I Got Nothing. Seriously.

So in honor of the forthcoming Zombies vs. Unicorns, I present my favorite unicorn EVER, Charlie.

Enjoy.







And don't forget to enter our book giveaway from last week if you haven't already!

It's Almost Here...

Next Monday (July 19) is our spectacular-spooktacular awesome-strvaganze relaunch week! We're teaming up with YA-5 team member Georgia McBride's YALITCHAT site and weekly Twitter chat event to help bring you Halloween in July (all the spooky fun, none of the creepy house that hands out boxes of raisins).

We'll have author interviews (Michelle Zink! Heather Brewer! Claudia Gray! Nancy Holder!), a guest blogger (real life Goth princess Amber Skye), and a whole lot of fun (maybe even some contests and fab prizes).  So stop in, drop in, or ride your broom, and we'll see you on Monday!

Over It

I don’t know about you guys, but about ten minutes into a fad I’m completely over it. Done. Don’t want to hear another word about it. Which makes it extremely painful and agonizing when the fad just doesn’t seem to want to die.

My outlet? Complaining.

So here is a list of things that I’m completely over:

1. The emo vampire: I like vampires. I do. But I can’t stand the vampire boy (or girl) who slinks through three hundred pages bemoaning their porcelain skin and penchant for ripping out people’s throats. I want my vampires to glory in the killing with a wicked grin, like Damon from the Vampire Diaries. Look, people, you are a vampire. You are probably super strong and maybe have some other crazy abilities that will vary depending on the series. Still. You are bad ass. Act like it.

2. Girls who break up only to find another Mr. Right Now: I’ve read a couple of books recently about girls who are dumped/cheated on by their boyfriends. They spend the rest of the book not getting over it until they meet another sparkly boy who catches their attention. Look, getting dumped sucks. It hurts. But dating a new guy does not erase that pain. And what’s with all of the doormat girls in YA? Ladies, you don’t have to wait until the last two chapters of the book to actually do something about your situation.

3. Dystopian: as much as I love the genre, I’m starting to get a little burned out on the pretty-on-the-surface-seriously-corrupt-underneath dystopian novel. Maybe it’s because so many other authors have done it well that I don't have a lot of patience for new series.  And it’s not entirely believable that one person would try to change the world, (although I’m willing to suspend disbelief for Katniss, at least for one more book). Most of us are perfectly happy to just float along and hope no one notices us. Why aren’t there more of those characters in dystopian novels?

4. The twenty book series with a cliffhanger at the end of each book: Seriously? Nothing tees me off quicker than getting to the last page and seeing that of the twenty loose threads in the story maybe, MAYBE, one has been resolved. And oh, by the way, the next book doesn’t come out until NEXT YEAR. *head desk* Come on, can we at least get our characters to a good ending spot so that we know they aren’t going to die? That would be great, thanks.

5. The Justin Beiber/Jonas Brothers War: Okay, this has nothing to do with books, but I am a little tired of this whole thing. Trust me, in ten years they will all be doing specials on VH1 talking about how it was “such a surprise” when they became famous and how it eventually got to be “a little overwhelming” towards the end (right before their popularity faded). Don’t believe me? Google any one of the following:

98 Degrees

New Kids One the Block

Leif Garrett

Backstreet Boys

N*Sync (although Justin Timberlake may be the exception)

So that’s my list. What are you completely over? Lists about things that other people hate? Shapeshifters? Paranormal in general? Leave your thoughts after the beep.

*BEEP*

When Life Imitates Art

If you haven't been living under a rock you've probably heard about the major oil spill in the gulf (how's that "going green" campaign working now, BP?) and how it might just be the worst environmental disaster EVAR (dum dum DUM!).  While that's all good and depressing, the really important part is that this echoes a scene in a book almost exactly.

How creepy is that?

In M.T. Anderson's book Feed (a must read if you haven't already) one of the precipitating events is a major oil spill.  Not that the Gulf of Mexico spill is the first oil spill to ever happen, but there is something eerie about an event in real life happening after reading it in a book.  So, that of course got my little brain to thinking...what books would I never, ever, ever want to come true?  I came up with the following:

1.  The Hunger Games series (Suzanne Collins):  You know that part at the beginning of the games where like four people bite it in the first few minutes?  Yeah, that would be me.  I'm not very fast, and I'm not very strong, and I can't use any weapons. My face would most definitely be in the sky after the first day, and Katniss probably wouldn't even know my name *sniff*.

2.  The Last Survivors books (Susan Beth Pfeffer):  What's worse than a free for all to the death?  The moon.  Seriously.  In these books the moon is hit by an asteroid and forced closer to the Earth, setting off a series of tidal waves, earthquakes, and every other natural disaster you can think of.  The survivors try to eek out an existence, but how do you live in a world gone wrong?  Answer: not very well!

3.  The Forest of Hands and Teeth (Carrie Ryan):  ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE!  Enough said.

So, I guess the question is, what book would you NOT want life to imitate?

The tea I'm drinking right now smells like a grandma's house

I'm in a coffeeshop right now, it's a favorite haunt. I know special secret stories about the back room and am currently in the midst of a feud with an unknown person who keeps stealing the zombie stickers I put on the wall. (I shake my fist at you, Zombie Sticker Stealer!)

I try to come at least once a week to write for a few hours. If I'm lucky, some of my writing pals are here, too (Shout out to Jessica Lee Anderson, E. Kristin Anderson, and our own illustrious PJ Hoover.) PJ will set her timer to make us all stop talking and we will write write write until it's time to order lunch or pick up a kid from school.

(Side note: it's very upsetting that my tea tastes like a grandmother's house today. I tried something new and it was a big fat FAIL. It's distracting me. Very distracted today. Look! Something shiny!)

So I'm here this morning, in the booth in the coffeeshop (with a fresh zombie sticker on the wall) and I'm not writing. I want to be writing, but I can't. I can't because two days ago I went a little insane and I wrote just over 10,000 words. That's almost 40 pages, I think. I just kept telling myself that I was almost done with my draft. Almost done. Almost done! And then suddenly, it was a million o'clock, my elbows were tingling, my fingertips were buzzy and I WAS done. Then I fell face forward on my kitchen table and didn't wake up for two days.

Not really. I managed a nice five hours of sleep and then spent the next day chasing around my kids and doing all the stuff I was supposed to be doing when I had been finishing my manuscript. I thought I'd be recovered by today, after an actual night of sleep, but it appears I am still trending towards the fried brain end of the spectrum.

I'm not actually sure what point this post has other that to say, writing is awesome. And scary. And mind-numbing. And exhilarating. And I hope that those of you who are reading this, and who are writing, and who worry about time constraints and real life wandering into your path like cranky, slow elephants - I want you to know that on some days you're able to just bypass all that elephant crap. I don't know how it happens, or even how to MAKE it happen, but here and there the stars align and you have a 10,000 word day.

I think all of this writing has somehow how given me brain itch, though, so watch out. I can't concentrate on anything anymore. I'm surprised this blog post is this long.

Maybe I'm just trying to keep myself busy so that I don't drink more of this horrible tea.