Mooching off of Someone Else's Blog :)

Forgive the few-and-far-between postings, mostly Friday Feedbacks, but it's been a bit of a crazy time for me.

I started a WIP in late October (sort of a half-assed Nanowrimo -- meaning I wasn't officially entered in Nano because 1. I'm not sure I believe in trying to push yourself to 50K words just for the sake of pushing and 2. no matter how I try, I am not a writer who can write without editing, so 50K in a month is not really doable for me, but I used it as an inspiration to focus better and just write which i did completing about 30K in that month's time and continuing on with it thereafter).

Anyway, for some various reasons not worth going into, I did something I NEVER do -- showed a very rough first 120 pages to my editor and (139 pages to my) agent and they both went nuts for it, so I've been trying to finish it up. Then of course there are some mediations and my kids in there and burpees, elliptical and swimming, so, yeah, my blogs have totally suffered. Not to mention the "leg work" for The Pull of Gravity which is slowly starting to pick up - got a first early and awesome review from Professor Nana (she's actually a pretty important and influential person in the YA Lit World!), and, I've guest presented in 5 high school classes who just finished reading Of Mice and Men, which is totally fun -- i adore it!

So, all this is to say, I haven't quite organized my thoughts but decided to come here anyway to (brag about and) feature a feature on another blog: Y.A. LOVE.

Click on that link. You know you want to. :)

Y.A. LOVE  is a YA book review blog run by the wonderful Sarah Andersen, a high school literature teacher from Michigan (you know, the kind in movies that you'd die to have as YOUR teacher?!). Anyway, she was running this blog and she and I got to chatting, and she was enthusiastically telling me how much her kids inspire her with the way they take to reading and I said to her, why aren't THEY asking questions on your blog? She loved the idea, I hooked her up with some very enthusiastic debut YA writers, and her students have gone mad! Today's interview is with Jeff Sampson, author of Vesper, out any day now.

The students' questions are interesting and thought provoking (for example, read about how he arrived at his title!) and the bottom line is that they and Sarah rock.

They'll be back next week with their Students Want to Know feature (I think) so follow the blog and enjoy.

- gae