Cheeky

In writing news, I just received the line-edited manuscript from my editor. Apparently I am rather limited in my ability to convey embarrassment. Several times in my book I describe the main character feeling heat rising into her cheeks. Each time my editor oh-so-gently penciled the words "hot cheeks" in the margin, and I came up with new and varied ways of describing humiliation.

However, now, I can't stop thinking that hot cheeks sounds like a rather frisky nickname, as in
"How do you like my book, hot cheeks?"

Could I say that to a reviewer, or would that be cheeky? (I know, but I couldn't resist.)

My Deal's Gone Public!

This was posted on Publisher's Marketplace yesterday afternoon!


Children's
Jenny Meyerhoff's THIRD GRADE BABY, a chapter book about the growing pains of a spunky, clever, resourceful girl whose out-sized personality makes up for her under-sized height, and GIRL IN WAITING, a contemporary YA retelling of the Book of Esther on the high school football field in which a teen cheerleader, caught between first love with a crush-worthy quarterback and familial duty to an Orthodox cousin turned team kicker, sorts out her Jewish identity, to Beverly Reingold at Farrar, Straus, in nice deals, by Michelle Andelman at Andrea Brown Literary Agency (world).michelle@andreabrownlit.com

Now everyone in the publishing world (who read the deals section of PM between yesterday afternoon and right now) knows my great news. Yeah!

Stranger than Fiction

Last night I went to see (and briefly meet) author Ann M. Martin, who's written many books, but is best known for her Babysitter's Club series. During a period of about 15 years she wrote 250, let me write that again, TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY books related to this series. I don't know if non-writers can understand the magnitude of this, but that means that for many years she was averaging a book per month! (Most writers take at least a year to finish a book, many writers take more. And she was putting out a dozen! Ack!!! That is superhuman.)

I will not even attempt to compare myself, rather I will just awkwardly segue into a strange thought I had while driving my kids to school this morning. The title of this thought was "When complete strangers cross the universally accepted stranger boundary." Two unrelated instances came to mind.

1. I was eating dinner with my husband and we were seated at a table for four. (Thus two empty chairs.) A man walked into the restaurant with his trench coat over his arm and found his party seated at a table two over from ours. After saying hello to them, he looked around for a place to hang his coat. Not finding a hook or coat rack, he then walked over to my table and draped his coat over one of the empty chairs without even acknowledging me or my husband. He then went to eat dinner with his friends.

2.I was walking through the parking lot of my grocery store when a woman approached me. Do I have anything on the back of my pants, she asked turning around. I inspected, assuming she'd sat in something, then reassured her that her pants looked fine. "Oh good," she said, "I've been having some bad stomach troubles today." (Actually, she used the D word, but I just didn't feel like typing that.)

So please tell me that you've had strangers cross the line, otherwise I'll have to assume it's just me.

Shhh...this post is a silent post.

Gosh, time flies. I didn't realize I'd been ignoring my blog for so long. But I've been busy with other worthwhile endeavors. (For example getting a pedicure, watching America's Next Top Model and going to a writing retreat. Uh...those are in random order.)

The writing retreat was fantastic. I'd never been on one before, but I'd definitely go again. It's bliss to be able to write without any competing responsibilities. So, the retreat was in a convent. Not being of the nunnish persuation, that was a little weird. (Did you know that they can't actually fly?) But the rest of it was fantastic. I got a lot of work done on the manuscript I am working on right now. It's top secret, so I can't tell you that it's about a fourth grade boy who wants to be a stand-up comedian. And I got to hang out with lots of other writers! Unfortunately I was on a silent floor, so I couldn't actually talk to them, but they looked like really nice people.

Now that I'm back, I seem to be blogging instead of writing. So I'll just say ta ta for now and get back to the important stuff that I need to do like shopping for new brown sandals. (It's so hard to find the perfect pair.)