So I’m ready to move on to bigger playwriting things and I recently incorporated two of my short pieces into an outline for a full-length play.  It was just as scary as when I decided to try and write a book, but opening that new document and declaring my intentions felt like a big step.  Which means, of course, that it involved lots of arguments with my jerk of an internal critic.

“Taut and emotionally wrenching…I couldn’t put it down.  Josie Bloss is an author to watch.”

-Meg Cabot, author of The Princess Diaries and the Airhead Series

ISN’T IT PRETTY?!  (The cover and the quote, I mean.)

I’m a little dubious of the term “book of my heart”  because, really, aren’t all books from the heart of the writer?  But I think Albatross has bigger and bloodier pieces of my heart in it than anything else I’ve written (um, sorry for the visual)…it wasn’t exactly easy to write.  In the end, though, this result is certainly worth it.  I can’t wait for it to come out!

But while things were relatively quiet, I went places!  Specifically east, south and north!  Places such as…

1.) New York City!  Where apparently they sit around in folding chairs in Times Square?

I didn’t quite understand what was going on, but it seemed cool.

My favorite part of the trip was Coney Island…I am a total sucker for decaying amusement parks and rickety wooden roller coasters and, of course, Ferris wheels.

Wonder Wheel!

2.)  Then I went south to Kentucky to go on the Bourbon Trail where, incidentally, you don’t really drink a whole lot of bourbon.  It was mostly about the pretty rolling scenery and the gift shops.  Well, and getting locked in the stocks.  There was that.

Me: Guys, you’re going to come back and let me out, right?  Guys?  Hey, where are you going?

SIGH.

3.) Then I headed up north to the Keweenaw Peninsula (where last year I saw a BEAR.  In the WATER.)  This year was slightly less exciting in the wildlife department but the weather was near perfect and my favorite lighthouse was as lovely as always.

Purty.

And now I am home and ready to get back to work.  This is going to be an exciting year…Albatross is coming out next spring (I get to post the BEAUTIFUL cover later this week!), I’m hard at work on something new, and maybe I’ll get to plan a trip out west to cover all my cardinal directions.  Fingers crossed!

See?

(Disclaimer: They are slightly cuter in this video then they are in real life. That one dude’s voice is just as lovely live, though.)

One guy, the blond in the video, played like every instrument there is and some that are not (a radio tuned to white noise?).  The venue was nice and relaxed and the music was good and I started thinking over this plot of a cool new story and decided Grizzly Bear would be the soundtrack and everything was going great…

…except we just so happened to sit behind the biggest Grizzly Bear SUPER! FAN! in all of Bloomington, Indiana.  Seriously, this girl was excited.  She screamed during the silences and yelled out requests at inappropriate times and she flailed…literally.  She actually got in a fight with her boyfriend, right there in front of us, because she hit his head so many times with her flailing arms that he asked her to stop so she started yelling at him because telling a SUPER! FAN! to calm down is always a mistake.  High drama.

There wasn’t anything else for to do except make her a character in this new story, silly barrettes and all.

From the Associated Press via the Minneapolis Star-Tribune:

Calif. high school band girl beats off muggers with marching baton

A 17-year-old high school marching band student beat up two assailants who tried to mug her as she walked to school in this high desert community about 40 miles north of Los Angeles, sheriff’s officials said Tuesday.

The girl punched one of the men in the nose, kicked the other in the groin and beat both with her large baton before she ran away on Friday morning, officials said.

“The moral to this story is don’t mess with the marching band girls, or you just might get what you deserve,” said Los Angeles County sheriff’s Deputy Michael Rust.

A couple of people sent me this link and were all “This is TOTALLY Ellie”.  Just substitute a trumpet for the baton, and I think they’re right.

Second, check out this cool mention of Band Geeked Out on Meg Cabot’s blog!

And third, a  little late to the party, but my awesome agent Kate gave away copies of Band Geeked Out to whomever could write the worst query letter.  The contest is over, but you can see the finalists right here and boy howdy they are hilariously bad.  Check it out!

This story isn’t a fairytale story about how wonderful high school is—the characters have legitimate problems, nothing works out according to plan, and some relationships don’t work out. In other words, it’s like real life, and that’s a perfect reason to read it.

I would recommend it to all of my girlfriends, even if they weren’t band geeks. It’s a very realistic depiction of the college search process, parental pressures, and dating issues. I found it very easy to relate to Ellie and the struggles she was going through. Her thoughts, ideas, interactions, and reactions to situations were all very realistic, making her even more likeable and drawing me more into the book.

Now THAT is a happy-making review.  Read the whole thing over here (though beware of a MAJOR spoiler in the last paragraph)!

Also, I’m taking part in Kay Cassidy’s Great Scavenger Hunt, which you can learn about right here.  The questionnaire for Band Geek Love is already up on the site, and Band Geeked Out should be there soon!  (If you’re a teen reader and want to become a “hunter”, you’ll have to ask your librarian to enroll in the program).  It looks like a whole lot of fun and a great excuse to devour a pile of books, plus who can argue with a $50 B&N card?  Happy hunting!

I am very excited.  Today will involve lots of exclamation points.  Even more exclamation points than I used last night at this etiquette dinner I attended when I learned how to hold an appetizer plate, wine glass and napkin all in my left hand, leaving my right hand free for introductions (a trick which I have to admit I found rather magical.  I’ll totally show you how to do it sometime).

I’ve been listening to the below song obsessively for the past few weeks, and the video just seems so appropriate for this occasion…I think I might feel exactly like this dude with his beloved “Condos Now Selling” sign.

It’s lookin’ like a beautiful day…

I’m so happy Ellie Snow is out there in the world again!!

So I figured I need to express gratitude toward the computer programs that made this possible…(sadly, all for only for Macs).

1.) Scrivener.  I heard about it first on Justine Larbalestier’s excellent blog and, I’m not gonna lie, it helped tipped the scale toward switching over to a Mac last summer.  I wrote almost all of Albatross on Scrivener and cannot fathom how I lived without it.  It just made organizing my brain and formulating plots about a hundred time easier, and an organized brain is kind of nice for novel writing.  Seriously, enthusiastically and highly recommended.

2.) Freedom.  This program, quite simply, breaks the internet on your computer for as long as you ask that it be broken (I can usually only stand an hour at a time or else I get twitchy).  For people like me who have, um, a kind of hard time not being distracted by the internet (IT’S SO SHINY) Freedom could not be more aptly named.  I don’t think I could have finished Albatross in a timely manner if it weren’t for all the internet breaking that I did in those last few weeks.  Recommended!

Oh, one more!

3.) MacJournal.  One of my oldest friends (from elementary school on) began working on this program when we were in college and won some big student design award for it and now he’s like computer software hotshot out in California but he totally deserves it because this journaling program rocks.  I’ve found it incredibly handy for keeping a writer’s journal, jotting down ideas, doing free-writing, further brain organization, etc.  And it has a ton of other features, too…so very, very recommended.

Freedom is free, and Scrivener and MacJournal are both under $40.  Worthy investments, all.

(Seabirds don’t come in flavors.)

(Neither does the book.)

Feeling lighter is good, because it gives me energy to freak out over the fact Band Geeked Out will be on shelves in ONE WEEK on APRIL FOOL’S DAY.  Hurray!

2.) I am almost done drafting my next book (currently called Albatross because the title fits and I also adore how it works my last name) and I am kind of in love with it.  Which is great because I was a little worried regarding how I’d feel when I was finished…it’s a considerably darker story than the Band Geek books.

Writing it has been kind of a stretch for me, in sometimes unpleasant ways…I guess maybe because it’s kind of hard going from a brash and bold character like Ellie Snow to writing the main character of Albatross, Tess, who is much less sure of herself and what she wants and is conflicted about how she thinks people should be allowed treat her. And I suppose I’ve sort of felt like I’ve been living through the story with Tess…suffering alongside her as she battles it all out and takes charge of her life.

But stretching has been great, I think, and I’m pretty pleased with the results.  I think both Tess and I will come out stronger for the experience.