FORGE book tour – Week 1, part 1

First – apologies for not posting in the past week. Things have been crazy, wonderful and busy.

Second – thank you, Garrison Keillor!!! I have been a huge fan of his forever and a long-time follower of his daily Writer’s Almanac feature. So you can imagine my thrill when I woke up this morning and found out that Garrison featured my birthday!!!! (Ahem, yes that is today.) And as if that wasn’t enough – HE PRONOUNCED “HALSE” CORRECTLY!!!!

(Pardon me while I do a few cartwheels!)

The other author mentioned today? Some dude named Michael Crichton. What Mr. Keillor probably doesn’t know yet is that YA authors Alex Flinn and Gordon Korman were also born today.

How old am I today? 49 years old. Which means that now the two-year celebration of my 50th can begin!! (I am not one of those people who freak out about getting older. I figure the alternative is to be dead, and I’m not ready for that yet.)

What am I going to do today? The Book Tour Gods kindly arranged things so that after I spoke at the English teacher’s conference yesterday, I was able to go HOME, which means I woke up in my own bed this morning (awesome!) and started my day with a mug of tea brewed by my Beloved Husband. Right now I’m hanging with my dogs and replaying Garrison Keillor’s thrilling pronunciation of my name over and over again. Might have to turn it into my ring tone.

In a couple of hours I am headed west to Rochester, NY, where I will be speaking at the Pittsford Barnes & Noble at 3 pm today. Care to join me?

In other news, FORGE has hit the streets and Week One of the Book Tour is officially over. Here are some highlights:

The Texas Book Festival in Austin was a blast.

cheerleaders at Webb MS I visited a couple middle schools and was cheerfully greeted. Thank you, ladies!!

 

 

 

 

food!! Also got to hang out with friends and eat Mexican food at a kidlit party. From the right in this photo: David Weisner, Tony DiTerlizzi, some guy I don’t know, and Varian Johnson.

 

 

 

 

Fryhover Family! The Fryhover family currently holds the “Drove The Farthest To Laurie’s Event” award. They drove 9.5 HOURS to see me in Austin. They are totally getting Mad Woman in The Forest tee-shirts.

 

 

 

 

author's best friend Along with visiting schools, libraries, and book stores, I spent several mornings on the phone doing interviews with radio stations all over the country. Anytime you can do an interview in your pajamas it’s a good thing.

 

 

 

Must get ready for my event now. More later, I promise!!

friday five

1. It is too cold to work up in the loft today (without firing up the furnace and burning gallons and gallons of fossil fuel), so BH built a fire in the fireplace in our bedroom and I am working there.

2. I can’t wait until I get through today’s pages and go to the gym because I have new running shoes! And they were on sale!!!

3. I also bought the coolest outdoor running hat ever (also on sale). The V-notch adjuster thing in the back is perfect to stick my ponytail through. If you don’t have a ponytail, you have no idea what a pain it can be to run with a hat on because either the hat loosens the ponytail and then the hair gets in your face and sticks to it because of the sweat and the sunscreen and it fries your last nerve and you have a temper tantrum right there on the road in the middle of nowhere with no one watching except the half-rotted corpse of a squirrel and when you’re done you feel like a right idiot, or b) your ponytail bounces your hat off and it lands on the half-rotted corpse of a squirrel and, well, you leave it there.

But because of my cool new hat, that won’t happen anymore.

4. Just what I needed: more fodder for bad dreams.

5. You want to make hot chocolate this weekend.

3 for 01.02

Daughter Stef heads up here for Christmas #3 in a few days and I am trying to polish the first act of my new YA in time for her to read it. (She is one of my trusty early readers because she doesn’t pull any punches with me.)

So I have very little interesting to say except for “Is the coffee pot empty again?”

However, I stumbled across a couple of sites to share with you, in the Spirit of the Season of Resolution:

#1. Unclutterer. If you’re trying to get sane and organized, start here.

#2. Slow Down Now. For people trying to take their lives back from the Work-Harder-Rush-Faster culture.

#3. The Simple Dollar. If you have money-oriented goals for the year.

I will browse all three in depth just as soon as I make the new deadline, find my checkbook in the mess that is my desk and get my bills paid.

Ha.

Friday 5

What’s something that’s hanging from your ceiling?
A small glass star, filled with wishes.

What’s something that’s hanging on your wall?
A poem by Louis Erdrich. (scroll to May 29th.)

What’s something that’s hanging in your closet?
Enough sweatshirts to get me through the winter.

What’s hanging from your rear-view mirror? (for those without cars, what’s something hanging from the rear-view mirror of a car you’ve recently ridden in?)
Nothing. I don’t like distractions.

What have you been hanging onto for too long?
A couple of ancient resentments. Must throw them into the fire and release them.

Want to play? I tag everybody.