Scroll down this page for my blog and click here for the Red Hair Is Not As Uncommon As You Think - Twenty-five of the most overused things in YA and MG Fiction article! Also, my Fave Fifteen for 2007 is up here. And thanks for stopping by. Oh, and due to comment spam, I have to approve them all, so if your comment doesn’t show up right away, that’s why. Sorry!

Kim Antieau posted the best writing video I’ve seen, so today, I’m taking the day off and sending you to her site. Don’t miss it! And check out the rest of her site and her books too. She’s a star!

I’ve been tagged by Kerry Madden who writes that wonderful series set in the Smoky Mountains (Gentle’s Holler, Louisanna’s Song, Jessie’s Mountain). Visit her here at Kerry Madden.

Read my very exciting answers here!

OMG! I love, love, love this book! Read why here.

I like this Friday Five thing…it’s like five mini-posts for the price of one.

1. Yesterday, while out walking, my new character told me her story…well, the beginning anyway. I am in a quandary now though because I don’t want to start messing with a new book if my agent is going to get back to me next week and ask for more revisions…

2. On The Shrinking Violet Promotions site today there is a very useful post about book signings, whether you’re signing now or it’s way off in the future. I also told a cool story in the comments section. Go check it out!

3. After writing about The OPPOSITE OF LOVE here, the author, Julie Buxbaum, contacted me and offered to let me give away a signed copy of her book! Stay tuned for further details. I hope to interview her next week!

4. The knitting of my first sweater is “on hold” until I can get some help, and I’m trying not to think about the mess I’ve made of it because I don’t want to cry!

5. It is sunny, sunny, sunny (and probably cold, but who cares?) so I think I will walk down to the beach today. Maybe I’ll learn more about my new book.

I have reached my hand into the hat and I am gently pulling it back out. Instead of a rabbit, I have possibly found a new idea for a book . Slowly, slowly, oh-so-slowly, it is revealing itself to me. I have a character, she told me her name as I drifted off to sleep last night. I know who her parents are and where they all live. I know what the inciting incident is, if not exactly where to start. What is yet to be revealed is the need. The desire. The want. The conflict. Right now the whole thing is just a murmur, something that if hunted down could just fade away. So I will wait, and ponder, and hope that if this character needs her story told, she will let me be the one to tell it.

Any of you who have hung out here for a while, or perused the rest of my site, know that my all time favorite books are from the Betsy-Tacy series. Starting when Betsy is in high school, they have a thing called Sunday Lunch. Every Sunday evening (I know? Lunch in the evening?) they open their house to friends and family. Mr. Ray makes sandwiches out of leftover Sunday pot roast or chicken, and if there isn’t anything left, then he makes sandwiches out of Bermuda onions, salt, & pepper. There is strong coffee and sometimes a cake made by Anna or Mrs. Ray (but not always). Julia plays the piano and everyone gathers around and sings, or they just chat (and flirt…the girls are in high school so the place is overrun with boys) and visit.

All my life, I have dreamed of having both a house and friends so I could have Sunday Lunch at my house. Now I have both (very lucky me) and so yesterday, we had our very first one. We’ve taken some liberties. First of all, it’s called Sunday Soup because being vegetarian Buddhists, there really isn’t any after-church pot roast for sandwiches (And onion? Ooooh! Ick!), so I’m making a different soup and fresh bread each week. And secondly, we dropped the “lunch” phrasing because we didn’t want anyone coming at noon, which is what lunch means to us west coasters. Lastly, we don’t have a piano, but there were guitars yesterday and other friends sing, play the upright bass, dobro, and trombone, so you never know what will happen of a Sunday evening around here at Casa Bon Chance!

I’m one step closer to my lifelong dream of being Betsy Ray! Haha!

1. I’m not really sure what a Friday Five is, but from all the blogs I’m reading these days, I’m starting to see a pattern. Lots of writers do lists of five random things on Fridays and share with the world. I guess I missed the memo. Better late to the party than never, I guess!

2. Can I just say how extremely happy and thrilled I am to be living in a spot on the planet that is not overrun with pollen? I loved the South, but I was literally out for a minimum of six weeks, usually more like eight, every spring with allergies. When I say out, I mean I slept 10 hours a night and usually 2 hours in the afternoon. The rest of the time, even with drugs, I only operated at about 50%. I LOVE IT HERE in Evergreen Central!

3. I just talked to my mum on the phone for 77 minutes. I love my mum.

4. My husband went for a bike ride and brought me back a doughnut and a book from the village. Who loves me, baby?

5. It occurred to me the other day that now that I have a fabulous agent, I really can probably stop reading all the blogs about how to write a hook. Especially since I’ve actually written articles on it myself, and have been known to help others, like Jen and Wanda with their queries. So this week, I dropped a bunch of those blogs from my to read list and have added Sarah Dessen, Susan Juby, Rachel Vail, Cynthia Lord, and Meg Cabot to my blog roll. I figure it’s now time to see what happens after you get a book published (knock on wood) and why not learn from the best?

My agent has been busy selling someone else’s book (Go, Michael!), so he hasn’t gotten to my revision yet. It’s only been a bit over a week, so not long at all, and I’m not feeling impatient or anything, just sort of at a loss over what to do with my time. I don’t feel anxious during the day, but I did have a dream last night that he came to visit me and talk about the manuscript. The first thing he said was, “You need to cut 20,000 words.” (AHHGG!!!!) Then he showed me where he’d marked it all up and there were lots of red commas. I said, “I’m sorry about the commas. My mum is trying to teach me where they go.” Which isn’t exactly true because I think her exact words were, “I give up on you and commas!”

In totally random news, the Cubs are keeping me happy for a change! They finished the month of April by setting a new win record for the franchise…17 April wins! And they did it in style - yesterday’s score was Milwaukee 5, Chicago 19! Yes, 19!

What do you all do during that time between sending your newly revised manuscript back to your agent and the time he/she reads it and gets back to you? I’ve been knitting, cooking, actually writing for pay (copywriting), walking, listening to baseball games on the internet radio (Go Cubs!), and trying not to think about my book while also trying to come up with a new title. That’s a tricky one - thinking about a title, but not worrying about the book. I’m taking title tips right now. I usually don’t have trouble with this, but after a month of thinking about it, I’m still at a loss. How do you figure out a title?

I was thinking about the book Honey, Baby, Sweetheart… If you’ve read the book, you know that it is one line - three words, in the entire book. It’s not like it’s a tag line or anything. The line is just part of the text, really. Words you wouldn’t even notice if it weren’t the title, right? So how in the world did the author know to choose those words for an excellent title? I’m about to just pick three random words out of my book and see what I get! Help!