squeetus

Three Easter photos

Because, why not?

We dyed brown eggs this year and I loved the lovely earth tones of the colors.

More eggs. My lunch. Notable because I had lunch. And it wasn't cereal. Or a granola bar. It looked so pretty when I put the fruit on I had to take a photo. Probably would have been prettier if I hadn't succumbed to that greedy third egg.

Two sisters. I love those chalky bare feet.

More foreign covers, updates, and thoughts on writing and reading to come this month.

First date, John Carter style

Last year, Dean and I wrote a piece for a John Carter of Mars young adult anthology. Writers were asked to write their own stories of Barsoom. We chose to look at a scene in Princess of Mars where John Carter fights some white ape beasts. Very little is known about the white apes, so we chose to retell that scene from their point-of-view...in our own special way. That way was a little too special, I think, as our piece was not included in the anthology.

With the movie John Carter out in theaters now, I thought some of you might get a kick out of our story anyway, so I've posted our Barsoom-inspired piece First Date on my site. It was very much a collaboration between me and Dean. He wrote the first draft this time, and then I went in and helped the story make some sense, adding my own touches. Then he went back and added some more Dean touches, then I polished and voila.

In answer to your previous questions, will Palace of Stone ever have a painted cover to match the Princess Academy hardcover? Answer: I don't think so. I truly do not know, but I would not bet on it. And in answer to the Austenland movie questions, I'm not holding out on you, I swear! I don't know when we'll see a trailer or have a release date or anything. As soon as I know, you'll know too. I am VERY excited about the movie. I think it's going to be amazing.

Update-arooni

Life is crazy, isn't it? Blog taking a back seat to kids and books. Can't seem to find anything extra to devote to thoughtful blog posts. Here's just a general update.

I don't have any Austenland: The Movie news, but here's a short video that shows the set and interviews with Bret McKenzie, JJ Feild (who, I just read, is expecting a baby with girlfriend Neve Campbell!), Ricky Whittle, and Georgia King. I don't even know who did this video. Also, Stephenie Meyer put an update about the movie on her website. I think I tweeted both these things but never blogged them.

Sending a 5th-ish draft of my current book to my editor today. She and Dean read 2/3 of the first draft several years ago, and then I put aside this one (formerly called Daisy Danger Brown) to work on Midnight in Austenland and Palace of Stone. I'm really liking it right now. I love working on it. It's getting huge, though, at 145,000 words. I've been cutting like crazy, having trimmed 40,000 words in large chunks and many thousands more in smaller chunks. Add and delete, add and delete. I'll do at least seven more drafts before its done.

Princess Academy: Palace of Stone will be out in August. There's a cover out there somewhere but its not final, so I'm waiting for a final version to post it. It will have a photograph to match the style of the Princess Academy paperback.

I'm very excited about The Princess in Black! No illustrator yet, but I will post as soon as the publisher makes the choice. This book series was directly inspired by our kids. It's been fun to write for them for the first time.

Writing for Charity was amazing! Thanks to all who came. We raised a good amount of money and will be able to buy a lot of books for kids in disadvantaged areas. There will be another conference next year.

What do you think about the new digs?

Dean and I revamped the blog, in part so it'd be easier to upkeep. It had a Facebook "like" button (as one squeetuser smartly suggested) but it was buggy. I just removed it after a few days of 0 likes and generally feeling like a junior high student again. Is it the braces? The stringy hair? Bad breath? Is something hanging out of my nose? You can still "like" individual posts but not the whole blog. Typepad, can you fix that please?

Working this week on copy edited manuscript of Palace of Stone. It's still kind of thrilling to me to write that title! We have lots of cool stuff planned for it this year, I can't wait. But just two more days to check the copy edits so I must go.

Lots of signings coming up. I'll be at Dolly's in Park City on Friday night and Deseret Book in both Layton and Bountiful on Saturday. Check my events page for details. And Utah writers, don't miss Writing for Charity this year! A real bargain and going to be so great. Thanks SO MUCH to all who came to the King's English launch! I want to post pics when I get a sec.

Look what I got for my birthday

My sister come over a couple of months ago and I gave her some of my author copies of Forest Born. She asked me to sign one "Happy birthday" but leave the name off since she didn't know yet who to give it to. Turns out, it was for me, the duplicitous hussy! The post-it says, "Signed by the author!" I hope you all have sisters as generous as mine.

Thanks for the well wishes! Yep, it's my birthday, 38 today, though I guarantee I barely look a day over 37. Today I command you all to eat cake in my honor. Send me pictures and I'll post them.

Oh, and if you don't follow me on Twitter or Facebook, I should announce here as well the title of the Princess Academy sequel:

PALACE OF STONE

These are a few of my favorite words

I want some good words today, peeps. I want to infuse my writing with some choice words that I may be neglecting. So let's do a nice trade, shall we? Off the top of my head, here are some words I love, and then you give me some you love in the comments. That's fair, isn't it? Words you like the look of, words you like to taste on your tongue, words whose meanings are unique and fun, whatever you like. Have you noticed how any group of lucious words together sounds like a poem?

pumpkin

struedel

lozenge

kestrel

disappear

wash

shriek

gallant

shudder

rife

succulent

peevish

tattered

clack

din

canter

lilt

round

yarn

ominous

stale

fish

please

My life equation

2 14-month olds +

1 2nd grader +

1 preschooler +

1 husband +

1 house +

15,000 useless items that are constantly strewn about and no matter how many times I put them away somewhere they reappear like a hydra with its endless supply of monstrous heads +

15,000 pieces of food on the floor (usually tossed from 2 highchairs) +

1 major holiday +

1 crushingly high pressure book deadline =

My life this month

Excuse me, would you care for $10,000?

Crazy few weeks, kinda overwhelmed, hanging in there. I'm sure you've all been there.

On Friday (Jane Austen'sg birthday!) my publisher will be posting an excerpt of midnight in austenland and giving away some galleys. Like the fan page to enter.

Also, time to vote for Survivor Player of the Season! I know you all love Dawn. I can vouch for her, people. She's even more awesome than she seemed. She's strong and fiesty yet utterly kind and good-hearted. She's the only mom (only parent actually) to make the final group. (Mom of 6, all adopted, some through the foster care system.) I'm not a reality TV watcher usually but it seems to me it often honors the outrageous, the cruel, the extreme. I'd love to see someone honored who exemplifies kindness and humanity. If any of you frequent mommy blogs, please mention Dawn. The moms never win the popularity contests. It's always the young models and athletic blokes, but I think Dawn really has a chance.

To vote, text to the number 99888 with the subject "6" (Dawn's number.

Also, vote on cbs.com. You can vote up to 10 times each way, and each time you vote, you're entered for a $10,000 drawing!

A quick note before I start writing

I'm having a contest on Twitter for the last MIDNIGHT IN AUSTENLAND ARC. Tweet your own ending to this phrase: "It is a truth universally acknowledged..." with the hashtag #Austenland.

For those of you following Survivor, you know my pain! Check out the extra videos on cbs.com, especially the 3 Ponderosa videos with Dawn and Whitney. Ponderosa is the camp where the jury members go after they've been voted off and lost at Redemption Island. I hold to a glimmer of hope that we can vote Dawn the fan favorite of the season at least. Whenever voting starts for that, I'll post links here. I'd love to see a strong woman, mother, and genuinely kind human being chosen over the more ruthless players.

Diving back into Princess Academy 2 edits. The #1 reason I need feedback on drafts is that since the story isn't just in the words but also in my head, I often think I've communicated something that I haven't. Editors are indispensable.

Books and pumpkins: together again

Happy Halloween yesterday! And...I'm a dork. Last year I posted about holding a costume contest and forgot. Next year? Remind me in August someone? Argh. If you dressed as one of my characters this year, keep the photos! They'll work for next year too. I really am so much more useless than you can imagine. My life is feeding babies 5x a day, cleaning up after them 5x a day, playing with them in between, besides the older kids and writing and...you get it. I won't bore you.

Auction is up and kicking! I may never do this again, especially since most of my books don't have a contemporary setting and so don't allow me to name characters after people. Think what an awesome Christmas gift for someone that a character in one of my books (or one of the other authors') is named after them! I'll mention the person in the acknowledgements as well. All to support a great charity that gets books into disadvantaged libraries.

And now a little pumpkin goodness, from our perennial squash goddess, Laura. As always, I'm in awe of the talented people I get to claim as friends. These are real, carved pumpkins. They are spectacular in person.

And for those of you also following Survivor this year and my kickbutt friend Dawn, who is KICKING BUTT:

Here are a couple more literary jack-o-lanterns, featuring my sweet friend Ally Condie's books (Crossed out now!). Didn't they turn out gorgeous?:

Three quick things

I'll be doing a live chat tonight on Figment.com from 8-9pm ET (5-6 PT). Come and harrass me with anything you want to know!

Calamity Jack won the Utah Book Award for Children's Literature last week. Go Jack! Yeeha!

For the first time ever, I'll be auctioning a character name in an upcoming book (most likely Daisy Danger Brown, or whatever it ends up being called). The auction beneftis Kids Need to Read, Nathan Fillion and PJ Haarsma's charity for kids and books. See awesome video below for charity details. I'll post a link to the ebay auction as soon as it's up.

 

Rumors I've heard about myself

One of the strangest things about this tiny, psuedo-fame thing is how often people I know tell me things they've heard about me from people I've never met. Here are a few.

1. I was Stephenie Meyer's roommate at BYU.

Never went to BYU. Was never Stephenie Meyer's roommate. How do these things get started?

2. In order to attend a Utah librarian conference in Southern Utah, I insisted on flying in a private jet and being picked up at the airport in a limo.

This cracks me up. It's based on some fact--I was invited to speak at the conference but couldn't get away for the two-plus days, so they offered to fly me in and out the same day (one of those $89 commuter airfares). A kind librarian picked me up at the airport in her minivan. It was a very nice minivan, vaccumed carpets (a thing almost unheard of in my mommy-van experience). I noticed the carpets because I was so pregnant sick I spent at least an hour lying on the floor of her car.

3. I'm a millionaire.

Nope.

4. I have a full-time nanny, day and night.

I do? Where has she been hiding? I could totally use her! I did have a night nanny for 2 months after the birth of my twin babies--5 nights/week, 8 hours/night. It was great. I also have a sitter for 12 hours/week, when I do my writing. Would I want her full time or even half days? You bet! Why don't I? See question 3.

5. I was the cover model for Libba Bray's Beauty Queens.

Okay, so, yeah, I'm the one who's been trying to start this rumor. It's been really slow to catch on. Who knew it was so hard to start a rumor on the internet?

6. My real name is Shannon Hell.

No one has said this explicitly, but thanks to the regional accent of my home state, this is what people call me. It's HALE, you fine, weird people. Long "A."

Have you heard rumors about me? Ever heard ridiculous rumors about yourself? Spill!