Sarah Beth Durst's Blog

On Saturday, I'll be walking the red carpet.

I am one of the guest authors at Authors Unlimited, a teen book festival in Patchogue, NY, this Saturday (4/28).  Details are here.

I'm told that we'll be brought to the venue by limo and then proceed down a red carpet accompanied by a drum-and-bugle corps.  Hee-hee!  And then there will be a panel with all fourteen authors, followed by breakout sessions with individual author presentations, culminating in a big book signing.

Here's me (and Drink, Slay, Love) in yesterday's Newsday (Long Island newspaper) talking about the event:



I am totally practicing my princess wave.

I have discovered a beautiful place!

Okay, maybe "discovered" isn't the right word since I didn't exactly plant a flag and claim it in the name of Spain. But I'd never been there before.

The place is called Planting Fields Arboretum in Oyster Bay, NY, and it's four hundred acres of loveliness. I went two weekends in a row because:

1. It has purdy flowers.


I really, really want to plant these at my house. I don't know what they are, though. Plus I have the most non-green thumb imaginable. It's more of a fuchsia thumb. I have slaughtered cacti with my fuchsia thumb.


These were in the greenhouse. Aren't they ridiculously perfect looking? I actually touched one to reassure myself it wasn't a plastic flower sprayed with perfume.


So purdy!!!

2. It's really organized.

I consider myself an organized person. In fact, when I make my grocery list, I sort the items by supermarket aisle. But this place puts me to shame. It has a synoptic garden in which all the flowers and trees are planted in alphabetical order by Latin genus.


Since visiting, I've had the overwhelming urge to alphabetize my books, my spices, and my socks. I am foiled by the fact that it's not easy to alphabetize socks. But I will not give up! Never give up, never surrender!

3. The gardeners cage the really dangerous plants.

Inside the greenhouse, the most dangerous flowers are kept in iron cages. This is obviously because if they taste human blood, they transform into evil faeries who steal iPhones.


4. Except the Whomping Willow.

Come on, tell me this doesn't look exactly like a real-life whomping willow:


It's a weeping linden tree, and it has a sign in front of it that reads, "Please do not climb on this rare tree... because it will eat you."

(I may have added that last part myself.)

5. The gardeners have created mystical tunnels out of trees that will lead you to magical realms.

This is a single tree, coaxed into the shape of a tunnel.


If you follow it, you will end up either in Pemberley:


Or Wonderland.


(The cards have half-finished painting those roses red.)

And for all these reasons, this place has officially shot to the top of my list of "favorite places on Long Island."

I now claim the Planting Fields Arboretum in the name of Spain.

If you're in or near NYC...

This week is the NYC Teen Author Festival!

It runs from March 26th to April 1st, includes tons of panels and readings, and culminates in a massive multi-author book signing at Books of Wonder. You can see the full schedule here.

I'll be participating in two of the events:

Wednesday, March 28th
42nd St NYPL*, Bergen Forum, 6-8pm
Things Fall Apart: World Building and World Destroying in YA

Chris Shoemaker (moderator)
Anna Carey
Sarah Beth Durst
Anne Heltzel
Jeff Hirsch
Andy Marino
Lauren McLaughlin
Lissa Price
Jon Skovron

* Yes, the one with the lions! I love those lions.

Sunday, April 1st
Books of Wonder, 18 West 18th Street, 1-4pm
Our No-Foolin' Mega-Signing at Books of Wonder

Sixty-five authors will be signing in shifts throughout the afternoon. My shift is from 1-1:45pm and includes the following fabulous authors:

Jennifer Lynn Barnes (Every Other Day, Egmont)
Matt Blackstone (A Scary Scene in a Scary Movie, FSG)
Caroline Bock (LIE, St. Martin's)
Jen Calonita (Belles, Little Brown)
Anna Carey (Eve, Harper)
Susane Colasanti (So Much Closer, Penguin)
Andrea Cremer (Bloodrose, Penguin)
Gina Damico (Croak, HMH)
Emily Danforth (The Miseducation of Cameron Post, Harper)
Jocelyn Davies (A Beautiful Dark, Harper)
Sarah Beth Durst (Drink, Slay, Love, S&S)
Elizabeth Eulberg (Take a Bow, Scholastic)
Gayle Forman (Where She Went, Penguin)
Natasha Friend (For Keeps, Penguin)
Kim Harrington (Perception, Scholastic)
Barry Lyga (I Hunt Killers, Little Brown)
Daisy Whitney (The Rivals, Little Brown)

All of this is organized by the incredible David Levithan.

I'm really, really excited for these events. If you're in the area, I hope you'll come!

I have been keeping a secret...

*tip-toes, looks furtive*

Not about the portal to other worlds in my basement. Everyone knows about that. But a better secret... books!

I sold two new books!!!

Excuse me while I add a few more exclamation points to that.

TWO NEW BOOKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here's the announcement in Publishers Marketplace:

Children's: Young Adult
Sarah Beth Durst's SWEET NOTHINGS, about a teen in the paranormal witness protection program, who, haunted by dreams of carnival tents and tarot cards, must remember her past and why she has strange abilities before a magic-wielding serial killer hunts her down, to Emily Easton at Walker Children's, in a very nice deal, in a two-book deal, by Andrea Somberg at Harvey Klinger (world).

SWEET NOTHINGS will be published in fall 2013, followed by a second TBD book in fall 2014. (Both of these follow VESSEL, of course, which comes out in fall 2012.) I am, as you might imagine, over-the-moon excited about this, and I hope you'll join me in performing the traditional Snoopy dance of joy!!!

I am very pleased to announce that the German translation of Ice -- Ice - Hüter Des Nordens -- is now available in Germany!


This makes me want to fly to Germany immediately and croon "happy book birthday" to the copies on the bookstore shelves.

Since that's not really practical (and would make me look crazy), I attempted to find a YouTube clip of someone singing happy birthday in German. Instead, I found multiple videos of people trying to teach their German shepherds to sing happy birthday.



I really love the Internet.

And I love my German publisher, Egmont/LYX, for making this book possible!

I am going to a writing retreat in Vermont called Kindling Words this weekend. An entire weekend of nothing but writing and talking about writing! I am so so so excited. For one thing, the people are fantastic. For another, this retreat comes at the perfect time for me with my work-in-progress. I'm in the produce-as-much-as-possible stage, and I intend to write a stunningly tremendous amount this weekend.

Since I'm about to head off to think, talk, and do writing, I thought I'd share with you some writing-related links that I recently bookmarked. (Note: I don't agree with everything in all of these, but I did find them all interesting.)

Just-Do-It General Advice:

"25 Things Writers Should Stop Doing" by Chuck Wendig

"25 Things Writers Should Start Doing" by Chuck Wendig

"So You Want to Be a Writer... Advice to a 10 Year Old" by Ron Marz

Finding Inspiration:

"What Inspires" by Sara Zarr

"Where Do You Get Your Ideas?" by Neil Gaiman

Avoiding Pitfalls:

"Measuring Success" by Mette Ivie Harrison

"Oh, the Internet" by Kiersten White

Personal Experiences:

"Turning Points" by Gayle Forman

"You Have Mentioned Several Times..." by Sarah Rees Brennan

"Starting a New Book" by Kate Messner

"What's Your Favorite Anecdote About Learning How to Write?" by S.C. Butler

"Writing for Writing's Sake" by Rhonda Stapleton

Techniques of Super-Fast Writers:

"How I Went From Writing 2,000 Words a Day to 10,000 Words a Day" by Rachel Aaron

"The 10,000 Word Day" by Zoe Winters

"Kicking Out a Fast First Draft" by Anne Greenwood Brown

Sites with Lots of Great Writing-Related Posts:

Nova Ren Suma's distraction no. 99

John Scalzi's Whatever

Chuck Wendig's Terrible Minds


For a list of older links to writing-related posts and articles, please click here and here.

Happy writing!

"I want to be your muse!" Annie announces.

Annie is a fictional character without a story. She visits me sometimes while I'm trying to write.

"I think I would be an awesome muse," she says. "Whenever you're stuck, I'd sing to you to comfort you. Or perform interpretive dance." She lifts her leg in the air and waves her arms like a deranged chicken.

I try to think of a delicate way to say "no." "I always pictured my muse as more like Tim Gunn," I say. "You know, 'That sentence doesn't speak to me. I'm concerned. Make it work!'"

She pouts. "But I've always wanted to be a muse!"

"Really?" I hate to crush her hopes and dreams. She might be a disruption but she's otherwise harmless. Plus she brings snacks. I can see a bag of yogurt-covered pretzels stuffed in her pocket.

"Actually, no," she said. She hops onto my desk, crinkling the latest print-out of my work-in-progress. "I wanted to be a hero. But it didn't work out."

Despite knowing better, I ask, "What happened?"

She beams at me, hands me a yogurt-covered pretzel, and says, "Well, if you really must know... I was born to be a hero, seventh daughter of a seventh daughter. There were prophecies about me and everything. Some of them even rhymed. One involved an interpretive dance..." She flaps her arms in the air again.

"What were you supposed to do?" I ask.

"Find the Lost Acorn of Eternal Peace."

"So what went wrong?"

She shrugged. "A squirrel ate it."

"Seriously?"

"Would I lie to you?" Annie asks. She points to my computer screen. "You know, that sentence doesn't speak to me. I'm concerned..."

Annie is a fictional character who visits me sometimes. She lives in a deadly forest with killer squirrels. I made the critical error of asking her about the squirrels. You should never ask an imaginary person to tell you about anything, especially if you are trying to concentrate on writing a chapter that has absolutely nothing to do with rodents, homicidal or otherwise.

So far, after half an hour, all I've written is two sentences of my work-in-progress, and all I've learned is that the squirrels make cute, chittering sounds before they drop out of the trees on their victims' heads. She demonstrated this sound for a solid twenty minutes before I finally convinced her to stop.

"That's why I have antlers," Annie says. "Any killer squirrel that drops on me will find itself impaled." Annie has a pair of deer antlers growing out of the top of her head. She wears her hair in pig tails around them. Very stylish.

"So you're telling me your horns--"

"Antlers," she says primly.

"Your antlers are natural selection to protect against killer squirrels?" I know I shouldn't be encouraging her, but I can't help myself.

"Yep," she says. She crunches on a tortilla chip. "Hey, do you have any salsa? These would go great with salsa. Maybe some guacamole. I loooove avocado."

"I don't have any," I say. "What happens to people without antlers?" I self-consciously touch the top of my own head and imagine it has a squirrel-size bullseye on top.

"Oh, the squirrels horde human heads for the winter."

On that note, she hops off my desk and heads off in search of salsa and guacamole. And I am left with a new fear of squirrels. Luckily, I haven't completed my writing quota for the day, so I won't have to go outside and face the vile creatures. I am safe... at least until she returns.

Annie is visiting. She's a fictional character, but I haven't written her story yet. This makes her impatient.

She stands behind me and points at the screen. "What's that?"

"Chapter six," I say. I keep typing. I have learned that you can keep the distractions away if you keep your fingers moving over the keyboard. It's the second that you pause that you're tempted to click on the Internet, fetch a snack, clean the linen closet, or talk with an imaginary girl with antlers on her head.

It's slightly more difficult to maintain focus when the imaginary character brings chips.

Crunching in my ear, she squints at the screen. "I don't think that word means what you think it means."

"First drafts are supposed to be rough," I say.

"Then congratulations," she says. "You've succeeded. I've seen white water rapids that run smoother than your prose."

"Thanks," I say. I don't look at her as I type.

"I've seen dirt roads that are smoother."

"Thanks," I say.

"I've seen mountain ranges...

"Got it. Thanks. Can you... Be somewhere else for a while?"

"Nope," she says. She hops up onto my desk. Her antlers scrape the ceiling. Flecks of plaster rain down on my keyboard. "I don't have a 'somewhere else.'"

I pause typing. "Well, where are you from?"

She grins at me, as if aware that she has won. "A forest. A forest of endless night."

"Stupid," I say. "Can't have a forest without sunlight. Chlorophyll."

"Fine." She pouts. "It's a forest where the trees are alive..."

"Trees are alive."

"These talk. And sing. And kill."

"Huh," I say. "Killer trees?"

Annie grins at me. "You don't know the half of it. You think the trees are bad? You should see the squirrels." She holds out a tortilla chip. "Wanna chip?"

I take it. "Tell me about the squirrels..."

A character sits on a chair. She swings her legs back and forth, scuffing the tips of her sneakers on the floor. They squeak like Styrofoam, and I wince. I hate that sound.

"Are you planning to sit there all day?" I ask her.

"Could be," she says. She sticks a lollipop in her mouth. I have no idea where she got the lollipop. "Are you planning to write my story yet?"

"Could be," I say. "Have you developed a personality?"

"Nope. You?"

"Ouch," I say. "Harsh."

She shrugs and looks around my writing room. "This place is a wreck. You should clean it. And your books are not alphabetized."

I look at her suspiciously. "You want me to write, don't you?"

"I want you to write MY story. Not that." She pokes the lollipop at my computer screen.

"But I don't know your story yet," I say.

"That's because you haven't written it yet."

I can't argue with that logic.

She offers me the lollipop. It has some cat fur stuck to it, but it's green apple flavor. So I take it, stick it in my mouth, and start typing.

When I look back, the character's hair has turned brown, and she has antlers. She says her name is Annie...