Gayle Forman's Blog, page 16

silkworms and diarrhea

I think every author gets one free pass in life. One time when he or she writes a novel and it all comes out like silk comes out of a worm (then again, I've never actually asked a silkworm how it feels to spin silk; maybe it's like the last hour of labor without drugs, on a continual cycle—what do I know with my cheap metaphors?) But the point is, if the adage holds true that everyone has one book in them then maybe it makes sense that everyone has one book that flies out like diarrhea...

silk worms and diarrhea

I think every author gets one free pass in life. One time when he or she writes a novel and it all comes out like silk comes out of a worm (then again, I've never actually asked a silk worm how it feels to spin silk; maybe it's like the last hour of labor without drugs, on a continual cycle—what do I know with my cheap metaphors?) But the point is, if the adage holds true that everyone has one book in them then maybe it makes sense that everyone has one book that flies out like diarrhea...

team edward, team jacob, team ehh

Here is why I loved the movie Twilight.

I am old. Not old as in Edward-Cullen old. Or even old as in grandmother-that-Bella-dreams-herself-as-in-the-opening-scenes-of New Moon old. I'll be 40 next year, and 40 is the new 2o and yadda yadda, but as far as my readers are concerned, and my own kids, I'm old. But even so, I still love to feel that crazy exhilarating pitter-pat in my chest/stomach/heart region that an amazing love story, or really, any moving story, can bring on. The thing with...

so many crazies with short, short memories

No publishing news today. Just political rants. But can I say t-minus one day until New Moon???

Okay, so I hate to give Ann Coulter any extra ink because I'm pretty much convinced that her insanely provocative columns are all just for show. That deep down she's apolitical and über-ambitious and has figured out that if you're a skinny blonde who screams Conservative, you can get pretty rich.

But the latest column, or more to the point, the 500 plus mostly positive comments, gives me pause.

Coulte...

why hollywood is full of dumbasses and why catherine hardwicke is not one of them

So, I was just reading this very interesting piece in Time magazine about Twilight. If you don't know about the  road that the book has traveled, from modest dream of Mormon housewife to cultural phenomenon, it's a fascinating read.

Me, I'm a little obsessed with things like these, so I knew most of the backstory. I knew, for instance, that initially, the book did modestly well, but was not a ginormo megasensation like it is now. I knew that Stephenie Meyer started writing because she dreamed ...

and the winner is…

Sarah!

Who swooned about Season of Ice by Diane Les Becquets. Thanks to all of you for such great book recommendations. My TBR list just grew by a mile.

You'll all be glad to know that the drawing was conducted in this highly technical manner:

Speaking of books and contests—or auctions—I am marking the heck up out of one copy of If  Stay, full of lots of details about writing it and other insider stuff (turns out, once I made those first few marks, it was easy to get over defacing a book). So...

defying my inner librarian

When Lauren, the super fabulous blogger behind Shooting Stars Magazine, first asked me to participate in Leave A Mark, I sort of cringed. It's all very cool and noble except for one thing. The idea of Leave A Mark, which was started by Lauren and Chelsea from The Page Flipper, is, in Lauren's words:

To have authors mark up their own books or other notable people mark up a favorite book. Mark up means: give the reader's either a behind-the-scenes look of the book through notes in the margins...

my pet

My first cat was a gray and white tabby named Mischief—Missy for short—who I got through chicanery and begging. One day, in first grade, a cat sort of followed me home. I say sort of because after it followed me a few houses, I dragged it the rest of the way, presented it to my mom and said "Can we keep it?" Of course, the cat eventually made its way back toward its rightful home (I hope) and I cried. "Keep crying," my devious older sister told me. "And you'll get your own cat." We already...

share the wealth

One of the great things about being in the book biz is getting advanced reading copies of upcoming novels. It's great to go to a trade show or visit Penguin or my agent and come back with a stack of books that won't hit shelves for a few months. Of course, the flipside of this is when I fall in love with a book. Because when you fall in love, you want to talk about your new romance but when no one else has met your new love—or at least no one outside of the publishing world and I don't...

babies grow up

In a lot of ways, books are like babies. You gestate them as ideas—in many cases for way, way longer than nine months. Both Sisters in Sanity and If I Stay came from germs that sat within me for years and years. And you labor to deliver them. For months or years, or for some writers, decades. And once you put them out in the world, you might think you're done with them. But if you're fortunate, that's just the beginning. You have to be there, to help your babies, walk, run, talk, flourish...