Ended up with a migraine today -- my first non-hormonal migraine in about 18 months. I dreamt I had a horrible headache, and when I woke up, I did! (Around 5 am, sadly)

Anyway, I think it was triggered by raw onions, interestingly enough. I haven't been able to eat raw onions for years, but I still cut them. However, I usually make DH do the cutting when the onion looks strong...last night, I just wasn't thinking. It was so strong I cried for over 30 minutes, and my eyes burned something fierce...and then the migraine. Fortunately, it's already almost gone (another reason I'm thinking it was food trigger -- my stress-related and hormonal are usually at least 20 hours long).

In good news, I'm around the halfway point in my revision -- woot! I powered through almost three hours of typing last night. Now I'm gearing up for the last half. My wonderful crit partners haven't read most of this, however, so it could take a little longer to work through the last part of the book.

I'm slowly catching up with everything I need to do this week -- I loved the break, of course, but coming back is always challenging. However, I still haven't typed up the minutes from a school meeting last month, and the next meeting is Friday (oops)....

Well, lots of random stuff today -- how's your Tuesday?

I came down with bronchitis over the weekend (even had to go the hospital--yikes!) and haven't been able to post the way I intended to. Now that I'm home, I am still recovering, but wanted to remind everyone that we've only got about 2 weeks left on our Kickstarter campaign. If you've been thinking about donating, and you're starting to think about holiday gifts, consider the Kickstart Tu auction, especially for the writer or book lover in your life. They've got all sorts of great stuff, including handcrafted mugs, made-to-order crocheted Alice in Wonderland dolls, a FULL YEAR of advertising on YA (& Kids!) Books Central, out-of-print children's books and a folklore pack, and writing critiques and line edits. Oh, and don't forget the giant box of manga for that manga and anime lover in your life! I plan to add some D&D and Star Wars minis later this week, and if you're a Brandon Sanderson, Jim Hines, or Howard Tayler fan, you've got the chance to get a Garden Ninja Studios customized mini from the Mistborn, Goblin Quest, or Schlock Mercenary worlds.

In addition to winning an auction, you'll also get the rewards from the Kickstarter level at which you donate--for more on how the auction works, check out the rules here.

The auction ends Dec. 9th, to make sure that the donations to the Kickstarter have enough time to go through.

If you don't have money, but do have something you'd like to donate to the auction, please feel free. And either way, please spread the word among your friends and family--we've only got a few days left, and a long way to go!

Thanks for all your support! With your help, we'll be able to get up and running!

Originally published at Stacy Whitman\\\\\\\'s Grimoire.

Hi all-

In honor of World AIDS Day, I wanted to share one of the humanitarian projects my husband is involved in.
It's called OneChild Africa and was started in the same vein of their Indonesia Tsunami project--two doctors wanting to reach beyond their immediate circle and help. They have since created a program that involves student volunteers among many others. The website is up now. I'm so impressed with their amazing work! Find out what you can do to help.

http://travellingau.com/

Also, if you're in Cambridge, consider checking out this NextAid fundraising event. One of the organizers went to fine-arts camp with me when we were teenagers. :) I feel so fortunate to know people who are doing so much good for our world.

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=184151053299&ref=mf


Remember to Tweet #red all day long to raise awareness
Follow me at: http://twitter.com/HeidiRKling

http://jkrbooks.typepad.com/blog/2009/12/steve-klugers-my-most-excellent-year-wins-walden-award.html

I was pleased to see the news that one of my favorite titles from last year just won the Amelia Elizabeth Walden book award. Here is some information from the press release (sent to me by Daria Plumb, Chair of the 2010 Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award Committee):

The Assembly on Literature for Adolescents (ALAN) of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) is pleased and proud to announce the winner of the inaugural Amelia Elizabeth Walden Book Award for Young Adult Fiction.  Established in 2008 to honor the wishes of young adult author, Amelia Elizabeth Walden, the award allows for the sum of $5,000 to be presented annually to the author of a young adult title selected by the ALAN Amelia Elizabeth Walden Book Award Committee as demonstrating a positive approach to life, widespread teen appeal, and literary merit. 

The winner of the 2009 Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award is:

My Most Excellent Year: A Novel of Love, Mary Poppins & Fenway Park, by Steve Kluger (Dial)

2009 Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award finalists are:

• After Tupac and D Foster by Jacqueline Woodson (Putnam)
• Graceling by Kristin Cashore (Harcourt)
• The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (HarperCollins)
• Me, The Missing, and the Dead by Jenny Valentine (HarperCollins)

I must admit that I was a bit skeptical when I first read about this award. Specifically, the part of the criteria about "demonstrating a positive approach to life". But I think that the committee did a great job picking a book that's not even a tiny bit message-y, while meeting the criteria. The rest of the shortlist is pretty impressive, too (Graceling was another of my favorites published last year).

Anyway, here is my review of My Most Excellent Year: A Novel of Love, Mary Poppins & Fenway Park (I mean, really, look at that sub-title. How could I have resisted? The author's website lists him as "Author, Red Sox Fan, Uncle".) I hope that this award brings the book additional readers.

Okay, so November was good and bad for writing. I got halfway through NaNo and sort of outran my headlights. The effort wasn't wasted exactly, but it's not a novel yet, either. I'll let that one simmer and see if I come back to it. In the meantime, it was a good distraction from the book I am querying, as well as a mental break from the book I'm revising. I spent the second half of the month (when I wasn't holidaying) working on an outline in which I dig deep into this revision. I think I've made some progress. If I can set the beginning right, I think I'll be much better off as far as focusing the rest of the novel's core. I've been thinking a lot about the characters and the relationships between them and what they really want. I've worked with the first two pages and I'm pleased with how it's going. Um, that's only the first two out of 350? So, a lot of work to do still...

Today Little Sweetie had her playgroup at the house that is on the other side of the next town, down (or up, I should say) a dirt road, on the top of a hill that has a funny name like Frizzly Mountain or something equally odd. Which meant I spent most of the morning driving, but I always like that drive because it's a chance to just take in nature. That's where the buffalo are, and wide green fields, and tree-covered hills with hawks soaring overhead, and forks of the White River that are not white, but the color of green-tinted copper. Now that the leaves are off, you can see that they were only covering the scars of last year's ice storm. It's kind of like the economy--you can do some emergency measures, but true healing is going to take time.

This weekend was DD1's birthday, as well as baptism (she is 8). My parents came, which made the kids happy. PMB even remembered them and went to them, which isn't something you can always count on with a one-year-old. That on top of Thanksgiving sort of made for a food-intensive week, even with my parents' nonfat diet. I think we'll be doing carrot sticks for a while...
What else? Oh, my kids are all in the nativity play. DD1 is Mary, the boys are shepherds, and Little Sweetie is her choice of barn animal (she wants to be a sheep). They are all looking forward to it. Several times a day they tell me they need costumes. Um, first I need to take care of the Christmas shopping and deal with PMB the resident orangutang. And see if I can come up with a violin descant to What Child is This.
Okay, off to stuff kids with macaroni (every 4-year-old's dream cuisine, right?) and make some phone calls, and then if there's any time left, sneak in a bit more revising. I realize full well that agents are either reading over the holidays, or hiding from their tottering pile of hopeful material, and no matter how much I might hope otherwise, there are no radio signals in December. Which means that I am going to dig in on the revision and get it right this time.

Happy December!

http://chickenspaghetti.typepad.com/chicken_spaghetti/2009/12/first-graders-talk-about-dolphins-sort-of.html

Me: I'm so excited. I love dolphins!

Ana: Me, too!

Jazzie: I can fight my brother like a ninja. [Pause.] I never fall down. [Pause.] Because I'm like a ninja.

**********

And so began a Tuesday morning with two of my first-grade reading buddies at a city school. They read. I listen. Occasionally we veer off topic. 

Today's selection, for which we'd made a special trip downstairs to the school library, was Dolphins, by Leighton Taylor. The girls wanted a book about dolphins. I am often surprised, although at this point I shouldn't be, at how well first-graders read a book they're interested in, one that might be above their level.

Jazzie and Ana told me that they have to keep library books in their desks. The books must stay at school. I don't think the practice is uncommon.

Jazzie read Dolphins aloud. She needed a word or two pointed out, something a parent could do easily. Jazzie was acing it, sounding out words and reading captions.

Dolphins is part of Lerner's Early Bird Nature Books series. The publisher says that the reading level is third grade. Jazzie is in first.

Ninjas should be able to take books home from the school library.

Phew! Just got an email regarding the revision I sent one of my editors yesterday for an upcoming pb.

My favorite sentence: "I love this revision!!"

Oh, how I love the word 'love' in an email like this. And the double exclamation points. They are so shiny.

http://bluerosegirls.blogspot.com/2009/12/desmond-cowboy.html

Another painting in progress post for you from Disappearing Desmond!

http://jkrbooks.typepad.com/blog/2009/12/literacy-lava-3-now-available-pdf-magazine-for-parents.html

I'm happy to report that the third issue of Literacy Lava is now available. Here's the scoop from editor Susan Stephenson:

"Literacy Lava 3 is a free magazine for parents in pdf form. It's now available on my website. This is another great issue, exploding with tips for parents about ways to encourage literacy in family life. Find out what your local library has to offer, read ideas on making books with kids, sneak some learning into shopping, discover games that build literacy skills, develop imagination while playing Grocery Store, make writing part of your family’s life, read why picture books are so good for kids, and find out how literacy helped one child fight night terrors. Don’t forget to check out the Online Extras page, and the Writing Prompt activity page for kids."

It looks like another great issue to me. There are articles by several of my top blog/Twitter literacy news sources. I look forward to taking time to dig into Literacy Lava 3 in more detail later this week.

We speed into the blog tour home-stretch with Jon Skovron, aka jonnyskov !

Jon Skovron is an insatiable music geek who can play eight instruments, but none of them well. He was born in Columbus, Ohio, has lived all over the US, and now resides with his wife and two sons in Washington, DC. His short stories and reviews have appeared in publications like Jim Baen's Universe and Internet Review of Science Fiction. Struts and Frets is his first novel.



More than anything, Sammy wants to play guitar in a famous indie rock band. The problem is that his front man is a jerk who can't sing, his bassist is a burn-out who can't remember the songs, and his drummer is just out to lunch. But Sammy needs this band because it's the only good thing he's got going. His father skipped out before he was born, his mother is an overworked therapist with a drinking problem, his grandfather is slowly losing his mind to Alzheimer's, and the girl of his dreams is dating his jerk lead singer.


So Jon...

1. If you had a time machine and could go back to the early days of your writing career and give yourself one piece of advice, what would it be?

Well, I generally think time travel is a really bad idea, and there's a whole cannon of books, comics, movies, and television that will back me up on this. But if I could be absolutely sure that it wouldn't disrupt the space-time continuum, I would say to take it a little easier and make sure your work doesn't get in the way of your life.

2. If you weren't a writer, what would you want to be (or what do you think you would be), career-wise?

A musician.

3. What did you do to celebrate your book deal? Pop some champagne? Extravangant purchase? Dinner out? Pizza delivery?

Some wine and a quiet evening with my wife, just gushing about it.


Well, you'll always be a rock star to the Debs, Jon. Thanks!

More about Jon Skovron here.

Order Struts and Frets here or here.

Bye!

I posted this two years ago on WORLD AIDS DAY. It is WORLD AIDS DAY again. So I am posting it again.

Back when I was in college someone I adored died of AIDS. This man was brilliant and cool and kind and he made me believe that I was:
1. Smart.
2. Had a responsibility to make the world better.

Believe me, those weren't easy things for me to believe, but he was my example of how you can do it. He grew up really poor with just a mom running the household. He was his class valedictorian in high school and college. He desegregated a fraternity system. He made the world better. He went to Harvard Law even though nobody else in his family had even gone to college. His whole life he volunteered and worked and made the world better.

I miss him terribly.

Today is WORLD AIDS DAY.

Back when he died I really thought there would be a cure by now. I really thought that the world would ban together and fix this.

AIDS is still a problem. It's a huge problem.

Find out more here.

Or here.

reneesweet posted a bit about what she does to make a difference. There are other good suggestions at the sites that I've linked to above.

I guess, I'd like to add that the first step, the first thing you can do? It's just to care.

That's right.

Just care.

***********************************
The random winners of the CAPTIVATE advanced reader copies are:
rockerchi379
Lilliana - who posted anonymously sort of
alebodden11

Congratulations everyone! Send me a message with your address and I'll mail them out to you. The selections were random numbers. Every comment was assigned a number.
Thank you all so much for checking out the sneak peek. I think there might be the third and final one there today. I'm not sure. www.needpixies.com

Okay, so I didn't go to sleep Sunday night and then came up with this, which may or may not be crazy:

Vera Carnegie’s parents have just given her the biggest news of her life.

Well, sort of. If she had a life. And the news? Vera is totally and completely dead. As a doornail. She has been since age five, when she drowned in a fishing pond and a crazy voodoo guy trapped her soul in a pickle jar. Soon, she’ll stop aging and be stuck forever.

At first, Vera is devastated. But then, in her Mortally Challenged Support Group, she comes to realize that being dead has a couple of perks. Dead people, for example, make great models and Hollywood actresses since they don’t technically have to eat. And they make even better spies, since dead people obviously can’t die again. Dead bodies don’t have limitations like living bodies do. So what if she can’t go to college? She can become the female James Bond or the next Calista Flockhart.

But then Vera realizes that her parents—who aren’t religious or even vaguely spiritual—have accidentally misplaced her soul. Or rather, sold it on EBay. Which is kind of crappy, because the only way Vera’s body will die is if someone releases her soul.

As luck would have it, Vera’s soul sells to her worst enemy—Aldous Loxley, the resident school weirdo. Aldous knows exactly what Vera’s soul is and doesn’t plan on giving it back any time soon. In fact, he has some pretty crazy ideas of his own….

With the help of her new (dead) best friend Sarah and her beautiful but stupid (living) boyfriend Alan, Vera must save her soul—or die.

For good this time.

ZOMBIE IS AN INFLAMMATORY WORD (AND I RESENT THAT) is a 50,000 word YA novel.

I've been reading a lot of message boards, Twitters, etc. (I am not on Twitter, so don't look for me; My husband is, and he has Beastly as a search, so I get to see every single tweet that even uses the word, Beastly in another context) , and I've seen a lot of people who are worried that CBS is going to "ruin" the book in their movie version.

My message to my fans: Thank you SO much for loving my book enough to worry about it. That is super-flattering, and I'm very grateful that you love the book as much as I do.

However: Don't worry.

Honestly, I've read the script because, basically, I'm not good with surprises (like, I really try to find out what my Christmas gifts are ahead of time if at all possible), and the folks at CBS were kind enough to let me read it. I've heard horror stories about books that were ripped to shreds as movies. For example, most people may not know this, but Lois Duncan's book, I Know What You Did Last Summer was suspense, not horror. I got to see Ms. Duncan talk about this at a conference, and this was a big surprise to her. She brought her grandchildren to the movie. Oops.

And don't even get me started on Wicked, the musical. I mean, I love Stephen Schwartz and all, and Wicked is a good show, but if you've read the book (or The Wixard of Oz), you know it doesn't end well for Elphaba. To quote one blog I read, "The @%#*& witch dies!" So that was a bit of a shocker. I mean, I understand why the writers did that. You couldn't really have a fun, popular musical where the main character you've grown to love dies violently by melting in the end, unless it was sort of a Sweeney Todd-type musical (and, much as I love Sweeney Todd, it has never been a moneymaker like Wicked). So they changed it. I celebrate Wicked, the musical for what it was, but it wasn't profound like Wicked, the book.

Sorry to ramble. I'm just giving examples of what I would consider killing a book for a movie (or theatrical) version.

Early in the casting process, CBS offered the role of Kyle to a well-known actor who stated that he thought Kyle/Adrian should have a closer relationship with his father. This would have been, in my mind, a BIG change. It would definitely have bothered me because what attracted me to the Beast's story was that he seemed so abandoned and alone. That's what the book was about -- loneliness, abandonment, desperation. I related to the Beast because of my own strong feelings of loneliness as a teenager (and that is why he reads all the books I loved as a teen, such as The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Picture of Dorian Grey), and while I like this actor a lot, I wouldn't have been happy if his casting had meant they'd change that part of the book.

But that actor isn't involved in the movie (To any teen girls reading this: Have you SEEN Alex Pettyfer?), and the writer put the script back.

Judging from the script, there haven't been huge changes to the book. Really, only one small plot change (having to do with how Kyle talks Lindy's dad into letting her stay, and Kyle's motivations), but it all flows nicely. I can honestly say that, had my editor suggested this change to the book, I would have considered making it. Any other changes are along the lines of cutting a 300+ page book down to a 120-ish page script. Again, since my book isn't terribly long, this didn't result in huge changes to the plot.

The characters are the same people. They changed Magda's name, probably because the actress who is playing her is not Hispanic, but she's still the same wise mentor. And yes, I know Vanessa Hudgens doesn't look the way I described Lindy in the book, but she is the same person too. I was in New York two weeks ago, and I got to see about a 10-minute clip of the movie, the party scene where Kyle (as in the book) fights with Sloane, talks to Lindy, and snubs Kendra, then the scene back at his apartment with Kendra. Vanessa Hudgens comes off very smart, and sweet and self-deprecating as Lindy in the scene, and she was definitely in sharp contrast to Sloane, Trey, Kyle, and the other snotty kids at the school. This was the most important thing to me, that Lindy would be a normal, middle class, smart girl, and she nailed it. I really enjoyed her in Bandslam, and I look forward to seeing her in the whole movie.

And Mary-Kate Olsen -- OMG! I've recently had the opportunity to watch a million Full House reruns with my kids (Other than Candace Cameron's hairstyle, it never gets old), and if you think about it, you can tell that Mary-Kate and her sister are extremely talented girls. But New York Minute wasn't exactly the vehicle to show that off. In Beastly, though, Mary-Kate gets a role into which she can really sink her teeth. Honestly, she is Kendra, and I don't say that lightly because Kendra is my favorite character in the book, and the one to whom I most relate. I don't care how thin she is; She's perfect (and her costumes are awesome). She's SCARY! She will be a highlight of the movie.

Anyway, if you're a fan in the book, you can rest easy in the knowledge that the movie version is pretty true to it. Not one major plot point is different. Not one major character has been deleted. The ending is identical, and Alex Pettyfer is going to be great as Kyle.

And -- yesss! -- I sent in my new book yesterday. It will be out in a year, and the title (drum roll, please) is . . . Cloaked.

I cannot believe it’s December 1st! That’s crazy. December is officially winter and coldness, although it hasn’t’ really snowed here yet. Just once, and only for about an hour or so, and then it was gone. Not that I’m complaining – we’ll get it soon enough, and then I’ll really want it to go away. (My thoughts on snow is that it should be over after the holidays – it should be just swept away after the new year, taken out with the Christmas trees and put away with the holiday lights, not to be seen or heard from again until next year.)

My Thanksgiving was fun – we went down to the Cape to visit with the in-laws. My sister-in-law just got engaged, so it was fun to ooh and ahh over her shiny new ring.

We also played Pictionary. Probably none of you have ever seen me draw, but if you did, you would know that I’m not so good at this game. (One time someone asked me if I was doing the illustrations for my chapter book series, and I was thinking, “Um, no, not unless they want them to be stick figures.” But the truth is, I’m not even that good at stick figures.)

But somehow, this year I wasn’t that bad. My ten-year-old niece was on my team, and I swear it was like we had mind-meld. I drew this blob on the paper and then circled something in the middle, and she was like, ‘BRAZIL!” which was totally right! Do you think that’s why I like writing tween books so much? Because I am deep down ten years old?

But the best part was that we got home to find that while we were gone, SoapNet had DVR’d the Beverly Hills, 90201 Chillin’ With Dylan marathon. Hello, how lucky! (The Boy didn’t think so. But whatever. The DVR also has lots of UFC and boxing on it, which is unlucky for me, so it all works out.)

I turned in a book yesterday, so I’ve been catching up on the episodes. Some of them are really good. Um, the first episode where Dylan and Brenda meet? And the whole Brenda/Kelly/Dylan love triangle? When she yells, “I hate you both, never talk to me again!” Love it!

Some of them are not so good. Like, for example right now Dylan is in some kind of coma, and the whole episode is this really weird dream sequence where he’s making out with Kelly and then getting operated on by his high school principal. Creepy. And confusing.

Anyway. I hope you all had a wonderful holiday!

Happy December! I’ll blog tomorrow about my nanowrimo being pretty much an epic fail…

ETA: Now the high school principal has a gun for some reason, and Dylan is chasing a little girl down some railroad tracks. This one might need to be deleted…

More later,
xx

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/bonnyglen/~3/F4yrXWIaPFo/

http://melissawiley.com/?p=5798

What happens when you read one of Karen’s posts aloud to your husband in front of the small fry?

The three-year-old decides “Feral Squirrel” is a perfect nickname for her baby brother, that’s what.

[[ All the Copper Pennies In My Pocket. ]]

Pennies made before '82 (and the ones from early '82) were all copper. The ones from late '82 onward are zinc with copper plates. I handled so many, I can tell the difference. This book is made from 8 all copper pennies from my pocket, the week after I made the previous penny book.

These date from 1972 to 1982.


[ available here ]

Seems the busier I am, the more I have to do, the stronger the urge is to write. All the to-do's making so much ruckus in my brain are disturbing the characters that have been sleeping lately.

Hello?? Why can't you come around when I have time to pay attention to you?