While I’m sure it pains you to know that you don’t have any exciting YA-themed grammar lessons coming your way this week, I hope to see you back here post-DFWcon so we can talk about gerunds, appositives and cats again. Until then, happy writing!

And cross your fingers for me, please. I’m a little nervous!

Photo: Artotem/flickr

I made some calls, talked to some very friendly people and was told an “investigation” would be opened into the matter. Perhaps my frantic tone led them to believe that my package contained expensive jewels, priceless art or the secret to how Creed sold so many albums. An investigation — really??

Obviously, I couldn’t wait around for this situation to work itself out, so I drove to Barnes & Noble, searched through the teen books section — which has finally been moved away from the children’s play area so that I can feel more like an adult and less like a creeper — and then inquired about the book at the help desk. Sold out. Naturally.

So I called three more bookstores: sold out, sold out, one copy. One copy?! I had them reserve it for me and then drove to a little indie bookstore in Decatur and raced inside, where I saw the lone copy sitting on the counter with a post-it note with my name on it. Success!

As the cashier began ringing me up, I told her about my misfortune and how excited I was to finally get my hands on the book. She laughed and as she reached for it said, “If you really want ‘Insurgent,’ you’re going to have to prove that you deserve it. Who are you?”

Clearly, she wanted to know what faction I’m in, right? I mean, we’d only been talking about this on Twitter all day. So, with no hesitation, I say “Dauntless … with a little bit of Amity.”

“What?”

“Dauntless…with…um … a bit of Amity? And um … probably some Erudite?”

*uncomfortably long pause*

“What is your name?”

“Ohhhh. Laura Moss. I thought you were asking…never mind.”

Seriously, you guys, Cody was embarrassed for me. Afterward, I asked him to get really into some combination of D&D, Star Trek and LARPing so that he would always be a little bit nerdier than me, but he declined. I’m going to have to carry the nerdiness in this relationship.

My name is Laura, and I’m a book nerd.

He more closely resembles an unregistered animagus who broke out of wizard prison, am I right?

Sirius’ big brother, Fiver, isn’t all that pleased with the tiny kitten (he weighs in at under 2 pounds!) at the moment, but he says he’s glad that at least his brother is almost as famous as he is. My friend Kristen, the ever-devoted TVD fan, is convinced that this is little Sirius in Paul Wesley’s hands, but there’s no way to know for sure since Sirius has two siblings I haven’t met — and he’s not talking. Well, he’s talking squeaking, but these sounds are mostly requests to be cuddled and to have his belly rubbed.

Anyway, welcome to your new home, little Sirius! Prepare to be spoiled!

And in honor of “Insurgent,” Sirius chooses Dauntless, just as a true Gryffindor would!

Photo: codywellons.com

Pearce discussed her new novel, “Purity,” which came out this week, a book about “love, loss, and sex — but not necessarily in that order.” She talked about falling in love as a teenager, and she read a passage from her book in which the protagonist attempts to buy condoms, but not just any condoms — flavored condoms. Oh, and did I mention that her dad was there filming it all?

Within just a few minutes Pearce had us all dying to read her book, but as she spoke, one thing she said in particular stuck with me. She told us that as a teen, she was positive she’d fallen in love three times. While adults often say that teenagers don’t fall in love, she made a valid point: “There’s a reason Match.com is a thing. Adults don’t have love figured out either.” She explained that while she doesn’t dismiss the feelings of love she had as a teenager, she also doesn’t believe that her idea of what love is has remained stagnant.

Here’s what she said that stuck with me so: “My definition of love has changed since then. How I defined it then just isn’t how I definite it at this moment.”

If you write for young adults (as so many of you do), this is important to keep in mind. How many of us believed our first love would be “the one”? How many of us thought that if that one guy or girl didn’t acknowledge us in the hall, ask us to the dance or chat with us at the speech tournament (Oh, was that just nerdy me?), that we would just die? Dramatic, right? Hey, that’s teenagers for you.

So, after Pearce wowed us all with her charm and condom-speak, I scooped up a couple copies of “Purity” and got a book signed for one of you! To enter to win a signed copy of Pearce’s first contemporary novel, here’s all you have to do:

1. Tweet, “like,” pin, or +1 this post using the buttons below. (Be sure to use those buttons so I can track it!)
2. Leave a comment about how old you were when you first fell in love. (And be sure to use your correct email so I can contact you for your **mailing address if you win.)

Heck, I’ll even go first. While I definitely had things for Jordan Knight (I was 8 — let’s let this one slide), my Brazilian co-worker, that boy I met at the speech tournament and Fox Mulder David Duchovny, I don’t think I really had my first love until I was 18. We were lifeguards together. *Cue the summertime dance music. Wait, is that LFO?*

Now it’s your turn! Leave your comment below, and I’ll use random.org to select the winner one week from today.

Looking for ways to pass the time while you wait to see who won? Watch this video of a dog stalking a wolf with amazing musical accompaniment. Check out my interview with Ian Somerhalder on The Huffington Post. Donate to Corky’s recovery! Start writing your own novel — with kittens!

**Congratulations to Liza Kane, comment #5! She’s the winner!

*U.S. and Canada only, please.

You might also like:

• Grammar and usage for writers (featuring Katniss and Peeta)
• Writing tips from ‘Delirium’ author Lauren Oliver

I joined Twitter four years ago, and since then, I’ve met so many amazing writers via this micro-blogging site — or perhaps I should say “met” them because we’ve never shaken hands or seen each other outside the Internet. We’ve exchanged tweets, first drafts and writing advice, and what we’ve created really is a community. I know more about their lives than most of those hundreds of Facebook “friends” that I went to high school with, and if it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t have beta readers, I wouldn’t be attending my first writers’ conference, I wouldn’t be involved in what’s sure to be the greatest writers’ retreat of 2013 — and let’s face it, no one would be throwing badgers at me.

So, while I’m super excited for DFWcon, my agent pitch sessions and all those amazing workshops, what I’m most looking forward to is meeting some of these people for the first time. (Sorry, Dateline, but I do have plans to meet people I found on the Internet.)

If you’re looking for awesome people to follow on Twitter who will both inspire and badger you to write, these are some of my top picks:

• @lizakane
• @melissaiswrite
• @geoffwakeling
• @thekristeno*
• @chinadespain*
• @olsonkayla
• @dbsmyth
• @coliekat*
• @callyjackson

I look forward to beta reading, fretting about revisions, writing about horses accurately, jumping from helicopters and badgering all of you. And, of course, I can’t wait to see your books on shelves so I can say, “Oh my God. I know that author! Well, I might not know them know them, but we totally tweet to each other.”

*I do actually know these people in real life, so I can attest to the fact that they’re real. The others might just be the most amazing Twitterbots ever. Only time will tell.

Photo: badgerbadgerbadger.com

I’m sure you expected a lengthy post where I preach to you about pollution, green living and the horrors of plastic. You’re probably thinking, “I can’t stand to read another post about Laura and plastic.” And while it’s tempting to emotionally torture people yet again with the two-minute video that changed my life, I thought I’d go the more uplifting route today.

So, yes, while learning about the devastation on Midway had a huge impact on how I live my life thousands of miles away in Atlanta, there was another documentary — a much more positive one — that also had an effect on me.

I wrote an article for MNN last year about bloggers who made yearlong green commitments and shared their journeys online, and one of the people I interviewed was Jen Rustemeyer of The Clean Bin Project. Here’s the gist of the movie: Jen and her boyfriend compete for a year to see who can avoid buying any new “stuff” and produce the least amount of waste in a year. But instead of your typical apocalyptic, depressing documentary, Jen and Grant have made a genuinely fun movie with a positive message.

“We’d seen so many environmental films that left us feeling hopeless, so we wanted to show that living zero waste can actually be fun,” Rustemeyer told me.

Now, I didn’t get to actually see the film until I attended the EcoFocus Film Festival this year, but I watched the trailer countless times and I’ve read the The Clean Bin Project blog from beginning to end, which inspired me to do all those crazy things like making my own deodorant and crackers and buying compostable toothbrushes. (Cody calls me an “extremist,” but I’m all, “No! I’m not doing enough for the planet!”)

So, this Earth Day, find something that inspires you to change and work for a better, cleaner, healthier planet. You don’t have to do something huge — start small, change one small thing, and then change another small thing.

As Rustemeyer says, “Just start with one change, and when that becomes a habit, you can move on to the next one.”

Check out The Clean Bin Project trailer below. I hope you love it as much as I do.

Photo: Grant Baldwin, The Clean Bin Project

Seriously, it’s not even easy to write a bad query letter — trust me, I’ve been at this for a week, and after a ridiculous amount of research, feedback from my crit partners and multiple drafts, I still wrote a bad query letter. I haven’t worked this hard to be bad at something since 9th grade algebra.

Luckily, I had the sense to ask someone who’d written a successful query letter (the very generous Ryann Kerekes) for a critique before heading off to Dallas and submitting my letter to the DFWcon gong show. (Getting helpful feedback from a writer via email is so much better than having actual agents gong your query into the depths of hell in front of hundreds of people.)

What’s funny is that a lot of the feedback I got was stuff I knew, but I still managed to overlook it! You guys, I screwed up my hook. My hook! I know my story’s hook — after all, I wrote the story! I was so wrapped up in thinking about what makes my story unique that I failed to include what my story is about. Wow. But some of the advice I received was stuff I hadn’t heard elsewhere despite all my Googling and searching via Writer’s Knowledge Base. (<—- Use this. It will change your life make searching for anything writing-related so much easier!)

Basically, the only thing I got really right about my query letter was my bio (I do know myself at least). After reading the incredible feedback and tips I got, I made a few changes to my letter and this is how it looks now:

Yes, I’m going to scrap my letter and start from scratch, but I’m excited about it because I got some amazing advice and my new letter is going to be so much better because of it!! Who knows? Maybe I won’t get gonged until after my (corrected) hook is read aloud!

If you’re about to delve into the frustrating world of query-letter writing, here’s my best tip: Ask for help. If you know someone kind and generous who’s already signed with an agent and therefore knows how to write a successful query, there’s no harm in asking if he or she would be willing to read your letter. The worst they can do is say no, right?

Now, I don’t recommend bombarding Ryann with pleas for help — she’s a very busy writer! However, she’s giving away a query-letter review and a 10-page manuscript critique to one lucky commenter on this post. So go leave a comment right now! Do it!

After that, check out some of these posts that I refer to again and again for query advice:

• How to write a query letter
• Writing a query letter (I found this one to be especially helpful.)
• Query Writing 101
• Writing the query (It’s a five-part post so be sure to click through till the end.)
• The importance of voice in query letters
• How to format a query letter

Also, if you’re on Pinterest, I pin every single helpful writing post I find on my Writing Tips board, and lately there are tons of posts on query letters.

You might also like:

• Platform-building for writers
• Where to find (legal) images for your blog

Photo: dam/flickr

Bookshelf made from books

Along those same lines, here’s an invisible bookshelf. (Check out the DIY tutorial here.)

Shelving to die for! These custom-made shelves transform into a coffin (go here for pricing) and help offset the energy- and resource-intensive process of building a typical coffin. Besides, you’re not going to need the bookshelf after you’re gone, right? If you’re looking for a better way to be as green in life as you were in death, check out my Huffington Post article on eco-burials.

Block shelf is made from salvaged wood and sailing rope.

Naturally, my favorite bookshelf is the AMAZING Cat-Library that comes with stairs for your feline to walk up and a built-in basket for cat naps. I. Want. It. Check out this video of Cat-Library in action.

If you happen to have an old Jag lying around — as so many of us do — it can also double as a library. (I guess it’s better than driving it around and emitting greenhouse gases.)

And it’s not quite a bookshelf, but if you’re ready to retire your stripper shoes, you can always turn them into some classy-looking bookends — or pay $150 for this one.

Know of any other awesome, eco-friendly bookshelves? Please share!

You might also like:

• DIY projects for the bookish
• How to make your own deodorant

1. Use a comma for coordinate adjectives.

Coordinate adjectives are adjectives that are equally important. You can recognize them in a sentence by doing this simple test: Reverse the order of the adjectives and see if it still makes sense. To make things more clear, you could also reverse the order of the adjectives and insert “and” in between them to check.

• Violet runs down the long, narrow path. (A comma is required here because we could just as easily write this sentence as “Violet runs down the narrow and long path” or Violet runs down the narrow, long path” without changing the sentence’s meaning.)
• Violet has gorgeous, natural curls. Violet has natural, gorgeous curls.

*However, don’t go sticking in commas every time you’re piling up a couple of adjectives. Not everything reverses!

• She went to school in a concrete block building. (A “concrete block building” can’t be changed to a “block concrete building.” That wouldn’t make any sense!)

2. Use a comma in series to separate elements.

• Violet wants to catch the catch the killer, save lives, and kiss Jay. (simple series)

*Depending on what style you write in, you could opt not to include the Oxford comma. As a journalist who lives and dies by AP Style (aka “the journalists’ bible), I rarely ever use it, but it’s common in the publishing industry. For my full explanation of the Oxford comma, click here.

• Depending on the body she senses, Violet can see imprints, taste and smell imprints, or hear imprints. (series with embedded conjunction in one element)

*Assuming Violet is able to only 1. see imprints, 2. taste and smell imprints — as one element — and 3. hear imprints, this is how we would write that sentence. This next example makes it a little more clear:

• I cooked vegetarian meatloaf, peas and carrots, and potatoes. (“Peas and carrots” is one element, so even if you opt not to use the Oxford the comma in your writing, you would have to here because it’s necessary to clarify that there are three items in this list, not four.)

But what if you just have a really long, convoluted sentence?

• When Violet is being chased through the woods by the killer, I wonder whether she’ll manage to outrun him, whether he’ll tackle her and she’ll have to fight him off with her bare hands and whatever weapons she can find, and whether Jay will finally appear on the scene and come to her rescue. (long, complicated sentence)

If you use the Oxford comma, you’re probably thinking, “I’d include that last comma anyway, but if you’re an AP Style addict like myself, then you’d probably drop that serial comma in for clarification purposes. However, a comma actually isn’t required. This is really a judgment call.

Let’s take a look at one more:

• Violet used to seek out the bodies of dead animals, she would bury them in Shady Acres, and Jay would help her build headstones for the graves. (series of independent clauses)

Here, we don’t need a comma for clarification because the thoughts are pretty straightforward; however, each element of that series is an independent clause and therefore requires the Oxford comma.

That’s it for today! Now that you’ve learned a thing or two about commas, reward yourself by heading over to my previous post to enter to win a copy of Veronica Roth’s “Insurgent!”

You might also like:

• Commas (Part I) featuring Mary from “The Forest of Hands and Teeth”
• My YA book boy crushes
• Grammar and usage for writers featuring Katniss and Peeta

You likely cling to these identifiers and will argue passionately about how you’re a Ravenclaw no matter what Pottermore says or how Katniss really should’ve chosen Gale because they have so much more in common! (But really, how nutritious is squirrel and venison for dinner? At least with bread you can make a gamey sandwich.)

I feel like all book lovers could wear name tags that read something like this:

Hello, my name is Laura and I…

• am in Gryffindor
• am Uncured
• know where where my towel is
• chose Dauntless (But likely missed the jump from the train to the building)
• am on Team Cricket (Yes, I’ve been involved in Étienne v. Cricket discussions.)
• live in District 12 — I really do, but I’d be a starving vegetarian if this were Panem. (I would’ve picked District 4, but my desire to snuggle with Finnick is far outweighed by my fear of shark attack.)
• am on Team Hot Guy Who Tried to Kill Bella to Prevent “New Moon” (James, was it?)

If you think about it, we all have some of these identifiers, which brings me to this giveaway I mentioned. Thanks to the kindness of a friend, I now have two copies of “Insurgent” pre-ordered, and while I could just cancel the order I placed myself, I thought it would be more fun (and very Abnegation of me) to simply change the order info and send that book to one of you!

To enter, simply leave a comment below with your own literary name tag from any books you’d like (Be sure to include your faction and your correct email address!), and then one week from today, I’ll use random.org to select a winner. I’ll contact you for your **mailing address and then have “Insurgent” shipped to you on May 1! This giveaway is now closed.

If you’d like to tweet this post, that would also be appreciated. I look forward to reading your literary name tag!

Want to get even more hyped up about Veronica Roth’s second book? Check out the “Insurgent” trailer below.

**U.S. and Canada address only, please.

Congratulations to Julie Maughon (comment #15), a fellow starving vegetarian in Panem. A copy of “Insurgent” will be heading your way on May 1!

You might also like:

• My YA book boy crushes
• Character age in YA novels: How old is too old?