Janette Rallison's Blog, page 57

Reminder--Book Party tonight.

That title sounds like a bunch of novels will be standing around the vegatable tray making small talk and complaining about their bindings.

But no, I'm hoping people will be involved in this event. Oh--and not only will there be a few books to giveaway--two of those books will be ARCs of My Unfair Godmother. If you have teen daughters--or if you just want to come to a book party--please stop by the Hamilton Chandler Library
Monday, Nov. 29 6:00 p.m. for the My Double Life Book Party

I'll do a reading, give some interesting back story on the book,and we'll be taking pictures in front of the paparazzi poster. Enjoy a Double Dutch demonstration, double snacks, and dress as your "celebrity double" for a chance to win a doubled prize!

10 reasons to be thankful you're an American writer in 2010

If you're a writer in 2010 you have a lot to be thankful for. Here on Thanksgiving Day I thought I'd provide a list of the top ten reasons to be glad.

1)The computer.
Can you imagine writing out your manuscript by hand? And then having to rewrite it every time you made a change? I shudder at the thought. Typing it on a typewriter wouldn't have been much different. No wonder Jane Austen only wrote six books. I've been writing for fourteen years and I'm writing book number nineteen right now. Thank heavens and all those geek inventors who came up with the computer.

2)Spell check.
It keeps us from looking like total idiots in front of our editors. (There are enough other ways to look like an idiot in front your editor. Not knowing the difference between hay and straw comes to mind.)

3)The Internet.
Not only does the Internet make it easy to send off your manuscript. (Who wants to wait in a line at the post office and pay postage for every draft?) It connects us to other writers. When my first book was accepted for publication in 1995, I didn't know a single other published author. I had no one to ask about contracts or marketing. Now I'm on lists with over a hundred different authors. When I needed a new agent, I asked for recommendations and within minutes had answers.

4)YouTube.
Seriously, YouTube has been a blessing for researching things. Because—for some bizarre reason that escapes me—people out there have a desire to put every event and mundane task up on the Internet. When I needed to know how to use a spinning wheel, I found it on YouTube. When I needed to know what it looked and sounded like to shoot a rifle, it was there. Ditto for different martial arts moves, horse jumping, arrow shooting distances, and what sort of ground cover was in the Shenandoah forest.

5)Wikipedia.
If you need the facts on just about anything (like how many books Jane Austen wrote), it's there. Before the Internet, it took weeks to research things that I can find out in seconds now.

6)A literate population.
Granted, they had cool clothes, but it would have been pretty darn hard to make a living as a writer during the Middle Ages.

7)Laptops.
I can write anywhere now—even in the comfort of my bed. (Well, I would be able to write anywhere if my cat didn't think the keyboard was an appropriate place to sit on.)

8)We're not censored.
Oh, I know authors are crying censorship all of the time, but what they mostly mean is: "Hey, somebody decided not to buy my book for their school!" If that's the case, I should be on the banned list because apparently there are a lot of schools out there that don't buy my books. (Although mostly it's just because they've never heard of me.) Nobody is telling publishers that they can't print our books, or stores that they can't carry our books, or shoppers that they can't buy our books. If you want to know what real censorship is, try to set up a printing company in a middle eastern or communist country and see how far you get.

9)E-books.
Actually I have mixed feelings on this one, but I can't deny that it's a good thing that you can buy books instantly from your computer or that authors can put up their backlists.

10)Weird people.
With the amount of wackiness out in the world, we're never going to run out of ideas.

And the winner is . . .

Shari--who is not only a follower, but a stalker as well!

Send me your address at jrallisonfans at yahoo dot com and I'll send the book to you.

Jonathan Stroud book giveaway

Those of you who know me, know one of my favorite books is The Amulet of Samarkand, so when its author, Jonathan Stroud, came to Scottsdale, I had to make the trip to see him. I had never been to The Poisoned Pen before and I ended up parking half a block away and then making my way through back alleys to get to the store. That's fan dedication for you.

I named one of the characters in My Unfair Godmother Bartimaeus in honor of the Bartimaeus in Jonathan's book. Again, this is true fan dedication considering that I am a lousy speller and I usually avoid names that are four syllables long and have as many vowels as consonants. I gave Jonathan an ARC of My Unfair Godmother. Here he is saying, "You obviously don't know the difference between hay and straw."

Okay, not really, but I'm sure that's what he'll think when he reads the book.

Here is a picture of me with super librarian Tim Loge from Hamilton High. He's the one that's putting on the My Double Life book party on November 29th (Come and you could win an ARC of My Unfair Godmother--it's one of the prizes.) Anyway, Tim was there too and walked me to my car afterward so I didn't get mugged by any of the criminals who wander around Scottsdale at night. Talk about going above and beyond the call of duty.

Now to the book giveaway part. I bought another copy of The Amulet of Samarkand to give to one of my lucky commenters. (Or at least alucky commenter who lives in the US or Canada). Leave a comment and tell me what your favorite book from the last ten years is and Random.org will choose the winner. Blog followers get double chances, so be sure to say if you're a follower.

Here is the cool cover that I like. Unfortunately that isn't the cover for the paperback. The cover on the paperback is below. (You'll just have to pretend it's the cool one.)
May the numbers be with you!

Upcoming events: calling all fairies, celebrities, and readers

As you can see, I'm wearing wings, which means it's Faerie Festival time again! Come mingle with fey folk. It's like Halloween for adults.

I'll be there Saturday, November 20th, doing a reading from one of my fairy godmother books at 3:30-4:00 and then signing books.

It's at Estrella Mountain Regional Park
14805 West Vineyard Avenue
Goodyear, AZ 85338

On a completely unrelated note, I found this darling fairy purse for sale online at: http://www.buycostumes.com/Fairy-Pouc....

What do you think--should I buy it? I mean, it's a want not a need, but it's just so cute. And now that you've looked at the link, you want one too, don't you? They also sell wings and fairy costumes if you happen to need a new fairy dress. (Although some of them look more like stripper fairies. Makes you wonder what Tinkerbell did in her spare time.)

You can check out more info on the festival at: http://www.westerngatesfaerierealms.c...

If you are not of the fairy persuasion, I have a couple more events you might enjoy.

My Double Life Book Party at the Hamilton library (attached to Hamilton High)
3700 S Arizona Ave, Chandler, AZ

Monday, Nov. 29 6:00 p.m.- Meet famous Teen Author Janette Rallison, Double Dutch demonstration, double snacks, and dress as your "celebrity double" for a chance to win a doubled prize! For ages of 12 Years and 18 Years old. (And their mothers, of course)


I'll be reading from My Double Life, hopefully coming up with a few interesting things to say, and we'll be taking some of those awesome pictures in front of the paparazzi.

And last but not least, On Tuesday, November 30th, I'll be signing books at the Chandler Traditional Academy (Independence campus) Family Literacy Night 5:00-7:00
You can get a free My Fair Godmother poster if you come . . .and you know you really should get one since you talked yourself out of buying the fairy purse.

1405 W Lake Dr., Chandler, AZ 85248
located just west of the intersection of Lake Dr. and Alma School Rd., near Snedigar Park.

Hope to see you there!

Why writers shouldn't write warning signs, part two

Writers have vivid imaginations. It shows up even when they write No Parking signs

Book give-away/name that book

I love the Polish people. I don't know any Polish people personally, but I love them anyway because they keep buying my books. I think that says something about their inherent good humor and fine taste in literature.

Sometimes my publisher sends me the Polish additions of my books, which is very cool. Here you can see that 1,000,000 sprzedanych ejzemplarzy!!!

I am not actually sure what that means, but I hope that it means I've sold a million books, because I know I'm pretty close to that number. (The last I heard on the cover of My Double Life, it said I'd sold nearly a million books.)

You would think that my publisher would tell me these sorts of details, but no, I only learn them from the flap copy of my books.

Anyway, when I got this book it took me several minutes to figure out what book it was. And then when I did figure it out, I couldn't believe that I hadn't realized it as soon as I saw the cover.

So for all you true-blue Janette Rallison fans, I'm doing a book giveaway that Random.org isn't involved in. The first person who can guess which of my books this is the Polish version of, will win the English version of the book. (Or the Polish one if you'd rather.)

You only have one guess, (no fair listing all of my books).

Good luck!

Ambien and me.

Insomnia has long been my nemesis. It used to be that I would only get it if I was stressed, or upset, or excited, or in a different bed, or if the air molecules weren't circulating in just the right way in the room.

But last year all of that changed. Meaning, it got worse. For two weeks straight I was averaging about four hours of sleep a night. I felt like my head was about to fall off my body. It was literally hard to think straight.

Surprisingly, it didn't affect my writing ability all that much. I actually wrote a good portion of My Unfair Godmother during that time. (What else are you going to do when you wake up at three in the morning?) It did, however, affect other important cognitive functions, like being able to discern the difference between laundry soap and fabric softener. I was constantly pouring the wrong one into the washing machine. In my defense, they were both in blue bottles. Okay, one was a light blue bottle that read: FABRIC SOFTNER and the other was in a dark blue bottle that read: CHEER, but still. Who notices those sort of details when your head is about to fall off?

So I finally went to my doctor and he prescribed Ambien.

I must admit I was a bit worried after I read about the side effects. The list starts out with dizziness, and daytime sleepiness, and then if you're still reading it mentions that people have gotten out of bed, driven vehicles, eaten food, made phone calls, oh yeah, and had sex while not fully aware.

Come again, what?

I began to wonder if taking that little pink pill would unleash some sort of Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde sort of thing. What exactly was my Ambien personality going to do? But then I thought, Hey--maybe my Ambien personality will finish my manuscript!

Alas, that has never happened. Maybe I should have noticed in the side effect section that not once did it ever say: People have gotten out of bed and done their work. Which makes me wonder if all those people who got caught doing those other things were just using Ambien as an excuse. (No really, Officer, I don't know what I'm doing here in the red light district. It must be the Ambien.)

Anyway, I'm very glad to have my little pink friend on nights when I can't sleep. I highly recommend it--even if your Ambien personality won't be doing your work for you.

Teen writing class Oct 23

For those of you in the Arizona area, I'll be at Litchfield Park Branch Library, 101 W. Wigwam Blvd., Litchfield Park.

Saturday, Oct 23
2:00

Writing the Teen novel for teens. (Although I imagine moms who bring their teens will be able to sit in too.)

Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/community/sw...

Then again, being a writer is less stressful than playing golf

Probably a lot of you have seen this picture of Tiger Woods accidentally hitting a golf ball right at a camera. It's being hailed as artistic or ironic or just amazing--because what are the chances that you're going to get a picture of Tiger Woods hitting a golfball at your camera?

But here's the thing that got my attention. Do you see the crowd that's behind him watching him play? EEEEEK! How many of us could spell our name accurately let alone hit a golf ball if a crowd that size was watching to see whether we messed up or not?

I realize that I have that many people reading my books and more. They'll know whether I bomb my next book. Still, I am sooo glad they're not watching me type or I'd be too stressed out to put my fingers on the keyboard.

So yeah, being a writer is great. We can spend time editing out our mistakes so the world doesn't see them.