Hey Jerks, I'm back!

I'M SO FREAKING SORRY, OKAY? I AM BLOGFAIL.

First and foremost, I must apologize to CARRIE (pictured left, with me, at a Books of Wonder party), who is the one person who reads my blog like it's a religion, and I may have caused her a crisis of faith. I AM SORRY.

But, seeing as it's about time for the obligatory New Year's post, I'm going to just gutspill here for a mo, if that's cool wit'chya'll.

I had a pretty ups-and-downs-y 2009. Went through the most devastating breakup of my life to date, lost a job that meant the world to me, and am currently working to re-establish my identity as a member of the bookworld, grown-up society, and an independent tough chick. Hey, I always tell myself I've been through worse and can come out on top, but looking for a job is not fun for anyone, especially when your talents are in the arts. Yuck. Of course I have amazing friends, family, and colleagues and I can't stop being thankful for all of them. My BFF Amelia and my awesome new boyfriend, Jorge, are ridiculously awesome. Also, my TX bff crew - Misha, Tim, Ali (pictured right with me and her bday pressie by Micol Ostow), Tony, Clay, Katy, Sarah, James & all y'all.

My grandparents are amazing people and there's really nothing more I can say about them. I love them and owe them more than even they know.

Thanks mucho to the support of (shout-out time) some of the fabbity fab crew of the Austin Kidlit scene. Folks like Cynthia Leitich Smith, Jenny Ziegler, Varian Johnson, K.A. Holt, P.J. Hoover, Liz Garton Scanlon, April Lurie, and countless others who tell me every time they see me how my time is coming and that patience is a virtue and that I am an appreciated and loved member of the community.

Also, the YALITCHAT community, both on twitter and Ning are AMAZING. Georgia McBride really got things rolling there, and it kicks serious butt. It's full or resources for both published and unpublished writers in all stages of their careers, and it's growing every day. VISIT, OKAY!?

Among my other new Twitter/Facebook friends are Lynne and Shelli and Jamie and Jennifer and OtherEmily and Janni (if you haven't read Janni's book Bones of Faerie, you're dead to me until you do) who are supportive and full of information and love. Great internets BFFs if there ever were any. And lets not forget my fellow Mainer Carrie Jones, who writes about pixies in Need and Captivate and you MUST READ THEM, okay? I think she's my secret twin.

And, oh wait, there's the amazing JESSICA LEE ANDERSON who is my one-person starving artist support group. We meet regularly to talk about our writing, obvs, but also about how frustrating it can be to BE a struggling artist (because even tho Jess is getting glowing reviews these days, she assures me that my feelings of despair and insecurity are natural and normal and a part of the process).

I know that the book I wrote this year is important and going somewhere. I'm the good kind of nuts. Nutty about my book, and about getting it into the hands of readers, nutty about changing the world one reader at a time. Goals for my first book? Taking stigmas on certain topics down a notch. Killing high school stereotypes while maintaining the fact that high school is a struggle for even the most "cool" and "together" person you know.

Let it be known that I am writing this blog from a wild state of mind known as SUDDEN INSPIRATION and EARLY IN THE DAY JOIE DE VIVRE.

I have some goals for this year. We all do, right? Call them resolutions if you want, but resolutions just make me feel like the 10-year-old my mom sat down with to make a list. A list with things like "stop picking my nose" and "clean my room every day." LAME.

My one New Year's Resolution is this: LEARN TO PLAY THE UKULELE. I must admit, I was inspired by the fabbity fab Kristin Clark Venuti, who wrote the best middle grade novel I've read in YEARS, Leaving the Bellweathers. When she came to Austin she played a song on her uke about her book. It was hysterical and awesome and I want to DO IT. Who knows...by this time next year I could have my first Ukulele singer/songwriter album out. Or, you know, at least know a few cords.

But I do have GOALS and EXPECTATIONS for this year. I will get an agent. I've gotten some positive and critical feedback from some well-respected agent-types which gives me the confidence to back up my claim that I WILL, yes WILL, get an agent this year. I also believe that I will sell my completed YA manuscript and possibly my picture book ms as well.

I also expect that I will finish my next YA this year. It's a book that I, unintentionally, perhaps, started writing when I was 16 for a competition in high school. I did not win, but the story stuck to me and I've tweaked it to the point that it is unrecognizable as the original story. Anyhoo, it is a story that is important to me and I think it's going to kick serious ass. It takes place in the town where I went to college, New London, Connecticut. I think New Londy is sort of an underdog, and I'm excited to set my book there. I just have to get my crime story brain going, as well as some supernatural elements working overtime. Oh yeah.

My other major GOAL is to submit a full poetry collection and find a publisher for it, or at least get feedback. I have a lot of work under my belt in the field of poetry, and it's freaking time. My work rocks, and it needs to be out there, and I'm not going to self-publish. Heck no.

Some New Years dreams? I think it might be kind of cool to get some of my photographs in a gallery. Unlikely, but it could happen. I'd like to write some short stories for children and submit them to magazines or anthologies - some of my local buds and I have an idea for an anthology to work on, but, who knows where that will go.

And, most importantly, I'd like to spend some time this year reconnecting with friends whom I love but have fallen out of touch with. I suck. I'm sorry. Let's catch up, okay? Email me. We'll chat.

Things I want to do this year

I don't really like making new year's resolutions. I think that those sorts of decisions and goals shouldn't be reserved to a one-time, year-long commitment. Also, I don't like setting myself up to fail. I like setting goals that I know I can reach. Call me gutless, but that's how I do.

Of course, I have some fairly lofty goals for myself in the coming year. I want to finally finish at least one of my manuscripts so I can start rewrites. Maybe it won't be the first novel I publish, but it will be the first novel I finish, not counting the 300-handwritten-page epic I wrote about Hanson when I was 16. Oh yes, you read that right. Details may or may not be available upon request. Sadly, the notebooks in which I wrote this masterpiece are somewhere in my parents' house in Maine. The world suffers.

I also promised the boyfriend I would learn to drive this year. I'm really really REALLY terrified of driving. I took driver's ed. just after turning 17. FYI my birthday is in December (I like presents) and I grew up in suburban Maine. Do the weather-math and you'll realize exactly what I was up against. Throw in my crotchety, nervous instructor and my soon-to-be-diagnosed bipolar disorder (questions welcome) and panic disorder (funsies!), you can see why I remain a pedestrian at 26. That's why I moved to New York after college. However, I now live in Austin, and Mark is sick of driving me everywhere. Crap. Pray for me/send any extra Valiums this way.

I want to learn to read faster. Is this sort of lame? Maybe. If only because I don't know if it's possible. But I basically want to read twice as many books as I read this year (I think it was like 40-50 but I don't have an official count) without actually spending more time reading. This is only because I don't think I could actually spend anymore time reading than I already do while maintaining a social life, eating, sleeping, and keeping my job without ripping a huge hole in the spacetime continuum. Sad Christmas. But my rate of book intake > rate at which I read books > rate at which I get rid of books. In fact that last bit stands at a fairly certain 0. Again, Mark is none too pleased that when we move in a couple of weeks half of our boxes will be filled with words.

I want to walk more. Because a) Texas makes you fat and b) walking makes you un-fat. Also, carbon footprint blah blah blah. I already take the bus a ton, but walking is way more good for you. Plus, we're moving to a neighborhood where walking is more fun. Right now we live off a major roadway and there's really nowhere to walk to. Plus, most of the streets are dead ends and cul-de-sacs. So new place = more walking.

And, of course, an important goal for this year is to finish watching ALL SEVEN SEASONS of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I know I can accomplish this goal, since I bought the ENORMOUS box set and started watching it with Mark last week. Despite his initial protests, he's now as addicted as 16-year-old me was. We are halfway through season two and are having so much fun with it. Why can't Buffy still be on the air? The world would be a better place, you know it.

A Freedom I Can't Live Without

I have a naughty new obsession. As Madeleine over at The Buried Editor will confirm, banned books are bloody addictive. It's not so much that I'm reading them right now, since I have a stack of ARCs that could kill a man if its center of gravity were disturbed. It's that I'm reading about them. Constantly. I set up a display at work of some of our most popular and intriguing banned and challenged books. The display includes classics like In the Night Kitchen, Huckleberry Finn, Alice in Wonderland, and James and the Giant Peach. It has recent favorites like Walter the Farting Dog, Captain Underpants, Looking for Alaska, and Harry Potter. So many books have been banned or challenged it simply blows your mind.

Naturally I'm a fan of freedom of expression. But what a lot of us don't consider here in the states, or in most western countries, is intellectual freedom. Sure, you may be able to go to the store and buy any of these banned books. So what if a bunch of yahoos want to ban a book from their school library, how does that effect you as long as they are available for purchase? But here's the thing about that: banning books from libraries makes freedom of intellect a privilege saved for those with enough money to buy all the books they want to read. And I think that's wrong.

Sure, maybe we shouldn't put Francesca Lia Block's sexed-up fairystories in the hands of ten-ten-year olds. But I don't think the government should say what I, were I that ten year old (or eight-year-old or twelve-year-old), should read. That's between me and my family. So while elementary and middle school libraries should perhaps be monitored, high school libraries and classrooms should have significant freedom. And, for the love of all things literary, keep your matches out of our public libraries.

The public library system is one of the greatest things about our country. Sure, the Austin Public Library has a price on my head right now ($17.48, I think). But if I return my books on time, it is completely free for me to walk in there and read whatever I want, even if my neighbor's cousin's mom thinks Where's Waldo has a topless chick in it somewhere.

The point is, young minds should be protected by parents. That said, I think parents should keep one thing in mind when they're getting ready to challenge a book: human nature. Your child will read the "bad" book behind your back; subsequently he will not be able to talk to you about it. My uninformed, inexperienced, parenting tip: if you think something in a book your kid wants to read could confuse, frighten, or corrupt him, consider reading it WITH him. Keep the discussion open - that way you can talk to him about the sex, drugs, violence, or moral quandries of the characters. That way when the inevitable happens, you can still be involved.

On that note, here is a list of some of my favorite banned & challeneged books:

Are You There God? It's Me Margaret by Judy Blume - One of the most challenged books of all time due to frank discussions of adolescent sexuality.
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank - Challenged in Wise County, Va. (1982) due to "sexually offensive" passages. Four members of the Alabama State Textbook Committee (1983) called for the rejection of this book because it is a "real downer."
And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson & Peter Parnell - Unsuccessfully challenged in Lodi, CA public libraries. (2007) Reasons: anti-ethnic, sexism, homosexuality, anti-family, religious viewpoint, unsuited to age group
The Lorax by Dr. Seuss - Challenged in the Laytonville, Calif. Unified School District (1989) because it "criminalizes the foresting industry."
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle - Challenged at the Polk City, Fla. Elementary School (1985) by a parent who believed that the story promotes witchcraft, crystal balls, and demons.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou - This book is frequently challenged because of Angelou's descriptions of her rape as a child.


(ps, I got my info on the bannings from forbiddenlibrary.com and ALA.org - thay have lots more information about banned books than me, plus tools and ideas for banned book week, too!)

September 11th, Which Won't Go Away

So I was at work today, as I tend to be on weekdays, milling about when a coworker asked me "do you really love New York?"

Of course it took me a good second or two to figure out that a) said coworker was being cheeky and b) she asked me because I'm wearing a nice, touristy I heart NY tshirt. Naturally I guffawed at her, insisting that duh I love New York, I lived there for two goddamned years and I miss Brooklyn every day so help me god etc.

What didn't occur to me until a few hours later is that today is September 11, and, that I was unintentionally showing some sort of patriotic solidarity with my East Coast brethren. It had been a usual roll out of bed and into the shower morning; I just grabbed the quickest t-shirt I could find and ran out the door to try (and fail) to catch the bus.

So it's 9/11. And every year on 9/11 I spend all day suddenly remembering that I'm existing in my own little world on a day that matters so much and yet flies by in a blink. I always want to say "yeah, New Yorkers still feel that moment every day," or "I used to go by Ground Zero on the way home at night, it's so weird, a big, gaping hole," or "I knew a girl whose mom died."

The thing though is that none of that shit matters a whole lot. Not to you, or, really, to me. And I'm trying so hard to make 9/11 matter that I'm worried about the size of my patriotism as if I were an frat boy stuffing his shorts. Truth: America is fucked up, just like everywhere else. But I think it's a great country to live in, every day, where we have the freedom to tell our stories and watch racy shows on cable TV and show our big, meaty legs in short shorts.

I met a cool lady tonight, Randa Jarrar, who wrote my new favorite book, A Map of Home (review to come in my next book post). She's an Arab American, and I told her that I was gonna send her book to my grandmother, who has never met an Arab person before and is terrified of Muslims. I told her that my gran a smart lady who just doesn't have any experience to show her otherwise. The thing is, the story of Nidali, the girl in Randa's book, is the story of every little girl, the story of finding self-identity and the struggle of adolescence. It's a totally cultural book, set in the Middle East, but it's hysterical and heartbreaking and perfect.

If I had my way A Map of Home would be in every high school library, even though the Tipper Gores and the Sarah Palins of our country would be all over it for the sex and the dirty words and the violence. But, that's how life is, and if we could all see through Nidali's eyes, through Randa's words, I think the youth of America would stand a chance at fighting the bullshit cultural war we've gotten ourselves into.

And on that note, I hope I never write about September 11 again. I hope it's all out of my system. Then again, I'm nothing if not repetitive.

Completely OK at Forking

I miss Amelia. I miss her so much. Amelia is the big sister I never had. She fills in all the gaps left by a dramatic teenhood and a funny relationship with my mother. She tells me what I need to hear, and sometimes what I want to hear, but would never sugar-coat something important. She's the only person I know who fully appreciates driving fast down the interstate blasting Bryan Adams ("Summer of 69") and singing along until the third verse at which point we sort of mumble forgotten lyrics (RIP Amelia's car's speakers). She doesn't make fun of me for having too many cats...usually. And she gives the best hugs ever (sorry, Mark). I really miss her.

Amelia moved to Arizona in February, shortly after I moved to Texas. It's great for her - AZ is where her family is, it's her home base, and, as an Army wife and sometimes-single mother (when the hubby is overseas), she needs all the support she can get. But it sucks for me, 'cause it's way farther to her house now than it used to be. You could listen to that Bryan Adams song at least a billion more times.

I love my life here, and as much as I'd like to cut myself in two and have my left hand with Amelia and my right hand with Mark, I hear that science hasn't advanced enough for this to be possible. So I do what I can. I listen to Sunny Day Real Estate and The Appleseed Cast and all that great emo music that was cool before the bad haircuts and black eyeliner of recent years. I keep a loaf of bread she made me in the freezer (we were saving it for sandwiches but then we forgot to get the sandwich meat and then it was Amelia bread so how could I eat it?), I tell anyone who will listen about my fabulous BFF, I chuckle every time I see the flashlight she gave me (inside jokes are awesome), and I bake my little heart out.

Amelia and I both grew up with a love for baking. She is a perfectionist, and rightfully so. I swear, if she weren't such a good Christian who didn't want to show up Jesus, she could make water from wine. She makes the hard stuff look easy. I marvel at the ease with which she makes biscuits - the first time I visited her, last June (it's almost our anniversary), she made me biscuits for breakfast, but had run out of white flour, and used whole wheat. Amelia claims they weren't that great, but I swear, to this day, they are the best biscuits I've ever had.

This winter I was at her house and she pulled from her freezer a bag of rolled peanut butter dough (see how she even plans such simple things ahead? I would never have the patience), and together we made hash marks in them with forks. I told her how this past Christmas, in all the hullabaloo of my mother's baking frenzy (my sister and I counted about 25 different types of cookies that she baked enormous batches of for the neighbors, work, family, etc.) I'd been banned from forking the peanut butter cookies because I wasn't being neat enough. Amelia thought this was funny and told me I did a fine job. So today, as I made peanut butter cookies (an amalgam of several internet recipes, posted below), I couldn't help but to text my best friend and tell her how much I missed her, and her faith in my fork-hashing skills.

In response she called me, my phone showing a silly kissy-face photo of her, blasting a tinny "Summer of 69." She told me she would send me good-hashing vibes, and I guess it worked, 'cause the cookies came out both pretty and delicious. Neither of us really like peanut butter cookies all that much, either. But they're fun to make, and these have extra brown sugar for extra chewiness and pb and chocolate chips for extra yumminess. I know it's summer, but with a little AC, what's turning the oven on, if it reminds you of your dearest amigo?

Amelia-Chip* Peanut Butter Cookies:

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup natural crunchy peanut butter
1 + 1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 large egg
1 tablespoon water
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup peanut butter chips

*No actual Amelias contained in this cookie. Mostly because we like Amelia, but also because Amelia would taste gross, even though she's awesome.

Preheat your oven to 350°. In a medium-sized bowl combine the dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In a large mixing bowl use an electric mixer (or a really strong hand) to blend the peanut butter and the butter until smooth and creamy. Blend in the sugar, and then add the egg and the water. When thoroughly blended, slowly add the dry ingredients. The dough should be soft but crumbly. Stir in the chocolate and peanut butter chips (if you want, Nestle makes some fun "swirl" chocolate chips, including a milk chocolate/peanut butter blend. I used two cups of these instead of one cup of each kind). Using your hands pinch bits of dough from the bowl and form into small 1-2 inch balls. Roll the dough in your palms, but don't over-handle! Set the balls of dough about an inch apart on a non-stick cookie sheet, and using the back of a fork, make hash marks in the dough. This will flatten the dough some, but be aware that they still will spread out by baking! Bake the cookies from 10-15 minutes. Let cool on a drying rack (wax paper on a counter top works just as well) and enjoy with a loved one. Or by yourself. Or send them to your best friend in Arizona (if she likes peanut butter cookies).

PS, Amelia, I made this one after you called, because your vibes helped me hash a heart:

Growing Up: Still Just for Old People

So I was reading up on Scott Westerfeld, since I'm currently ensconced in his Uglies series, and in his FAQ he states that while he has written adult fiction before, he is wary to go back because a) adults don't send as much fan mail and b) adults tend to stick to one genre or author and do not venture elsewhere. He said some other stuff, too, but I'm a lazy paraphraser.

It sort of makes me wonder how many great authors I missed the boat on by moving directly from my non-reader phase to my literary snob phase shortly after college. I'm working on that, at the moment reading a lot of teen fiction, and consequently feeling more and more overwhelmed by the day by the amount of adult books that are also out there. I mean, literally, piles and piles of books I'll never be able to read in my lifetime.

It's a dilemma. A coworker and I talked about it today, and it's one of those conversations that always ends like this:

"Yeah."
"Yeah."
(awkward silence)

I've often joked about wanting to read books by osmosis - simply by touching a book to my face all of its contents would work into my brain and I'd be full of knowledge and pleasure. But of course there's a fundamental problem with this plan, just as with any revolutionary idea: what about the pleasure in the process of reading? In whizzing through books the way I have been over the last few weeks (I feel really smart and cocky and have to keep reminding myself I'm reading stuff written for people whose brains are still developing), I feel myself rushing to get from one book to the next. I used to read in a more leisurely manner, taking in only 20-30 pages in a sitting, usually while waiting for something or riding somewhere, and would stretch a book out over a couple of weeks. And sometimes I'd do this on purpose, just to savor the last few pages of a delectable book (most memorably, Eleanor Rigby by Douglas Coupland).

So here I am, with a hundred pages left of Pretties, both excited and scared that I've got so much to read when I'm done. There's Specials, the third book of the Uglies trilogy, and at some point the follow up, Extras, will come out in paperback. Meanwhile the boss lady gave me a pile of books to read to prepare for the fall season at the store. And, of course, there's my own ever-expanding home library (I swear, sometime soon, I'm going to read Stephanie Klein's memoir, Moose, since, you know, I've got a signed copy at arm's length right now and a girl needs some nonfiction every now and then).

The idea of growing up and giving up on reading (again) scares me. Is Westerfeld right? Am I going to limit myself to one tiny chunk of the literary world (contemporary fiction, authors C through L, perhaps?), or can I fight it, push the boundaries of adulthood and rebel against the tendency toward stagnation? I'd like to think I will. It's not like I'm any good at growing up anyway, and it will be something to do when I'm too old and wrinkly to be seen in public. But only time will tell, and as far as I can see, it will be a while before I let the joy of reading slip away again.