[Note: I wrote this blog on Sunday, Sept 24. I am now currently on vacation. It’s ahhhhhwwwsome.]

I wrote the previous post a couple of days ago, I didn’t post it because I couldn’t get the frigging book cover to come up…but when I went to my comptuer today, the code that linked the photo to the blog was actually working without me doing anything different! See, computers ARE like magic.

I have a book that I started writing a couple of years ago that I shelved that was about magic, but in the book, it was all turned around because “electricity” was magic. “Electricity, who’s heard of that? Microwaves run on MAGIC, my friend.” Does anyone else think this is funny? Becuase I kind of think all things like computers and electricity and everything with “scientific” explanations are actually…magic! Haha. I mean, who can understand WHY things work the way they do?? Dont answer! I don’t want to know. All I know is, it’s magic. (My brother-in-law and his wife are both scientists -he a rocket scientist at NASA and she a geneticist at the NIH, and I’m sure they would be able to explain everything to me very slowly. They are the best people to ask if ever you need to know how anything works. Like fake tans. Apparently fake tans work by dying dead skin cells–it causes a reaction that creates that color. Who knew??)

By the way, where we live in Hollywood is right next to the famous “Magic Castle Hotel” and everytime we drive by it, Mike and I say to each other, “So that’s where the magic happens.” Yes. We are that corny.

So, I have such good news to share, not only did I get MASQUERADE done, I got ANGELS ON SUNSET BOULEVARD done as well. It was a really hard slog. I didn’t realize how much harder it would be to work on books while pregnant (you get kind of wooly and forgetful and also, I don’t want to push my body that hard, for instance, I usually finish by pulling a week of all-nighters, staying up till 3 or 5 am to finish a book, but this time, I just couldn’t do it, which explains why the books were so late. Sorry my editors! But I really tried!!). I just turned in my approval for the copy-edited MASQUERADE, and ANGELS just went into copyedit, which means I’ll probably have to do the same to that book in a week or two.

I am just SO RELIEVED the books turned out the way they did. I’m enormously proud of both of them, and I think you guys are really going to enjoy reading them…so much sexy fun in both! I get hot just THINKING about it! Hee.

It’s been a pretty workaholic year, so for the next week Mike and I are going to Palm Springs to relax. We’re staying at the Parker Hotel, the Jonathan Adler-designed resort, and we just CANNOT WAIT. I am going to get massages and treatments and lie by the pool and read fashion magazines and all the new yummy books I can’t wait to read: Marisha Pessl’s Special Topics in Calamity Phsyics, Claire Messud’s The Emperor’s Children, Andrea Lee’s Lost Hearts in Italy, Diane Setterfield’s The Thirteenth Tale, Jennifer Weiner’s The Guy Not Taken, and the cookbook memoir Julie and Julia.

I’m SO excited for all and have been saving reading them for my vacation. I’m also going to be reading my friend Jessica Wollman’s new YA book SWITCHED, which looks hella fun as well. The only one I bought on a whim was The Thirteenth Tale, which I’m HOPING is going to be good and not a washout like The Historian, which it is being compared to. Am I the only person who thought that book was blah?? I mean, Dracula doesn’t even appear until the last twenty pages, and everything was SO plodding and boring until then.

Pessl’s book is going to be fun because she has her own “Bluebloods” in it. Kind of funny! I bet her Bluebloods aren’t undead like mine, who are Blue Bloods (two words, capital B and capital B). I was at dinner once with some friends, and they were asking about my new project, and I told them it was about rich vampires in New York called Blue Bloods. And they said, “That’s a cool metaphor!” And I said, “No. Not at all. It’s very literal. They have blue blood.” Just to show what kind of writer I am. Metaphor schmetaphors! When you dream up a title like Blue Bloods, you’ve got to take it all the way, man.

When I get the go-ahead, I’ll post first chapters of both ANGELS ON SUNSET BOULEVARD and MASQUERADE on my site.

Tom and my anthology GIRLS WHO LIKE BOYS WHO LIKE BOYS is also coming together really nicely. We’re just SO PROUD of it, and adore all the authors who participated with their illuminating, intriguing and touching essays. I have SUCH a good feeling about this book, and we’re so puffed up because it’s coming out from Dutton in hardcover. Tom and I will be making appearances in New York, East Hampton, Los Angeles and San Francisco to promote the book, with some other possible cities added if we can manage it. I’m a bit loathe to travel too much because of the coming child, but on the other hand, I really loved visiting Atlanta, Las Vegas, Chicago and Miami during my last book tour so we shall see…

I forgot why I wanted to post! Yesterday my mom and I went to the Billion Dollar Babes sale, which is a great sample sale of tons of LA designers. I SCORED that T-bags dress that I was OBSESSED with! Hello! And it was only $90, instead of the $225 or however much it was before. Also bought a fabulous pink metallic leather clutch purse from Anya Hindmarch ($100 from $700), several gorgeous necklaces from Maya Brenner, five $5 wood and metallic bangles (it’s all about bangles this fall), an insane black and white leopard fur shrug, with leather on it for the print. I know it sounds weird, but trust me, it is SO GOOD. And it was only $85! From $500! Several printed tops from Mon Petit Oseau. Kind of sad that I can’t really wear any of these clothes until I get back to my normal weight.

It was so fun to shop with mom. Mom is the original super-shopper. She used to go to Hong Kong for the weekend just to shop, when we were still living in Manila. She’d call her mom and two of her sisters, and they would stay at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel and spend several days madly shopping.

Mom and I now have shopper’s elbow from carrying around so much stuff. (We like to take everything we like, and then edit before going to the cashier.) We’ve been needing some retail therapy since my dad’s chemo is in full swing right now, and it’s been awful just watching Pop go through it again. It just really takes its toll on him, and you feel so sad and helpless since you can’t do anything to help… UGH! So for a few glorious hours yesterday, all Mom and I had to worry about was whether we liked something enough to buy it. Now that’s the kind of problem we like to deal with…

Anyway, I should log off now and start packing for Palm Springs…which means a trip to the Yves Saint Laurent, Prada, Tods, Barneys, Gucci, and Dior outlets!!!! Woohoo!

xoxoo
Mel