First off, Happy New Year chickens!!!
It’s 2009, do you know where your books are???
I’m sorry for the radio silence over the holidays. We had quality family time and no nanny which means I had no time for anything other than the kid, the husband, and the extended family. It was nice to take a bit of a break -I was starting to feel truly burnt out at the end of last year but this morning I woke up just RAZZZING to go.
I read a lot of good stuff over break: Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, which I could not put down all day yesterday, 13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher, which I devoured in two hours on the couch after Mattie fell asleep, What Happened to Cass McBride, which I read during our Palm Springs vacay, Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, which I’ve been peppering my husband with tidbits from in every conversation (don’t get me started! But did you know you only need to be “smart enough” and not “super smart”? Smart enough goes a long way!). I haven’t read a lot of YA lately and it was nice to get back in and find out the water’s so nice and warm. Great books all and heartily recommended by moi. My next reading batch is E. Lockhart’s Frankie Landau Banks book, Sarah Mylnowski’s Parties & Potions (Sarah is stopping by my blog on her online tour! I will post more deets when I know them!) and Holly Black’s The Good Neighbors.
As those of you who met me on my book tour know, I really don’t read a lot of YA other than Diana Wynne Jones (who is more fantasy than YA in my opinion) and I read a lot of cooking memoirs instead, since I can’t read in my genre. Well, I think that was just hoodoovoodoo on my part, because I believed I didn’t want anyone else’s teen voice in my head while I’m writing my own teen books. Because now that I have started reading YA again (I used to devour Gossip Girl and Clique books like candy), I’m really happy with the books I’m reading. And I finally got to read Twilight, too! After watching the movie I could not resist. And I’m happy to report they are so different from my books that it was another escape. I’m looking forward to picking up the House of Night and Vampire Academy series also. Lots of good YA stuff out there!
I guess I just feel happy with where I am in my work. More secure maybe. Blue Bloods IV: The Van Alen Legacy is going really well, and I think you guys will enjoy this book because it answers so many questions. Of course, there are still unanswered questions, but big big stuff is answered. Also: there are rumors on the Internet that Book Four is being released January 2009. This is so untrue and I’m sorry for whoever spread this rumor. The book will not be out until Fall 09 at the earliest, if I hear otherwise, I’ll let you know of course!!
Anyway, I guess I’m feeling zen about my work because even if this turns out to be another five-novel year, which it’s shaping up to be, I’m okay with it. I realized that in the past, DENYING that I had this much work to do only made me miserable. Resistance is misery, Acceptance is freedom. I read that somewhere over the break, and it is so so so true. Now that I ACCEPT I have all these books to write, I just get really excited about them. And when I ACCEPT my workload, I do stuff like schedule my days so that it all gets done (as much as possible) on time. But when I RESIST my workload and my deadlines, I just plow ahead and cram and then angst and wail. I procrastinate because I am in denial about how much work there is. But with acceptance comes rigor and discipline and writing.
Which means: gotta get back to it. Books aren’t going to write themselves!
I wish you all very happy and a very prosperous New Year. God knows we need one!
xoxo
Mel