And then I was like, How did that happen so fast? How did I miscalculate so badly? Because yesterday I was saying I hoped to finish my first draft by Saturday and then…POOF! I finished it last night. When I realized I was only a tiny bit away I got a rush of excitement and started writing like a maniac and then…I finished it! I finished a draft!

Now I have to go back and read it, see what the heck I actually wrote.

There’s still a lot of work to do before I show it to my editor. I have lots of highlighted notes through the manuscript, things like SHOW HER FACE and WHAT ABOUT DAD. Generally just smoothing things out and making sure it all makes sense. I’m hoping it does, because I don’t really go back and read what I’ve written until it’s all done. I’ll read the previous chapter to see what just happened and to pick up the feel of where I was, but I don’t edit as I go.

Ever since I moved to New York I’ve wanted to go to a tickertape parade. Even though I didn’t watch a single game of the series—or of the entire season—this year I was determined to go.

I went to Lower Manhattan, and I saw the crowds, the bits of paper floating high up around the skyscrapers. I even saw the tops of some of the people in the parade, although no players. I saw a woman sitting on a bench in front of the Hilton, her Ugg-ed feet resting in her own vomit while she cried into the bushes. People cheered, people pushed but didn’t shove, some were a little drunk, but from where I was it seems to have all gone off pretty well. It definitely was not the nightmare that the Thanksgiving Day Parade is. Oh, Lord. I do not recommend that one. Even though I totally saw Clay Aiken float by, which was awesome in its awfulness.

Checking this off the list!


Looking toward W Broadway and the parade route

Can you see the bits of paper floating?

Climbing up on a sanitaion truck to get a peek

In case you hadn’t heard, it’s Teen Read Week, and this year’s theme is Read Beyond Reality. Check your local library for happenings, or just make sure you read a good book this week (as if that’s any different from any other week!).

I’ve started following Jessica Watson, the 16-year-old Australian girl who is hoping to become the youngest person to sail solo, nonstop and unassisted around the world.

Yeah. And what was/is your goal at 16, hmmm?

Jessica is updating her blog as she goes along—how she does that in the middle of the sea, I have no idea. You can also go to her web site and see the route she’s planning to take. I’m more worried about her running into pirates than having troubles with her boat—which is pink, by the way. Today’s update talks about getting across the start line and being out on her own, where she can now eat what she wants and stay up late without her parents telling her to go to bed!

Happy teen reading, and go Jessica!

Wow, work is cranking along on my BFF Breakup novel. Almost 90 pages in three weeks—that’s a record for me! Admittedly, it’s what we call a sh*tty first draft (sorry! But it’s a real industry term. I think), but I’m shocked at how much progress I’ve made in a short amount of time. I’m really into the story and have been so good with sticking to my writing schedule, so I guess the combo is working in my favor!

Right now I'm taking a break to write a letter to Rachel Cohn. An actual, real letter. And if you're Facebook friends with her, you should too. In honor of her new book, Very LeFreak (which is very le good), she is detoxing from all electronics for one whole week. She's asked for real, actual letters and guarantees a response. She gave the address on her Facebook but I feel weird putting it here. So go find her there, and then write her a letter!
 

Okay everyone, listen up.

Last Friday, girls' night out, Whip It. We'd been dying to see this movie, and when we decided to out sans guys we thought it was the perfect movie to see. We bought our tickets early and got to the theater 20 minutes before showtime.

When we got to there, I was shocked to see that the theater was barely half full. When the trailers began I got extra worried. A John Travolta and Robin Williams “comedy”? Seriously? I started to wonder how bad Whip It would be if no one was there and there were crappy trailers showing.

But it was just as good as I hoped it would be! It’s a fun movie, if slightly flawed. It makes you feel good to be a girl. The soundtrack is amazing. The casting is incredible—Ellen Page is to die for, Kristin Wiig isn’t all character-y, Juliette Lewis is a punk rock goddess, and there’s a new Wilson brother on the screen (did you know Luke and Owen have another brother?)! Plus it’s directed by a girl—hi, Drew Barrymore!

Stars a girl. Directed by a girl. About girls. Tell me again why you haven’t seen it?

It’s such a fun, heartfelt movie about growing up, mothers, boys, best friends and doing what you want. I was so bummed when I saw how poorly it did at the box office that I had to scratch my head about it. My friend sent me this article pondering the same question.

Linda Holmes of NPR has an idea of why it didn’t do well:

“…it's a sports movie about a team of women, it's got a cast chosen mostly for suitability and not perceived hotness, and it's warmly funny but almost wisecrack-free. Of course, all these things are box-office poison.”

I highly recommend this movie if you're looking for something to see this weekend. And bring the guys! They'll like it too!

Have a great weekend! I'm attacking my book this weekend with renewed force, while the Whip It soundtrack plays in my earbuds.

Over the summer she’d mentioned them on her blog, and had even gone to the Betsy-Tacy house in Minnesota. I wondered what the big deal with the books were—they were published in the 40s and set in the early 1900s, and lots of girls my age and my parent’s age had read them as kids and still love them today. There’s a Betsy-Tacy Society and there was a Betsy-Tacy convention this summer, so you know these girls are not messing around.

The books have been reissued with their original cover art, and one of the things the society did was to get their members to convert a reader to these wonderful books, and Susann chose me! Admittedly, I was excited about the free book, and of course I am interested in anything that comes out of Meg Cabot’s mouth, so I was ready to read.

Susann sent me Heaven to Betsy and Betsy in Spite of Herself (the high school books come with two books in one). I finished the first book just last night.

Now, I am a huge Little Women fan. I’ve been to Louisa May Alcott’s house in Concord three times, and when I’m in Boston I love strolling by her home there at 10 Louisburg Square in Beacon Hill. I collected old copies of the Little Women series (I’m talking old, like printed in the 1870s) and I love the movie with Winona Ryder and Kirsten Dunst. So I was a little skeptical that I might love these books as much.

There’s lots to love here. Betsy and Tacy, although they are best friends, do find their own groups of friends as they enter their first year of high school but are still best friends. And there are boys galore in Heaven to Betsy which, come on, who doesn’t love? Betsy is a writer-in-the-making and I love how she said, “It’s good for writers to suffer.” I liked the every-girlness of this book--Betsy has a regular family and makes regular grades, she messes up sometimes and has boy drama and fakes being sick and skips out on homework sometimes—who can’t relate?

I’m so glad I’m finally in on these books. I feel like I'm part of the club now. They are super-innocent, so I had to grit it up with the next book I’m reading—Courtney Sheinmel’s Positively. But I think once I finish that I’ll go back to the second book in the high school series, Betsy in Spite of Herself.

Thanks, Susann, for letting me in on this!
 

(Side: I wonder if that will end up being the real title in the end? Is it a good title? It certainly sums up the book better than anything else I can imagine.)

The secret to getting lots of work done at the Writers Room is this:

Everyone at the Writers Room knows and loves this jar of unlimited M&M’s. It is as important to our days as coffee and our computers.

I’ve put in a ton of hours already at the Writers Room working on my new book, and I’m hoping it’s time well spent because so far, I’m really having fun writing it. That is SUCH a good sign. I used to really hate writing. It felt like torture, having to sit alone in front of computer for hours on end not only making up a story but making up one that made sense and was engaging. Hopefully I’ve learned a thing or two in the four or so books I’ve written.

Right now my most trusted reader, Sarah, is reading over the first five chapters. Eek! Very scary, as it’s the first bits that’s been seen by anyone (except the proposal). Once Sarah gives me her thoughts on it I’ll send it to my editor and see if she thinks I’m on the right track because, really, Kate’s opinion is the one that matters the most. Thankfully Sarah is an excellent editor, who sometimes writes things in the margins like, “I don’t like her right now,” or, “SO TRUE!” We’ve been reading each other’s stuff for like 7 years now, so she doesn’t have to sugarcoat anything for me, which is awesome and eliminates any b.s.

Tuesday night I got to go to the book release party of Shani Petroff's book (series!) Bedeviled: Daddy's Little Angel, a book about a girl who finds out her dad is, well, the actual devil. Problems!

There was not only a huge turnout and Angeltinis, but there were cupcakes too! Cocktails, cupcakes and books--not a bad way to spend a Tuesday night.

Shani and I took Micol Ostow's YA writing workshop last fall, and I got to catch up with Micol and just about everyone else from the workshop. All the girls were there and it was so good hearing what everyone was up to. My friend and fellow Mixer P.G. Kain escorted me and got to meet most the girls and say hello again to Micol.

I also got to talk to Heather Duffy-Stone, who I met briefly months ago when we both spoke in Micol's class, but this time I got to actually talk to her. Just as I suspected--she's sweet but cool. Of course, I've long since read her book (This is What I Want to Tell You--so poignant and beautiful it'll make your heart ache) and suspected she was interesting but didn't know how much I'd actually like hanging out with her until last night. Book parties--bringing authors together! 

Congrats again to Shani, and once Media Bistro, who hosted the party, posts pictures, or when she finally does, I'll post some here.

Now go buy Bedeviled!

This book is going to be a good one. I’ll say it now instead of thinking it and hopefully that will come true. I mean, it’s about best friends who break up—what girl can’t relate? And Kate (faboo editor) had a brill idea of how to open the novel, so that’s what I’ve been mulling over all weekend.

The book isn’t due in bookstores until 2011—FOREVER AWAY. The manuscript is due to my editor in April, which isn’t forever away, so it’s back to the Writers Room for me.

One of the great things about meeting your editor is not just the free hot chocolate she’ll spring for at Dean & Delucca—and sometimes even a whole lunch—but it’s the books. Ahhh, the books. Usually when an editor meets one of her writers she might bring along a few books she loves, or that are just coming out, or that haven’t even come out yet. When my greedy little book-addicted paws get on them I buzz with happiness and excitement even though I have 10 books at home in my TBR pile. I can’t help it. I love books, which seems like a dumb thing for an author to say.

So here’s what I got last week. I think it’s more fun to photograph my books than use the Amazon images (snore), so I’ll call this one the Fire Escape Series.









I read the pinkest, cutest book already--Fiona Finklestein: Big-Time Ballerina by Shawn K. Stout, which was just too cute. A book about ballet and meteorology? I'm in! I also caught up on Jessica Burkhart's next books in the Canterwood series. Triple Fault gets down and dirty. Pick a side, girls, it's Jacob vs. Eric in a big way!

I can't wait to read the other two--Lauren is a LJ friend and Nova I have yet to meet but I often see her name signed in at the Writers Room, so we're bound to meet by the M&M's soon. I've been hearing lots of great things about Dani Noir and can't wait to read it.

Why can't my day job be just reading books??

[Currently reading: Boy Toy by Barry Lyga]

 

I bought David Levithan’s new book, LOVE IS THE HIGHER LAW, almost as soon as it came out. I was excited mostly because it’s David Levithan, and he’s now one of those trusted authors who you know will give you a wonderful novel every time. But I found my stomach in cramps when I picked it up last weekend, and decided to read it all at once and get it over with. Because holding the book in my hands and looking at that cover, I realized I really, really didn’t want to read it.

I didn’t want to read it because I remember 9/11. I’d lived in New York less than a month, and when it happened I didn’t understand it. Like, I truly didn’t understand the weight of it. I thought, is this normal? Does this sort of thing happen in New York? Should I be scared? And when I went out on the sidewalks, and they were packed with people rushing passed, a different kind of rush than normal, more of a hazy, dazed rush, and talking on their cells, I started to understand, horribly, slowly, but I understood.

I remember walking to Union Square, not realizing I was walking downtown, toward the fallen towers, instead uptown and away from them, like everyone else. I remember seeing jets fly overhead, and how we all stopped, like we’d been frozen right in the crosswalks, and I knew we were all thinking the same thing—is this what’s next? They bomb us for good measure? And it wasn’t until someone said, “It’s one of ours,” that I could feel the collective breath let out and we went on our lonely ways.

I remember the police cars zooming passed, and how we got out of the way, respectfully, instead of trying to beat them across the crosswalk. “Get back,” people would call, “Let them through.” I remember the soot covering the cars, and the windows blown out the back. I remember deciding to walk to the hospital and give blood, because that seemed like something good to do, a task; I remember the sinking feeling I felt when the nurse at the door—literally at the door—turned a half dozen of us away, shaking her head saying, “We don’t have anyone.” How we all realized then what that meant—they either got out or they didn’t.

I remember going out to a bar that afternoon, because I couldn’t get home across the bridge to Brooklyn, and how every place was packed fully, at 3 on a Tuesday afternoon, everyone just wanting to be together, to talk about it, or not talk about it, it didn’t matter as long as we were together. And when a friend I knew from LA came by, how annoyed I was when she laughed at the type of bar I was at and I just wanted her to leave because whatever you were supposed to do and feel and think that day, teasing wasn’t one of them. Everyone talked and talked, but right then I just wanted to be quiet and inside myself.

I remember in the days after wandering for hours around Union Square, looking at the Missing signs, knowing good and well that no one was really missing, that the rancid air we were breathing in was the answer. I remember walking along West Side Highway and seeing the construction trucks pass by, from New Jersey and Pennsylvania and Arkansas and North Carolina and Delaware, all coming here to help us, to dig out and clean up, and we stood there on the side of the road, as far downtown as the police would let us, and we cheered and hollered for every truck that passed like it was a parade, except we had tears in our eyes. Here we were, snobby, obnoxious New Yorkers, but everyone still cared.

I remember the anxiety I felt, and still do, when people ask me if I was here on 9/11, and if I can’t change the subject quickly enough, when they ask me what is was like. Because, even though I write it here for the first time, it’s not for cocktail conversation. Because the thing is, I not only know what it’s like to be a New Yorker, in New York, on 9/11, but I know what it smells like. And it’s a hard thing to remember.

So I read David Levithan’s book quickly, to get it over with, and it was hard to read because it felt so true, but it was mercifully short, because it’s a lot to take in. I’m glad I read it. More than that I’m glad he wrote it because he’s right—years are going by, and kids want to know what it was like. I’m glad he was able to show them.

Yes, I got this book, Very LeFreak by Rachel Cohn, months before its arrival at bookstores, and doing so made me go, “Nah, nah, nah, na, na, naaa.” Because I love Rachel Cohn and know her writing will never let me down.

This wasn’t a book that hooked me in right away, but rather lulled me into its embraces until I found that I couldn’t put it down. Very is a crazy girl, who does crazy-girl things, and although she could have easily been written off as another eccentric, desperate for attention kind of person, she really couldn’t be further from that.

On the one hand, this is a story about Very’s addiction and her drug of choice—technology. But of course it’s more than that; it’s about Very, and what an interesting, complex creature she is. She’s a girl who has grown up all over the place—geographically and emotionally—with no dad and a “free-spirited” mom, i.e., someone who treated her daughter more like a friend than someone she was responsible for nurturing and protecting. By the time Very is in her first year at Columbia, she can’t quell her mind to stop searching, updating, Googling, memeing, or any other manner of being online instead of in the actual world. It’s an interesting subject to explore, and Cohn could have easily make Very a Second Lifer who has trouble distinguishing between the real and fantasy, but this story is much more complex and nuanced than that. Frankly, I’m not sure how she--Rachel Cohn--did it. This isn’t about gadgets and apps but about a seriously messed up girl with deep issues who really, truly wants to be good but isn’t sure she can let herself be so. She’s not sure she deserves to be.

One of the moments I liked was when Very, trying to get clean, asked, “What am I supposed to do with my hands if I’m not texting or typing?” That’s not a direct quote but it is an interesting statement that reminded me of a friend who is an alcoholic who said once that when he first started going out sober he had no idea what to do with his hands if he didn’t have a drink in them.

This isn't a story about technology but about someone trying to overcome the demons in her life, real and imagined, and starting to realize that she can be trusted and she is worth loving after all.