1) I think it was the sage Meg Cabot who quoted some other sage soul about never having a book deadline on Jan. 1. I used to have a Jan. 1 deadline. I had it changed to Feb. 15 back in mid-November. I read Meg's quote sometime in December. Looks like I'm a sage (and psychic) soul, too.
2) The Book With 100 Titles will be coming out in 2009. In the meantime, I'm revising, revising and rethinking. It's great to hear about fellow YA authors who have the same issues I do. Laurie Halse Anderson, author of Twisted and Catalyst and Speak, just wrote about spending all day on perfecting a chapter only to realize, moments before falling asleep, that it was all wrong. That a character should still be in the dark about something or other. This sounds like a small, easy edit. Trust me, people, it ain't.
3) Speaking of dreaming, I've been having some doozies now that my deadline's less than a month away. I seem to have the most horrific dreams in the world right before a book's due. You know that dream about showing up to class and never having gone to it before even though you're about to take the final? Those dreams are horrible, but not as heart-pounding as mine have been (let's just say mine include forgetting to wear a top--or bra). I blame the HBO series I've been Netflixing--stupid nudity.
4) Let's talk good things on Netflix, since we're on the topic. Big Love, Season Two is a hoot (although it's definitely for the 18-and-older crowd, or at least I'm-with-an-18-year-old-and-watching-this). And I just saw Speak, Anderson's book that was turned into a Showtime movie. One of the most EXCELLENT book-to-movie achievements ever. Not kidding. And the girl who is the lead? Kristen Stewart (who's pictured above)? She's playing Bella in the movie version of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight. (Here's hoping the director/screenwriter does as good a job as those good folks who did Speak.)
5) Lastly, and tangentially, watching Oprah can give you some great plot ideas. Let's just say I owe "O" for an idea that has to do with cans. And since my brothers and I had this same sort of experience with, yes, cans, I totally think this idea will work as a way to build Reggie's character. You'll see what I mean in The Book with 100 Titles.
Have fun reading!
Susan
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