The Trials and Tribulations of Magnadillo and his Twin

On the last day of Nanorevismo, aka the last day of Novemeber, aka, what do you mean just because the month is over I can't stop revising-OMG-- I have a story to tell you.

Once upon a time Frankie was out shopping in da stores...in da malls of New Jersey, because sometimes she goes there, it's very close by. And upon her search for the perfect present for a perfect person (this part is true) she heard a voice call to her.

"He-hello? Frankie?"

Frankie: You talking to me? (said in a Jersey accent)

"Y-yes.

*Frankie looks around the store for disembodied voice that calls* Where are you? I don't see you.

"Over here. No, over here. HERE! Frankie, follow my voice, nooo, turn around. I'm over ---I'm a freaking magnet, ok? LOOK at the magnet display why don't you!"

*Frankie looks* Oooooh! Magnadillo! What's up? How are you?

Magnadillo: Kind of stuck to this display thing. Totally bored. Can you get me out of here?

Frankie: Sure, of course. *grabs Magnadillo*

Magnadillo: Oh and take my brother too. We're twins.

Frankie: Right, gotcha. Any other Magnadillos on this display?

Magnadillo: Yeah, but don't buy us all, save some for others. Sheesh.

Frankie *smiling*: K

So Frankie purchased Magnadillo and Magnadillo and went home and knew JUST who to send them too. Her two nanorevismoing blogger pals Shannon and Courtney! So she got back in her car with Magnadillo and Magnadillo's twin brother Magnadillo and went to the UPS store where they have mailed many a package for her before.

UPS Guy: Whatcha sending out today, Frankie?

Frankie: Armadillos  :-)

UPS Guy:....

So Frankie picked out the prettiest bubbliest bubble paper envelope ever, full of lots and lots of bubbles so Magnadillo and Magnadillo could have tons of fun popping them while en route---what do you mean those aren't for popping? and she sealed up Magnadillo and Magnadillo and left and waited to hear from Shannon and Courtney about their epic arrival.

Only...

That day never came!

Dun, dun, dun...


(From the news):

It has come to our attention that two traveling twin brother magnet armadillos have gone missing. They respond to the names Magnadillo and Magnadillo. Also they respond to magnetic surfaces like refrigerators. They are yay big and armadillo colored and look like Armadillos, only magnetic. Magnadilo was last seen in an envelope full of bubble wrap. It is believed that his bubbles may have been popped. Magnadillo was last seen in a similar envelope, sitting on top of the book Wings by Aprillyne Pike. It is also believed that his bubbles may have been popped or he simply fell alseep while reading. Both Magnadilos are strongly repelled by adverbs. FYI.

If you have any information regarding the wherabouts of these two Magnadillos, please let Il Primo know immediately!

The Ups and Downs of Writing...Nanorevismo is Almost Gone!!

I swear that writing has made me bi-polar. Ok not actually bi-polar, but kind of a little. I somehow went from this total high of "I finished revising chapter 15! I finished revising chapter 15!" to "OMG! I have no talent. My entire WIP sucks!"

I know that's totally unreasonable, but you try telling my feelings to be logical-they'll just laugh at you and then cry. Basically, I realized that a certain plot point I'd been planning for a long time but didn't exist in the last draft was ready to show up. But I didn't give myself a chance to plan the moment when the seed would sprout. I thought that it might be too much to put in chapter 15, but putting it in 16 just didn't feel right.

Then I got some comments back on the chapter by you know who which...were good comments (seriously she kicks butt!), but not a good thing to read when I was already feeling like things were off.

So I talked it over with Donna for awhile on the phone and decided to add in this plot to the very end of chapter 15, which I did. And...I don't totally know. I kind of like it and think it works. But now I'm not sure how to proceed with chapter 16 and I'm feeling stuck and I hate feeling stuck!

I just have to remember that this has happened before. I've been stuck or realized something was wrong or hated my WIP and at some point I solved the problem and moved on. But man, this never gets easier, does it?

I hope you're all having a better time nanorevismoing today than I am. I can't believe it's almost gone. I still have a few hours left in this day and I want to make it count. I'd love to go to bed tonight with 16 done. I'm getting closer and closer to my self-imposed deadline (which I will extend with reason, better an awesome novel than a fast one) but...you know, I like to push myself.

In My Mailbox 12, Chapter 15 and WIP Fire!

In My Mailbox

Thank you Kristi at The Story Siren for hosting my favorite weekly meme! Here's what I got!

I showed you this earlier, but I got a signed copy of Laini Taylor's Dream Dark thanks to Shannon and all this swag!

And I got The Seven Rays by Jessica Bendinger

And on my ipod, Just Listen by Sarah Dessen

WIP FIRE

So on twitter today, I randomly invented this game called WIP Fire, where mostly me and Shannon would announce a round of WIP Fire and then we'd have like two seconds to grab a line from the WIPS we're currently revising (OMG Il Primo, we know November is almost over but we're working our butts off for Nanorevismo) and post them on Twitter. Here's the link to WIP Fire if you want to see the mayhem that ensued and we might be playing tomorrow, so just use the hash tag to join in the fun.

Writing Update!

I finished Chapter 15, run around and throw confetti! Pop the bottle, Wooohooo! I'm getting so close. And chapter 15 is one of those chapters that are just fun to work with. So here are the final stats and then I'm off to bed!

Chapters Revised: 15

Chapters Remaining: 7

Pages Revised: 354

Pages Remaining: 120 (awesome)

Page Count: 474

Word Count: 138, 934

Ok hope everyone's weekend has been fabulous. I'm going to bed. Hopefully no dreams about Ripped From My Hands Blogspot.

Post-Thanksgiving Update, Dreams, New Moon, SCBWI and Awards Writing

I have a lot of random things to blog about to so I divided them into sections for you so they make some sense...or not...

Wierd Writer Dreams...
Maybe it was the to-furkey but I had some wacky dreams last night. Basically, somehow the first 13 chapters of my book that were revised got into the hands of a book reviewer or who only read her review books on airplanes and the title of her blog was Ripped From My Hands, with the concept being she loved books so much that someone would have to rip them from her hands or she'd never stop reading. Though with my book, I think the ripping out of her hands might have had something to do with the fact that I'm not finished revising so the book had to be ripped before she came to the unpolished stuff.

I don't know. I just dream it.

So I had no idea that Ripped From My Hands had a semi-complete copy of my book and through google alert I found a half-written review she'd written on her blog. She only wrote half the review because she'd only read half the book. Makes sense...

Anyway I spent most of the dream trying to figure out what she really thought because she graded it a 3 out of 5 (which I thought was bad) but her review was really good, she liked the characters and the plot and ...yeah, the book had to be ripped from her hands. So I was very perplexed and my only conclusion I can come to now is that maybe she only half graded it because she only half read it.

I think there was actually another review online too in my dream, I remember there were two, but honestly, after going to a blog called Ripped From My Hands, how do you remember anything else?

New Moon Take 2
In other news, I took two of my sisters to see New Moon last because I'm the best big sister ever. And I have new observations. I don't care if RPatz and KStu are doing it in real life. They have NO onscreen chemistry. Bella and Jacob DOOOOOOO! It's killing me now that they didn't kiss. And when Edward finds out she is "dead" and Bella knows...I really don't care. I don't understand how she left Jacob. I'd have been like, "oh sorry, Edward you are way too irrational for this crap. Look, we read Romeo and Juliet together right? In class? You saw the movie! You know what happens! First, you must check on me to make sure I am dead for real and not just faking it. You spent months obsessing over whether or not you could even love me, where Romeo loved Juliet in .57 seconds, so you're not really the fickle brash kind of guy. So think before you try and kill yourself. In the meantime, I need some loving from Jacob. Peace out."

Two best scenes in the movie...Jacob in Bella's room trying to get her to remember the wolf story. He is so sweet and wants her to remember sooooo badly and that hug.... And then the scene with Victoria running. Really, that could have been the whole movie, Victoria just running would have been awesome, almost as awesome as I think Face Punch might be.

SCBWI Winter Conference

My WONDERFUL aunt gave me my Hannukah present early this year with the best gift ever: The SCBWI Winter Conference in NY! Who's going? Let me know. Because we have to meet up if you are.

Another Award!!! OMG THANK YOU!

Thank you, Shannon. You are too sweet!

I'd like to pass this award onto ...

1. Eleni at La Femme Readers

2. Sarah With a Chance

3. See Sara Write

Writing Update

I've been kicking adverbs and deleting lines and just making chapter 14 a lot more awesome. Maybe Ripped From My Hands can add to my review now but here are the current stats. I am SOOOOOOO excited to be finished with chapter 14 you have no idea! Hopefully I can tackle chapter 15 by the end of tomorrow!

Chapters Revised: 14
Chapters Remaining: 8
Page Revised: 333
Pages Remaining: 142
Page Count: 475
Word Count: 139, 323

These numbers makes me feel Fan-freaking-tastic! :-)


All right if any of you were crazy enough to go shopping today than I hope you got what you wanted and survived. Enjoy the rest of Black Friday :-)

Why I Love Barristas and Other Things I'm Thankful For...

So on my way to WholeFoods in crazy-go-nuts amounts of traffic that made it seem like Christmas was tomorrow instead of Thanksgiving, I decided I absolutely had to stop at Barnes and Noble and get a vanilla soy latte. Because what else would I do? Clearly.

I go inside and get in line and Joe, my favorite barrista who has promised to hand sell every single customer my future published book starts making my usual and announces to the other barrista, "You are looking at the next Stephenie Meyer!"

The second barrista who has made me many a latte but doesn't know my whole story like Joe smiles and says, "Oh wow, I had no idea. That's great."

And Joe's like, "Oh yeah! She wrote a book! I'm going to be in it!"

"Well he'll be in my acknowledgements section," I clarify, "for keeping me going with lots of espresso., and making my latte anyway I want without grumbling." (He was a little perturbed just before that I switched from my usual venti iced to a grande hot-and I thought I'd remind him of how he's getting into my book.)


"That's right!" Joe said.

I laughed and was about to say something else when this man, who was like 6 feet tall and had crazy mad scientist hair comes right up behind me and asks, "Did he just say you're the next Stephenie Meyer?"

"Yeah..." I said, shooting Joe a look.

"Congratulations," said the crazy haired man. I should note that he spoke with NO emotion at all.

"Um...thanks..." I said.

"Actually," crazy hair said, "I hope you're not!

I don't quite know what my reaction was...I think there was some mouth opening and a perplexed look in my eyes.

And then totally deadpan he says, "Because she's a terrible writer! I hope you're a better writer. Are you a better writer than her?"

To which I shoot Joe another look and say, "Um I don't know, I'm not really published yet and that's not really what Joe meant...he just means I'll be as successful as Stephenie Meyer, not that I know I will, that's just Joe, and...ummm oh look my drink!"

Seriously, where else can you have moments like these?

I thought so!

Ok so I thought about making a big list of all the things I'm thankful for and that list is LOOOOOOONG! I am so grateful for many many things in my life.

Especially this package I got in the mail from Shannon today! OMG you're a sweetheart! She sent me a signed copy of Laini Taylor's Dreamdark and ok I sort of won it in a contest, but I don't care, a present in the mail is a present and she wrote me the sweetest card (btw Shannon has Perfect handwriting, I'm in awe) and all this cool author swag! LOVE her!

THANK YOU, SHANNON!!!

And Heather for this!

THANK YOU, HEATHER!

So while I am thankful for my family and vegan whipped cream and my friends and my car, and soy lattes and my critique group, and my parents and having a place to live, and ok I know this list is sort of random, what I'm really thankful for are those little moments like above, when you connect with people either in person or online (I love everyone who comments on my blog, you make my day) Thank you.

I'm thankful for all of the little things, the experiences, the quirks in my life and personality that have made me who I am today and led me to this exact place and time, because even though I'm still striving to reach my goal of a finished, revised, amazing WIP and need to query agents and stop working 100 jobs and want to fall in love and have my own family, I feel 100% positive that I am exactly where I am supposed to be in my life. That at this moment, though I can see the cracks and there are things I'd like to change, I am perfect as I am now. Life is perfect. And for that feeling alone, I'm full of gratitude.

So I hope everyone can and does at some point feel this way, that wherever you are in the journey, you're perfect just where you are. You're on your own journey, it doesn't matter at what point. And I hope everyone has a wonderful, happy Thanksgiving.

Also, don't hate on the Tofurkey. The end.

I'm A Scrapper, All Full Of Honesty and Stuff

Thank you, Shannon! I've got my second award!

Woot! You can't see, but I'm totally doing a belly roll right now in celebration (I thought you'd appreciate knowing the actual dance move rather than the vague concept of me dancing, keeps things interesting, you know?)

Anyway what this means is I get to pass ze award onto 10 other scrappers who don't tell a lot of lies and I get to tell you 10 more things about myself without elaborating or embellishing at all, no way, no how, whatsoever...riiiight! No really, I'm an honest scrapper, remember? Watch, I won't embellish.

So let's get down to it.

10 More Things You Truly Madly Deeply Honestly Didn't Know About Frankie But Wished

You Had! Trust me-it's good!

1. I applied to Cornell for one reason and one reason only: they taught Sanskrit.

2. At Cornell...I never registered for a single Sanskrit class.

3. But I took almost every class related to Hinduism.

4. For one semester I was a psych major.

5. Now I'm a psych professor.

6. I never ever worked at my first job.

7. The day I showed up to begin, Bruegger's Bagels had shut down.

8. I think this means I still work there. BB, you owe me.

9. The first time I drove my dad's car, I spent twenty minutes convincing him I was an awesome driver.

10. Then I drove into a wall.

See! I told you I could tell you 10 totally true things without embellishing at all:-)

Now onto my worthy award recievers!

1. Sarah With A Chance (yeah I know Shannon nominated you too, but you're just SO scrappy!)

2. Booknapped

3. My Brain On Books

4. Lisa and Laura Write (Seriously, check out their vlog today. It's awesome!) You girls are too cute!

5. The Secret Adventures of Writer Girl

6. Bookworming in the 21st Century

7. Steph Su Reads

8. Southern Princess

9. See Sara Write

10. Elana Johnson, Author

Wow that was hard, I love so many honest blogs! Well I hope you all enjoyed and pass your awards on!

Fallen Winner and Tragic Couples!!

Get ready, I have a winner! Congrats to YA Vampire Books! YAY! You won the arc of Fallen!!! WHOOOHOOO!!!

YA Vampire Books favorite fallen couple?  Elvira Madigan and Sixten Sparre. They fell in love even though Sparre already was married, but he got a divorcce and they ran away. Then they ran out of money and desperately begged their relatives for a loan, but they didn't get any money. So they saw no other solution than to kill themselves. Sparre shot Elvira first, then himself. A tragic true story.

Yikes! YA Vampire Books send me an email!

So I thought I'd look at some of the other most popular tragic couples mentioned in the contest and then tell you about my own personal favorite.

The top tragic couple....mentioned a whopping 8 times in the comments is none other than the poster children for tragic couples, Romeo and Juliet!

In second place, Vampire Academy's Rose and Dimitri with five votes.

We have a four-way tie for third, each couple earning three votes.

Luke and Deirdre from Maggie Stiefvater's Lament.

Tristan and Isolde

Jack and Rose

Winnie and Tuck

I LOVE all of these couples, but my favorite tragic couple from literature...there is no picture to show you, but it's Emil and Marie from Willa Cather's O'Pioneers. If you haven't read O' Pioneers do yourself a favor and read it. Emil and Marie will break your heart--they're amazing!

Honorable mention, Seth and Georgina from Richelle Mead's Succubus Blues.

Ok thank you everyone for entering the contest and telling me about your favorite couples.

In My Mailbox 11: EPIC!

In My Mailbox is hosted by Kristi at The Story Siren and basically she is awesome and yeah...let's do this!

Ok, my week...EPIC! Very, very epic!!! Stay tuned for a much more detailed post about my day at the FNC where I'll share my notes with you about a breakfast event I attended with Sarah Dessen and Laurie Halse Anderson, but for now...look at my pretty books and reader porn author signatures and a few impressions of authors. The FNC spent the day at multiple book signings.

1) The Dark Divine, Bree Despain (ARC) from Egmont for review (yay!!!!)
2)Wintergirls, Laurie Halse Anderson (signed)
3) Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson (signed)
4) Along For the Ride, Sarah Dessen (signed)
5) Lock and Key, Sarah Dessen (signed)
6) Before I Fall, Lauren Oliver (ARC) from Joanne-Thank You!
7) Will Grayson, Will Grayson, John Green and David Levithan (ARC)  (signed)
8) Love is the Higher Law, David Levithan (signed)
9) The Fires of Merlin, T.A. Barron (signed)
10) This Lullaby, Sarah Dessen (signed)
11) Awesome Sarah Dessen Magnets!


WHEW!!!!

So real quick general impressions. Laurie Halse Anderson is one cool chic! I feel like we could hang out all day and it'd be awesome, plus she has a tattoo on her wrist of the first line of Beowulf in Anglo Saxon...who doesn't love that?  Sarah Dessen is super sweet! David Levithan seemed to be one of the nicest and most humble guys in the entire industry. He was VERY cool to meet and seriously, who doesn't love the author of Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist and the editor of Shiver and The Hunger Games. I mean, Holy Crap!

Oh and on that note....

We got to meet Maggie Stiefvater!!! She signed all of my books. She was probably the coolest person ever and it was awesome!

Here's a super sweet signature from T.A. Barron.

This was the second time I got to meet T.A.. I love him, he has this amazing calming energy about him. From someone else I might have thought they were just shmoozing, but he said he remembered me from two years ago and I believe him. Anyway he was really supportive about my writing and remembered me telling him about my story two years ago and made me promise to email him as soon as I got my book deal. Hehe.

Anyway, I'll leave you with some more reader porn, aka author signatures!

Whew! Ok, today was awesome, I'm exhausted, more details are coming, but I wanted to leave you with something!

New Moon Review: Frankie Style

So I saw New Moon last night with the FNC Chicas and I'd been planning to share my thoughts on the experience along with an epic post on epic tragic couples to coincide with the announcement of my epic winner for my epic contest...but...whew, I'm not all there yet and Shannon really wants my New Moon thoughts NOW along with some others on twitter, so here, you go, your wish is my command! Contest results will follow later this weekend. By the way, how many times did I just say epic?

Onto New Moon!

So New Moon opens with Bella quoting the Friar in Romeo and Juliet at the wedding...these violent delights and all that and I don't know why, but it made me burst out laughing. I'm sorry, I'm horrible. Someone tell me, was this the quote in the begining of New Moon? And why are we suddenly opening the movies so quote happy? There was no Bible in the begining of Twilight. We had prologue...no prologue this time. But moving on...

Bella is having her creepy dream about seeing her grandmother and then realizing it's her and seeing her old hag self in the mirror while Edward looks on still totally hot sparkly. Then she wakes up and it's her birthday and Charlie --who I don't care about at all in the books but love in the movies because his line delivery is just hysterical--gives her some birthday presents and then she goes to school.

Now, as much flack as Stephenie Meyer gets about the whole "EW! I'm going to get old and wrinkly thing," I can subscribe to that because imagine if you were dating a vampire. Wouldn't these thoughts cross your mind? I bet they would. Though still...

Anyway Edward shows up at school, I'm surprised they didn't arrive together but I suspect Chris Weitz wanted to continue the whole Edward stalking across the scene (or as Cleolinda would say, James Deaning) in slow mo while he kind of smiles coyly like he knows he looks gorgeous and it's cracking him up inside.

Suddenly, Jacob arrives and he honestly has no bussiness being in this scene at all except that we needed to be reminded of who Jacob was BEFORE Bella went comatose, because we haven't seen the 500 meet Jacob Black trailers.

There were a few cute funny lines with Bella joking about how maybe she shouldn't be dating such an old man, to which I say, YES! But alright, is Edward 109 or is he 17 (mentally, developmentally?). Because he doesn't act like any 17 year old I know and Emmett does, so I'm pretty sure his maturity is stumped and frozen or whatever it is that happens to these vampires. So is Edward really 17 mentally and not 109? Well maybe 17 in the year of the Spanish Influenza was more mature than our 17, so let's say that makes Edward 23 (I calculated this very scientifically). And now that Bella is 18... there is not as much of a gap as before, so technically she's still younger and he's older mentally and physically...but...moving on.

All of the original peeps are here, Eric, Jessica, Angela, Mike and Alice leaps off of the school staircase and no one notices and Jasper's hair looks like he was electrocuted. Also the vampires look more vampiry this time around-they must have gotten stronger contacts, but seriously, Forks! How do you NOT KNOW!!!!

So then we go to English class where we are watching the oldest film version of Romeo and Juliet EVER instead of the super hot one from the 1960's which is mentioned in the books and now I'm guessing that the old old movie was cheaper to use in this movie, but whatever. So then Edward starts talking all about suicide which totally brightens Bella's birthday up and then the teacher is like "Mr. Cullen, why aren't you paying attention to the movie? Quote Romeo's death monologue" or something and then Edward does...he knows every line, except he delivers it like a dead person ---and ok yeah he's dead, but he's animated or reanimated or something, so he could have had a little more feeling behind it. Maybe they should have watched the Leo and Claire version instead.

Overall Bella and Edward have a few kisses that involved a lot of grunting...nothing as hot as the first kiss from the first movie or as sweet as the last kiss in the first movie. But ok...she has her birthday party--it's disastrous...BIGGEST BLOODIEST PAPER CUT EVER! Then Edward slams her back and she starts flying and smashing into tables and...honestly, how does Jasper function in society at all? I mean it was a papercut! And did Edward really have to throw Bella across the room? Couldn't he have just been like "Yo, Alice, get your man!" and then grabbed Bella and run into the woods?

So then Bella goes upstairs with Carlisle to get stitches and for a few minutes things looked really hot and heavy between them.

Anyway the next thing we know, Edward is dumping Bella and I'm sorry but I couldn't buy into any of it. It was so obvious (even back in the books) that he was faking it because he wanted to protect her and come on, Bella, really? You've read Wuthering Heights 500 times, you can identify things in petri dishes--you're smart. Then she curls up in a ball and Sam finds her and no one seems weirded out by the fact that this guy is walking around completely shirtless.


Then we get to the epic blank book pages of October................November..................December........January.......though the line about how time passes even when it feels impossible even for me wasn't there, unless it was and I was doing something that made me miss it. Because that's a good line! So Bella sits in a chair in the same outfit for 4 months as the seasons change and Charlie does yard work and then she has these wierd screaming nightmares which...um....I've had my heart broken before but I've never woken up screaming.

Finally Bella hangs out with Jessica again and I LOVE Jessica and her jacket! Bella realizes she can see Edward if she does the danger thing and gets on a guy's motorcycle. And it's just all...this movie made me a little uncomfortable. It was just too much.

Ok, Bella hangs out with Jacob...he takes off his shirt a lot until he just doesn't wear it anymore. I think he took his fashion advice from Matthew Mcconaughy. Then he stops talking to Bella and you know....I can't stand Jacob in the books. But I LOVE Jacob in the movie. I am Team Jacob all the way. I am so Team Jacob...I don't even think I can watch the 4th movie now if it gets made. I'm sorry, I just can't.

Anyway Quileutes are werewolves. Jacob RULES. And I was very bored because...well it was kind of boring and we all know how things end for Jacob so there's no suspense at all.

When the Volturi showed up, things got exciting again. Also Jacob gives great hugs. I want a Jacob Hug. He hugs better than Edward. Can't wait to see how he kisses. I bet he rocks.

Ummm so I totally didn't miss Edward, but was happy to see the sparkly return nonetheless. Bella races through Volterra and somehow manages not to trip while running fast and...why couldn't Alice have run to Edward too? I mean even if he'd read her mind and not believed her about Bella being alive, she could totally fight him and slam him back indoors and demand he put a shirt on, right?

Well Bella gets there in time but the Volturi are not happy. Bella starts acting again-you can tell because she blinks a lot. I don't think Edward should be allowed in scenes without his shirt. Sorry. But Jacob doesn't need to wear one ever. Just saying...

Ok, so Dakota Fanning is Awesome! This movie should have totally been all about Jane. She was a total little bad ass. The Life and Times of Jane Volteri--I would have rather seen that movie. Also, Bella Mike and Jacob go on their awkward triple person date to see a movie called Face Punch. I would have rather seen that movie too. Face Punch sounded awesome.

Anyway so the Volterri beat up Edward throwing him all over the room and then he is slammed into the floor and his face cracks! It actually cracks like he really was a marble statue. I ended up yelling "They broke the sparkle!" but then his super vampire healing powers I guess glued that crack back together.

So anyway Aro the main Volteri guy was awesome. It would have been cool if Damon from Vampire Diaries could have played that role too. I would have appreciated that.

So then they all get to leave and go home. And then Jacob shows up totally pissed off that Bella left and was selfish and is going to be a vampire and he reminds Edward of the treaty=no biting. Then Jacob (as Cleolinda would say Fursplodes) and Bella throws herself between them and then Edward proposes. FIN.

I think that these movies would benefit from a bit more adpatation instead of trying to make the pages of the book appear onscreen. I know we love it when a movie stays true to the book, but these books...they just don't translate well on film (at least for me). I think they could, but so far nothing has amused me.

Ok so, New Moon in three sentences. Edward sparkles. Bella cries. And Jacob takes his shirt off. The end.

Kevin Williamson Made My Day!

After the whole hoopla with Publisher's Weekly, I didn't really think this week could top last week, but then when I woke up this morning--OH so early to teach my class-- suddenly... this week totally won!

I discovered that Leah (who is AWESOME) passed my latest Vampire Diaries recap onto Kevin Williamson via twitter. How did I not know that Kevin Williamson was on twitter? Seriously, fighting with my printer is addling my brain and btw we are still NOT on speaking terms!

But moving on, what did Kevin Williamson-- the genius behind the Vampire Diaries, Dawson's Creek, Scream, and Teaching Mrs. Tingle (which by the way I had to watch at least 100 times while I was waiting to hear from colleges) have to say about my recap?

kevwilliamson now that's a recap. loved it.

AAAAAHHH! So you know what, Il Primo! The next time you're breathing down my neck and telling me to quit being on the internets, and it's INTERNET! INTERNET! Not internets! Drop the s! My response to you will just be @Kevin Williamson!

Il Primo: Frankie, work on your WIP! Delete more words, kill more adjectives, stay off the INTERNETS!

Frankie: Oh yeah, Il Primo?!?!!?

Il Primo: YEAH!

Frankie: @Kevin Williamson!

Il Primo:....

Frankie: :-)

Ok, seriously, this is very cool. I have loved Kevin Williamson's work since I was 16-that's a whole decade, ie., that's a loooooong time! (And for the record I could not stomach Dawson's Creek after he left). He has definitely had an influence on my writing -I love how self aware his characters are and how often they will say something completely ridiculously true though you have no idea at the moment. Come on, who doesn't love Pacey going on about that movie with the hockey players and the ducks...with that guy...that guy... when you know he, Pacey, Joshua Jackson was THAT guy in the movie. Too good! So the fact that Kevin Williamson even maybe looked at something I wrote for a second, totally had me grinning for an hour straight. Until I had to wipe it off my face and put on my "I'm a totally strict teacher poker face for class."

But then I went right back to grinning when it was over! So....not a whole lot to report on the Nanorevismo front-Tuesdays are never good writing days for me because of my work schedule. Though rumor says there are more armadillos on the loose...

But here is some excitement!

You can still enter to win an ARC of Lauren Kate's Fallen! Contest ends 11/20 (the same day New Moon is in theaters!)

Thank you to The Bookologist for featuring an interview with me and the FNC chicas at her blog today.

Super thank you to the Vampire Diaries Online for featuring my recap! (Btw you can access all of the recaps at the FNC now through my sidebar)

And now...I'm off to grade papers!

Dear Printer 3

Dear Printer,

You know it's been awhile since we really connected and I understand that you're maybe feeling a little insecure about the time I printed something off the computer in my office, but look, you weren't exactly there when I needed you, and it was JUST one time! You know you're my favorite....usually....when you're not being a stupid jerk making me do double sided printing manually when you are supposed to be an automatic double sided printer...

Whatever--my point is that I'm here now and I'm talking to you--directly to you, as in, as of this moment I am pressing the print button and I really really need this document for my class tomorrow so it'd be great if you could cooperate with me, especially since you're only task in life is to print because you're a printer you know, and if you don't print, then really, what does that say about you? Huh? What's a printer that doesn't print?

Sorry, I'll drop the philosophical commentary, I know you hate that you piece of junk but look, just print, for me... Ok? I'm going to press the button now, so...

Look, this whole bussiness about you being offline is just crap. You're not offline, you're online, that's why I bought you so that I could access you wirelessly. See the little blue button, that means wireless. Wireless=online. Why do I need to explain these things to you? They're your parts!

Do not make me pull out the cable plug, Printer! This isn't funny! Do you even know how hard it is to open those packages? The way they seal the plastic and the glue they use on the edges? It's impossible and... I could cut myself trying to do that-do you really want my blood on your...ink cartridge? So why don't we go back to the way things were? Cable plug stays in his plastic tomb, I press print, you give me the green light, pages come out, and we go to sleep happy.

Ok, this is NOT funny! I'm getting the scissors and I'm telling you right now printer that if I have to use these to open the cable plug and plug you in, someone is being tossed from their favorite table perch and it's going to be you.

I am NOT acting like a crazy stressed person! I don't see you having to work with a 6 foot tall scary armadillo breathing down your neck!

PRINTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that!

OK FINE!

THAT'S IT! I'm cutting....snip snip...

...

...

...

UGH...


You know what plastic electronic packaging, we're going to have a talk...

Me and The Internets Need a Break...

So I'm sitting here at my laptop innocently typing away super hard at work on my revision and killing adverbs, deleting entire paragraphs --ENTIRE paragraphs --and suddenly finding myself with a few less pages of WIP, I'm totally doing everything Ninjadillo taught me and there's a knock on my door.

Frankie: Hello? Who's there?

No answer...

Frankie: Um, look, I know I don't look very impressive right now but I'm actually super hard at work on my best seller and like, you're totally disturbing me from my creative rolll. I was in the zone...

There's another knock...

Frankie: Dude! Ninjadillo is that you? I'm trying to work here...

And then my door is smashed down! The lights flicker, thunder claps and I look up to see...

F: OMFG! You're not Ninjadillo! Who are you?

Il Primodillo! Ninjadillo's Great Uncle!

F: Il Primodillo? Um...ok, hi Il Primodillo

Il Primodillo: Call me Il Primo. It's shorter, succint, to the point!

F: Ok...

IP: Unlike your book!

F: (mouth drops open) Where...where's Ninjadillo?

IP: He is busy starring in commercials on other blogs. So I'm stepping in!

F: Oh, really, I...

IP: Do you know what today is?

F: (voice squeaks) November 16th?

IP: Exactly! You are now more than halfway through November! More than halfway through Nanorevismo!

F: I know Il Primo, I know. The other day I totally revised chapter 13 and I deleted like 6 pages from my WIP. 1,000 words were cut.

IP: Yes, but did you finish chapter 14?

F: Well....no...but see, the thing is...

IP: You didn't finish chapter 14! Why not! You have only 15 days left of Nanorevismo and 9 chapters to revise. You should be done in 9 days.

F: But...but that's impossible. You see, I'm not just a writer. I'm also a college professor, and librarian and a babysitter and I run these blogs and...

IP: Internets! This is why you haven't finished chapter 14!

F: Actually Il Primo, it's just called the internet...singular, whole encompassing noun.

IP: Do NOT correct Il Primo!

F: Sorry!

IP: Now here is the deal! You finish chapter 14. You sign off the internet. And you get that WIP finished. Capiche?

F: (takes another look at Il Primo)

F: (shaking violenty-oh crap adverb) Capiche!

Update:

Chapters Revised: 13
Chapters Remaining: 9
Word Count:  141, 299
Page Count: 481

Acknowledgements: THANK YOU Shannon for finding such a freaking scary armadillo to put the pressure on us in the final half of Nanorevismo. And for being just so awesome in general with her support and comments!! EEEK, back to work!

In My Mailbox 10

This week has been EPIC! And this post has sort of been happening all week long, but officially, here is what I acquired. (Thank you Kristi at The Story Siren for hosting this meme!)


Signatures: aka Reader Porn from Libba Bray, Scott Westerfeld, Kristin Cashore, Justine Larbalestier, and Suzanne Collins.

Books I bought:

Well, not all of those, but those are ALL the books I had signed.

But I did buy:

1) Leviathan, Scott Westerfeld

2) Uglies, Scott Westerfeld

3) Liar, Justine Larbalestier

4) Going Bovine, Libba Bray

5) Babycakes, Erin McKenna

6) Eating Gluten Free, Shreve Stockton

7) The G-Free Diet, Elisabeth Hasselbeck

Downloaded from Itunes:

1) This Lullaby, Sarah Dessen (Don't hate but I'm meeting her this weekend along with some other authors, but I'm keeping some things a secret right now)

And Borrowed from Donna:

1) The Shifter, Janice Hardy

I Made Publisher's Weekly

Well sort of...I'm referred to as an attendee and then they linked over to my post at the FNC and OMG!!!

Look here's the link!

You know I always thought my first time in Publisher's Weekly would have more to do with me getting a super major unbelievable book deal thanks to my uber-fancy agent who wears great shoes, and maybe feature a really glam author pic of me and everyone would be like "oh who IS Frankie Diane, she's so fabulous," but no, the first impression I made on the good people of Publisher's Weekly shows me looking like this...

OD'ed on famous authors and their signatures! Oy!

Just kidding! If Publisher's Weekly wants to link to me, they can link to any picture they like. Thank you for using my recap whoever posted, really, really, thank you!

And thank you Anissa for letting me know! Totally awesome of you.

I was on my way to Donna's when I got the news (no I don't check my blackberry when I'm driving, sheesh!) and literally ran into her house jumping up and down until we went and checked out the link on her computer and proceeded to squeal and roll on the floor for five minutes until we sat down for some tv. Now that's a good night!!

Also gluten free vegan cookies.

I'm living the life!

Wordle Winner and Other Things! Mostly Links

Happy Friday the 13th! But mostly, Happy Friday! Ok, so for those of you who were anxiously awaiting to hear who had won my wordle contest, taking the mixed up words of my first chapter and creating something amusing out of them, your time is now:

The winner is....SOUTHERN PRINCESS! Yay! Congrats! To read her winning entry click Here! Just leave me a comment with your email, Courtney, and which book you'd like to receive and perhaps we will also talk about gluten free vegan cookie bribes ;) If you ever get to look at my actual first chapter you will see just how amusing her entry was:-)

Don't forget you can still enter my contest HERE to win an arc of Fallen by Lauren Kate!


Next SUPER THANK YOU to Heather at The Secret Adventures of Writer Girl who somehow found a way to infiltrate my brain and just now told me about the band Blackmore's Night knowing I'd like them, and OMG I love them. Heather this is MY music! Brilliant suggestion! I just downloaded Ghost of a Rose and I'm totally listening right now. It's awesome. I can't get over that you picked a band out for me so perfectly.

So it's Day 13 of Nanorevismo and lo and behold I'm working on chapter 13! Though not getting a whole lot done because I'm totally behind on my critique of my CP, Kelly's book and I'm desperately trying to make it up to her along with the other bajillion things I have to do.

Anyway I decided to experiment a bit with gluten free food today because I've been reading about it lately and wondering if you know, maybe this is for me. Technically I have gone gluten free before two years ago when I went 100% raw for 42 days. I haven't been very raw since though I still enjoy the raw foods diet and I tried to do Arnold's crash course in raw about a month or so ago, but...umm that just didn't happen. But I have a few reasons that you probably don't really want to hear about for wanting to try gluten free.

So here are the goodies I found and brought home with me today...

The books...

Babycakes by Erinc McKenna whose bakery I have to visit the next time I'm in NYC meeting famous authors...

Eating Gluten Free by Shreve Stockton

The G-Free Diet by Elisabeth Hasselbeck

And...

Because everyone knows that when you start restricting your diet you should do it with junk food (ok I just made that up, but it sounds good). I also got gluten free bagels but they're chilling in the fridge. I've already tried the Andean Dream chocolate chip cookies and they're pretty yummy. Not sure if I need to do this-I haven't been diagnosed with Celiac's or anything but I'm always up for experimenting with health foods.

Alright that's all folks, I'm off to watch Stephenie Meyer on Oprah with Donna:-)

Nanorevismo Day 11?

Yikes, how did that happen? OMG!

Anyway in case you missed it, I had an epic adventure in NYC yesterday with Suzanne Collins, Scott Westerfeld, Justine Larbalestier, Kristin Cashore, and Libba Bray which you can read about at the FNC.

Did you read that? Woooo.

I'll have you know that I completed my grand adventure on under 4 hours of sleep. Because Monday night I was hit over the head with enough inspiration to completely ignore my lesson planning and stay up until after 2am just revising the crap out of chapters 11 and 12 until they were done! I managed to cut over 1,000 words so I was really proud of myself, and though I'm already getting some ideas from chapter 11 feedback, I know that I'm closer than ever to finishing, which is a relief!

So here is the update:
Chapters Revised: 12
Chapters Remaining: 10!!!!!! (1 away from single digits)
Word Count: 143, 358 (this is soooo great, and I think from here on out the word count will go down)
Page Count: 486 (also awesome, I'm down 3 pages woohoo!)

I'm still kind of reeling from lack of sleep, plus I have to actually do my lesson plan for tomorrow and I'm meeting up with Donna tonight to do another one of our FNC co-reviews, but I say by this weekend I'll have chapter 13 revised and then be into single digit chapters remaining. I'm getting there, soooooo close!!!!

Also guys you may have missed it, but I am giving away your choice of 4 hardcover books (Wings, Impossible, The Tear Collector, New Moon) if you create a short entertaining story out of my chapter 1 wordle. Anyone can enter, just take the words and go nuts.

I'll report back later :-)

Nanorevismo Day 9 and Snippet of Wippet

I finished revising chapter 11, I'm so glad!!! It wasn't as painful as chapter 10 and it has one of those chapter endings that just makes me feel warm inside, so I'm happy with how it turned out.

And the best part is, I'm finally kicking butt with my word count. While everyone nanoing is trying to up theirs (hehe) I'm trying to cut mine down.

So I started off this morning with 144,486 words and by the end of chapter 11's revision, I was down to 143, 999. YES! Also I went from 489 pages to 487! Woohoo!

So here goes my official update:

Chapters Revised: 11
Chapters Remaining: 11 (omg I can't wait until this is in single digits)
Word Count: 143, 744 (I'm in a little ways into chapter 12)
Page Count: 487

I don't usually do this, but I'm really pleased with this one excerpt from chapter 12. Like really pleased. So I thought I'd share it, though I may very well wake up tomorrow morning and be like OMG that is horrible, you need to have your head examined and cry foul and delete it. But for the moment, me likes, and maybe you will like it to? I don't know, but here it is.

Just before we reached the doors to the Temple, I took one last deep inhale and slipped the cloak from my shoulders. Ryan was right behind me, sliding the cloth off my arms. He lingered there just a moment too long. Long enough that I still felt warm with my arms and back bare. Long enough to make my heart beat faster. Long enough for me to know that something had changed between us. Another wall had been broken, another barrier down, and the boundaries we’d sworn by were growing thin.

Ok, I might update again later. Also don't forget to enter my contests below. For those of you who have read chapter 1, you can still totally enter, you're just playing with the words:-)

Wordle...What's My Book About?

Ok so Shannon just posted her wordle of chapter one and because I'm me, I decided I should try and summarize Shannon's chapter 1, just based on on her Wordle, and if I do say so myself, the story I invented about this girl who also happens to wear jeans-it's going to be great!

And that was so much fun I decided to make my own wordle, and now I kind of want someone to come up with my chapter one for me, so how about a contest...

I live for these things, giving a bunch of people 5 words or 5 objects and seeing how many different stories, scenarios and ideas can come out of it.  Really, nothing amuses me more. And look...I'll even give you some motivation to play along with my shenanigans. Like how about a free book? Ooooh enticing.

Now quite possibly running two contests on my blog at once could be confusing (oooh look win an arc of Fallen over here) and this is quite probably, possibly, maybe, ok fine, definitely my little way of proscratinating a bit on my revision (by the way I do feel better about it today but still overwhelmed, thank you everyone for the supportive comments), but seriously, this is SO MUCH FUN.

Ninjadillo says just get on with it already, announce contest, stop using adverbs and get back to work!!!! Heeeeyah!

OK! OK! I'll get to the point.

How about this, you invent the craziest, funniest, kookiest, or sexiest, darkest, most mysterious (or whatever, just take my words and have fun) short story and post it in the comments and Friday afternoon (11/13) at say around 4, I will pick the one that amuses me the most and you can have a choice of one of the following hardcover books:

1) Wings, Aprillyne Pike

2) Impossible, Nancy Werlin

3) The Tear Collector, Patrick Jones

4) New Moon, Stephenie Meyer

How's that! Ok, go for it and I'm going to tackle more revisions before Ninjadillo kicks my butt.

P.S. If you click on the wordle it'll take you to the link of the real thing where the words are much bigger and easier to see.

Nanorevismo Day 8

OMG! I cannot believe that I am 8 days into November aka Nanorevismo aka 3 weeks to go until my deadline and right now it is feeling NOT possible. Though I guess I should clarify that when I said my deadline was December...I conveniently left off a specific calendar date to accompany December, I simply said, December. So...when I feel like I am overwhelmed, it's because I have in my head December 1st, but in reality I'm not actually holding myself to that. But still, I'm 10 chapters in out of 22 and this week Shannon read my first 10 chapters, not to mention Kelly AND all of the girls at the FNC, plus my beta readers Asha and Atiya. So while chapters 1-10 are in the best shpae of their life-they still have plenty of room for improvement. So I kind of shudder to think what sort of shape chapters 11-22 are in.EEEEk!

Anyway now that I have SO much feedback, I am very tempted to sit down and obsess over my comments and critiques, BUT I have to move on and finish 11-22.

So I thought I'd do a two part post today. Part one, covering my thoughts on getting stuck in revisions. And part two about what your role is as a writer when you work with critiques.


Stuck In Revisions:
Ok confession time! I have some mad skillz in revising. I know how to do it, and not just go back and fix awkward sentences or rearrange a few sentences, I know how to re-VISION. Look back at the greater whole, themes, motifs, foreshadowing, etc...and completely rewrite something. I have written over 100 pages into my manuscript and then thrown it out the next day. I have tried writing chapter one in about 100 different ways. I have deleted characters, added characters, changed characters, moved them back a book, and yes...I kill characters. So while I have all of this down....the truth is...

I have never revised an entire book before. Much less a 489 page novel! AAAAH!

And one thing I'm sort of struggling with is actually doing the entire revision. Maria Snyder once said that many writers get stuck writing the first 3 or so chapters of their book over and over and over again. And sure they are writing and probably getting the most amazing first three chapters EVER, but they aren't writing a book, they are writing a few chapters.

It took one of my writing teachers, Gretchen Haerstch to actually forbid me from retouching a single word to teach/get me to finally write an entire novel. And since I've finished this version of my WIP (of which they are many) I have found myself constantly going back to fix the first few chapters in the begininng. And I realized that I was starting to repeat my pattern again. Revising a few chapters of your novel is not revising your novel.

So as AMAZING and insightful and exciting some of my comments on chapters 1-10 are...I know I can't do anything with them until I pay equal attention to chapters 11-22. When I think about the changes I might make to 1-10 and the changes coming in 11-22, I definitely start to feel overwhelmed and wonder if my December deadline is going to look like December 31st, or like...nothing at all....it's scary, but I know all I can do is keep moving with what I have and with what I know I can do.

But when I am ready to go back and tackle all of those comments again... here's a little bit of my philosophy/advice on what to do as a writer when you get critiques.

First of all, you have to remember that your story is YOUR story. Only you get to write it, only you get to come up with the witty dialogue and only you get to decide what is right for your story in the end. Which basically means you cannot listen to every critique you get. And you cannot accept the advice you get blindly. You have to think about what each change means, but you also need to follow your gut instinct too. If your gut tells you that making a change is wrong, even if it sounds really good, even if you know the person who made the suggestion is amazing, your gut is still right.

But I know sometimes its hard to listen to your gut, especfially when you're overwhelmed with the idea of revising your entire book. But in general, a good rule of thumb is this: listen if everyone is saying the same thing. If one critiquer tells you that a piece of dialogue isn't working and you think it is, then maybe it's fine.

BUT...if five critiquers say a piece of dialogue isn't working, then it's 99.9999999999% definitely not working!

So those are just some of my thoughts today because I'm realizing I need to move forward, but I also need to have a plan of attack for what I have.

Ok, well now I must return to the scary unknown of chapter 11 and so forth. Hope everyone else who is revising is doing well. Any advice or tips you want to add, please do in the comments.

In My Mailbox 9

The contents of my mailbox...errr my exciting shopping bag!-that I got this week:-) Super thanks to the ever awesome Kristi at The Story Siren for hosting this meme.


So last week I bought the boxed set of the first four Pretty Little Liars books in honor of going to a Sara Shepard book signing last Friday night. I'll write more about that later, but Sara was awesome and so much fun to meet and I got...

1)Wicked, Sara Shepard

2) Killer, Sara Shepard (SIGNED!)

I was SO excited to see in the bookstore I almost squealed!

3) Beautiful Creatures, Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

And last but not least I got Sarah Dessen's The Truth About Forever on itunes. I just finished Lock and Key last night and I LOVED it!!! So I had to jump into another Dessen immediately.

Win an ARC of FALLEN by Lauren Kate!

Wow, thank you everyone for pushing me over 100! I have a thing for triple digits which anyone who has read the first page of my WIP will know. But you know what that means...

CONTEST TIME! This month I'm giving away an arc of FALLEN!

Ok, here's the deal: Fallen has to do with epic and doomed love (not to mention fallen angels), and so I want to know who's your favorite tragic couple -either from literature, history or the movies. Tell me about them and why you love them so much. Leave this in the comments along with your email and as long as you are a follower-bam, you're entered!

+1 for being a follower, leaving a comment and including your email address
+1 if you repost this on your blog (please leave the link)
+1 if you link me in a tweet (tweet me @frankiediane)


Contest ends November 20th, 2009 at 11:59PM.

I will contact the winner by email and announce it here along with an epic post about tragic romance!

Good luck!

Nanorevismo Day 5: Grey's Edition!

I have a teensy weensy issue, it's a problem actually, a disease, a disorder if you will. But ever since Season 3 of Grey's Anatomy ended, every few months or so, I go into a rage (it's really scary and my eyes bug out) where I rant about how much Grey's has been RUINED, RUINED I tell you by the fact that the writers lost sight of their characters and character arcs and plot arcs and well I'll say it, their sanity, and absolutely destroyed a show that for two seasons was unbelievably perfect.

If you are someone who still likes Grey's, ummmm we can still be friends but I have no words for you. Don't even try to tell me that you thought it was a good idea to have THREE parent deaths in season 3! THREE! OMG, how many times can they repeat the same storyline? And don't even get me started on the way they absolutely destroyed the Christina/Burke and George's dad dying storylines. During sweeps week, it was brilliant! Brilliant! BUT...I still maintain that his dad should have died in the season finale. They shot the goods prematurely too soon! And so they tried to fix that. How? By KILLING Meredith's mom! Ok that was an awesome episode. But THEN, they killed her new mom! I mean, really. And then they had to have George and Izzy get together while he was married to Callie? Like Meredith and Derek's adultery wasn't enough! Though I wasn't watching by that point, but word gets around.

Have you picked up on the fact that I don't like repeating storylines? Hey remember when Christina got pregnant and then Bailey got pregnant and THEN Meredith thought she was pregnant but actually had appendicitis all within the span of three seasons?

Anyway I'm sitting here avoiding actual Nanorevismoing because right now chapter 11 just feels too daunting and I've had the week from hell the life of a really, really busy person. And so I've had like no time to really work on my revisions, which I don't like, because I LOVE revising. I do, I say bring it!  I'm like a ninja of revisions and critiques now. Seriously, Shannon has cured me of my deep breathes. She sent me a VERY insightful critique of chapter 8 and I didn't even flinch. Maybe Ninjadillo is rubbing off on me.

But oh look, Lifetime is showing the pilot episode of Grey's, you know the one where you get to see Derek's butt in the first five seconds? Oh season one, how I love you!

Look, it's the season one dvd cover! Gosh I wish I could Nanorevismo this show!

This is even the episode when Alex wasn't in the same intern team as everyone else. Then I guess the writers decided he was hot and needed more facetime so he got moved to Bailey's.

Anyway, I'm going to finish this episode but then I am returning to chapter 11's revision which I've really only tackled a few pages of (which if you are my chapters means nothing because my chapter lengths are kind of epic).

Of course then I have to watch The Vampire Diaries and do my weekly recap, you should head over to the FNC and show some love.

And I decided that I'm going to hold another contest. YAY! This time...you can win an arc of this...

Ooooooh! Aaaaaah!

Anyway I've been hanging out at 98 followers for awhile and I'd really love to pass 100 (triple digits) so if you are a lurker who for some crazy reason hasn't yet become a follower, then you totally should because look at how much fun it is! And if you have any friends who like quirky bellydancing vegan professors who write epic length fantasy novels full of sexual tension, then you should totally send them my way! Ok? Capiche? Alright. Signing out!