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The final winner of THE REMAINS OF THE DEAD Giveaway is: Celeste!
Sailor Boy and I spent some time yesterday doing life maintenance, which we’d been neglecting a bit since we got married (Hey! Honeymoon!) We spent a lot of time on the phone with various and sundry representatives of businesses. The words “wife” and “husband” were thrown around indiscriminately. We also wrote some thank you notes.
We also saw The Golden Compass. My opinion was a solid B+, though I’m torn. I don’t think that books should be precisely like movies, but I do think that the changes that are made should benefit the movie. I thought all the changes in Lord of the Rings, for example, were a great benefit to the movie — it was awesome in all the places that the books kind of sucked. I’m not sure how I feel about the changes in the film.
Still, I enjoyed it. I thought it was fast-paced, did a very good job of explaining what was an extremely complex set-up, looked perfect, and was acted extraordinarily. The girl playing Lyra did a pretty good job — there were only a few weak scenes, which is great for an actor her age, and Nicole Kidman brought the house down as Mrs. Coulter. The ‘gyptians and Lee Scoresby were great as well!
SPOILERS START HERE: (scroll over to see)
Certainly, the role of Billy Costa changed dramatically, and that one was a good change, I thought, because it added more drama to that whole section. Unfortunately, I think they whitewashed the infamous “Ratter, Ratter” scene, which remains, in my mind, as one of the scariest scenes I’ve ever read in any piece of literature ever ever ever (I can’t even think about it without crying). I understand that they were trying to make a children’s movie, though, and they couldn’t have presented it as they did in the film, or you know, the kids would be screaming in the aisles. But it does detract somewhat from the power of the Bolvanger scenes (especially when Lyra is captured). Also detracting from that plotline is the fact that they cut the scene early on where Pan tries to walk away from Lyra, though I suppose the scene where Mrs. Coulter smacks her daemon makes up for that. Plus, I odn’t htink they made it clear that the Bolvanger residents had been “inoculated” — or, as they call them later, “zombis.” And then — the ending. Wow, what was up with that ending? I suppose again, they couldn’t have ended it as the books did — we must think of the children! — but it made the ending feel very abrupt, and filled with, IMO, false hope. Unless they are going to change everything. Oh, and I was so sad that Hester didn’t have golden eyes.
SPOILERS END HERE
Scott Westerfeld, who edited The World of the Golden Compass Anthology I’m in, went to a panel at the Boston premiere. It was run by the Religious Studies dept. at Boston University, and he blogs about the experience here. Scott’s comments trails always include a bunch of his young readers, and every time I’ve seen him post about our anthology, I’ve been surprised by the number of commenters who have proclaimed that they are not allowed to read the books or watch the movie because their parents “heard” that in the His Dark Materials books, Lyra “kills God.”
In his latest post, Scott actually confronts that rumor directly:
We also discussed the bogus controversy around the series and movie, especially the persistent disinformation campaign that claims the protags of HDM “kill God” in the third book. (As those of you who’ve read it know, the Authority is an impostor posing as god, and Lyra and Will don’t actually kill him. Ah, if only the people who love to ban books would, like, learn to read books. Think of all the effort they’d save.)
I think that’s one interpretation. My interpretation of the character of the Authority is that he was one angel who held a coup of sorts, then styled himself a god when he won. And then there were further coups and blah blah blah and by the time of the book, the Authority is not so much the one in charge anymore anyway. And no, Lyra and Will don’t kill him, nor is that their purpose, ever, in the books. She has one purpose, and that’s to save Roger.
But I don’t see why, even if that were the purpose of the books, that it should be something for religious types to get up in arms about, no more than they should be getting up in arms about the latest edition of Edith Hamilton, which also presents gods who are acting in manners totally unlike those the religious types believe in. It’s fiction, people. And some of the characters in this fiction style themselves as gods. I’m a person of faith, and I wasn’t at all offended by the theology presented in the novel. NOVEL.
What the books are really about (and what I think the movie did a great job of explaining) is the fight for free will, which of course is a huge topic of debate among the various tenets of Christianity (and religion in general), but I think Catholics are on the pro side. Pullman is clearly pro free will as well. (One of my favorite scenes in the series is when the mulefa tells Mary Malone the version of the creation myth that exists in her universe. There, the acquisition of knowledge is not presented as “the fall of man” but rather as a true positive — for more on that, read my essay.)
I wonder if the people interested in banning the movie would have gotten farther by presenting it that way. Probably not. It’s much more sensational to say that the books are about “killing God” — not true — than that they are about the evils of religious totalitarianism and the battle for free will. In this country, people tend to be against religious totalitarianism, so not a lot of fans there. However, there are some sects that have a lot of folowers here that lean more towards the anti-free will side of the equation. Hmmmm….
In this interview on MSNBC, Pullman talks about how the religious aspects of the book are an exploration of the fact that both good and bad things have been done in the name of religion — the Magisterium is an example of religious totalitarianism. Religious totalitarianism = bad. I can’t speak for Pullman’s personal beliefs (and I don’t think they much matter), but I can speak for what is in the books. In fact, I had the books originally recommended to me by a woman who was a devout Christian.
But I think the real problem here is what Scott said — that the people who are joining in on the boycott don’t know anything more about the books or movies than what they’ve “heard” in the disinformation campaign. And they probably aren’t interested in informing themselves. Some of the comments in his post bear this out. It’s a shame that people would rather believe some bit of disinformation they heard from others who haven’t read the books than either listening to an expert (hey, he edited a whole book on the series!) or better yet, to read for themselves and make their own judgment.
So about a dozen people found their way to my blog yesterday by searching under “Azkadelia.” Is there something I should know?
Yesterday’s Winner of The Remains of the Dead: Christine! Christine, email me your address.
And to the rest of you, there are still more chances to win. Just leave your name in the comments section of this post for tomorrow’s drawing.
Some interesting blogs up elsewhere:
* Donald Maass interviews with Writer Unboxed.
*Associate Editor Jessica Wade of Roc/Ace guests on the Penguin blog.
* Erica Ridley talks about writing funks and escape from same on Manuscript Mavens
* Colleen Gleason has her hot new cover and is running a “Pay it Forward” contest
* The always-enlightening Allison Brennan talks about pacing on Murder She Writes
* Robin Brande reveals a few of her adolescent foibles (you honestly couldn’t pay me enough, though my mom has been holding onto my juvenilia for years for blackmail material)
* Scott’s hoverboard derring-do is fabulous and notable, as per usual.
Also, I watched the end of this “volume” of Heroes. About what I expected, given the disjointedness of the season thus far. Come on, guys, pull it together. Peter’s pissing me off big time, I must say. I also saw the end of Tin Man (I’m seeing more Azkadelia Googling coming on, but for the record, I have no idea what names her tattoos had, except for Zorah the flying monkey.) It felt kind of “unfinished” to me. Where was the epilogue where we either saw her back in Kansas, or on the throne, or whatever it was? Also, I was a bit disappointed that the one time we actually witness Zooey Deschanel emoting, it was in soft-focused buried-alive darkness? I loved loved loved watching her on Weeds. She was, IMO, the only reason to watch the show that season. But I think she’s better as a character actor than as a hero. Playing a crazed sociopath fits her strengths better, because there her blank face made her even creepier.
Finally, in my browsing yesterday (I was reading the reviews of both of the above on EW.com), I came across a list entitled: Keira Knightley: Her Memorable Roles. Which, as far as I could tell, was all of them. Okay, not fair, since according to IMDB, she’s been a part of 19 non-TV/TV movie/video game roles, and there were only 12 films on the list. But when you have to use each of the “Pirate” movies as a separate role and then tack on both Domino, which, as far as I can tell, was seen by approximately five people, and that time she played Natalie Portman’s body double (okay, that was memorable, if only because I didn’t realize it wasn’t also played by Natalie Portman, and then when I saw the first Pirate movie I was like, this chick looks a lot like Natalie Portman!)… I don’t know if the girl’s reached that point in her career. Just sayin’.
It’s supposed to snow today. I must prepare…
The Borders anthology, The World of the Golden Compass is on sale now, and editor Scott Westerfeld has done an interview for the Borders web page talking about the project. In the interview, there’s a tiny shout-out to my essay, “Ghost in the Machine.”
Check it out!
Today, an excerpt from Extras, the #1 New York Times Bestseller by Scott Westerfeld:
“Come on, Hiro,” she said. “Unicorns aren’t real, and I know stuff about them. Like… they have horns on their foreheads. And they can fly!”
Hiro groaned. “No, that’s Pegasus that flies. Unicorns just have a horn.”
 Now, I ask you. What can that possibly be except a shout-out to yours truly?
Take that, Justine. Guess we know where your old man falls on that all important unicorn/zombie divide. I’ve yet to see a zombie reference in this novel. Also, thanks Scott, for clearing up the confusion, even if we do have to wait until the future.
However, I must disagree. Unicorns are real. And they are very, very dangerous…
Still in deadline mode, but some things to note:
My friend, talented debut author C.L. Wilson has an excellent blog in which she discusses the intricacies of World Building. And since her first book is one of the best fantasy novels I’ve ever read, I’d say she knows what she’s talking about. (Read more about her amazing new series here, or on the discussion page at Amazon.) Anyway, she says, in part:
“World building is not just for fantasy writers. Honest. All writers world build. It’s just that contemporary and historical fiction writers call their world building by different names, chief among them research, setting, and characterization.”
The entire series is well worth reading, but this part stuck out to me because, of course, my SSG books, which are very much real-world based, and have no vampires, fairies, or other magic creatures in them, also contain huge heaping scoops of worldbuilding. I cover an entire subculture, complete with its own rules, mores, jargon, etc, and I have to set up that world, its timeline, its history, etc., in order to be able to write the books. And I, too, make up maps. I have a map of the island of Cavador Key (in the third book). I have a floor plan of the tomb at Eli. I remember doing revisions and getting into conversations with my editor about exactly where the Rose & Grave tomb kitchen was in relation to the everything else, and how exactly they managed to shove Amy off the stair landing and whatever else I wrote about in the book. And though much of the setting and jargon is stuff I gleaned from the workings of real secret societies, I made up a lot of stuff as well. But whether real or imagined, I needed to make it understood to the reader… hence: worldbuilding.
And if I thought the worldbuilding was intense just from making up a secret organization, you wouldn’t believe the wake-up call that happened when I moved into the magical! Forget making up my own planet with its own climate and ecosystem (a’la Herbert) — I don’t know if I could even swing the “earth-like planet” of Wilson’s own high fantasy. Leave me be in real-world Rome!
(In passing, it’s much harder than one thinks to build a believable alien planet. There is a particular well-beloved SF series that was ruined for me when a supposedly educated-in-biology character, late in the book, remarked casually on the almost ridiculous lack of biodiversity on this well-settled planet. I only took a few biodiversity courses to complete my Geology major, but a lack of species indicates an unhealthy ecosystem — this is pretty much a rule. If I were a terraforming scout with even a marginal grasp of ecology and I found a whole planet teeming with uniform life like this, I’d jump back into hyperspace so fast you wouldn’t even know I was there. This still bugs me, years later. Why those idiots ever settled on that planet is beyond me. I was all, “Wait: there’s one tree, one bush, one bovid, one reptile, one fish? Run! Run now! Of course you’re all going to die!”)
Where was I? Yes, worldbuilding. Good stuff. Go learn from a master!
Speaking of worldbuilding masters, my pretend literary boyfriend* Scott Westerfeld is selling clothing inspired by his novels. What should I get? I’m leaning towards either the Special Circumstances v-neck, or the Polymath symbol long sleeve T-shirt. (I’d love the one that says, “You’re so 11:59,” but Mindcasters scare me.) I always wished I was a Polymath.
How long ’til Extras is out again?
* See the things I say when Justine is trapped on a train to DragonCon?
I’m pretty sick right now — started last night on the plane flight home, and has gotten worse since, so this blog post will, most likely, reflect the pathetic state of my body and brain. Regular readers know how poorly I deal with illness. There might be rants coming up.
The timing couldn’t be worse. I’ve got a major deadline coming up, and my brain and typing fingers need to be in top physical condition for the next few weeks. Ugh… can I will myself to get better?
Enough downers, however. Let’s talk about some cheerful stuff:
 There’s a cool article about me in this week’s edition of the Washington City Paper, complete with this picture (which apparently makes my hair look quite long), and the compulsory discussion about the value of chick lit. I’m actually starting to wonder if there’s a class on this topic at journalism school, seeing how often reporters write articles about it. I was also surprised to learn that the phrase “killer unicorns” is inherently chick litty. Who knew? I always thought it was pretty gory (ba DUM ching!) Regardless, I’m pretty happy with the way the article turned out (and glad that I got to use Sophocles and Harlequin in the same sentence!)
And there are a few new reviews out of my books:
From Teen Book Reviewer, Jocelyn, on Secret Society Girl:
I wish I’d picked up SECRET SOCIETY GIRL sooner! Once I did, I was hooked. The world Diana Peterfreund creates in this novel is totally different from mine, and maybe a little far-fetched, but still completely real once you start reading. Her characters all step right off the page—even the most minor background characters are three-dimensional. Peterfreund really breathes life into her protagonist, though! Amy’s voice is witty and funny and perfectly suited to the character that the (rather brilliant) author creates.
I’ve been gushing about the characters so much this sounds like a character-driven book with no plot, but that would be the wrong impression. SECRET SOCIETY GIRL is nothing if not a suspenseful page-turner! There’s not a dull moment in this book. I couldn’t put it down! This smart, wickedly funny novel is a new favorite of mine.
From CanaryNoir, on Secret Society Girl:
The way Ms. Peterfreund works out that drama, and fills-in several of the principle supporting characters inside the society, makes for a great story. There is a large cast of characters, most of whom come from very privileged backgrounds in comparison with Amy’s own hard-working, self-made origins, and Ms. Peterfreund has a lot of fun with undercutting stereotypes by having Amy face up to her own acceptance of them. She also leaves a lot of threads open for future books (and this looks to be the first of some number of these books). While not quite as dark and dangerous as it implies itself to be, Secret Society Girl is fun and interesting and intriguing enough to pull the reader along. It also stands out as a book more focused on the main character and her new friends figuring themselves out and showing what they’re made of instead of tying up the end in a big romantic bow. This book is about Amy coming into her own as Amy; not Amy finding twu wuv to complete herself.
From The Yale Alumni Magazine, on Under the Rose:
Cross Dink Stover with Nancy Drew and Bridget Jones and you get Amy Haskel, the sarcastic senior at transparently disguised “Eli University” who briskly narrates this winning mystery. When Haskel gains entry to the elite secret society Rose & Grave, she finds that its stodgy alumni are still cold as a crypt on the subject of women being admitted. Then erudite and threatening anonymous e-mails begin to fly around the society-only server, and naturally, Haskel investigates. The mystery is twisty, but the real fun lies in Haskel’s tossed-off asides about Yale, oops, Eli traditions–from shopping period (during which undergrads “weren’t hunting for good bargains, but rather, for gut classes”) to the annual Halloween concert, when students wear costumes aimed at “inducing everyone around you to marvel at your brilliance and beg you to tell them what the hell you’re dressed as.”
I also found out in that article that Lynn Harris, author of Death by Chick Lit, is another daughter of Eli. I’ll definitely have to pick up her book.
Okay, and now, the important stuff:
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix movie might be the best HP film yet. LOVED it. Also, whoa, sexy! That was certainly a change from the book! Now I’m very looking forward to the final installment. I may or may not actually go to one of the release parties. If so, I may or may not go dressed as Tonks (I do have the pink wig, after all.)
 The Seventy Days of Sweat Challenge is back on, since the wedding extravaganza is over. I hope I can wrangle my broken body and brain into shape for this thing. Write write write!
And the bloggy stuff:
The fabulous Jo Leigh blogs inspiration. This woman has written over 40 books and she just keeps getting better. How cool is that?
The Buzz Girls tour Marley around RWA Nationals. They owe me a new keyboard after reading their posts.
Scott and Justine talk about how Justine has never even seen the inside of a box, let alone wanted to think there. Having gone first-reader rounds with Justine, I know how very valuable her input is.
And now I sleep. And take my medicine. And wonder why we haven’t progressed to the point where we can just upload our consciousnesses into some kind of invincible, impenetrable, can’t-get-sick bionic machine. Ugh. Would someone get on that, please?
This may be my last post for a while. We’ll see how things pan out once I’m in California, where two people who are not me and Sailor Boy are getting married.
 Day 2 of the challenge (Monday) was a bit slow for me. I only got a couple of hundred words down, and I was doing a lot of revisions. So I’ll really have to kick it up today to keep on track. To wit: this post shall be short.
Justine Larbalestier and Scott Westerfeld are the current “writers in residence” at Inside a Dog this week, and are discussing writing, lucky numbers, each other, and the weird way Justine likes to talk (wait, they are making fun of Scott’s accent? Crazy Aussies!) The post on first drafts and rewriting was especially interesting to me right now because I find that my process (barring the Zero Draft) is very similar to Scott’s: I like to read what I’ve written the day before, fix it, and move forward. I tend to revise as I go. Scott said:
I write about a thousand new words a day. But I start each day by reviewing the previous three days’ work.
This has two effects. One, it means that I ease into my writing day, editing and rewriting those 3,000 old words before facing the deadly blank page. By the time I finish that I’ve got a head of steam up, I remember what’s going on in the story, and writing new words doesn’t seem impossible, like it did right after coffee.
It’s like getting a running start.
The second effect is that by the time my first drafts go to anyone else, I’ve been through every word at least four times (usually more) and across several days, when I’ve been in different moods and have had different tolerances for purple prose, bad similes, and fuzzy language.
This is usually me. Except not this book. No, for this book, I’m just biting the bullet and moving ahead, even though I’ve changed something and I know I’ll have to go back and fix it. It’s definitely a new challenge for me. But new challenges are fun, huh?
Or maybe this is my first “zero draft.”
Hey, check it out! Vicki Lane is doing a giveaway and what’s this? Why, it’s Under the Rose! Vicki is a friend of mine from my Tampa RWA chapter. Sigh. Yet another person I won’t be seeign at RWA this week. A bit weird not to go. It’s the first one I haven’t been to since I joined the organization.
And finally, I leave you with a little something care of Holly…
… Are the Luckiest Writers in the World.
So I’ve been having one of those weeks where the writing has not been going well. At two separate times, with two separate projects, I threw my hands up and entertained those insidious ghastly thoughts. The ones that say:
“… your a hack. you suk.”
The insidious ghastly thoughts always speak ungrammatically and with misspelled words.
I couldn’t tell you why.
Each time I curled into a little ball and spent a little while contemplating what I was going to do if my book was broken, or if I’d lighted on exactly the wrong essay topic. What I would do if, in fact, I had to admit that I’d totally screwed things up, and was a big sucky hack.
And then I yanked myself up by my bootstraps, swallowed my pride, and emailed my editors, saying, “Hi, I have a problem.”
And this is why my editors (Kerri, for SSG; and Scott, for the Philip Pullman anthology) rock.
Kerri read the scenes I was having a problem with, and agreed with the problem I was having (I had plot needs that were difficult to wrangle, given the personality one character had been displaying for two books, and thus I’d written him a bit out of character). We discussed why I wanted the plot to go the way I wanted it to go, and brainstormed ways to get there without sacrificing established character traits. And the solution she came up with was elegant and simple and actually made the plot and timeline even STRONGER than it had been before. Why couldn’t I see that by myself? I don’t know, but man, am I grateful that I have Kerri.
I’ve also been pulling my hair out over my essay for the anthology. Sometimes, I felt like I had a really fun idea. Other times, I felt like I didn’t quite have the linchpin that would hold it all together. naturally, this inspired a panic spiral (did I mention that the deadline is upon me?). I panic-whined to Scott, and without even knowing he was doing it, he fired back my linchpin quote. I’m actually mildly concerned about how much of His Dark Materials the poor guy has memorized, but that’s neither here nor there. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: thank goodness for Scott Westerfeld.
So, crisis averted, I go back to meeting my deadline. Speculation like Justine’s about how much my epic blog entries of late have been inspired by my artistic frustration shall be heartily ignored.
Speaking of epic blog entries, I have my first blog post up at the urban fantasy LJ community, Fangs Fur Fey. I’ll probably be doing the bulk of my killer unicorn posting there, but I’m undecided about whether or not to simulcast on blogger. What do you think? Killer Unicorns everywhere? (I can see my heroine shuddering now…) I think it might be tough to keep track of two different comment threads, so if I do simulpost, I might close the blogger one for comments. FFF is an amazing blog, by the way, and I encourage everyone to visit. I’m thrilled to be a part. It’s my only “author group blog” (I don’t count RTB, since it’s not just authors, but readers and industry folks).
I realize I don’t often talk about the sucky writer days. In fact, I think I’ve blogged about my reticence to discuss such matters in the past. But yeah. This last week has been one of those, “Does trepanning help, I wonder?” weeks, but maybe I just had trepanning on the brain, given my immersion into His Dark Materials. In fact, earlier this week, I had written a blog post in my head that went like this:
You Know You’ve Got Philip Pullman on the Brain When…
SSB is telling you about this World of Warcraft bug that makes hunters lose their pet, permanently, and your response is “intercission.”
But, obviously, that was too short for a proper post. Especially when I’m on deadline. 
8:00 AM: I (groggy) am dropped off by Sailor Boy (only vaguely less groggy, and thereby qualified to operate a motor vehicle) at the bus station. Pick up my tickets at the Will Call machine.
8:28 AM: Bus arrives. I get in line to board. Smarmy guy behind me points at my ticket and says, “I think you needed to get in the real line and get a boarding number.” Points at his own ticket, which resides in a fancy folder emblazoned with a giant number 23. I smile and say, “Oh, I got mine from Will Call.” Begin looking at other people’s tickets, which all reside in fancy folders with numbers on them. Have never once, in all the times I’ve taken a bus to NYC, gone to the “real line” to get a boarding number. Have never been asked for a boarding number. Begin to get nervous.
8:29 AM: Bus driver comes out and begins to take tickets. Smarmy guy behind me says, “Aren’t you going to board by boarding number?” Bus driver looks sheepish, and says sure he will, gives the people at the front of the line the tickets he already took, and starts out by calling #1. Smarmy guy smarms. I freak out until I notice that on my non-fancy computer printed Will Call machine ticket, it says, “Boarding #19.” Take that, smarm!
8:35 AM: Boarding is taking approximately ten times longer this way, especially given that there are obviously enough seats, and it’s not as if the seats are assigned anyway. At last my number is called, and I get one of the last empty rows.
8:40 AM: At last we are away. I have an empty seat beside me! Joy! I will get to stretch out and nap on the way to NYC! But first, I will finish this chapter I’m reading and eat my breakfast bar.
8:59 AM: As I finish my breakfast bar, this guy appears out of nowhere and asks if he can sit in my seat. I am wondering what seat he was sitting in for the last twenty minutes while the bus was in motion. He promptly plops down besides me and does that guy thing where he spreads his legs into a veritable split. Cramped, I try to make myself comfortable.
11:30 AM: I wake up, and try to divine from glimpses of the road signs where we are. The guy who made me uncomfortable the whole trip up is nowhere to be seen, leaving me to wonder if he was not, perhaps, a hallucination. We pass a sign for the Lincoln Tunnel. Wow, we’re going to be an hour early!
11:35 AM: Bumper-to-bumper traffic. Nix earlier observation.
12:35 PM: Arrive Port Authority. De-bus. Exit. Walk several blocks down 42nd Street, through Times Square, which just gets less enjoyable every time I have to do it, and emerge, victorious and unscathed on the other side near Bryant Park.
12:55 PM: At Bryant Park, two boys from a middle school in the Bronx are doing a video project asking passers-by about eating disorders. I participate.
1:15 PM: Arrive NYPL. Check coat and scarf, which later turns out to be a mistake. Head into bathroom to make myself presentable, which only mildly succeeds (evidence: photos, below, show hair that has clearly been on bus for four and a half hours)
1:17 PM: The glamorous part of the day begins. Yippee!! The Celeste Bartos Forum of the Humanities and Social Sciences Library is quite lovely, all gold marble and glass vaulted ceilings and tiny turn-of-the-century lights that reminded my friend Margaret of a carousel. Lots of people milling about. Our books are all on well-populated tables at the back. I am shelved in a section marked: The A-List: Adult Novels for Teens, along with Jodi Picoult, Marisha Pessl, Curtis Sittenfeld, and fellow Bantam Dell author Sandra Kring (The Book of Bright Ideas). I find my editor, and we find Secret Society Girl, and we gush and get our pictures taken holding the book.
1:30 ish PM: I see someone holding my book open to the back cover flap and pointing at me and then referring to the back cover flap again, so I go up and introduce myself. I am also wearing a name tag that reads: Diana Peterfreund / “Secret Society Girl” which cracks me up because it makes me sound like I am, in fact, a secret society girl. (Though I think I have it better than Patricia McCormick, whose name tag reads “Sold“.) The name tag helps. Anyway, turns out that the people holding my book are all NYPLibrarians who were trying to decide, based on my hair, if I was the girl in the photo. My hair is several inches longer now that it was in the photo, but apparently close enough.
 I get to meet Cara, the librarian who blogged about my book those many moons ago (hi, Cara!) and recommended my book for the list. Cara works at the St. George Staten Island branch of the library, and just opened a teen reading room. If you live in or near Staten Island, I recommend you check it out. I’ve never been in a library with a teen reading room, but the very idea fills the sixteen year old girl living inside me with actual spasms of delight. And, as you may imagine, Cara rocks. We spend a long time discussing YA books, Dartmouth, the audience I intended for my books (“anyone who likes to read about college?”), and how cool libraries are. I give her a pin. She introduces me to some other librarians. Chatting occurs. (Please note how fantastic Cara’s skirt is in the picture to the right. Please also note how very coordinated and brown we are. Aren’t we in sync?)
We interrupt this recap for a worthy aside: I never knew any librarians personally before my book came out, but I have met so many lovely ones in the past year, and yesterday’s events just drove home the point that librarian may be the profession that draws in all the cool kids. Hollywood totally has it wrong about the “librarian” image. More wrong than they do about the “author” image, if that’s possible. Maybe I just hang out with too many lawyers here in D.C., but yesterday I met about a dozen librarians and began to get depressed that I didn’t live in New York so we could exchange phone numbers and get drinks and be buddies.
1:45 ish PM: I meet Delia Sherman, who swears she recognizes me. Later, Scott Westerfeld will propose a theory about how “blog recognition” sometimes crosses over into real life, as Delia and I know each other “virtually” on Justine Larbalestier’s blog. Delia’s book, Changeling, is gorgeous. I need a copy for me and a copy for some lucky ten year old I know. Sandra Kring arrives with her daughter, Shannon Kring Biro, and we chat.
 1:55 PM: I see my friend Margaret, who looks rather fetching in a bright blue coat with her hair all red and not looking like it’s been on a bus for four hours. Margaret agrees to take a picture of me with Fortitude, the lion who has joined us for the festivities, as long as he doesn’t come too close to her. Yes, it was most definitely Fortitude, and not Patience. I know because I asked him. Margaret and I run into Libba Bray. Hi, Libba! Libba is there for moral support. Margaret claims she brought a foam #1 finger. Doesn’t Margaret take a lovely photo? I think I need more pictures of me with giant furry creatures.
2:00 PM: The festivities begin. Sandra Payne, the coordinator for Young Adult services at the NYPL, welcomes us all, and gives away prizes for a high school graphic design award. The runners-up and winner are incredibly talented and stylish young women who are so much more put together than I was at their age. I really wish I took a picture of their designs. The winner’s design is featured on the front cover of this year’s New York Public Library Books For The Teen Age List (this link currently goes to last year’s list).
We interrupt this recap for an amusing aside: After a few glasses of wine, the joke, “I’m on the New York zzzzzzzz List” is surprisingly funny. Without wine, it’s not even the least bit so.
All the authors are named and stand, or at least wave. (Sandra Payne pronounces my name perfectly on the very first try, a feat which always makes me fall just a little bit in love with the person in question.) All the publishers, etc. are asked to stand. All the librarians too. Everyone claps. I am humbled to be included on this list.
One librarian, Jack, introduces Alice Hoffman, who looks exactly like you think Alice Hoffman looks, and is even wearing this glorious flame-colored shawl. Alice Hoffman gives a beautiful, inspiring, and rousing speech about what is is like to write, and to write for Young Adults, and how she was inspired to write her List book Incantation (and tells a story about a taxi driver who may or may not have been there and reminds me of my bus experience that morning which did not, unfortunately, inspire me to write a book about the Spanish Inquistition) and how the most important books she can remember are the books she read as a teen, and everyone in the audience is nodding and it’s all quite fabulous. Unfortunately, I am totally consumed with envy for Alice Hoffman, because she was smart enough to be wearing her shawl, and I checked mine in the coat room, and I’m freezing. So while she is discussing Edward Eager and Wuthering Heights and this hilarious run-in she once had with Hilary Clinton re: Heathcliff, I am wondering if there is any way to a) steal out of the room, grab my shawl/coat and come back, b) steal Alice Hoffman’s shawl without anyone noticing. (There wasn’t, so I didn’t.)
3:45 PM: The formal part of the festivities are over, and we are once again mingling/chatting/etc. I meet Maureen Johnson (hi, Maureen!), whose book, Devilish, is a Faustian yarn, and is thus in the “Do-Over” section of the list reserved for classic tales retold, and some more librarians. I meet Anne from the Tompkins Square branch on the LES and she and I talk about SSG. She’s so funny! She has many theories about the trajectory of Amy’s love life. And, as I pointed out to my editor later, I have no poker face. I think if I were someone who wrote long, drawn-out mystery series, I’d have been made a long time ago.
Reiterate: love librarians.
4:00 PM: My editor, Sandra Kring, Shannon Kring Biro, and I try to find a place to get something to eat. Because it is before 5 PM, this is harder than it looks. Eventually, we stumble into a sort of Irish Pub/tapas bar on 40th St., where we drink wine and talk writing. The Krings are amazing. Shannon is an accomplished cookbook author, and she and her husband, a chef named Marcel Biro, have a chain of restaurants, run a cooking school, and have an award-winning cooking show on PBS. As if that’s not enough, she has a memoir coming out with her sister Natalie Kring next week called Sister Salty, Sister Sweet. (I really wish I had a link to Shannon’s webpage, which features a dancing Ken doll.) I had so much fun talking to them both! If you haven’t read Sandra Kring’s novel, The Book of Bright Ideas, I highly recommend it. It was a Target Book Club pick last year, and is making major waves.
5:30 PM: The Krings go off to live it up in New York. My editor goes to a dinner party. I go to meet Scott Westerfeld, Justine Larbalestier (whose book, Magic’s Child, is out now!), Maureen Johnson, and Cassandra Clare (whose debut, City of Bones, is out now!) at the Campbell Apartments in Grand Central Station. It’s dark and loud and apparently, half the party was not allowed in due to dress code restrictions. (Sorry, Margaret!) There are a lot of writers at that table, but I really only get a chance to chat with Eric Luper, whose first novel Big Slick, about a teen poker whiz, is out from FSG this fall. Hi, Eric!
Eric and Scott help me demonstrate how very dark it was in the Campbell Apts.
7:00 PM: Scott, Justine, Maureen, and I decide to have dinner. Justine has not brought a coat, and practically freezes as we make our way across town to this no-dairy organic place called Josie’s on Third Ave. I give her my shawl, which I did not steal from Alice Hoffman. At dinner, we talk about geekdom, YA books, writing, writing, and schtuff. Maureen and I are disappointed to discover that, despite clearly listing arugula juice as an option on the menu, we can’t actually get a glass of plain arugula juice, which we had made a pact to drink if we could. We must mix it with a more normal sounding juice, such as apple, pear, carrot, tomato, etc. So much for that. However, we do indulge in a five dollar glass of ice tea, which is made with hibiscus and cinnamon, and may in fact have been worth five dollars. I am consumed with envy for Justine and Scott and Maureen, who, from all accounts, seem to get to have dinners like this with other writers all the time. (And yes, I know I had lunch with Justine just last week, but it was the first time since, like, June.)
8:30 PM: I hop in a cab and go to Port Authority
8:48 PM: Cab is stopped in traffic in Times Square. I start to get nervous.
8:50 PM: I don’t get the etiquette of cabs. If I can walk quicker, should I just get out?
8:51 PM: Screw it. I get out, and walk to Port Authority.
8:52 PM: I buy a totally unnecessary magazine to read on the way back to D.C. It turns out that the bus driver doesn’t even turn on the personal booklights over each seat, so I couldn’t have read if I wanted to.
8:54 PM: I arrive at my gate, and am given a “you were almost late” look by the ticket taker. No one notices my boarding number. I get on the bus to discover that, joy of joys, the back seat (three across) is totally free. I proceed to spread out in hopes that no one will arrive after me and that this morning’s mysterious disappearing passenger won’t reappear. When the bus starts, I realize why that spot is open. There’s this huge bright blue emergency light over my seat. Also, the back of the bus is a good fifteen degrees colder than the front. I spend the next three and a half hours trying to find the most comfortable way to cover my entire body with my coat and my face with the shawl I didn’t steal from Alice Hoffman so as to block out the big blue light.
1:00 AM: Sailor Boy arrives in Nikita (who totally needs a wash, not to mention an oil change) to pick me up. Ah, SB, how I love thee. Ah, Nikita, you’re the coolest.
Except for librarians.
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