Posts for category ‘random’

I love fan mail. And I love that in this day and age, you can get fanmail, like, instantly. At the risk of sounding a little bit like I’m wallowing in the success of my first book as a way of avoiding the work that still needs to be done on the second book, I’ll share a few of my favorite reader quotes from real live teenagers on the Internets:

“i loved the way you wrote. it made me want to keep reading. i would read a chapter and then put it down and do something and read a chapter.”

“I laughed, I cried and I just wanted you know that I think your book is one of the best books I have ever read!”

“I really liked your book, I think about it practically every day!”

“You should really make a second, i really enjoyed reading it but the annoying part was that i read it so fast and i was so mad it was already done.”

Awesome. And I didn’t even make any of those up. Hearing from readers is seriously the best thing in the whole wide world.

You know what else is pretty sweet? Getting a starred review in Booklist. I guess I can say that now because the current issue just came out.

But enough about me. Let’s play a blog game! It only sounds like it’s about me. Whatcha do is type in your name + the word “needs” into Google and post the first 5 (nondirty) results. Here is what I get (eliminating results that are basically other blog posts of this game):

- Sara needs a loving, playful home. Check.

- Sara needs you. It’s true. See the first half of this post and the bottomless needs of my ego.

- Sara needs something more than the well-established love of her companion (Francois-Eric Gendron). Never heard of him.

- Sara needs a lawyer? Fortunately, not at this time.

- Sara needs support in learning to make safe choices that more effectively reflect her goals and desired outcomes, including planning for special holidays and events. Wow. Well, I never thought about it, but yeah.

(…or is it “I wish I was”?)

1. I could karaoke with super-professional karaoke-ers (there should be a word for that) Bennett Madison and Tara Altebrando.

2. I could go out for drinks with my agent and talk business (because we always restrict all our communication to business, oh yes).

3. I could spend an afternoon writing with the Longstockings.

4. Nick Arrojo could do my hair.

5. (This is really the one you’re supposed be paying attention to…) I could go hear Keith Dixon read from The Art of Losing. In Cecil Castellucci’s latest episode of “I Heart YA,” John Green is somewhat reluctant to heart YA and you know, I can understand that. You can heart all YA some of the time, and you can heart some YA all of the time, but you can’t heart all YA all of the time. If you are not in the mood to heart YA or are perhaps sick of it altogether, you should go to Keith’s reading and hear some awesome literary noir for grownups that has been compared to James M. Cain’s (you know, Mildred Pierce! Double Indemnity! The Postman Always Rings Twice!). Keith will be at the Lincoln Center Barnes & Noble tomorrow night (Thursday) at 7 p.m. That’s 66th & Broadway. Tell him I said hi.

Watching the news last night, especially after there was no more real information but the stations wanted to stay on the story (even if it meant resorting to “Get” Gephardt—who knows what his real name is—interviewing a lone guy on a bus to ask if him if he had a ride home since all the cars at the Trolley lot were impounded), I was pondering the nature of bad news, horrific news, and how it triggers something in people that is a weird mix of excitement and the longing to be included. After I posted to my blog last night, I started thinking, what is the impulse to do that? Is it really so people can know I’m okay, or do I want to somehow insert myself into a tragedy because it’s news and it’s different even though it has nothing to do with me? I remember when this boy at my high school died of leukemia in his junior or senior year. He wasn’t popular, but not unpopular. Sort of on the fringes. I had a friend who knew him really well, they’d grown up almost as brother and sister. When the school had a memorial assembly for him there was definitely this feeling for my friend of, what the hell? You people didn’t know him! Why are you crying? Why are you making it about you? I do the same thing, I know I do. There’s this desire to say, “I was there. I was a part of that.” Even if the definition of “part” is very, very loose. Anyway. They’ll release the names of the victims and shooter at noon. Meanwhile, there was a workplace shooting in Philly and part of me wonders if the shooter here, an 18-year-old, heard about that and thought, Why not? In Phoenix, an 84-year-old man killed his granddaughter and another teen before the police killed him. Today, a bunch more people were killed in Iraq. A local kid has this to deal with. People are making Anna Nicole Smith jokes and the body is barely cold. I’m not sure what my point is. At my women’s group last night we were talking about where we find our security. Basically anything in this life that seems to offer security really doesn’t.

Since life may be short, you might as well laugh a little today. If you’re a Food Network or cooking show junkie, you will enjoy this rant. (On Rachael Ray: “Complain all you want. It’s like railing against the pounding surf. She only grows stronger and more powerful.”)

If you want to see what libraries are carrying your book, check this out – thanks DL Garfinkle! It’s pretty cool to think about my book sitting there in the Brooklyn Public Library or in Vancouver and Alaska.

FYI, e-mail notification of LJ comments isn’t working for me right now. Which is probably for the best as I have plenty of work to do. Starting now.

DVR-related: Okay, this week’s Gilmore Girls was really great. I love Emily. In fact, I almost have no complaints about the episode. Almost. Because Logan was in it, and any episode with Logan is an episode about which I have complaints. You know what would have been awesome? If CuteDean came to the hospital!! But I know he’s busy having supernatural powers and stuff. Still! Christopher is llllllame.

Home-related: Today I am going to buckle down and weed through my cook book collection. Even if I made a new recipe three times a day, every day for the rest of my life, I would not get through a fraction of my cook books. I’m going to recycle the old cooking magazines except for my Bon Appetits from the early nineties, because those are what you need when you have a quantity of butter and cream you want to use up. There are also several cook books that I’ve not cracked open in years, even to get ideas, so they are going. With the (still plentiful) books that are left, I’m trying to commit to actually making a new recipe from them twice a week. (Generally I use my cook books for inspiration more than actual recipes, but most of the time I end up cooking the same stuff or type of stuff over and over.) Today my plan is Lekach, or Eastern European honey cake, from Mark Bittman’s The Best Recipes in the World. I happen to have all the ingredients and it looks pretty easy and not too sweet.

Publishing-related: If you are headed to the SCBWI NY conference this weekend, my editor, Jennifer Hunt, is doing one of the break-out sessions! If you end up in her session, she is nervous so smile and nod, be nice and attentive and ask an intelligent question that is not about fonts or margins. If you there’s a lull in the question time, I dare you to raise your hand and say, “Sara Zarr told me to say hi.”

So now I am caught up on vacuuming and leg-shaving and therapy and checkbook-balancing (btw, I am way broker than I thought), and I have a couple of weeks before my next revision notes. Therefore it is high time for one of those mini-retreats I keep claiming I’m going to do. No computer for me Wednesday-Thursday. That’s right. If you need me, give me a jingle. On the phone. See you on Friday!