Daisy Whitney's Blog, page 27

Sometimes a Scene is an Outfit, Sometimes a Pair of Shoes

I love shoes and I love buying shoes and I love figuring out what to wear with shoes. Because sometimes you have to build the whole outfit around those fabulous new peep toe shoes or your new gray leather ankle boots or the shiny Mary Janes.

Sometimes it's like that with scenes too. You might have a joke, or a cute bit of dialogue or even a fabulous setting you simply must include in your novel. And when you feel that way, you quickly start figuring out how to build the perfect outfit around i...

Teen Trends: Web Sites and Services (Part Three in a Three-Part Series)

After learning about fashion, retail and consumer product trends for young consumers, here's a look at key web trends for the youth demographic, thanks to the Cassandra Report.

About three-quarters of trendsetting 14 to 18 year olds check their social networking profile daily, with 16% checking 3 to 5 times a day.Among trendsetting teens, about 55% percent have a MySpace page and average 353 contacts, while 85% have a Facebook profile and average 353 contacts.When it comes to media...

Teen Trends: Consumer Products (Second in a Three-Part Series)

Yesterday we looked at fashion and retail trends for young consumers. Today let's look at the consumer products capturing the hearts and minds of young consumers, according to the Cassandra Report.

Food and Beverage Trends – Cool, Goat, Food Swapping, Foodzie, Yelp Power, Smart Choices, Interactive Video Game Cookbook, Butterball Talk Turkey 2.0.  Smart Marketing: Free Stuff For Voters, The Economist Pizza Boxes, Dos Equis Most Interesting Show In The World.
Favorite Beverage Brand – Coke is...

Teen Trends: Fashion and Retail (First in a Three-Part Series)

Teenagers are a coveted group for marketers. They're brand-conscious and they're at an age where they're starting to make some life-long choices about brands and what they prefer. Of course, teenagers are a fickle bunch too, which makes them challenging and fun to try to reach.
Of course, this is a group that young adult authors are absolutely trying to connect with, so I thought I'd track down some broad market research on what teens like and don't like as a way to better understand who may b...

"The Mockingbirds" Word Art

It's kind of like a vanity license plate, but Wordle is still fun. After visiting fellow young adult author Kirsten Hubbard's blog today and checking out her word art, I plugged "The Mockingbirds" into Worldle too. Here's what it came back with…

This Week in Books

As a reporter covering new media, I've written about a fascinating trend in the last few years – consumers creating their own ads for brands. Apple fans have done this as have fans (and foes) of numerous other products from Heinz to Chevy.

This week, I got to experience it! A fabulous book blogger created a mock cover for my novel, THE MOCKINGBIRDS. The lovely Bri of "BriMeetsBooks" listed the four reasons why she wants to read my book when it releases next fall! And my books doesn't have a...

My cat followed me to school in junior high and now I picture that school in every book I read

Whenever I read a story set in high school — and I read a lot of stories set in high school — I always picture the same high school. Oddly enough, it's my the layout and look of junior high but it's somehow transmuted into a fictional image of a high school.

For instance, as I read "Evermore," "Cracked up to Be," "The Naughty List," "North of Beautiful" and others, I imagined all the school scenes taking place at a school up on a hill, with a U-shaped main hallway/classroom area, a huge field ...

I left my novel on the operating room table…

If I were on Grey's Anatomy, I'd have been fired. (Wait, scratch that. I'd just be on probation and then I'd save a patient's life with my bedside manner and hopefulness and everything would be fine again).

My crime? I left the patient (my novel) cut open on the operating table. Cruel? Nah, there are gobs of painkiller and anesthesia flowing into the patient right now.

OK, let me explain myself. While THE MOCKINGBIRDS was on submission to publishers (Little Brown will publish it in 2010!) I...

Digital or The Real Thing?

I recently received a package of books from my editor at Little, Brown. (Yes, this is one of the coolest moments in landing a book deal — it's like the Welcome Wagon of the publishing business.) The package included beautiful picture books like "Martha Doesn't Say Sorry" and "Birdie's Big Girl Shoes," cool books for grade school readers like "School of Fear" and "The Unusual Mind of Vincent Shadow," and several gorgeous young adult novels like "Prophecy of the Sisters" and "Ghost Girl."...

Get a dog! (Daisy's tips for writers)

I recently wrote a list of ten pieces of advice for aspiring writers and I left the most important one off the list! That piece of advice being — GET A DOG!

The list is for an interview the amazing young adult author Courtney Summers did with me for her blog. She asked me to give some advice to other writers going through their own twists and turns on the path to publication.

Here's the revised list.

Top Ten Tips for Writers

1a. Get a dog: You need a dog because you will face a roadblock at some ...