I keep forgetting to mention that my lovely publisher, Simon & Schuster is running a cool program called PULSE BLOGFEST where way too many of your favorite authors are blogging about what inspires them, what character they would like come to life (for some reason I wasn’t sure if it pertained to my books – so I hedged and named them all since I like all my characters and then chose one from J.K. Rowling’s books – I’d love to hang out with Hermione Granger since she just reminds me so much of my sister and my best friends, who were all the smarty-smart girls who raised their hands way too much in class, and are bossy know-it-alls who are always correcting everyone and then grew up to be fabulous strong women who now run their own companies or have amazingly brilliant children).

Anyway, check out Pulse Blogfest: Rachel Cohn! Scott Westerfeld! Susan Cooper! Annette Curtis Klause! And many many many more…

xoxo
Mel

BLUE BLOODS 3: REVELATIONS IS OUT DECEMBER 23, 2008!

Okay. There it is. I have to start every blog with that since I still get so many emails and comments about this. Yes there is a sequel! I am writing it now and it ROCKS! I will share the first chapter as soon as it’s ready in its fact-checked and copy-edited perfection.

The Southwest Florida Book Festival was a blast!! Thank you so much to everyone who came out! I think the Blue Bloods fans are the CUTEST ever and their MOMS were so cool too! Mike and I met lots of moms who were eagerly anticipating the sequel as much as their daughters (and some sons!) And hellooo to all the super-cute ASHLEYS fans who came out too!

JEALOUS? – the second book in the ASHLEYS series is out March 25! I think Amazon and B&N are shipping them out now and I hear they are trickling into stores.

JEALOUS? is my favorite book in the series so far—there’s SO MUCH that happens – including a notorious “Seven” party and a reality show called “Pre-Teen Queen”. Everytime I re-read JEALOUS? I cackle, which is a good sign.

At the book festival, we met Joe Hill, who is the very cool and very handsome and bearded son of Stephen King. We were tres tres excited to meet him, especially since Mike and I were HUGE Stephen King fans growing up. One of the reasons why we are married to each other is that we both love THE STAND, so much that we had read the SPECIAL EDITION, extra 200 pages version! We met Stephen King once at a New York book festival, and Joe was just like him—very laconic, a great storyteller, just very comfortable in their own skin and able to command an audience. We bought his books HEART-SHAPED BOX and TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY GHOSTS and Mike is almost done with HSB so I’m eager to grab it as soon as it’s done. Mike says the book is GREAT. I can’t wait!

We also met Lisa Lutz, awesome author of THE SPELLMAN FILES. Lisa was kind enough to give us a ride to the Author Dinner when we missed the shuttle from the hotel. The shuttle was supposed to leave at 6:30 but when we got down to the lobby it was 6:29 and it was GONE. Grrr. Anyway, I read Lisa’s book on the plane ride back to LA and it is HILARIOUS. I am going to go get the sequel THE CURSE OF THE SPELLMANS right now.

The big keynote speaker was STUART WOODS, who writes crime thrillers, (my dad is a big Stuart Woods fan), and he was this white-haired, blazer-wearing dapper gent who just LOOKED like he wrote crime thrillers. He was very funny and told a story about how he wanted to call his new novel “HARD-WORKING BITCH” and even got it in the contract. But finally, all his publishers wore him down, until the head of HarperCollins told him ok, you can call it that, but you won’t get the promotion you’re used to. Stuart said he “folded like a fan” (LOL!) and the book was titled ORCHID BEACH, which meant he then had to come up with all things orchid for the next titles in the series, which was a huge pain.

There were not a lot of YA authors in attendance, in fact I think I was the only one.

While most of the authors we met were fun, genial and the kind of people you would want to have a drink with, there were SOME authors who shall remain UNNAMED who were NOT. I did meet some OLD AND CRANKY BIYATCHES. Whooo! Don’t go near those gals! One of them, in the shuttle back from the festival, was practically SNARLING when the nice young manga people talked about how hard it was to get publisher support—they had a big launch for their first title and then not so much for the second and third. I sympathized. It’s hard at the beginning of one’s career to get a lot of ballast. But OLDANDCRANKYBIYOTCH said “Huh! I never waited for publishers to do anything, I did it all myself!” And while we ALL agree one must be a self-promoter, it just seemed like such a nasty comment to make, since the young manga authors were very hard-working and did a lot for themselves too, they were just saying it would be nice if they had more corporate help. I’m sure OLD AND CRANKY thinks all her NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING SUCCESS didn’t come from a MAJOR push from her publisher – co-op buys, advertising, etc. No, SHE DID IT ALL HERSELF. Ugh!

I should point out this author thinks of herself as LITERARY. Which is probably why she’s such an unpleasant person.

Oh I’m sure there are a lot of very nice literary types I’d like to have a Cosmo with*, but I hardly ever meet any.

Instead, all the genre (YA, horror, crime, chicklit, etc) writers ROCK and all the sniffy uptight MY BOOK WAS INSPIRED BY THE STORY BEHIND VAN GOGH’S SUNFLOWERS OR WHATEVER HIGH-FALUTING TWADDLE THEY’RE PUBLISHING NOW people can all just take the short bus to Nowhere.

Anyway, even apart from that (and I like getting good stuff to gossip about so it was actually a perverse thrill to have met Old and Cranky), the festival was FABULOUS! Thanks again to Karen Sloan and everyone at the festival for inviting me!

And now I must go back to my regularly scheduled writing day.
xoxo
Mel

*My favorite “literary” authors are Kate Christensen and Cheryl Mendelson. Go get THE GREAT MAN and ANYTHING FOR JANE immediately!

I just heard that The Au Pairs: Crazy Hot and Blue Bloods: Masquerade have both been listed in this year’s New York Public Library Books for the Teenage!
Yay!
This is a very important list of YA books as a lot of other libraries use it to order books, and also, it makes editors and publishers happy. And authors too. I’m totally psyched. There’s a party and everything (maybe red-carpet? A girl can hope!) But I won’t be in NYC to partake in the celebration. Oh well! I will just celebrate here on my own.
Champagne kisses and caviar dreams, everyone!
xoxo
Mel

Somedays I TRY my friends, I TRY, to be the kind of person who is more than happy with $150 Balenciaga gladiator sandal knock-offs. Yes, they are everywhere now—you can find a good copy from Dolce Vita or Mystique and they are very cute. I had one in hand today and I thought “they look JUST like them. Won’t I be happy with these?” And the answer, my friends, is NO.

SIGH.

It’s so hard when you’re a fashion victim. Fashionista. Whatever. I’ve been both at many times in my life, and the heart of the matter is, if I buy the $695 Balenciaga camouflague gladiators, every time I wear them, I will feel a secret thrill, a smugness, and a confidence, that says “I’m wearing THE SANDALS OF THE SEASON lalalala…” And if I buy the cheapo knockoffs, I will just feel lame. (By the way, the knockoffs are just in basic colors of black, brown or beige. They don’t come in the special gladiator blue-and-green that’s made only by Balenciaga. At least, not yet. I’m sure that knockoff is on its way to the stores now.)

I can’t change who I am, and I don’t think a lot of my fashionbrethren would disagree with me. We are the label-lovahs and we derive self-esteem from such stupid things as the red-soles on our shoes. (Red-soles are Louboutins, of course. But I didn’t have to tell you that, did I?)

Part of me is happy with my latest purchases: a lot of practical, I’ll-wear-them-all-the-time drapey jersey tops from Jigsaw (tops were $68 each and a silk crinkle ankle-length skirt was $150) and I bough this insane See by Chloe silk shift dress ($350) in yellow with a fiiiyyyerce jungle pattern (homage to Christian who just won Project Runway). But another part just got invited to the Lanvin, Dries Van Noten, and Balenciaga trunk shows at Barneys. You know, where you order the clothes for next season (in this case, for fall) and spend thousands of dollars on like, a shirt. And I know I’ll be there sipping champagne and oohing over the samples with all the other Beverly Hills biatches.

But another part of me does love Forever 21. I just bought a great knockoff of a Mike & Chris sweat-shirt top for $19. Can’t beat that!

xoxo
Mel

I’m going to be at the Southwest Florida Reading Festival!

MARCH 15, 2008
Southwest Florida Reading Festival
2345 Union Street
Fort Myers, Florida 33901
(239) 461-2900
I will be doing a discussion on the TEEN STAGE at CENTENNIAL PARK at 12 noon.
I’ll be talking about my life, my books, and answering lots of questions! Come stop by!
Afterwards I’ll be signing books at the Books-a-Million tent.

I’m totally psyched! Woohoo!

xoxo
Mel

Omigawd, I’m SO ugly. I have this HUGE zit on the side of my cheek. Like crater gater. And my nails are chipped. My hair is scraggly. (No Warren-Tricomi in the last two months! Arg!) Highlights? I laff in your face.

The only reason I’m not throwing myself in the mercy of dozens of beauticians right now is that the uglier I get, the better REVELATIONS is. I mean to say, I have no time to do anything like beautify because I am SO SO SO into writing this book. I can’t write it fast enough. It’s writing itself. You know that Piers Anthony book, A Spell for Chameleon? It’s always been one of my favorites because Chameleon changes her looks every month, and the uglier she gets, the smarter she is, and the prettier she is, the dumber she is. It’s awesome. And of course, her husband likes her the most when she’s moderately pretty and smart, natch.

I kind of feel like super-ugly yet super-smart Chameleon right now.

You know things are going well with my books when I start getting acne. Because it means I’m so stressed out about the story I can’t concentrate on anything else. Yoiks.

Anyway, I thought maybe I should just write “YES I AM WRITING A SEQUEL TO BLUE BLOODS AND MASQUERADE, IT IS CALLED REVELATIONS AND IT COMES OUT IN DECEMBER” on top of every post since I get so many emails and comments asking this question. Dudes, of course I’m writing a sequel. I won’t leave you hanging will I?

xoxo
Mel

I’ve answered I think all the questions posted on The Compulsive Reader message boards, so go check it out—I spill a *little* about Revelations. You guys know I have a Blue Bloods story in this book, 666: Number of the Beast right??? If not, go check it out! It contains a story about what happened to Dylan after Blue Bloods and before Masquerade. Very cool.

I am deeeeep into Revelations. Sometimes I cackle because it is SO MUCH FUN to write it. Sometimes I have so much flopsweat that I can’t even think. Flopsweat is what actors get before they totally FLOP on stage, right? Also comedians can get it when their jokes BOMB. Ugh. So much pressure on this book! I think a lot of the pressure comes from ME. I think I’ve outlined a really cool story and I hope I live up to it. And all they hype. Something that I find kind of funny is that my then-editor for Blue Bloods, said “I think this book will live up to the hype” about that book, and at that point, the only one really talking up the book and hyping it up was, um, ME. I am my own cheerleader. Heh, heh.

So, anyway, the baby is upstairs in our bed. Yeah, she sleeps with us. She’s fifteen-and-a-half months and she’s our bedmate. Whatever. We are total wussies in the cry-it-out section of parenting. You know, the way you’re supposed to do it—just leave the kid in the crib and let her cry her lungs out until she passes out and understands that NO ONE will pick her up and bring her to Paradise (as in mama and dada’s nice warm bed). Yeah, we can’t do it. The first time we tried it, she REFUSED to lie down, instead she slept sitting up and we just watched the video monitor where she would kind of wobble as she slept and kept hitting her head on the crib rail. It would be like swaaay—wobble—hit! Up again—swaaay—-wobble-hit! I was in TEARS by the time I ran to get her. So now Mike and I just live with cricks in our neck and bad muscle pain because we sleep hugging the sides of the bed while the baby lies HORIZONTALLY between us, hogging ALL the space.

You know, I’m just tired of everyone BASHING all the indulgent parents. Yeah, we should say no to the kid more. (And we DO say no. We say it so much that it’s HER favorite word.) But you know, all you read is how everyone is “helicoptering” and “hovering” and all the kids are “coddled” and babied. Whatever! This one article I read was sneering about how these college kids are calling their moms after a test to tell them how they did on it. Why is this such a bad thing??? Is that really SO terrible? That we love our kids SO much? I mean, we are most likely only going to have one child. So yes. She will be spoiled and coddled and pampered and she is our entire life. But that’s just the way it goes.

Of course, we also don’t want to raise a brat. And she is not a brat, she is a “diva” (my cousin’s word for her). I find I liked the way my parents raised me—with benign neglect. I don’t think my dad even paid attention to us for the first twelve years of our lives. They were busy having their own lives. But we always felt loved. And we always felt like we had our own lives, and our parents had their own lives, and everyone’s happy. So I have a little bit of the indulgent and a little bit of the neglect. She is alternately coddled and neglected, pampered and left to her own devices. Kind of the way I was raised, and I don’t think I came out too badly. I was a little brat myself when I was young. Hey, it’s good to be entitled. It makes you think you deserve good things in life—like your dreams coming true, and a good man, and a good job, and a nice family and a big house.

Anyway, it is way too late for this mommy blog, and I fear I’ve become one of THOSE parents. Also I have to share that my new obsession is Diablo Cody, the totally awesome hot and funny chick who wrote Juno and won the Academy Award wearing a leopard-print Dior dress and bitchin’ tattoos. How cool is she? I liked Juno a lot, but I really was intrigued by the vision in leopard and the Betty Page hair. I had to go get her book Candy Girl, about how she was a stripper. It was HEY-larious and then through the magic of Google I found her blog and she is just WAY too funny and awesome pawsome. If you are old enough, read her book, it’s a little x-rated and adult, so I am warning you, which probably would make you go and get it since that’s the kind of kid *I* was. Anyway, she smokes and drinks and writes about smoking and drinking which is so great. She is my new Internet best friend, in that I know more about her life than I do my real friends’ lives. Hey – I would know about their lives if they kept a blog! Haha.

xoxo
Mel

Hi guys,
Thanks for leaving questions in the comments – but you really need to go to the Compulsive Reader message boards and leave the questions because I’ll be answering them there.
I’ll be answering them all day tomorrow (Thursday) so come by and chat!
xoxo
Mel

Hey guys!

I did an interview with the Compulsive Reader -The Ashleys is the book of the month for February! Check it out!

Also, I will be answering reader questions posted on the Compulsive Reader site this Thursday (Feb. 28th) but you can leave questions anytime on the message boards. So go ahead and ask me anything you want! I know you have a lot of Revelations questions!

I’m waist-deep in Revelations and hoping to finish soon. I think we will be giving out chapter samplers (not full galleys because um, the whole book isn’t done yet) at BEA this year, so if you want a sneak peek you know where to find them! And perhaps I will give away some here too.

And I know there’s been a lot of interest in my hosting some kind of Masquerade Ball, which I think WOULD BE SO COOL. So we’ll see what we can do about that in January of next year.

xoxo
Mel

I’m alive, but barely!

What happened? Two deadlines, one big bout of flu, Vaaayyygas, and um…I gues that’s it.

Sorry for the radio silence! I missed you guys too!

I turned in some books (Ashleys books not Blue Bloods – still plugging on Revelations- the only thing I’m working on now – yippee) and then went to Vegas with old old friends. You know you’re around old friends when all you do is smoke and drink and gamble until four in the morning. I love Vegas. It’s so decadent and hardcore and only-for-adults, especially after being trapped in the nursery for over a year, it was so refreshing to just go back to being wanton and irresponsible.

Although it was really funny how NO ONE looked good the next day. In fact, everyone partied way too hard the first night and the successive nights were just… well…let’s just say me and the gang are showing our age. My God! Can I really be frigging THIRTY-SIX? That is RIDICULOUS! I demand a recount!

Of course the first night away from the child (the VERY first away from the baby ever!) I sobbed like a child myself from missing her. Then, you know what, I got over it. And it was really the best thing we’d ever done. It was like all the tension of the past year and a half melted away…just like all our chips at the roulette tables. I loooove roulette – you know, when you get in a groove, you feel like YOU ARE ONE with the wheel…LOL..18! 21! Double zero! Come in black!

I turned in two books which were SO satisfying to turn in, and then got back from Vegas, and immediately came down with the flu for a week. I think it was maybe from all the cohhhcktaillls? I still order Cosmos – something I’ve drank since I was 22. It’s kind of tacky to drink it now, which is why I like it. It’s like a floozy. I like floozies.

Something about Vegas reminded me of something I’d recently read in a book, about how lame it is when adults put in the same restraints in adulthood as they were given when they were children – it’s in Lionel Shriver’s A Perfectly Good Family, where the sister is restricted to two glasses of wine a night by her rigid younger brother who does not approve of excess. The sister, who is the narrator, says, well, what’s adulthood all about then, if we can’t have a little fun?

Anyway, radio silence will probably come back on again since I really want to power through REVELATIONS until I collapse in a heap.

And wake up in Vegas!

xoxo
Mel