A Very Musical Countdown to INVINCIBLE SUMMER

So.

A lot of people make playlists for their books. I am one of them!

I've been trying to figure out the best way to show you guys my INVINCIBLE SUMMER playlist, because I'm pretty damn proud of it, and because it was hugely, hugely important to the creation of the book, even more so than most of the playlists I make

So here's what's up. Tomorrow, I'm going to run a post on the first song on INVINCIBLE SUMMER's playlist, and I'll keep on doing that until I run out of songs.

Here's the thing.

Tomorrow, when I start these posts, there will be 23 days left until INVINCIBLE SUMMER comes out.

I am not sure how many songs are on this playlist, but I *think* it is either 20 or 21.

Which means! I am going to run out of songs to post before time runs out! What to do what to do OH I THINK I KNOW WHAT TO DO.

I THINK ON EACH OF THOSE DAYS, I WILL HAVE A CONTEST.

!!!!!

And who even KNOWS what the prizes will be.

Will they be petite lap giraffes?

Will they be copies of INVINCIBLE SUMMER?

Will they be bushels of fresh fruit?

Will they be FIRE??

Will they be CDs of INVINCIBLE SUMMER's playlist?

Will they be some combination of two of the above suggestions??

REALLY IT'S ANYONE'S GUESS.

----------------

So here are my rules for making playlists. I'm not enforcing them on anyone else! I'm just listing them because this is my blog and I can say whatever I want la la la la la la la.

---MAKE IT BEFORE YOU START. You make the playlist during the plotting stage. You can alter it later, but this happens before you get started. This is how you get the story in the head. This is how you let it roll around and chew on you and all that good stuff stories do.

---DO IT IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER. I don't write outlines. I make playlists.

And it works. If I don't know what happens next, I check the playlist. If I'm listening to the middle of the playlist and I realize I have four songs in a row expressing the same thing...uh, maybe something needs to fucking happen at that point in the story. Time to check iTunes for possible plot points!

---NO FAVORITES. If you know me at all, you'll know I love Motion City Soundtrack more than any healthy person loves anything. Which means I've listened to all of their songs a zillion times. I know them backwards and forwards.

You can't use songs you know that well. You need songs that you still have to listen to. When I'm first making a playlist, I put in tons of songs I've downloaded but never listened to if they have titles that sound like they might possibly work. If they don't, it's pretty damn easy to delete it. But The Music Gods make it work surprisingly often.

On that note:

---USE THOSE SONGS THAT SOMEHOW ENDED UP IN YOUR LIBRARY AND YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW. Those songs are there for a reason! It's fate!

---LISTEN TO IT WHENEVER. Sometimes I like to listen to music while I write. Sometimes I don't. Most of the playlist listening I do happens outside of actual writing time. It's the only music I'm allowed to listen to while I'm writing the first draft of the book.

You will get sick of it. You will hum the songs in your sleep. You will discover favorite bits of songs you don't even like all that much. You will discover that you actually hate songs that you thought you kind of liked.

WELCOME TO WRITING.

Just in song form.

I'll kick off with song #1 tomorrow.

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'.

AWESOME CONTEST OF AWESOMENESS

Tadaaaa! I know you've been dying of anticipation.

Well HERE IT IS:



That's right. You can win ARCs of my book Invincible Summer! and Suzanne Young's book A Need So beautiful! And some other stuff too!!

The entry form is right HERE and it is without a doubt the easiest form in the world. Trust us. And that's all you have to do!

BUT if you want extra karma points, it's probably a good idea to add our books on goodreads--HERE and HERE.

Also you could tweet or blog about this because people will think you're cool for knowing about such an awesome contest. True story. Our contest will make you more popular.

Enter! Enter! Enter!

A Contest! A Contest of Awesome Proportions! An Awesome Contest of Awesomeness!

Here is a teaser for the most amazing contest of your life, brought to you by the AMAZING Suzanne Young.

Check back next week.

And you might want to check Suz's blog too. It's possible I'm there. It's possible the link is right here.

COVER COVER COVER

You can click on it to make it bigger. Also the tagline is obviously a placeholder. My editor is funny.

And here's some bullshit blurb that I wrote to give you some idea of what it's about:

Craig, for the first time in nearly a year, wakes up in Silver Spring, Maryland on October 2nd, 2002 to a house devoid of chirping, barking, and mewing. Between twilight and daylight, somehow his entire menagerie escaped. All the animals that he'd collected since his old boyfriend was dragged away to the psych ward. Gone.

Lio, the post-cancer kid transfer student from New York City, doesn't like to talk. But he does like Craig. His new therapist says he's "a little fucked up." Craig just says, if he has the time, could he help him put up posters?

At 5:20 PM, when their stack of posters is about halfway out and Lio surprises Craig with a kiss, the sniper shootings begin.

Ten people died in the D.C. sniper shootings. This is the story of two of the boys who didn't.

--

I love this cover. Do you love this cover? Do you hate this cover? TELL ME TELL ME NOW.

Sparkly!Fairy!Prostitute!

Time for a teaser!

--

“So,” Josha said, his feet up on the railing of Beckan's balcony, his ass on the porch swing. They were watching the tightropers continue stringing their lines, and watching the fairies on the streets rushing around with their heads covered, like they were expecting rain. A news report blared from inside, where Beckan had left her father in front of the TV.

She knew what Josha was going to say, but she gave him nothing. She almost always knew what Josha was going to say. She loved him very much but had long ago given up hope.

“So,” Josha said. “Scrap?”

“He's teaching me to read.”

“How charitable.”

“Not really. Selfish. He wants someone to read his stupid stories. He's desperate.”

“Cricket won't read them?”

“Who?”

“His cousin,” Josha said. “They live together."

“I didn't know his name.” She had only seen him a few times. He was usually walking from room to room, usually with headphones jammed over his ears.

Josha said, “So you're really not crazy about him.”

“Scrap?”

“Either.”

“I told you.”

“Since you don't know his family or anything. Don't know anything about him.” He gave her a sloppy grin. “After all, you know me. So.”

She watched the trightropers instead of responding. Josha said “Cricket” quietly to himself a few times. “Must be a genius if he avoids the stories,” he mused.

“Cold-hearted genius, maybe.”

“A genius is a genius. I don't need another heart, anyway.”

Then the first bombs went off, and they sprang towards each other as if they had previously been stretched apart. Beckan felt some heat on her cheek, like the city was breathing on her, but she couldn't see where the bomb fell or detect any damage. From the porch of Beckan's house, at the bottom of the hill, it was hard to see much of anything.

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.