I just finished reading The Jane Austen Book Club (yes, it’s in theaters now (with the ever lovely Emily Blunt), I believe) by Karen Joy Fowler. The book flew by in a gorgeous back and forth between the characters, all from different backgrounds, who come together over their love of Jane Austen novels.

The camaraderie and sense of unity in the book made me want a book club of my own! The characters found such interesting ways to connect their lives to the lives of Austen’s characters and I learned more about Austen from the eyes of Fowler’s characters than I did in school.

So, does anyone belong to a book club? Or ever belonged to one? If not, what kind of book club would you join?

This weekend, I made a master list of all of the projects I plan to outline and then eventually pitch to my agent.

The list is now made up of:

* 2 MGs
* 7 YAs
* 1 non-fiction for teens.

Seeing “the list” in print helps me visualize my goals much more clearly and I’ve gotten back to working on other pieces besides HJ. At first, I thought I should only work on HJ until the edits were done, but that actually doesn’t have to happen. I can happily switch between two projects and that keeps things fresh and interesting. So, now I’m going back and forth between Blackheart Mountain (my tenatively titled YA) and HJ. Nice. Both are completely different in tone, voice, style and my writing zest has been renewed! 🙂

This weekend, during editing, I found something new, too…. watching sports while editing is actually FUN. Coming from someone who only watches horse racing, I never thought I’d say that. Yesterday, I watched the ah-dorable (Sorry, too many Clique novels) Little Leaguers and oh, my, were they playing like the men! Wow! Last night, I watched the 2007 Visa Championships in women’s gymnastics and I cannot wait to see the rest tonight.

Ahem, sorry. Back from the side rant about sports.

Share your current WIP. What’s it about? Are you switching around with multiple projects or focusing on one?

(Borrowing this pic from the Chincoteague Island Library Website)

With a poverty rate of 27% and Virginia’s highest illiteracy rate, this library needs an extreme makeover. This tiny, struggling library is in the city where one of the most famous ponies, Misty, came to life through Marguerite Henry’s series. I’ve been passionate about horses and reading since I was little and I feel an even tighter connection to this cause since Aladdin published the Misty series and they are also publishing my forthcoming horse series.

I’ve been thinking about Anne Marie’s post for a few days and am trying to think of something we all can do to help.

If you’d like to donate to the library, they are accepting donations to rebuild and expand. I plan to contact them to ask if they accept book donations, too. I’m racking my brain to see if there’s a way to help next year if I’m able to take a trip to VA.

If you want to visit the library’s Website, visit http://chincoteagueislandlibrary.org/.

Thanks to the fab Sara Hantz, I will now be a regular blogger at Teen Fiction Cafe! I’ll let everyone know when my first post in September goes up and if you haven’t already, check it out!

I’m excited to finally join a group blog. I feel like the kid who got picked for the cool kids’ soccer team. 🙂

Off to edit.

Anyone else see this? Read on. No explanation needed. W-O-W.

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2007/07/ballantine_pays.html

Go Trident! 🙂

I’m thinking ahead (not really too far since summer 2008 is only a year away!) to marketing tactics to reach tween readers.

Along with the class of 2k8, we’re doing book trailers and I think it’s a great idea! I started jotting down ideas and thinking about what I’d like to see in my trailer. We’ve found an amazing selection of book trailer creators and I’m thrilled to have any one of them work on the HJ trailer this winter.

I’m looking through photos, free online art and then there will be images that the designer also presents. But I still wanted newer pictures of horses that matched the tone of my book.

The timing with this turned out to be perfect because yesterday a local horse farm owner called me up after reading my article in the paper and asked if I wanted to come visit her farm. I haven’t been around horses in so long and I jumped at the chance! I also explained to her about my need for new horse pics and perhaps video and she graciously told me to bring my camera and shoot away. Hopefully, I’ll have good shots to share of the horses and moi when I get back from visiting sometime next week.

Okay, back to the music issue. Someone pointed out that if we used songs from our own CDs that it’s illegal. Yup, after doing research that turns out to be true unless you want to pay thousands for the song rights. Yeah, I was sadly mistaken when I thought I could use Fergie’s “Glamorous” in my movie. 🙂

I’ve been doing a little digging online and am compiling a list of Websites that have royalty free music available legally for a moderate fee. Some of the sites charge insane fees for music that’s, well, not quite right for a tween trailer.

Have you done a book trailer? If so, what did you do about the music? If not, are you aware of any legal royalty free music sites?

Did anyone else catch Stephenie Meyer on Good Morning America today? She was on around 8:45am and she came with a following of fan girls crazed about the books. Stephenie was promoting today’s release of Eclipse and she sounded as nice on TV as she does on her Website.

The fans were crazy! They filled the studio and were outside the windows with “I Love Edward Cullen!” t-shirts and posters. Imgine how it would feel to get teens fired up enough about your books to entice them into making t-shirts. That’s a high level of stardom in the publishing biz, that’s for sure.

I’ve only read Twilight, but I have the next two novels on order and can’t wait to read them. If you’ve read Meyer, what’s your take on the novels? Or the characters?

**PS** Thanks SO much to everyone who commented in my mean girls post! You all had fantastic ideas! 🙂 I selected one and if it makes the final edits, I’ll post the name and the person who suggested it!

So, I’m editing now and am stumped on a character. I’m trying to come up with a name of a female villian (or bitchy girl) of sorts that’s fairly well known to today’s teens and tweens. I need this name to compare to my own mean female character. So, I’m thinking a Draco Malfoy type–but a girl. The character has to come from literature and not TV or movies. I would have loved to use Regina George, but alas she’s from a movie.

I’m seriously stumped. I tried to think back on the books I’ve read recently, but can’t think of any standout female who tortures the good girls.

Any suggestions? They could end up in print! 🙂