- How to let your agent earn his or her money. I already knew this. I’ve found that taking every single career question or publishing issue to my agent, first, has not failed me.

- It’s not only YA writers who are addicted to the Twitter. Some stuff other author tweeters are up to: Susan Orlean is tired of her Sirius station, Tayari Jones lost a pair of shoes in her apartment, and Colson Whitehead is busy revising but not so busy that he can’t find time to tweet about Lost. That gives me a strange sense of hope concerning my revision and America’s Next Top Model.

- Considering our reputation as a pasty people who spend every moment with our noses in books, a looootttt of writers are really into college basketball.

- Blogging is not, as I wondered, dead. It’s just different, and based on the number of responses and RTs on Twitter, I wasn’t the only one wondering. Thanks for all your comments here, there, everywhere. I’m glad I mentioned it, because now I don’t feel quite so Major Tom-y about it…floating in a most peculiar way, with my protein pills and helmet, etc.

Twitter is Educational.

Be fruitful and multiply. See you back here next week.

Of course I eventually went with the flow, turned on comments, duplicated the blog over at LiveJournal where many YA writers hung out, and began religiously reading my friends page and commenting myself. It was exciting to be part of the greater conversation about writing and the business, and back then, blogs and listservs were really the only way to do that. Now, that conversation has opened up and a lot of it has moved to Twitter. I don’t have time to read and comment on blogs the way I used to, and that seems to have led to fewer comments on mine, or folks do their commenting on Twitter and Facebook where my blog feeds—or commenting has been replaced with sharing, liking, and reTweeting.

Also, maybe because I’m not talking as much about the inner workings of my heart or the writing life as I used to, there is not that much that compels response. Most of my posts these days are links with a few thoughts thrown in, or updates on what I’m doing that readers might want to know about, and of course the ever-necessary work of reminding the world I’m a novelist with novels out that they may wish to purchase so that I can keep having a career. Let’s not forget or pretend to forget about that.

The changes in my blog habits are not accidental. Prior to being published and in the time right after, I was eager to share myself, and very open about my life. It felt natural to share myself; I believe most writers write at least in part to be known and understood. If no one wanted to publish and respond to my book, at least people could know and respond to me. (Are writers generally more in need of approval, attention, affirmation than normal people?) However, after being published, I’ve slowly come to develop a contrary need for privacy and the protection of my inner life.

Once you’re published, your books—as personal as they may be—don’t belong to you anymore the same way that they belonged to you while you were writing them. A piece of yourself also no longer belongs to you. The public person who goes out on tour and to conferences and trade shows is you, and it isn’t you. It belongs to your publisher, to teachers and librarians, to booksellers, readers, fans. Of course it’s great if this person is also authentically you, and I hope it is, and I think it is for me. I am her, it is me, etc. But because of this new layer of energy that comes with being a public person, even on a small scale in this little pond, I’ve gotten a lot more protective of what’s left. (And I understand why writers who are much, much more famous than me may sometimes come across as cold, curt, or unresponsive. If, with my career, I feel this layer of stress and the desire to self-protect, I can’t begin to imagine how it feels for someone dealing with real fame.)

So, what does that leave to blog about? And I mean thoughtful blogs, not the kind of micro-blasts that Twitter is so good at handling. It’s great for keeping readers up to date on Being a Writer stuff, yes. I’ll keep doing that. I could and have blogged about politics but I don’t really enjoy that, in the long run. Same thing with religion, unless it’s more about an aspect of personal faith, but that has started to fall into the “what I want to protect” category. That leaves culture and pop culture, lifestyle, and miscellany, and I’m not sure I have time or desire to add anything useful or interesting about that stuff (that can’t be handled on Twitter) when there is already so much noise. I do like to sometimes write about writing, and interview other authors, and I’ll keep doing that, too.

I would sort of love to go back to the carefree days when I didn’t worry that everything I posted could be seen as: too shallow, too deep, too political, politically unaware, too personal, impersonal, uninformed, over-informed, redundant, name-droppy, not name-droppy enough (i.e. not supportive of my fellow authors), whiny, ego-mad, falsely humble, etc etc etc. Of course, those were the days not very many people were reading my blog so none of it mattered. Maybe it still doesn’t matter. Maybe I’m thinking much too hard about this, as is my habit.

What do you think? If you’ve had a blog for awhile, how has your concept of what it is changed? Do you read and comment on blogs the way you used to? What are some of your favorite blogs…people who you think do it well? How do you see blogging in the future?

So, one of the things that’s making 2010 pretttty busy is that I’m doing some teaching, mentoring, coaching in various venues. I’ve mentioned them here before, but as a reminder:

- Writing & Illustrating for Young Readers Workshop – June 14-18 – Sandy, UT

A week-long intensive. Very excited about this. I’m not sure what kind of space is left for the workshops, but if you live in the area (or want to come out for it), you can register for the half-day conference and go to plenary sessions, breakout sessions, signing, and keynote (by Mary Pearson!). Half-day registration is only $125. Seriously—bargain. There is now a preliminary schedule of sessions up on the site.

- The Glen Online

I’m teaching an ongoing correspondence-course style class in YA fiction. If you’re just starting out, there are various assignments related to each of six lessons. If you have a work-in-progress, we can look at that in place of the assignments. You can start any time, and work at your own pace. If you have any questions about this, let me know.

- Manuscript Critique for Auction

I’ve donated a YA manuscript critique to Fire Petal Books, a startup kid/YA bookstore to be opened in Centerville. Right now, Mike Martin is the high bidder but I know he would love you to drive up the price to raise more money for the store. There are also a bunch of other very cool items for writers and aspiring writers.

No matter if you can’t do any workshops or classes or bidding right now – if you’re a writer and haven’t yet gotten to the publishing stage of your career, give yourself a few hours this weekend to write and enjoy it and reconnect and put all the industry news, the query drafts, the rejections, the buzz out of your head for a couple of days. Writing is pretty much a learn-by-doing craft so turn off the noise and go do some doing. I’ll do the same.

- Congratulations also to Varian Johnson on the release of Saving Maddie, a book I’ve not yet read but am very eager to, because, hello, preacher’s kid, mysterious bad girl, reconciling faith and family. Follow Varian’s blog and go on tour with him; today he’s in the Author’s Tent with Melodye Shore.

- Debbi Michiko Florence has kicked off a new blog series—Coffee Break Tuesday—in which authors share a bit about their writing lives and paths to publication. When you’re looking for inspiration or company, check it out. The series kicks off with a few words from yours truly.

- I continue to encourage you to subscribe to Poets & Writers if you don’t already. This month, there’s a great profile of Sam Lipsyte (The Ask) and a masterful essay on the poetry of John Donne by William Giraldi. Both are only in the print edition, but you can read some of the issue’s content online. I love this quote from Lipsyte:

“One of my big revelations…was that nobody cares whether you write your novel or not. They want you to be happy. Your parents want you to have health insurance. Your friends want you to be a good friend. But everybody’s thinking about their own problems and nobody wakes up in the morning thinking, ‘Boy, I sure hope Sam finishes that chapter and gets one step closer to his dream of being a working writer.’ Nobody does that. If you want to write, it has to come from you. If you don’t want to write, that’s great. Go do something else. That was a very liberating moment for me.”

- I’m interviewed at Moonlight, Lace, and Mayhem, displaying my ignorance of all things Irish. And here’s a nice review of OWL at 60secondrecap.

- If that isn’t enough for you, I did a podcast interview with the International Reading Assocation’s ReadWriteThink blog while I was at NCTE this past fall. If the podcast is half as great as the conversation felt at the time, I think you will like. Many thanks to Jennifer Buehler for the time and care she put into this. (Teachers: I actually think there may be some potential classroom use for this and/or the video I made for Holly Cupola’s blog.)

Visual aids and purchase links—show some love to an author today by buying a book! If not one of these, something else you’ve been wanting…

Shop Indie Bookstores

Shop Indie Bookstores

Shop Indie Bookstores

Me and Varian at TLA 09. Pre-bangs.

Man. I can’t believe Otis is only 25 or 26 here. If he had lived longer…

Meanwhile:

- Over at Teen Fiction Cafe we are celebrating our third anniversary. To kick it off, I posted a reflection on the last three years of my career, including some Stuff I Have Learned. Today, Wendy Toliver posts, and there are going to be such posts every day between now and the 13th. Prizes, too, people. As in: free stuff.

- Good news for Once Was Lost: It’s been named to the CBCC (Cooperative Children’s Book Center) Choices list—their best of the year. Thank you, CBCC! And, a lovely five-star review from a teen reader at TeensReadToo. Thank you, Melanie.

- Wow, that was a good Olympics. So much epic drama! (If you were fascinated by the Vonn/Mancuso story arc, you will love Sara Bennett Wealer’s book Rival, coming out next year.) But man, we watched every minute of prime time coverage and it was exhausting. Back to 9:30 bed times.

- Huge thanks to Jacksonville Much Ado About Books for taking such good care of me at the Fest. Sometimes it’s hard to believe my “job” involves being served hors d’ouvres and forcing my own personal party escort (hi, Cindy!) to take pictures of me pretending to talk on the phone in a prop phone booth. It was especially great to meet the teens at the Mandarin Branch—many thanks to librarian Donald Carpenter for setting that up.

Congrats to the PEN/Faulkner fiction award finalists—a blessedly diverse group in light of the white-male-ification this season among the bigger awards. I’m especially pleased to see comrade Sherman Alexie honored for his wonderful collection War Dances. Congratulations also to L.A. Times Prize finalists; I love how comprehensive the categories are. The only book from that entire roster that I’ve read is Dave Cullen’s Columbine, which is definitely a worthy selection.

See you back here next week, or in Jacksonville this weekend!

• Jacksonville, here I come! This weekend is the big Much Ado About Books festival in Jacksonville, Florida. I will be there, giving two (two!) sessions during which I’ll talk about my books and writing YA. These sessions are a great option for those interested in being published in YA—plenty of time for Q&A during which I will reveal my PUBLISHING SECRETS. (Okay, I don’t actually have any, but I do promise to tell you anything you want to know. About publishing.) The details:

Saturday, Feb 27 – Jacksonville, FL – Much Ado about Books

Free and open to the public! At the Main Library on Laura Street. All the info here.

11 a.m. at the Teen Library of the Main Library, ground floor

11:45 – 12:30 signing

12:45 – 1:00 signing

2 p.m. – Session off-site from the festival, at the Mandarin Library Branch (I will also be happy to sign afterward)

• Panic in the industry? Please. Some book lovers simply will not be stopped. For example, Michelle Witte is gearing up to open a new book store here in Utah, specializing in children’s and YA books. When I heard about this, I got very excited. The location, just north of Salt Lake City, is perfect as there is not a lot up there serving book buyers, and told Michelle to let me know what I could do to help. Right now, Michelle/Fire Petal Books is holding an auction to raise money for the venture. I’ve contributed a manuscript critique. And there are lots more great things for readers and writers, from signed books to a phone conversation with editor Molly O’Neill. All the info is here—bid early and bid often! Auction closes March 20. (Though some of the auction items are location-specific, you do not have to live in Utah to participate.)

Some road songs (hi Justin!):

Car Wheels on a Gravel Road – Lucinda Williams

The Road’s My Middle Name – Bonnie Raitt

Guitar Town – Steve Earle

Ventura Highway – America

Interstate Love Song – Stone Temple Pilots

Next Best Western – Richard Shindell

And here’s one I bet you don’t know – The Girl Who Never Saw a Mountain by Vince Bell, from his masterpiece, Phoenix:

‘Cross the plains
like a rangefire,
lakes like inland seas.
Freezing fields of powder
full moon flying through the trees.

Got to get that one onto iPod before I leave. (What, you think that hobo doesn’t have an iPod wrapped up in his bundle?)

Bobbie Pyron (THE RING---about a troubled girl who takes up boxing), Paul Genesse (DRAGON HUNTERS/Golden Cord series), me @ Salt Lake City Public Library on Saturday. This turned out to be a great event, the kind you always hope for but don't always get. Thank you Paul (from whom I got this picture), Bobbie, library staff, and audience!

For process nerds: draft revision set-up. On left, paper manuscript covered in context-specific notes. Index-card outline of new draft in Scrivener, on big monitor. On right, laptop with general revision notes on TaskPaper. I took this picture with Pano, an iPhone app that lets you take panoramic photos. Fancy. Of course it is too wide to actually display at decent size here. Oh well. This is my office desk.

I laughed when I noticed this coffee ring on my manuscript, because it's such a big old writer cliche. (I wouldn't want to spoil plot for you, hence the blurrage.) The little leather journal in the top of the frame is from Exacompta (through shopwritersbloc.com). The refillable insides are made from Clairefontaine quadrille paper---sooo nice with the fountain pen. I'm keeping a bit of a revision/writing life journal in it, having recently destroyed a bunch of journals that may have been filled with incriminating secrets. You'll never know. This is my home desk.