I think people fall into two categories, huggers and non huggers. There are people who will hug just about anyone. You meet them for the first time and they’re already throwing their arms around you in an embrace that most people save for long lost lovers separated by war. In my experience these all inclusive huggers are also at high risk for being cheek kissers.

I come from a huggy family. I married into a very non-hug family. My husband used to be freaked out by my relatives. “Your aunt just hugged me,” he whispered to me at our first family event. Then he looked around as if he were slightly afraid that she might jump out from behind the sofa and take him down. The day we got married his mom gave me a firm handshake after the service. My husband is now used to my family and I’m used to his. I like hugging my friends, I’m not as crazy about the random hug.

I feel there should be a quiz. If you are going to hug me I feel you should know my name and at least three facts about my life. If you can’t list three things about me then I think you should leave me with my safety bubble of two feet of personal space. However, I’ve never been tempted to do this. Or to be more honest, I’ve been tempted, but I would never do it. This woman used a stun gun on a woman who tried to hug her at Christmas. ZAP. A few more people do this and you’ll see mistletoe sales plummet. Apparently the two women had a history of not always getting along and while the one woman clearly thought they had made up and it was appropriate to embrace, the zapper did not share these feelings. This is why you should ask if you are at all unclear about the hug etiquette.

Fess up- are you a hugger?

It’s official- Getting Revenge on Lauren Wood has been out for week! I’ve done all the official author things required of a new release including: googling myself over and over, checking Amazon numbers, and in general freaking out.

I’m often asked what it feels like to see your book on the shelf. It feels like a combination of the following:

• Having the guy you’ve had a crush on for years come up and tell you that he’s loved you from afar and hopes you will run away to Aruba with him.
• Discovering that you lost weight
• A really good hair day
• Having a snow day on a day when you had a test or some really nasty meeting at work
• Finding money in the wash
• Turning on the TV and finding that one of your favorite movies is just starting
• Finding an awesome pair of shoes, on sale, in your size.

Yep, it really is that good. I’m celebrating the book release, what’s one thing you are celebrating these days?

I bought this saying for my wall. It dates back to 1939 in Britain. The government had commissioned a number of posters to help keep up the spirits of the public during the war.

I like the simplicity of the message. It strikes me that if a nation can keep it together when people are bombing them I should be able to handle the random crisis that pops up in my life. No need to melt down when I realize I accidentally deleted a chapter, or forgot to get eggs at the store, or discover that the strange smell can be traced to where one of the dogs threw up behind the sofa.

One of my New Year Resolutions is to keep things in perspective. This is a reasonable goal for most writers. We are a dangerous mix of overly sensitive and overly imaginative. This means we can make almost anything A REALLY BIG DEAL. I aim to be like this guy. He wanders into a coffee shop after being robbed and has a five inch knife sticking out of his chest. He’s called the police and while he waits for them to arrive he orders a cup of coffee. Talk about keeping calm and carrying on.

Are you a keep calm person or the type to freak out?

I’ve posted the first chapter for Getting Revenge on Lauren Wood for your reading pleasure. Click on the cover to the left and you’ll see it. Of course when I say that I posted the chapter, what I mean is that I forced my post-surgical husband to do it. I dare you to read it and not want to read the rest. Go on… I dare you.

I am excited to see Getting Revenge hit the shelves. I plan to spend part of the day on Tuesday stalking my local bookstore. I will lurk in the shelves and pounce upon innocent members of the reading public. Or, if I’m feeling subtle, I may just slide my book onto their stack so that they don’t notice until they have it at all until after they’ve already bought it. I’m calling this my ninja marketing plan.

Seeing my book on the shelf is enough to make my day. If you want a whole website devoted to things that make people’s day then check out: IMMD- Moments of Win. One of my favorites from during the holiday season: “Every year, my family hires a Santa to stop at our Christmas Eve party to give presents to the kids. My 6 year old niece was less than impressed though, when Santa asked what she wanted for Christmas, she said “I’ve told you twice already, don’t you check your email?”

If you like the book be sure to tell your friends- it would make my day!

Can you believe we’re already coming to the end of another year? I think I’m starting to turn into one of those old people who talk about fast time goes. I may also throw in how when I went to school we had to walk uphill in the snow and candy cost a mere quarter. Then I’ll yell at you to get off my lawn.

2009 was a good year. What Would Emma Do came out. I finished Getting Revenge on Lauren Wood. We sold our house and bought a new one. We added Cairo to our dog family. We had a chance to visit with family. There were work events, and a long weekend in Seattle. Lots of dinners with friends and books read by the fire.

2009, like most years, had its ups and downs. I think one of the secrets to life is choosing to downplay the downs and focus on the ups. There are so many things to be grateful for. It seems to be human nature to think about what we don’t have. How we’ll be happy once we get a vacation, finish school, sell a book, have a boyfriend, get a raise, or (insert item here). The problem is as soon as you have that new thing, you start thinking of the next thing you need.

Resolutions are a bit like that. This time of year we make lists of what we want to do in 2010. How this will be the year that we get organized, lose weight, learn to sew etc. I’m a huge fan of goal setting. Sometimes I need a target so I have something to focus on. However, today, before all the resolution list making begins, let’s take one second and think of one thing you are proud of this year. One thing you’ve already accomplished. It can be big or small – but share!

In the good news department (drum roll please….) I am excited to announce I have just signed on for a two book deal with Simon Pulse! Yay! I love my editor and the whole team so I’m happy to have the chance to keep working with them! More details in the new year!

Christmas is over. The gift wrap is in the trash. The cookies are long gone.

Did you get what you were hoping for this year? If not there is a long and proud tradition of buying it for yourself. Heck, why not? You’re worth it.

** WARNING: Shameless marketing plug ahead **

Why, you know what makes a great gift for yourself? A gift guarenteed to make you laugh and give you hours or reading enjoyment? A gift that when you are finished you can even share with a friend?

That’s right! What a great time to order your copy of Getting Revenge on Lauren Wood. No only is it a great gift for yourself, but it’s also a nice gift for me.

Then, once you have your copy (or heck, two or three – they look lovely stacked together on the shelf) feel free to wander to this site. They sell all sorts of items that you might be looking for like:

• Bacon flavoured popcorn
• Lightsaber Chopsticks
• Indoor Smore Maker
• Godfather Horse Head Pillow

What was your favourite thing under the tree this year?

If you celebrate Christmas- I hope it is merry. If you celebrate Hanukah, sorry for the belated good wishes. If you celebrate some other holiday I wish you a joyous one. And if you celebrate no holiday at all this time of year- I hope you have a heck of a good day.

Thank you for all the well wishes. Bob is home from the hospital and on the road to recovery. I can imagine no better gift than that.

This time of year it’s natural to reflect. I am very fortunate in so many ways. I have great family and friends. I have the chance to do what I love most- write. This week I came home from the hospital and on my doorstep were the author copies of Getting Revenge on Lauren Wood. I took them out and propped them up on our mantle so I could just stare at them. Life is good.

I am grateful for many things. Share one thing you are grateful for this year.

I was planning a post on what topics are okay in a YA novel or not, but life has taken turn. We spent the night at the hospital as devoted husband is feeling quite badly. He’s been poked and tested and modern medicine has found some answers. It appears he’ll be having surgery on Monday.

Having some experience in this area, allow me to say hospitals at the holidays really stink. You can put up all the tinsel you want and pump those holiday carols out in the lobby- but no one here is feeling very fa-la-la. After last year I am developing serious PTSD around the smell of rubbing alcohol and site of tinsel. I used to love Christmas. I’m thinking of ditching the holiday next year as to protect my remaining loved ones. Perhaps I’ll take up celebrating Kwanzaa or Winter Solstice instead.

The good news is that they have identified the issue, have provided him with excessive amounts of pain killers, and there is a treatment for this, which means all should be okay in the end. Nothing like some hospital drama to remind you what is really important in life. Suddenly, having gift wrap that matches the bows and ribbons seems pretty irrelevant.

They’ve checked devoted husband into the hospital, but it’s a full house so they had to put him in the maternity ward. This has led to many jokes about if he’s expecting a boy or girl. He does not find this amusing. I’m sleep deprived so I find all of it amusing.

Keep us in your thoughts and squeeze your loved ones a bit closer today. Don’t worry about the gift wrap, it really doesn’t matter.

Admit it- we do judge a book by its cover. I forget where I read it, but they say the decision to buy a book follows one of three options:

1) You’ll pick up a book by an author who is on your auto buy list. You love them and if they published their grocery list, you would buy it in hardcover.

2) You’ll pick up a book that people are talking about. The more people who say “oooh have you read Book X?” increases the chance you’ll buy it. There are extra bonus points if the person recommending the book is Oprah.

3) You’ll pick up a book that has an eye catching cover and look it over, maybe read the cover copy, and if the author is lucky, you’ll buy it.

This puts a lot of pressure on a cover for us new authors. What many readers don’t know is that as the author you don’t have cover control. If you are a writer on par with Stephen King, you can say you want dancing monkeys wearing nun habits on your book and you’ll get it. The rest of us are on pins and needles waiting to see what the publisher creates.

I am beyond lucky that the team at Simon Pulse really involves the author in the process. We have many discussions about the tone of the book and what I wanted to portray.

When they asked me what I had in mind for Getting Revenge on Lauren Wood I thought of a scene in the book where the main character tosses a Barbie doll dressed in a cheerleader outfit into a wood chipper. The brilliant designer, Cara, pointed out that Mattel doesn’t take kindly to people chucking their trademarked doll into a wood chipper on the cover of books. Now, personally I think Mattel owes me as I’ve bought more than my fair share of Barbies over the years. I was never a baby doll kind of person, however I had a herd of Barbies. I created elaborate lives for them and even did sort of a Project Runway kind of thing where I made clothes out of scraps of fabric. Still it was a no-go on any Barbie destruction.

Cara found a place to order a custom made doll. We could do whatever we wanted. GENIUS! The doll arrived with lace panties on. Sort of makes you wonder who the typical buyer is for this product. They wasted no time in setting up a photo shoot for the doll. Cara selected cover colors and font for the title. The finished product can be seen to the left. I love it! It captures what I wanted, the revenge aspects, that the story is funny, the artificial “fake” aspect of some friendships.

Now I just hope the average person in the bookstore likes it as much as I do!

If you haven’t yet finished your Christmas/holiday shopping (please don’t feel the need to comment if you are one of those people who finished their shopping in July. Yes, you are better than the rest of us, no need to rub it in) that you consider getting a book for some of the people on your Christmas list.

Why a book you ask?
- There is a book for everyone out there. Every possible subject, every possible genre.
- Even if they don’t like to read there are books that simply have pictures.
- Being that they are generally square shaped they are easy to wrap. No tricky corners that require you to fold the paper in complicated origami like shapes.
- Books are reasonably priced. You don’t have to buy a hardcover (although I would remiss if I didn’t mention that Getting Revenge can be pre-ordered at this time)
- Those of us that write need people to buy the books or otherwise it is one of those “if a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it” kind of situation.
- Does anyone really need another tie? No. Another scratchy sweater? I think not. A strange piece of kitchen equipment that will only take up space and never be used? No. No. No. A book, however, is always welcome.

I am making good progress with my holiday shopping and general merry making. I vowed this year not to get caught up in doing things that I felt I had to do, but didn’t enjoy. The holidays are supposed to be fun. If something doesn’t get wrapped or has a mismatched bow? I just don’t care. If you care you shouldn’t come here.

Are you enjoying the holidays so far or are you stressed out?