I love Russia

Things I know about Russia:

It's very big.

It's very cold.

It's very beautiful.

Anna Kournikova is from there.

It is where Sylvester Stallone in Rocky IV had to fight that really big Russian guy. The best Rocky fight ever.

And......

My book will be available there within 18 months!

Things I want to know about Russia:

Everything else!

So help me out. What do you know about Russia?

When I started this journey to publication, my dream was to see my book in print. I never even thought to dream of seeing my book printed in other languages. So when my agent told me that a Russian publisher--AST--made an early offer, I was surprised. I always knew selling in other countries was a possibility, I just thought it would happen later or to someone else. I am so excited!

Wednesday Reads

So someone recommended this lovely book recently (and I can't remember who, I thought it was Jessie, but I can't find the comment where someone said I should read it so I might be falsely giving Jessie credit, but whoever recommended it thank you):



I LOVED it! Adored it. That's really all I was going to say about it, along with including a blurb, but when I was looking for the book cover to include in this post I found out that this book is being turned into a movie! I'm sure all of you knew that and I'm seriously late to the Austenland is being turned into a movie party (there has to be a party like that somewhere). But, I am so EXCITED!!

So here's the blurb and read the book. Oh, this isn't a young adult book. I know I normally review YA on my blog so I always feel the need to include the fact if it's not YA. But, in the cleanliness department, I would have no problem handing this book to my 13 year old to read. Would she read it? No, because she'd realize the main character was 32 the minute she read the first page, raise her eyebrows at me (which, by the way, my daughter has amazingly perfect eyebrows that my non-existent eyebrows are so jealous of) and hand it back to me with a 'Ew, no.' Okay, I'm rambling. Here's the blurb from Goodreads:

"Jane Hayes is a seemingly normal young New Yorker, but she has a secret. Her obsession with Mr. Darcy, as played by Colin Firth in the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, is ruining her love life: no real man can compare. But when a wealthy relative bequeaths her a trip to an English resort catering to Austen-crazed women, Jane's fantasies of meeting the perfect Regency-era gentleman suddenly become realer than she ever could have imagined.

Decked out in empire-waist gowns, Jane struggles to master Regency etiquette and flirts with gardeners and gentlemen;or maybe even, she suspects, with the actors who are playing them. It's all a game, Jane knows. And yet the longer she stays, the more her insecurities seem to fall away, and the more she wonders: Is she about to kick the Austen obsession for good, or could all her dreams actually culminate in a Mr. Darcy of her own?"

Wednesday Reads

Super fun read. If you want a light-hearted, funny, and slightly gross zombie story, you'll love this one. I laughed and cringed and couldn't wait to find out how Kate figured out how to cure the football team of the zombie virus.


Blurb from amazon: "Someone's been a very bad zombie.
Kate Grable is horrified to find out that the football coach has given the team steroids. Worse yet, the steriods are having an unexpected effect, turning hot gridiron hunks into mindless flesh-eating zombies. No one is safe--not her cute crush Aaron, not her dorky brother, Jonah . . . not even Kate! She's got to find an antidote--before her entire high school ends up eating each other. So Kate, her best girlfriend, Rocky, and Aaron stage a frantic battle to save their town . . . and stay hormonally human."

That's gross

For those of you who have been around my blog for a while, you'll remember I used to tell stories about the gross things my son did. After three daughters my son never fails to disappoint in giving me the true experience of having a boy. But today, I have a story on a little girl in my life. My three year old niece who I've decided must hate me. It's the only explanation. She is potty trained. Has been for at least six months now (maybe a year). But every time I watch her at my house, she has an "accident". I have accident in quotes because I'm starting to wonder if it really is an accident or a carefully planned plot to get back at me for some unknown past offense.

So I was watching her and her siblings Wednesday and for the second time in as many hours my niece had an "accident". My daughter called for me to come take care of it and I found the Mastermind standing in the kitchen in her jacket and rain boots (she had just come in from playing outside, which btw, it would've been so much nicer if she had her "accident" outside, but she didn't) looking all sweet and innocent. Seriously, she had a little coy smile on her face. I retrieved a towel, spread it out on the mess, and told her to sit down. I grabbed hold of one of her froggy rain boots and pulled. I'm not kidding when I say a waterfall of urine came rushing out, all over my bare feet. The rain boots had caught the "accident". So. Gross.

Seriously, this little girl is some sort of evil genius, right?

Never Give Up

So this last weekend I went boating with my family. It was only the second time this season that I've been able to go. (This makes me sad.) But while wakeboarding, I decided that I didn't like my neck very much and threw myself neck first into the water. Okay, that's not exactly how it happened. I may or may not have made a horrible error in judgement going over the wake and caught the front lip of my board and went down hard.

This wasn't Saturday's fall (this was a fall from 2 summers ago), but it looked similar, I'm sure, to this:
I'm now very, very sore. But it got me thinking about wakeboarding. It took me FOREVER to learn how to do it. I'm embarrassed to admit that it took me an entire summer getting out there in the water week after week, trying to figure out how to take the thousand tons of pressure against my board every time the boat started forward and turn it into me on top of the water. People tried to explain it to me, to tell me how it worked for them, etc. etc. In the end, I had to feel it for myself. I finally did it. And maybe that's why I like it so much now (four summers later)--because of how much work it took to learn. Because I'm so dang proud of myself.

Of course I'm going to relate this to writing (I know, I normally don't and tell you to do the "relating" job yourself, but I actually have a story). I was talking to a friend the other day who is on the verge of calling it quits on this whole writing thing. It reminded me of when I felt the same way this time last year. I had recently left my first agent. I had written what I thought was my best book yet. And I had started querying again. I was in my 5th month of querying. Five months! I had honestly thought I would get an agent right away. I had a pretty good request rate, but only had one agent request anything past the partial. So I kept revising and sending more out. Then I came to a point where I was like, maybe I don't know what I'm doing. Maybe I don't know what's good and what's not. I had hit a low and was one rejection away from quitting. I didn't want to put myself through any more heartache. I needed a break, at the very least, I told myself. I was sending out two more queries and that was it.

Well, I'm so glad I did. My agent was one of those. (And Michelle, you might be asking why you weren't one of the first queries I sent out and I don't know. I thought you were awesome, I followed you on twitter, you represented a friend. Okay, maybe I was slightly intimidated by you. But I'm also glad you weren't one of the first because the book was way better by the time you got it.) So what's my point?? Never. Give. Up. If writing is something you love, hang in there. Keep writing. Keep trying. Will your face hit the water every now and again? Yes. Will you be sore for a couple days after? Yes. But will it make your eventual success that much sweeter? Yes. Never give up.