P.J. Hoover's Blog, page 87

Roundup in the Middle of the Week

I'm busy talking up my book release party this week, visiting elementary school kids, sending emails. I have to admit, it's such an exciting time. And as a reminder, for anyone living in or around Austin, I'll be having a joint book release party with Jessica Lee Anderson, author of the upcoming BORDER CROSSING.

Sunday, October 18th, 2009
2:00pm
BookPeople

Please come! Please bring your friends. And family. And your friend's families. And their friends. Anyway, you get the idea. We want you there...

Five on a Friday

Happy Friday! Here's my five for the week.

1) Super thank you to all those who chimed in on the son/parent book club. It seems some exist, but nowhere near the number as daughters. Thank you to those who vow to start them! And thank you to those who mentioned the blog post.
Let's get this thing viral!


2) I love this picture of my critique partner's son reading an ARC of THE NAVEL OF THE WORLD.


3) Read recently:

INCARCERON by Catherine Fisher - This was an ARC my editor lent me. The more I think a...

Why Boys Aren't Reading

Some of you may know I volunteer one day a week at my son's elementary school library. Why do I love this?
First, I get to be there when my son's class comes in.Second, the kids recognize me.Third, I'm around books, get to see what's checked out, get to read once all the books are shelved.And fourth, the kids ask me for recommendations. This, I think, is my favorite part. (okay, actually it's seeing my son, but this is a close second).Anyway, most of the time, the kids who ask for recommendati...

Reading for Craft

I wrote a post over at The Enchanted Inkpot the other day titled WISE OLD MAN—CHARACTERS AND CLICHÉ. For it, I dug out a couple of my books on craft, namely THE HERO WITH A THOUSAND FACES by Joseph Campbell and THE WRITER'S JOURNEY by Christopher Vogler. Okay, I watched a couple Star Wars movies, too, but that was sheer good fortune of my kids asking yet again to watch them. Obi Wan and Yoda are definitely nice mentor figures.

Anyway, my point is that while writing the post I realized how long...

Hanging with the gals!

Can I mention how awesome hanging with other authors is? I can? Thanks :)

Hanging out with other authors is priceless. Such a blast. I can't recommend it enough.

Jessica and Me after driving for seven hours :)

Last Thursday and Friday I headed up to Oklahoma to take part in an author panel at the school librarian's conference, Encyclomedia. Our group of ten authors split ourselves into two groups. On Thursday I watched a kick-butt panel with

Stacy Nyikos, author of DRAGON WISHES
Suzanne Morgan Wil...

Encyclomedia 2009 — Here I come!

I'm off at the crack of dawn (actually before) tomorrow morning. I plan to pick up fabulous Austin author Jessica Lee Anderson (author of TRUDY and the upcoming BORDER CROSSING) and head up I35 to Oklahoma City!

It's going to be a fun, fast two days including our author panel, a book signing, a TV interview, and being able to hang out with authors and librarians. How cool is that!

I'm on the Friday panel with the fab authors on the postcard below:


And there's another panel on Thursday with the a...

My Skeleton

Toward the end of last week, I finished a first draft of my new WIP. Sure, it's wonderful to get it done, but there's no way I'd ever, ever let anyone read it. Why? My first draft stage sort of goes something like this:

1) Come up with an idea.
2) Write idea down.
3) Brainstorm while working on something else.
4) Work on outline, character worksheets, settings.
* I stay in stage 4 until I have an outline with something that resembles a plot. This plot has plenty of holes in it, but I'm not so conc...

Five on a Friday

Happy Friday! I feel like I'm finally back in my normal school year groove. I even made it to my son's school library to volunteer today. Love that both copies of THE EMERALD TABLET were checked out!

My five for the week:

1) It's the moment you've all waited so patiently for. Who will get Critter?

Critter's friend is sad. Or if I was pretending to show and not tell, I may say, "Tears pour from Critter's best friend's eye."

Well, it looks like Critter will be heading to the Biltmore because

Beth...

Critter wants to know...

Are you feeling lucky, punk? Are you? Are you?

We've had a wonderful time with Critter here in Texas. Thing about Critter though? He doesn't like to stay in one place for too long. He claims it makes him smell like fish, and seeing as how he's kind of a cow...well...smelling like a fish simply won't do.

Critter made friends, read some great books, and even went to Kung Fu once. He's pretty sure if he hung around here a bit longer he'd get his black belt. But alas, that is not Critter's style.


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Five on a Friday

Hope everyone has a great holiday weekend planned!

My five for the week:

1) Last night read and loved FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX (Nathaniel Fludd, Beastologist) by R.L. LaFevers. I totally recommend it for the 7-10 year old range. My son will LOVE it!
* And on a side note, I'm looking forward to interviewing R.L. LaFevers next month over on The Enchanted Inkpot.

2) We're on season 3 of Star Trek: The Next Generation. You know, this is the season where they change uniforms and get more in touch with th...