Monthly Archives: February 2009

I haven’t blogged in a while. But I am twittering! My god, I might never blog again. Twittering is addictive! Or is the verb, tweeting? Tweeting is addictive? How about Tweety Birding? When you twitter as a   cartoon character…

My friend Tom just updated his blog with a cute but “eerie” photo of his better half, Drew.

Which inspired me to post a photo of my better halves. (Thanks Tom! And Drew!) Mike and Mattie at the Farmer’s Market. Mattie trying to pry off Nemo stickers and Daddy helping. Isn’t that dress she’s wearing the cutest? I bought it at Yolk in Silverlake. Which is next to LA Mill, which has the best coffee in LA.

xoxo
Mel

My French publisher, the fabulous Albin Michel, who pubbed all four Au Pairs books (The series is called “Un été pour tout changer” in France – the Summer that Changed Everything, and the other books have fun titles like “Fabuleux bains de minuit” (Fabulous midnight baths according to Babelfish, but I bet it means something more slangy in French) for “Skinny-Dipping”, “Une Saison en Bikini” (easy enough to understand: Bikini season!) for “Sun-Kissed” and “Glamour toujours” (Glamour Always) for “Crazy Hot) and is also my publisher for the Blue Bloods series, or Les Vampires de Manhattan en Francais, just emailed to say that Les Sang-Bleu (Masquerade) sold out of its first printing and just debuted on the French Bestseller List!!

Woohoo!

Rock on, Livres Hebdo! (That’s what their list is called.)

So now I can call myself an International Bestseller, right? I mean, that’s TWO countries. Any more countries have lists I can be on? Email now or forever hold your peace.

Now that I can put photos on my blog (Thanks webmaster Adam!!), I can show you what the French covers look like, aren’t they gorgeous???

Here’s Blue Bloods:

Masquerade: (or Le Best-Seller!)

And here’s a sneak peek at the French cover of Revelations. Or Les Sang d’Argent (Silver Blood).

Nice right??

xoxo
Mel

Two days late but hopefully not a story short!

Sorry I forgot – I blame mombrain. Supposedly you lose half your brain with each child.

THE VAN ALEN LEGACY
A BLUE BLOODS NOVEL

Hope you enjoyed the sneak peek! More sneaks to come….The Van Alen Legacy comes out September 1, 2009!

xoxo
Mel

Dudes, I am twittering away like a manic bird over on my twitter page. Follow me as I journey through writing, motherhood and shopping!

www.twitter.com/melissadelacruz

First pass pages of GIRL STAYS IN THE PICTURE just came in! They look magnificent!! So cool!

And I’m in the trenches on BLUE BLOODS IV: THE VAN ALEN LEGACY and almost ready to hand in the first draft of THE STRIP, the long-awaited sequel to ANGELS ON SUNSET BOULEVARD.

I can’t believe I have three books in three different stages. Thank god I have only one child. Or “Thank Gods” as they say on Battlestar Galactica. That always makes me crack up a bit. Isn’t the new season amazing? We are in denial that it is the last one.

Tomorrow we are celebrating V-D day and I will have a special Van Alen present for all of you. Another TINY peek at the new book. (But not as tiny as the other one.)

We are going to the Foundry on Melrose. It is supposedly one of the 75 best restaurants in LA, and well, we can’t eat at Mozza all the time. (At one point we were going twice a week!) So we are kind of eating our way through the 75 Best List. I kind of wanted to go to Sona but I was too lazy to change my rez. I hope it’s good!

xoxo
Mel

Oh yeah! Seven weeks on the New York Times Bestseller List!

Join me in doing the dance of joy.

xoxo
Mel

But not on Facebook. Facebook scares me so I’m keeping away.

Here I am: www.twitter.com/melissadelacruz.

xoxo
Mel

I’m the featured author in Free Book Friday Teens! Thanks Jessica for inviting me! It was fun chatting on a rainy day!

I just listened to myself ramble and I’m feeling a little Caroline Kennedy right now. First off, I sound like a total Cali girl, with all my “like, you knows”. Thank goodness I’m not gunning for a Senate seat! And just want to add that the answer to the question, what do I have planned for the series is: the main story with Jack, Schuyler, Oliver, Bliss and Mimi will most likely go to ten books, but no worries because in book four a lot of big things are resolved. In books 5-7 the main focus will be the prequel series I talked about a long time ago, but I decided I like it better weaved with the front story (I kind of think a lot of prequels fail right? PREQUEL FAIL!) So I’m doing it that way. But I have lots of ideas for more Blue Bloods books with new characters, so who knows, never say never. I like playing in the Blue Bloods universe.

Enjoy your Saturday!

xoxo
Mel

A couple of people have emailed saying that the link to the story I originally wrote for Target (and should be read AFTER you have read all of book three, Revelations) is not working. I just went to the site and it worked for me. Go to http://www.bluebloodsbooks.com/target. The password is BLUEBLOODS in all caps. Try it now. Everything ok? Ok. Good. 🙂

And now some questions:

How do you pronounce Schuyler? And why is it spelled that way?

It’s Sky-ler. (In the books Oliver calls her “Sky” so I thought that was a nice hint.) Also, I spelled it that way because it is an old English name, I took it from Elizabeth Schuyler, who was married to Alexander Hamilton (the first Treasury Secretary and a founding father), Elizabeth Schuyler came from a very prominent family, her father was a general in Washington’s army and they were American aristocrats. In my imagination, Schuyler traces her roots to that family and is given an old family name. Also, one of my pet peeves is phonetic spellings of names. I don’t like when Antoine is spelled “Antwone” or Brittany is spelled “Britney”.

Is Oliver-Hazard Perry named after the commodore from the war of 1812?

Yes! He is.  But it was partly subconscious, since I found the last name “Hazard-Perry” in my little Astors family history book, and I thought “Oliver” would go well with it. And then Mike pointed out it was the name of someone from history, and I thought excellent! Because of course the Hazard-Perrys are an old family of human conduits, so it makes sense that Oliver would have an ancestor like that.

What’s the Rufus Wainright song they listen to in Revelations?

I purposefully did not name the song because—I couldn’t choose! Like Jack and Sky, I love Rufus Wainright. But I think their song was “Foolish Love” although I also like “Nobody’s off the Hook” and “Natasha” and “Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk” and his version of “Hallelujah”. Put them on and swoooon.

When is the next book coming out?

September 1st! Six months away!!! It’ll be here in a blink! I promise!

xoxo
Mel

Some fun stuff this morning: Blue Bloods will soon be available on audio! That’s right, you can sit and stew on your commute, or you can listen along to the story of Schuyler and her friends as they kick some vampire ass!

Also: welcome Russian Blue Bloods! Or should I say zdravstvuyte? Rights to the series have just been sold to Russia! Woohoo!

I have been shopping. I know, down economy and all. But as I’ve said before, I’m an optimist. I think things will get better. And anyway, there’s so much fun stuff out there and good sales! At the Fred Segal 80% off sale I scored a Giambattista Valli cocktail dress. I just like saying Gee-ahm-bah-tees-tah Vahh-leee. It’s so fabulous, a black knit figure-hugging dress with this insane collar of feathers kind of exploding at the top. It’s one of those dresses that are either extremely fabulous or completely ridiculous. I’m kind of hoping for the former. I like things that are over-the-top and skirt the line a little. And you know, it’s all about context. It’s the kind of dress you can wear to the Whitney Young Collector’s Ball and no one will blink. I miss New York so much sometimes. I miss getting dressed for people who are just as invested in fashion as you are.

Although I was walking around on Friday in my printed Marni dress and I got so many compliments from people. I was a bit worried since it is a little “offf” it’s a bit on the sack-dress side, kind of slouchy and hippie-ish with big printed flowers. But as I was shopping so many women came up to me and whispered, “loooove the dress! I looove Marni too!” like it was a secret between us.

What else did I buy? A really pretty black silk Collette Dinnigan cocktail dress, that I’m going to wear with my pink patent Manolo stilettos. (Remember I was obsessed with this lady at Intermix who was wearing a black cocktail dress with the pink patent Stella McCartney heels?) The Colette dress was also 80% off. And at Madison I bought a really comfortable flannel shirt, which I wore on Saturday night with my skinny black jeans and the hot pink heels and an old black Chloe “boyfriend” blazer. I was so 1980-meets-1992. Mike laughed and said did I really buy a DESIGNER flannel shirt?? And I remember being 20 in 1992 and scoffing at the stupid people who would pay $100 for a Marc Jacobs flannel shirt. Well, fast-forward a couple of years and there I am. Sigh. I know. But I don’t have time for thriftstores anymore.

One of the nice things about designer clothes is how forgiving and flattering they are to a not-20-anymore body. You have to pay to play these days.

What else did I buy: A really cool fringed Chan Luu scarf from the Fred Segal sale. And at Madison, a bright yellow ruffled off-the-shoulder blouse (kind of cha-cha) and snakeskin gladiators. It’s 85 degrees here and everyone is wearing summer clothes again.

Everyone trendy in LA is rocking the flannels, which I kind of love. When I was in college we called it the grunge-bunny look. Dark kohl eyes, messy hair, ripped flannel shirt (unbuttoned to show the absence of cleavage), battered suede jacket, old Levis jeans. I guess it was very “Winona”. I mean, who wanted cleavage? Cleavage is so not-fashion. I’ve always been the kind of girl who dressed for other girls and gays rather than guys. I wanted fashion admiration and not male attention. Dressing for guys is so boring. The trick is to be the kind of girl whom other girls admire for your style and yet whose style still pulls in the dudes. My friend Caitlyn always did this so well. She made wearing those large men’s v-neck t-shirts half-tucked into pegged Levis jeans so sexy… So some girls can get away with both…

Anyway, I’ve got books to write and deadlines to meet and miles to go before I sleep.

Das vedanya for now!

xoxo
Mel