Busy Days are Here

Can't believe Halloween's already less than a week away! I'd originally planned to be Effie Trinket from The Hunger Games, but then I got lazy and ended up as a witch instead. Here I am on my way to my friends' Halloween party last weekend.

Early this month I finished a pretty major revision of my current work-in-progress, Underbed. It's now back with my agent. We decided to make it a middle grade project rather than YA, and I think the change suits it well.

And of course, NaNoWriMo is only a few more days away! I'm all set to start working on a somewhat gritty YA fantasy project called Moth & Moon. Can't wait to spend my afternoons curled up in coffee shops with a mug and my laptop! I'm Fire and Air over on the NaNo site.

Recently I've been interviewed by two blogs, The Book Cellar and YA Librarian Tales, about Spookygirl. Spookygirl is also getting more and more reviews online, including this lovely one by indie author Amy Martin, who was guest-reviewing on YA Reads. Thanks, everyone!

Also, Young Adult Books Central is giving away five copies of Spookygirl! You can enter until Halloween, so stop by and take a chance. That link also includes my guest post about the most haunted house I've ever encountered.

And finally, I just noticed that Spookygirl's Publishers Weekly review has been posted! PW mentions Spookygirl's "straight-talking, level-headed protagonist and smooth storytelling" -- not bad, not bad!

Drive-By Post

Just wanted to toss out a quick thank you to Lindsay Grant and nanowrimo.org for the congratulations! I might never have written Spookygirl without NaNoWriMo.

Got a murmur of a story in your head? Are there characters tugging on your sleeve? Remember, November's only 135 days away...

NaNoWriMo Gets Spooky

If you're a writer, you've probably heard of National Novel Writing Month. Maybe you've even participated -- posted on the forums, gone to local write-ins, and written an entire 50,000-word book in thirty days.

I love NaNoWriMo. Why? Without it, Spookygirl might not exist. Spookygirl was my 2008 NaNo project. Or was it 2007? Yep, just checked my records. I've been giving out the wrong year all this time. When you've NaNo'd as many times as I have, sometimes the years get a little fuzzy. I wrote my first NaNo novel in 2003, and I've participated every November since then. I even have my very own mascot -- remind me to post a pic of NaNoMonKey sometime. The only year I didn't reach my goal was 2010, and that's only because I landed in the hospital for a week with appendicitis. Yeah, yeah. Excuses.

NaNoWriMo is a fantastic program, especially if you have a story in your head but lack the compulsive determination to get it down on paper. Check out the site for all the details -- and if you haven't given it a try in the past, consider joining in the fun this November. Hey, if I can finish 50K words while also keeping up with the monsters during one of the busiest months of the retail year, so can you! I already have this year's story brewing in my brain...