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Dec

I ♥ Monday

Business first: congrats to , who won my giveaway for ANNA & THE FRENCH KISS! ♥ My third draft of Thrice. Which is finished! Now it can be Christmas! I am so merry! I am really, ridiculously pleased with the new draft. I spent eight hours revising yesterday. I made one particular change–not how something happens, but why, and I think it adds so much. Cate’s in a difficult position, she makes a selfish choice, and the consequences wallop her over the head later. I’m so excited about this story, you guys! I really, really, really ♥ it. ♥ Dropbox. My old pink Dell started giving up the ghost months ago, so I quit using it for the most part. Tonight I finally Dropboxed all my old drafts of Garolass and all my music (it was my primary iTunes computer). Dropbox is also fantastic because I can share stuff between my...

Dec

Anna and the French Kiss Giveaway

Jessica

Happy release day to ANNA AND THE FRENCH KISS by Stephanie Perkins! ANNA is one of my favorite reads of 2010. It and THE SKY IS EVERYWHERE are my twin favorite contemporary YAs of the year. I was lucky enough to snag an ARC of this one at the ALA conference, so I’d like to support it by giving away a finished copy today. And I’m totally buying some as Christmas gifts. And a finished copy for meee. Trust me, you want to read ANNA. Readers and writers and book bloggers have been going mad over it since the ARCs came out.It’s just that charming. Swoony and romantic, like a fizzy champagne cocktail of a novel, like an old black & white film where everything is just a little more delightful than real life. Steph Perkins does an amazing job capturing a sense of bittersweet yearning. Anna is a tremendously likable heroine, and...

Dec

On Fear & Faith

Jessica

I’m bribing myself again. Self, you are not allowed to buy any more Christmas presents until you finish this revision! I’m feeling Decembery. I’ve been feeling Decembery for like a week now, before it was actually, y’know, December. I want to shop and do crafty things and drink tea and read books and learn to bake cinnamon rolls (I am on a total Starbucks cinnamon roll kick–omg, they’ve replaced cranberry bliss bars as the Most Delicious Thing Ever! Do you have a good recipe? For the kind you unroll and there’s cinnamon between the layers and yummy icing? Please share). Anyway, it’s like–remember how at the end of the fall semester you were all, I don’t wanna write my final papers, I just wanna lay on the floor in the lounge and stare at the Christmas lights and eat these sugar cookies I stole from the dining hall? It’s like that. I don’t wanna revise. I want to buy endless...

Nov

Thankful Thanksgiving

Jessica

My parents’ internet was down yesterday, but here are ten things, big & small, that I’m especially thankful for this year: 1. Awesome chocolate mousse cake with whipped cream & caramel sauce (thanks, Mom!) 2. The way my mom is thoughtful with my husband. Whenever we visit, she always gets him pretzels and his favorite diet root beer, and she made him his favorite cake (Germany chocolate) for his birthday dinner tonight. She’s thoughtful with me, too, but somehow her kindness to him means even more. 3. My sister S, who’s been working frantically on her thesis all week and keeps muttering hilarious things like “I could kick a puppy down the stairs” (no worries, no puppies have actually been harmed). Even when she’s crazy-stressed, she always makes me laugh. 4. Taylor Swift—my family watched her Speak Now special last night. She just seems so genuine and gutsy—not afraid to...

Nov

I ♥ Monday

Jessica

♥ Two-day workweeks! ♥ The Glee Christmas album. I was going to wait until after Thanksgiving to turn on the Christmas music, I swear, but I could not resist its awesome. It’s just so damned merry! ♥ Caramel brulee lattes from Starbucks. I blame you for this new obsession, ! ♥ Part I of Kira’s story. It’s resting in the inboxes of my critique partners. Now it’s time to return to revisions on Thrice for Agent Awesome. I’ve missed those characters. In relation to that, I quit NaNo. And I ♥ this post by Saundra Mitchell in which she reminds us that Losing NaNo is still a win, if you’ve learned something about the way you tell stories and that You’ve learned how fast you can write, not that you can’t write at all . I admit, I did not ♥ the envy as I watched my friends’ NaNo-meters climb. I would...

I ♥ Monday

Anna and the French Kiss Giveaway

On Fear & Faith

Thankful Thanksgiving

I ♥ Monday

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