Why I Read YA

Lately--lately, in this instance, meaning always--there are some opinion pieces making the rounds comparing YA books to
adult
literary
reeeeeal
books.

Sometimes my dad tells me that he likes my books and he thinks I have real talent, and he thinks I really could write a real book. He asks me when I'm going to write the
great
American
nooooovel.

I'm currently a senior year English major. You have no idea how many people I know whose big goal is to write the great American novel. In class, I read great piece of literature after great piece of literature and I really, genuinely like some of them. I do. But when it's time for me to curl up with something I'm actually looking forward to? When stretched out on a towel on the beach or balled up crying on my bed and I need that book, it's Melina Marchetta or Amy Reed or Steve Brezenoff or David Levithan or Jaclyn Moriarty, to name a few. It's YA.

People used to ask me if I would write
reeeeeal
books
when I grew up.

I am twenty-one-and-one-half as of last Friday. I'm not saying I'm ancient (I'll leave that to my infant girlfriend) but I'm unquestionably outside of the YA age group. I know I'm far from the only adult reading YA, and I don't know if it's my on-the-cusp age or my body of work or my major that has people so fucking confused by the fact that I care a lot more about stories about girls by their lockers than about men who want to fuck their sisters (what up, Faulkner, write a different book why don't you).

And see, that there is part of it. When my dad asks me why I haven't written that great American novel, I have totally told him, "Because I'm a Jewish girl."

There are some fucking fantastic literary ('what the fuck is literary anyway?' is a topic for a different post and a better writer) adult books written by women, but, um...where are they? Ohhh that's right, they're being ignored and shoved aside by literary purists just like YA books are! Come sit with us, ladies, our table is ever-expanding.

I've mentioned this before, I think, but I had a teacher in high school who once said to me, after Break sold, "I just feel like there's a level of depth missing in YA books, you know?" in this thoughtful voice like she expected me to agree.

Well, you know what? No, I don't fucking know.

There is a reason adults come back to these high school stories, and it isn't a reason I can figure out how to articulate. But it's the same reason people who very much aren't teenagers love Glee and Friday Night Lights. There is something enduring and universal about these stories.

And there is something twisted and weird and personal and so, so not monolithic. And while we're still working on the diversity-of-characters thing (and trust me I am giving myself a get-out-of-fucking-nothing-free card, I have written waaay too many books about white boys to get off scot-free--I mean, I love my books, but write a fucking Asian girl, hannah) we have a ever-changing, ever-evolving body of authors. 

And I get that literary canon moves a lot slower. I get that.

But maybe it means literary canon needs to shut the fuck up a little bit. Because this isn't 1950 and writers aren't (just?) impotent men with typewriters and dark rooms and alcoholism and complexes. Writers are moms and teenagers and gay boys and black women and Jewish girls trying to tap out a blog post while the aforementioned infant girl watches RuPaul's Drag Race. 

Maybe it doesn't have to be such a fucking art all the time. Maybe I shouldn't be getting a degree in this shit. Maybe I just don't get it.

Maybe I should go back to just reading my little YA books on the beach or balled up in my bed.

God, what a fucking waste that would be!

When I was a sophomore, a creative writing teacher told me that after he finished his

great

American

novel

he wanted to write some really commercial book about zombies. What a fucking joke, right! A real writer deigning to write about zombies!

Last month I ran into a girl from that class who has him again this semester. I asked if he'd finished his great American novel yet.

He has not.

My zombie book came out ten months ago.

(I love the taste of brains in the autumn. Tastes like legitimacy.)

Eating My Brain

So my third book, Zombie Tag, is officially released in 4 hours and 37 minutes. I have my last exam of the semester in about eighteen hours, and Hanukkah begins about four hours after that, let's say.

I'm thrilled and impatient and excited, but really I'm just sitting here crying a little and wishing I could disappear, and I figured I should blog about that a little, even if it's not the post I'm supposed to write. I should be writing a big BUY MY BOOK thing right now, but you guys know I want you to buy my book. You know how this works.

What I think you might not know is how hard this all gets.

The reason I don't like writing these posts isn't because I'm afraid of being honest with you guys; you guys know I'm pretty much the most open of books, and until someone is like WHOA HANNAH STOP I'm probably going to keep doing that forever and ever. But I don't write these sad damn posts because I'm worried about how they make me see, so, upfront, okay? I know how lucky I am. I really, truly do. I thank the universe every single damn day that I have this job.

And then stupid things swallow me whole.

You guys are so fucking NICE to me. That's what kills me. Do you ever look at people you love and just want to cry because you love them so much, and they love you, and you feel like there's this pocket of the universe that exists JUST to take care of you?

That's how I feel.

And it scares the shit out of me.

Because I don't want to let you guys down.

I don't want to fuck up and not sell and have to stop writing books.

I don't want the criticism to wear me down to the point that I can't write anymore.

I don't want to get eaten alive by my own brain and have to stop and work some office job.

I don't want to flame out before I'm thirty.

I just feel like I'm phoning it in lately, not with writing (because I haven't BEEN writing, and let's not talk about that tonight) but with publicity, talking to you guys, the sheer act of getting my shit together. And it's just this agonizing fear of failure weighing me down, and that's NOT me. I'm a lot of damn things, but, compared to a lot of writers and compared to a lot of the other things that are fucked in my head, I'm not much of a worrier. I don't overanalyze. I don't panic.

And yet here I am, crying on my bed because someone said something nice to me and my damn heart couldn't take it.

I keep writing things and deleting them because I don't know how to say it. I'm just scared. I'm scared no one will read the book and you guys will forget about me.

That's what it is. You guys loving me is scary because I'm afraid that one day you won't.

You don't have to reassure me and flatter me in the comments or something. I mean, I wouldn't HATE that, but that's not what I'm going for. Really I just want you to understand the crazy places a writer's head goes to, because I think release turns a lot of people into robots publicly, when really it tosses our brains like salads, and you know me and my problem with compulsive honesty so here I am.

So, uh, buy my book. I just hope you like it, if you do.

Really, I just hope that even if you don't like it, you don't give up on me.

ZOMBIE TAG Book Trailer!

How cool is that?

BIG Middle Grade News!

First of all, I am wicked wicked sorry that I haven't put up the next round of the cover contest yet. It IS happening, I swear.

But first I have TWO very exciting things to tell you!

The first is that I've received the final(ish, oh publishing) cover for ZOMBIE TAG, and I am so psyched to show you guys.

Isn't it AWESOME? I love the excerpt they chose for the back, and I think my favorite part is either the spatula over the barcode or Graham's zombie face on the spine.

The SECOND piece of big news is that I just got the go-ahead for my second MG book! It's right now called MARCO IMPOSSIBLE, and it'll be out early 2013. It's about two best friends, Stephen and Marco, who go on a go-for-broke heist to break into the high school prom and get Marco onstage to steal (hence the heist) the heart of Benji, the British exchange student and bass player of the prom band. (Yes, yes, YES, gay main character, and could I BE any more excited about that? OH I THINK NOT.) If you follow me on twitter, you'll know this as #veryscaryMG; not because it is scary, but because it was scary for me to write. Because I had to plot a freaking heist I mean come on.

The best part of getting good news is when I can tell you guys, so thanks so much for reading and hanging with me. Yay!!

ZOMBIE TAG ARC TOUR!

At long last...

here we go! I'll be sending out two different arcs at once, one to roughly west coast and one to roughly east coast! Hurray!

This means we have some extra time to to read. You'll notice I didn't put dates! That's because we have 13 people (I think? eh?) for each arc, and we have roughly 20 weeks until Zombie Tag comes out. So...try to send it out a week to a week and a half after you receive it. If you have to keep it longer, IT IS NOT A BIG DEAL. If the arc doesn't get to me until like a month after Zombie Tag comes out, eh, who cares? Just MAKE SURE IT GETS BACK. No losing the thing. You know the drill.

SO! The order is!

ARC #1

1. T.O., Ontario, Canada - Reut C.
2. Brunswick, OH - Lydia Sharp
3. Whitehall, PA - Cara Bes
4. Portland, ME - Lindsay Breen
5. Boston, MA - Grace Ausick
6. Manchester, NJ - MaryBeth
7. Bel Air, MD - Jessica
8. Philadelpiha, PA--Katie
9. Chesapeake, VA - Pam Harris
10. Gastonia, NC - Samantha Rae
11. Anderson, SC - Jeremy West
12. Memphis, TN - Allison Renner
13. Paragould, AR - Tabitha Michelle

ARC #2

1. Port Richey, FL - Sarah
2. Cape Coral, FL - Tracey M. Hansen
3. Dothan, AL - Amanda Baxter
4. Lake Charles, LA - Steph Campbell
5. Edinburg, TX - Jamie
6. Cleburne, TX - Marcy Funderburk
7. Dallas, TX - Jeannette
8. Dallas, TX - Kari
9. Los Angeles, CA - Ashlyn Rae
10. Coeur d'Alene, ID - Taylor
11. Brackendale, BC, Canada - Rebecca Christiansen
12. Thorsby, Alberta, Canada - Ambur
13. Alberta, Canada - Halli


Now. As soon as you've seen this, email me with THE FOLLOWING SUBJECT LINE--your arc number and then your number on the list. So if you are Grace, your subject line is "ARC #1, person 5." If you don't follow this format, I'll be all sweet to you but in my head I will be RAGING WITH FIRE.

Oh yeah I should give you my email address. until.hannah@gmail.com

In that email, put your address! Even if I already have your address from the Gone, Gone, Gone tour. Even if you've given me your address so many times for so many different things that I should have it memorized at this point. Give it to me again! I love your address! And I'll pass that along to the person who needs to send it to you, and hit you up with the address of the person you need to send yours to. Easy peasy, thanks to you guys organizing yourselves with the above subject lines! Yay!

One other thing that makes me rage with fire: having to chase people down. So please do not do that. I have to do it for the GGG tour already and it is so exhausting.

Don't forget to mark the thing up when you get it! As soon as I get addresses from our first two people, I'll scribble over two arcs and send them out! Thank you so much!!

The Biggest Contest That Has Ever Been Known to Humankind

SO.

If you recall, yesterday I had some pretty huge news.

To celebrate, I am having a hideously amazing contest. The prizes, which will be revealed MOMENTARILY, are, I think you would agree, completely over-the-top in number and shipping charge. Which is why, in order to win, you have to do something fairly intense and VITAL TO THE SURVIVAL OF HUMANKIND.

You have to design a new cover for Invincible Summer.



As many of you know, there has been considerable drama over the Invincible Summer cover! While I think it's a beautiful cover, the opinion has been raised that it doesn't fit what the book is about. So let's make a game out of it!

Design a new cover. Use stock photos, use MS paint, take photos, scan a drawing, use all text, however you want to do this. Please do not use copyrighted images or otherwise do anything to hurt someone in any way (no real blood, etc). Make a cover that you believe represents what the book is really about.

This is obviously going to be an easier task if you've read IS, but if you haven't, PLEASE don't let that keep you from entering! I recommend reading a bunch of goodreads reviews, here, both positive and negative, and checking out the Invincible Summer tag (at the end of this post) for excerpts from the book and my own commentary on said excerpts. You can find a LOT in the soundtrack posts especially about what I think the important parts of the book are. And you can always ask around! You can always ask me! I'd be happy to answer questions.

Since this is a fairly intense thing I'm asking you to do, I am giving you ONE MONTH FROM TODAY. That means that, on August 13th, I will post a to-be-determined number of my favorites on the blog and we will vote on the winner!

Here's the big thing. I am really terrified that no one will enter. So in order to entice you...the prize.

THE WINNER WILL RECEIVE:

--a signed copy of my first book, BREAK.
--a signed copy of my second book, INVINCIBLE SUMMER.
--a signed arc of my first MG book, ZOMBIE TAG.
--a signed arc of my third YA book, GONE, GONE, GONE.
--their cover, printed up on pretty photo paper, signed by me (if you want me to? It's your art, you might not be into that. Let me know.)
--however many bookmarks I have lying around (three?) signed by me.

AND. MOST IMPORTANTLY:

--the first chapter of my just-sold novel, FISHBOY, printed out and signed. This is pre-edits! Who knows if this chapter will even EXIST in the final draft?? This is a first look that ONLY YOU WILL RECEIVE.

In the words of my hero, worth playing for?

This contest IS OPEN INTERNATIONALLY, but if you are not in the U.S. and Canada, the prize is a little less exciting: You will get Invincible Summer and Break via Book Depo and preorders of Zombie Tag and Gone, Gone, Gone. But still good, right? Three books? Eh?

You have until AUGUST 13TH to submit your covers. Please EMAIL THEM TO ME: until.hannah@gmail.com. And please please spread the word.

Have fun.

ZOMBIE TAKEOVER!

Well hey!

I realized that I have all the Zombie Tag arcs and nothing to do with them.

And Zombie Tag is a pretty cool book, I think. Check out this description!

Ever since twelve-year-old Wil Lowenstein's older brother Graham died a few months ago, Wil's spent most of his time fighting off imaginary zombies with spatulas in Zombie Tag, the Mafia/Capture the Flag hybrid he invented with his friends. What Wil doesn't tell anybody is that if he could bring his dead brother back as a zombie for real, he would. In a heartbeat.

So when Wil finds a way to bring back all the dead within five miles, he seizes the chance. But the Graham who comes back isn't the same. None of the returned are. At first they're just emotionless, apathetic - lifeless. But then some of the zombies slowly start to get one emotion back - anger. And Wil is going to have to find a way to fix zombie-Graham and turn him back into the angsty teenager he's supposed to be before it's too late.

Because some of the zombies are banding together and plotting something. And Wil isn't sure his mom's spatulas are really going to do the trick if the zombies really do want to eat his brains.


Here! A visual!

So remember how I did an arc tour for Gone, Gone, Gone? Remember how that's going on right now and it's super fun? LET'S DO IT AGAIN!

Wait, what's an arc tour? It's a way for a lot of you to read one arc! It's the chain letter of giveaways! I send out a copy, put you guys in order, and you guys send to each other. And before I send it out, I'll write lots of notes in it and tell you guys to write in it too, so by the time it gets back to me it'll be like a scrapbook from all of you, and that makes me really happy.

Mostly the same rules as before, but first, a few things:

This is an upper MG book. This is not a young adult book. If you don't read/review MG, you're going to open the thing up and go "where's the sex?" and that's no good for anyone.

I have a few arcs this time! Either two or three will be going out, and we're going to do REGIONAL TOURS! So everyone around the west coast will get one arc, etc. This means it will get to you faster, and you will have more time with it it! Which is good because Zombie Tag comes out DECEMBER 20TH, and I would very much like the arcs to come home around that time. So we must get this show on the road.

We'll scribble in them just like we're scribbling on the Gone, Gone, Gone, one! It's really fun.

HERE ARE THE RULES.

YOU ARE ELIGIBLE TO ENTER IF: You are in the U.S. or Canada, you are a book blogger, and you promise to review this book. (NOTE: My definition of "book blogger" is pretty lenient. If you have a blog where you will review my book, you're in. Hell, you're probably in if all you'll do is review the thing on Goodreads and tweet about it. I'm easygoing.) You're also totally eligible whether or not you're in the Gone, Gone, Gone tour.

To get into the tour, you need to comment on this post telling me that you've done both of two things:

1. Added Zombie Tag on Goodreads. Right here.

2. Bought either Break or Invincible Summer. (Brownie points for both, obviously)

Same apology as I gave you for Gone, Gone, Gone, It's totally gross, I know, but chick's gotta eat. Just comment and be like "yeah, I bought that shit" or "yeah, I'm buying it now 'cause you're making me."

(But hannah, can't we just lie and tell you we bought it if we haven't? Yeah, you can, but then Santa doesn't bring presents and your kids hate you.)

I have no idea how long I'm giving each person with the book because I have no idea how many copies I'm sending out or how many of you will sign up, so yeah, just hit me and we'll see what happens. I'll close this at some point in the future, I don't even know.

Once you get the book, you'll have a predetermined amount of time to get it, read it, and send it to the next person. I'll send to the first person, the last person will send it back to me. If you drop the ball and lose my arc, I WILL HARVEST YOUR ORGANS AND MAKE THEM INTO SPATULAS. If you're late sending it out, no one cares, it's fine.

NOW FOR THE POINT OF THE ARC TOUR: YOU MUST REVIEW THIS BOOK, whether or not you like it. But! Please DO NOT post this review on your blog until a month or two before release date. But PLEASE PLEASE rate it, and even review it! on Goodreads or Librarything or wherever the fuck (but Goodreads, please, I'm a Goodreads ho) as soon as possible after you finish it.

IN SUMMARY

Tell me your name

Tell me your email address

Tell me which of my books you've bought

Tell me you added Zombie Tag on Goodreads

Tell me your city and state

and the thing is as good as yours.

THE LAST SCAVENGER HUNT

Happy Invincible Summer release day! I hope it's as spectacular for you as a Tuesday can be.

So here are the answers from yesterday's..

1. Abby (Also acceptable: Abigail, though I not sure she would agree with me on that.)
2. Shady Lane
3. "Shady Lane" by Pavement, teehee
4. Wil (Zombie Tag) and Will (Break). Wil is short for Wilson, Will is short for William. Go figure.

Everyone got them right! Which means today will need to be much harder...

And the randomly selected winner:

Essie!! Congratulations, Essie! Emailing me within 24 hours would be fabulous.

So we have one more scavenger hunt left! Here are the rules, same as every day:

You will have 24 hours, starting from the minute this post goes up, to answer a series of questions. You will post your answers in the comments section of this post. Some of these questions have multiple (perhaps nearly infinite) correct answers, and some do not. You must answer all correctly to have a chance to be the randomly selected winner. There will be one winner each day, and I will announce that winner in the post opening the next round of the contest. If you do not win, you are absolutely free to enter the next few rounds! If you do win, you have 24 hours to email me your mailing information before I pass off to a different winner. And please do not enter again.

To find the answers of the questions, I suggest you try some of the following strategies:

a) look deep inside yourself

b) Google it

c) copy the answers of someone who posted before you

d) ask a muser. Just saying. These guys tend to know things. They're also busy people, so you might be lucky and you might not.

(Some names to try: @gracetopia, @Sagecollins, @sayitwhirly, @althrasher, @_bethanygriffin, @briannaorg, @suzanneyoung, @brittanimae, @libbymartin, @raemariz)

e) ask me. I may take pity on you, especially if you ask me in a funny way.

f) otherwise bribe/cheat/steal. This is a lawless society.

There will be none of that +1 for following or retweeting nonsense, but I would be ever so much obliged if you would consider adding the little book in question to your goodreads shelf, because I am a goodreads whore and sometimes you need little things to make you happy.

--

Today's rules!

THE PRIZE IS:

One copy of INVINCIBLE SUMMER and one CD of INVINCIBLE SUMMER'S PLAYLIST, as well as one signed bookmark.

THE RESTRICTIONS ARE:

WE'RE INTERNATIONAL TODAY!! Enter from anywhere in the whole world. Even Antarctica!

One entry per customer. No exceptions. Don't make me come down there.

Contest ends at 5:45 PM, April 20th, 2011.

And our questions are:

1) So I know you've heard of the musers. We're a family of about 25 writers. Besides mine, what are two of our published (released already or no) books?

2) As of right this minute, what color shirt am I wearing?

3) What is Zombie Tag's release date?

4) If you had to choose one lyric that best describes you and your life, what would you choose?



Break a leg!

THE THIRD SCAVENGER HUNT

Well done, guys! Yesterday's scavenger hunt had 21 people answering correctly! The answers were:

1. EEF

2. Elise (French middle name in the middle of my mega-Jewish name ftw?)

3. False

4. It's just a jump to the left and then a step to the right, put your hands on your hips and brings your knees in tight, but it's the pelvic thrust that really drives you insane. Repeat!

And the randomly selected winner is...

Karen Yuan!!! Congratulations, Karen! Please get in touch with me with your info sometime in the next 24 hours. But I'll attempt to track you down if I don't hear from you, don't worry.

Time for the 3rd of our 4 scavenger hunts, since Invincible Summer is out TOMORROW!! Oh wow.

The same rules as the days before:

You will have 24 hours, starting from the minute this post goes up, to answer a series of questions. You will post your answers in the comments section of this post. Some of these questions have multiple (perhaps nearly infinite) correct answers, and some do not. You must answer all correctly to have a chance to be the randomly selected winner. There will be one winner each day, and I will announce that winner in the post opening the next round of the contest. If you do not win, you are absolutely free to enter the next few rounds! If you do win, you have 24 hours to email me your mailing information before I pass off to a different winner. And please do not enter again.

To find the answers of the questions, I suggest you try some of the following strategies:

a) look deep inside yourself

b) Google it

c) copy the answers of someone who posted before you

d) ask a muser. Just saying. These guys tend to know things. They're also busy people, so you might be lucky and you might not.

(Some names to try: @gracetopia, @Sagecollins, @sayitwhirly, @althrasher, @_bethanygriffin, @briannaorg, @suzanneyoung, @brittanimae, @libbymartin, @raemariz)

e) ask me. I may take pity on you, especially if you ask me in a funny way.

f) otherwise bribe/cheat/steal. This is a lawless society.

There will be none of that +1 for following or retweeting nonsense, but I would be ever so much obliged if you would consider adding the little book in question to your goodreads shelf, because I am a goodreads whore and sometimes you need little things to make you happy.

--

Today's rules!

THE PRIZE IS:

One copy of INVINCIBLE SUMMER and one CD of INVINCIBLE SUMMER'S PLAYLIST, as well as one signed bookmark.

THE RESTRICTIONS ARE:

WE'RE INTERNATIONAL TODAY!! Enter from anywhere in the whole world. Even Antarctica!

One entry per customer. No exceptions. Don't make me come down there.

Contest ends at 4:30 PM, April 19th, 2011.

And our questions are (today we have a theme!) :

1) Hannah Moskowitz has one sibling. What is his or her name? (hint: are you and I facebook friends? That will help.)

2) What is Hannah Moskowitz's Absolute Write username?

3) That username is a reference to a song. What is the name of that song?

4) Here's the tricky one: A major character in BREAK and a major character in Zombie Tag have the same name, though they are spelled slightly differently. What is this name?



Good luck!

Look what IIIIIIIII have....

(click to enlarge)

Zombie Tag. My first MG. December 2011.

Ever since Wil Lowenstein's older brother Graham died a few months ago, Wil's spent most of his time fighting off imaginary zombies with spatulas in Zombie Tag, the Mafia/Capture the Flag hybrid he invented with his friends. What Wil doesn't tell anybody is that if he could bring his dead brother back as a zombie for real, he would. In a heartbeat.

So when Wil finds a way to bring back all the dead within five miles, he seizes the chance. But the Graham who comes back isn't the same. None of the returned are. At first they're just
emotionless, apathetic - lifeless. But then some of the zombies slowly start to get one emotion back - anger. And Wil is going to have to find a way to fix zombie-Graham and turn him back into the angsty teenager he's supposed to be before it's too late.

Because some of the zombies are banding together and plotting something. And Wil isn't sure his mom's spatulas are really going to do the trick if the zombies really do want to eat his brains.


:)

Oh, and if this sounds like your thing? You can add it here. Just sayin'.

We Need You

(Aaaaaaaand we're back. Hey.)

This is a post I've had in my head to write for a long time. It comes from a few questions I've heard asked, to me and to others, ever since I've been involved in the YA community, and moreso after BREAK sold.

1) Why aren't you using a penname? (related: You'd sell better if you didn't have a girl's name on your cover. also related, but not a question, and even more infuriating: your name is too Jewish to be on a book cover!)

2) Why are there so many books about white people?

3) Why are there so many Mormon YA writers? (related, also not a question: Stephanie Meyer waaaah waaaaah)

And, the big question, the one that, in its way, sums up all of the above and so, so much more:

4) Why aren't there more characters like me?

It sounds like a selfish question, I guess.

But...why aren't there?

The truth is, this post was hard to write because it is also a post about halfie-guilt. I'm a half-Jewish and half non-practicing Christian. Since religion wasn't important on my Christian half, I was raised largely, if mildly, Jewish, celebrating those holidays along with a nonreligious Christmas (and sometimes some candy on Easter).

I know the Hanukkah and the Passover blessings and all of that, but I don't speak Hebrew and I didn't have a Bat Mitzvah. But when I tried to get involved in Jewish life in college, neither of these things was a problem for me. The thing that was?

That big clunky Jewish last name means that the half of me that is Jewish is not my mother's half. And that is, according to (all but Reform) Jewish law, the half that matters.

I have not reconciled this yet. It's still something that I think about a lot and struggle with. I've heard a lot of people say that whenever they see half-anything characters in books, that their issues with their halfiness are way overwrought.

I need more half-whatevers. So I wrote a book about them. I'm working (and by working, I mean, desperately trying to avoid working) on an MG right now that features a half-Italian, half-Japanese main character who has issues with both communities since he looks more Japanese but speaks Italian. And he's dragging around the clunky last name, too, his Japanese, that doesn't make the other side of his family too happy.

He's not spending the whole book freaking out about it or anything, but it's there and it's an issue and it's important.

Wil, my main character in Zombie Tag, is Jewish. You would only know by his last name and by the fact that he mentions his Bar Mitzvah and his synagogue, in passing. Lio in Gone, Gone, Gone, is Jewish, and I can't remember when it comes up, if ever. I can't even remember his last name. I think he might not have one.

The point is, I throw Jewish characters in without consideration, and without there being a reason for them. It's important to me that there be Jewish characters, the same way it's important to me that I have gay characters and black characters represented in my books as well.

But I'm not fully Jewish, and I'm not gay, and I'm not black, so why were these things easier for me to write about than a true halfie?

Why aren't we writing characters like us?

Regardless of reasons, there are a lot of YA Mormon writers. So...why aren't we seeing more Mormon MCs?

Why are all of our main characters so pretty?

Why are we still writing books that take place in predominately white, predominately straight worlds, without ever noticing that that isn't the way most of the world works anymore? A gentrified neighborhood should stick out. It should warrant at least a passing reference in the book. It shouldn't be the assumption.

Why are so many books with black characters and gay characters still ABOUT being black and being gay, when we have wonderful writers who fit one or both of those descriptions who are living lives that are not defined by either of those?

I'm not saying we don't need books about struggling with identity. I wrote one about a halfie who is, after all, because that was a book I needed.

I'm just wondering why there aren't more characters like you.

Zombie Tag Teaser

I didn't mean to start researching zombies. Because right after Graham died, I was pretty much okay. I fell apart in a tidy way. I cried at the funeral and slacked off on homework for a few weeks, but I never unglued myself from reality like Mom and Dad did.

Then I started getting weird. I stopped closing the bathroom door when I was in there, which was kind of bizarre. And I had to know where everyone was all the time. I got antsy if my parents left the room, and I started begging to stay home from school every day, but whenever I did stay home, I’d get freaked out about all my friends at school and worry that they were sick or something. It wasn’t cool.

So after that, after I went as totally bananas as I ever did, I started doing research on bringing dead people back to life.

The truth is, I know way more about zombies that anyone would like me to. I even know how I’d go about bringing Graham back, if I were going to do it. There’s this thing, basically an alarm clock for dead people, but the internet says no one has any idea where it is. It’s probably buried in some cave and booby-trapped and explosive and covered in guns or something. And even though everyone knows there were zombies thirty years ago, no one saw them and no one has any idea what they were like or why they all dropped dead again before anyone ever saw them awake. When a kid at school begged Ms. Hoole to talk about them, she made a big point of reminding us that it was just a theory, that nobody can say for sure that they were really zombies. Yeah. They were just a bunch of people who were supposed to have already been dead, discovered above ground, dead again. Just a theory, sure.

The main point is that there are zero, absolutely zero real reports of what the real zombies were like, so there’s a good chance that if I brought Graham back, he'd be just as brain-hungry as I was last night.

Finding all that out for the first time really freaked me out. I updated my anti-zombie weapons just in case. I made sure I had a baseball bat put away, and a can of bug spray, a few of the really good spatulas. Just in case. Nothing online gave me any reason to believe the real zombies weren't just like the ones from the movies Graham and I used to watch, so I don't know why the techniques we figured out wouldn't really work. That's what Zombie Tag is, really. It's practicing all the methods Graham and I discovered. It's training.

And I can't tell my Dad without him wanting to arrest me, and it's probably never going to matter because Anthony says there's no way the zombies are coming back.

English Class with Ms. Moskowitz--Part 2: Motif

Okay! Onward!

Motif is easier than theme, and even less necessary. This is one that you can really ignore if you feel like it. But it's also a fun thing to play with if you like. It's something that I focus on a lot more in some books than in others, but it ends up creeping in most of the time anyway, and I bet it does in your stuff, too, more often than you might know.

The definition of a motif is really simple. It's a reoccurring element in a story that serves to tie parts of the story together. Cool?

A really obvious example of motifing (made that word up) is something like what I did in THESE HUMANS ALL SUCK, the manuscript that has been gently laid to rest. I did a lot with colors, particularly with the color blue.

If something was blue, you could pretty much bet that it was important. I didn't hit you over the head with it, I'd just casually mention that it was blue and move on. If you weren't looking for it, you probably wouldn't have noticed that blue was important. But it was there if you felt like it.

A more common example is a line or phrase that's repeated in the story. This is one I use A LOT. A character will say a line of dialogue early in the story that gets echoed in different ways--in the main character's thought process, in his own dialogue, something like that. And it immediately brings the reader back to the first time it was used.

Using your motif is like cross-referencing one part of your book to another. This is very much an English class element. If an AP English kid ever writes a paper on your book, there's a good chance he'll go in looking for motif. I'm not saying you should write your book with that goal or anything, but it's a good way to think of motif. It's something that works on an analysis level. If it's something that's very blatantly part of the story, it's probably too obvious.

I have weather as a motif in #magicgayfish. The mentions of the ocean are all in there to echo Rudy's emotional state. He projects his emotions onto the ocean (which is called a pathetic fallacy, if you're a fan of even more fancy terms). So if you were to go through and write down the different ways the ocean is described throughout the book, you would actually have written down Rudy's exact emotional arc through the book. Which is pretty cool, I think, and definitely not something I did unintentionally.

Almost done, but I want to do a quick reminder; I'm not writing The Great American Novel over here. I'm not writing anything that I could see a class analyzing in English. So this isn't something that you need to be writing literary fiction in order to worry about. Some of my YA books trend towards the more literary, and others towards more commercial, but they all have theme, motif, and allusions weaved into them, the same way they have plot and character and all that good stuff you're already used to thinking about.

Are these things I'm talking about comparable to plot and character in terms of importance? Well, it depends on the book you're writing, but almost definitely not. This is veering too closely to the literary/commercial debate for my taste (and I'm so, so sick of this debate) but just keep in mind that I'm not suggesting you stop writing dynamic, hooky plots and start writing stories of impotent old men staring out to the horizon or whatever. Write what you want. Be aware of your options.

Even my killing zombies with spatulas book has themes and motifs. And probably allusions, I can't remember. I'll talk about those next.

How about some Zombie Tag?

So one time we were camping in our backyard, and Graham said, “What do you think happens when you die?”

We used to do that sometimes. Lug our sleeping bags out and pitch our tent and lie there, pretending we had a campfire. We couldn't do it too much because Graham would always start wheezing from lying in the grass all night, but I loved it, and I was always pushing him to do it more often, which made Mom mad.

It was really late, but so loud from the frogs and the cicadas.

I said, “I don’t…think about stuff like that.”

“Everyone thinks about stuff like that.”

“Yeah, okay, but I don’t think you’re supposed to discuss it, you know? You’re supposed to think about it quietly to yourself.”

“Talking to you is like talking to myself.”

I hoped he didn’t see me smile at that, because it didn’t sound like a compliment, even though it felt like one. I think it was too dark for him to see, anyway.

He rolled over, and the grass crunched under him while he coughed. I stretched out. I was thinking about how good a s'more would taste right then.

He said, “Okay, so you die, and just…things keep happening without you?”

“Yeah.”

“That doesn't make sense.”

“Um...I think most people agree on that one.”

“But, like, how? Like...” He was quiet here for a long time. “Like I was just coughing, and then I stopped coughing, and everything was the same as it was before I started.”

“Yeah.”

“But coughing isn't dying. How can dying just be a thing?” He shook his head. “I don’t know, Wil. I don’t know. I don’t think things will go on without me.”

I laughed. “I can’t believe how self-centered you are.”

“It’s the curse of being the person the world revolves around. A blessing and a curse.”

“You're a drip.”

He said, “But seriously. No one can say for sure that the world keeps going after they die. Because how would you know? Maybe you're the one who the world can't exist without. I mean, there has to be someone, right? One person dies and the universe is like, that's it, straw that broke the camel's back, I'm done, peace, there's no point in doing this anymore if people are going to keep keeling over on me.”

“That’s so stupid.” I rolled over on the grass and looked at him. “Billions of people have already died, and here we are.”

“But it only takes one person.”

“And that person’s going to be you?”

“Hey, you don’t know me.” He laughed. His breathing was getting noisy.

I said, “Of course I know you. That’s the point.”

“Yeah.” His breath caught, and he coughed some more. “You’re pretty lucky to know me, let’s be honest.” He was wheezing pretty badly by then.

MG vs. YA

I've written YA for a long time, and I've only seriously been writing MG for about six months. In a lot of ways, I'm still learning the ropes.

But MGs are my favorites to read. They have been ever since I was very, very young. Even while I was still reading picture books or early chapter books on my own, my mom was reading my sister and me MG books before we went to sleep. I know a lot of voracious readers who grew up reading the classics. They read Huck Finn and Jane Eyre when they were five. I didn't do that. (Hell, I still haven't read Huck Finn). I grew up with middle grade books.

By the time I was eleven, I'd switched mainly to YA, and that's still the bulk of what I read. And don't get me wrong. I love YA. Some of my favorite books are YA. But a lot of my very, very favorites are MG, which is why writing it has been this pretty amazing experience.

People have asked me lately what the differences are between writing YA and writing MG. Some of them are easy. But before I start...

I'M INVOKING THE EXCEPTION RULE: YES. THERE ARE EXCEPTIONS. FROM HERE ON OUT, EXPECT EXCEPTIONS. COOL? COOL.

--In MG, your main character's probably going to be 8-14 years old. In YA, you're looking at 15-18.

--Sex, drugs, cursing, those things that some people still think you can't do in YA? Well, you can't do them in MG.

--MG is probably shorter. This is way more relevant in contemporary (as is probably everything I'm going to say) than in fantasy. And if you're like me, they'll probably end up being about the same size anyway, because all my books are fairly short. BREAK (YA) is 43,000 words, INVINCIBLE SUMMER (YA) is 53,000, ZOMBIE TAG (MG) is 44,000. Not a huge amount of variation there.

There are other differences I've noticed that are harder to define, but that I think are really noteworthy and interesting.

--THEMES.

MG books tend to be very focused on the main character's place in his community, whatever that may be. The MG protag wants to fit in. That doesn't have to be as literal as "I want the popular kids to like me!" though it certainly can be. You'll see a lot of "I want to be the son my father wants me to be," "I want to make the baseball team," "I want everyone to stop treating me like I'm a freak because I have cerebral palsy," or "I want my community to trust me despite this mistake I made a while ago." From there, conflict happens and things can get very confusing (though they can also stay focused on that initial motivation) but when the book starts out, very often the main character's primary goal is to find his place and slip into it.

I know it isn't a book (and I haven't even read the books. I suck) but I use the movie How To Train Your Dragon all the time when people ask me what a MG book is, because it's such a perfect example in my head. At the beginning of the movie, all Hiccup wants is to be a big strong dragon hunter like the other men in the village.

The themes in YA, on the other hand, tend to be focused on the individual alone or on her relationship with a very select group of people. "I want to get over my father's death." "I want to get into a healthy relationship. "I want to stop doing drugs." "I want to start doing drugs." "I want to get into a good college." "I want everyone to leave me alone."

Unlike MGs, which typically start wide (Hiccup's whole village) and later narrow somewhat (Hiccup's friendship with Toothless--though please keep in mind that the wider issue does not get left behind), a YA sometimes starts wide but almost always ends up very narrowly focused.

I can't use a book example for YA when I'm not using one for MG, so let's use My So-Called Life. Angela Chase wants a new life. She has all these people and they're all new and exciting. That's the first episode. By the middle of the first season, her conflicts aren't with the whole world around her anymore. They're with whether she's going to let Jordan Catalano keep copying her homework. The other people are still there, and she can still interact with them, but the individual bits of conflict tend to be on a very very tight basis. And the main conflict is definitely not how the whole school thinks of Angela, as it is for Hiccup and his village.

And before I go on--you guys know that "fitting in" or "getting a boyfriend" or "romance" or "killing dragons"...you guys know those things aren't themes, right? I saw a writer misuse the word "theme" the other day, and it broke my heart. Those are "thematic elements"--stuff the themes are concerned with--but they aren't the themes themselves. "Fitting in is impossible without altering who you are," or "Getting a boyfriend requires more persistence than most people are willing to put in," those are themes. Really depressing ones, but themes nonetheless.

Let me know if I should do a post on stuff like themes and motifs and the differences between them. I'm an English major. I can bring it if you want it.

Anyway.

--SCOPE.

The easiest way to define this is--in MG, you get to save the world. In YA, you don't.

And this is related to the last point. A typical plot arc in MG starts with the kind of conflict mentioned above and turns into something like...

MAIN CHARACTER wants X. Through doing X, he learns that he has to save the world from CONSEQUENCES OF X.

By trying to accomplish his initial goal, the protagonist might learn something or do something or figure out something that will cause him to have to save the universe, or whatever his version of the universe might be (His town, his school, his family, an actual universe).

How to Train Your Dragon:

HICCUP wants TO KILL A DRAGON. Through TRYING TO KILL A DRAGON, he learns that he has to save the world from KILLING ALL THE DRAGONS BECAUSE THEY ARE ACTUALLY NOT BAD.

Zombie Tag:

WIL wants TO BRING HIS BROTHER BACK TO LIFE. Through BRINGING HIS BROTHER BACK TO LIFE, he learns that he has to save the world from ALL THE OTHER PEOPLE HE BROUGHT BACK TO LIFE.

In YA? Not so much. The climax is way more likely to be between the main character and her boyfriend, or the main character and her best friend, than it is to be between the forces of good and evil.

Are these set in stone? Nope. A YA fantasy is way more likely to have a world-saving element than a quiet, meandering MG. But these two rules *are* the reason I'm staunchly on the "They're all MG" side of the Harry Potter debate. Harry grows up, but the themes and scope don't. It's not like we're reading thousands of pages to see if he and Ginny are going to get it on, and it's not like we wanted the final showdown in Book 7 to be Ron and Harry fighting over Hermione. The rules are looser in fantasy, but I still think the Harry Potter themes stick them all into the MG camp. A lot of the fantasy we have in YA right now is paranormal romance. Not a genre I'm well-versed in, but even though there's that element of a bigger threat, most of the conflict is still interpersonal, right?

--DEPTH AND BREADTH.

I've been giving YA sort of a bad rap in this post, which...sucks, because it's not at all what I intended. I love YA. And maybe this point will help illustrate why.

Generally, word for word, page for page, not as much happens in a YA. You get to linger. You get to really sink into a main character's voice. The fact that you're focused on two or three important relationships and not the fate of the whole world is such a blessing because it lets you go into everything very, very deeply. You can have fantastically complicated relationships in YA--think about Angela and Rayanne's in My So-Called Life. You have time to really delve into them and explore them and do whatever the fuck you want with them. And that's the thing, if you ask me, that makes YA so damn cool. I think again, measuring proportionally, word for word, YA books do more for character development and exploration than any other genre. (Go ahead, kill me for that. I don't care.)

In an MG book, usually more happens. You have a lot more action and movement and excitement. You cover a lot of ground. You don't have as much time to pause and dive into things. Is there time? Of course, and an MG that doesn't give itself time to build strong relationships between the characters is going to fall completely flat. Even if you're drawn to a book because of a cool plot--and at this age, most of the readers are--you're going to stay because you love the characters. But MG does sometimes need to leave more to the imagination than a YA, simply because there isn't time to explore all the nuances of the characters' relationships.

I mean, you have to go save the world.

The Agent Story--PART 3

So I'm on the phone, holding my breath, and Agent 2 says, "I got a job offer as an editor."

"...Oh." Yeah. I knew what was coming, but I was still gripping to a tiny bit of hope. Maybe he was about to say, but I said, screw you, bitches, I'm staying with hannah!

But no. He said he'd decided to take the job and he was really excited. But he was quick to say, "I'm not leaving you all alone. We've had a lot of meetings here, and we decided the best fit for you would probably be Suzie Townsend--"

"Oh, I know Suzie."

"You do?"

I guess it made some sense that he was surprised, since at that point, Suzie was fairly new. But I'm a ho on the internet, as you know, and I already knew Lisa Desrochers and knew Suzie was her agent. But because Lisa was the only one of her clients I knew about, my mind jumped to paranormal romance and I went WHAT ARE YOU THINKING in my head because, lovely though it may be, paranormal romance is pretty much the furthest thing from what I do. Except for the magic gay fish book. But whatever.

But when Agent 2 said, "So, can Suzie call you?" I said "Absolutely." Because what harm could it do? If it didn't seem like we'd mesh well, I could always query other people.

And then I congratulated him, and I hung up and cried my eyes out.

And then Suzie called.

Suzie is lovely on the phone, guys. Like, she's lovely in all capacities, but I feel pretty lucky that my first introduction to her was on the phone, where I could actually hear how excited she was and how much she liked my work. She thought this was going to be a great thing for both of us. I thought she was a little delusional, but at least she sounded like she liked my stuff.

I realize this part of the story makes me sound like a total bitch. But imagine you've been dating this guy for six months, and you're crazy about him, and he dumps you out of nowhere. If someone new comes along, no matter if she's super super hot and awesome and sweet, are you really going to believe her when she tells you she's your one and only true love?

Well...maybe you just need to give it a few weeks.

So I did.

And I can't really remember what happened. We started working on different stuff and re-evaluating where my career was going. I dove into Invincible Summer revisions, and her love of MG encouraged me to try my hand at it. We went on sub together and sold together. But even before that, weeks and weeks before that, I was smitten.

I think it was her ed letters.

God, nothing gets me going like a good ed letter.

So Agent 1 promised me revisions and rarely gave them. Agent 2 barely revised at all. Suzie, as some of you know, gets out her scissors and cuts your ideas into pieces and puts them back together the way they were supposed to be, you idiot.

I'd never had an agent who'd done that before. I wasn't sure I wanted it. I wasn't even sure I needed it. But the first letter Suzie sent me, on a project I'd finished years before (remember the manuscript that got me Agent 1 and didn't sell? that one) hit me in a way no critique had. You know how usually you have to get defensive first, then deal with that, then open yourself back up, before you can really see the points a critter gives you? Suzie's invented some kind of crazy magic formula that completely bypasses your defensive zone and hits you straight in the OHHHHHH part of your brain. The second she suggests something that's going to make the manuscript better, it's like I can already see that improved version of the manuscript in my head. Like I can envision all the words I'll need to change or add or take out to get there.

Writing with Suzie is different from writing without Suzie. And I never would have known that, or suspected that I was missing anything.

I'm a better writer now. I'm a different writer now. If I'd stayed with Agent 1, I'd probably still be stalled at the gate. If Agent 2 hadn't left, I'm sure I'd still be wildly happy and would probably have met a lot of success as the two of us continued together, but I would have ended up a very different writer.

But I'm with Suzie.

And I really, really like the kind of writer that's making me.

--

So there you have it. The complete and total agent story.

In some ways traditional, in some ways not.

I'll take questions, as always, and thanks for following along.

SCBWI!

SO. I will be in LA from Thursday the 29th until Tuesday the 2nd or the 3rd, I can't count. And after that I'm leaving for New York for the rest of the week, then Orlando for the week after that, so...posting will be light for the next couple of weeks.

That being said, I hope and pray that you will be at SCBWI and that you will come say hello to me. If you see me, you absolutely MUST say hi, no avoiding it. Check the videos if you need to know what I look like, and I'll tweet in the mornings what I'mw earing if you'd like to stalk me that much (which you obviously should).

If you have a copy of BREAK, please give it to me so I can sign it! I'll also tons of bookmarks on my person at all times, so you should come talk to me if just for a signed bookmark.

I am absolutely horrible with names and faces, so please, if you run into me, tell me your full name and your email address and what your book is about and your twitter handle and what your twitter picture looks like and your social security number and any other possible way for me to identify you. I promise I love you all, I just am dumb and this is how I exist.

If you are coming to SCBWI, or if you are just in the area, I have to encourage you very very VERY highly to come to the Muser reading at Open bookstore in Long Beach at 7 PM on Monday (details are in the flier in the post below this one.) I'll be reading from both Invincible Summer and Zombie Tag, giving away signed copies of BREAK like candy, and we will be playing a REAL LIVE GAME of Zombie Tag. So please come. Wine and cheese. A good time for all.

You People And Your Magic Gay Fish

You're all crazy, you know that? I invent some weird #magicgayfish hashtag and you all LIKE it. And I ask which book you want to see a teaser from, and you're like I LOVE MYSTICAL HOMOSEXUAL SEA CREATURES. You guys are sick. Sick and wrong.

Also my video this week is funny, and you should watch it.

--
The fishboy is pulling me down as hard as he can, and he's going to kill me, fuck, my parents are going to actually fall apart, but I manage to kick him in the ribs and free myself for a breath. My foot brushes his tail. It's rough like sandpaper.

“Get off me!” I push myself away from him, panting. I grab onto the edge of the dock and pull myself up, into the air. Safe. I'm huddling against the wood like it's my mother. I don't know if I'm strong enough to haul myself back onto the dock, so maybe I'll just stay here forever. This is my new home.

He's panting too. Probably from the kick in the ribs. He was already pretty bruised.

I say, “You're not a fish, you're a fucking maniac.”

He laughs, hard, his face up to the sky. I see all his teeth, must be a hundred of them, as thin as pine needles. He has a loud, piercing laugh. Like a whistle.

I know that voice. He's the screams at night. He's the screaming and the crying that my parents told me is the wind.

He spends hours screaming. Goddamn. Either he really is a maniac, or he's got to be the saddest fishboy in the world.

Then he grabs me by the front of my shirt. “I don't want to see you killing any more fish, you got that?”

I pull away from him. “My brother needs them.”

I really didn't think this would concern him, but he lets go and looks at me. He keeps his eyes narrowed. “What's wrong with your brother?”

“You're a shitty spy.”

“What's wrong with your brother?”

“He's sick. Cystic Fibrosis.”

“Cystic whatever.” But he doesn't say it cruelly, but like he's trying to figure out what I meant. ”Whatever fibrosis.” He tilts his head like it will help the words roll around in his brain.

“Yeah. The fish are making him well.”

He keeps looking at me for a long minute. “They're working?”

“Yeah.” Slowly.

“Well. Good, I guess.” There's this pause, then he goes, “The little one, right? Who was with your...you know.”

“Mom?”

“Yeah.”

“That's the one.”

The fishboy rubs the back of his head. “My hair used to be really long. It was awesome. Fisherman cut it off, said I looked like a girl.”

“Oh.”

“Your brother's cute. How old is he?”

“Five.”

I can tell he doesn't like this answer, for some reason. “Oh. He looks younger.”

The way we're balanced in the water right now, I feel like he's a lot shorter than I am. And his frown makes him look suddenly younger.

“Good luck with that, then, I guess,” he says.

I say, “Thanks.”

“But stay the fuck away from my fish.”

Wait. “I...”

Fishboy mumbles, “Sorry about your brother,” then he pushes off from me and swims away. He's faster than I could ever be, but he doesn't get out very far before he has to stop and pant while he treads water. His silver-spotted chest is heaving. I should have kicked him somewhere besides his chest.

Then he dives back under the water and he's gone. And I wait a few minutes until I can pull myself back on the dock. I walk home shivering and trying to think of what story I'm going to tell my parents about why I'm all wet, but when I get there, Dylan's coughing so hard that they don't even notice me come in.

Zombie Tag Rules

My ARC contest is open until midnight, July 17th. Please enter here.

There are a few reasons why this is the most important thing you will ever read.

1. It details proven zombie-killer techniques.

2. It's the most fun you will ever have with spatulas, brains, and your mouth.

3. If you are at SCBWI, we're going to be playing this, and you better be part of the fun, bitch.

Before we begin, I would like to state, for the record, that as much as I would like to, I can't take credit for Zombie Tag the game. (I can take full credit for Zombie Tag the book, so put down your pitchfork.) It was invented by my lovely friend David Colby who kindly insisted that I write a book about it. I made a few small tweaks, but this is largely his game. This is a very good example of how most of my good ideas come from infiltrating (eating) the brains of others.

This official rulebook WAS written by me, as you can probably tell by the snark, but the ideas behind it are his, and I thank him enormously. He'll be in the acknowledgments, and he is also a Zombie Tag player in the book.

So. Without further ado, the rules to Zombie Tag.


--

For the best game of Zombie Tag, you need somewhere between 8 and 15 people. More or less can work, depending on the size of the house. Wil, the main character in Zombie Tag, plays with closer to 6 people, because his parents would never let eight kids in their house at once.

This game is played at night, in the dark.

Let's say you're playing with eight people.

--Your objective is: If you are a zombie, turn everyone else into a zombie. If you are a human, escape the house.

--One person is Zombie God. This is a great honor, usually granted to you if it is 1. your birthday or 2. your house.

-- Zombie God has one very important job. He writes BARRICADE on seven post-it notes, and ZOMBIE on one. He shuffles these and passes them out to all the players, keeping one for himself. The post-its are secret, and none of the players, including the Zombie God, know what post-its the others have. The Zombie God's job is now over.

--Everyone secretly looks at their post-it notes. Chances are, you are a human, in which case your post-it will say BARRICADE. Keep that note. Keep your face neutral.

--Everyone gathers into a circle and closes their eyes. At this point, the lucky player with the ZOMBIE post-it sneaks out of the circle. In some versions of the game, all players will stomp their feet to drown out the sound of his sneaking. But true zombies will not need this, as they move silently and possibly with powers of invisibility.

--The zombie takes a predetermined object--in Wil's versions, a stuffed dinosaur--and hides it somewhere in the house. To escape the house, you need to find this object. It is the key, and the only way to open the front door.

--The zombie runs around the circle and taps each person on the head. Once you are tapped on the head, you silently count to ten before opening your eyes. This allows the zombie to sneak back into the circle.

--It is now time to play. Grab a flashlight and a spatula. You'll need them. You may either strike out on your own or team up with as many people as you like to search the house for the key. The zombie, at this point, pretends to search as well.

--The zombie has thirty seconds to pretend to be normal. At this point, he then reveals himself as a zombie ("RAWWWR, BRAINS," etc.) and attempts to bite as many humans as possible. Ears are a good bet, but anywhere will do.

--If you are the victim of an attempted zombie attack, you have four ways to escape:

1) Fight him off with your spatula. Zombies are terrified of spatulas.

2) Hit him on the top of his head with the flat of your hand (gently, please) which is a zombie paralysis move that will freeze the zombie for ten seconds, allowing you to make an escape.

3) Run. Be warned, however: Zombies possess super speed.

4) Remember your BARRICADE post-it? Slap it on a door and hide in a room. The zombie, upon encountering a barricaded door, must bang on it for thirty seconds to break the barricade before he can enter. This should give you time to find the key if it is hidden in this room, at which point you will need to find an alternate route or fight the zombie long enough to sprint to the door. Or, if the key is not in the room, it is enough time for you to call your mother and tell her you love her.

--If you are bitten, you become a zombie. But all is not lost! You now begin hunting the others with your zombie compatriots. And you win if everyone is a zombie at the end.

--If you are a human and you find the key, run like hell towards the front door. If you escape, you win! You are now the only hope for humanity.

:)

Okay, I'm sorry that all my posts lately have been ME ME ME, but it's been a very exciting week. I promise I'll have good posts for you next week (and if you have any topics you would like to see addressed, please let me know! I'm short of ideas at the moment.)

But I needed to share this:

I'll post the PM announcement when it's up (more me me me. sigh. I really don't like to do this, guys) but right now, I can tell you that my MG novel, ZOMBIE TAG, sold to Roaring Brook Press, a children's division of Macmillan, yesterday in a two book deal. It will be a hardcover, out in Fall 2011.

And I can tell you that I am ridiculously, ridiculously excited.

I hope the lovely Suzie Townsend doesn't mind if I steal her description of the book, since it is better than anything I could ever write. It's better than the book, in fact. :)

Thirteen year old Wil Lowenstein can't help wishing his parents would
stop ignoring him and go back to the way they were before. Before,
like before his older brother Graham died in a recent accidental fire.

Wil copes with Graham's death by focusing on Zombie Tag, a
mafia/capture the flag hybrid game he created for his friends. He, his
best friend Anthony, and their other friends fight off brain-eating
zombies with their mother's spatulas. What Wil doesn’t tell anybody is
that if he could bring his dead brother back as a zombie, he would. In
a heartbeat.

In fact, when he finds a bell that can summon all the dead within five
miles, he seizes the chance. Graham returns from the dead, but he's
not the same. None of the returned are. At first they're just
emotionless, apathetic - lifeless. But then some of the zombies slowly
start to get one emotion back - anger. And Wil is going to have to
find a way to fix zombie-Graham and turn him back into the angsty
teenager he's supposed to be before it's too late. Because some of the
zombies are banding together and plotting something. And Wil isn't
sure his mom's spatulas are really going to do the trick if the
zombies really do want to eat his brains.

I'm so incredibly happy, guys.