aryanaazari asks: what is NaNoWriMo? Everyone talks about it and I don’t get it.

NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month. It takes place every November. The challenge is to complete a draft of 50,000 words during the space of one month. The good folks at NaNoWriMo HQ very helpfully explain what they are and how it all works here.  Last year, I wrote an official pep talk for NaNoWriMo which you can read IF YOU SO DESIRE. They have lots of good pep talks. You should read them all WHEN YOU ARE DONE WRITING FOR THE DAY.

That’s the official stuff! Everything from this point on is JUST MY TAKE on things. 

everybody asks: Are you doing NaNoWriMo this year?

I’ve gotten this question 5-10 times a day for the last few weeks, as have most writers I know. Here’s my answer. No. I don’t do NaNoWriMo. I write all the time as my job. Every month is NaNoWriMo for me. I might not write exactly 50,000 words in any given month, but I certainly write that many along the way.

Some people then say, “But you should do it anyway!” To which I will not reply in words, but simply by pointing at the very large manuscript that I need to revise completely by November 19th. To which some very determined people say, “You should just count the number of words you revise!” At which point, I just start crying and banging my head on the wall.

HOWEVER, even though I don’t do NaNoWriMo, there are SOME authors that do or have. Also, just because I’m not doing it doesn’t mean I don’t think it’s awesome. I do. I think it is WAY AWESOME.

MalfoyIsOurKing asks: How important are titles? They have always been the hardest part for me.

This is NaNoWriMo, so I’m going to say that your title is THE LEAST IMPORTANT THING IN THE WORLD at the moment. NaNoWriMo is about writing the draft of a book, a draft which is likely to be hugely craptastic, not because you are a bad writer, but because it is the nature of first drafts to be hugely craptastic. The first draft is where you just WRITE SOMETHING, get some ideas out there, finish the work in some way. Go nuts! Just write! I know a lot of people are really into titles, and it’s true that a title can be a binding or thematic agent, it can help you focus on what the book is about. It can also just be the thing that pile of paper you created is called. In any case, titles are nothing to worry about in the first draft stage. Dismiss it from your mind.

sundust asks: My first 5,000 words is all INFO and not enough about my characters. I want people to feel connected to them right away HELP

Ah, infobarf. I know it well. Don’t worry about that right now. This is NaNoWriMo so just press on. Edit later.

juliajorge asks: what do you do when your computer crashes and you can’t access anything you’ve written?

Whenever you are creating any kind of an important document, save, save, save and save again. Don’t just save it to your hard drive. Save it to an external drive, an online drive, whatever. I save to three different drives: an external drive, an online drive, and another small drive I carry on a keychain for when I am on the go. Also, email it to yourself.

Brie_32 asks: how do you stop using the same word repetitively?

Everybody does that. Mine seems to be “just.” Be aware of it, that’s all. You can yoink them out when you revise. If you want, put a post it on your computer with the naughty word on it and a big X through it.

fgg23 asks: How private do you think one should be about their plot idea? Is it bad to be open about your ideas when people ask?

Well, this depends. You never have to talk about your work if you don’t want to. If you feel like chatting about your project, I don’t see why this is a problem. But if you are asking if you should workshop it, then I would say no, because in NaNoWriMo you have no time for that. And if you are asking if it is safe to do this, as in, “Should I keep my idea private because other people might steal it?” . . . well, don’t worry about that. No one is going to steal your book idea. Book ideas are a dime a dozen—even good ones.

shopaholic3100 asks: how do i tell my inner editor to take a hike? I need the most words not the best words!

This is the genius of NaNoWriMo and the critical part of the exercise. Keep your eyes on the prize, and in the case of NaNo, the prize is that daily word count. I find it handy to give myself prizes for meeting my word counts, prizes like food or showers.

tweak3 asks: Is it okay if my characters keep looking, glancing, walking and finding each other’s eyes? If not, what else can they do?

Looking, glancing . . . these are fine things for eyes to do, in general. (Well, except for walking. The eyes should not be walking, unless they have been given legs by a mad scientist.) And it’s not necessarily bad, unless the characters are having patently ridiculous eye nookie. As to whether or not there is too much of this, or if it hasn’t been handled to the desired effect . . . well, that’s kind of line edit stuff, which again, you can deal with after NaNoWriMo.

But okay, just to answer the question in some way . . . I’d say that you should ask yourself what that looking is really supposed to convey. Can you convey it in a line of dialogue or an action? And if you can’t, does that line really need to be there at all? Because a lot of that looking is understood. Hold on to the eye nookie  for when you really need it.

Make the most of your eye nookie.

(The only thing like this that I would suggest bearing in mind in the first draft is making up words for “said” or “replied.” (These are otherwise known as dialogue tags.) You can’t take any verb and make it into a speech verb, though people will try.)

mkmurray7 asks: How do I make characters come to life? How can I make dialogue real?

Read good books and find out how the authors accomplished these things. That’s the only way I know of to learn. To do it yourself, it takes many years of practice. NaNoWriMo is a good place to get some of that.

throw_away_user asks: which publishers/editors should I spam incessantly to read my novel after I’m done with it?

I think maybe you are making a funny at me, to which I say, in my most stentorian voice, lol. But many people do have this exact idea. Many agents and editors tell me that as soon as NaNoWriMo ends, they develop a quivering feeling and a deep unease whenever they approach their inboxes, because they know that floods of not-ready-for-prime-time drafts wait for them. DON’T DO THIS. It UPSETS them. I’ve seen it. My agent, Daphne Unfeasible (a.k.a. Kate Schafer-Testerman of kt literary) has written a post on this very subject, highlighting this very problem and explaining why you should not submit a book right after NaNoWriMo.

“I’ve just finished NaNoWriMo,” they say. “Perhaps you’d like to take a look?”

Still, even after reading that, I’m guessing that some people will say, “But my book is good! It’s ready!” And I don’t want to tell you are wrong, but you are probably wrong. I’m, like, 99.7% certain you’re wrong.  Maybe you are that one person in a gillion who actually coughs up a perfectly formed novel during NaNoWriMo. But the chances are that you have produced a draft, which is a fine and wonderful thing, and exactly what you are SUPPOSED to produce from NaNoWriMo. So what you should do is KEEP WORKING ON THAT BOOK and revise it and give it time to grow and blossom. Because I can more or less guarantee that if you write to an agent on December 1st saying, “Hey! I JUST FINISHED my NaNoWriMo novel! Read it!” they will almost certainly wince. Because agents aren’t there to read drafts—they are there to read completed and revised works.

Sejael asks: can i still make it if im already 8 days behind?

Sure. Why not? Just write a little more each day.

Ms_Awkward asks: What do we do if we get stuck?

Getting stuck is all part of the fun! And when I say fun, I don’t mean the kind of fun you are used to. It’s not fun fun, but rather all part of the sport of writing. There are lots of ways to get over stalls. Maybe you take a short break and listen to music or do this dishes or go to the gym or have a little walk. Then you come back and you keep going. Yes, even when you don’t know what you are doing. The physical act of sitting back down and continuing is critical.

I’m not trying to be twee here, I promise, or give that greeting-card-sweet writing advice that causes me to twitch and strike my teeth together, but I honestly believe that you should go “into” writing only if you feel you have no choice—like you can’t afford to be anything else.

I’m also sort of assuming that by “writer” you mean novelist. Because there are many types of writing that one can very much afford to be, because they pay pretty decently. Many corporations, for example, employ technical writers. That’s a skilled, salaried profession. There are copywriters and news writers and educational writers and various other kinds of writer that are all writers, and you can make your living there.

But if you do mean novelist (or let’s say “book writer” to encompass non-fiction writers and graphic novel writers, etc.), then making a living becomes a lot trickier. This is where one conjures up the mental image of two hobos sharing one bean.

The reality is that the VAST MAJORITY of book writers do not make their living solely from writing books. The reality is that many advances are small, and you only write so many books in a lifetime (with the possible exception of V.C. Andrews, who has written over sixty books since her death as opposed to the six or so she wrote while alive, which is VERY IMPRESSIVE WORK). The reality is that a lot of books never earn back those advances.

Should this cause you despair? No. Not really. Why no despair? Because the world is full of good things to do, and not even writers write all the time. Full disclosure: I do, as of this writing, make my money from writing books. I’m very lucky. But it also took a quite a few years to get to this point. And once you hit that point, a certain amount of your day is spent in the business of writing. My inbox is full of the businessy type emails that I used to get when I had a job at an office. It’s still cool and awesome and all of that, but I don’t want you to get the impression that we just sit around in colorful floppy hats, reciting poetry all day long. That is only on Thursdays.

Every day but Thursday.

So, how do you afford to be a writer? Here is how I did it for a long time:

1. FREELANCE WORK: Freelance work is your friend. I used to pick up freelance jobs in the same careless way that some people pick nuts out of a bowl. “Oh, I can take on all of these,” you think, scooping up the cashews. Why freelance? Well, freelancers are often paid more, can work completely weird hours, and can work from home. And if you work REALLY HARD, you can, for example, do a project that should take ten hours in two hours. You get the same money, but you don’t have to sit and spin in a desk chair all day, and you can be WRITING instead. Be warned, though. Freelance jobs can be INTENSE sometimes, but you can get good stories out of some of them. I offer this example from my life.

2. OFFICE JOBS: Also these. I did a lot of these. I answered a lot of phones and did a lot of filing and wrote up a lot of notes for some very understanding employers who seemed to know that I was actually spending all of the time at my desk WRITING. On a good day, they got about an hour’s worth of work out of me. My most understanding employer actively encouraged me, in fact. This does not normally happen, and usually you have to write on the down-low. (TIP: If you firm has templates for memos and things like that, open one of these and write your story in it. That way it looks like work from a distance.)

It looks like work from a distance.

That was the same firm where we had all these fancily framed collages on the wall of manila folders and black lace. I used to have to stare at these while at the copier. They drove me nuts. So one day I said, very loudly, “What are these? It looks like someone ran over Stevie Nicks with a file cabinet.” I was then informed that the works were VERY EXPENSIVE PIECES OF ART created by one of the partner’s wives, who was currently having a art show in Belgium. That was ALSO the same firm where I was working the front desk one day while wearing a very long sundress that had buttons all the way up the front, and the president of the firm walked in, and I quickly wheeled my chair over to reach for a fax to give him and the hem of the dress got stuck under the wheel and THE ENTIRE DRESS CAME OPEN AND BASICALLY FELL OFF as he approached me.

So my two major points of advice on office jobs are: don’t comment on the artwork and don’t wear clothing that can fall off.

3. HAVE ANOTHER SKILL: This applies to every type of creative person I know. Develop another skill. One that pays some cash money. Because you can’t reply on sandwiches left over from status meetings as the main source of your nutrition.

4. KEEP WRITING: This is the key. Write whenever there is time. Make the time. Commutes, lunches, evenings, mornings, weekends . . . hand it over. It belongs to the writings. If you don’t feel like doing this, the writings may not be for you AND THAT IS FINE. But if you do want to write, you will make the time. You will do what you need to do.

erin_bowman asks: How do you tackle editing? What approaches do you find work best? (I always end up getting overwhelmed by this process)

I am not a military commander. I just want to make that clear up front. But I imagine that, say, Napoleon, when looking at campaigns to take on, didn’t use the same strategy every single time. He probably looked at the terrain, the situation, the people he was fighting and developed his plan based on those facts. Or Churchill, when fighting back the Nazis . . . he was constantly surveying the situation, getting creative.

This is how I think of editing. I have heard of people who have ways of going about their edits, methods they use over and over. I admire this, but I can’t do it. To me, each campaign is different. Sometimes I am going over mountains, and sometimes I am crossing seas.

The first question I ask myself is: HOW MUCH TIME DO I HAVE? This is the key factor in my planning. If you have no deadline, I suggest you impose one on yourself. It helps. That gives you a goal and a boundary.

The next question is: WHAT IS THE MOST BROKEN THING ABOUT THIS BOOK? Because they are always broken. Never worry about that. Don’t think that your situation is hopeless because your book is dragging ass and coughing up smoke and barfing fire. That’s all fine. Get in there, dismantle it, and find out what’s burning. I hack my books apart with chainsaws in drafts two and three and four. The scalpels come much later. Don’t be afraid to EDIT BIG.

Remember: THINGS ARE NEVER AS HOPELESS AS YOU THINK. Despair over a draft is healthy and normal. I worry about people who walk around saying, “My draft is amazing!” I’ve never met anyone who did that, and if I ever do, I am going to capture that person and hand them over to SCIENCE. Because either they are on to something HUGE, or they are a clueless egomaniac.

At some point, it will feel like this.

At the same time, realize that you may never be 100% satisfied. At some point, you must let go. It takes time and practice to know when. It also helps considerably to have an editor just take it from you. If you don’t have an editor, maybe you can arrange to have a friend STEAL the book from you on a certain date? I think that would work as well.

Also, DON’T TAKE ADVICE. Ignore everything I’ve said. Find your own way, and it will be right. Probably.

Certainly, it is a wonderful age in which we live, what with this whole “internet” thing where everyone can say whatever they want—and the problem of course, is that everyone can say whatever they want, which leads to things being wrong on the internet. Sure, you get reviews that say things like, “tihis book was so boring it had no vampirs u don’t know how to rite!” and you have to take it on the chin. You don’t answer back. What on earth would you say, even if you did? “I can TOO rite (WITH A W!)” These don’t really present a problem.

And I’m not talking about “official” reviews either (though you REALLY, REALLY shouldn’t respond to them). Not that official reviews are so far removed from reader comments on forums or Amazon, really. I think there is sometimes the notion that any review that has ever been printed is some kind of Official Word—not actually proclaimed by God, but possibly by someone in his office, and most likely on letterhead. Like in order to become a reviewer you have to pass a series of important tests and physical challenges . . . reciting The DaVinci Code backwards, perhaps, entirely from memory. Or maybe you have to coax a chicken away from an alligator through song and dance. And only when you have passed these many tests will you be allowed to Review, and the mantle of Ultimate Rightness will be placed over your shoulders.

This is most certainly not the case. I know this because I was a reviewer for a Big, Fancy Publication, and let me tell you something—I cranked those reviews out hard and fast, often at three in the morning, because they paid me fifty dollars each and ALL I did was write negative reviews. Why? Because you get to crack better jokes and sound smug and smart. This, as it turns out, it a very common behavior, so it’s not just me. There is nothing quite as fun as writing something an evil, snarky critique.

Reviews are just opinions. Some reviewers and publications are better than others, and all have their good and bad days and their personal preferences. One of my favorite writers in the world was a reviewer by trade. I worship the man, and he wrote a DEVASTATING review of something I love. I have learned to reconcile this in my mind, but it took time. If you go back and read reviews of books that everyone accepts to be Good and Important Books that Everyone Has To Like, there will be a reviewer who hated it when it was published, or who hates it now. So that’s not anything to freak out over either.

Does this mean all reviews are meaningless? God, no. It just means that there are a chorus of voices in the world, and you have to pick which ones you are going to listen to. This, as it turns out, is more or less the point of Writing School. In my writing program, you had to go through two years of writing and presenting your work to your class or thesis group. In a room of, say, ten reasonably smart and talented writers, you are going to get ten totally different opinions. And for those two years, you had to train your ear to listen for things that rang true—comments both good and bad—things you could build on.

So, I listen still. I have to admit, I don’t sit and read every comment written about me, because I would go insane, but I scan through every once in a while to see what’s what. In general, the experience is pretty lovely (which is part of the reason I don’t do it that often because I will get a BIG, SOFT HEAD). In doing this, I’ve noticed something in a few reader comments that has me worried. I’ve seen versions of this comment time and time again, both for my books and for similar “realistic fiction” books.* The comment usually goes something like this . . .

I read this book and it was okay but why would this happen? It is just totally not probable. I mean I liked the story and the writing but I just don’t think this would happen in life.

This makes me quiver. Not with outrage, but with fear and concern, because I am terribly worried that a lot of people are growing up with a slightly mixed-up idea of how stories work and what they are meant to do.

Stories are not meant to be probable.

Probable means the thing that is most likely to happen. There would be little point in reading about the thing that is most likely to happen. So I am confused about the expectation here. Is the problem that the reader thinks the story isn’t about something common enough? Of course, amazing stories can be written about very common, everyday things, exposing deeper meanings and levels of communication. The first example that leaps to mind here among thousands of possible examples is A&P by John Updike, one of the first short stories I remember reading as a tiny mj. It’s literally about a guy working the cash register at an A&P when a girl comes in dressed only in a bathing suit and bare feet to buy some jarred herring snacks. The narrator (a teenaged boy) admires the girls (in many ways), but the manager wants to throw the girls out, so the narrator takes off his apron and quits. That’s it. That’s the plot.

A&P is a probable story, I guess. It’s quite possible to walk into a grocery store in a bathing suit and buy some herring, if that’s how you roll. But in 1961, when it was written, it was a bit more of a shock to see a girl in a bathing suit walk into a store. It was unlikely. It was a statement. It meant something.

So I guess A&P isn’t probable at all. It was about an exceptional moment—certainly one that falls within the boundaries of physical possibility, but still, a moment that stood out and provoked a strong change. And that was the most probable story I could think of.**

Possibly, there is a confusion here with logical. Stories should be logical. You can write the most far-fetched story in the world but it must make sense within itself—it has to obey its own rules. As I sit here typing this, I have the Alfred Hitchcock movie The Birds on in the background. That’s another short story I remember reading as a kid, and another possible but not probable premise: one day, all the birds decide they don’t like people, and they attack. “This isn’t usual, is it?” one of the characters just said, after a flock of birds destroyed a picnic. No, it is not usual at all. But it is a story with nice, simple rules, which it follows carefully: birds are normal, birds get squirrelly, birds &*@# everybody up, birds get progressively better at breaking into houses and running people off roads, birds take over town. It’s bad bird behavior, but it follows a logical progression.

But since I keep seeing this comment in so many places and for so many books, and since the phrasing is often so similar, I am very worried that these readers mean exactly what they say—that they are expecting something to roll out in a certain way, that they think there are ways that stories are supposed to go. You’re either fighting off the space leopards with your rainbow sword or you are buying a pair of jeans and making a call on your cell phone (brands included, natch!) . . . and there is NO MIDDLE GROUND. If the book is “realistic,” then the coordinates have been predetermined. Weirdness is not encouraged and will not be tolerated. This bothers me both as a writer and as a weird person.

I write fiction. I make things up. To date, I have not included many space leopards or their ilk (though that is going to change soon), but I’ve never felt this is in any way a limiting factor. There are many strange and fantastic things that are quite real—and any number of styles or techniques can be employed when telling “realistic” stories. Many of the “realistic” writers I admire write complete lunacy, and this is a very good thing in my opinion.

So the kneejerk “this isn’t probable” reaction seems to me quite similar to the “this place is weird” reaction to foreign travel, or “this tastes funny” when eating something new. It suggests that there are people who think they know what normal is. And if I can impart any wisdom at all*** I would like to impress this little nugget: there is no normal. You are not normal. No one is normal. And if you think there is a set way a story (or life) is supposed to go, you are mistaken—and happily so. Because there is a lot of fun to be had and things to be learned be had when you shake off those preconceptions.

Now if you will excuse me, I have to go do some riting (WITH A W!). If YOU would like to add to this discussion, please do so in the COMMENTS!

* My friends who write Sci Fi and Urban Fantasy and all of that good stuff don’t get this comment, but they get lots of others, usually along the lines of “Why did you kill so-and-so?” or “Why haven’t so-and-so made out yet?” even if so-and-so are related.

** And I have absolutely no doubt that someone out there has written some critique that says, “I guess this story is okay but it is so boring and why would you quit your job just because a girl in a bathing suit came in to your store? That is just not probable.”

*** Unlikely, but roll with me here. I have a cold. Cut me some slack.

The gist of his speech was: “Look, people thought I was going to be a huge failure, but then I got kind of lucky and made it. And I had and have lots of amazing friends, and we’ve seen each other’s careers go up and down. Take my advice: don’t go comparing yourself to other people. You will go insane. It’s pointless. Your fortunes may rise and fall, depending on all kinds of things you have no control over. Keep your friends. Never compare all the outward markers of success. Do what you love, because that’s all you really get and that’s all that matters and that’s all that will ever really work. And don’t be an as$h&^e.”

It was the only useful graduation speech I’ve ever heard. And it was much longer, funnier, and more nuanced than that—and it was specifically geared to us, because we were the School of the Arts. So this was advice to people about to go out and try to become actors, directors, musicians, visual artists, filmmakers, and writers . . . which is a little like addressing a group of swimmers about to do the 500 meter shark tank event.

Getting into the writing game can be kind of hard, and it’s an arena where you’re often judged by things that either you can’t control or things that have very little to do with your book itself. How your book will sell, what people will think of it, what cover it will get, what money will be spent to place it in prominent places in the bookstore . . . it’s generally out of your hands. You will get unexpected bursts of luck from unlikely corners, and at the same time, people will slam you sideways in scathing reviews. All par for the course.

Nothing you can do about any of this.

If you are following the advice of Mr. Murray, the thing that matters is quality. It’s the only thing you can control. And quality is a slippery, slippery eel. For example, some people think that if something is popular and sells well, it must be kind of bad. There are other people who think that if something is popular and sells well, it must be kind of good. Neither of those things is universally true. Good things sometimes become popular, sometimes they don’t. Bad things can become raging successes, and sometimes, they slip back into the ooze. You must write the thing you love, and then you hope. You can play your cards smartly, but there’s no way to determine the outcome.

But we do live in an age of RANKING! Of POPULARITY! Editors sometimes buy books out of sheer love, and other times, just because they think they might sell. This has caused some people to worry (rightly) that we’ve entered a blockbuster mentality—where the trick is just to throw everything you have at a book if you think it might generate some sales.

And the truth is, when a publisher decides to put its chips on a book (and they usually do for one or two a season), that book is probably going to do well, and probably make the bestseller list. If they buy ads, if they spend loads on shiny promotions, and if they throw down some serious bank to buy premium space in stores . . . then people are going to see the book, see the shiny, and perhaps buy it.

This is the reality I personally live in, and I respect it. It’s the game I chose to play, because this is the game that allows me to write. And I’m not immune from it. Good sales mean I can do more writing! And I have causes to fund, like my Institute for Disco Studies and my Home for Wayward Hamsters** What defines good? Well, for me, anything that allows me to continue with these grand plans of mine.

But in general, I stay away from the numbers. Most of the writers I do the same, and these include some people who are pretty massive bestsellers. They avoid it because they know the numbers make you crazy in the coconut, and they distract you from the important things, like writing things you love, reading awesome books, eating snacks, and spending time with friends. Sometimes I hear of people who have a book about to come out who get a little nuts about looking at numbers. I can understand how this might happen. But, if you ask me (and I am fully aware that no one did): don’t do this. Because then your life will become about the numbers, not the books. And they are two very different things. And trust me, there are enough people looking at those numbers for you that there’s no reason to drive yourself up a wall about it.

Now, perhaps you are thinking, “But mj, I am not an author. I see what you are saying about the books, but what about ME? What about MY LIFE?”

Fair enough. Once again, you’ve dazzled me with the way you bring me back to the point.

I get a lot of e-mail (which you know I love, even though I sometimes have trouble replying). Some of you write to tell me about the books, but some of you write just to tell me about your lives, or your desire to become authors, or things that are happening to you in school. And the one thing I have definitely noticed is that you are not immune from these kinds of pressures.

There are a lot of numbers out there. Your SAT or standardized test scores. Your GPA. Your number of Facebook or Myspace friends or Twitter followers and whatever comes next. For some people, like the characters in Wintergirls, it’s all about the number of the scale or in that snack you want to eat. I know sports people have all kinds of numbers of their own, but I know nothing about sports, so you have to fill all that info in here.

The numbers all have a kind of meaning within their own realm, but when spread out over the world, they lose a lot of significance. The number on the scale tells you how much you weigh, not what you are like or what you are worth. Your SAT score tells you how good you do on that particular type of standardized test, and sheds a certain degree of light on your current skill level in math and English, right now, given all of your current life conditions. If you’ve been raised in an affluent household where academics are considered important, you’ll probably do better than someone who didn’t grow up under those conditions. Maybe you worked hard. Maybe you’re just good at standardized tests. Maybe you got lucky. Maybe you were sick, or upset. Your number of Facebook friends probably reflects the amount of time you spend on Facebook.**

You have to do things because you want to do them and because you love them (or at least LIKE them). The numbers themselves are innocent, merely offering a measure of whatever it is you wanted to know. When you stay obsessively focused on them, you tend to miss the bigger picture. You may end up like this:

“Okay,” you say, “I do that a little, but not NEARLY as much as other people I know. In fact, they are obsessed with EVERYONE ELSE’S numbers. What do I do about them?”

I know who you mean. You mean the person who comes up to you in the hall after some test you know they’ve aced and they ask you, all sweetness, “So, how did you do?” And you say, “I got an 83.” And they say, “Oh, that’s too bad. I got a hundred. Oh god. You must feel so awful.”

Obviously these people have problems, and a quick punch in the throat would probably be very educational for them . . . and while it is always tempting to perform a public service like that, forget about it. Life has a way of sorting these people out. Yes, it’s true. Some of them get to be rich and successful. But if they keep that up, no one likes them. Period. They do not live on the fun side of the street. They have their own kooky ranking system for the world, and they cling to it, and if the slightest thing goes wrong, they go insane. I HAVE SEEN IT HAPPEN! Have faith, friends.

It’s like Bill Murray said, the one thing you can’t do is start obsessing about how other people do—as if the successes of others somehow diminish you.*** Of course, there are all kinds of things that annoy me. There are people I have wanted to see go DOWN. But I’ve noticed that every time I dwell on this, I go radically off the path and down the bumpy, sure-death side of the mountain. And for what? This stuff never matters for long, if it matters at all, which it usually doesn’t. When others do well, celebrate! When they are down, help them up. If you follow the opposite of that, then you are probably an as$h^&e. Which means you should go back to the beginning of this entry and re-read Bill Murray’s final point, “Don’t be an as$h&@e.”

And love what you do.

* So why not buy a few copies of Suite Scarlett today! Do it for the hamsters.

** Twitter numbers, however, reflect your worth as a person so please follow me on Twitter immediately.

*** Unless that person is someone like Hitler, in which case you must absolutely worry about their successes and thwart them wherever possible. I’m just saying that you have to make a pretty clear distinction between “Actual Evil People Who Keep Freeze-Dried Orphans In The Basement” and “Other People Just Living Their Lives In Close Proximity To Yours.”

There is an expression, “Hunger is the best sauce.” I have a corollary: “Deadlines are the greatest inspiration.”

No great paper was ever written on a timely schedule. Forget everything the dweebs in the writing center* tell you about outlines and drafts and revisions. Forget about collecting up notes on your computer or carefully organized file cards which you lovingly arrange over the course of several weeks until they achieve a pleasing formation which you then use as the blueprint of the architecture of your prose. It makes me laugh just to write that sentence!

Great final papers are born of adrenaline and stink of desperation. Great final papers are the things you create because you don’t have quite enough time to fake your own death. Let’s go through the typical timeline of a final paper and see how YOU can achieve greatness for yourself!

WEEK ONE: Syllabus is given out. You see that, among many other books, you will be reading I, Wombat and The Hamster’s Tale. Being a dutiful and dedicated student, you immediately go to the bookstore and purchase these books. Someone is going to EARN that café coolatta today!

WEEK THREE: This is the week for reading I, Wombat and The Hamster’s Tale. Because it is still early in the semester and you are in a sporting mood, you read half of I, Wombat and all of The Hamster’s Tale. (Because it is shorter, but amazingly, you forget the ending of the book as soon as you are done . . . and the beginning . . . and a good chunk of the middle. But the important part is that you read it, right? You physically HAD IT IN YOUR HANDS and flipped through it page by page and THAT is what college is all about.)

WEEK FIVE: Final paper questions are assigned, with the idea that you now have many, many weeks to reread, research, and plan for writing. You choose this question, because of the good work you put in during week three: “Compare and contrast the themes of I, Wombat and The Hamster’s Tale. What conclusions to your draw from the differing approaches? (25 pages, 95% of your grade)”

WEEKS 6-11: It’s not 100% clear what exactly goes on in weeks six through eleven. Clearly, at some point you went to the library. You’ve been using a book called “I, Wombat: A Critical View”** as a coaster for about three weeks now. Aside from that, it’s all a haze of Youtube videos and attempts at making grilled cheese sandwiches on your overactive radiator.*** All you know is that time has passed and it’s perhaps time to think about that paper that is now due in two weeks.

WEEK 12: “I’m serious,” you say to everyone around you. “I’m getting ready to go in for the long haul. Once I get all the supplies I need, I’m going to lock myself in and I’m NOT COMING OUT until the paper is DONE! Except to go to class, of course!” You’re going to need a lot, though. Coffee, protein bars, paper, pens, ramen noodles, ginko tea, some of those vitamin waters made from the smartberry . . . Oh, yes. Yours is the room of a SERIOUS SCHOLAR!

WEEK 13

MONDAY, MORNING: You can barely move around in your room, you’re so well prepared. You have no money left to buy anything else. You’ve spent it all. But wisely. Wisely. You’re just going to class today, and coming right back and getting to work. Paper’s due on Friday. You can write it in five days. That’s four pages a day.

MONDAY, AFTERNOON: Oh no! HIJACKED! It WAS the first summer-like day of the year, so you really did have to go and get milkshakes and sit in the sun for a little while. That will only help you later. You could probably have skipped those two hours of Mario Kart, but whatever.

MONDAY, EVENING: Well, you have to EAT, too. Paper will be started right after dinner.

MONDAY, 9pm: All right. This is where it BEGINS! This is where the magic happens. You just need to grab your copy of I, Wombat and . . . Where is I, Wombat? Oh no. Moocher from building across campus BORROWED I, Wombat weeks ago. Moocher must be called. Moocher is not picking up. OFF TO LIBRARY.

MONDAY, 10pm: Library all out of copies of I, Wombat. Moocher must be tracked down on foot.

MONDAY, 11:30: Moocher has been spotted! Moocher is sitting on south lawn, blowing bubbles in the dark and playing tambourine. Moocher is not dedicated like you. Bit of a hippie. Doesn’t believe in personal property, that kind of thing.

MONDAY, 11:45: Moocher is happy to see you! Wants to blow bubbles, play tambourine with you. No time for that! You need book. Moocher is sorry. Is not sure where book is. Are you sure you won’t blow some bubbles?

TUESDAY, 1:00am: Okay, Moocher has minor point. Bubbles and tambourine combination surprisingly satisfying. But enough is enough. Maybe book can be found online.

TUESDAY, 3:30am: Book is not online.

TUESDAY, 9:30am: Why did you ever sign up for the 9:30am session of “Important Rocks of Ireland”? What were you thinking? Nevermind. Will have to find copy of I, Wombat after class.

TUESDAY, 11am: Fifteen dollars for a new copy of I, Wombat? The system is corrupt! Back to room to read until 1:30.

TUESDAY, 5pm: Okay, you didn’t read. You had lunch before your next class. Must eat. But you are definitely not going to the dining hall for dinner. You are staying in and reading.

TUESDAY, 7:30pm: It was a relatively quick trip to the dining hall, all things considered. Now reading . . .

TUESDAY, 10:30pm: What the hell IS this book?

TUESDAY, 11:30pm: Feverishly consider other paper options. No, you committed weeks ago. Had to turn in slip of paper saying what your topic was, get approval. Is it too late to change? Examine class documentation minutely.

WEDNESDAY, 2:30am: It is too late to change. Also, turns out roommate HAD copy of I, Wombat. Roommate very smug. Roommate is engineering major. Never has to write a paper. Only has to build functioning robotic arm instead. SLACKER.

WEDNESDAY, 9:00am: Why did you ever sign up for 9am session of “Modern Perspectives on Modernism”? What were you thinking? Trudge, trudge, trudge off to class.

WEDNESDAY, 11am: Trudge, trudge, trudge back to room. You didn’t have enough money for a large latte. Had to get a coffee refill in someone’s borrowed eco-mug. Hope they washed it.

WEDNESDAY: 1pm: The Hamster’s Tale also insane, just slightly less so than I, Wombat. Type two paragraphs of notes that sort of sound like something. Off to “Folktale, Myth, Legend, Parable, and Story: A Cultural Perspective.”

WEDNESDAY, 3pm: Stroke of luck! Friend works at coffee bar in basement of math building. Will hook you up with leftover coffee when they close at 5. Totally worth waiting around for. Will just read in meantime, right outside, in the sun.

WEDNESDAY, 5:30pm: Okay, what is it about reading in the sun that makes you get all sleepy and dazed? Well, that doesn’t matter now, as you are the proud owner of at least two quarts of high-quality, slightly used coffee. You even got about two dozen of those fancy flavored creamers! Now, you are going to ROCK.

WEDNESDAY, 9:30pm: Oh yeah. You’ve been typing for four hours straight now. Eleven pages! Oh yeah. Oh YEAH! Maybe you should read this? No, no. Not yet. Not while you are on a roll! Time for more slightly used coffee and fancy creamer!

THURSDAY, 5:30am: Eighteen pages!!!! Everything is shaking a little bit. Confusion. Darkness. Heartbeat somewhat irregular.

THURSDAY, 9:00am: Must re-read genius work of last night.

THURSDAY, 9:30am: What the @%#^?

THURSDAY, 12:30pm: Have come to the terrifying conclusion that only perhaps three pages of last night’s frenzy are in any way usable. What happened HERE? LOCK DOOR. WRITE.

THURSDAY, 8:30pm: NO I DON’T WANT FOOD. FOOD MAKES YOU SLOW.

THURSDAY, 10pm: Nine pages. NINE PAGES?!?!?!?!

THURSDAY, 11pm: An entire HOUR wasted playing with font size, spacing, calculating the exact time the paper needs to be sent off, and reading all the fine print on the guide sheet. Back to it, NOW, NOW, NOW!!!

FRIDAY, midnight: The day of the paper has now arrived. You are halfway done. It is customary to spend at least a few minutes berating yourself on letting this happen. But this part is boring, in the same way that all graduation speeches are boring. Skip ahead to the frenzy.

4am: Uncontrollable twitching. 12 pages.

8am: Strange euphoria. 14 pages.

10:30am: Stalled at 16 pages. Bang head on desk a few times.

1:30 pm: Could it be that you’re . . . done? Well, it’s 19 and a half pages, and you sort of had to get a little crazy in that last paragraph to get it over the line, but . . . .

1:45pm: Spellcheck. Print. Stare at paper in amazement. Rub it on face.

2:05pm: Step outside into sunshine, with 55 minutes to walk paper over. Most beautiful day you have ever seen. Moocher is on front step with his bubbles. Wants you to blow some with him and do an improvised dance. Why not? Why not, INDEED?

2:35pm: People love your dancing.

3:01pm: No. No. No. No. No. No. No, you did not just blow the deadline by a minute because you were bubble dancing with the Moocher. THIS IS NOT HOW IT ENDS FOR YOU!

3:02-3:14pm: Running, running, running, running . . . knocking over slow people, crashing through tour groups, running . . .

3:15-3:25pm: After great begging, gnashing of teeth, falling on knees, actual tears, assistant accepts paper. As you leave, you hear him joke that your professor isn’t picking them up until 5 and the 3 o’clock thing was just something he did as a trick to try to get them in a little sooner so he could leave for the weekend. EVERYONE IS SO LAZY!!!!

I hope this helps.

And the winners of the autographed copies of Eternally Yours: The Unauthorized Biography of Robert Pattinson, Savior of Wayward Hamsters by my friend Isabelle Adams are:

From the Ning: Mary Hadac
From Blogger: bluebonnet21

Send in your addresses! More books will be given out later this week!

* I speak as a former dweeb of the writing center.
** This was someone else’s final paper. Final papers breed more final papers! It’s the cycle of life!
*** I wasted half a semester trying to do this. Don’t bother. No matter how crazy the heat may be in your building, you can’t make a good grilled cheese on it.

I told Daphne about Blog Ever Day April, and her response was a strange little noise.

“What?” I asked.

“Every day?” she said. “Your blogs are ridiculously long. If you try to write one of those every day for a month, you’ll die. I’ll have to manage your estate. I’d probably have to bury you, too.”

“I have a playlist for my funeral,” I said. “It’s mostly Swedish disco, Belgian techno . . . and the audiobook of “Robert Pattison, Eternally Yours, an Unauthorized Biography”, which isn’t even the real audiobook, it’s just me reading it into my phone, but I think people will like that . . .”

“HOW are you going to blog every day?”

I pointed to my computer confidently.

“You don’t have a plan,” she said, shaking her head. “This is one of those things that you do where you don’t have a plan. This is one of those things where you wind up calling me at 3 in the morning saying you’re fleeing the country and I have to cover for you. I’m not telling your editor that story about you being a werewolf. Not again.”

I held up a reassuring hand. I have a very calming way when she gets like this.

“Of course I have a plan,” I said smoothly. “I would never embark on a 30 day blog-writing spree without a plan. Let me make you a calming tea and I will tell you all about it.”

Now, as it happened, I did not have a plan, but that is not the kind of thing I tell Daphne. And since I am a Professional Writer, I am fully qualified to Make Things Up.

1. WAKE UP EARLY AND OBSERVE THE WORLD

The Professional Blogger is three steps ahead of the curve. Up with the dawn, he or she scours the internet for the Newest Things to talk about. For example, I woke up before ANYONE just to read about how Obama gave the Prime Minister of England some Region 1 DVDs the other day (Region 1cannot be played on most UK DVD players), and now has given the Queen an iPod, but she’s already got one. And then the Queen gave him a picture of herself.

Which is a pretty craptastic round of gift-giving. And I certainly know the pain. I borrowed this whole set of the @#$&ing Wire from Oscar thinking I could play it on my computer, because my computer has this thing where you can switch regions, so I switched regions so I could watch, and then the stupid DVDs had SCRATCHES or SPACE DUST on them or something and I couldn’t play them! So I had to buy the whole thing off of iTunes, which is fine, actually. And my dad got an iPod at the casino that he tried to give to me, but I already have an iPhone, so I said no, thanks. I’m just saying I can RELATE TO CURRENT AFFAIRS.

Many times, the best blogs are simply recounts of what has happened during the day.

If I was not blogging today, I would have probably said that I didn’t do anything yesterday. Just a normal day. Some writing. Made some food. Made some calls. Did some stuff online. It was an Indoor Day. I never really moved more than a few feet away from my desk.

But since I am BLOGGING, I have to take things apart a little more and really EXAMINE my actions. For instance, yesterday I: imitated a seagull, screamed prayers in German, climbed out of a window, got faked out by 250 people online as part of a massive April Fools Day extemporaneous joke, accidentally started a nerd dating service for proms and friendship, danced on my stoop for a bunch of schoolchildren (again, not intentional), read a hundred blogs, sang for my agent, made some quinoa, presented to the first chapter of Scarlett Fever to the world, and ate a cupcake.

Listen, Emily Dickenson, one of the greatest poets that America ever produced, didn’t leave her house for years. Sometimes she didn’t even come out of her room, or wouldn’t even open the door to talk to people, preferring instead to TALK REALLY LOUDLY through the door and to send them weird little messages in baskets she lowered from her window. And she was a GENIUS!

Could Emily Dickenson have kept a blog? Hell, yeah, she could have kept a blog. DID she? No. And I sort of think she would have Twittered more. She was a woman who rocked a 140 character limit.

“This is where it will fall down for you,” Daphne said. “You don’t watch enough TV. You haven’t even SEEN Battlestar Galactica, or Lost, or Real Housewives, or . . .”

She listed a bunch of other shows, but I don’t remember what they are, because I don’t actually watch enough television to keep up. I DO watch television, but I tend to watch a lot of television in England, or I just watch hours and hours of Law and Order while I do other things. And I don’t even watch them, I just listen to them on headphones. But I have gotten so good at this that I can actually predict what face Jack McCoy is making without even looking. (When you read Scarlett Fever—IF you read Scarlett Fever—you will see at once that I know my Law and Order backwards and forwards.)

“I saw this show about children in pageants,” I said. “Toddlers and Tiaras. I watched it for research on stage parenting.”

“Once is not enough,” Daphne said. “If you are going to blog TV, you are going to have to watch ALL of the shows.”

But once again, I go back to Emily Dickenson, who ALSO did not watch any TV, but I think she would have been up to this task JUST FINE and would maybe have produced something like this:

This Toddlers and Tiaras show—
They show on TLC—
It kind of really makes me mad—
I throw s^&t—at my tv—

Those moms—and dads—are so messed up—
They are screwing up their kids—
They’ll all end up—in therapy—
Whatever—lol

I could tell from the way she was giving me a cold, dead, fish-eye and was answering notes on her Blackberry that Daphne could see I had the situation well under control. And so I do, having now successfully met the challenge for TWO DAYS!

I hope these tips can help YOU with YOUR BLOGGING!

QUESTIONS ABOUT VAMPIRES AND (TANGENTIALLY) ABOUT BREAKING DAWN

lightforms said…
Why don’t vampires go after people their own age?

I assume because “people their own age” are either extremely, extremely old or are, in a word, dead. Just to take Twilight as an example . . . Edward is what? 107 years old? Even eHarmony is not going to be able to help with that. Can you imagine his online profile?

Name: Edward Cullen

Age: 100+

Physical appearance: Rock solid body. (No, really. A rock solid body.) Also, kind of pale, sparkly. Basically, I am a diamond shaped like a guy.

Skills: Running, basic cooking, playing piano. Also, can throw a minivan half a block and hear you think.

First concert you ever went to: John Phillip Sousa plays “27 Great Military Marches.”

First album you ever bought when you were a kid: Home gramophones were not commonly in use at the time.

Likes: Overcast days, running through the woods at night eating elk.

Dislikes: Open wounds, large dogs.

Do you see what I mean? Even with his 29 dimensions of compatibility, Dr. Neil Clark Warren would have a hard time finding Edward a match. And if there are some single 100 year old women out there, they are probably not very good with the internet.

Even the littlest vampires are about 80, and it’s technically possible for them to find someone their own age . . . but then you’d have an 80 year-old going out with someone who looks and acts like someone about 20 and then you’d have . . .

Oh wait. You’d have Harold and Maude! And that would be AWESOME! Okay, I see your point. Maybe they should actually date people their own age, if they can. But if they’re over a hundred, anyone should be fair game.

a literate musician said…
What do you think of Jacob imprinting on Nessie?

It certainly puts a new spin on cradle robbing.

hayley said…
Dear Maureen:

I just wanted to say that I am an avid reader of your blog; and, also, a vampire. I would like to know if I could come to your house one day and discuss obscure literary theories. I promise I won’t eat you.

Sincerely, Hayley

You cannot fool me, “Hayley.” I see right through you. I know exactly who you are. Free Alan Rickman now!

killersmile said…
I hear that a lot of people didn’t like the end of Breaking Dawn and so a lot of people returned it to their bookstores. I don’t think that there is any area of this situation that doesn’t suck. Readers get a bad (ish?) book, bookstores don’t get any money, and Stephanie Meyer, who has put so much time and effort into this series, gets negative feedback. Do you think this hurts more or less than having a book banned? How do authors deal with negative feedback?

Having a book banned is always worse, because it is worse for everyone. All book-banners are fascist dweebs, without exception, and they are almost always non-readers. When they win, we all lose, because that means that we are now taking direction from certified idiots and have curbed the public discourse based on their incredibly limited understanding of anything.

Negative feedback is just one of those things you have to deal with. Just because the comments are negative doesn’t necessarily mean that they are wrong. But the psychic impact of reading all the negative comments to get to the nuggets of wisdom, if they are there, can be profound and leave you twitching in the corner. You deal with it by . . . um . . . just dealing with it. Or by twitching in the corner.

beauxdanseur282 said…
Has the fan reaction to Breaking Dawn frightened you, as a YA author?

Let me answer your question by talking about something else entirely.

I was fascinated by the Breaking Dawn discussion because it brought so many people out to talk about books. There were two comments I saw over and over again really made me go a little insane. They aren’t really about Breaking Dawn; they’re much broader. I have responded to these below, because if I didn’t, I was going to lose my mind and end up eating my own tie on television like Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili. (Oh, BBC News. Did you really say “chews over his next move.” Really?)

ANNOYING POINT ONE: Fiction doesn’t have to make sense! It’s okay for the rules to change at any time. Fiction is just a bunch of made up stuff! Fantasy, especially, can do anything, at any time . . . because it’s really WEIRD fiction!

Yes, fiction is “made up stuff,” but in order for a story to function, it has to follow its own rules. If it doesn’t, it is BROKEN. All meaning and significance goes out the window. Fiction is not just a grab bag of random paragraphs, unconnected ideas, and cracked trains of thought. Saying that fantasy IN PARTICULAR has no rules . . . oooh. You just made a lot of fantasy writers reach for their phasers, light sabers, and sonic screwdrivers.

Fantasy is a creative way of re-examining the world we know, giving us a new angle on familiar concepts. The stories resonate because, at heart, they are talking about things we know and understand. Stories can be strange—very strange indeed. They can diverge from whatever you think of as reality in a million different ways. A good fantasy strikes at a universal truth. To dismiss a story because of its fantastical nature is AN EPIC FAIL.

Fantasy writers (at least the good ones) break their own backs building the worlds of their stories, weighing the impact of their choices, showing the cause and effect of the new conditions they have established.

Just taking one of a bazillion examples of fantastic fantasticals: “The Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka is about a man who wakes up one morning and finds that he has turned into a giant insect. Bam. From the first sentence, weird things are going on. But the story doesn’t just fly off in a dozen different directions, breaking its own logic. It consistently follows that reality, and in doing so, tells one of the most moving stories about the human condition that has ever been put to paper. It’s not just random crap about some DUDE who gets BUGGY. He doesn’t just stop being buggy for no reason. There’s a POINT, and it gets made in a way that is, of course, impossible in life. This is the beauty of fantasy . . . showing us the real and possible through the unlikely or impossible.

ANNOYING POINT TWO: It’s just fiction! It doesn’t mean anything! If you want meaning, read non-fiction!

It’s hard to even know where to begin with this. I had to ice my head.

Look, not every book has to wield the Big Red Hammer of Significance, bringing it down on your head over and over again . . . but stories do carry messages. Maybe the message isn’t very deep. Maybe you don’t like the message. Maybe the author didn’t even mean for the message to be there. But stories show us a slice of experience—no matter how major, minor, wrongheaded, fabulous, profound, or inane. I think people who make statements like the one above are grossly underestimating the value and impact of fiction, especially on themselves.

I think most people know this, and we all figured it out in a different way. I learned it from watching Fat Albert when I was four years old.

My dad and Bill Cosby grew up in the same area of Philadelphia around the same time, and Fat Albert is based on real people Bill Cosby knew. My dad told me this, so I watched Fat Albert appreciatively. At the start of every episode, Bill Cosby explained that while stories would be fun, they might also have a meaning, something we could glean from them. This pretty much blew my four year-old mind. That and the fact that he was throwing signs and things to Fat Albert and Fat Albert was throwing them back.

That a cartoon could actually reflect real people and real situations . . . tiny mj was staggered. Then I was trundled off to Sunday School, where I learned that Jesus taught people through parables . . . stories! Fictions! Bill Cosby AND Jesus were both using stories?

That’s how I got the point. What about you?

I’m not suggesting you should analyze every story until your brain splits apart into tiny pieces . . . but just to dismiss any significance because something is fiction is deeply foolish. Stories are one of the most powerful and ancient rhetorical tools out there. Entire civilizations fall, and their stories remain. On the surface, some of these stories are cracked-out crazy . . . stories of gods and monsters and magical whatsits of all stripes. But these stories explained the entire world, and were often carried along, changed, retold . . . so that some of those ancient cracked-out stories affect the way we see things NOW.

So maybe that cheesy romance book you’re reading isn’t a civilization builder—it still may say something about the perceptions of romance and love, of desire, of our society’s current view of relationships. Or maybe it’s all about shoes. (Which could mean it’s about consumerism and our value system.)

There’s a million ways to nerd out on this. I just get freaked out when people are so quick to dismiss fiction as a force, especially coming from people who seem to be passionately moved by a work of fiction.

I’m much calmer now.

QUESTIONS ABOUT BOOKS BY PEOPLE I KNOW, ALSO PEOPLE I DO NOT KNOW

nicole s. said…
have you read How to Ditch Your Fairy, did you like it, and should I read it when it’s released?

YES. I read How to Ditch Your Fairy by Justine Larbalestier when it was just a little Word document, just making its way into the world. You should read it because it is EXCELLENT. No, really. It is AWESOME. And if you are disappointed in any way (you won’t be), come to my house and I will make you a taco.

betty said…
I just want to know what you think of “Paper Towns”.

I think Paper Towns is awesome, and not just because I like John Green. It’s hard answering these questions because it sounds like I just like my friends’ books, but the thing is that I DO like my friends’ books.

summer said…
I has book question!

 In The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, where does the Time Traveler go to the bathroom?

I have always wondered this exact point about the TARDIS. Also, I didn’t realize until recently just how snide the Daleks are. For trashcans with plungers sticking out of them, they certainly are full of beans. I was particularly fond of this argument they get into with the Cybermen. I think I have a DALEK CRUSH!

Does this answer your question?

intheclouds23 said…
Do you think that Clary and Jace are really related?

You are talking about the Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare, which I adore. But you are asking the wrong question. The more important question is: HOW CAN WE GET MORE SIMON IN THERE? Why doesn’t she call it THE SIMON STORIES? This is what I want to know! And she KNOWS it, too!

But as for your question . . . I can’t actually talk about this because I have spoken to Cassie about these books at length (in my attempts to get more Simon in there) and she’s told me everything. My lips are sealed.

renee said…
Do you think Neil Gaiman is real? Do you think that you are real?

I am pretty sure I am a figment of Neil Gaiman’s imagination.

QUESTIONS ABOUT AWESOME

at said…
I was listening to “Honey Honey” while reading this blog post. 
Why hasn’t there been an ABBA-inspired novel in which the main characters wear awesome fur coats in the snow and are practically perfect?

THIS IS AN EXCELLENT QUESTION! Books about completely perfect people are almost by definition boring and dumb, but this would be the exception. And they should also fight crime! And maybe have a spaceship! And a talking shark!

Oh wait. I’m channeling 70s cartoons again. Why were so many of them about pop bands who fought crime? Like Josie and the Pussycats and Jabberjaw.

I don’t care. IT’S STILL AWESOME.

suvi said…
Today was the first lesson of the compulsory music course in upper secondary school. You know what we did? WE SANG AND LISTENED TO AND LEARNED ABOUT AND WROTE ABOUT ABBA! All lesson was about Abba, and a little bit about the musicals Benny and Björn have done after Abba. We sang Money Money Money, and Mamma Mia, and SOS, and the teacher really tried to make sure that we know everything about them.

Now I know that Finnish education is the best in the world. Everyone HAS to take that music course. They won’t graduate without it. And what is so very important that everyone has to know about it? Abba, of course!

I can’t hear you over the sound of me PACKING MY BAGS AND MOVING TO FINLAND.

QUESTIONS ABOUT MY BOOKS

reese said…
Did you ever consider writing a book about Aliens that suck out people’s brains while at the Olympics?

Have you not read Suite Scarlett?

libraryhermit said…
What’s your next book going to be about?

Thank you for asking! The next one to come out is Scarlett Fever, the sequel to Suite Scarlett, and the one after that will be the sequel to Scarlett Fever! So it’s pretty Scarlettastic for the immediate future. Then I’ll do something else.

chelsea said…
I just noticed that on the cover of The Bermudez Triangle, the ‘M’ in ‘Bermudez’ and the ‘A’ in ‘Triangle’ are both a little out of line. Does that have anything to do with Mel and Avery, or is it just a coincidence?

WOW. That is some observational skill. I have no idea.

victoria said…
But is this choice of a random commenter to win a copy of Suite Scarlett really random? Or do you just choose you’re favorite comment and say its random? Will it help my chances by saying that I nearly died laughing while reading Suite Scarlett, and that Spencer is now one of my favorite literary figures of all time?

What if I told you that you happened to be today’s random winner? Because you are. But it’s not because you were nice—I SWEAR.

In case you are thinking that I will be giving out Scarletts to random commenters forever . . . I won’t be! It ends this month!

But since it’s still on now, leave a comment and let me know what YOU are thinking about!

EXTRA! POLITICAL STYLE NOTE!
Did anyone see the Obama/McCain live forum tonight? One thing is clear . . . TIES ARE OUT! WHAT WILL THEY EAT WHEN THEY GET NERVOUS?

There’s been a lot of talk about Breaking Dawn since it came out. It’s sparked a spirited debate. Again, I saw, hooray! So much book discussion!

In fact . . . the discussion is EVERYWHERE. My inbox is flooded with questions from people who want to know what I think about the book and the issues it raises. As you know by now, I don’t shy away from the hard questions. Today, I wanted to talk about a few of the critical questions. I hope this can in some way inform your arguments, or maybe just add to your general knowledge base.

***WARNING: MILD SPOLIERS AHEAD, BUT PROBABLY THINGS YOU HAVE HEARD ALREADY IF YOU ARE, YOU KNOW, ALIVE AND CAN READ***

ARE VAMPIRES REAL?

Vampires are 100% real, but, of course, they don’t behave in the way you see in stories. Real vampires are extremely boring.

Vampires do not generally attack anymore because the government carefully regulates them. The Red Cross was invented as a cover organization to provide them with all the blood they need. It is generally assumed that this marks the point at which vampires actually stopped being cool, putting on awesome outfits and hunting their prey. They became lazy and complacent, sitting around waiting for their blood deliveries in their underwear.

Mostly, vampires hang around the house, spending almost all their time online, leaving incredibly tedious and needlessly complicated comments to discussion boards and updating their blogs. All vampires have blogs. You have never read one because they are so boring, no one ever links to them. They also run Wikipedia.

It is a tremendous act of charity that so many writers take on the subject of vampires and make them sound glamorous. Vampires love to read vampire novels, but being the annoying creatures they are, they tend to obsess over all the wrong details. Instead of noticing all the sexy and cool things that the vampires in the books do, they will focus on minutiae (“in chapter three, the author says the main character’s car is forest green, but in chapter eight, it’s more like lime!”).

Make no mistake, though. Vampires are dangerous. Given the chance, they will come into your house and talk to you—about obscure literary theories, the history of the tractor, the taxation system in ancient Mesopotamia—whatever takes their fancy. Because they don’t need to breathe, they can talk and talk and talk until you die. And then they eat you.

ARE WEREWOLVES REAL?

No, of course not.

WHY DO YOU THINK BELLA CALLED HER BABY RENEESME?

Why does anyone do anything? Here is a picture of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, as carved from a 2,000 pound block of cheese. Why did someone do this? I HAVE NO IDEA. I mean . . . what do you do with it? Do you eat it? Do you just keep it around until it molds? Do you keep it in a refrigerated unit forever? This kind of thing keeps me up at night and makes me feel like I don’t understand anything. It also really makes me hungry for a cracker. Do you see what I mean? DO YOU SEE WHAT I MEAN???

ARE YOU READY FOR MARRIAGE?

As more or less everyone knows by now, whether they’ve ever read the books or not . . . Bella and Edward get married. Edward is 17 by way of 80 (vampire years), and Bella is 18. Getting married at eighteen is a fairly shocking prospect these days, at least where I come from. How do you know if you’re ready? How do you know if the time is right?

I found this highly informative two-part video that will tell you everything you need to know about this question. Please watch it carefully.

If you want to continue learning, please watch the second half, in which more graphs are produced:

IN THE BOOK, THE VAMPIRES ARE VERY SHINY. DO YOU HAVE ANY SHINY THINGS THAT YOU CAN SHOW US?

Thank you for asking! Yes I do. Not only is this shiny, but it is the best disco number of all time. I have personally just watched this twenty-five times in a row, and if I don’t get one of those sparkle outfits, I will die. (If you look closely, you will notice that their microphones are color coordinated to their outfits. Oh, Abba. You and your constant perfection!)

Today’s Scarlett winner is kuri-skoldpadda. The summer of Scarlett giveaway is almost over, but not YET! So another book to another random commenter. Do you have any more book-related questions I can answer, about any books at all?