Janette Rallison's Blog, page 65

And the winner is . . .

To pick the winner this time, I used a random number generator over at random.org. This is because I've had insomnia for the last three nights and none of my children are currently awake. But does it strike anybody else as strange that we live in a society that actually has a demand for random numbers? And yet, if I checked, I bet that site gets more hits a day than many thoughtful, important, and meaningful sites like mine. (Not sleeping for three nights will give you delusions of grandeur a...

My Fair Godmother Trailer

I admit right off that I didn't make this trailer--but I think it's absolutely darling, and Andie, the rent-a-teenager I used to make the it, did such a good job of finding the PERFECT upbeat, fun, teen song to go along with the pictures. I'd never heard of the band BackDrop, but now I love them, and I'm not just saying that because they agreed to let me use their song.

So in honor of the trailer, I'm going to give away a copy of My Fair Godmother. Just leave a comment telling me something a...

And the winner is . . .

Usually I have my kids pick a number when I'm doing these give-aways because I can never choose a winner. I want everybody to win. I also like happy endings, and books/movies where they bring characters I like back from the dead. I think characters should be able to come from the dead if they have enough fans. And I am still waiting George Lucas to bring back Qui-Gon Jinn, who never should have died in the first place. (I can't say the same for Jar Jar Binks. Someone should have fed him to on...

New, New Dawn book give away

As you die-hard Janette Rallison fans know, (Hi Mom!)a year or so ago I wrote a chapter for the book New Dawn, which is a compilation of essays about the Twilight series.

Well, after New Dawn came out, Breaking Dawn came out, and the folks at Teen Libris wanted us to updated our essays to include the Breaking Dawn book. So we did, and now the new and improved book is out.

Teen Libris sent me a copy to give away, so if you're one of those people who can't get enough Edward and Jacob, (And reall...

Teen writing workshop

Yep, I'm doing another workshop where I teach people how to write. Here's the info:

Queen Creek Library: Writing Workshop For Teens With Janette Rallison

Date: 10/8/2009 Time: 2:00 PM - 4:30 PM Location: Queen Creek Branch Library
21802 S. Ellsworth Road
Queen Creek, Arizona 85242

Ages 12-18. Get some writing tips and try your hand at plotting, point of view, and characterization with Janette Rallison, author of the popular Young Adult books My Fair Godmother and Just One Wish, among others. Re...

My Journal at 13

Fellow writer and friend, Jill Wolfson, is doing a Dear Diary project on her blog. She's invinting authors to give her a snippet from their diaries when they were 12-14years-old.

It so happens that I've kept journals since I was thirteen. You'd think that at some point I would have gone back and reread through these tomes, but beyond a few times that I've flipped through some of the later ones to reminisce about an event, nope, I haven't cracked any of them open.

I realize now, that I should h...

Job satisfaction

I'm the first to admit that being an author has its downsides. It's a hard field to break into, it often doesn't pay as well as . . . say, a pizza delivery job, and if you're lucky and do get a book deal, you have to live through revision letters. Trust me, they aren't pretty. I hold many angry conversations with my editor about his revision letters. Some conversations he actually gets to hear. My husband generally hears the rest.

But every once in awhile something comes along that makes me sa...

The Problem With Wikipedia

Once while I was talking about researching stuff for my novels, I told one of my author friends, Jon Lewis, that my editor made me find a native Italian speaker to look over the Italian phrases I put in How To Take The Ex Out Of Ex-boyfriend. Jon laughed a lot about that. He said one day he was going to write a book on research called: Wikipedia, It's Close Enough to the Truth
For Me.

And granted, he may have a point. You can find anything on Wikipedia. I had to learn some stuff about martial ...

Where Children's Book Authors Work

Not long ago I saw a blog that featured where fantasy writers write. Not to be outdone, I decided I should do a blog about where children's book authors write. As you can see, I frequently work with children draped around my neck. It helps with the dialogue and all that.


Shannon Hale (Princess Academy) employs the same technique. When people ask her how she manages to write with children, she says she doesn't--children are too unwieldy. She writes with a computer. Although here you can see s

Author/Agent panel.

Okay, I know for a lot of you, the word: Agent caught your attention much more than the word: Author.

Don't worry, I'm used to it.

Anyway, on Monday, August 24th my agent, the very nice Erin Murphy, will appear with me and other cool authors at 7:00 at Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe, Arizona. She will answer all of your questions about the literary world and probably tell some personal tales about me and how I hoisted a stray cat on her. Which is a true story by the way, and the reason other a