blog tour

Starting tomorrow, I will be embarking on a blog tour. I’ll be visiting ten blogs, every weekday until Waiting for You is released, sharing my Top Ten High School Myths with you.

Here’s where you can find me:

May 1 – For the Love of Books

May 4 – Presenting Lenore

May 5 – The Frenetic Reader

May 6 – The Story Siren

May 7 – Bookluver-Carol

May 8 – Reading Keeps You Sane

May 11 – Shooting Stars Magazine

May 12 – Pop Culture Junkie

May 13 – Laura’s Review Bookshelf

May 14 – The Compulsive Reader

At each site, you can win a signed copy of Waiting for You, so def come visit me!

You still have time to enter the He Was There All Along Contest I’m doing with Elizabeth Scott. The deadline to enter is May 3 at midnight. I love the comments we’ve received so far! There is no end to good stories about boy epiphanies.

In Netflix news, I started Flight of the Conchords. Could that show be any funnier? Fricking hilarious! “Binary solo! 100111100110!”

I’m going to a taping of The Daily Show today, so I have to get in line soon. Oh Jon Stewart, how you rock my world. Hugh Jackman is tonight’s guest. I know he’s hugely popular, but for some reason I don’t actually know who he is. If I see him (and, um, someone identifies him for me), I’ll try to document the moment for you.

my author videos

Some author videos promoting the May 14 release of Waiting for You are out. I definitely haven’t overcome my voice phobia, but I did put it aside long enough to watch these. I’d feel better about them if my voice didn’t sound so weird out there in the world. It sounds okay in my head.

Here’s one about soul mates that Penguin’s using on its sites. Note: When I’m talking about the boy who inspired the character of Tobey in When It Happens and my mortifying junior prom picture is shown, that’s not him. But it’s the only photo with a boy I have from high school that I can actually look at.

The Amazon video discusses how I came up with the title for Waiting for You. In the Barnes & Noble video, I talk about creating your ideal life.

All of these videos were filmed and created by the wonderful Lauren Saffa. She is just so sweet and easy to work with you can’t even believe it. It’s not easy to tell a story in around three minutes. Lauren totally nailed it with her outstanding talent.

There’s so much to tell you with all of this book release excitement, so I’ll be blogging pretty much every day for the next few weeks. See you tomorrow!

indie love

This just in: Waiting for You is on the Kid’s Indie Next List for Summer 2009! These are books nominated by indie booksellers nationwide. Warm fuzzies for you, indie booksellers! I’ll post the list when it’s up on IndieBound, but I already know that Sarah Dessen’s much anticipated Along for the Ride is included. For now, you can see the 14 teen books on their Spring 2009 list.

I’ve received some reports that both Waiting for You and the paperback of Take Me There have been found in bookstores. Their pub date is May 14, but sometimes books show up a bit early. So keep an eye out for the floor displays, since they will be involved in my biggest contest to win books. They should go up in Barnes & Noble stores on May 12. If you do see an early floor display, please let me know. I don’t want anyone to miss out on the contest! Some indie shops will also feature the floor displays – more warm fuzzies!

he was there all along

This weekend was all about the summer breeze. I really wanted to borrow a kite to fly, but I didn’t get a chance to spend as much time outside as I wanted because I’m on deadline. Having all the windows open so the summer breeze flowed in and listening to the mourning doves and deciding which flip-flops to wear later was happy times, so it’s all good.

Melissa Walker, author and journalist and Readergirl and like a zillion other things because she’s multitalented like that, has posted a Cover Story of Waiting for You. Well, it was supposed to be about Waiting for You, but it also looked at Take Me There since that cover went through some changes. I love how Melissa gets the whole Dawson’s Creek aesthetic of the cover. I was trying to capture that feeling in the story, so I’m stoked that she picked up on that. Stay tuned for a special treat with Melissa coming up this Friday!

Today’s special treat for you is my first contest in a series of four. Joining me for the He Was There All Along Contest is author Elizabeth Scott! I know you love her. I totally scored her latest book, Something, Maybe, and got Elizabeth to sign it for you. You can win it by commenting here. You can also win a signed copy of Waiting for You by commenting over at Elizabeth’s blog because this is a joint contest!

Here’s how to enter: Tell me (or both of us) about a boy you wished you would find, then realized that you already knew him. He was there all along! This is a theme that Something, Maybe and Waiting for You share, and we’d love to hear your own stories. If this kind of thing never happened to you but it happened to a friend, you can tell us about it instead. Or you can tell us about the boy you’ve been waiting for, even if you haven’t found him yet.

The contest ends at midnight this Sunday, May 3. Sorry, it’s only open to US residents. I will pick a winner at random to win Elizabeth’s book. She will pick a winner at random to win my book. So definitely enter to win both books! And yes, you may leave the same comment at both blogs. Or maybe you are very lucky and two boys have been there all along…

3 more weeks of waiting…

Time is really zipping by these days. I think it started around the time I resigned from teaching and became a full-time author, which was almost two years ago. But this warp-speed time phenomenon does not apply to book releases. It’s always so hard for me to wait for my new book to come out! So I’m stoked that there are only three more weeks to go before Waiting for You is released on May 14. I have four fun contests planned for you to win signed copies of Waiting for You. You can also win Take Me There, which comes out in paperback on May 14. The first contest begins on Monday with a special guest author, so stay tuned!

Sometimes little things that totally shouldn’t bother me can really, really bother me. It’s a symptom of being detail oriented. I am working on letting these little things go, but it’s hard. This may be a life-long struggle. One thing that was bothering me (which was so not a big deal) was the tag line for Take Me There. It said, “If you take a chance, you might just find true love.” I could not shut up my noisy brain about it, all clamoring that the tag line should really be, “If you take a chance, you just might find true love.” Which was so ridiculous because a.) who cares? and b.) I was the one who wrote it. After a while (i.e. way too long), I finally let it go.

Then the paperback edition arrived yesterday. The cover looked like this:

It’s really cool how the universe takes care of things while we’re not even looking.

85 gorgeous degrees are coming our way this weekend. I hope it’s just as gorgeous where you are. Enjoy the springtime!

your help, please

As part of my Waiting for You blog tour (May 1-14), I’ll be visiting ten book blogs. At each one, I’m going to discuss one of my Top Ten High School Myths. These are the things we’ve always heard are true about high school that are actually such lies. The first myth on my list is, “These are the best years of your life.” That one’s always a hoot and a holler. I’ve already written the list, but one of the myths isn’t working out the way I thought it would. I seem to be stuck.

Here’s where you come in. What’s the biggest high school myth you’ve ever heard? It can be something you’ve heard from teachers or parents, or maybe it’s a harsh reality you discovered while surviving the agony. Your help is much appreciated, so thanks in advance for sharing.

Oh, and Happy Earth Day!

spring things

There’s another pre-blog tour interview with me at Innovative Teen. Click on over to find out my favorite scenes from When It Happens and Take Me There.

The mourning doves are back! I love these guys. Their sound always mellows me out. Combined with all of the pink flowers around here, I’m totally loving spring.

Another fun spring thing is watching New Yorkers. Most of us usually walk around really quickly without looking up much. But these are the days when New Yorkers slow down a bit and take time to look up, all smiling. There’s so much to notice when we look up. Cool water towers, interesting window designs, vintage print on buildings that used to be stables and printing presses and stuff.

It’s a whole new way to see the city. Walking around in the spring breeze is enough for me, but some people are rejuvenating spirits by offering bouncy rides at random subway stops. They’re free.

Trivia time. Did you know that “A Whiter Shade of Pale” has been the most played song in British public places over the past 75 years? Me neither. Dude, I was so obsessed with this song at one point. It was the kind of thing where, before iTunes, you had to go out and buy the whole CD for that one song you loved. In this case, it was pretty much the only good song on the CD. So worth it at the time.

Enjoy the magic of your Monday. TGIM. Take some time to notice a spring thing in your world!

setting things straight

I was interviewed at Katie’s Book Blog. This is a relatively new blog, so go on over and share the love. Thanks for a great interview, Katie!

This is day three of keeping my hair away from water. See, my hair is not naturally this straight. It is naturally a curly, frizzy horror show. So I have a Japanese straight perm. It’s a very long day when I have to go in to get it retouched (five or six hours!), but so worth it because then I have straight hair for another year (which I sort of get away with since my hair is almost two feet long). For three days after getting it done, you can’t let your hair get wet. So I’ve been wearing a shower cap and washing my face extra carefully and acting completely scared of rain. I totally didn’t feel like myself with curly hair. I am definitely more me now.

Here’s something random. I’ve always wondered why milk cartons in New York City have two expirations dates. There’s the general one and then there’s one just for NYC. It turns out that the earlier expiration date in NYC is based on some old safety rules. Now that that mystery is solved, I can move on to why so many dentists are evil.

In Netflix news, I’ve started watching Mad Men. Everyone around here raves about it. I feel like I’m missing something. I mean, it’s good, but it’s not the life-altering experience everyone says it is. So now I’m deciding among Gossip Girl, House, Dexter, or Prison Break for my next show. Your input is much appreciated.

one month from today…

…Waiting for You will be released! I’m stoked.

Wait! I have another book release happening on May 14. The paperback edition of Take Me There will also be out in the world.

I’ll be having a few contests to win copies of both books soon. My biggest contest will involve you taking a picture with one of the floor displays that will also appear on May 14 in Barnes & Noble stores, as well as some indie bookshops. Thank you, indie bookshops! So keep an eye out for the floor displays, which will include all three of my books. When I went out to look for last year’s display, I discovered that some B&N locations put them up a bit earlier or later than the release date. I guess that will be part of the contest’s challenge.

In the meantime, you can read excerpts of all my books on Scribd.

totally brill

Your TGIM thought of the day is brought to you by The Holiday. This movie is so good. I love this scene in which Jack Black takes Kate Winslet into a Blockbuster and shows her some stuff. Note: his character composes music for movies. Sassy!