Gayle Forman's Blog, page 8

snapshots

So, I don't like cruising.

But there's so much I do like. Love in fact. And am grateful for.

It's nice to think about all that as the new year kicks into gear (and the kids go back to school, and yes, I'm grateful for that, too). But instead of writing blocks of text, for a change I will post some images from my holiday season, snapshots of my gratitude.

I'm grateful for:

Friends, dinner parties, Wonder Woman costumes:

My sister (and my brother but I don't have a cute shot of us!)

My big, crazy family (yes, we are wearing matching t-shirts! Mine says "double delight," right above my breasts. And no, it does not refer to my bosom but to a rose bush. Don't ask, but if you've read Jandy Nelson's THE SKY IS EVERYWHERE, let's just say Gram and her houseplants and my mom and rose bushes, well they're likethis).

Motherhood (most of the time):

Ice cream (all of the time)

Beaches like this (pictures of which will get me thru the winter)

Days like this:

My ridiculously cute nieces (the big one is going to Reed next fall. I'm so proud!!!)

Reconnecting with old friends we haven't seen in six years and having it feel like no time has gone by (anybody read YOU CAN'T GET THERE FROM HERE? This is Astrid and Martin from chapter one!)

My husband, who puts up with me. Please don't tell I posted this shot of him, though. He'll kill me.

So, there's my gratitude photo album. (Notice, not a single picture from the actual ship!) What are YOU grateful for? What are you hopeful for 2011?

Give it some thought because tomorrow I'm launching a giveaway of a signed ARC of WHERE SHE WENT, but the twist (there's always a twist) is that you have to post something you're grateful for or hopeful for. Pretty easy, no?

Contest starts TOMORROW, new blog post. So start thinking now.

my titanic

Okay, so there were no icebergs.

No mass-vomiting epidemics.

No giant storms with Perfect-Storm esque waves (then again, no George Clooney-esque ship captains, either).

No getting stranded in the middle of the cruise so that U.S. military choppers had to airdrop provisions of Spam onto the ship deck. (Spam? What about the Jews? Do Jews not cruise? Guess not given the overabundance of Christmas, and the assumption that everyone celebrates it when half the staff is from Indonesia, which is the most populous Muslim country, and when, hello, did you see my nose?)

No Leo and Kate running around the ship, though there was a rousing rendition of "My Heart Will Go On" at one of the after-dinner shows, which both my daughters watched with such rapt attention that you'd think an alien suck beam had attached straight to their brains and was pulling out cerebral matter with the hit of every high note.

(Note: Kate and I do have similar hair, long, curly and red. That's about where the similarity ends. Oh, and I did throw my priceless diamond into the ocean. I was PMSing. So sue me!)

"You're here there's nothing to fear…."

Girls jaws drop further. Still,  if there was anything redeeming about my 8-night sentence—ahem, vacation—aboard the Celebrity Summit, it was that: watching my kids have a blast with their cousins and grandparents. And the lady singing Céine Dion.

But me and cruising, I just don't get it.

I could pretend that this is because I am a Grizzled Adventure Traveler, a girl Sebastian Junger, who, after all, has written a travel book about going to freakadelic places like Tonga and Kazakhstan and doing wild things like camping in the mountains with outlaw Tolkienist role players and throwing dinner parties in the middle of monsoons with third-sex fakaleiti cross-dressers. But that would be disingenuous of me. Because the fact of the matter is that I have this THING for a package holiday resort, a place like Sandals, only one that was always friendly to gays, and cheaper. I love it when they strap on that wristband and you just know you don't have to think about a thing for the week except whether or not to apply more sunscreen or if you'd like to play a spot of tennis.

Seriously, give me a wristband, a beach, a good kidcamp and some books, and I'm happy as a clam, well, one not plucked off into a disgusting chowder (New England clam chowder, in a zilion degree Caribbean heat. Really?) Speaking of books, I read some very good ones on this trip, rather miraculous given the dearth of time (were it not for early-morning insomnia, I'd have gotten no reading done whatsoever!). So I can highly recommend Colum McCann's LET THE GREAT WORLD SPIN, which was incredible to read as as a reader and humbling to read as an author (and thanks to Deb Heiligman for the rec). Also on the high recommendations is Dave Eggers' ZEITOUN, which was heartbreaking and maddening and also made me rethink Mr. Eggers.

Now, I've been an admirer of Dave Eggers for his cool (if, at times, wee hip for my square pegness) indie publishing empire and his incredible charitable work—but I've only ever read A HEARTBREAKING WORK OF STAGGERING GENIUS and while I enjoyed it, it also annoyed me in that way that books by wunderkind boys whose books seem to blare with kind of noisy self-conscious, self-indulgent LOOK AT THE WACKY THINGS I CAN DO WITH WORDS!. And Dave's screenplays for AWAY WE GO and WILD THINGS, left me sort of eh (and yes, I know, lots of you readers feel differently). So I haven't picked up another one of his books. But ZEITOUN had no bells and whistles, only impeccable reporting, wonderful writing that did not call attention to itself, and a deep, deep sense of humanity (in a nutshell, it's the story of this incredible family, post-Hurrican Katrina, and shows how messed up the government's response was, and the stupid war on terror; Zeitoun is originally from Syria). So I am won over. An Eggers girl all the way. And I read Helen Simonson's MAJOR PETTIGREW'S LAST STAND, which was a fast delicious read, if not as deep or profound as the first two books. It was a comedy of manners, Austen-esque, as everyone has noted, but I found it lacked a certain nuance. Characters are either GOOD or they are BAD, though sometimes you think they're one and they turn out to be another, which I could spot a mile off (and when I thought about it, the same is true for Austen's books). I like grays in my books, not black and whites (as opposed to my Caribbean skies, in which I like no gray, alas, the skies didn't care what I liked). Still, I'd recommend PETTIGREW. Super fun read.

By the by, I totally spied on what my fellow cruisers were reading: Stieg Larrson and his Dragon Tattoo trilogy were everywhere. And lots of e-readers. I didn't spot a single YA book. All the teens I spied were reading adult stuff (Chris Cleave's LITTLE BEE was a popular choice; my erudite 18-year-old niece was reading Jonathan Franzen's FREEDOM.)

Anyhow, back to cruising. I am out of the closet now about my love of the Package Holiday Trip, but cruising is a whole different matter. You wait in line a TON. When you go ashore, you have to pack up tons of stuff and rush your kids off—unless one of your kids has an ear infection and then you have to scramble to find alternative arrangements for her, or stay back on the ship with her, which is way less fun that it seems. You have to go through airport level security every single day when you get back on the boat. You have to pay oodles extra from everything from taxis to get to and from the ship to drinks (even sodas) to the tipping (which I don't begrudge. The people who work on the ships are incredible nice and they work seven days a week, week in and week out and tips are the bulk of their salary because they don't get minimum wage because they are not protected by U.S. labor laws and it's all disgusting and another reason why cruises are the opposite of awesome).

I know everyone goes on about the food. Apparently the average cruiser gains between 7 and 10 pounds on a cruise. Not surprising given how much they force feed you. But the food, it's so gross!!!! Buffet food that is nasty and picked over, like those gross delis in Midtown Manhattan. Or you have to sit for interminable dining room meals where people get so dressed up—and really, there are few things I want to see less than 50-year-old women wearing prom dresses. I kid you not!—and the food seems really good on the menu (dover sole wrapped around shrimp stuffing, bla, bla), but, except for the Caesar salad, somehow all manages to taste like catfood.

When you are done with your dinner, you and your roiling stomach retire to a stateroom that is 180 square feet. For four people. For eight nights. When two of the people are coughing all night. I don't mean to sound ungrateful but why on earth would people subject themselves to this?*

Lines. Airport security. Scheduling my kids. Rushing around. Cramped living quarters. Lousy food. Sounds like my life at home. Minus the lousy food. We eat decent food at home. Course, I have to cook it, so it's a tradeoff.

One good thing about the cruise was my self-imposed media blackout. Not just no internet or cell phone, etc. But I didn't even watch TV. So it was sort of a surprise and a bummer when on the last night, when I was SO READY to get back home, to learn about this killer storm headed to NYC. (Complete with, if not icebergs, the icicles, icy roads, and giant snow drifts, and the US military handing out provisions).

Now, we got lucky. Far worse places to get stuck than Puerto Rico. When we finally got back to JFK airport three days late and after our flight circling the skies for two hours—hey, I got to watch all of Eat, Pray, Love, at least—until the pilot said we might have to land somewhere else because we were running low on gas (at which point I prayed, not that we wouldn't crash, but that we wouldn't be diverted; nervous breakdown was imminent), we saw all the people with their green airport cots—stranded at the airport because, I imagine, NYC hotels were either too full, too expensive or plain impossible to get to from the airport. Midwesterners, you would LAUGH at us. Paralyzed by two feet of snow. What are we, Oregon?

But finally, after 3 days and one arduous 11-hour journey home, we made it. Had there been an iceberg, I would've kissed it.

*    *    *

*Well, since you asked, I went on this cruise because it was my mother's 70th birthday and she wanted the whole family to do this. I think something happens to people when their AARP kicks in, their cruise-loving gene starts to fire up. My parents, the original adventure travelers (they dragged my siblings and me on a six-week trek through Europe when I was seven), love cruising now. Go! Figure!

who controls hollywood?

So, Dakota Fanning won' t be playing Mia.

That's the latest news on the rollercoaster that is the If I Stay movie. Except, according to my friends who work in Hollywood, rollercoaster is how Hollywood rolls. Ups and downs, starts and stops, stars and directors dropping in and out of movies like balls on Oscar night. I show up. I leave. Maybe I stay six weeks and make a movie. Tralalala.

I got upset when it first happened. A year ago Catherine Hardwicke was the director and I was starting to hear news of who might get cast in the movie. And then another studio greenlit another movie Catherine was also working on—she has lots of movies in the works at any given time; check out her As she herself said at the time, before Twilight was greenlit (Hollywood speak for funded) she was working on a bunch of other films, waiting to see which one would go first. It's like a giant horse race, except the winner is the one who leaves the gate first (who finishes the race first is a whole other contest!).

Anyhow, I was bummed about Catherine. She just seemed perfect. But experience in life had taught me that just as there is more than one true love in life per person—I don't buy that single soul mate business; in a world with nearly 7 billion people and you're going to find The One? Really? What if he's a Massai herder?—there is more than one perfect director per movie.

So, Dakota. Yes, I think she would've been great. But so will other actresses. Her reasoning for not doing the film she was never officially signed on to do (she was "in talks") is that she wants to finish high school. At first, I thought this excuse sounded very Publicisty, i.e. the thing you say when you don't want to say the real reason. But then I read an article in this week's New York Times Magazine about the Fanning Sisters about how NORMAL they are—they share a bathroom! They make their own beds! And how un-Lohan-esque their parents are—totally un-stage parenty—and now I think it might be true. I hope it is. It seems like some modicum of normalcy in the teen years is the only way that child stars can transition to adulthood without losing their marbles completely (see: Natalie Portman, Jodie Foster, who seem sane, though what do I know?).  Maybe Dakota likes being Homecoming Queen. Little sis Elle's career is kicking ass right now, so let Dakota have some teen time. For reals!

Now here is something the outside world does not get: The movie part of If I Stay is completely out of my control. I have zero, zilch, nada, to do with it. I'm not writing the screenplay (like Suzanne Collins did with her book The Hunger Games) or directing the film (like Stephen Chbosky is doing with his book The Perks of Being A Wallflower–how excited am I that this is going to be a movie!). There's a certain Zen that comes with having no control. I really don't sweat the ups and downs. I just put on my safety belt and ride the roller coaster.

But you know who does control these things, besides the studio execs in their Armani suits (actually they always wore jeans when I met them but I enjoy a stereotype now and then)? You guys do. Now, I am a superstitious person and don't normally say things like this, but I believe If I Stay will make it to the screen and be a pretty kickass movie. Why do I say this when the road to film is littered with carcasses? (Hmm, maybe bad metaphor given the source material I'm discussing, no?) Well, I still believe it, for two reasons.

#1) , the woman who wrote the awesome screenplay for Whip It—have you seen this yet? Go Netflix it NOW—has written such an amazing screenplay. Some beloved books have a hard time making a transition to screen (You can read about the craziness of the original Twilight screenplay here. And The Lovely Bones. Loved the novel, liked the movie okay but as its own thing. Did not think it captured the book at all. Eat. Pray. Love. People I know who loved the book HATED the movie. Have not seen it myself yet.  It's a tough thing to capture a book's essence. And Shauna NAILED IT!

#2) Every second person who reads IIS asks me this: IS THERE GOING TO BE A MOVIE? At the end of the day, that's what will get a movie made. People reading a book and begging for a film. Studios are scratching their heads trying to figure out what movies will lure you guys to theaters. Action films! Paranormal romance! Transgendered cowgirl rodeo romps! You make your voices heard, they will listen. It might take a while—I read somewhere the average length from a film getting optioned to hitting the screen is nine years, lordy! But as a wise woman I know said about movies, "better slow and good then fast and bad." Which pretty much applies to everything.

Anyhow, there's a lesson in this about control. Worry about what you can control. In my professional life that boils down to one thing: the quality of the book I am writing now.

So, if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to work.

meet the brother

Hi all:

Just a brief post-Thanksgiving post to say hi. The family is away and I'm trying to revise my first 100 pages of the New Book before I show it to my editor.

I don't know if you know that I have siblings. A sister in Seattle (hi Tamar) and a brother in South Carolina named Greg, who occasionally comments here. I'd like to introduce you to my brother and to explain him but he's hard to explain. He'd make a good book character (writer, lawyer, music geek, math genius). Anyhow, it's always better than to show than to tell, so in that spirit,  here was his initial response to reading an advanced copy of Where She Went.

Can't really say how it compares quality wise to "If I Stay" but it's definitely up there.  Since the mathematical concept of regression to the mean generally means that the work following a "masterwork" will drop in quality (and a work following a disaster will gain in quality) it's a good sign that "Where She Went" isn't obviously inferior.

If you knew Greg, you'd realize that this was high praise, indeed. We had further conversations about it that entailed baseball players, Cy Young Awards and Kurt Cobain, again which is all so very Greg.

Anyhow, thank you, Greg. Here is his blog if you like reading entertaining legal posts.

subliminal movie casting

So, even in dreams, I date myself.

Last night, I was dreaming about the casting for the If I Stay movie.

Anyhow, in the dream, Winona Ryder and Ethan Hawke had been offered the parts of Mom and Dad.

This is so strange.

Winona and Ethan were the stars of the defining Generation X movie Reality Bites (also starring Janeane Garofolo and Ben Stiller, who also directed). I am quintessential Gen X. In the movie, Ethan and Winona were the romantic leads. Now, in my dream, they are up to play the parental roles.

Which makes sense. Because even though in some part of my head, I am still 24 and crushing on cute boys who play in bands, in reality, I married that boy and had kids with him. And had I had kids with him right after I'd met him, those kids would be Mia's age. In other words, I—and Winona and Ethan, more or less—are now the age of people who have children Mia's age.

But it's still all a little weird. Even more weird that I still think of Ethan not as the star of Reality Bites but as of Jesse, the adorable romantic lead of Before Sunrise (and its sequel Before Sunset), my favorite romantic movie maybe ever, to which Where She Went owes a debt. As you will see.

And most of all, it makes me feel old. Though not in a bad way. Also, I never really loved the movie that much anyhow. (And Janeane would make a way better Mom).

Click here to view the embedded video.

join my book farm!

Writing books is just too dang hard. And time consuming. And really, where is the productivity in it? One lone person toiling for months, or years, on a book? It is just so much more efficient to get a factory farm going, get a bunch of livestock—or MFAs or hungry up-and-comers of any ilk—to do the toiling for you.

James Frey, you MAD GENIUS. I mean, dude, if a totally DISGRACED douchenozzle of an author who was outed as a big fat lying scuzz on Oprah's couch no less, can come back and write novels that get middling reviews and so-so readership and start a company in which he employs graduate students to write books for $500 and back-end that is very iffy (he pays you what he pays you and there's no auditing, i.e. counting of copies of books sold, to tell you how much you've earned) and he gets to take ALL the credit?  Such a lousy deal! Especially in a world when a low book YA advance is along the lines of $10,000 with royalty rates between 10 and 15 percent of sales).

I just need take a moment to PRAISE America, a country where losers are never really down and out (I'm sure if the cancer doesn't kill him, Bernie Madoff  will soon have his own reality show!) and where "Bend over and grab your ankles" appears to be not a preface for rape, but kind of magic words. Frey has more than 25 writers signed up for the literary anal probe he's offering.

So, with all of that in mind, and knowing that some of my blog readers are aspiring authors, I now offer you the….

GAYLE FORMAN FACTORY FARM FIVE OPPORTUNITY OF A LIFETIME!!!

THE CHANCE TO COLLABORATE WITH A REAL-LIFE YA AUTHOR [RLYAA]*

* (If project sells, your name, likeness, astrological sign, hair color, will not be attached to RLYAA. You are legally prohibited from using your name in conjunction to RLYAA. In fact, mentioning your collaboration, either in writing or out loud, may result in your death or dismemberment. You are  legally prohibited from even thinking about this collaboration. Please open your eyes while I shine this pen with a very bright light in front of them.)

THE TERMS

In Exchange for Formulating, Writing, Revising, Revising again and then maybe 17 more times one Young-Adult Novel, you will Receive:

One $50 Gift Certificate to The Breast Feeding Shoppe (Everything for Breastfeeding!) Does not expire until 2013 so you have time if pregnancy is not in your immediate plans,which it should not be until your contractual obligations are fulfilled.

Two invitations to Taco Tuesday Night at my house. (A heads up;  we operate by the if-we-cooked-it-we-don't-clean it, so if I'm cooking dinner, you're on deck for dishes; also the bathroom sink could use a scour.)

The Metro Card that has been sitting in my desk for a year. I'm fairly certain that there are a couple of rides left on it. I just keep forgetting to check.

Six boxes of "gently used" baby clothes. If you choose not to take these clothes, it will be your responsibility to take them to the Goodwill. Be sure to get a receipt for the tax deduction! You may keep the deduction!

Eight consecutive "pretend you're the author" nights! In which you get to hang out in the RLYAA's home, acting as though you are the RLYYA. For added authenticity, the author's two children will be home, too, so you will get an up-close view of what it's like to "juggle" work and home! Additional "pretend you're the author" nights negotiable.

ROYALTIES, MONIES, ETC.

If the book makes a ton of money, RLYAA will be sure to tell lots of people about your valuable contribution.

If the book makes oodles of money, RLYAA will give you a "chunk" of that.

If the book is made into a movie, RLYAA will provide you with a dozen movie passes* good at any United Artist Theater.  Popcorn and soda included!

*matinee only.

If the book is made into a movie and there is mad merchandising deals, RLYAA will invite you over to her house to clean up all the action figures/crap after her children are tired of playing with them. You may keep the broken ones.

So, there you have it. Like I said: OPPORTUNITY OF A LIFETIME.

All interested parties should sign a blood oath and deliver their ideas to me. Preferably, on a doormat.

Cheers!

Gayle

petit canards, rock stars and other parisian adventures!

I consider myself happily married, but there was a moment in Paris when I was tempted.

It was with a crème brûlée. It was the second night of the Paris Where She Went (or Là Où J'irai ) tour. It was after the incident of Le Petit Canard (more on that in a second) and my dessert came. It looked like a regular crème brûlée, burnt sugar on top and all. But then I cracked it open. There were raspberries inside. Sweet, even though it was November. And the custard was sort of runny instead of being firm. And it tasted like heaven. I made noises at the table I probably ought not have. I had a love affair with my dessert. Had it asked me to run away with it, I might have. As it was, I devoured it (and forgot to take its picture!)

Paris was like that. One amazing meal after the other in restaurants that looked like this:

And meals that looked like this:

Though sometimes, they looked like this:

Particularly when you allow someone to order for you, someone like, say your publisher, who thinks it's hilarious that this so-called Petit Canard (Little Duck) was the size of a chicken that I'd serve my family of four. And who laughed when the duck came out and the American's eyes went wide with shock and awe and who ribbed the American for not being able to eat the Petit Canard, and then the chef and waiter joined in the ribbing (and the American must add that these guys looked straight out of a Jeunet and Caro film) and the American was forced to ask "on what planet is this canard petit?" And all the American is saying is that the publisher is visiting in March and is coming over to her house for dinner and we'll see who has the last laugh.

Anyhow, back to meals. They were so civilized. Dinner began at 8 pm and ended at 10:30 and no one was throwing food or having tantrums, though I was having food orgasms. At home, I'm usually passed out in my own clothes at 10:30, having eaten something nice, but something I've cooked and cleaned and shopped for, so this was sublime. Yeesh, I feel jealous of me just writing about this. And it happened to me.

Nicer yet, even sweeter than the desserts were the French fans. They were awesome. I loved the bloggers, some of whom I introduced you to in the first Paris post. I met a few more, like Francesca of the blog Le Monde de Francesa. Here she is holding her favorite of  my books, Les Coeurs Fêlés , which is the French version of Sisters in Sanity. It makes me so happy that this book has had a second life, abroad no less, because it flopped bigtime when it came out here (and by flopped, I don't mean bad reviews; I mean ignored, read by no one). But at the time, I decided not to get upset and self-pitying about it—so unlike me. Instead, I decided to be grateful that I'd published anything and hoped that maybe one day another book I'd write would do well and readers might discover Sisters. Et, voila. Francesca:

Wednesday was the last day of the tour, and it was my total Rock Star day. It was the day I felt most like Adam in Where She Went, only not, you know, miserable. First thing in the morning, I had two back-to-back interviews at the top of the Tower of Montparnasse, the skyscraper smacked in the middle of Paris where the views are better than the Eiffel Tower, even the taxi drivers say so.

Then I had my big photo shoot. Makeup and hair and and a photo and film shoot.

We shot atop the tower and then we went outside and shot in the Montparnasse cemetery  where it was freezing but I couldn't be photographed in my coat so I had to be shot in 45 degree weather in a sleeveless dress and tiny sweater and look all happy about it.

Then I ran around and played in the leaves and pretend shopped in the market while people stared at me. I could pretend that this was hard but who am I kidding? It rocked!  It didn't hurt that one of the photographers was a total fox. Right?

Then a quick lunch, a radio interview and time for the big signing. Bookstore events are not usual in France. So this was a big thing. And it was awesome. It was at a traditional French intellectual bookstore, called L'Oeil Ecoute, run by this petite, impeccable French woman, immaculately dressed who looked like she could single-handedly disarm Bin Laden if given the chance. When I showed up there were already a ton of girls waiting. A line out the door!

I signed a bunch of books. And then we went to the back of the store and talked and had champagne (that I spilled all over myself because even in my rock-star moment, I am still a spaz). Then I signed more books. I met awesome French readers like Samira, and Justine and Amina and Melía and Camille and a couple of Célines and one girl even asked me to sign her guitar. Like I was Adam. Crazy!

Then another interview. And more signings and it was 7:00 and back to the hotel to meet Stephán de Pasquale, who is like the equivalent of Bob Edwards (I'm dating myself. Bob was the  NPR Morning Edition host with the gravelly voice who smoked a ton). Stephán is a host for the French radio station RTL and has been a big booster since  I met him in the spring of 2009 while promoting IIS. What blew me away then was how this intellectual lion of the French media took my book so seriously, a YA book. Not just him but lots of French people and journalists. I'd have thought the opposite. That France being the guardian of haute culture would turn its nose at YA (which would never happen here in the US, cough, cough). But instead, the opposite was true. It was treated seriously there. (Then again, they like Jerry Lewis over there.)

Here is Stephán and me at the end of the night. It's blurry but that sort of reflects my state of mind at this point.

So the trip was amazing. The food was amazing. The French readers are amazing. But hanging out with Céline for a week was probably a highlight. Céline, some of you might remember, or you can read about it here,  read If I Stay when it came out in France. She fan-mailed me. I said, hey, I'm coming to Paris. You should come. She wound up calling my publisher and long story short, she is now a de-facto employee of Oh! Editions, one of my biggest supporters, keeper of the official French Gayle Forman blog, and best of all, my friend.

Now I'm back home. And it all seems like a dream. But it makes me very excited for Where She Went to come out in the United States, and elsewhere. And to come back to Paris. And I've promised that next time, I will really take a course and learn more than my basic French. But for now, this will have to suffice.

Paris, Je'taime.

paris quickie

Just a quick note from Paris—where it is beautiful but pouring rain, as is apparently typical for November. Yes, I forgot, this IS Northern Europe. But even with the rain, it is Paris. Where the bloggers, like Mliady Evey not only ask you incredibly deep and thoughtful questions (Do your feelings on the afterlife mirror those of your characters? How has motherhood colored your work, your perspective as an author?) but also bring you Champagne.

This is her:

This is the Champagne:

I haven't drunk it yet. It's only three in the afternoon.

But I did just have the third of my ridiculous yummy French meals. Pot au feu with fish. I should've taken a picture of my fish stew before I devoured it. But I didn't. And now it's in my stomach. But here's the restaurant. So fabulously French, I just about DIED. All red velvet and red walls and fabulous lamps (Jandy Nelson told me to kiss streetlamps but it's too wet, so will these do?) and paintings of naked ladies. And did I mention the food? Only problem was I was too full for creme brulee for dessert. Next time, I will use more foresight and skip breakfast. But the croissants!

Okay, and also Céline, who some of you may remember as the #1 French Fan, who is now actually the Keeper of the Le Blog Officiel and a de-facto employee of the French publisher and is here all week and who basically rocks it hard, well, she found rock n roll Silly Bandz. That's right. A guitar player (Adam) a drum kit (Liz?) and one that says "rock." I told you she rocks it hard.

My feet are dry. On to the next meeting More later.

Au revoir.

xx

can we call it a saturday six?

Dude, I am so remiss in the blog posting. I'm getting ready to leave for Paris—yes WHERE SHE WENT came out there this week. Yes, it's not fair. It's an incentive to learn French. I plan to blog from Paris with lots of pictures of pretty French things.

But in the mean time. An update. A buffet. A Saturday Six.

#1) The kitchen-sink apology excuse where have I been. Well, the reason I have not been blogging much is that I'm totally obsessed with my new novel and no, I'm not talking about it yet but not because I don't want to, not because I'm not dying to SHARE with you but because I'm superstitious and think I will curse it if I talk about it too much. I just sent the first 100 pages to my agent who will send it to my editor. So fingers crossed. I will say the new book is DIFFERENT. No guitar players. Four character POVs. Set very solidly in a high school.

#2) In addition to all that, I was traveling earlier in the week. I was at the awesome FAME conference in Florida for a few days where I met authors like Susan Kulkin (NO CHOIRBOY) and Christina Diaz Gonzalez (THE RED UMBRELLA) , who took this cute Twitpic of the two of us, which you can see here. Anyhow, between writing, traveling, child-rearing, housewifery and the various doctors and acupuncture appointments (yes, I'm STILL kind of sick), time has been short. Also, I've been sticking to my guns on the no Internet after school rule (though I'm breaking it right now, though it's Saturday so doesn't really count).

#3) My best friend in the universe, Marjorie Ingall, has her first review in the New York Times Book Review this week. This is exciting for several reasons: Marjorie is OBSESSED with children's books. As a reader, not so much as a writer so reviewing, which she does extensively on her blog and for her column in Tablet is a natural move for her. So, Times, YAY. Also, YAY for Times to have someone as smart and funny as Marjorie writing reviews. Also, one of the books in the review, Adam Gidwitz's A TALE DARK & GRIMM is my editor's book. Marjorie loved it. Actually, her daughter, who stole my ARC, loved it first. I loved it. The book is AWESOME.

#4) I am trying hard to tune out the election results. Americans, we are SHORTSIGHTED people with little understanding of economics. Look, a faltering economy is like a malnourished child with bronchitis. You treat the bronchitis but nobody's getting better while malnourished. Why people think the way to cure the economy is to take away stimulus money. Yes deficit is big and bad and scary. BUT THAT'S BECAUSE OF THE TWO WARS THAT WEREN'T ON THE BOOKS AND BECAUSE OF THE DEFICIT THE CURRENT PRESIDENT INHERITED AND BECAUSE WHEN THE ECONOMY SUCKS THE TAX REVENUE PLUMMETS. HEALTHY ECONOMY AND DEFICITS GO DOWN. I always think people will not repeat past mistakes. But we are Americans. We want quick fixes. Which never work. Okay, I stop now.

#5) Sarah Dessen has been Tweeting about Friday Night Lights, which again brings home the inequity of Those With DirecTV and Those Without. I don't even have cable so you know where I fall. I must wait until NEXT SPRING for my dose of Dillon. And on top of that, this is the last season. I sad. At least we still have Mad Men!

#6) Many people asking me many things about the If I Stay movie. I basically know what you know. Dakota is in talks to play Mia but nothing is finalized as far as I know. There is a new director named Heitor Dhalia who is from Brazil and who made this INCREDIBLE movie you can't get here called Adrift. I know lots of people are worried that Dakota has blonde hair and Mia is a brunette to which I say that if Dakota does wind up being Mia (and I think she'd knock it out of the park), to chillax: HAIR DYE!

#61/2 I have to give congratulations to two books that I love that just got big honors. Jandy Nelson's THE SKY IS EVERYWHERE was longlisted for the UK's Carnegie Medal and US the Association of Booksellers for Children named SKY one of their New Voice Picks for outstanding debuts in 2010! And John Green and David Levithan's WILL GRAYSON, WILL GRAYSON was Amazon.com's #1 Teen Book for 2010 and #12 pick overall! Double Yay!

say cheesey

I hate author photos. Really hate them. The photo on the back of my first book is one that my husband took of me behind a Chinese temple. It almost lost out to a picture of me and a monkey and an Chinese peasant. The publishers were scared the old man might find us and sue. Given how much he extorted to have his picture taken with a monkey, I would not be surprised. My second picture, I had professionally done–by my neighbor, Laina, in my back yard; it was a low-key as possible–and I've used that one for six years. This year, my people said it was time to update the photo. I was just starting to contemplate the process when the incredibly talented Sonya Sones took this amazing shot of me at the LA Times Book Festival and when we saw it, a bunch of hotshot YA authors and me all thought the same thing: Author Photo.

It was a great photo. Except there was one problem, which both my husband and editor caught, a slight look of smugness. Or as one of the hotshot authors who first saw the shot said: "The look in your eyes says I'm a NYT Bestselling author and you're not."

That is not the look I'm going for. The look I"m going for is "I'm nice lady baker and I just whipped up 500 blueberry scones and you ALL can have one!"

So, I started talking to other photographers. My earlier conversations had all been maddening. Crazy talk about licensing agreements and tack-on photo shoots and assistants and I was like, "dude, I just want to go to the park under the Manhattan Bridge and take some pictures."

In the end, that's what we did. Just me and Nick and the fancy SLR Canon we bought a few months ago (hey, IRS, it was SO a legit business expense!).  It took about 200 shots to find one that'll work. Here are some of the out-takes.

This first shot is actually what an author head shot would look like if I ruled the world. Totally candid. Me laughing because Nick said something naughty. But it won't fly with the People because you can't see my eyes. Or, like my face. But it proves the universal truth. We are prettiest when we laugh. Except when milk snorts out our noses.

In this picture, I totally have Zoe Fleefenbacher hair. The Laurie Halse Anderson's picture book character about the girl with the wild red hair. In fact, the first time I met Laurie, she said to me: "You have Zoe Fleefenbacher hair." I think she was right. My hair here is about to start juggling.

And yet more Zoe.

This is probably what I most look like in life. Mouth open, talking, arm out gesticulating. But you don't want your author photo to look like you. It should look like a better more interesting version of you. With better hair.

The final selection.  The WINNER. I don't know that I'm giving off the vibe of COME OVER! I MADE SCONES! But I do look appropriately worn out as if I HAD just baked all those scones. And friendly, I hope. It's all about the smile. A closed-mouth smiles make me look bitchy but the open-mouth smiles make me squint. So strange. So this was the winner. And notice the bridge (significance to be revealed upon reading WHERE SHE WENT) in background. Also, this photo has some similarity to my now retiring author photo.

Speaking of that photo, I know black and white is kinder to the skin, but boy, it's only been five years, why do I feel and look so much older?

Must be all that wisdom, right?

Ugh, such drama. My next author photo will be this: