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My 2 is broken on Pantalaimon, Today is too packed to plan a trip A popular discussion topic in the Rites of Spring (Break) spoiler thread is who I would cast were there a) to be a movie about my books and b) people who would actually let me have a hand in casting it. Let us be clear on this matter: there is currently no SSG movie or television production in the works, though producers are welcome to contact my literary agent or film agent at their earliest possible convenience. Were there to be such a project, I would have absolutely no part in the casting thereof. (In passing, did anyone read that EW article about the original proposal for the Twilight movie that featured Bella as a track star demon hunter with night vision goggles? Was anyone else really curious to see that film? Sounded cool, though of course utterly unlike Twilight.)
Anyway, I have, upon occasion, fake-cast SSG for the delight of blog readers everywhere. But I change my mind all the time. Currently, I’m thinking Hayden Panettiere might make a good Clarissa. Not that it really matters, since the person I “see” in my head is hardly ever an actor — especially one currently making the rounds on the CW (which seems to be where most youngish twenty-something actors pay their dues in teen shows). Of course, since the actual “casting” of a cover model for Rampant, I’ve been able to see what most readers will think of when they see my protagonist, Astrid. Some people are capable of completely ignoring the cover image and description of a character — I find myself pretty locked in by it — or worse, warring between the cover image and my own imagination. The entire time I was reading Uglies, I kept getting confused, because my mind’s eye image of Tally looked much more like she ended up looking on the cover of Specials, but occasionally, I’d get flashes of the Uglies cover model’s face. When I read romance novels, I am, oddly, often envisioning the characters in paint and pastels, more cartoon than live action. I’m actually glad they’ve moved to more photographic shots.
So, not so much. Her hair is even longer a year later, on the cover of Rites of Spring (Break). I can’t believe how fast it grows! Kidding. It just goes to show that slavishly matching the description of the character doesn’t always make for the strongest cover. Though the yellow bikini and the tattoo are a great touch. Right, I was talking about the cover model for Rampant. She’s very beautiful, and I think she’ll make an excellent Astrid. But lately, I’ve been thinking of a different character from Rampant altogether. Last night, I went to see the Mamma Mia! movie.
Which is why, were there to be a movie made of Rampant, I would love her to be cast in the part of Philippa Llewelyn. She’d be perfect. So much fun, with such a depth of feeling and a great energy. Of course, this probably means nothing to anyone except the two or three people who have actually read Rampant. Libba Bray is totally hilarious. This had me in stitches. It’s usually exactly how I feel… and yet… I’m doing copyedits for Rampant, the unicorn book, now, and I am still in love with it. This is unusual for me. Usually by copy edits I just want it gone from my life for evah and evah! But as I read through, I find myself getting excited all over again. I can’t wait for other people to read this book! They had the photo shoot for the cover earlier this week, “somewhere in New Jersey.” You’d be surprised how similar it can look to Italy. The reason for this should be clear: they are both located at 41 degrees north. I’m so excited to see the cover! Unlike LIbba, though I usually hate my book during revision and production stages, I generally relapse when the book actually hits the shelves. I guess that would be like the ex-boyfriend you totally think you’re over until you go to a party and there he is looking really great, with a new haircut and that shirt he always refused to put on, and maybe like he’s been working out — and before you know it, you’re making out with him behind the punch bowl. And so it is that now Rites of Spring (Break) is out and people are emailing me about it (or just talking on the spoiler thread), I love it again. It also helps that I’m back to living with Amy and her friends as I finish the fourth book in the series. Every day, I’m revisiting the other three books to make sure that I’ve properly picked up the threads of the stories I’ve been weaving together for almost 300,000 words now. And if that’s not enough on my plate (as well as the Romance Divas workshop, which is almost over, so get your questions in now) I had the tour, the honeymoon planning, Sailor Boy’s big exam, and four — count ‘em! — four fabulous bits of news that I will hopefully be able to share soon. Also, I got new author photos. Though I’m really tempted to just use this one instead:
Clearly, one of us did not get the memo about the Green Shirt Day at Turn the Page Bookstore. Fortunately, she has a book cover that will do in a pinch. The TTP signing was amazing, by the way. The entire staff there is so friendly and organized, and the bookstore itself is such a charming place! I’m in awe of Nora Roberts — she told me during the signing that this year will mark the release of her 200th title. TWO HUNDRED! Cue looking at tiny stack of three books in print and thinking I really need to start getting on the stick. I also got to have a lovely chat with Catherine Asaro, who was sitting on my other side and also not dressed in green. Nora Roberts fans came in from all over — by the busload! there were fans from New Jersey, where the unicorns live, and North Dakota, and no doubt places farther flung than that. It was an incredible sight! Also this week, I had a signing down in Reston, Virginia. I finally got to meet Nessa and her adorable, map-loving son (he even got Sailor Boy to buy a map), and fellow authors Carol LaFlamme and Amanda Brice showed up to offer moral support. Afterwards, Amanda, her husband, a friend, Sailor Boy, and I went to the Melting Pot for dinner, and ate our weight in cheese and chocolate. Yum…. is there anything better than cheese and chocolate? I ask you. One of my worst nightmares is becoming lactose intolerant. And of the various dippers they offer with your food, my favorites are actually the green apples and of course, the cauliflower. Because I adore cauliflower in all its incarnations. I actually spent several months working at Melting Pot restaurants when I was in college and right after I graduated, and it was the best non-writing-related job I ever had. Because of this experience, I make really amazing fondue, and it is for this, perhaps, that Sailor Boy and I received no fewer than four fondue pots when we got married. I think a huge fondue party may be in the works sometime this winter. But even if you haven’t worked at the Pot, fondue is REALLY easy, and it’s pretty impressive when you serve it at a party, so I think we all need to embrace our inner seventies suburbanite or Swiss mountaineer and make more fondue. Now, here’s the key to easy fondue: a double boiler. If you don’t have one of those, just put a aluminum bowl on top of a pot with a few inches of water in it. When the water boils, and steam escapes, you are ready to start making the fondue. Into the bowl, pour some kind of base — soup stock, or juice, or wine, or beer, or even milk. Whatever you want. Here is the second secret to perfect fondue: flour. When you cut or shred the cheese into little pieces, mix it with flour. You want to put in enough flour that when you squeeze the shreds, they fall apart. THis soaks up all the oil and makes the cheese not separate once you’ve made the fondue. Then, add the cheese. You can use any kind of cheese you want. I usually advocate using at least half a swiss style cheese, because it melts into a really nice consistency. Whip until it’s al nice and melted. Then, you want to add some seasonings. What seasoning you add is usually dependent on the type of cheese you are using. You usually can’t go wrong with garlic (a friend of mine born in Switzerland says the really traditional way to do it is to run a garlic clove around the inside of the bowl before you start), lemon juice, pepper… traditional swiss cheese fondue uses nutmeg and kirschvasser brandy. Really, the sky’s the limit. At the Melting Pot, they add dry mustard and Worchestshire to cheddar (and no, that’s not a secret — they tell you right there at the table). As for dippers, you want slightly stale bread cut or torn into chunks (french bread is good, but so are other types), apples, veggies — actually, strike that. Pretty much anything tastes good dipped in cheese. If you can imagine dipping it into cheese, put it out as a dipper. Delicious! (For Carrie.) A Joss Whedon musical starring Neil Patrick Harris? Yep, I’m so in.
In other news, I have the third booksigning in the Rites of Spring (Break) tour today. Come see me in Reston, Virginia. Food! Goodies! More books than you can shake a stick at! *Virginia Signing* And the workshop is going strong over at Romance Divas. If you ever wanted to see the nuts and bolts of plotboarding, check it out! (link below). Aside from House Stuff, bar stuff, writing stuff, copyediting stuff… As the July Author of the Month at Romance Divas, I’m giving a week long workshop on Subplots and Plotboarding at their forums. If you’ve always wondered how I make my plotboards, come on over and check it out! Today I have a signing at Turn the Page Bookstore in Boonsboro, Maryland, with Nora Roberts, Donna Kaufman, Catherine Asaro, and debut author Jeanne Adams. I’m so excited. I’ll be back later with pictures. The Speed Reading Book Nerd has taken a crack at Rites of Spring (Break). It’s spoilericious, but check it out if you dare. She’s been a fan of the last two, so it’s interesting to see her take on this one. I like it when people have questions about where I ended the story. ROSB has more of a cliffhanger ending than any of the others. (I get a lot of notes from folks thanking me for including the excerpt from the next book in the back — which, you know, thank my publisher.) There are a lot of questions facing Amy with this fourth book — the choices she made, her place in the society, her romantic life, and her future. She’s starting the book in a much more dire position than any of the previous ones, which I think is only fair, since she’s facing one of the biggest changes in her life. When I look back to the final month or two before my own graduation — I’m amazed I got through it. We were all so terrified of leaving school, the people and places we knew, finally being “grown up” — needing to make decisions about our real lives, our futures, all of it. And that’s what this last book is going to be about. Anyway, off to get ready for the signing. Wish me luck! Upcoming debut author Jessica Burkhart (Canterwood Crest), is running a series of “beach read” video reviews on her blog, and yesterday, Rites of Spring (Break) was one of them! Check it out (mildly spoilery):
Cute, huh? So last night I had the weirdest dream. In the dream, you only got tapped for Rose & Grave if you had the potential to develop superpowers (like on Heroes) except for not all of the taps had developed their superpowers or knew what they were. Naturally, Amy was one of the underdeveloped ones. Anyway, there was a whole big show down with the members of Dragon’s Head, who not only all knew what their superpowers were, but had been trained to use them to kill the Rose & Grave members. And there was special flame retardant underwear. And one of the DH powers was to light concrete on fire. Seriously. My dreams are bizarre. Someday, I’ll have to share the killer unicorn one. Anyway, to make a long story short, after all the dust settled, we found out that George had the “bend space and time” power of Hiro, except without all that unfortunate dorkiness, clumsiness, and the weird constipated look Hiro gets every time he’s about to warp. But my subconscious seemed to mix it up a tad with The Terminator, because if George takes a person with him through the warp… well… she loses all her clothes. And he may or may not lose consciousness, depending on the degree of the warp. So I suddenly transferred into George’s heading, waking up on a misty hillside with a totally naked Amy lying next to him. Those of you who have read any of the books may realize how that’s problematic. Those of you who’ve read all of them realize how excessively problematic that is. Still, it was fun to live in George’s brain. Let’s just say that the things he thought when he saw the naked Amy were not what I’d been expecting him to think at ALL. I wonder what my editor would say if I tried to incorporate time travel and superpowers into the story at this late date. I wonder what Amy’s superpowers would be. … is my new Superhero Name. It describes both how fast my life has been moving these days and also the state of my eyes and mind from so many sleepless nights. Sailor Boy, who takes the bar in a little less than three weeks, is in a similar condition. It’s ironic that I’m writing about Amy’s graduation right now. I don’t know if I’ve ever been this busy since my own final weeks at college. Big huge life changes, the bar, manuscript deadlines, copyedits for Rampant, honeymoons, promotion for my new release — it’s crazy around here! If you don’t see me much for the next few weeks, that’s why.
I love the Contemporary winner (pictured right) and have ever since I first saw it. I think the author is somehow anointed by the cover gods. The book, btw, is about crime and retribution (a good bit of running people over with cars in municipal parking lots) in a small oyster farming town. I know, seems a bit incongruous to the cover, right? Or maybe I just covet this cover for my own. I think something like this would have been great for the SSG books. So mysterious and feminine and vibrant. (Yes, you can make the argument that Rose & Grave members wear black and only Elysion members would be in red, but Amy never wears a polo shirt with a sweater tied around her shoulders, either, so there you go.) Can’t you just see that woman being Amy, though? I can, all wrapped up in her society robes, keeping her own counsel? Covers have been at the forefront of my mind of late, since I’ve had not one, but two conversations about my new covers recently. To be fair, having a conversation about your cover, as an author, is a bit like having a conversation about whether you’d like a boy baby or a girl baby. Fun to think about; but doesn’t have much bearing on the results. My publishers are nice enough to ask me what I think, and I’m pretty sure they want me to like it, but they design the covers for my books, and they have the final say. Usually, all an author can do when presented with a less than ideal cover is make suggestions for tiny adjustments and hope for the best. Though I only have three books in print, I’ve had five covers, since Secret Society Girl had a different cover for the hardback version, and those of you who saw the ARC know there was an earlier cover as well. Now the series has a nice theme going on, and the covers all match. My favorite, of course, is the cover of Rites of Spring (Break), which I think not only best captures the tone and essence of the novel, but is also the closest representation of Amy. For once, she’s in an outfit I could actually see her wearing. The coolest story behind the cover is that the designer picked the yellow bikini all by herself, and when I first saw the cover, I was so excited by the yellow — Amy’s favorite color. (You may have guessed by those shoes.) I think Amy looks very strong in this picture, confronting the water before her. Now, of course, we’re planning the cover for the fourth book, which is circling ever closer to a final title. And by “we” I mostly mean “they”, but my editor and I had a lovely chat about it and I put together a list of suggestions. I always have a cover in my mind when I’m writing a book. It’s easier for me to picture because I know what the “series look” is. I can imagine a cover in that “family.” I know what I’d love the new cover to have on it — the images, the colors, etc. Now I just have to keep my fingers crossed that the powers that be agree! My YA novel is a whole different kettle of unicorns, though. For RAMPANT, I have been dreaming about this cover for ages. I dreamed about single elements and action scenes, I had nightmares about fluffy cartoon unicorns and “gossip girls with bows” — as a brand new book series in a brand new genre, it could look like just about anything! I’ve been visiting all the YA shelves and noting a few distinct “looks” to the novels I’m seeing (can mostly be classified into: “We want to look like Twilight,” “We want to look like Uglies,” “We want to look like a Great and Terrible Beauty,” “We want to look like Gossip Girls,” and “Black and Metallic”) and I am wild to find out which camp I’ll fall into. Or will it be its own creation? The countdown is on. The nails are being bitten. I know the designer has worked out an initial comp that people are excited about (I’m excited just from hearing the description). They had the casting call last week, and I’ve seen pictures of the model my designer and editor chose (she looks awesome — very smart, and strong, and unconventional). I can totally picture her as Astrid. Next week is when the photo shoot happens, at an undisclosed-location-slash-horse-farm. I wonder if it’s the same place Jessica Burkhart had her cover photo shot? Hmmmm… Interestingly enough, the place Astrid shoots her first unicorn is at a farm as well. Gotta save those sheep! In other, NON cover related news, I’m the author of the month at Romance Divas. Next week, I”ll be giving my popular plot boarding workshop there, but there’s an interview up already, and you can see it here. Great news: my pal and agency-sister Louisa Edwards just sold her first novel as part of a four book pre-empt to St. Martin’s Press! Now here’s the part where it gets really interesting (as reported by PW): Rose Hilliard at St. Martin’s Press preempted world rights to four books by editor-turned-author Louisa Edwards via Deidre Knight. Set amid the New York restaurant scene, the first book in the series is called Can’t Stand the Heat and is slated to launch in fall 2009, with subsequent titles to appear every six months. Knight is a romance author as well as agent, and Edwards was her first editor at NAL. When Edwards left New York publishing, Knight briefly worked with Hilliard, who subsequently left for SMP. Small publishing world, huh? On the craft side, I’ve been naming characters recently. Sometimes names come to me, fully formed, and sometimes I have to cast around a lot until I figure out what their names are going to be. In this case, there’s been a lot of casting. I think part of the problem is that, at this point in the series, I have a lot of characters. So I’ll come up with a name and then go, no, I can’t have a Ryan. I already have a Brian. And a Ryder. And a Rainier. Or if I give this person a name starting with a P, then it will be obvious that all my villains have names starting with a P, and I apparently think it’s an evil letter. Or even: this character Hedwig is a little bit too much like this other character Hestia in my entirely unrelated book series for a completely different audience and why the heck does my subconscious think that people with names like that should have this particular personality and will anyone notice but me? I think it may be hard to name actual children. Now I know why some authors resort to stuff like Phury. I actually discarded a potential name in the last book I wrote because I liked it for a kid. Turned out to be a fabulous decision, because the name I finally gave that character was awesome and perfect and made said character leap off the page. I’ve written before about how important character names are to me. If a character isn’t developing the way I think they ought, one of my go-to tricks is changing his or her name. It’s amazing what it can accomplish. Sally is a very, very different person than Theodora, and they are both distinct from Krystal. Yeah, I think about this stuff. What can I say? I’m the only one here who can do it. No muses in my house! _________________ * I have none of these things.
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