Monthly Archives: April 2007

Upcoming Events & Appearances

I am making a bunch of appearances this year! Come by and get your books signed! Ask me how I’m doing the Book Tour Fashion Challenge!

LOS ANGELES TIMES FESTIVAL OF BOOKS AT UCLA CAMPUS
April 28, 2007
11:00am -12:00pm
Autographing at Simon & Schuster/Whale of A Tale Booth #829
(Children’s Area North)
UCLA is at
405 Hilgard Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90095

MASQUERADE READING, DISCUSSION & SIGNING
May 8, 2007
7:00 PM
Barnes & Noble at the Third Street Promenade
1201 Third Street
Santa Monica, CA 90401

‘CRAZY HOT’ LAUNCH PARTY IN THE O.C.!!!
Shopping! Dancing! Mayhem! Goodie-bags!
Welcome to the O.C. byatches!
May 9, 2007
6:00 – 8:00 PM
M. Fredric at The Commons
4751 Commons Way
Calabasas, CA 91302

GIRLS WHO LIKE BOYS WHO LIKE BOYS BOOK TOUR INFO COMING SOON! Melissa will be in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles and East Hampton!

MELISSA WILL BE AT BOOK EXPO AMERICA THIS YEAR, SIGNING FOR S&S AND HYPERION – STOP BY!

MORE AUTHOR APPEARANCES COMING SOON…

Although really, if you would like to see me, just pop into the Barneys in Beverly Hills or Fred Segal on Melrose on a weekday afternoon…I am usually there when I am not writing!

xoxo
Mel

Texas Rocks!!!

Mike, me and the babe just got back from San Antonio, where we had attended the annual TLA (Texas Library Association) conference. It was my first conference/convention EVER and we were all so excited. At least, I was. Mike was being a good sport about playing daddy nanny to the baby for the day that I had to do appearances at the conference, and baby was just happy to be with her parents as usual.

I am STILL working on THE ASHLEYS and it’s getting down to the wire where every night I look at the pages I wrote and rewrote that day and I think, GOD THIS SUCKSS!!! And then a couple of hours later I look at it again, and I think, OKAY, THIS ROCKS!!!! It’s been that kind of book. Which is kind of every book really. I am really looking forward to turning this in so I can relax again for a couple of days.

The TLA conference was my first time trying to do both mothering and my public work, as in I actually had to be somewhere at certain times, while making sure baby was fed and happy. She’s five months now but still exclusively breastfed, which has been very difficult but I am getting through it because she simply REFUSES to take the bottle and hey, we can’t let her starve.

So of course, we were a bit late to my signing at the Hyperion booth, because loading baby, carseat, stroller, diaperbag into the cab and making sure we knew where the convention center was took all morning. Phew! But I did finally get there, in my Marc Jacobs black satin dress and Sigerson Morrisson pointy black flats. I’d bought the dress last year for the Blue Bloods party but ended up being too pregnant to wear it, so I was happy to debut it in San Antonio. It’s very goth-glam so appropriate for a vampire book author I think. I REALLY wanted to wear heels but knowing I was going to carry the baby sometimes made me think twice. I didn’t want to pull a Britney and almost drop the kid just for the sake of wearing platforms! I also had my hair blown out at the lovely salon in our hotel since it has been, oh, THREE months since I had a haircut! And one should look nice for one’s readers, I think. And not show up with dreds in one’s hair. (Yes, it’s gotten tangled again.)

There was actually a long line of people waiting for me to sign their books! Librarians rock!! Texan librarians rock hardest!! Everyone was so nice and friendly and had the best accents. And everyone from Hyperion at the booth was so cool, including my lovely editor Jen, the school/library coordinator Angus (who has a fab accent of his own) and the other fab marketing guys there – RaShan and Scottie. And my fabulous publicist Jenn, who worked on my books at S&S but is now at Hyperion. It was so great to be around New Yorkers again too. I love New Yorkers, I miss them so. They had a bigass poster of Masquerade in the booth and I felt so proud!

Then we headed over to the also fabulous S&S booth and hung out with the sweet girls over there–Jodie and Lisa and all their crew. They had a humunguous poster of ANGELS ON SUNSET BOULEVARD which was awesome. And lots of promo materials for the Au Pairs and the Ashleys book…which made me feel mega guilty since the Ashleys is not done yet and they are already selling it! So I need to go back to work as soon as I finish blogging…

Then after the signings I was making an appearance at a panel for “Ghosts and Vampires: What’s the YA attraction?” with super awesome authors Stephenie Meyer, Amanda Jenkins and Laura Whitcomb. A lot of my readers ask me if I’d read Twilight and I haven’t yet because I didn’t want to read any other vampire books while I was writing Blue Bloods. But Little Brown sent it over and I thought it would be polite to read it if I was going to be on a panel with her so I started reading it–and yes, I love Edward too!! Stephenie is really great, very cool and very girlie too, so it was fun to chat with her. I haven’t read Amanda’s or Laura’s books (both are about ghosts) but they are now on my list.

I feel like I’m in a really good spot now with the Blue Bloods series–the mythology and story are firmly established and I’m not worried about being unduly or unconsciously influenced by other vampire books so I am going to let myself enjoy other vampire books now. Scott Westerfeld’s Peeps is next!

Anyway, there were like, THOUSANDS of people in the auditorium. I was so shocked and pleased, it was so awesome. There were so many people it was an SRO – Standing Room Only event! And I was running late again because we had to feed/change the baby/grab something to eat in the forty minutes after my S&S signing and the panel, and we were running around the convention hall LOOKING for a bathroom with a changing table and could not find any until the very last second! Oof!

But I made it finally, and it was really fun. I have done a couple of panels already, so I kind of know how to do them now–just relax, be yourself, and enjoy yourself. Everytime I get nervous, I clam up and no one has a good time–least of all, me! The Texans were all so fab–they laughed at all my jokes and there was just a good feeling of warmth and love for books all around.

Then I went to the wonderful dinner hosted by YA librarians at a cool Mexican restaurant. I met all these great teen librarians from Austin and there were tons of fab YA authors there, including Cecil Castellucci, who is so full of life and awesome, and whose new book is the Plain Janes, about four girls named Jane, so we are going to do something with my Ashleys since it is about three girls named Ashley. I didn’t get to meet too many of the other authors, although I did see Scott Westerfeld in the next table and was a bit author-struck, and also E. Lockhart came by our table but I didn’t get introduced and I was too shy to say hi. See, when I get shy nothing happens…

And then halfway through the meal my husband called and I could hear the baby SCREAMING in the background. She was hungry, and I had to feed her… sigh. So I had to leave before getting a chance to meet more people. I also spied Rachel Vail, and I love her books too and wanted to say hello. Oh and I met Patricia McCormick who wrote the awesome book SOLD but when I met her I didn’t know she was THAT Patricia McCormick so all we talked about was the rain massage I had gotten back at our hotel. Duh! And I also met Jamie Adoff, who wrote Jimi and Me and now I have to go get his book too.

For the dinner I wore my brandnew J Brand for Ron Herman skinny jeans and my Lotta Stenson silk top with the turquoise beading and a Proenza tanktop underneath and Joseph sleeveless cape-sweater and Giussepe Zanotti jeweled flats.

Then the next day we headed back to LA and traffic on the 405 was TWO HOURS. ALMOST AS LONG AS THE FLIGHT FROM SAN ANTONIO! Ugh! The baby was going ballistic in the backseat and we had to exit the freeway to calm her down. Babies DO NOT like traffic.

The whole experience was pretty difficult–it’s really really hard to be a working mom. Sometimes I just…it’s hard. I feel like quitting. But I’ve worked SO HARD for years to have this career that I love, and doing public readings and panels and signings is the FUN part of being an author, otherwise you’re just at home, writing (which is fun too, but in a totally different way. And sometimes, it really isn’t fun at all. Like when you think your book sucks. Even though it doesn’t.) And at home no one cares if you are wearing Marc Jacobs.

I just need to find the right balance. We’re just kind of muddling through. But it was worth it to be with the baby (there is no question of leaving her) and I am so lucky my husband has his own business and can work on a laptop. And does not mind taking care of the baby for a couple of hours while I work. We were going to bring our nanny, but it didn’t seem necessary for just three days. When we’re in New York for two weeks, we will bring her otherwise neither of us will get any work done.

Anyway, I’m rambling. I should get back to THE ASHLEYS.

And by the way, San Antonio is a really beautiful city. The weather was great, and the RiverWalk is so charming. I HEART San Antonio!

xoxo
Mel

The Blogger’s Cliche/The 30 Day Fashion Challenge!

The Blogger’s Cliche/The 30 Day Fashion Challenge!
I will start with a blogger’s cliche – I’m so sorry I haven’t posted lately. Things have been incredibly busy both personally and professionally…

My dad was in the hospital for a month. He had a sixteen-hour surgery in the colorectal area (he has colorectal cancer) and it was pretty rough going for a while. He was in the ICU for almost three weeks. He’s home now, and doing a lot better, but it’s going to be a long recovery. It was hard for me because I couldn’t be in the hospital so much –I’m still exclusively breastfeeding the baby so I could only do brief visits. The good news is that he is cancer-free now. The doctors did not find any new tumors and with the original source of the cancer now completely removed, they think this is his best shot EVER. My dad has such a great team of doctors–one of whom was a friend of his from college.

The funny thing is my dad was really popular in college, and his doctor was apparently one of the “nerdier” guys. But they were friends. They have become really close now, and his friend, this doctor, has basically saved his life over and over again (he was the one who did my dad’s surgery four years ago too). So be nice to the people you went to school with! One of them might save your life one day…

In the meantime, our baby is still not quite sleeping through the night! It has been five months of sleepless nights, and some days we are so exhausted we are sleepwalking zombies throughout the day. But every morning when she wakes up it is like the sun shining through clouds. She is AWESOME. Everyday we love her even more.

It’s so weird how much I like being a mom. I had no idea what motherhood would be like, and I assumed that I would be able to work the way I have been and just pawn the baby off on nannies and my parents. But I really ENJOY spending time with her and it’s so hard to do anything else.

But it is really nice to be able to work. I was feeling down about my new book because I wasn’t sure it was good enough, but I just got great feedback from my editor who said she loves it and it’s propelling me to the finish line.

I know I keep mentioning it, but I only do because I am so proud of this book: ANGELS ON SUNSET BOULEVARD is out – and if you liked BLUE BLOODS, you will love ANGELS.

MASQUERADE, the second Blue Bloods novel is out very soon. We just got the finished books the other day, and they look GORGEOUS!!! Wait till you see.

In more fun news, for my book tour this May and June I am going to try to institute a no-repeat fashion policy. I have so many clothes I have not worn with price stickers still attached to them. And I have about a month’s worth of events and I have sworn to myself I will not repeat one outfit. I have to utilize all the new clothes I’ve bought for the tour as well as the old clothes in my closet. I’ll document my outfits here so everyone will see if I meet the challenge!

Now I must really go back to finishing THE ASHLEYS!!!

xoxo
Mel