Janette Rallison's Blog, page 61

Just had to post this

And when I can figure out how to post the whole thing here, I will. But right now you're going to have to copy and paste the link because for some reason the whole thing isn't linking up.

http://http://www.raisingarizonakids/.com/index.php?page=1.library.article_view&ar_id=1236

It is--get this--me in a cooking article. Those of you who know me are laughing right now--or as my husband put it when I told him Raising Arizona Kids was using me for their recipee section:

"So they're doing a humor pie...

And the description winners are:

I have to say this was a really hard call. You guys wrote a ton of great description: delicious dips in his throat, muscles, cheesecake, sunlight tinging off his teeth, and Pluto the not-a-planet. I could go on, but you guys probably read the descriptions yourself.

The next time I have to describe an attractive person I will peruse through your comments looking for material. (I did warn you I would do that.) But the judges have spoken (At least one of them did--the other one's wife just h...

The Whitney Awards

I bet you thought I was going to have you all write more descriptions of these very stunning women. No, dear blog reader, actually this is a picture of Julie Wright and I at the Whitney Awards. By the way, I am actually wearing one of Julie's dresses because she has much better taste than I do. (I had planned on buying a dress while I was in Utah but somehow it never happened.)

I know I should tell you who the winners of the description contest are. I'm going to get to that soon--really. I've ...

Book Give-Away/ The problem with attractive people

I bet you think I'm going to say that the problem with attractive people is that they're conceited or used to privilege or they see the world differently from regular people. Probably true, but nope, that's not what this blog is about.

The problem with attractive people is that it is so hard to write interesting descriptions of them in books. When the heroine is describing the hero, she needs to do it in a way that not only gives the reader a basic visual image, but also tells us he's attracti...

Speaking of Twilight . . .

Ben Bella Books emailed me to say that my Twilight essay from the book A NEW DAWN is up on their website this week. That means you can read what I have to think about it for FREE! (Of course you also do that here, but hey, on their website I'm not only witty, I'm grammatically correct! That, my friends, is what a copy editor will do for you.)

You can see it until midnight next Tuesday at:

http://www.smartpopbooks.com/

Just scroll down until you get to the link to my essay, To Bite, Or Not To...

Too funny not to share

I laughed so hard when I watched this. I'm sure a lot of husbands can relate!

My Fair Godmother, German style

I just got the German version of My Fair Godmother. They changed the title, of course. (The play on words doesn't work in other languages.) Their title is Real Fairies, False Princes, which I have to say, is one cool title. I totally wish I had thought of it, and I'm sad it won't work for the sequel. (Sorry, no princes, but there is a single king.)

When I turned in My Fair Godmother to Walker it was 111,000 words--over 400 pages. They thought this was too long and wanted me to cut nearly ...

In all fairness, the response.

My husband woke me up this morning and said, "Roger Responded."

My first thought was, "Why don't I know when to keep my mouth shut?" Followed quickly by thoughts of the conversation I would have to have with my editor about how I had managed to offend somebody else in the book world. Luckily, Roger was very nice, here is his response:

Thanks for coming by, Janette. I am not picking on your book in particular or on the genre of commercial fiction in general, either, just pointing out that our a...

In which Horn Book disses commercial fiction and me by name

Okay, actually Horn Book only dissed the flap copy and premise of my book, which I don't feel too badly about since Tim, the Bow-Tied, One came up with both. And I rewrote the flap copy for the book and was surprised that the older version was on the ARCs. (Note to self, make sure it's not on the real books.)

But this is from the editor in chief at Horn Book's blog:

Not as rhetorical a question as you might have wished

From the promo blurb for My Double Life, by Janette Rallison:

You know how...

My Double Life from youngest daughter's point of view

My youngest daughter is still at that point where she reads with Mom and Dad listening to help her with the big words. While we were driving to visit cousins, I thought I would make good use of time and have her read to me from the beginning of the book. Here is the first paragraph of the book: (Which reminds me, as soon as I get someone to update my website, the first three chapters will be on my website along with extra scenes not in the book.)

I didn't want to write this. Really...