critter corner: June 2011

The Snarky Question-Maker gives an Introduction to my Blog

How my Blog Dressed to Match my Cover, and Some Other Covers I Love.

Hey y'all!

Do you notice anything different around here?

No, I haven't lost weight. But thank you.

It's my blog! After the big Cover Reveal last Friday, I received a lot of suggestions that I should dress to match my book:

Since there's no way I could rock that dress, or even squeeze into that dress, I decided to dress up my blog to match. What do you think?

Also, I have to give a big shout out to the world wide web for all of their support over the cover. And let me tell you, that cover took a lot of work. First, I had to find the girl. Then, I had to shop at JC Penny for the dress. Then - this was the hardest part - I had to search the world for some smoke/cloud/fog action...

Okay, I had nothing to do with the cover. Huge thanks for the cover team at HarperCollins. Did you know there are graphic design guys that specialize in smoke?

Anyway, since I've sort of been cover-obsessed this past week, I'd love to share with you some of my favorite covers of recent and upcoming books:

First up, IMAGINARY GIRLS by Nova Ren Suma:

I think Nova should totally dress to match.

It's so darn lovely. And mysterious.

Next up, and keeping with the water theme, THE UNBECOMING OF MARA DYER by Michelle Hodkin.

Some guys are hot enough that you wouldn't mind being pulled under with them.

Seriously, I don't know what it is about underwater shots, but they are so awesome!

And, now, we have an upcoming book, INCARNATE by Jodi Meadows:

Um... you have something on your face... near your eyes...

I think this cover is so different than anything I've seen lately! I love the colors, and I have to know why her eyes have wings!!

And, in keeping with the "winged creatures on the face" theme, here is another one I love, LUMINOUS, by Dawn Metcalf:

It says something good about a person when butterflies love her.

Oh, man. So so pretty!

This is why I love hardcover books so much. They are works of art! So, what are some covers you love? Also, a reminder that if you'd like a chance to win an arc of EVERNEATH, stop by CranberryFries and Windy's blogs. All you have to do is assemble the right phrase to tweet. It's sort of like a treasure hunt, and who doesn't love a treasure hunt?

Happy EVERNEATH Cover Reveal Day!

Info on my First ARC giveaway, and the Plan to Reveal the Cover of Everneath

Why I let out a Blood-Curdling Scream Saturday Morning. Did you hear it?

So, Saturday morning, I wake up.

Sam comes in my room and is all, "We can't find Kid C's iTouch. Can you help me?"

He looks at me, I look at him, as we do most mornings.

me: "Sure, honey."

I go downstairs and start looking while Sam looks upstairs. After a few minutes, he calls down to me. I stand at the bottom of the stairs, he is at the top, and he tells me he found the iTouch. All the while, he is looking at me.

I come back upstairs, and go to the sink to brush my teeth. As I'm putting toothpaste on my toothbrush, Sam appears behind me. I turn around, and naturally, we look at each other. He says, "I'm off to work. See ya later."

I'm all, "Okay! See ya soon!"

He leaves and I turn back around to start brushing my teeth. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. And I scream.

On top of my head, nestled in my hair, is a giant brown spider.

Hi Brodi! I love your hair.

So, the spider and I calmly have a conversation about my split ends, and he insists I shouldn't have been able to see him because he was deeply entrenched in my dark roots.

Just kidding. There was no conversation. Unless you count my screaming and running outside, yelling for Sam.

Me: "Sam! There's a spider on my head!"

He takes one look, and I see it on his face that he has indeed seen the spider.

me: "Get it out! Get it out!"

Summoning up a buttload of courage, he digs his fingers under the spider, and flings it across the porch, along with only a few strands of my hair.

Two things bother me about this whole situation:

First - no surprise - there was a spider in my hair. Not a small spider. A giant brown spider. This has resulted in more than one dream about spider eggs being laid on my scalp. For the rest of the day, about every five minutes, I would involuntarily scream and scrape my fingers through my hair.

Second, Sam talked to me three times. Three times! Face to face. And he didn't see the spider.

Whereas, when I glanced in the mirror, it was the first thing I saw. I don't have a picture of me with the spider on my head, but I had to look something like this:

Sam was all, "Nice hair. So I have to go to work now. See ya."

And he didn't notice.

I'm trying to rein in my anger, but when you have a spider on your head all morning, all you can think about is that there has to be someone to blame.

And I blame Sam.

How about y'all? Anyone ever had a spider on their head?

I can tell you this much: I'll never be the same again.

What do a door in L.A.'s Griffith Observatory and the Publishing Industry have in common?

Happy Birthday Dad... May Your Chemo be Strong and your Hands Blister-Free

My California Adventure: including Kid B's pigeon impersonation and the scariest gang at Muscle Beach

Hey y'all! I'm back. Sorry for the blog silence on Friday. We decided to make the drive from Dana Point, CA to Salt Lake City in one day, and it was 11 hours in the car. 700 miles.

Yep, that's kid C watching a movie on the computer and Kid B watching the car's dvd. Because apparently the earth would stop rotating if the two of them actually agreed on a movie. What do people do with three kids?

Anywho, it's time for a...

RUNDOWN OF THE TRIP! (Dun Dun DUN) *cue timpani drums*

Grab your snacks now, because this is gonna be long.

We... played at the beach.

Kid C running for his life


Kid C thought the "Watch out for rocks" sign at the beach really said, "See how many secret places on your person in which you can hide sand!" He's still sneezing the stuff.

Kid B preferred one degree of separation between him and the water. He would put a sand dolphin on the beach, and then patiently wait for the water to wash it away.

Kid B: Daring the water to get any closer. Just cross this line.

Every once in a while, the water took the challenge.

My nephews Josh and 4-year-old Asher played smashball. It only took them two hour to smash their record. Which was one in a row.

Why is the ball so tiny?!

We also invaded the famed Muscle Beach at Venice Beach. The reason why the gym is empty in the pic is because this pack of hoodlums threw down the gauntlet and the girlie men ran away. Actually we just told them there was a sale on "Juice" down the block. We meant orange juice.

the gang, imposing their lack of muscles, and flexing the fleshy part of their elbows.

We also fed the birds. Because everyone knows the pigeon population is endangered.


Kid B does his pigeon impersonation. He made a buck-25 in change from passers-by who thought he was a pigeon, but then were delighted to discover he was a boy.

Here he is, about to take off.

Venice beach also had the nerve to charge 20 bucks for these Luigi and Yoshi backpacks. Good thing we're not suckers.

These so-called "backpacks" fit all of two quarters inside. Which we had to give the woman selling the backpacks. For "insurance".

Next up was the happiest place on earth: The Lines at Disneyland!

We made the kids wear matching shirts. Because we didn't want to look like tourists.

Kid B and Asher: Thinking to themselves: "Does everyone realize the street behind us is fake? Seriously, adults. It's a wall. A painted wall. Did we pay money for this?"

At one point, we told Kid B he was in charge of crowd control. He actually believes he's leading these people.

Follow me, my people. I shall lead you to the promised land: the Fastpass lane.

Speaking of Fastpasses, I rocked them. Seriously. Check out this stack.


If my writing career ever falls through, I'm going to become a freelance Disneyland guide.

How do I get so many passes at once? It's all in the wrist.

I know it's called Splash Mountain, but why do we have to get so wet?

Check out Kid B's expression. It's like he's too terrified to scream.

I was soaked after this ride, and all I could think about was how many places that water had been. And how many people it had touched before me.

Okay, this post is getting too long. I'll leave you with this hangman board from our game with Kid C. The clues we gave were:

1. Villain

2. Star Wars

3. The villain from Star Wars.

Kid C never got it. Anyone out there have any guesses?This week I'm going to the world's best writing conference WIFYR. Pronounced Why-Fer. Hope to see some of you there!

NYC Part #2: Where Emily looks crazy on a subway, and Bree runs off with a banana

Hey y'all.Today, we're heading to Venice Beach. I've never been there, but I hear it's where Muscle Beach is. This is very exciting.But on to the rundown of my New York trip!We conquered Broadway, with viewings of Jersey Boys and Wicked.

Emily Wing Smith, Bree Despain and me.

We ate lots of awesome food.

Here we are at Katz's Delicatessen, home of that famous scene from When Harry Met Sally. You know... the one where Sally does the... thing... and that woman says, "I'll have what she's having." Which was a pastrami sandwich.

Our hotel was near Times Square, so we were there a lot. Below, you can see we asked Stevie Wonder to take our picture.

iPhone cameras are hard to work.

Bree and I went to the Harry Potter exhibit. We must've gone at a slow time, because we were the only ones in line. I think they were expecting more people to come, because we had to stand in line a long time waiting for them to let us in to the exhibit.

Here's Bree, standing in line. That's how she looks when she's waiting. She struck that pose the entire time.

But no one else came. So they finally let the two of us into this large room with a stage. On the stage was a guy with a fake British accent, standing next to a chair with a hat. The guy and his accent were all, "Who in the audience would like to be sorted by the sorting hat?"Bree and I looked at each other. We were the only ones in the "audience".Guy: "Any volunteers?"us: "..."Because, when you only have two people, do they really need to be sorted?Eventually we both took our turns with the sorting hat. We ended up in Gryffindor. We must've been stout of heart.Emily Wing Smith did a fantastic job at her reading.

She had to practice on the Subway ride to make sure it timed out right.

Here's Emily reading out loud. Just for fun, Bree and I took turns acting like she was crazy, and then slowly moving away.

In between the readings, David Levithan would stand up and read from an educational sex magazine.

David Levithan, describing how boys and girls have different parts.

That is not a joke. He really did read from the sex magazine.. Somehow, it fit the evening events, but now that I'm telling about it, I can't make it make sense.I also got to meet with my awesome editor Kristin Daly Rens, as well as Emily from HarperCollins marketing and Allison from publicity. I presented them with a "Mormon Cookbook", and said, in a solemn voice and a bowed head, "This is a gift from my people."

I shouldn't have said it so formally, because they began to gingerly leaf through the pages of casseroles and jello, taking care not to bend the spine, and promising to do right by these hallowed recipes. I quickly clarified that I don't actually cook, and that despite what they've heard, these casserole recipes are not actually scripture, so they can feel free to abuse the book without offending anyone.The rest of my pictures feature only Bree and Emily, because I'd often take out my camera and give a quick, "Smile, girls."The result is what looks like a series of engagement pictures for them. Here's the happy couple, after the official announcement, celebrating at John's Pizzeria.

Each of us - a half - incompletetogether we are as one…in this there shall be joy.

Look how daintily they ingest their BBQ from Will's Barbecue...

Each hour, each day, each yearWe grow as two, yet as one,We grow apart, yet togetherForming an eternal love

Here they are, under the famous Katz's Delicatessen sign. The world is their oyster!

Love turnsone person into twoand two into one

But, at times, even though they were smiling on the outside, I sensed a restlessness developing...

The most joyous of occasionsIs the union of man and womanIn celebration of life…

Eventually, it came to a boiling point, when I clandestinely snapped this picture of Bree with another man (Robbie, Boy With Books) and... a giant banana.

Three heartsthat beatas one…

It's okay, though. Emily found someone else too:

Strangely, the "I Feel Lucky" button on Picasa wasn't so lucky this time.

And of course, in the end, the cow ran away with the spoon.

Okay, I just went to Google "Cow ran away with the spoon" to get a picture of the cow and the spoon together, but it turns out it was the dish who ran away with the spoon.

What the what? Am I the only one who always remembered it as the Cow running away with the spoon? I'm a little disappointed. Here I thought the poem was being all progressive with a mammalian-flatware relationship. Now it turns out the spoon ended up with a plate. This is a little too normal for me.

So I jotted down the version of the poem as I remember it, and here it is:

Hey diddle diddle,

The cat ate the fiddle

the cow jumped over the moon

Little Bo Peep lost her sheep,

And the cow ran away with the spoon.

I know now that there are many things wrong with my version, not the least of which is that Little Bo Peep doesn't belong there with her sheep, and any cow who jumped over the moon would be way too tired to run away with a spoon.

And yes, the cat eats the fiddle in my version, but I ask you, how is that so much weirder than a cat who plays the fiddle?

Ohmyheck. Have I really spent this entire blog discussing Hey Diddle Diddle? What is my problem?

So much for progress. This blog is so long! Take a few days, digest the entire thing, and then let me know what you think. Did anyone else have the cow and the spoon together?

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