than others! I'm not making this up!"

But they did not believe me. So I give you Exhibits A and B- two male monkeys of relatively similar age, one of whom the female monkeys seem to think is quite the stud. Can YOU tell which one is hotter?

Exhibit A


Exhibit B

Rather than actually rehash RT panels for you guys, I thought I'd give you a tiny rundown of the types of things that came up, and then everyone who has an opinion or question can weigh in via the comments, and we can have our own little virtual panel here. If people are into it, there are at least four or five topics that came up that we can debate here (including what makes a good YA heroine, as per your requests), but I wanted to start with a question that came up on a panel I wasn't on, because I did a lot of listening and no talking, and I had some thoughts/questions I wanted to throw out there.

( Read more... )

Coming back from a writing conference always feels a bit like coming home from summer camp. I'm exhausted, and I'm glad to be home, but I miss it already. There's just something about being around other book people that's completely exhilarating. There aren't many people out there who love books and everything related to them as much as I do, so when an extremely large number of those people all gather in one place, I get the biggest adrenaline rush, which then lasts for the duration of the conference, interspersed with random acts of sleepiness, wherein I go from moving full throttle to embodying the Walking Dead. The RT Convention was no exception- I was either completely wound up and ecstatic or eliciting concerned "Sweetie, are you okay?" looks and/or actual statements from those kind souls who take it upon themselves to take care of me at such functions. I got ordered to eat and sleep a couple of times, which is a good thing, because I was just so darn happy to be there that I otherwise might have actually forgotten to do so. The entire trip was a whirlwind of activity, writing talk, book talk, and off-the-wall hijinks. I really can't even begin to highlight it all, but here are some of the things that stand out in my mind:

* I did a Borders signing with Mark Del Franco, Jeaniene Frost, Melissa Marr, and Rachel Vincent, all of whom I spent the better part of the week hanging out with. It was SO incredibly much fun! We had a great turn-out, and the question and answer portion went for over an hour and a half! To recap for y'all: Rachel maintains that fajitas cure writer's block ("you can work on revision over nachos, but for a first draft, that just doesn't cut it"); Jeaniene emphasized the importance of making sure that you remember to put your pants on, no matter how entrenched in ideas you might be; I confessed to naming the Sidhe in TATTOO and FATE after my favorite ring-tailed lemurs...and so on. It was a TON of fun, and afterwards, we signed for almost an hour. I got to meet a lot of neat teen and twenty-something readers, a lj writer friend, and (to my great joy) another competitive cheerleader who agrees with me that the premise of The Squad isn't as far out there as it might first sound.

*Despite the huge amount of fun I had during the Friday signing, I was terrified for the Saturday signing at the convention, because (a) it was ENORMOUS! Over a hundred authors, many of whom I'd read and loved, (b) I was pretty sure that with all those amazing authors there, no one would have time to come and talk to me, and (c) they put us in alphabetical order, so I didn't know the people sitting on either side of me. As it turned out, though, I shouldn't have been scared at all! Lots of neat people came and talked to me, and I sold out of both Tattoo and Fate, and ended the day with only two copies left of The Squad. I was seated next to Michele Bardsley, who (despite having a NEVER-ENDING LINE OF FANS) went out of her way to be really friendly and talk to me. She and several other authors were giving away canvas bags and writing hilarious (and possibly wrong) messages to each other on aforementioned bags so that readers could play go-between, so there was non-stop entertainment even in the rare lulls of the three-hour sign fest. Michele assured me that with her tutelage, I too could be performing bag hijinks this time next year.

*Speaking of the Saturday signing, I altered my name tag so that whenever I flipped it over, it read simply "I am 25. :)" That way, every time someone asked me how old I was, all I had to do was flip over and add a mark to my running tally (grand total: 13 times in 3 hours).

*Rachel Vincent and I bonded based on other people's alternating desires to protect and/or corrupt us, and I ended up tagging along on her dinner with her agent, Miriam Kriss. We went to this super nice seafood restaurant, where Miriam broadened our horizons. Rachel drank wine. I ate oysters. All three of us visited an upside down building that turned out to be an arcade, and I absolutely pwn-ed my high heeled boots on the mile-long walk home. As a bonus, one of our waiters was ALSO from Oklahoma and attended my rival high school, proving once and for all that it's a very small world.

*Ilona Andrews had me shaking in my high heeled boots based on threats she'd made against my personal well-being, after I pimped her book at the top of my lungs, but luckily, she opted OUT of killing me with a dull spoon (a threat which WAS mentioned, btw). Instead, she bought a bunch of my books and spilled a variety of beverages on me. I count myself lucky.

*I was on two YA panels organized by Mari Mancusi, and they were great. The first- which was loosely centered on trends in YA and how to set your own- was one of my favorite panels I've ever been on. Mari, Lucienne Driver, Stacey Kade, Rachel Vincent, Melissa Marr, and I got into some really awesomely intense conversations about what exactly it is that makes a book unique, how readers, editors, and agents differentially react to derivative works, how different writing for teens is from writing for adults, and whether or not a YA book has to either skew younger (and include a middle grade audience, as well as a YA one) or older (and include adults) in order to really break out. The entire panel was amazing- and at the end of the hour, Caitlin Kittredge (who has the awesome distinction of being the only person I know who has pink hair AND writes about superheroes) joined us, and we transitioned into talking about what makes a good YA heroine.

*I spent a lot of time hanging out poolside with various groups of people, and I can't even think of any of it without smiling broadly enough that the people sitting near me at the Panera as I type this are getting totally freaked out.

*At one point, someone got me talking about all of my truly bizarre sleeping habits. I'm pretty sure that Jeaniene is going to write a book about them some day.

Okay, now I'm LAUGHING out loud as I type this at the Panera, so I'm going to end this blog entry here, before someone decides that I've truly lost it. Suffice to say that I had a wonderful time, and I've spent today alternating between moping that it's over and trying to kick into high gear on everything I fell behind on while I was gone.

This time next week, I'll be at the Romantic Times Booklovers Convention in Orlando, Florida. It looks like a great conference- tons of panels, over 300 authors coming, and a huge group signing on Saturday that the public can attend for $5. While in Florida, I'll also be doing a Borders event with some writing buddies, and I'm totally psyched about it (though, you know, hugely intimidated as always, because I'm signing with a group of authors whose books I love). Full details below!

Thursday

10:15 AM - 11:15 AM
YOUNG ADULT/TEEN: BEYOND TWILIGHT AND GOSSIP GIRL: While imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, writing a knock-off is not going to get an editor’s attention. There’s a whole world of YA fiction out there beyond the next Gossip Girl or Twilight imitator. In this panel, multipublished YA authors explain the different young adult subgenres, discuss what editors are looking for, and offer tips and tricks to make your book stand out by leading, rather than following, the trends.
Captain: Marianne Mancusi Panelists: Jennifer Lynn Barnes, Lucienne Diver, Melissa Marr

11:30 AM - 12:30 PM YOUNG ADULT/TEEN: THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS HEROINE!
She may be sweet or sassy. Mean girl, goth girl, rich girl, poor girl. But who she is and how she sees the world will have a big impact on your novel and your chances of getting it published. YA editors and agents constantly complain of submissions containing heroines that are just too generic. In this panel, top YA authors discuss how to create a heroine that’s three-dimensional and believable and one that your readers can relate to and fall in love with.
Captain: Marianne Mancusi Panelists: Jennifer Lynn Barnes Lucienne Diver, Stacey Kade, Melissa Marr and Rachel Vincent

Friday

7:00 – 9:00 pm Group signing. Join authors Melissa Marr, Jeaniene Frost, Mark Del Franco, Rachel Vincent, and Jennifer Lynn Barnes as they discuss and sign their latest releases.

Oviedo - Borders
8285 Red Bug Lake Road
Oviedo, FL 32765

Saturday

11:00 - 2:00 pm Romantic Times Book Fair signing, open to the public

Over 300 authors will autograph books, posters and bookmarks, and you can bring your favorite "keeper" books to have your fav author sign them!