Heidi R. Kling's Blog: Witch's Brew (Spellspinners 1) Launched!, page 48

Got SEA? Personalized/Gift-Wrapped & SHIPPING offer! HURRY!

Happy Holidays all you awesome readers, you!

Thank you SO much for all your support and #sealove this year. You are the BEST. Because of your high levels of awesome, I wanted to offer something nifty just for YOU.

I've received many requests for signed, personalized copies of my novel SEA* for readers and/or gifts this holiday season. After wracking my brain on how to get my book in the hands of someone, in say, rural Alabama without road-tripping in down there (Santa hasn't brought me my Blue Bus yet, wah!) whilst avoiding the harrowing Post Office lines, I came up with an IDEA. (All in CAPS like the good ones are.)

Here it is!

Kepler's Books, a well-established independent bookstore in Menlo Park & big SEA supporters, have generously offered to sell SIGNED, PERSONALIZED & GIFT WRAPPED copies of SEA for ANYONE on your Christmas (or late Hanukkah) list within the United States. They will collect your info over the phone I will go into the store and personalize for you and voila! they will ship it to you or the receiver by Christmas! I will even put in a signed bookmark. :D

I love supporting my local independent bookstores, who, like the rest of us, are struggling to survive in this economy & I'm so happy I've figured out a way to personalize a copy of SEA for everyone & would truly appreciate the support!

To order, contact Sarah Langlais, (650) 324-4321, coordinator of this project. Be sure to tell them WHO THE BOOK IS FOR and have the shipping address ready to go for their volunteer wrapping/shipping elves.

Wishing a wonderful holiday season for you and yours!

Many Thanks & Happy Ordering!
xox,
Heidi

Did one of you make this for me? If you did, you ROCK.

Orange Popsicle Haze- Beach Retreat 2010!

Remember how last week was all about Deni?
DENIZ being the Turkish translation of SEA and generally blowing my mind with that epic coincidence? Well, I think it made Spider a wee bit jealous.

How do I know?

Well, this weekend's writers retreat in Santa Cruz, CA, was clearly ALL ABOUT SPIDER.

Before we get to him, let me introduce you to our beach house and my fellow #YATW (YA, That's Why!) critique partners, the talented Ingrid Paulson (VALKYRIE RISING/HarperTeen/2012), Martha Flynn, and Whitney Miller (both agented and surely to sell their fab YA novels soon.)

We did a lot of writing. I worked on #sexahmagicbook2, which I'm madly in new-crush love with.
The pitter-patter of flying keyboards was going day and night.
But who wants to look at pictures of writers typing on their laptops?


Hey, #YATW, say cheese!


See up there? That is our loft. With a giant flat screen TV, four Grandpa-snoozing-style easy chairs, and Vampire Diaries Season 1 on loop. Wait. Is this a writer's retreat or has Heidi ascended into heaven?


Welcome to Heidi's Cafe, may I take your order?


You know Vera is dying to slurp on that beauty.


Ocean cliffs on a misty Saturday morning...



Throwing CAUTION to the wind



Remember Sienna and Spider's cliff hangout overlooking Sunny Cove? Well. There you go.




The beginnings of sunset...in a neighborhood uncannily similar to Sienna and Spider's



This house, overlooking the cliffs? Was surprised I didn't see Spider's footprints on the sidewalk. Interestingly, our beach house was one block inland, just as I imagined Sienna's to be.



Hey Sea, remember the story your mom used to tell us? The one about the sea captain returning home to his lost love?



We just call it the Haze. It you YOU who made up the Orange Popsicle part 'cause you were so obsessed with those sticky things



Seriously, though, some of the guys swear they've seen the Haze after a bad wipeout. Or when it gets too dark, a little darker than it is now...



...they watch for the orange light hanging over the sand, lighting their way home.



Special thanks to #YATW for the rejuvenating weekend of creativity and friendship, & to Erica (The BookcellarX) for her favorite Spider quotes.

Foreign Rights Deal for SEA!!!

Thrilled to announce our first Foreign Rights deal for SEA to the beautiful country of Turkey, which means my book will be translated for Turkish readers in a year or so, with a new cover and a title perhaps like...

DENIZ.

Wait. What?! I just went to this site http://translation.babylon.com/english/to-turkish/

and typed in Sea and um. Mini happy attack. SEA in Turkish is DENIZ! Like Deni only plural and in Twitter speak?

Could life really be that cosmic?! Sometimes, yep, it sure can be.

Whatever the exact translation turns out to be, I'm so so happy about the foreign rights deal.
I traveled to Turkey with my family a few years back. Walking through the crowded outdoor market in Kusadasi was the first time I heard the Call to Prayer. Just as the travel guide suggested, we were indeed invited to join a woman selling colorful blankets for hot-hot tea in Kusadasi, and, later, after touring the ancient ruins of Ephesus...

...I sat on a camel's back. (Such a tourist, I know!)

I've searched, but can't find the picture of me on a camel. So I found a camel without me.

Also, for you International Readers out there, I'm excited to share that SEA was named one of the Best I've Read in 2010 in the excellent company of Lauren Oliver (IF I FALL), Daisy Whitney (THE MOCKINGBIRDS), Ally Condie (MATCHED), and Kody Keplinger (THE DUFF). For more of their feature and prizes check this link: http://bestiveread.blogspot.com/2010/12/bir2010-international-grand-prize.html

What are some of the best you've read in 2010?

Blue Sword of Happiness

Some sons bring their mothers flowers, mine brings me...A SWORD*!

Teeny tiny blue sheathed sword. He promises a real-size one for Christmas.

:D

*which will make sense when I can share more about my fantasy book

Happy Thanksgiving Ponderings

Our family has a tradition where we go around the Thanksgiving dinner table sharing what we're thankful for that year. I started it in high school some time. I must have seen it on an episode of some favorite show and thought it was sweet. It's caught on and all the branches of our spread-out family tree do it now: in-laws, grandparents, far-away cousins. And my own children, which is almost too sweet to bare.

This has been a tough year for so many, me included. This fall was filled with its own challenges with the trio of medical crisis (now, thankfully, all over) and while SEA debuting brought so much excitement into my life it also brought responsibility, to my readers, to my publisher, to myself.

It gets so overblown how often writers compare their debut books to their human baby, and I get why y'all roll your eyes as you recall hours upon hours walking a colicky baby, or panicking over a high fever—do we take him to the E.R.? Do we wait it out?—And yeah, I have two kids and I'll tell you a new book isn't scary in THAT way, not at all. But it is scary in it's own way. Strangers carefully criticizing your work while other strangers are falling in love with it. I told someone the other day that this business is full of blessings and horrors every day. (Like raising kids!)

So my little book baby has been around in the world for about six months now, and I feel that I've reached the other side now. I'm more relaxed, grounded, I guess I've adjusted to the glowing smiles, am less anxious around the tantrums. I'm so grateful for every single reader. For every librarian who passes SEA on, for every reviewer who spends her time on my story, for every independent bookseller who is fighting to stay above water.

That my book is published both in hardcover and electronically.

Because who knows what things will be like in publishing in five years. In ten. And I like to think my great-great grandchildren might stumble upon a box of my books hidden in some attic somewhere when all the books they read are on hand-held devices. And I'm also glad they will be able to read an olden-days book on some hand-held device.

What are those words doing on that paper? Is that GRANDMA?

Tomorrow, as I break cornbread smothered in warm butter honey ( I can hardly wait!) with my mom, my two sisters, my three nieces and one nephew, with my 90-year-old grandparents (who I'm so grateful I still have with me), with my own husband and my own two children, I know exactly what I'll say I'm thankful for.

For all of it.

For everything that feels good, and everything that felt bad. For every opportunity, every near miss, every brilliant sunrise and every sunset masked by fog. Every sniffle, every giggle, every shriek of excitement, every sigh of disappointment. Because it's all part of the same human experience. All of it. This whole messy beauty of life. You remember my little boy was having a hard time reading last year? He was in a special reading class, he attended literacy summer school and worked his little bootie off. Well this year he's writing his own stories in a notebook he carries around. His own stories. And not when anyone is asking him too, he does it because he loves it.

I wonder, if reading and writing hadn't been so challenging for him, if he would have the same appreciation now?

I'll guess I'll never know, but today when he was scribbling away in his notebook, knees resting on the back of the passenger seat as we cruised around doing errands for our holiday trip to Grandma's, I could barely guise the happy-proud tears in my eyes as I watched my boy using his hard-earned skills and his imagination to make a story of his own.

And if I could pick the one thing I most grateful for this year? That would be it.


Not my family. We are never that still for that long. Nor do we dress as well.

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!

What are you most grateful for?

Spellbinders: A Newsletter for Educators

I'm thrilled to be included in November's issue of SPELLBINDERS, a literary magazine for teachers, librarians, parents and you! Check it out here: http://spellbindersbooknews.blogspot.com/2010/11/great-november-issue-and-book-giveaway.html and enter to win a signed copy of SEA.

I'm often asked about SEA's journey. Both Sienna's fictional journey to Indonesia and my novel's to publication.

Now is your chance to read more about it, and maybe win a copy of the book!
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Suzanne Collins! -includes Spoilers about the trilogy--

Another terrific event last night at Kepler's!
Suzanne Collins is probably the biggest author I've seen live and in person. I'm such a huge fan of the Hunger Games series. Apparently I'm not the only one!

So excited they flipped upside down!

Here is Ms. Collins speaking with Angela Mann, fantastic event planner and her Scholastic escorts:



Suzanne read an excerpt from Catching Fire in a Katniss accent she coined "Futuristic Appalachian". It was the bit about Cinna creating her Mockingjay costume. She followed that up with the first part of Mockingjay ,which filled her eyes, and mine, and probably most of the audiences with emotion.

Kepler's had the fun idea to hand out signing tickets in order of Districts. Two of the ticket holders were asked to compete in the Hunger Games. (Asked? Told! Forced!) A ten year old girl and an older mom stood in front of the crowd and shot each other with Nerf cross bows. (The same ones I was pictured with awhile back at the pizza party.) It was unsettling to see the ten year old chosen and with the weapon, even though it was meant for fun, it brought back the scene in which Primrose was chosen as a tribute and Katniss took her place.

I was in District 1 and was one of the first to get my book stamped and to meet Suzanne. Angela introduced me, we shook hands, and I asked my one question.

I asked her if, when mapping out her trilogy, she always knew the third book would end with Prim's demise.

I'm not going to tell you her answer.
Because I'm mean like that.
Plus, she sort of leaned in and quietly gave me the answer so perhaps maybe she meant it to stay between us.

I like to think so anyway.

Me and Suzanne share a secret. ;)

I also told her I thought the ending was brilliant and then Security dragged me away.
First part true.
Second part false.

I was thoroughly behaved.

Anyway, no matter how you felt about her third and final novel, you did feel something. You had to.

And that's the job of an author in my opinion. To make you feel.

Suzanne Collins is a master of storytelling and it was an honor to meet her in person.

Men of YA Radio Show Interview

I know it sounds like a kinky calendar, and according to Twitter it should be, BUT for now it's a radio show!
You know Barry "Storyheart" Eva the guy who hosts BlogTalkRadio's A Book and a Chat?
Well, he's hosting a Male Author Month all of November and asked me to interview HIM to set the month rolling. Since he's so nice and has an English accent, I happily obliged.



Deets: http://www.redroom.com/blog/storyheart/a-book-and-a-chat-male-ya-author-month

Feel free to call or chat in questions for Barry!

6:30 p.m. east coasters
3:30 p.m. west coasters (aka: The World Series Champions!)

;-)

P.S. I voted. Did you?

#YAspooktacular: A Soul Laid Bare up now!

I'm so excited to participate in this spooky traveling story along with many cool YA authors & bloggers!

Part 10, by yours truly, is up now: http://overflowingshelf.blogspot.com/2010/10/yaspooktacular-story-2-soul-laid-bare.html?utm_source=dft.ba&utm_medium=link

The book bloggers never fail to impress me with their creative ideas & enthusiasm.

Hope you enjoy and Happy Halloween!

So the other day...

...I noticed I had a tangle in the back of my head. Not just your average tangle, mind you, I mean an enormous There-Is-No-Way-in-Hades I'm going to get this out kinda knot. This happens when I am overloaded with busy and forget to brush my hair.

I know that sounds ridiculous.

Who forgets to brush their hair?

Uh. Me.

Doc Dude was in Cambodia for a week so I was single-parenting it on top of everything else I was doing, revisions for a short story for a UK anthology, an article for Spellbinders, stalking Ian Somerhalder (through Blogger Kelsey Dickson)*etc.

So this knot was getting so ridiculous, it was actually sticking out from the top of my pony tail like this:

Only instead of silky ribbons imagine a giant knot

This situation left me with only one option.


So yeah.

Now I sort of look like this girl:



The End

*full story coming soon