WOULD YOU LIKE SOME POPCORN WITH THIS UPDATE?

Okay.  So.

I've kept a secret from you. My adult sci-fi romance, DEGREES OF WRONG, released today. It's by Anna Scarlett. Anna Scarlett is me. You can check it out here. If you liked the snark and romance of OF POSEIDON, and don't mind your characters in their 20s, you'll probably love DoW.
***END SHAMELESS SELF PROMO***

For those of you wondering, my YA publisher, Feiwel and Friends, requested that I use a pen name for any adult works, so that my adult identity and YA identity are distinguished from one another. What do you think about this, hmmm? I've been getting mixed responses on the subject.

Also, book tour is OVAH! And it was...supercalifragilisticexpealidocious. If you think you're nervous to meet an author, just know that we're nervous to meet you too. Unless of course, you're high on Benadryl, like I was the entire tour. Then you're not so nervous as you are obnoxious, insane, and...charming? Hopefully?

Along those lines, I apologize in advance to all of you who are attending Austin Teen Book Fest this year, because I will be there and there is a fantastic chance I will be misbehaving as usual.

For all my writer friends, here is a juicy tidbit of advice: YES the second novel is harder to write than the first. If writing the first was like giving birth, writing the second is like giving birth to a litter of adult porcupines. I'm in editing with Of Triton now, and thankfully, the edits are minimal. But. Holy. Crap. It was harder to write. I didn't want to turn it in. I was convinced it sucked. I pushed it until deadline, in fact.

Which leads me to this point for my writer friends: When you get published, you may not want to read your reviews. Sure, you won't be able to stop yourself when the ARCs come out. But for all the great ones, there WILL BE NEGATIVE ONES. Absurdly evil ones, even. You need to decide now if this will affect you as a writer. And if it will, don't read them.

Because it affected me. I didn't WANT to write the sequel. I was convinced I couldn't do anything right. I began to doubt myself as a writer, and I didn't exactly have the confidence to spare in the first place. I began to think that my getting an agent/book deal/book tour was a freaking fluke. Yes, a freaking one. No matter how much everyone else loved it, if I came across a negative review, it hit me hard for a long time.

Which is why, even after you land an agent and a book deal, you still need to prep yourself for rejection. A writer's life is full of it, no matter who you are. Get used to it.

And keep going!