Living the Dream

(My stomach's all twisty-turny and my nerves are wrecked for a couple of reasons today, so I thought I'd do a short, cheerful, dreamy-type post to cheer myself up.)

I saw "Breaking Dawn" yesterday on a rare and fabulous lady date. One moment out of that whole movie made me tear up.

When the baby was born? Nope. (That was appropriately disgusting.) When Edward thought Bella was dead? Nuh-uh. (Although that was pretty horrific as well.)

It was actually the appearance of one very special extra.

See her there? Row closest to you on the left?




There's Stephenie Meyer, the author of the TWILIGHT saga (I type as if any of you do not know this information,) attending the MOVIE WEDDING OF HER CHARACTERS.

All of you authors out there are probably nodding your heads along with me. You know what I'm all caps-locking about. We write stories. We fall in love with our characters. Exciting, dramatic, and sometimes even beautiful things happen to them. And they live in our heads, and our CPs' hearts (#cplove, what's up ladies,) but our wildest, craziest dreams usually stop at their names appearing in a hardcover on the bookstore shelf. Maybe - MAYBE - we get really nuts and dream of great reviews, or even being a bestseller.

Our books being made into movies is an admit-me-to-an-insane-asylum-because-I'm-probably-delusional type of writer's dream.

To appear in a major moment in your characters' lives on the big screen? Well, that's just head-spinningly, deliriously wonderful.

Way to live the dream, Ms. Meyer. I was so, so happy for you today. You're an inspiration to keep my head in the clouds, if only a little bit.

Friday Obsessions: The Human Torch, "Heartbeat" by the Fray, and Oatmeal

Wheee! It's Friday again! Here we go...

Everything I was obsessed with this week.
Because I know you want to know.

1. Let's start this off right. Johnny Storm, AKA The Human Torch.

He's lovably cocky, has an awesome superpower, and is C-U-T-E.  Mmmm.

Mmm hmmm. Yes. Yepppp.

You guys. He lights on fire. And then he flies. FLIES. WHILE HE'S ON FIRE.

This probably also has something to do with how Elias tells someone to "Flame on." in ONE. Yes. Sure does.

Oh, man. Ohhhh geez.

2. "Heartbeat" by The Fray
You all know how much I love the Fray. This new-ish single release....whoa. I mean, the lyrics alone...

"When you love someone you love them all the same."

*sighs* *swoon* (On the soundtrack for sure.)



3. Oatmeal. It's just that kind of weather, and because I seem to not be able to get food into my mouth fast enough these days, hearty, sweet, belly-filling oatmeal is pretty much the best food. ever. EVER.




Okay, sweet readers! Your turn - what were you obsessed with this week?

Winner of the First Official Classy Author Giveaway!

Ho-Hum. I'm a little bored without a post today, so I thought I would do something perhaps even more awesome than post -

FINALLY GIVE AWAY A BOOK BY BETH REVIS
as I promised you I'd do in the First Official Classy Author Giveaway a week or so ago.

Wheee! Here we go!



And the winner is...drumroll please...REBECCA!!!!

Who said,

I love Beth Revis! She is super-awesome and so very accessible and friendly to her readers. :o)

Yes, yes she is. Congratulations, Rebecca! I'm going to email you to get you your book ASAP.

As always, THANK YOU to everyone who commented and entered!

Deliberately building self-confidence

I've written before about the split personality of a writer. We have to be simultaneously the most confident and the most humble people we know. It's a tough balance to strike, at some places on the road to publication more than others.

I realized I haven't felt self-confident about a single thing I've written since I've started querying THE TRAVELERS. Even my favorite favorite most beloved ever scene from ONE (the WiP)) - I look at it and think, "Eh, this is cliched." or "Urgh, what was I thinking with that WORD CHOICE GOD I AM THE STUPIDEST WRITER EVER."

You know. That kind of thing.

See, it's easy to get down. We can read posts by published authors telling us that no matter how ready we think we are to submit and publish - WE'RE NOT (awesome, thanks. SUPER helpful - ) and we can read twitter feeds of agents making fun of queriers all the live long day.

Um...does that include publishing? We're screwed, aren't we?

 Even if we delete our rejections like we're supposed to (I do! I swear! All, like, ten bajillion of them.) it's hard not to keep at least a rough tally living in your head. Soon, we can spot a rejection email in less than two seconds. Literally. (The tip-off: It has the word "subjective" in it.)

You'd think by now I might've turned around...YOU'D BE WRONG.

The thing is - the aspiring agented/published may come to believe these things so deeply - that we're never good enough to query, that first novels don't publish, that regular people can't be writers - that trying to build self confidence- yes, on purpose - might seem silly, indulgent, pointless.

That's what I thought, too.

But then, in a random email kvetch to my writing buddy Peggy, she told me to do something completely ridiculous - go back and read THE TRAVELERS. Fall in love with it again.

Now, Peggy one of the most humble writers I know. If she's telling me to purposefully hype myself up on my own writing, I sit up and listen.

I recently decided to do a last-ditch query flurry for THE TRAVELERS. My incredible, generous, genius CPs spent days reworking my query with me, and eventually everyone gave it a thumbs up. There was just one problem - I couldn't put together the emails. Couldn't click send. I realized after a few days that it was a problem of me losing faith in TT, even before I had officially given up on it.  It was then that I decided I owed it to TT to gather every strategy that I know of for building self confidence into one great big basket and throw every one straight at the query process.

Here are some things that help me build self-confidence and/or rekindle my love for my work:

• Listen to the soundtrack
• Read your book again. Especially the steamy scenes.
• Talk to the CPs that you know will give you hugs, love, and support.
• Before you whine to them any more, find a drill-sergeant CP who will force you to query through threats and shame.
• 
• Remember what you're awesome at (Peggy's post about that here and mine here)
• Send out one of Those Scenes just for the fun of it. You know which kinds I'm talking about. Your CPs will squeal because of what happens in the Scene, but you'll feel like they're in love with your writing.
• Seek out inspiration. My favorites here,  here and here. (You might cry.)

Your turn! Do you deliberately build self-confidence to gear up for some part of the writing process? How?

Writing Hotness

I read a lot of YA novels where the heroine is described as beautiful and body-perfect, and the hero is some combination of gorgeous and devastatingly handsome, with a big helping of rippling abs on the side.


Now, I like reading about beautiful people as much as the next person. (Hello, RORY. Mmm.) But I'm with Beth Revis here - it's not the physical descriptions that make characters hot. In fact, in my writing, I try to  describe the beauty and brawn only as much as necessary.Only I know exactly what my characters look like in my head. 


Why? Because what's attractive to me may not be attractive to someone else.  And, in most cases more importantly, the way a character acts speaks louder than how a character looks.


Remember your first love? Junior high crush, high school boyfriend, college sweetheart? Remember how AMAZING and PERFECT he was? Remember how it felt to hold his hand, to kiss him, to hear him say "I love you?" And, now that you think back on it, remember how maybe his skin wasn't perfect, or he had kind of a weird haircut, or he was a little too short for you to wear heels when you went out, or maybe his jaw and stomach weren't so chiseled? 


And, most of all, remember how he was the CUTEST GUY EVER?


(Yeah. Me too.)


I guess my point is this: Non-gorgeous, non-buff people fall in love every day. They enjoy making out and...other stuff...just as much as the hot people. And to them? The people they're in love with look absolutely, totally, wouldn't-change-a-thing perfect. 


Most importantly, I don't for a second want one of my sweet teen readers to think that because she's really tall, or has frizzy hair, or wears a size 18, or WHATEVER, that she's not every bit as desirable as the heroine in one of my books.


(And that, watching all the sweet Buckeye couples striding through campus hand-in-hand, way more of them look like this:

Than like this:

And that, no matter what they look like, their love story could be absolutely incredible.)


See, at the end of the day, jaws and muscles and tallness and jeans size are all pretty irrelevant - the only thing that I care about is that my readers know how the characters see one another. Are they attracted to each other? Does the hero think the heroine is beautiful? Does one character want to rip the other's clothes off?


If we agree on the answers to those questions? I've done my job. 


Now! For the fun part (for me at least...)
I want to introduce you to two characters in my WiP, ONE. 


Here's how I describe Leni, short for "Helen":
She is beautiful, the sort of beautiful that knows it can stop anyone in his tracks. She’s tall, with strawberry blond hair so brassy-bright it almost glows, and curvy. Her skin is kissed with gold, then dotted with a spray of freckles.

She looks like the freaking sun itself blew kisses at her. She is the kind of girl that guys like Elias want to be with, always are with. She is a prize. 

And here's Daniel:
Daniel, nearly as tall as Elias, sits at the concrete table with pebbled legs, and looks up from his textbook, jerking his chin up in greeting again. His hair is jet black, and his skin is the color of cinnamon mixed with coffee. His eyes are black, too, but they flash fiercely when they look at me.


Those are pretty much the only physical descriptions of them in the book.


Now, here's part of a scene I wrote between them that does not appear in the book. (Let's just call it character study, okay?)


Slowly, Daniel turns his head to me, and I laugh out loud, then  throw my arms around his neck. His arms circle my body in response, and joy and excitement flood me all at once. I pull back just enough to look at him, and he whispers, "You did it. You really did it."


"We did it," I say, and the joy of it all propels me forward, and I crush my lips against his. I pull back after a second, cheeks flushing crimson, and look down.


I can't believe I did that.


I freeze, wait for him to stop, to push away, to finally tell me after all these years that he doesn’t feel the same way. But he deepens the kiss, takes a deep breath in through his nose, pulls my body closer to his.


Daniel's hands tremble against my waist. My breath shudders out of my chest. The space between us, or what's left of it, is so charged that I can hardly believe this is real.  It must be a dream.  It must,  it must,  and if I don't wake up now,  my heart will fly out of my chest and drag me out of sleep.   


But then his lips move to each of my eyes, then my jaw, then my neck, and I know that my heart couldn't possibly go faster than it is now. Yet he's still kissing me, and my body still aches to be even closer to his. 

Now. Do you have a picture of these two in your head? Yes? Good. So do I. One of the below pictures matches up with my idea of each of them, but any could work given the descriptions.

So, take a look.What do Leni and Daniel look like TO YOU?

Friday Obsessions: Mylo Xyloto, Riding Boots, and Salty Caramel

Wheee! It's the end of another week and I could not be more psyched. Seriously.
(Big goals for this weekend, friends. Big. Freaking. Goals.) So here it is....


Everything I was obsessed with this week.
Because I know you want to know.

1. MYLO XYLOTO (OMG!!!)  Okay. So I know this album released, like, two weeks ago. I guess I had contented myself with one of the single tracks, "Paradise," enough that I didn't bother listening to the rest but oh my holy heck you guys, this album is EPIC!  And I think I think just maybe I may have found the title track for ONE right on it!!!!!  And I just heard it  for the first time this morning!!!! And I am FREAKING OUT!!!

2. Riding boots. Okay. So I work on a college campus (GO BUCKS!) and all the cute college girls are wearing these riding boots with their leggings and skinny jeans and looking absolutely freaking adorable. And I thought it was a body-type thing, with the skinny jeans, because I am not, well, SKINNY, so there is nary a skinny jean to be found in my wardrobe. But then some of my girls told me that skinny jeans and riding boots are flattering on "everyone, Rabbi Kopans, and you should totally get some IT WOULD BE SO CUTE!!!!" And then I saw some of the moms at the children's museum wearing the getup last weekend and looking very classy and "oh-I-just-threw-this-together" chic. Also, Katniss wears them, so you know they are badassed.

Seeing as I haven't felt "so cute" or "classy" or "chic" or  "badassed" in a very long time (a verrrry long time,) and I had a very bad week (a verrry bad week) I thought I'd do a little retail therapy and pick up these beauties. And I've been screaming at the website to "just SHIP THEM ALREADY" all week long. Obsessed.

3.  Salty Caramel Ice Cream

There are a lot of special things about living in Columbus, OH, but on the top five list is Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams. Gorgeous artisan ice cream with all organic, all natural, all local ingredients, with a robust roster of seasonal flavors combined with the regular flavors Jeni won't discontinue because she'd be afraid for her life. Seriously.

One of the flavors in the latter category is Salty Caramel, and I may or may not have eaten an entire pint this week. *Ahem* (as an aside, I'm pretty much a fan of any flavor that involves alcohol - which is many of them - or the word "butter.")

(Not my image. But oh my, doesn't that make you think of Spring?)

Now it's your turn! What were you obsessed with this week???

Anti-Procrastination Live Blog

The last anti-procrastination liveblog I did TOTALLY RULED, so I'm doing it again today. I have a full day at home, and I have some BIG goals. On tap:

- drop off and pick up kids from school
- make chicken/matzo ball soup for dinner (it's just one of those days)
- clean the bathrooms and the kitchen
- wash the bedding
- color my hair and give myself a pedi
- edit 5 chapters edit 4 chapters/finish the "rising action" section!
- set up another query flurry for tomorrow
- look/be/feel fabulous

Yes. I am a nutcase.

Here we go!

5:30 - I awaken to a lovely conversation between my two boys about poop blasting through the baby monitors. Serious. You can't make this stuff up.

6:00 - Eggs and toast are on the table for breakfast, and Asher and Nesyah have an epic battle over who gets the Wolverine plate. Nesyah wins.

6:30 - Kids are dressed, second load of laundry going in. I scrub the downstairs toilet and disinfect the bathroom sink and wall (yes, WALL - two boys potty training = SO SO GROSS.) Slap on a bit of makeup so as not to scare the preschool teachers.

7:30 - We are out the door!

8:30 - Kids are finally installed in school, after I had to talk Rami down from the brink when I told him we're cutting his hair in a couple of weeks. (We wait till their third birthday for the first cut.) I left him with a mere trembling bottom lip after I got him to agree that long hair minus a tiny bit of hair from the end is still LONG HAIR.

8:45 - I stop at the grocery store for a head of garlic and egg noodles for the soup, and walk out with those things plus approximately ten million pounds of clearanced Halloween chocolate FTW.  Think how great this will be for my students and care packages to Chessie and Gina. Realize that I have never sent Maggie a care package and have a mild panic attack. For Christmas, ladies. Christmas.

9:00 - Throw a chicken, some water, some soup veggies, the garlic, and salt and pepper into the stock pot, set it on the burner, and wish it luck.

9:15 - Reply to twitter @s and obsess over one of Those Scenes I wrote late last night. Hm.

10:00 - Answer a couple of emails from CPs (FIRST PRIORITY LADIES.)

10:05 - Watch this badassed video on fire blankets. (It's research!) Mostly I like it because of the guy's accent.


10:45 - Have spent waaay to long replying to a couple of Those Scenes my CPs sent me last night. It is so much more fun to reply to emails during the day, when I am awake at all. I feel like I might actually make any sense.

Also obsessed with this whole wheat waffle. Is there ANY kind of syrup other than "butter flavored?" (Answer - NO.)

Okay. Time to edit.

11:40 - Uh, yeah. So I've done NO EDITING in the last hour. I filled up my water bottle. And...that's about it.

11:43 - Blue screen of death on my netbook. %$#*$&&(&#)_(_@

2:00 - HOW DID IT GET SO LATE!??!!?
Anyway.
My matzo ball soup, FTW.

Kitchen is sparkling clean. I'm going to color my hair, and scrub the other bathroom, put clean sheets on the kids' beds, and put in another load of laundry while it sets.

3:00 - Aforementioned tasks accomplished, and by now I'm having some pretty intense round ligament pain. I'm not budging for two hours.

3:40 - Okay. Just responded to a CP with a writing confidence crisis (FIRST PRIORITY) and spent about 20 minutes weeping over websites that tell the story of my deepest darkest fear happening to other people. WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?!?!?!  I have an hour to edit before I leave to pick the kids up. Guh.

4:00 - The first of two word wars with my amazing CPs Maggie and Chessie. For some reason, knowing someone else thinks I'm working on ONE for fifteen solid minutes forces me to ACTUALLY DO IT.  One and a half chapters edited in the first one, and the second word war yielded another chapter edited. I'm almost caught up now - on chapter 9! woot!

6:30 - The children are home and - what else - eating? Asher and Nesyah eat a dozen matzo balls in about ten minutes. It's actually incredible to watch. Most grown adults can only eat two or three.

7:15 - Get an email from Gina that indicates that she is ACTUALLY POSSIBLY SERIOUS about writer's retreating with me. Stare at phone. Swoon. Start looking at flights.

8:23 - Children fed, pajamaed, in bed, husband fed. Back to work - I can get another two chapters in at least before I nod off, right? Right?

9:14 - Just finished the second chapter! (Cheating, kind of - I've been obsessing over Chapter 10 for three months, since it's the first scene I ever wrote for this book ever.) In case you're keeping track, I've come up short on my goals today, but only a little - one pedicure and one chapter. Oh, and looking/feeling fabulous. (Maggie told me I could cross off "be fabulous," and she knows what fabulous is.)

This is where I say that a good woman knows when to quit, and call it a night. Thank you so much for live-blogging with me, can't wait till the next time! You really helped me stay focused (yes, this is what 'focused' looks like.)

Sleep tight!

The First Official Classy Author Giveaway

Happy Monday morning, everyone! (did you see how I tried to get myself psyched for the week by being all chipper right there? I'll let you know how it worked.)

It's time to finally announce the winner of my giveaway of Lauren Myracle's SHINE. If you didn't hear the story behind this giveaway, please take a moment to hop over to the post and check it out.

There were twelve entries, so your chances were awesome. Here's the number I drew:



And here's the comment that went with it:


Congrats, Heidi! I'm so excited for you to read SHINE. Email me your address to I can get a copy to your Kindle or your doorstep, whichever you'd like.

Now, for a REAL post.

I got into an email discussion with some of my critique partners last week about some authors we "know" via their blogs and Twitter presence. Some authors act like normal people and sometimes normal celebrities (I'm allowed to use oxymorons at 5:30 AM!), and then some authors?

 Class. It. Up.

I mean, seriously. Can't you think of at least one or two authors that you admire not only for their mad writing skills, but also because of how utterly and completely CLASSY they are?

Well, I can. And I'm going to practice my one most important author skill right now and kick off a giveaway series that celebrates classy authors.

First up: Beth Revis!

Here's Ms. Revis. She looks up to you. Seriously. She says it on her blog.
(And I got this picture over there, so it's totally not creepy.)

Beth Revis is the New York Times Bestselling author of ACROSS THE UNIVERSE and its sequel A MILLION SUNS, out January.

*Gasp* That cover gets me every time.

Ms. Revis gets Classy Author status in my book for a couple of huge reasons. First, because of her responsiveness to her fans - both via Twitter and Blog comments. If I tag her in a tweet, she always, always, ALWAYS responds.  She's stopped by this little old blog to comment when I've mentioned her or a topic she's passionate about ("Delighted to Be Devastated," go check out her comment!) She answers questions from regular fans on her Tumblr all the time.

And this brings me to mention her crazy-inspirational support of the writing community. 

On a personal note, when I started querying, I dropped her a line on Tumblr to ask for a one-line pep talk. She wrote me a SPEECH. And this was before I had a Tumblr account, so I was basically just some anonymous freak writing a Book Full of Crazy for all she knew, and she spent fifteen minutes of her busy famous life replying to me.

Classy. Class-y.

As if stuff like that isn't awesome enough, she also provides inspiration for the writing masses. (And we are. Masses.) This summer's WriteOnCon featured Ms. Revis giving the most inspirational writing speech I've ever heard, in which she showed off all NINE of her "drawer novels" and told us to never, ever give up.

See, even though Ms. Revis is a New York Times Bestselling Author, and she doesn't really need to interact with the handful of random twitter or blog fans, and most certainly has already paid her dues to the writing community...she keeps going anyway. Keeps going with the "thank you"s and support.

 And if that doesn't make her a Classy Author? I don't know what does.

So! To celebrate Ms. Revis and the sheer awesomeness of her books (I devoured both ATU and the ARC of A MILLION SUNS Penguin so kindly sent me - they are beautifully written and completely emotionally captivating - )

 I am giving away a copy of either ACROSS THE UNIVERSE or a pre-order of A MILLION SUNS!!! 


To enter the giveaway, just leave a comment below. You get an extra entry for following the blog and for tweeting about it - if you tweet, please include this text:

I entered to win a book by @bethrevis in @LeighAnnKopans' Classy Author giveaway! http://tinyurl.com/8xgtjxo

And let me know if you are a new follower and/or tweeted. Duh.

Even if you don't feel like entering, go tweet at @bethrevis and let her know how classy she is. Obviously, she deserves it.

Good luck everyone! And, as always, THANK YOU for reading!

Friday Obsessions and Guest Vlogging at Gina's!

A couple of housekeeping notes AWESOME ANNOUNCEMENTS before we start with the obsessing:

1. I'm doing my first guest vlog ever about my history of literary crushes over at Gina's blog this morning! Please come visit and assure me that I don't sound like a man. Or a complete tool.

2. I'll be announcing the winner of the Lauren Myracle's SHINE giveaway on Monday (which means there's still time for you to enter!!!) and simultaneously kicking off my Classy Author Giveaway series. Get excited for this one, guys...

Okay. And now...


Everything I was obsessed with this week.
 Because I know you want to know.

1. Once Upon A Time.  I blogged about the preview to this months back, and this show does not disappoint. It's beautiful. And incredible. But if I'm being honest, my real obsession is with Prince Charming:

If you watched the first episode, you know he's not only devastatingly handsome, but also totally kickass. He took down, like, five guys with a sword. With one hand. WHILE HOLDING A BABY IN THE OTHER HAND. 

Yes, it's true. I can't find the video clip because I think ABC is, like, patrolling YouTube for it or something, but if any of you has it, please please post the link so that everyone can enjoy. *grin*

2. Sweaters. And tea. And heavy blankets. It's that time of year and there's nothing more I want to do than hibernate and not come out till spring snuggle on the couch with the fam and a book.

3. Sushi. Maybe it's Halloween and all the candy that's been around, or maybe it's that I've been obsessed with tater tots and other fried, quasi-fried, and high-fat foods over the past few months. But suddenly all I want is sushi, in all its cold, whole-food, fresh gloriousness. (Yes, I got some on Wednesday. Yes, it was delicious.)

Your turn! What were your obsessions this week?

Nailing the Soundtrack

Have you ever had a moment when you hear a song and think, "How did that singer know what my character was thinking?"

Or have you ever heard a song lyric that sparked an entire scene, subplot, or entire story idea?

I'm one of those writers that NEEDS music to write a story. Whether each song acts as inspiration, encouragement, or support for what the characters do and why they do it hardly matters. The songs and my scenes are so closely linked - whether by emotion or concept - that I can't remember, for most of them, whether I wrote the scene first, and then added the song, or heard one line of a song that sent me into a writing frenzy.

For me, the work of building a book's playlist is just as slow, thoughtful, and full of heart as the writing itself. I add a bunch of songs, take most away, listening over and over, feeling them out to see what rhythms, lyrics, melodies, and progressions make my heart soar or ache. I add songs and write according to what rings true.

It's not unusual for me to write a scene, song blasting in the background, with tears streaming down my face. Sometimes when I'm completely lacking inspiration, I get in the car and speed down a long stretch of highway (you can do that in Ohio,) soundtrack blasting, and then pull off an exit to pour scenes into my netbook.

The mood of the songs changes according to the part of the book I'm writing. Sunshiney happy love songs may be on endless repeat for weeks while I'm writing first kisses and joyful discoveries, but when the character's Black Moment comes up? You can bet the songs coming out of my computer speakers reflect her  fears and, at their core, her determination.

Now that I'm revising ONE, I've fallen in love with its soundtrack, in its entirety, all over again. Here it is:

 

And just like there's one grand, sweeping theme for every novel, one song always comes to the fore of my head and heart as a book's "theme song." Here's that one:

What about you? Do you write to music? What does it do for you and your book?

ONE in Pictures

To celebrate finishing the first draft of my second novel (!!!), ONE -
here it is, in photos.
For the past three months, I've been itching for you all to see how beautiful it is.
(In my head, at least.)

(Please, gush along with me in the comments. <3)

'

Friday Obsessions: "The Worst Witch," New THG Posters, and Jellly Donut Challah

Everything I was obsessed with this week.
Because I  know you want to know.

1. The Worst Witch.
Best. Halloween Movie. EVER.
So, me and my sister grew up with this when it was a seasonal HBO special. It's about a girl at a witches' academy who's a bit of a disaster and just can't seem to do anything right.

It may be needless to say, but as an 11-year-old, I could TOTALLY relate.

This year, I discovered that I could buy it on DVD on Amazon, and I flipped out. We've been watching it all week.

2. New Hunger Games Posters. 
The fabulous Lori Lee linked to these on Twitter and I had to take a good five minutes out of my day for deep breathing and composing myself.

Hold on. Gonna have to take another minute.

3. Jelly filled challah.
So, remember when Francesca was hungry on Monday? And you know how my Jewish mother genes get all twitchy when I hear about hungry students? And how I started freaking out and brainstorming how I could create a shippable Toaster Pastry?

Yeah. This happened. I think this is better. (Of course I taste tested it. And then, um, ate a whole loaf.)

And here's the big big superhugest news of the last three months.
Ready?

The first draft of ONE is done!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am too giddy and have waaay too many posts to write about this first draft, its messiness, its beauty (at least to me!), and its relentless pull at my heartstrings. But for now, I'll just share my very favorite most beloved line(s) of the whole thing so far.

The ground beneath my feet buzzes, like it’s too solid to handle me, like I don’t even belong there. Not anymore.

Eeeek! Can't wait to share more with you! 

So - What about you? What were you obsessed with this week?

Anti-Procrastination Live Blog

Whereas:
- My CP Maggie's Monday Anti-Procrastination Live Blog was pretty much the best thing ever
- I'm not going to work until 3:00 today
- I have a ton of stuff to get done before I have to leave at 2:30...

I decided to add more to my plate and do an Anti-Procrastination Live Blog of my own today! Wheee!

5:15 - I drag myself out of bed, an hour and fifteen minutes late. Remind myself that if I want to wake up at 4, I have to be in bed by 9:30. No exceptions.

5:22 - Read an email between me, Maggie, and Chessie. It seems I've offended Maggie. Or Maggie thinks she's offended me. Or something. And I went to bed before I saw that reply. Better remedy this via tweet. (Make a mental note to form the subject of the email into a  blog post. Topic: What constitutes "typical YA?")

5:32 - The children are laughing and playing (read: AWAKE OMG HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE) in their room, but I hop on the elliptical anyway. I open BEAUTIFUL CHAOS on my Kindle, even though THE SCORPIO RACES is there too. TSR is meant to be lingered over and savored, like Thanksgiving dinner, while BC can be slammed down in satisfying five-minute chunks, like a power bar. The ladies do not fail to disappoint, with this definition of "heartache":
"That feeling - the pain that wasn't pain...the perfect ache I felt in the empty places she usually filled."

5:59 - Done on the elliptical, and off to the races. The kids know that "six-zero-zero" means they can leave their room, God help us, and I want to be ready.

6:02 - Forget the kids. Tweet about Gina's Last Call for Free Books. She's hit 200 followers and is giving away a bunch!

6:23 - Finish torturing the baby getting the baby dressed. Oldest says he is freezing and husband says he has a fever. Run to CVS to get Tylenol.

6:25 - CVS is closed. WTH?

6:35 - Return home from grocery store with overpriced Tylenol and some stuff I need for today's baking. Administer Tylenol. Take oldest's temperature. He does not, in fact, have a fever of any sort. Probably did that backwards.

6:45 - Start a load of laundry. Pick smashed muffins from this morning's breakfast out of living room carpet

6:55 - Start a batch of challah dough in the bread machine, unload dishwasher, and wipe down counters.

7:35 -Pack all the children are in the car to go to school! Husband and I decide the car needs an oil change but he can't do it. I need to go to work at noon instead of 3 to make up for the hours I'll lose doing that tomorrow. Panic.

7:54 - Challah dough is out of the bread machine, pizza dough is in. I (finally) have an English muffin and some coffee. T-one hour till I need to tend to the baking and laundry. Let's see what I can get done, writing wise.

8:23 - Replied to 2 emails from CPs (first priority!) and commented on a few blogs. Now to writing. Want to get in 500 words before I braid this challah.

9:00 - 200 words down. Run over here to post an update. Realize that this url is crashing Chrome on my computers.  PANIC.

9:28 - Still trying to figure out why the F blog is crashing Chrome! (Works fine in IE.) Is it virused?

11:26 - Pizzas are done and challahs in the oven, but you guys? I CANNOT FIGURE OUT WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS BLOG. I've removed links from this post (sorry Maggie and Chess) and a twitter widget from the sidebar. It's now crashing IE also. I'm a little stressed because I've never backed it up and now I'm afraid I'll have to delete the whole goshdarn thing.

As of right now, I pretty much hate blogger and chrome and the whole internet. And I think I invented some new curse words. So my house is still filthy, and I've only written 200 words, and now I have to leave for work. Hopefully better news later today. Thanks for bearing with me.

12:06 - IT WAS THE SHARE BUTTONS!!! Grrrr. (Thanks to Kate over at O My Heart for her help!) Still have not left for work.

12:54 - Finally got myself together (I look GREAT, thanks for asking) and arrived at work. No more writing till at least 7:30 PM, and now I've agreed to a word war with Maggie. Have to do 1300 more words by the time I go to sleep. What have I gotten myself into?

 And now I have accepted some vague word count challenge from Maggie. It's not looking good for me.

2:15 - Ohhhh my.....geez.


*Ahem* Back to work.

5:01  - Thought I'd get at least a couple hundred words in between visits with students, but it's been an INSANE day  here at the office. Grateful to see so many students, not looking forward to having to get another 1300 words out once the kids go to bed. But I'll do it, because I promised Maggie I would.

6:03 - Home from work, dropping off a student at her south campus dorm (because I am awesome) and stopping at the grocery (oooh! Avocadoes.) Light the jack-o-lanterns, restart the dryer, throw the pizza I made earlier into the oven and the veggies in the microwave, cut an avocado in half.

6:05 - Open Twitter so I can trash-talk Maggie about our word war at 7:45. BECAUSE I AM GOING TO OWN HER.

6:35 - Another 375 down. Rewarding myself with pajamas.

6:39 -  Just found out (via Facebook) that David is a FREAKING SAINT and has taken all the children to Jiffy Lube for the oil change so 1. I don't have to do it tomorrow and 2. They are out of my hair for at least another hour.

7:31 - After a particularly harrowing dinnertime in which I asked Asher (4) to bus his table and he went from horrified to outraged to indignant, deciding I was the Worst Ima Ever (yes, he went to time out) AND the baby flung homemade pizza sticks  at my head, the children are finally in "circle time" for a bedtime story. Thank. God.

My crit partners have graciously pushed Word War to 8:00. *Cracks knuckles* Can't. Wait.

7:57 - Prep for word war with Coke and chocolate. David says, "Don't embarrass me by losing." Cute.

8:00 - It's ON. Can't believe I'm pantsing this sucker.

8:20 - 699 words!  Woo! I'm so close to what Maggie challenged me to now!

8:48 - We are crazy and did ANOTHER one. This one wasn't as good - 494 - but I'll be darned if Maggie isn't the smartest thing next to those fabulous shoes I wore today. These word wars pushed me to just over 1700 words for the day - almost a whole page over what Maggie challenged me to!

Obviously, I bow to her.

(Oh! And she and G did a bang-up job in the word war too. Gina even punctuated stuff! And spelled it correctly!)

Whew! I'm spent. Gonna crit for awhile, then turn in.

9:42 - No crits done - got distracted by Prince Charming on Once Upon a Time (he reminds me of Davis.) Going to bed now so I can wake up at 4 tomorrow, and hang out with THE ELITE then.