The Truth

I'm sorry, people, but I apparently lied to you when I gave you that fancy fact about August and the five Sundays, Mondays, and Tuesdays.  My friend, the same one who told me that in the first place, said she found out there will indeed be another August just like this one in the year 2012.  Why would someone make up something like that?  To see if tools like me (and, ahem, you) believed it?  Because lying is fun?  Or was there a genuine hope that a silly little fact like that would spread over the internet instead of Glenn Beck and his hateful minions.  God, I hate morons.  Anyway, I apologize for the non-truth, but I'm glad it made some people happy while we believed it.

Some randomness for Monday:

• Did the True Blood people not look hot at the Emmy's?  I mean, duh to Eric, but did you also see Jason, Tara, Sam, and Lafayette?  (Yeah, I have no idea what their real names are, and I prefer to think of them all as actual residents of Bon Temps.)
• I garnered a mention in this year's ALA list of Books Challenged or Banned in 2009-2010.  Sadly, the list was made before GET WELL SOON went to trial, and then went on to be appealed, and also before GWS was reported dumped from a library collection.  You will find my name under the Sonya Sones heading.  Hopefully, I'll have my own listing next year.
• While I was backing out from a parking space yesterday, and during the moment when I thought, "You know, I usually turn around both directions when I'm backing out, but I'm just not going to today!" I hit a car.  But they just drove off.  It was totally weird.  There is a little paint damage to my car, but that's it.  Still, I hit them.  Or did they hit me? 
• I have passed 250 pages in the GET WELL SOON sequel.  Still have a ways to go.  The end is in sight!  I am going to visit a high school or two for some research.  Should be nice and awkward. 

Sometimes I Rhyme Slow, Sometimes I Rhyme Quick

Each day of writing is different.  Some days I pound out ten pages, no problem, and I love every minute of it.  Some days I slog through four pages, unimpressed with myself.  Some days I laugh out loud at what I wrote, and some days I cry because it's so sad.  Today's writing was uninspired and uninspiring.  I don't know if the content was that bad (and I won't know until I actually go in and type the whole book up.  I never look back, except to find details that I need to remember), but it wasn't all that exciting to write.  Not much happened.  But I think, at least for my books, pages where not a whole lot happens are important.  I'm not writing action books or mysteries.  I'm not writing books with intricate plots twists that make people go, "Aha!"  I write contemporary, humorous fiction, and I think it's important that I make it as real as possible for the readers.  Like how movies and books so rarely show characters going to the bathroom-- I show my characters going to the bathroom.  Today wasn't a bathroom scene, but a high school scene.  And the students were getting an assignment.  In life, that's not very exciting, so in the book, it's also not that exciting.  Should I not include it because it's not full of brooding romance or huge yuks?  I'll be the judge of that in a month of so when it's time to read it during the typing phase.  For now, it's staying in.  And my character has some homework to do.

Fun Fact

I thought I would have more time for blogging and writing this morning because Romy woke me up at 6, and after I rocked her back to sleep I thought, wow!  Now I'll have an extra hour or more to write!  But as I type this, she is crying at me through the baby monitor.  Sigh.  So here is my very short and lame blog post for the day.  My friend Tracy sent me an email with this fact in it:
This August has 5 Sundays, 5 Mondays, and 5 Tuesdays...all in one month.  It happens once in 823 years.
Pretty interesting, huh?  Are we not supposed to be excited by things like this anymore?  With celebrity crotch shots and dead miners' last words all over the Internet, it seems we have lost appreciation for funky little gems like the above.  So enjoy your many Sundays and Mondays and Tuesdays.  I have to go get Romy out of bed now.

What I'm Watching Now

I don't know if people dig these posts or not, but I like talking about TV so I'm going to keep posting them.  Here's my current TV line-up (which isn't in any order, since I DVR everything anyway because I once read an article or heard someone say that if you record your TV programs when you have kids, that saves you approximately fifteen minutes per hour-long show to read to your child.  Who can argue with that?):

Spoiler alert if you only watch when the DVDs come out!

True Blood - I'm really liking this season, even though it doesn't seem to have much of a story arc.  I guess the arc is that there is this really old, but not as old as the super awesome Godric (RIP.  Although I guess he was already dead, being a vampire.  RIPA.), vampire who is trying to change up the order of things on Earth.  And Eric either has to kill him to get his sexy Scandinavian revenge, or else perish himself.  Oh, and Sookie is a fairy. La de da.  But who really cares about Sookie?

The Guild - Damn this web show is funny.  I love it SO MUCH.  The first three seasons are out on DVD and streaming at Netflix, and Season Four airs every week at watchtheguild.com.  I laugh out loud every time I watch, and I watch them more than once.  If INTO THE WILD NERD YONDER becomes a TV show, I need The Guild peeps to guest star.  Not that I will have any say in that whatsoever.

Flipping Out - Why is Jeff Lewis so into bodily functions this season?  I actually prefer him making over other peoples houses to buying , re-designing, and then flipping his own houses.


The Rachel Zoe Project - This season is already really good, except that Rachel Zoe is out of her mind about everything.  Like, you need to calm down.  No one will die without that dress!!!  I like the tension between her and her husband, and how her husband is pretending to be masculine by watching football and drinking beer, but he still has that haircut.

Project Runway - Finally a good season!  Not that I'm a huge fan of anyone yet, but it just seems more interesting.  Who knows why some seasons are better than others?  (I'm sure everyone who watches knows, I just don't feel like analyzing Project Runway.  Romy and I walked all over a little downtown area because she wanted to go back and forth between the "witch store" and the "alien store," which is why I'm feeling rather pooped and probably means she will wake up from her nap screaming at any minute.  Hence, the lethargic blog post.)


On the Road with Austin and Santino - This show is adorable, taking two of the biggest characters from PR and giving them a makeover-the-hillbillies show.  My only complaint is that it should be an hour long, so we can connect more with the hillbillies.


Kids in the Hall: Death Comes to Town - I am a HUGE Kids fan.  Like, I have their original HBO special memorized.  I have seen them live.  I have missed them dearly, and this show is like a crazy talented old friend coming in for a visit after moving to Australia.  Or Canada.  So far I've seen two episodes, and I can't wait to watch them again and again.  Sadly, I think this is only a six part mini-series.  Brilliant.

Anybody else watching these shows?

Magical Me

This past weekend was the Chicago Comic-Con, and both Matt and I (but especially Matt-- he won't stop talking about it) felt the Chicago Con has taken a mega downhill slide.  There were very few publisher booths, just mostly store booths, which gave it more of a swap-meet feel.  Maybe it's the whole "economy" thing, and hopefully it will bounce back in future years and the pubs will return.  The important thing is: I met Steve Sanders!  I mean, Ian Ziering!  And I was so super cute (which is not the first time my super cuteness has wooed the famous; you should have seen when I met Bruce Campbell at a rodeo in college [don't ask.  Or do.].  There are several other instances of me and famous people being charmed by me.  And I'll tell you why: I am super sincere about my love of those I love.  Does that make sense?  I don't hide behind coolness around people that wow me.  And I'm not always wowed by people I should be wowed by.  Or, the classic people that may wow other people.  I certainly wouldn't lose my noodles if I met, say, Angelina Jolie or Brad Pitt.  But if I ever saw Noah Hathaway [who played Atreyu in The Neverending Story]-- watch out!  I think stars, particularly of lower grades, really respond to sincerity.)  I was so cute, in fact, that Steve, I mean Ian, asked me to dance, twirled me, and gave me a big hug at the end.  At one point I was laughing and smiling so much that I called him Steve, and he said, "Ian!"  He didn't seem mad, but I felt bad.  Not that bad.  And this picture?

Priceless.  OK, $35, but worth every smiling penny.

I didn't even bother trying to meet Nicholas Brendan, James Marsters, or Mickey Dolenz.  Nicholas and James were mobbed, and they wouldn't even leave their protective tables (unlike Steve, Ian), and Mickey got there so late, I was ready to am-scray.  Plus, he was charging $40, and I had just spent that much on new (totally worth it) Futurama figures.

In completely non-related, but probably more appropriate book news, I found a lovely review of INTO THE WILD NERD YONDER on author Stephanie Perkins' blog.  My favorite bits are where she pulls quotes from the book.  It made me sound really funny!  And where she says she wants to make out with the book.  Thanks, Stephanie!  I also like her because she makes you choose your Hogwarts House.  Remember when I was psycho about that?  (On the blog, that is.  I'll always be psycho about it inside.)  That makes me think I should make a new Potter blog label, for those who want to backtrack on all my crazy Potter posts.  Or for those who want to avoid them.

Better Day

Sorry about the bitch fest yesterday.  I mean, I'm not sorry about the sentiment, but you probably didn't need the negativity.  The insurance thing is still in limbo, and I woke Matt up this morning screaming at him to call the insurance company because I call every day and it's his therapist they're waiting on.  He was not happy.  But he called, and I felt a little better.  Not that we got any answers.  Stay tuned.

Speaking of staying tuned, I talked with Jen Gwartz, the producer who is working on getting INTO THE WILD NERD YONDER hopefully made into a TV show.  She is awesome!!!  She was an executive producer on Veronica Mars, and at one point worked on Tales from the Crypt!!!  It sounds like my book is in great hands, so all we can do is hope and pray that in the next six to nine months (that's how long she said the pitch to possible pilot would take) it happens.  To quote Axl Rose: Yowza!

Romy and I went this morning for the third time this summer to the Lake County Discovery Museum, a small town museum that somehow got this incredible exhibit of original art from the Little Golden Books.  Not only do they have such goodies as these:

But they also have fun hands-on stuff for the little ones:

 

Sadly, the exhibit ends this weekend.  After that they're installing a John Lennon Bed-In exhibit that I don't think will have quite the hands-on, kid-friendly quality this one did.  Maybe some jumping on the bed stuff?  Pull Yoko's hair?  The possibilities...

Cake

So apparently no one gives a rat's ass what I do for my 500th blog post. That's a bit depressing. A lot of things are a bit depressing, which wouldn't be so bad until they all add up into a giant rubberband ball of depressing that's about to crush me. And I thought I would have cake today.

The day starting out promising. As I said, the expected cake. But the lunch started too late, and I had to get Romy home for her nap and then she fell asleep in the car three minutes before we got home and I really didn't want to drive her around for over an hour so I woke her up and then of course she didn't go back to sleep. So there's that.

Then there's the torture of insurance. I told you already that I'm taking a year off of work, that COBRA would cost my family $23,000, that Blue Cross Blue Shield, the same assholes who would like to rob me for my COBRA, turned me and my husband down because we are apparently fools for seeing therapists and using our insurance for it. So we applied with United Healthcare, which we heard was more lenient, especially if we take a very high deductible, barebones policy (which I am all for now. I mean, why should I give my money to the insurance company just in case when I could just pay that money if and when something happens?).  But now they are making us wait.  And wait.  Again, about the fucking therapy.  Even though we told them we are more than willing to pay out of pocket.  You know what?  I better be in that goddamn therapy because how else am I going to handle situations like this?  People screwing me and my family and subjecting us to humiliatingly personal phone interviews about every sordid detail of our physical and mental past.  It can make a person crazy.  I really don't know what I'll do if UHC turns us down, too.  I'd rather go without than rely on the greed of others.

I think I'm going to go buy some cake now.

486

I just realized that this is my 486th blog post. The funny thing is that some of my first blog posts were about my experience being filmed for Antiques Roadshow, and apparently that very episode aired in the last couple of days (reruns). Several people commented to me on Facebook that they saw me, and I had a lovely vase.  Sorry to disappoint, but that vase was my aunt's (uncle's, actually), and it was a loaner so I would actually have something to bring to Roadshow.  It, and I, were just what they were looking for, and I made it on to the show.  The experience was insanely exciting, but sadly dimmed my enthusiasm for watching Roadshow ever since.  The point of my blathering (aren't all blogs just blather?) is that my 500th post is coming up within the next month (barring all things annoying that prevent me from blogging, like sickness, cookies, and cat puke).  How should I celebrate?  With a blog retrospective?  (And what the frig would that look like?)  A contest (for what?)?  A redesign (please say no)?  Another Brian Austin Green dance clip?  What, I ask you, what?

What Should I Do for My 500th Post?
	Retrospective
	Contest
	Redesign
	BAG Dance Clip
	Other (explain)
Free polls from Pollhost.com

No Time, No Time at All

The title of this post, of course, referencing a Monkees song.

I had a big, long, blabbery post about how I haven't blogged much this past week because Romy was sick and not sleeping, and I had no time to do anything.  But it was boring.  Luckily, I didn't have any time to post it.

Instead, how about a poll?  Matt and I will be attending the Chicago Comic-Con next weekend, a far smaller and less grand affair than the San Diego Comic-Con, but a fine local event.  In fact, the San Diego one has become so annoyingly Hollywood (and I can say that because I have been there three times, and the first year I went, for my honeymoon seven years ago, statistically [they share their statistics in the Comic-Con newsletter]had one-half the attendance that the Con has had these last few star-studded years), that I am kind of exited to go to the sort of C-list Chicago Con.  Especially because I will have the opportunity to rub elbows with(or, at least, stand on my tippy-toes to try and catch a glimpse of) the following stars:

• Micky Dolenz of The Monkees!!!!!!!!
• Nicholas Brendon, Xander from Buffy!!!
• James Marsters, Spike from Buffy!!!

Along with (but not multiple exclamation points-worthy):

• Christopher Knight, ie. Peter Brady!
• Peter S. Beagle, author of The Last Unicorn!
• Lorenzo Lamas (Does he get an exclamation point?)
• Adam West 

And...
*********Ian Ziering!!!!!!!!!!!!*************

Why is an ex-90210 alum more exciting than Buffy guys?  I'm not quite sure.  I think I like the fictional characters of Spike and Xander too much to meet the real dudes who played them (to perfection, of course).  But Ian Ziering, I'm almost certain, IS Steve Sanders-- the lovable lug who can do nothing right but still has a heart of gold.  Had?  He's still around if you ask me.  But here's the rub: you have to PAY for autographs.  What gives?  At San Diego, the only people who asked for dough for a signature were Lou Ferrigno (because this is what he does for a living now, unless he's appearing in hilarious movies like, "I Love You, Man."  Wait-- why does he need all that autograph money?) and George Romero (and he got screwed out of all Living Dead royalties, so he's forgiven).  Check out the pricing:

• Nicholas Brendon - $30
• The Iron Sheik- $20
• Christopher Knight - $20
• Lorenzo Lamas - $20
• James Marsters - $40
• John Schneider - $25
• Ian Ziering - $20/$25

Like how I included The Iron Sheik?  Not all of the stars' prices are listed on the website.  So what should I do?  Who is worthy of my hard earned money?  Let's do a poll!

Who is worthy of my dough? (choose as many as you like, and feel free to explain in my comments)
	Ian Ziering
	Nicholas Brendon
	James Marsters
	Mickey Dolenz (but at what cost?)
	Other (tell me who!)
Free polls from Pollhost.com

More BAG to love

Since people seemed to enjoy yesterday's Brian Austin Green post, here is another one.  I actually thought the song I posted below was this:


Not only is this song godawful, but I have had it in my head since 1993.

I absolutely love that people take the time to do things like this:


And this:

Which has nothing to do with BAG but is so brilliant that I had to bring it back, even if it is played out (is it? Could it ever be?).

We're Romantics

Sorry for the absence, but Romy has a bad cold, which means little to no sleep for anyone.  Right now, she's in her crib coughing repeatedly, even though she was out cold when I put her down for a nap.  Poor kiddo.

I am apparently in the middle of torturing myself with doctor's appointments, since I am fifteen minutes away from a dentist appointment (not technically doctor-like torture, but still unpleasant).  The results of last week's blood draw were shared at my physical this week, and they weren't bad but they weren't good.  My cholesterol, which I was worried about, is normal, but my glucose (I think?) is a little high.  So the doctor gave me this diabetes diet, which essentially was like, "No carbs.  Don't even eat bananas or red apples because they have sugar!"  I think I may have heard everything she said to the extreme because she's not even making me go back to get it rechecked.  Seriously, I think the whole thing is because I eat dessert and candy EVERY day.  So, yeah, I did need to cut back.  But I don't want to change my entire eating lifestyle (and it's not a chub issue; I actually weight the least I've weighed since my super skinny college days.), and I don't want to feel guilty whenever I have a dessert.  I think I may call the doctor back and say, "Look, if I start eating (gag) brown rice, (gag) whole grain pasta and bread, and save the desserts for the weekend, am I OK?  Because I don't need any more food issues in my life."  Oh, and I'm also vitamin D deficient.  Which means I'll be a hunchback any day now.

More pleasant (but possibly frightening) is that someone finally put up this brilliant David Silver song from "90210."  I like to think of it as me and Matt's song.  Enjoy, and try not to heave.

My Tools

My husband, Matt, sometimes blogs about the tools he uses as a children's book illustrator (and, by the way, he just finished sketches for the new Gail Carson Levine poetry book that he's working on, and it's BRILLIANT).  So I thought I would share with you some of my tools.  This will not be very exciting.  Um, but keep reading anyway.

So as I may have mentioned fifteen thousand times, I hand-write my novels.  I thought I may switch from that to typing directly into a computer, but when it was time to start writing the sequel to GET WELL SOON, I went right back to the ol' notebooks.  My original favorite notebooks to write in were these:

Mead Wireless Neatbooks.  I went to the Mead website, and apparently they don't exist anymore.  Or at least not on their website.  You can get equally fine, generic Walgreen's ones, too.  I have no idea why I used these for my first two novels.  They are floppy, and the pages fall out.  But they were cheap.

For my last novel and my current one, I decided to pony up the cash (we're talking $3, people!) for cuter notebooks.  I mean, really, I'm writing novels here.  I might as well treat myself to nicer notebooks.  I found these

[PICTURE NOT AVAILABLE because I couldn't find it online, and I want to get this blog post up before Romy wakes up.  Imagine a blue spiral notebook with strawberries dotting the cover, and a stretchy elastic band to be used as a page marker.]

and bought a bunch, to last me through DON'T STOP NOW and the first chunk of my current novel.  I like the sturdiness of the backing, as well as the stretchy page-marker thing attached to the back.  Although, the studs that connect the band to the notebook do create a bump while I write.  It is helpful to let me know where I left off in the notebook.

Currently I am on notebook number three in The Sequel, and it is my favorite notebook by far.  It's made by a fancy environmental brand, Greenroom, and has lovely, light green pages that feel very smooth as I write on them.  I now own two notebooks by them, the Floral and the Word (both found here on their lovely website, where I could only float over the image but not copy it and put it up on my blog.  Yes, I could actually take a picture of my notebooks, but that would mean getting up.)

Now for the pen.  I know a lot of people really enjoy rollerballs, but I find that I write so fast already that rollerballs make my handwriting too messy.  And they don't feel very smooth.  I prefer a medium point ballpoint pen.  I originally really wanted to write with this:

The classic Bic Cristal.  Do you know why?  I'm going to let you guess.  In the comments.  The clue is that it was used in one of my favorite movies of all time by the main character.  Please, do guess.  As far as writing goes, it tends to get stuck on the page.  Not smooth enough.

Instead, I found this and have used it for all four of my novels:

Bic Ultimates with Easy Glide!  They look pretty and sparkly but are really just black pens.  Nice and lightweight, perfectly rolling.  I bought two boxes of them, and I hope they never die.  I empty several pens per book.

I suppose I should go out to a store now that it's school supply time to score me some extra pens and notebooks.  You never know when they'll discontinue your favorites.  Just look what happened to Chandler's (still, freakishly, my most-commented on blog post EVER).

Old Dolls

My mom will soon be downsizing to a new home, so I finally had to go through the crap I've been storing in her giant basement since childhood.  Is it really me storing it if they were toys bought when I was a kid?  Whatever the logistics, if I didn't want her to throw the stuff out, I either had to claim it or force her to keep it so that Romy can eventually play with it.

Which brings us to the Barbies.  I had a buttload of Barbies.  Because my sister, Amy, is six years younger than me, not only did she play with my Barbies but she had a buttload of her own Barbies.  And I played right along with her.  Admittedly well into high school (like I said, my sister was six years younger than me, so I played Barbies with her well past the appropriate Barbie-playing age.)  Below is a hilarious menagerie of some of the best Barbies I found in my mom's basement, with commentary, of course (click on each picture to enlarge):

I love this dude's hair and crinkly pants.  And how is it that he still has on shoes?

This guy wasn't mine.  He must be Skipper's boyfriend.  I think he has a nice, Justin Timberlake quality to him.  And shoes!  You'd think we actually took care of our dolls.  You'd be wrong.

Love this guy's outfit.  And take a look at his highlighted hair.  Hot stuff!

This is a Barbie Amy and I named Sissy.  She has a freakishly high voice and often played a stewardess or hotel hostess.  And sometimes she wore socks on her hands.  I'm sorry, Sissy, for the unfortunate haircut.  Note her Barbie and the Rockers t-shirt.

This was a Ken Doll who had a rubberband connecting his torso to his bottom half.  I don't know why Mattel did that, but it sucked and garnered him the nickname "Mr. Wiggly."  It also forced me to draw gigantic eyebrows on him.

This is what I would look like as a Barbie.  Cute, aren't I?

Not only did I play with Barbies, but I had a small collection.  This guy, Shaving Fun Ken, is the finest piece I own.  Maybe.

 

Why does this Ken exist?  What little girl is like, I want to shave a man's face? 

To see the entirety of my Barbie collection, click here.  It is a link to the family portrait I took for a high school art class.  I think it it rather brilliant.  Look for Mr. Wiggly.

You are Wrong

You know when people TELL you something is the way it is, even though it is not, indeed, a fact?  I freakin' hate that.  More than most things.  The one thing I probably hate more than anything, when it comes to the THIS IS FACT department is when some turd says to me, after hearing that I have a needle phobia, "Just don't look."  To that I say, "F&@* you."  [Two things on that: are there actually specific symbols I'm supposed to use for that?  And isn't it funny how I'll swear in my books but not on my blog?]  It's a phobia.  You have at least one, if not more.  And this one is mine.  I'm sure there are a lot of things I can do that you can't because of your phobias, so don't knock me because of mine.  I gave birth without an epidural, for crying out loud.

It's not the pain I'm afraid of, but the needle.  It's more than that, but to describe it I'd actually have to think about it and then I might vomit on my keyboard.  And it does not help me AT ALL when you tell me not to look.  Oh!  I had not thought of such a clever idea.  My phobia is cured!  Do people really think that's helpful?  It's so obnoxious at this point that the next person to say that to me might get my self-defense-trained hand on your neck.  I even saw a hypnotist once to try and help me with the problem.  The thing I know now is, and this is the only helpful thing the hypnotist taught me, "I don't like it, but I can get through it."  And I can.  With a squeezable Winnie the Pooh stuffed animal, my iPod, my cell phone videos, and lots of tears, plus a Rodney Yee breathing exercise.   (I had blood drawn this morning, which is why I wrote this post.)

So to make me feel better: What are your phobias?

Looking Forward

Last week was really hard.  In fact, things have been annoyingly complicated for what is supposed to be a chillaxin' summer.  I am fully aware at how much worse things can be, but sometimes I am still consumed by life's difficulties.  Included in the week:  trying to get our insurance ducks in a row, helping my mom with a mega garage sale, Romy getting her first high fever (and she's twenty-one months old!  Oh, the magic of breastfeeding.  Which, of course, is my favorite topic to discuss with YA authors.  See here and here for more on that).  Plus, both my editor and art director were out of town, which technically meant nothing, but it also meant no fun conversations with Liz about books, or other random things I like to harass her with, or Rich about my new book covers (new paperback cover for INTO THE WILD NERD YONDER and first cover for upcoming DON'T STOP NOW).  However, as I said in my last post, I did have a really special day last Thursday visiting a high school where three classes of summer school freshmen read GET WELL SOON.  For class!  During my visit, the students presented me with some very moving artwork based on the book.  I had never seen art based on my book.  It almost made me cry that people took the time to do this.  Here are the drawings.  Excuse the bad photos; they were too large to scan.  All drawings can be enlarged by clicking on the images.:

This is a drawing of Anna in her school having a panic attack.

I have no idea why this picture posted sideways.  I didn't take it this way.  I don't have time to fix it, though.  And excuse the Britney Spears movie in the corner.  I had to use something to hold the paper down.  Not that it had to be a Britney movie.  Anyway, the picture is of Anna looking out her hospital window at the building across the street and the getaway cars.

 This is Anna and Matt O. having a conversation in the cafeteria.

This is a beautiful drawing of the hallway Anna has to sleep in during her first night in the hospital.  Her bed is at the bottom, and the darkness is the unknown waiting for her.  This one really got to me.

Every student participated in my visit.  Some students performed a reader's theater of a cafeteria scene from the book.  A bunch of students asked thought-provoking questions, both about the book and about me as an author.  Some students had to create connections they had to the text, which was incredibly powerful.  All-in-all, it was one of the best experiences I've had as an author.  It made me feel like an author, to have kids reading my book for school.  Thank you to all of the kids and teachers who made the event so incredible!

Here's hoping everyone has a wonderful week!