Up On Amazon!

It's up on Amazon (under pen name JP Meads), the book I've been working on a llllllooooooooonnnnnnnnnggggggggggggg time, Power Forward: a fast-paced story about the pressures of being a basketball blue chip in a small California town.

Here's the description:

“It wasn’t about the money. It was never about the money…”

Basketball Blue Chip Josh Lockett is a big deal in a small town.

He's headed to the University of North Carolina on a full-ride—if he can handle the ball, and the pressure.

Because being the hero of Oakvale, California, isn’t easy.

If J-Lock wants everyone off his back, he has to raise his scoring average, keep his 4.74 GPA, make the All-American Team… and stay abstinent.

Survival is anybody’s game.


An important story that ends with three small words, Power Forward will captivate teens, parents, coaches, and communities who live for sports—and those who don’t—by taking a hard look at the other side of high school athletics, and calculating its cost.

Here's where you can check out the cool cover and the first few pages.

Please! Email, text, tweet, Facebook: Share with all your friends! And tell me what you think of the story.

The Future of The Future of Us

"It's 1996, and less than half of all American high school students have ever used the Internet.

"Emma just got her first computer and an America Online CD-ROM.

"Josh is her best friend.they power up and log on -- and discover themselves on Facebook, fifteen years in the future."

I loved it, The Future of Us, by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler.

I love that the plot is driven by high school junior Emma's obsession to have a good marriage fifteen years ahead. Emma's motivation is clear: her own parents are divorced and remarried, with lots of complications.

The effects of divorce is just one of the social issues Future explores. There's also homosexuality; stereotypes; teen sex, drinking, drugs.

Who will Emma end up marrying? Will she be happy? What will Emma and Josh do about the future they can see? The six-day mystery unfolds in 65 short chapters, through alternating narrators Emma and Josh. Each chapter is so compelling and fluid that moving through the book is smooth and fast. I never found a good time or place to put it down -- wanted to keep going, had to remind myself to slow down and enjoy each word.

I can see Mackler's call for respecting individuality and complex family dynamics (The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things). And there are threads of Asher's theme of how one small "ripple" affects a lot of other people (13 Reasons Why).

While I might have traded out a couple characters for a little more 1996 -- what everyone was wearing/eating/drinking/watching/doing -- I cherished the details, like the songs that "played" in the story, and the "Wayne's World" part, and the problem with Pluto.

The Future of Us is tight and real, funny and sad. These talented writers marry wit and philosophy, delivering a thought-provoking tale of two teens trying to thrive in a quickly-changing world:

"No matter how small the ripple, the most vulnerable part of the future is going to be our children."

Like!

Real Magic: Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus

It is absolutely enchanting, Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus.

The setting alone--Victorian Paris; London; Munich; New York; and Concord, Massachusetts--pops with color and costumes and caramel apples.

The characters are rich, mysterious, and the plot--a game gone bad between two old old magicians--is different, interesting.

It's a wonder of a read, one that will take you somewhere you've never been, one you'll be thinking about days after you've read (and re-read) the last line.

There, the magic does not end. The alchemy behind the book--Morgenstern's process--that is really something.

The story started as a completely different concept in 2005, morphing into its ultimate manifestation years and revisions later.

30 agents rejected the sweeping, lyrical manuscript that eventually landed Morgenstern six-figures and a movie deal.

The MC, Morgenstern claims, was invented last. How, I wonder? How was that possible? This Celia, she is integral, holds the circus in her very palm--the cover itself.

(While we're on design, you must check out the illustrations that separate the five parts. Hint: it's what you see on one of the Circus rides.)

Better than The Magicians? The next Harry Potter? Twilight rival?

Morgenstern laughs away comparisons.

And she should.

The Night Circus is its own story, a real-life unfolding of paper, of turning of gears.

"It Was A Long Dream"

Happy Book Birthday, Prophecy of Days II: The Serpent's Coil -- and double Happy Birthday to author Christy Raedeke!

Our lovely friend Julie gave a very fine (and impromptu) intro: "It takes a village to raise a writer," she said.

And here are the writing group babies, to prove it!


All best for your readers' delight and PoD II's success, Christy!

Not Buying It

When we got to the part of To Kill A Mockingbird where Tom Robinson is found guilty of raping Mayella Ewell, my kids were livid.

"What?!?"

"That's not right!"

"It's not fair."

"This book is so dumb."

"Why did she write it like that?"

It had taken a long time to hook my kids into this read--the catalyst for that would be Boo Radley--and when they were finally willing to settle into setting, to know the characters, Harper Lee blew it for them at the climax.

"Well, wait," I told Dominic (13), Daney (12), and Rees (10). "What do you think this book--the Book of the Century--is about?"

They told me it was whether Tom was let go or given the death penalty.

"Is that everything?" I asked. "What does that have to do with killing a mockingbird?"

This was a different read for our family. It was not fantastical Harry Potter or spirit-of-survival Little House on the Prairie. As the kids get older, we read deeper. The last book we read together was The Boy in Striped Pajamas.

But this--this timeless, timely tale--this was the most slow, the most rich, the most complex (I'm gearing them up for Grapes of Wrath).

"Could it be," I asked, "That this book has less to do with what happened to Tom Robinson than what Scout and Jem think about it? That they felt like you do: that it wasn't fair. And why wasn't it? What does that say about how things were? And are things ever that way now?"

If Tom Robinson were let off, how could we review the essence of human nature? How would we know how difficult, if not impossible, it is to set aside reason from prejudice, even if a man's life is at stake?

What kind of folks will Scout and Jem grow to be? How were they different from most of their community? Why did their dad, Atticus, choose to foster that? Why does it matter?

Again, I believe that the difference between commercial and literary fiction comes down to conclusion. Mockingbird didn't end as we'd thought it would. It didn't end happy. We were dissatisfied, unravelled, even.

Days after we finished, the kids are still talking about the book. Yes, they were glad they got to "see" Boo. Because of that one scene, they raised the book to a B-, A-, A. But they're still walking around, grumbling that Tom Robinson got the chair. And that is why Harper Lee is a genius.

Between Wimpy and Catcher: A Motherlode!

Writing friends, there is an audience out there waiting for you to crank out some good reads. This...is the Middle School Boy.

Who is he? Well, he likes video games, weapons, engineering, "doing stuff." He's way over Wimpy Kid, not quite ready for Catcher in the Rye. And--get this!--he has to--he has to!--read. His school makes him do it.

We feel for him, right? The kid who would rather be fishing, biking, building a tree fort, playing Halo, the kid would rather do anything than read?

I'm telling you, there's a goldmine here. Sitting right in the lap of the 13 year-old male.

Science fiction/fantasy/sports?

BRING IT ON!!!

IS YA Getting Darker?

You HAVE to read this New York Times debate between Ship Breaker author Paolo Bacigalupi, who claims that teens seek and deserve truth; Shiver author Maggie Stiefvater, who writes that teens flock to darkness because they'll never actually experience it; and Uglies mastermind Scott Westerfeld, who argues that dark YA grants teens freedom, privacy, and independence.

What do you think?

Staying In

The best thing that's happened to me in weeks and weeks happened last night at 8.

I dyed my hair. Purple.

Purple was not the color on the box. That color was brown, natural, back-to-basics brown.

But the thirsty blonde highlights soaked up all the purple, and now my head looks like a grape Popsicle.

It's an easy fix, the Loreal hotline says: wash my hair twice a day until the purple fades away.

But I can't go out. Not like this.

So I've made a nice shepard's pie to take to the fire department. I've vacuumed, and wrapped Christmas gifts. I've sat in my room, thinking about how I need to be a more patient mom, about what I might bring to my dad's on Christmas, about how grateful I am to have a hardworking, kind, bright agent like Holly. About how beautifully Dominic's map of America is turning out. About how I'll revise my writing curriculum for winter. About what I might write next. About how I will finish Ape House today, and start Hunger Games tomorrow.

I've sat in my room with my purple head, and I've thought and breathed and cried because of how much I've missed that.

The Solution

Yes, the Best Kids In The World have been absolutely terrible for going on three weeks now.

There's greed, fussing, fighting, eye-rolling, foot-stomping, under-breath-muttering, enormous mess.

So there's also been a lot of Dave and my sending the kids to their rooms, a lot of having them do jobs together, a lot of crying (from all of us).

This morning, I opened up a book Christy had given me a while ago: Mama Zen. I opened it up to a random page, and read: "Want your kids to be good? Then be good."

I almost cried (some more). It's so simple--being good--but I think I've forgotten that.

Today is a new page, though. A new opportunity. I will try. I will try to be good.

Sneaked Peek

I'm not supposed to be reading anything until Friday, when I finish revising.

But I couldn't help peeking at the first page of Sara Gruen's new novel, Ape House:

"Give orange give me eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -- (Chimpanzee) Nim Chimpsky, 1970s

"Gimme gimme more, gimme more, gimme gimme more." -- Britney Spears, 2007

Hilarious, no?