Tunnel Tour Wrap-Up!

GUYS. WHAT A CRAZY SIX MONTHS THAT WAS.

The official stops of the Tunnel Tour are over! It's time to take a breath, relax a little bit, and look back at the awesomeness. And thank you, all of you who were such a big part of it.

Since January, I have:

--Had 18 (18!!) major events at bookstores or schools. I truly did cross the country, with events in: Butte, Houston, Seattle, Los Angeles, Santee, San Diego, Pasadena, Salt Lake City, Denver, Berkeley, Virginia, Nebraska, Portland, Missoula, St. Louis, Boston, and New York. WHEW. What did I discover? I love doing events. I KNOW. It's something I never would've guessed going in, but meeting booksellers and fellow authors and readers, and chatting with everybody and telling stories? Second only to the actual writing. Thank you so much to the bookstores, and those hard-working booksellers and customer service reps who helped organize this and ran them flawlessly.

--I got to hang out with 44 other authors!! Well, even more than that, because many of you fabulous people came who weren't actually on the panels. But I did events with 44 other kidlit authors, debuts and long-timers, my people to a one. THANK YOU, other authors, for sharing your stories with me.

--I did my first podcast, and 2 radio interviews, one with the renowned Cherie Newman of NPR's THE WRITE QUESTION. Oh my god, that was so much fun. You can listen to it all if you want to! http://www.susanadrian.net/mediaskype-visits/

--I did 4 school events, and would love to do more of these! The Best when you're actually talking to kids, and you SEE them get excited about stories and reading.

--I did blog interviews, all over, and I am so grateful to the bloggers who read and feature our books, and reach out to authors and spread the word. Thank you.

There are a lot of thank yous up there, right? That's the most important bit of this post, because none of this, this little "friend tour" dream I had the summer before publication, would've worked without the support of all the bookstores and authors and friends and readers. It would've been me, sitting alone clutching my book. Instead it was this:

And I loved every minute.

By the way, though the Tunnel Tour is done, I'm not going into hiding! I'll be at the Missoula Book Festival September 10-12, and the Montana SCBWI intensive September 18....

Thankful Tuesday: Readers

When I was struggling...for fifteen years, struggling...to get a book published, my husband would sometimes challenge me.  "Why are you doing this?" he would ask, always logical. "What is your goal?"

I'd sniff, and waffle around for a while: 'to get a big 5 contract' 'to see my book in stores', all sorts of things. But when it came down to it, I always ended at the same, deep goal: "I want other people to read and enjoy one of my stories."

That's it, in the end. I wanted people to read my stories. 

Fast forward to now, 3 months out from the release of my first book. It's easy--soooo easy--to get caught up in the stress of it: getting another deal, worrying about sales numbers and store placement and comparing. Sometimes I fall prey to it like everyone else. But when I do, I have a very simple strategy for overcoming the stress.

I go and look at Worldcat, and I see that my book, a story I wrote all from my own head, is in libraries. All across the country, across the world. Not only that--it's checked out, in lots of places. Hundreds of copies are checked out right now. It's in people's hands. And you know what that means?

People are reading my story. No matter the rest of it, no matter how many bookstores it's in or who bought it today, someone, somewhere, is probably reading it right now. That was my goal, my dream, and that is real now.

So I want to thank you, the most important people in this equation: the readers. Especially thank you to the ones who blog and review on Goodreads and Amazon and all that, who recommend and share with other people. I am so grateful to you for spreading the word. Thank you to the excited readers I've met at signings, to the ones who email their love. But also thank you to the kid who checked it out from the library yesterday, who's curled up with it on their couch tonight, who's sneak-reading it when they should be doing chores or homework. Even if you quietly close it at the end and smile, and never tell anyone.

Thank you for making my dream come true.

Announcement: YA SCAVENGER HUNT!

Hello Everyone!

I’m so happy to announce that I'm participating in the Spring 2015 YA Scavenger Hunt!

We have eight outstanding teams this season. I am going to be a part of #TeamGreen! The Scavenger Hunt runs from April 2nd through April 5th beginning and ending at noon Pacific time on those days. 

If you’ve never been a part of the hunt before you should give it a try. It's my first time! It runs like a giant blog hop, introducing you to new YA authors and books along the way. There are tons of prizes including a grand prize for each team. If you win one of the grand prizes you will get a book from each author on that team! For more information and to make sure you get hunt updates, sign up for news on the #YASH website. 

And...I will be hiding an exclusive never-before-revealed deleted scene from TUNNEL VISION. :) You don’t want to miss out on this fabulous and fun event, but play fast because the hunt is only live for three days.

Here's my team! 

I hope you are all as excited as I am!

THE HUNT BEGINS 4/2/15!

Thankful Tuesday: Fellow Authors

I honestly couldn't do this--any of this, any one day of this--without the support of all the wonderful other authors I've met along this journey.

Example A: The Tunnel Tour. If you go to the event page and look at the pictures on the right? I'm touring with (or planning on touring with) 25 other authors. TWENTY-FIVE very busy people who agreed to come and spend their valuable time and energy at a bookstore or library helping to support me and TUNNEL VISION. (And yes, fortunately they have fun and get publicity and sales out of it too, I HOPE!) They're amazing, all of them. This is not even counting all the authors who tweet/FB events, and come and hang out and talk and give me advice and are generally lovely.

Example B: The big example: my acknowledgments in TUNNEL VISION!

I know it's huge. I KNOW IT. Look at that amazing list of people. And I still forgot some, didn't have room for all, and have met new writer friends since!

I'll let that list stand, though, because it says what I need to say.

Thank you, writers. You cheer each other, root for each other, console each other, and make it so we can all do this crazy thing together. THANK YOU.

Love,

Susan

Thankful Tuesday: Bookstores

I spent much of the past week traveling for the TunnelTour, and most of that in bookstores. 

I am so, so grateful for bookstores. I love ebooks too, in a different way, but there is just SOMETHING special about walking into a real, live space dedicated to books, running your hand over the lovelies on the shelf, cracking one open to browse, and just looking at all the joy and adventure there waiting for you. (It also might have something to do with the fact that my husband and I both spent years managing bookstores, and that's where we met--they're important.)

Bookstore people are wonderful, too. Over the past couple weeks I have been tremendously grateful to the bookstores and bookstore people who have carried my book, welcomed me with open arms, ordered it or brought it out for me to sign when I stopped by, or are working with me on an event. I have to do a shout-out to all of you. And to the bookstores who aren't on this list (yet), thank you to you too!! I wish I could visit all of you.

THANK YOU to:

Butte, Montana:
Books & Books: They are handling signed, personalized copies for me. If you want a signed copy and you're not near any of the other areas, contact them (booksbutte@booksbutte.com, 1-800-273-9520)
Hastings: The Butte Hastings generously brought books to my launch party to sell, and are hosting a hometown signing for me this Saturday (February 7) from 2-5 pm. They've been wonderful!

Houston, Texas:
Barnes & Noble Champions Village: This B&N hosted my Houston signing with Joy Preble, Mary Lindsey, and Becky Wallace, and were so kind and enthusiastic. They have several signed copies in stock!
Barnes & Noble Westheimer: They have 1 signed copy!
Barnes & Noble Town & Country: They have 1 signed copy!
Blue Willow Bookshop: This is a fabulous indie that couldn't host this time, but are really fantastic. I left 3 signed copies with them!

Seattle, Washington:
University Bookstore: Can't say enough about how welcoming and supportive they were for my signing with Lish McBride and Kendare Blake. I signed 20 copies for stock, and they will ship them for free!
The Elliott Bay Book Company: They were sold out when I stopped by, but they have it back in now!
Seattle Mystery Bookshop: I was so excited to discover this place!

San Diego, California:
Mysterious Galaxy: This great bookstore--I used to go browse there when I lived in San Diego--is hosting the TunnelTour San Diego stop on February 17th, with Kiersten White, Stephanie Diaz, Shannon Messenger, and Maggie Hall. Can't wait!

Pasadena, California:
Vroman's Bookstore: Vroman's is hosting the L.A. TunnelTour March 12th, with Gretchen McNeil, Livia Blackburne, and Mary McCoy!

Salt Lake City, Utah:
The King's English: Hosting my March 20th event with Courtney Alameda, Jenn Johansson, and Valynne Maetani!

Denver, Colorado:
The Tattered Cover: This event was just confirmed! March 21st at 2 pm, with NK Traver!

Berkeley, California:
Mrs. Dalloway's Literary and Garden Arts: Hosting the Bay Area TunnelTour stop on March 24th, with Stacey Lee and Whitney Miller and...moderated by S.J. Kincaid!

That's it for now, but I will definitely be updating my thankful-to list of bookstores as I continue to travel around and add events. A huge thank you to all of these great stores!

Thankful Tuesday

HI ALL!

It's been a week since TUNNEL VISION released, and wow! What a ride! I had a successful, amazingly fun launch party with my hometown crowd, family and friends. I got to have the first stop of the Tunnel Tour in Houston, with the fabulous Becky Wallace, Joy Preble, and Mary Lindsey. And I saw such a wonderful outpouring of support from friends and readers online. THANK YOU!!

Today I want to start a (hopefully) (at least for a while) weekly series on people or places or things I'm thankful for, and today's shout-out is to LIBRARIES. One of the highlights this week has been peeking at WorldCat and seeing all the far-flung, big and small libraries my book has made it to, seeing it on the "holds" shelf, dancing when I see it checked out. THANK YOU to all the libraries who ordered TUNNEL VISION, who work to get books into the hands of teens and all kinds of readers every day. Here's a call-out to a few of the libraries I saw on that list, randomly chosen! But thank you ALL.

--Eagle Valley Public Library, Eagle, Colorado
--McConnell Air Force Base Library, McConnell AFB, Kansas
--Plano Public Library, Plano, Texas
--Santa Monica Public Library, Santa Monica, California
--Glen Ellyn Public Library, Glen Ellyn, Illinois
--Mishawaka Penn Harris Public Library, Mishawaka, Indiana
--Boca Raton Public Library, Boca Raton, Florida
--Brooklyn Public Library, Brooklyn, New York
--Minuteman Library Network, Natick, Massachussetts
--Horowhenua Library Trust, Levin, New Zealand

Don't forget libraries when you're looking for books! And support your local library!

Hi all!

Getting CLOSE now. One week until TUNNEL VISION is out!

In the meantime, a couple things to get you ready for January 20th:

1. RELEASE DAY CHUCKS!                          

 
2. BLOG TOUR! TUNNEL VISION is going traveling. There will be reviews, interviews, guest posts, and giveaways. Get ready to check out these fabulous sites next week:

Date	Blog
Tuesday, January 20th	Fiktshun
Wednesday, January 21st	A Dream Within A Dream
Thursday, January 22nd	Books, Bones & Buffy
Friday, January 23rd	The Young Folks
Saturday, January 24th	Dani’s Book Nirvana
Sunday, January 25th	Lit Bites
Monday, January 26th	Unbound Books
Tuesday, January 27th	Jessabella Reads
Wednesday, January 28th	Word Spelunker
Thursday, January 29th	Journey Through Fiction
Friday, January 30th	The Write Path
Saturday, January 31st	Bibliophilia, Please
Sunday, February 1st	Lindsay Cummings Books
Monday, February 2nd	My Guilty Obsession

TUNNEL VISION soundtrack

It's kind of a thing for authors to release a playlist for YA books, something they listened to while they wrote, or that inspired them.

I went a step further with TUNNEL VISION: I call it a soundtrack.

Each chapter of TUNNEL VISION lists a song as the chapter heading. The songs and genres vary wildly, from The Clash to Dave Matthews to Blues Traveler to Ray Charles. Each song is closely tied to the chapter in some way, relating to the action, the dialogue, or most often the emotion.

I started the soundtrack early on, when I realized how visual this book is, and wanted "background music" to go with a scene. I started putting it together as I wrote, listening to it over and over to put me in the mood, adding new titles as I wrote new chapters. I only chose music I thought Jake would choose himself. Some of it is very specific to him (and not me), like the soundtrack "Revenge" from Call of Duty: Black Ops.

To celebrate that TUNNEL VISION releases on January 20th, just under a month, I made a playlist of the TUNNEL VISION soundtrack on Spotify. You can get a taste of Jake's story now, and see how each song relates to the chapter when it comes out!

TUNNEL VISION Soundtrack

Hope you enjoy, and share!

Terrible Alternate Titles to TUNNEL VISION

This is fun. My fabulous fellow Fearless Fifteener debut Aisha Saeed (WRITTEN IN THE STARS, March 24, 2015) tagged me in the "Terrible Titles" blog hop! 

The rule is simple: Scroll through your manuscript and stop on random place. Whatever you land on becomes one of eight terrible titles. 

So here we go! This made me LAUGH. Eight terrible titles that could have been the title of TUNNEL VISION, pulled at random—I picked the first short sentence I saw when I stopped scrolling:

1. And Still Not a Video Game

2. How Much Did She See?

3. I Sure as Hell Want To

4. And Whatever Comes After That

5. That Surprises Him

6. It's Simple

7. I Think It's Time for an Afternoon Nap

8. Crazy, I Guess

I gotta say, a couple of those are fabulous. Can't you see some of them as titles?

I tag five more Fifteener debuts, the first ones I saw on Twitter:

K.E. Ormsbee,author of THE WATER AND THE WILD

DhonielleClayton, author of TINY PRETTY THINGS

Laura Tims,author of PLEASE DON'T TELL

Francesca Zappia, author of MADE YOU UP

Maya Rock,author of SCRIPTED

Reviews and Tours, Oh My!

So apparently this book thing is actually going to HAPPEN!!

Reviews for TUNNEL VISION have been pouring in the past couple of weeks! So far, so good! In fact, really good. I'm so excited! Check them out:

"An exciting plot paired with a sympathetic protagonist makes for a roller-coaster adventure that asks some big moral questions: Is it ethical to tunnel into another person’s mind, even to do good? Which is more important, the individual or the country? The action moves at a quick pace that fans of adventure fiction will appreciate while still leaving room for deeper contemplation. Danger, intrigue, a dash of romance, and a good, hard look at ethical dilemmas—a pretty complete package. —Kirkus Reviews (full review)

 "Debut author Adrian offers a refreshing spin on the suspenseful spy novel with brisk scenes, adrenaline-fueled cliffhangers, and a sympathetic protagonist. There is much to savor in this thriller.” —Publisher’s Weekly 

"Jake Lukin has a secret talent: if he holds an object that belongs to a person, he can instantaneously "tunnel" to that person—envisioning them physically, pinpointing their location, seeing what they see, feeling what they feel. After Jake reveals his skill at a high school party, he quickly finds himself on the run from government agents who would harness his talents for their own purposes. This YA novel is a heart-racing thriller set at full throttle from the opening page, and it never decelerates. Fans of Cory Doctorow and Anthony Horowitz will consume this title with a passion and will excitedly anticipate a sequel."—Leah Krippner, Harlem High School, Machesney Park, IL, School Library Journal 

"Adrian has crafted a tension-packed spy novel about a likable teen with a special power and his equally likable family and friends. Twists of plot, kids outsmarting the bad guys, and a relatively low-tech but fascinating superpower ratchet up the action to a bizarre conclusion that begs a sequel. With a grandfather that would make Richard Peck or Joan Bauer proud, and government goons, male and female, who morph between good and evil with a single look or comment, this is a must-read." —Booklist

ALSO, I just posted the first batch of events for...THE TUNNEL TOUR! I'm joining with fantastic YA authors all over! So far: Butte, Seattle, Berkeley, Los Angeles, and San Diego, with more to come! Keep up on my events page here: http://www.susanadrian.net/events/
 

Query Series post

Would you like to see what my original query for TUNNEL VISION looked like? And (more interesting to me), what my agent thought when she read it?

Hop on over to YA Highway, where you can read our Query Series post!

http://www.yahighway.com/2014/07/query-series-author-susan-adrian-and.html

Writing Process Blog Tour: My Turn!

I may be a bit late to the party, but I've been tagged inthe Writing Process Blog Tour! The inestimable Cindy Rodriguez posted her responses last week, and threw it my way. Thanks, Cindy! First, here's some info on her:

Cindy L. Rodriguez is the the author of When Reason Breaks, a young adult novel that will be published by Bloomsbury Children’s Books USA  on Febuary 10, 2015. Yes, she's not only a fellow Fifteener, but her book comes out only a couple weeks after mine!! I know Cindy as an admin for the Fearless Fifteener group, and an all-around impressive person. She teaches middle-school reading and college-level composition too, AND is a mom!

When Reason Breaks is available for preorder now!

To the questions:

What am I working on?

This week I’m working on my first-ever set of copyedits, for my YA thriller TUNNEL VISION, which is coming out January 20th from St. Martin's Press! As a copyeditor myself, this is actually fun.

I'm also working on several other projects: revisons on a middle grade book called NUTCRACKED I'm SO excited about. It's magical realism, about a 12-year-old dancer named Georgie who gets chosen to be Clara in the Nutcracker, the role of her dreams, but also discovers the secret, dark world of the Nutcracker Prince and the Mouse King that exists just beneath the world she knows. She also has to deal with the splintering of one relationship when her best friend doesn't get the part too, and the start of an interesting new friendship with a boy named Noah.

I'm tinkering with a sequel to TUNNEL VISION, and plotting out the beginnings of a new YA thriller I can barely keep to myself.

How does my work differ from others of its genre?

My books always have a strong, driving plot—TUNNEL VISION is a thriller about a teen psychic spy, after all—but there's also always a very strong element of family. Several readers have confessed that Jake's little sister Myka is one of their favorite characters, and his grandfather (Dedushka) plays a huge part as well. Georgie has a huge, tumbled family with a full life, and her parents and siblings are a critical piece of who she is too. The new YA book is about sisters. I guess to me the background, making sure the character is a whole, real person, and their family and friends are too, is just as important as making sure you want to turn those pages.

Why do I write what I do?

Because I can't help it? TUNNEL VISION is the story I told to myself before I ever decided to write it down and try to get it to readers. It's the book I wanted to read. NUTCRACKED was inspired because I was lucky enough to dance the part of Clara when I was 13 (though I didn't have a magical Nutcracker, sadly enough). The new book started from an image I couldn't get out of my head, and has been hounding me ever since.

How does my writing process work?

When I’m rough-drafting, I generally start at the beginning and work my way through to the end, with a few occasional circles through the text. I hardly ever know where it's going to go when I start—I work from a character in a situation, and see what happens. This results in VERY messy first drafts, which have to be revised many times before anyone sees them. During revisions I do pull out the colored charts and outlines when necessary to keep myself straight and make sure I'm following a thread evenly all the way through. I also always write very sparely at first, and add descriptions and more original language later on.

Basically, you don't want to see my first drafts. J

I am very methodical, too, in that I now write nearly every day, at 5:30 in the morning on weekdays and 6:30 on weekends. I don't write much in a day—my goal is usually somewhere between 600 and 800 words—but at that speed I can write a draft in a few months, and revise pretty quickly. In the tortoise and the hare race I'm definitely the tortoise, but I get it done. I live for those moments when I get so involved in a book that I think about it all day long, and when I'm going to sleep, and I can't wait to get back to it in the morning!

****

Next up is  Jessica Spengler. She is currently in the process of writing her first full-length novel, a fantasy adventure called The World Where Geese Reign.  Since 2010 she's run the website http://drink-matron.com, a blog dedicated to cocktail recipes, the history of alcohol, and other drinking facts.

You can also find her at jessicaspengler.com or http://whatarewewritingfor.tumblr.com/. 

Help Isabella come home to her family!

I have a very dear writer friend who I've never met--which isn't unusual, in the online world I navigate in--but love and respect regardless. C.J. Redwine is a fantastic writer, but more is a friend, supporter, cheerleader, and great mom, to her kids both biological and adopted.

Right now, C.J. and her family need OUR help. They adopted a little girl from China already, and now they are hoping to adopt a second one, a little girl who needs extra help.

From C.J.:

Isabella Grace Xiaofang was abandoned beneath a highway overpass when she was four months old. She had severe pneumonia, along with her heart disease and cleft palate, which were both causing her medical difficulty. That says to me that her parents loved her, and they tried for four months to care for her in secret, either to avoid paying the second child penalty fee, which is prohibitive for poorer families, or because they couldn’t afford her medical care, and when they realized she was going to die without care, they put her where she would be quickly found. Highways in China, especially in cities, are much different than ours. They are choked with pedestrians and bicyclists. She was sure to be found quickly. 

A month after she was found, she had heart surgery to repair four different defects in her heart. She was in and out of the ICU for recurring pneumonia during her first year. In her second year, she had two surgeries to repair her lip and palate and to remove her extra thumb. At two years old, she’s still tiny (wearing 9 month clothing size), she’s not walking on her own yet, and she doesn’t have many words yet. Her delayed development is a result, I feel certain, of her constant surgeries and hospital stays. 

The orphanage reports that Isabella is quiet, shy, and loves to smile and grab onto the nannies and play with them. I can’t wait to bring her home! Her brothers and sister are very excited to meet her and love her as well! 

This is where you come in. Because this process is moving so much faster than we anticipated, we need to run a fundraiser to raise Isabella’s orphanage fee of 5k and the 10k we need to travel to China and to stay there for the two and a half weeks it takes to finalize her adoption. When we brought Johanna home, we did an online fundraiser I called Skip a Starbucks day in which I asked my friends to post about it on their blogs/Tumblr/FB and to tweet about it throughout the day. The idea is that if people will skip Starbucks and donate that money toward Isabella’s adoption fund instead, we can raise the money.

Today is a Skip a Starbucks day for Isabella. If you can, please consider skipping a Starbucks (or, in my case, that snack I probably shouldn't have anyway) and donate to C.J.'s family to help bring Isabella home.

You can donate here: http://cjredwine.blogspot.com

Thanks!! And please spread the word!

Bright Before Sunrise: One Night that Changed My Life

"One night can change how you see the world.

One night can change how you see yourself."

In celebration of Tiffany Schmidt's fabulous new book BRIGHT BEFORE SUNRISE, I was asked to contribute a story of one night that changed my life. Most of my stories take place in the day--it's easy to think of a DAY that changed my life. But night? My memory popped straight back to this one.

You can see all the One Night stories on the BRIGHT BEFORE SUNRISE Tumblr.

***

As a teen, and through into college, I didn't have a lot of confidence. Probably many of you can relate to that. I was bullied in grammar school and high school, and had a messy family life, and it carried over. I kept to myself—it was safer. Way less painful to never let anybody in than to try and then get slammed down. So I lived in a bubble of my own, drifting through the world, but not really happy with myself.

I still can't quite believe I had enough confidence to apply for a year-long study abroad program in England, much less get through all the interviews and meetings, but I did. My junior year of college I set off for the University of Sussex, to see how I would do in the wider world. The first six months were tough. Living abroad requires a certain amount of sociability, the courage to step outside your comfort zone. At first I didn't do that. I hung out with other Californians, in a very small group, for the most part. I had fun, but I didn't change. I was still in the safe bubble, just a little farther away from home.

Then one night, I met J.J.…still an American, but from New Hampshire. And her friends, who were actually British and Scottish. We sat on the ground at a party, drinking Newkie Brown ale, and talked. 

And clicked. I talked about myself. I let someone in, for the first time in ages, let someone see a glimpse of the real me.

And then we did a road trip east, all of us piled into a little creaky car. I don't even remember what we did at first—all I remember is the feeling, the miraculous feeling of connecting to people and being accepted. Laughing with the jokes. Being part of the group.

We ended up at the seawall, at Eastbourne, sometime in the wee hours. I don't know why. J.J. and I climbed over the wall, onto the round English rocks. The waves crashed at our feet, the spray washing over us, the roar deafening. We shouted, together, into the waves. I shouted all my frustrations, my loneliness, my happiness right at that moment.

And something snapped in me, let go. Nothing dramatic changed, outwardly. I had a wider group of friends from then on, I involved myself more, and when it came time to go home I really wanted to stay. But inside, I was different. From that night I had a renewed confidence in myself, and in friendships, in people. That there were people like me out there—I just had to find them. That I could be myself. That I could shout myself into the ocean, into the world.

BRIGHT BEFORE SUNRISE description:

Jonah and Brighton are about to have the most awkwardly awful night of their lives. For Jonah, every aspect of his new life reminds him of what he has had to give up. All he wants is to be left alone. Brighton is popular, pretty, and always there to help anyone . . . but has no idea of what she wants for herself. Her seemingly perfect life is marred only by Jonah, the one person who won't give her the time of day, but also makes her feel, well, something. So when they are repeatedly thrown together over the course of one night, anything can—and does—happen. Told in alternating chapters, this poignant, beautiful novel's energy and tension, amidst the humor and romance, builds to a new beginning of self-acceptance and hope.

About Tiffany Schmidt:

TIFFANY SCHMIDT lives in Pennsylvania with her saintly husband, impish twin boys, and a pair of mischievous puggles. And while she thinks sunrises are quite beautiful, she'd rather sleep through them. Send Me a Sign was her debut novel. Find out more about Tiffany and her books by following her on Twitter @TiffanySchmidt or visiting www.TiffanySchmidt.com.

Susan update

HELLO.

It's been a while since I posted anything HERE. Don't worry, I've still been all over the internet--mostly on Twitter  and over at the Fearless Fifteeners blog, and even occasionally on Tumblr. Poor blog, you kind of get the short end of the stick.

Anyway. I thought it time for a quick bloggish update on what's going on over here.

--I got my edits on TUNNEL VISION. And they were totally doable, so I revised and turned them back in!

--All sorts of exciting craziness has been happening in my inbox since. Cover talk, blurb talk, other authors reading my book talk, Real Actual Book Coming out Next Year talk. I have to keep from bouncing constantly, pretty much. Or chair dancing.

That's most of my excitement at the moment. But in addition to that, let's see:

• The Fearless Fifteeners group is coming along great--I think we're up to 72 members, and going strong. 
• I'm going to NY for BEA! Woot! Also London for a family vacation late this summer. Planning them both is making me slightly dizzy.
• I'm back in choir, this time singing a mix of Austrian composers (Beethoven, Schubert, Haydn) and songs from The Sound of Music. Guess which set I like better?
• Sparkle Girl is in a crazy period too, with a robotics competition this weekend, Future Problem Solvers, clarinet, and a part in Disney Jr. Cinderella. AND she's writing a short story for an American Girl magazine competition, which I'm trying not to be too Mom-writer about.
• I'm plotting out Book 2. Jake is in my head again, yay!

Yeah, that's probably enough. Please comment...what's going on with you?

Interview with the Amazing Amy Spalding: INK IS THICKER THAN WATER

And the winner is...Krista Van Dolzer! Congratulations, Krista!

Today, I am SO excited to be hosting the Amazing Amy Spalding. (yes, that should be her title, if it isn't officially) Her second book, INK IS THICKER THAN WATER, comes out tomorrow!! YOU have a chance to win a *signed* copy for free. Details at the bottom...but first, a somewhat wacky interview with Amy.

INK IS THICKER THAN WATER is a contemporary YA, already getting major praise for its real-life portrayal of family and relationships. From Goodreads:

For Kellie Brooks, family has always been a tough word to define. Combine her hippie mom and tattooist stepdad, her adopted overachieving sister, her younger half brother, and her tough-love dad, and average Kellie’s the one stuck in the middle, overlooked and impermanent. When Kellie’s sister finally meets her birth mother and her best friend starts hanging with a cooler crowd, the feeling only grows stronger.

But then she reconnects with Oliver, the sweet and sensitive college guy she had a near hookup with last year. Oliver is intense and attractive, and she’s sure he’s totally out of her league. But as she discovers that maybe intensity isn’t always a good thing, it’s yet another relationship she feels is spiraling out of her control.

It’ll take a new role on the school newspaper and a new job at her mom’s tattoo shop for Kellie to realize that defining herself both outside and within her family is what can finally allow her to feel permanent, just like a tattoo.

INTERVIEW:

Everything I've seen about INK talks about how authentic the teen voice is, how it truly feels like it was written by a 16-year-old girl. How do you go back to that place to write a teen so authentically? Are you secretly a teenager? *eyebrow*

I always have conflicted feelings about hearing how authentic my teen voice is. Obviously compliments are wonderful, but also that's just sort of the voice that comes out of me when I write? I never think of going back; it just sort of...happens. Hopefully this means my subconscious is just really gifted and not that I'm emotionally stunted.

 Once when I was telling my life story to an editor, she thought it funny how with my messed-up childhood I choose to write positive, supportive (if complex) families. That seems like exactly the type of family you're writing about here…and *cough* if some tweets are true, your history may not have been all peaches and cream either. Why do YOU choose to write a functional, if unusual, family instead of the dysfunctional ones more typically seen in YA?

Because, honestly, my family was more functional than not, or at least it felt that way. And it seemed to me pretty common among my friends as well. Sure, we fought with our parents, and sure, some people had divorced parents or other drama, but in general it felt like most of us were loved and supported, even if things weren't always easy-breezy.

I also knew I wanted to explore the dynamic of Kellie watching her sister Sara reconnect with Sara's biological mother (Sara was adopted as a baby), and to me that would be more interesting if Kellie's family maybe once looked like The Perfect Family, and now looked like something completely different. After all, families can look like a lot of different things and still be filled with so much love and respect and support.

 In the book I just wrote, my character has a best friend named Kaitlyn who is drifting away due to differing interests. Your book has that too. DID YOU STEAL THAT FROM MY BRAIN? (more seriously, tell me about Kaitlyn and Kellie, and how their friendship changes)

I have been accused before of stealing things from people's brains, and, trust me, if I had that ability, I would get A LOT more done!

As for Kellie and Kaitlyn, I think a lot of us at MULTIPLE points in life go through periods where all of our relationships seem to be shifting. I know in high school there were a couple times where it felt like my friendships were out of my control and people were pulling away from me. Of course in retrospect, a lot of that was just that we all had to figure ourselves out and couldn't always worry so much about each other, but at the time it feels like the greatest betrayal.

When I was Kellie's age, I definitely felt like my best friend was way too cool for me, which is hilarious in retrospect because we were both dorks, just in different ways.

 Let's talk about Oliver. He turns out to be not quite what Kellie thought he was, right? Kelly on Stacked even referred to him as "clingy". Is it true—and if so, are you messing around with gender stereotypes there?

I actually wrote Oliver kind of as a reaction to a lot of the YA I was reading back in 2008 when I wrote INK's first draft. There were so many romances where very quickly a boy would fall for a girl, and it would be intense and world-shattering...and the girls would always be soooo into it. And all I kept thinking was, "Whoa. This would REALLY stress me out!"

So my goal was really to write about a consuming romance kind of in a "real world" setting, and how that would actually go, and maybe what that would stem from. But, also, absolutely to gender stereotypes! Girls are often written as the ones who go overboard with romance, but from my personal experience, I saw just as many if not MORE guys fall for someone in that all-encompassing way. I know guys and girls sometimes act pretty differently, but I think deep down they're more alike than not.

 I understand Kellie writes humor columns for her school newspaper. Can you give us an example of the type of things she writes? 

Here's a little preview of Kellie's first column:

The grounds of Ticknor Day School boast native Missouri plant life immaculately maintained by a hardworking grounds crew. Surrounding our students in such an environment is just one way we at Ticknor strive to not only provide a quality education, but the best setting possible for academic growth. 

So begins the “Campus Grounds” section in the Ticknor Day School promotional brochure, a paragraph those who spend each weekday at T.D.S. might find difficult to take seriously. After all, is the word “immaculate” synonymous with “poop-smelling”? Is “the best setting possible an area that smells like the elephant pen at the zoo?

Amy Spalding grew up outside of St. Louis. She now lives in Los Angeles with two cats and a dog. She works in marketing and does a lot of improv. She has more tattoos than she can count.

Amy would love for you to visit her online at www.theamyspalding.com or on Twitter @theames.

NOW, how do you enter to win a SIGNED copy??

Because it's the holidays and we all have a lot to do, I'm going to make it REAL easy for you. Enter by commenting to this post! If you want an extra entry, tweet about the contest and @ me (@susan_adrian). That's it!! The contest will close at 5 pm MST tomorrow, December 3rd, which is Launch Day for INK!

Thanks so much, Amy!