( Supernatural - 3x16: [Season Finale] )

Jan still needs our thoughts! 

If you haven't seen this book launch 2.0 video, you must clickety! 

If you need to feel great about the state of YA books in today's market, be sure to read Newsweek's article on Generation R!

I can't wait to see my fellow desert dwellers at this Saturday's SCBWI conference. I hope everyone else takes lots of pictures and lets me steal some for my blog, since I'm volunteering again and will be running around like a madwoman! :-)

Today's random thankfulness:

I am thankful that I finished my work-for-hire projects and got them turned in this afternoon, leaving me three days off from the day job to work with Plant Kid.

I am thankful to my super brainstorming buddy who stirred up lots of gray matter for me today.

I am thankful in today's record heat that we have air conditioning.

I am thankful that since we have a two story house we have a split AC system.

I am thankful we can afford to run the AC.

I am thankful for my husband who does all the shopping and cooking around here.

I am thankful to anyone who reads my blog, whether you comment or not.

Name: Danielle Joseph

'09 Book Title: Dead Air (tentative)

Publisher: MTV/Pocket Books (Simon & Schuster)

Favorite Books: Fountainhead, White Oleander, The Stranger, all things Judy Blume, Robert Cormier's Tunes for Bears to Dance to, E.R. Frank's America, Sapphire's Push, Han Nolan's Born Blue and as a kid I loved Mrs. Piggle Wiggle, Noddy books and the Mr. Men series. And so many more!!!

Favorite Bit of Writing Advice:  (Actually thoughts on the creative process from Carl Jung) "From the living fountain of instinct flows everything that is creative; hence the unconscious is not merely conditioned by history, but is the very source of the creative impulse. It is like Nature herself - prodigiously conservative, and yet transcending her own historical conditions in her acts of creation."

Random Info about Me: I love being silly, staying up late, eating chocolate and listening to music. I was born in Cape Town, South Africa and grew up in Boston, Mass. I have three younger sisters and a brother. Growing up, I tried to play the French horn, skateboard, play ice hockey and be an actor. I now live in Miami, FL with my husband and two young sons.  If I could have one ability it would be to sing. If I had more time I would…take more naps, paint, go to the beach more often and start a garden… My dream would be to make a cameo appearance in a movie based on one of my novels.

Dead Air Synopsis: 
High school senior, Tere Adams, has one dream—to be a dj. By day she’s paralyzed by shyness, but at night, she rocks, doing mock broadcasts as Sweet T in her bedroom. Her confidence is constantly eroded by her mom, who still sees Tere as the chubby girl the other kids called Snowball. Mom thinks that Tere’s dreams are silly fantasies, but her new husband, Rob, offers Tere an internship at his top-forty radio station. Her best friend, Audrey, the only person truly aware of Tere’s vast music knowledge, encourages her to take the job.                                                                                        
Tere loves the internship except for the afternoon dj, Dynamite Derek, master perv, who turns everything into a sexual innuendo. Not long after a popular dj quits, Tere lands a spot helping fill-in dj, Jason Stevens with the Love Shack show. The one thing she is most afraid of is dead air, not being able to speak when Jason cues her. But when Tere realizes listeners like her, she begins to trust herself more. She understands that she must stand up to Derek, her mother and the rest of her demons because by being silent, she has allowed people to walk all over her...                                                                        

In case you haven't heard, California has ruled its ban on gay marriage unconstitutional, and in honor I have put together this collection of icons centered on homosexual ships in SA. It's an understudy fest, so hopefully some of your favorite ships and understudies are represented :) If one of your ships is not present, you can inquire if you like and I'll see if I can get an icon or two together for it. Some are just really difficult to find good caps to work from.

Hopefully obviously, taking an icon doesn't mean you support that ship or anything -- feel free to take icons just because you like them :P It's just a ~theme~.

[23] Spring Awakening Icons

Teasers:



( The air is made of things we can't retrieve... [fake-cut] )

BTW, other icon makers and fic writers and such... Personally, I think it'd be really cool if more people ran with this idea in honor of today's news.

I'm 35 and still an idealist.  I really do believe we can reach a future without so many injustices.  Sometimes I get proof that we might be getting a little closer--

Check out CA--  "The California Supreme Court struck down the state's ban on same-sex marriage Thursday, saying sexual orientation, like race or gender, "does not constitute a legitimate basis upon which to deny or withhold legal rights." (CNN)

*cheers CA*

There are moments, decisions, & actions which just make a person cheer.  For me, this is one of them.  That's the way the world should work; in my opinion equality is the right path.  I don't care what your race, gender, ethnicity, creed, or orientation is.  We're all made of the same stuff; we should all be equal.

*resumes regularly scheduled work day . . . but with a big freaking smile*

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/yafantasy/~3/291169381/

http://yafantasy.com/literary-tattoos/

Apparently, ever since people have been getting tattoos, they’ve been getting book related ones as well. This website features of people’s tattoos that are related to books, from Curious George to Harry Potter. So if you enjoy tattoos, take a look.

Found via y-pulse daily digest.

I make very bad decisions:

1. I spent $82.50 on the complete set of "Third Rock from the Sun" DVDs. It was an awesome deal, but that was money that could have been better spent. Stupid Amazon and its amazing sale; and stupid DVD buying compulsions.

2. I perpetually stay up way too late and tell myself every night to stop. Incidentally, many of these bad decisions are made in the wee hours (e.g. I bought the aforementioned DVDs at 4:30 a.m. yesterday). Also, it's 3 a.m. now and I have to be up at 10.

3. I ate an entire canister of Pringles tonight. I've never been one to consider dieting or working out, but it seems that some sort of regiment would be in my best interest.

So ... this book is coming out on June 3 ...



Yeah. I'm pretty excited, man!

In honor of the fact that I am currently doing the Snoopy Dance around the box o' books that just landed on my counter today, here's the Official FEAST OF FOOLS Contest!

The Grand Prize Winner will receive:

An iPod Nano G3, preloaded with some cool stuff ...



And here's the custom Morganville skin it'll be wearing:



A custom engraved Morganville bracelet:



... plus a signed copy of FEAST OF FOOLS!

I'll also pick five runners-up, who'll get:

* Signed copies of FEAST OF FOOLS
* Morganville glow in the dark silicone bracelets! (sorry, no picture available, but they're cool, I swear!)

... so. How do you enter to win? Send an email (no special message necessary!) to rachelcainecontests@gmail.com any time from now until midnight (Central Time USA) on June 3, 2008. Winners announced on June 4. Good luck!

One note: DUPLICATE ENTRIES WILL BE ELIMINATED. Sorry, but no stuffing the ballot box. So if you read it here, read it on Myspace, and get an email from the mailing list, nope, sorry, you can't enter three times. Sorry.

Now ... do the SNOOPY DANCE with me!

-- Rachel

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2008/05/drunken-air.html

...my train wreck of a body for producing something so amazingly beautiful
...all of your sweet congratulation messages
...modern medicine (specifically epidurals and breast pumps)
...my wonderful husband (who's been Mr. Mom to Super-E all week)
...Super E who is now Super Big Bro
...and our sweet girl whose bubbles-runneth-me-over with baby love

Last night, I had the pleasure of picking up David Lubar at his hotel and bringing him back to my place. (That all sounds so much racier than the actuality of the situation.) David was visiting a local middle school today, so I invited him to come for dinner. Highlights of the meal (apart from having David here as a guest, and putting aside the food, which actually was pretty good, if I do say so myself) included S asking David if he felt famous (David's answer, the short version of which is "No"), M discussing a handful of short stories by other authors with David before asking if she could be excused to see the end of America's Next Top Model, and hubby sharing both his knowledge and many of his bourbons with David. In fact, the photo to the right would be David at the dining table with a little sip of something -- Bulleit, I think.

And here's a photo of David & me holding two bottles of bourbon each. Kids, don't try this at home. Also, in the interest of full disclosure, David was drinking extremely small portions of the bourbons as a sampling, and I wasn't drinking any of them at all. No, the rosiness of my face is entirely the result of a single glass of red wine with dinner. Gotta love rosacea (the skin condition, lest anyone think that's a new kind of pinkish wine):



Today, I had the pleasure of hearing David speak at the local middle school, which happens to be where my M attends 7th grade. In fact, I heard David twice - once in the morning at the full assembly, during the course of which he read the short story about author letters that he referenced in yesterday's post, and again in the afternoon when he spoke to a group of kids about writing and revision. Let me say this: David is quick-witted, smart, and funny, just as you'd expect him to be. He asked for an offbeat topic from the assembly crowd in order to demonstrate a technique he uses for brainstorming and managed to pick the wisest acre in the crowd, who gave him "plumbum" to work with. Within 20 seconds, David had listed at least 7 ideas related to that word. Meanwhile, I was still processing the word as a concept (you could say that I wasn't able to get the lead out).

I'd seen David speak at an SCBWI event in the past, so I knew he was a genius at speaking to grown-ups. And he has a skill for speaking to kids as well. The male population of the school was equally as engaged as the female, in part because of David's history as a video game programmer. Both genders (and all skill levels) were volunteering to share their writing samples during the smaller workshop. And having seen some other of these sorts of events, I'd say that's a magical thing.

Dear David,

Thanks so much for coming to dinner. My knowing you seriously boosted my own standing as a writer with my kids. And with their friends as well, seeing as both M and S told all their friends that you were here for dinner. We all very much enjoyed having you here, and hubby and I will be happy to partake of mojitos with you one of these days. Or Sazeracs. Your choice.

Sincerely,
Kelly Fineman

http://mfrost.typepad.com/cute_overload/2008/05/squeals-and-sno.html

Rumember back in the 60's when we all thought the Pygmy hogs were extinct? Well good news. A few years later, some peegs turned up at a market, and were rescued and re-habbed.Now, a bonche of them are being released back into the wild.

They're all snortin' around 'n stuff. More on the story here from Times UK.

Watch out for pythons, little Dewds! You too, Apsi W.

I'm sure everyone has seen the Dollhouse trailer by now, but here, have a downloadable file just 'cause: MP4, 24mb, on Sendspace.

Please to be spreading it ALL OVER THE PLACE, mkaaaay?

edit: FOX's strategy for launching Fringe & Dollhouse + Both shows to have less commercials. Eeeeeenteresting.

...

Question: I've capped the Iron Man trailers frame by frame^*; would anyone be interested in the caps? I can probably get rid of the crappy caps and upload the rest tonight/tomorrow [as there's about 500mb worth of files right now, which is a bit too crazy].

* Truefax: just to see how my new computer would handle such a task. The answer: beautifully. Oh yeah. *g*

I bought twin Indiana-Jones-style whips for the boys! (soft things, not real whips.) And as a bonus, they make noise!

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ChasingRay/~3/291188479/your_summer_blog_blast_tour_20.html

http://www.chasingray.com/archives/2008/05/your_summer_blog_blast_tour_20.html

Here is the schedule for Summer Blog Blast Tour starting on Monday, May 19th. I will update this post each day with direct urls and quotes from the interviews.

Let me know if you have any questions!

Monday

Adam Rex at Fuse Number 8
David Almond at 7 Impossible Things Before Breakfast
R.L. Lafevers at Finding Wonderland
Dave Schwartz at Shaken & Stirred
Elizabeth Scott at Bookshelves of Doom
Laurie Halse Anderson at Writing & Ruminating

Tuesday

Ben Towle at Chasing Ray
Sean Qualls at Fuse Number 8
Susane Colasanti at Bildungsroman
Robin Brande at Hip Writer Mama
Susan Beth Pfeffer at The YA YA YAs

Wednesday

Delia Sherman at Chasing Ray
Ingrid Law at Fuse Number 8
Polly Dunbar at 7 Impossible Things Before Breakfast
Tera Lynn Childs at Bildungsroman
Siena Cherson Siegel at Miss Erin

Thursday

Elisha Cooper at Chasing Ray
Dar Williams at Fuse Number 8
Jennifer Bradbury at Bildungsroman
E. Lockhart at The YA YA YAs
Mary Hooper at Miss Erin

Friday

Varian Johnson at Finding Wonderland
Jincy Willet at Shaken & Stirred
Susan Beth Pfeffer at Interactive Reader
John Grandits at Writing & Ruminating
Meg Burden at Bookshelves of Doom

http://mfrost.typepad.com/cute_overload/2008/05/annnnt-eater.html

SUPER SCHNOZZLE up in a tree!

Super Schnozzle Creek walkingk!

SNORGLING CAREFULLY (with enormous nails! ye!)

Making tiny snuggling scratch marks! (the only good kind of scratch marks)

Super Schnozzle INVESTIGATING presence of OTHER SCHNOZZLES!

By the way, watch out for moist nosicles under comforters...

XTreme Close Up of Said Nosicle:

Licking a neighbor!

Hitting Control-Alt-A to see if ants show up on screen!

Begging to be removed from the basket to snorf more ants! [swipe swipe]

Tom T., Amanda M. and others, thanks for pointing out (again) the fabulous TAMANDUAGIRL!

Tomorrow my mom and I board the Rio Express (aka My Car) for the wilds of Wisconsin. I am only just praying that somehow I shall avoid the Triple Sins of Cheese, Ring Bologna, and Frozen Custard. *le sigh*

The joy of all this frenetic packing is that I'm taking an entire dufflebag of books and magazines (the last three issues of RoF, frex) to read. I'm soooo excited to read again without feeling guilty that I should be doing something else. I swiped most of the CD audiobooks from the lib'ary this afternoon--Artemis Fowl, Birdy, called Caroline, The Death Collector, and Ruby in the Smoke (which I've read, but love so much I want to hear it!). Books, books, books--I gleefully drown in the sea of them!

Also, I am writing a strange story about sentient cupcakes. Where *do* these things come from?

So, this is just to say that Internet access may be sporadic over the next ten days, though I'll surely check in when I can. Hopefully will have at least one WisCon report--there will be much celebrating w/sarah_prineas's impending release, sarahbethdurst's birthday, and calepin's new book sale!

Off to make Unhallowed packets for my school visit w/lit_mischief Tues...:)