Archives
Posted by Justine at 0:00, September 30th, 2008 under Bloggery, Cons & Other Gatherings, New York City/USA, Praising, Reading, Science, State of the World, Travelling, Writing & Publishing, Zombies, young adult literature |
Posted by Justine at 0:00, September 29th, 2008 under Cons & Other Gatherings, How To Ditch Your Fairy, New York City/USA, Travelling, What's your fairy?, Writing & Publishing, young adult literature |
Posted by Justine at 0:16, September 28th, 2008 under Cons & Other Gatherings, How To Ditch Your Fairy, Writing & Publishing |
The New York Liberty
won the first game of the Eastern Conference Finals. It was an ugly win. An ugly game. The only grace notes were Deanna Nolan's gorgeous shooting---I swear she stays up in the air for seconds at a time, she looks great even when she misses---the great turnout, and the fact that we won.
I didn't think it was possible for me to hate Bill Laimbeer more than I do. But his performance tonight pushed my hate a few notches upward. How he managed not to get a delay of game call or a technical I will never understand. Sit down, Bill!
Later today I will be in Larchmont, which is a mere twenty minutes from Grand Central:
Saturday, ...
Posted by Justine at 0:27, September 27th, 2008 under Basketball, Cons & Other Gatherings, How To Ditch Your Fairy, Sport, Writing & Publishing |
Posted by Justine at 0:00, September 26th, 2008 under New York City/USA, Next novel, Ranting, State of the World, Writing & Publishing, Zombies |
Beef jerky is good.
A lint brush is essential.
A publicist with a sense of humour and a better memory than anyone alive is vastly excellent indeed.
Publicists are all convinced that authors have the worst memories ever. I suspect they are right.
I know that some writers get heaps of work done while on tour but I am most definitely not one of them.
Q & A is always the best part of an appearance. Though I already knew that.
No one wants to hear an author read. Boring!
If you must be stuck in a dread car for ages it's best to have witty, entertaining company and be in a convertible.
School visits are best when the ...
Posted by Justine at 0:02, September 25th, 2008 under How To Ditch Your Fairy, Writing & Publishing |
Posted by Justine at 0:05, September 24th, 2008 under How To Ditch Your Fairy, What's your fairy?, Writing & Publishing |
The sun is shining, the sky is clear, you can see the entire length of the avenue, the Chrysler Building gleams and last night the
New York Liberty made it into the conference finals. Let's go, Liberty! (And San Antonio got through to their conference finals. Oh, how I long for those two to meet in the WNBA finals. That would make my year!)
My editor loves my new book, work is going great on the even newer book---how much fun is it researching NYC in the thirties? VERY FUN---and HTDYF keeps getting
lovely reviews. In my world everything is fabulous. ((*Cough* It helps to not read newspapers or news blogs.))
How about youse lot? I had to shut down ...
Posted by Justine at 12:40, September 23rd, 2008 under Basketball, Cons & Other Gatherings, How To Ditch Your Fairy, Liar Book, New York City/USA, Praising, Sport, Writing & Publishing, young adult literature |
Posted by Justine at 0:00, September 23rd, 2008 under Magic Lessons, Magic or Madness, Magic! Magic! Magic! Oi! Oi! Oi!/Magic's Child, Writing & Publishing |
Because you deserve it, some more YA author fairies for your delectation:
Penni Russon, author of the wondrous Undine trilogy, has a most useful fairy:
I have a voice recognition fairy - with her help I can always pick out celebrity voices in animations. As you might imagine this is a very useful skill and has served me well on numerous occasions.
I wish I had a zen master fairy to help with the parenting of the children.
Lauren Myracle, author of the amazing and terrifying Bliss, had this to say when I asked her what her fairy is:
My Starbucks fairy simply loves Starbucks and steers me toward one EVERY DAY, regardless of any opinion *I* might have on the ...
Posted by Justine at 0:00, September 22nd, 2008 under Cons & Other Gatherings, How To Ditch Your Fairy, What's your fairy? |
I'm getting lots of questions about the HTDYF tour and how it's going etc. I'll be posting about the first leg of the tour---Northern California---in the next few days. In the meantime what I've loved most is meeting other lovers of YA books---students, readers, booksellers, sales reps, teachers, librarians---and talking about our favourite books. It's been a blast. Especially this year when there have been so many amazing books.
I can't wait to find out what everyone's reading in
Philadelphia, Larchmont, and next week in Michigan.
Oh, and don't forget, next week is
Banned Books Week as this
excellent editorial reminded me. (Via
Lisa Yee.)
Posted by Justine at 15:39, September 21st, 2008 under Cons & Other Gatherings, How To Ditch Your Fairy, Reading, Writing & Publishing, young adult literature |
I have never published a photo of a cat on my blog before. This is because I believe it is a cheap way to gain visitors to your blog. I have vowed never to stoop so low.
However, I recently stopped in at
Borderlands Books to say hi to Jude and sign stock. A visit to Borderlands also means hanging out with Ripley the store cat.
Ripley is the weirdest looking cat I have ever seen. She's a
Sphynx, who are hairless space aliens. Ripley was recovering from surgery and attired in an old t-shirt to protect her stitches. This made her somewhat grumpy. As it would.
Fortunately there is now a second Borderlands cat, Ash, who deigned ...
Posted by Justine at 16:59, September 20th, 2008 under Cons & Other Gatherings, How To Ditch Your Fairy, Writing & Publishing |
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz . . .
Posted by Justine at 14:42, September 19th, 2008 under How To Ditch Your Fairy, Writing & Publishing |
Scott here, guest-blogging from the West Coast Tour Command Center (aka Room 401). Justine is out talking to kids at schools, so I'm holding down the fort (aka ordering room service). This is just a reminder that Justine has a gig at Not Your Mother's Book Club tonight (aka Thursday, Sep 18).
The store is Books Inc.
The address is 601 Van Ness.
The city is San Francisco.
The time: 7PM.
We hope to see you there!
And just because I'm briefly in control of Justine's blog: it's 'color,' not 'colour.' That's because we save our u's for this:
U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!
(I'm in so much trouble. Heh.)
Posted by Justine at 14:30, September 18th, 2008 under Cons & Other Gatherings, How To Ditch Your Fairy, Writing & Publishing |
Because they have signs like this at the entrance to their school libraries:
Isn't that absolutely wonderful? Made me so happy!
Yesterday I got many texts telling me that How To Ditch Your Fairy had been
boingled. Thank you, Cory! And
Whatever'd. Thank you, Scalzi! And
Slayground'd! Thank you, Little Willow! I also learned that HTDYF is on the
Lone Star list. Since Texas is my favourite state in the union ((Other than all the other ones I love.)) that pretty much made my day too.
To quickly answers some questions: The tour is going fabulously. I'm having the time of my life. I heart all the bookshops I've been ...
Posted by Justine at 10:33, September 17th, 2008 under Cons & Other Gatherings, How To Ditch Your Fairy, New York City/USA, Writing & Publishing |
Today is the official publication day of How To Ditch Your Fairy in North America. To celebrate I am doing
what I did for Magic's Child: sharing the first sentence of each chapter of HTDYF.
As usual my concern is to protect you, the potential reader of the novel, from unnecessary spoilerage. Because there is nothing worse. NOTHING. Hence there is a small amount of redaction. Trust me, it is for your own good.
Without further ado, behold the How To Ditch Your Fairy first sentences:
1. My [redacted] looked funny in the [redacted], which is odd because my [redacted] are tiny. ((You'll have to read the book to find out what [redacteds] are. Although I worry that it is only ...
Posted by Justine at 12:00, September 16th, 2008 under How To Ditch Your Fairy, Writing & Publishing |
A while back I asked my faithful blog readers
what their fairy is or what fairy they wanted. Twas a popular post so in honour of the imminent publication of my latest book,
How To Ditch Your Fairy, set in a world where almost everyone has a personal fairy, I asked these questions of a tonne of writers. I'll be sharing their answers with you over the next few months.
Here's what
John Green, multiple-award winning author and all-round good guy, had to say:
The fairy I most wish I had at the moment is the Dog Whisperer fairy, because then I would understand why Willy just peed inside.
I seem to have something of a Spare Change fairy. I ...
Posted by Justine at 22:04, September 15th, 2008 under Bloggery, How To Ditch Your Fairy, What's your fairy?, Writing & Publishing |
My
imminent tour---I get on a plane to California in a matter of hours---has left me contemplating the one bad thing about book tours: junk food. Sometimes while going from school visit to book shop appearance there's little time for eating and the options available are limited to substances I would rather not eat. ((How do I know this? From accompanying Scott on his tour and from hearing tales of other people's tours.)) I does not like the junk food.
I have nothing against anyone else consuming it, but me, I does not want to. My lack of junk food love never used to be a problem back home. But here in the US many people are personally insulted by ...
Posted by Justine at 0:00, September 14th, 2008 under Cons & Other Gatherings, Food, How To Ditch Your Fairy, Writing & Publishing |
Just to let you all know that the mighty
How To Ditch Your Fairy Tour begins on Monday in Northern California. For all those complaining that I'm not going to Southern California:
it's not up to me, it's down to demand and my publicist.
The tour page is constantly being updated with correct addresses and times and extra events. Today I added a couple of in-store stock signings as well as the address and time for the Schuler's event in Walker, Michigan.
What is an in-store stock signing you ask? It means I'll be stopping in at a book shop and signing but I won't be reading, or doing Q&A, or juggling, or anything fancy. But if you're ...
Posted by Justine at 0:01, September 13th, 2008 under Bloggery, Cons & Other Gatherings, How To Ditch Your Fairy, New York City/USA, Writing & Publishing |
1) The fabulous
Guarina Lopez, who is a genius with the camera and took
my author photo as well as
Diana Peterfreund's, now has a
truly gorgeous website showcasing her beautiful work.
Check it out!
2) The Magic or Madness trilogy has sold in Korea! Woo hoo! Chungeorahm Publishing have made a very lovely offer for the trilogy and I have said yes! For those keeping count the trilogy is now published in
eleven different countries: Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and the United States. My happiness is huge. All hail
Whitney Lee of
The Fielding Agency who made the majority of those sales. She's incredible.
Posted by Justine at 0:00, September 12th, 2008 under Magic Lessons, Magic or Madness, Magic! Magic! Magic! Oi! Oi! Oi!/Magic's Child, Praising, Viewing, Writing & Publishing |
I subscribe to Publishers Marketplace cause I like to see what deals are going down in publishing land. Every so often an announced book sounds awesome. This one recently caught my eye:
CHILDREN'S: YOUNG ADULT
Michael Printz Honor winner Marilyn Nelson's CONJOINED TWINS, the story of Millie/Christine McCoy, a 19th century African-American conjoined twin stolen at birth and sold into slavery to a showman, who became fluent in five languages and as an accomplished pianist became known as "The Two-Headed Nightingale," performing with the Barnum circus, and a narrative about Seneca Village, a significant community of African American property owners in 19th century Manhattan, whose homes and identity were erased with the creation of Central Park, to Lauri Hornik at Dial, by ...
Posted by Justine at 0:00, September 11th, 2008 under Writing & Publishing |
I was chatting with my trusted partener in time wasting friend,
Mr Scalzi, in a fairly desultory manner when we made the startling discovery that both of us hates signing books with a Sharpie. And yet that is what we most often are given when we do signings.
What gives?
Sharpies bleed all over the page and their line is way too thick. They're pretty much useless for signing books. Great for graffiting toilets and making posters but for book signing? Hopeless!
Why do we keep being given them to sign with? Anyone know? Care to venture a theory?
Are there writers who actually like signing with Sharpies?
For those wondering we both deal with the problem by bringing our own trusted signing pens. ...
Posted by Justine at 0:00, September 10th, 2008 under Whingeing, Writing & Publishing |
I stopped studying maths in Year 7. Before that I'd made a bit of an effort but in my first year of high school (in New South Wales high school starts in Year 7) I downed tools. I was bored, annoyed, and couldn't see the point so I quit. Technically I kept going to maths class---it was compulsory until the end of Year 10---but I failed each year and was never made to repeat. I didn't learn anything new after Year 6.
At the time I thought it was excellent that I could get away with it. In class I read novels under the desk. I never studied and finished my maths exams quicker than anyone else cause I guessed all ...
Posted by Justine at 0:00, September 9th, 2008 under Basketball, Bloggery, Excuses, Magic Lessons, Magic or Madness, Magic! Magic! Magic! Oi! Oi! Oi!/Magic's Child, New York City/USA, Praising, Science, Sport, State of the World, Sydney/Australia, Writing & Publishing |
Starting on Monday 15 September I will be
roaming around the US of A teaching people how to get rid of fairies that annoy them. It's a tough job but someone has to do it.
Next week will be all northern California, then there'll be a bit of a break with stops in Philadelphia and New York, before I set out for Michigan, Ohio, and Missouri. Then in November there will be some Texas appearances. That's right, my tour covers seven different states. Not bad, eh? Full details can be found
here. Complaints about my not going to your town or your state should be sent to my publicist. You can find her
address here.
This is my very ...
Posted by Justine at 0:00, September 8th, 2008 under Cons & Other Gatherings, How To Ditch Your Fairy, Writing & Publishing |
Several people seem to think that any book or movie that does not pass the
Bechdel-Wallace test is therefore evil and wrong. Nothing could be further from the truth. I can think of lots of wonderful movies and books that do not pass. The point is not about individual books or films, it's about the bigger picture, which is that we live in a world where very few movies pass.
If things were more even if, say, even thirty per cent of mainstream movies dealt with female experiences, then there'd be no need for such a test. But we're no where near that.
However, I can tell you right now that YA as a whole is doing absolutely fine. The ...
Posted by Justine at 0:00, September 6th, 2008 under Writing & Publishing |
Because I've spent the ENTIRE MORNING on hold with AT&T. And people wonder why I HATE the phone.
Posted by Justine at 11:57, September 5th, 2008 under State of the World, Whingeing |
Lately, I've been receiving a slew of lovely fan letters mostly about HTDYF but also about the trilogy. More than I've ever received before. Thank you so much.
I'm really sorry I haven't replied yet. Right now there are more than three thousand emails in my inbox. And lots and lots and lots of other more pressing matters---you know, the kind that pay bills---have to be dealt with before I can get to the non-urgent email. Please forgive me.
Obviously I'm not very good at managing my time, but I'm working on it. I will get to your letters I just don't know when. Please bear with me.
In the meantime, I remain committed to blogging every day. So if all else fails ...
Posted by Justine at 0:39, September 5th, 2008 under Excuses, How To Ditch Your Fairy, Magic Lessons, Magic or Madness, Magic! Magic! Magic! Oi! Oi! Oi!/Magic's Child |
Maureen Johnson has surpassed herself with
this post on the importance of honest sex education.
Go read it.
Posted by Justine at 0:00, September 5th, 2008 under Bloggery, New York City/USA, State of the World |
Meg Cabot just wrote something wrong on the internet! It really pains me to take her to task because, as I may have mentioned one or two times, I am a huge Meg Cabot fan. I adore her books, her fashion sense, her blog. She is quite possibly the most fabulous person in YA. Pointing out her wrongness, well, ouch.
But here goes. In
her latest post she made the following claims:
I think some people, when they're asking authors about inspiration, are actually mistaking the word inspiration for motivation, ie, "What motivates authors (motivation = willingness to complete a sometimes onerous task) to sit there and keep their butt in a chair for so long that they’re able to finish ...
Posted by Justine at 0:00, September 4th, 2008 under Bloggery, Ranting, Writing & Publishing |
I've been thinking about the
Bechdel-Wallace test which comes from
this twenty-year old comic strip. A movie or book pases if:
1. It has at least two women in it,
2. Who talk to each other,
3. About something besides a man.
I'm very proud that all my books pass the test. But then so do the books of the majority of women writers. And I can think of quite a few YAs by blokes that pass. It's Hollywood movies that really suck at this test. To such an extent that if you were to apply it you would see very few movies.
It depresses me that twenty years on the test is still an accurate ...
Posted by Justine at 3:11, September 3rd, 2008 under Viewing, Writing & Publishing |
It's so lovely to have you writing and commenting here on the blog asking me to come to your neck of the woods. I'm dead chuffed and flattered. Thank you!
Tragically, it's not up to me. My tour is organised by my publisher, Bloomsbury. More specifically the wonderful Deb Shapiro is the tour boss. She's the one who spends ages finding out which book shops/trade shows/schools are interested in having me show up. Then she had to check all the possibilities, check my availability, and then line up all the places and dates to make it all fit together. Having fans in an area is not enough to guarantee an appearance.
According to the venerable agent,
Molly Friedrich, being a publicist ...
Posted by Justine at 21:20, September 2nd, 2008 under Cons & Other Gatherings, How To Ditch Your Fairy, Writing & Publishing |
On 16 September
How To Ditch Your Fairy will find its way on to the book shelves of the USA and Canada. I am vastly excited.
Why am I excited? you ask.
I mean, yes, this is my fourth novel. You would think that I'd be jaded and bored with the whole thing by now and yet I am not. Here's why:
This is my first novel in 18 months. Yes, it's been a veritable drought!
It's my first non-Magic or Madness novel. I will confess that by book three I was bored out of my gourd with Reason and Tom and Jay-Tee. ((I don't know how authors of long-running series do it. I think I'd kill myself.)) It was a ...
Posted by Justine at 13:55, September 2nd, 2008 under Cons & Other Gatherings, How To Ditch Your Fairy, Writing & Publishing |
A note to those who threaten me with the loss of their readership if I express opinions contrary to their own:
Goodbye!
If I worried about what each and every potential reader thought of me I wouldn't write novels. I wouldn't keep a blog. I wouldn't express opinions out loud. Hell, I wouldn't venture outside my house for fear of saying something that might accidentally offend someone.
I have news for you: Many of the writers/actors/politicians/sportspeople you admire hold at least one or two opinions you don't. Do you seriously want to silence them all?
I have been known to disagree with some of my favourite writers and bloggers. Me, I use voodoo dolls when they say wrong things. But I'd never be so ...
Posted by Justine at 18:22, September 1st, 2008 under Writing & Publishing |
Steam + eucaplytus oil
It may not cure anything but, damn, it eases the symptoms.
You?
Posted by Justine at 9:28, September 1st, 2008 under Excuses, Praising |
