Mormonism: Library Stool or Cult?

Here it is!  The final cover for BACK WHEN YOU WERE EASIER TO LOVE.   I know this news might be anti-climactic to those of you who've already seen the cover.  I was going to put it in the last post, but I didn't want it to overshadow my picture of Michael on safari.

Don't you love this cover?  I've ALWAYS wanted my name on a library step-stool.  So basically my life is complete.  Or at least will be when the book releases, on April 28th!

A friend of mine overheard a co-worker say:

"I googled 'Mormon' on Amazon, just looking to see what's being published, and the first thing I see is a pair of feet on a library stool, and the book is called BACK WHEN YOU WERE EASIER TO LOVE. What does that have to do with Mormons??"

I'm pretty sure the co-worker was complaining, but hello, that's fantastic news for me.  Except when I search for "Mormon" on Amazon, the first thing I see is:

THE MORMON CULT: A FORMER MISSIONARY REVEALS THE SECRETS OF MORMON MIND CONTROL.

And the cover is bo-ring.

What happens when you do the search?

This Just In: Heart And Soul Ball Full Of Heart, Souls

Before Girls Camp even ended, I was oh-so-aware of how long it had been since I wore a bridesmaid dress.  Too long.  So I knew what I had to do.  I had to finish up Girls Camp, take a shower, and get to the SCBWI L.A Conference, already in progress. While I had missed quite a few speakers, I had not missed the highlight of any conference:  The Ball.

Here I am with Bree and Brodi, as well as Lindsey Leavitt and Lisa Schroeder, who aren't just my friends, they are my FELLOW CLUB MEMBERS!  Yes, it's true, for the first time in my life I've been asked to join a club!

Okay, so it's not that true.  The club is less of a "club" and more of a "group," but tomatoes/ tomatoes.  We're called the Contemps, and from the countdown on my sidebar you'll note (now's the time to check out the countdown on my sidebar) that we are thisclose to releasing our fabulousness to the world!  All will be revealed soon.  Until then, grab the stylish countdown clock and rock it on your own blog.  Who needs details when you can have stylish countdown clocks?

Speaking of details, back to my trip to L.A.  I mean, I could have just gone for the ball, the fishnet stockings, and the chance to rub shoulders with Matt Kirby.

But I didn't.  I went for this guy:

Ta-da!  My utterly and completely awesome agent Michael Bourret, who has represented me for about two years (I just checked and I signed with him on August 29, 2008.  I'll send him flowers for our anniversary in a few weeks) (Just kidding, I don't even send my husband flowers on our anniversary.  I'm too cheap).   Anyway, I had yet to meet Michael, even after almost-two wonderful years together.

Unlike Brodi, who wasted her first forty minutes with Michael by rambling on about Rafa, I spent my first forty minutes regaling Michael with tales of Girls Camp, and also reasons why I will never be featured on the website cutencraftyldsmoms.org.  Even if there were such a website.  And even if I were a mom.

Clearly, I wowed him, as evidenced by this picture in which he is trying to pretend he doesn't know me:

Photo brilliance brought to you courtesy of my cameraphone.  After twenty minutes my husband was able to get these pictures onto my computer, "thanks to the power of stuff."  Those were his exact words.  He did not offer to teach me to use this powerful "stuff," leading me to believe I'm doomed to a life of technical ineptitude.  Which I'm more or less okay with.

I have more good news to share (I know, MORE??).  I'm too excited to wait until next Tuesday to post it, so check back on Thursday for an update!

How Girls Camp Reaffirmed My Faith In God

DAY 1:

I drive my mother's mini-van up to camp.  The road is straight uphill, unpaved, and covered with rocks.  Bumpity-bump we go.  I do not get woo-head.  I do not even get mildly dizzy.  I ignore people flipping me the bird when I realize it is not because of my driving, but because of Mom's choice in bumper stickers, proclaiming her support of Obama, public radio, and elitist liberal art colleges.  I smile and wave.  The girls and I are safe and on time.

A hornet lands on my arm.  It fails to sting me.

DAY 2:

I realize that I've sneezed a grand total of three times since my arrival at camp.  I've had worse allergies than this in my dentist's office.  It's as if no blade of grass, no tree nor bush can harm me.  I wonder if perhaps I have become immortal.  To double check, I trip over a tree root.  The ensuing bruise confirms that I am indeed still human.  The meager size of the bruise confirms that some higher power has heard the pleas of myself and my other dedicated blog-readers.

We are in bear country.  We see nary a bear.

DAY 3:

It's our turn on the much-buzzed-about zipline, which is less a real zipline and more an elementary-school-playground get-up that happens to cross a deep ravine.  I'm in charge of waiting at the bottom to help the girls dismount.  They fly to me at Superman speeds.  They ask me to try.  Despite worries of woo-head and Bad Hand, I oblige.

Once I get on the zipline, time seems to slow down.  Then I realize that no, it is not TIME slowing down, I am actually moving slow-motion in real-time.  I dangle over the ravine, admiring its beauty, vaguely aware that something has gone awry.  "Bend your knees!" the girls say.  I do, but it does not change anything.  I gradually stop short of the finish line.  There is no need for help dismounting.  Which is good, because no one would be able to.  They're all rolling on the ground, crying with laughter.  I am unscathed.

It pours rain.  Lighting strikes a tree.  Ominous smoke billows.   This tree is not on our campsite.

The tree hit by lightning on our campsite is fine, as are we.

DAY 4:

The mini-van's battery is dead, but luckily we have a nice neighbor with jumper cables and a leader named Grandpa with a powerful truck and engine know-how.

My flesh wounds are so scant I can count them:  6.  This is a 317% improvement over last year.

Prayer works.

I love you, girls.  We are small but mighty.

Gone Campin'

If you're reading this, I successfully managed a delayed posting.  As of right now, I am camping with five girls between eleven and eighteen years old.  With a little luck,  no major travesty will befall me and I'll be back to post next week. Pray for me.

My Favorite INFJ

First, the promised writing news: My next YA novel, BACK WHEN YOU WERE EASIER TO LOVE, officially releases April 28, 2011! I have an almost-final copy of the cover, which I should be able to post by next week. If you've already seen the "working cover" you know how much I love it and can't wait to share. Do you think it's possible for your personality to change over time? I've been mulling it over lately as I've been working on a new manuscript. The main character is a lot me now. She's also a lot like I was as a teenager. Which makes sense--I feel like I'm exactly the same now as I was ten or even twenty years ago.

I'm just happier. Healthier. And I have more friends. But does that change a personality? Would my friends now even recognize the me of days gone by?

When I was taking a psychology class in high school, we took a field trip to a nearby university and each filled out a questionnaire determining where we fell on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. The MBTI determines where you fall on  four spectrums:

Extraversion (E)	Introversion (I)
Sensing (S)	Intuition (N)
Thinking (T)	Feeling (F)
Judgment (J)	Perception (P)

This means there are sixteen personality types, depending on which four traits you prefer (this is a super-shortened, not-that-great summary).

I was an INFJ.   A quick look on Wikipedia shows that only 1-3% of the U.S Population is INFJ, making it the rarest personality type.  Which figures.  INFJ is often called "The Sage," personality type, which is kind of cool, but not really.  It's especially heavy on the "not really" when you're seventeen years old and your personality type is represented by this:

I memorized my friends' personality types (because I had so few friends, this was easy).  For a time, I took to referring to them as, "My favorite ENFJ," or "My favorite ESTP."

A week or so ago, I was reading the Shrinking Violets website and found that in this day and age, you can actually find the Myers-Briggs Type for your blog!  Of course, I immediately typed in my url and got this:  ESTP.

My blog's personality is the opposite of mine!  On each one of the  four spectrums!  Crazy, no?   The best part is that ESTP is often called "The Doer" as is represented by:

Doesn't she look kick-a?  And unlike me  in every way?

I would love to be this girl.  But I am not.  I don't try to hide that on my blog, do I?  I keep it real, don't I?  Or has my personality changed?  Will I soon wake to find myself wearing knee-socks and casually holding a ball of some sort?

So the next day I was sending a message to a friend via facebook when I saw that she'd taken a facebook-app version of the MBTI.  So of course, I had to take it, too.

I know there's been much controversy surrounding facebook of late.  I haven't shown much interest because facebook doesn't really do that much for me (or I for it).  But seriously, love orr hate it, the MyType app is awesome.  It gave me a quick but comprehensive eval which determined I was...yep.  An INFJ.

Can I represent myself with this, instead?

My Summer In Desserts

People have wondered where I've been the last...let's see...nigh unto two months.  They're worried about me, and my health.  As they should be.  While they may be referring to my (always suspect) mental health, my physical health will probably be suffering shortly.  Because where have I been this summer?  I've been eating! Last I updated, I was on my way to St. George to participate in a conference for the Utah Library Association.  I also participated in eating these cupcakes:

...I also talked, along with my buds Bree Despain, Sydney Salter, and Bobbie Pyron.  They were great, of course, but let's give top billing where top billing is due.

Next stop?  Wilmington, North Carolina to do research for my latest book.

The book is entitled:  How to Find and Eat Wilmington's Most Glorious Chocolate Desserts.   This is only a working title, since I haven't actually run the idea past my agent yet.

June brought with it the much-anticipated (by me) Writing and Illustrating for Young Readers Conference!  And what a success it was.   Besides the phenomenal writing-related stuff, I got to eat sandwiches handmade by the extremely humble chef/writer extraordinaire, Sydney Salter.

Then I lingered over dessert (Deanna, that line was for you) with brand-new bff Brandon Mull, medium- long bff Lisa Mangum, and bffs-for-way-too-long The Six.  Conspicuously absent was Brodi. For whatever reason, she  thought traveling to Washington with her biological family trumped traveling to Sandy with her adopted family, aka The Six.   While we question her priorities, she remains in good standing with the rest of us.

The best dessert of the conference was the night the organizers (thanks, Lisa and Carol!) took the faculty to trendy downtown eatery the Copper Onion.

Some of us overindulged...

But despite the temptation to ask for seconds, I remained calm, cool,  and ready to hang with my workshop group one last time.

There's one other rad chocolate dessert I had this summer.  I even took a picture of it on my brand-new phone, which belongs solely to me, not shared-with-my-husband or formerly-my-brother's.    It's pretty swank, if I say so myself, and takes excellent photos (especially of one chocolate raspberry milkshake after a late-night showing of Eclipse).  Alas, I cannot retrieve the photo.  On a related note, if anyone has an LG Rumor 2 Touch and knows how to get the photos from it onto a computer, I'd love a heads-up.

So that more or less brings us to right now.  I have lots of exciting forthcoming-book-news to share, but I'll save that for next post.

Happy Summer!

And the Winner Is...Plus, Weekend Plans

And the winner of  the Warriors in the Crossfire giveaway for true BFF and fellow author Nancy Bo Flood?  My own sister-in-law, Shannon Smith, who commented on my blog via Facebook!  Congratulations, Shannon!  I promise I did not rig this, even though now it means I won't have to actually package and mail the book!  Nonetheless, I did not rig this. In other news, I am leaving for St. George basically as soon as I finish typing this (in other words, next year) (no, really, I have to be there tonight).  Why?  Because I'll be on a panel for the Utah Library Association Conference tomorrow, and I'm speaking bright and early with  YA writer friends Bree Despain, Sydney Salter, and Bobbie Pyron.  If you're a librarian and will be there, come say hey!  If you'll be in St. George because, for example, you live there, let me know and we can figure out a way to still say hey.  Because I don't discriminate.  Although I do love librarians...

Then, on Saturday, I'll be speaking on another panel.  This time the venue will be the historic Provo Library, for the Provo Children's Book Festival.   We'll have Utah authors and illustrators galore, plus Jenni and Matthew Holms of BabyMouse  fame, and the event is FREE.  So there's really no excuse not to be there.

Most importantly, one of my girls will be in her school's  Broadway-style musical revue Friday night, and there's no way I'm missing it.  Break a leg, Mariah!

What are your weekend plans?  If you don't have any as of yet, I'd love to see you.  And if you're some crazy-A stalker-type...I'd probably still love to see you.

Now That I Have Your Attention...

In honor of my spotlight on Nancy Bo Flood today, I wanted to start this post by displaying a picture of my delectable slice of Heath Mud Pie, per her request (or, okay, expectation).  Alas, I did not bring my camera to lunch that day, and I've not yet joined the rest of the 2010 world by getting a camera phone.   I tried to Google an image of this delight, but instead I kept accidentally clicking on myriad links telling me how many calories are IN said delight.  Hello!  I don't want to know!  I just want to see it again.  A picture is zero calories.   In fact, I probably burn calories by drooling.

This was supposed to be a picture of a decoy chocolate dessert I had on a cruise with my grandmother, but instead it is a picture of us with the Neil Diamond impersonator onboard.  I am not going to find the replacement photo because I've wasted too much time already.  Also, I'm not sure how to delete this one.  And why would I want to, anyway?

But back to Nancy Bo Flood  and her book, Warriors in the Crossfire. Just so you know, I've always used all three names when addressing Nancy Bo Flood, and it's a habit I can't seem to shake.

Even if Nancy Bo Flood  wasn't my friend, I would still think this was a great idea for a novel.  The story takes place during the final months of World War II, in the tiny South Pacific Island of Saipan.  I know I was fascinated with WWII when I was younger, and most of the ten-through-thirteen-year-olds I know have been at some point, too.  But I think most of them are as clueless as I was about Saipan's role in the war:  it acted as a buffer between Japan and the American troops.  Saipan was caught in the crossfire, as is Joseph, the main character in this book.

Add to that the beautiful, poetic language I've long admired in Nancy Bo Flood's work, and you have a story with everything--adventure to keep you on the edge of your seat, and good writing to make it a read to remember.  Here's one of my favorite reviews:

"Nancy Bo Flood's novel casts a bright light on one of the forgotten shadows of World War II, the near total devastation of Saipan and the native people who lived there. Joseph's story forces us to pay attention, to see war itself as an event that affects more than the opposing forces and illuminates its darkest corners."

--Kathi Appelt, author of  The Underneath, finalist, the National Book Award, Newbery Honor Book

That's high praise, friends, especially considering the source (oh, mighty Kathi).

Want a copy of this book?  Go buy one!  Just kidding.  I mean, you should buy one, but if you can't swing it right now, never fear!  Leave a comment on this blog and enter to win Warriors In The Crossfire.  Twitter/ facebook/blog about it and get an additional entry for each!  Don't wait--do it now.

And have a top day!

The Happiest Post on Earth

Awhile ago, back when I was feeling semi-confident in my ability to maintain a weekly blog, my buddy Nancy Bo Flood emailed me.   I've been told I overuse BFF, to the point that when people find out I'm actually friends with said BFF, they're  surprised.  So Nancy is not my BFF, but it sure seemed like it as we brushed our teeth together in a dorm bathroom  at Vermont College, where we were both getting our MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults. Now Nancy has written a YA novel, Warriors In The Crossfire, just out from Front Street Books.  And I promised to do an in-depth, cool profile of her/ her piece de resistance.  Then I forgot to blog.  So this post is a pre-post to Thursday's blog, a professional, awesome post (unlike...well...the posts up to now).  This way I'll have time to spread the word about Nancy, and the post won't have only one reader.

Also on Thursday:  there will be prizes!  So tell everyone you know.

To prep myself for writing an actual blog with, you know, information, I decided to start with something easy:

Don't you hate it when something that is supposed to be easy is actually NOT easy?  That's how it was with this picture.  But it was worth it, wasn't it?  I mean, check out that Chocolate Cheese Pie.  It, along with its cousin, the Heath Mud Pie, were two of my favorite things about our Disneyland vacation.

This was the other one:

Yep.  Disney-wrapped chocolates at turn-down every night!

There was more, much more,  to the trip than chocolate.  But really, how can anything  follow that?

See you Thursday.

How To Be Prepared...For An Impromtu Found Art Exhibit

The other day I was telling my agent Michael, who recently moved to Los Angeles,  about my fear of earthquakes.  We're talking verging-on-paranoid fear (some might say I've already reached the point of paranoia).  He assured me that one of the first things he did when moving to California was prepare survival kits for the house and the car. Truly, he is my kin.  I'm all over emergency preparedness kits.  For the house.  Because, well, I'm not in my car that often.  And I tend to forget that other people are.   So the other day, Dan came home from work with this:

This was once part of our car emergency kit.  By once, I mean however long ago it was I assembled these kits.  I'm guessing it was a long, long, time ago, back when the purple thing was still a candle, the pack of Big Red was still chewable and the change...well, I don't really know what that's all about.

I'm thinking that with these kits, we'd survive all of 7 seconds in a disaster.

Now, for the good news!

1) I've since updated the kits.  In case an emergency strikes and we happen to be in the car, I've upped our survival time to 3 1/2 hours.

2)  Physical Therapist Amanda retested me and yes!  When I walk, I am no longer in the "fall risk" zone.   So in an emergency, if I am required to walk, don't worry about me falling.  I can go all night, baby.  Oh yeah.

3) Lately I've been working on a set of goals with the young women who I will, in only a few months, be taking on yet another camping adventure. One of these goals is to learn a new skill.  As my new skill I decided to learn to  refinish our bedroom dressers.  These dressers, while super-functional, are really, really ugly.  And I have a pretty high tolerance for ugly.

Oh vanity, thy name is Em Dawg.   I get out of the "fall risk" zone and think I can do anything.  Including refinish a dresser.  All I can say is that my accomplishment today was changing the sheet of paper in the power sander.

Okay, this is not the power sander.  I'm still not sure why.  I took another picture, one of me next to the power sander, but taking photos of myself is another New Skill I Must Learn because it was so bad I stuck with a power sander still-life.  Only now, instead of the still life, I have a Mac battery.  Why is there even a picture of a Mac battery on my camera?

If we had our Mac with us in case of an emergency, our odds of surviving unscathed would be through the roof.  As long as the battery was charged.