Home & a Surprise in the Forest

All is right with the world.

I am home, where I belong. BH greeted me at the airport with a dozen red roses. (I told you he was the perfect author spouse!)

My adopted-hometown paper, the Philadelphia Inquirer, ran a wonderful review of TWISTED. (Thanks, Greg, for the link and Hippo Bird-Day again!)

The Creature With Fangs finally conquered her fear of the stairs and spent part of the morning with me in my third-floor office, for the first time ever. That was really sweet.

I finished the last of my thank-you notes and have made a dent in the email.

But best of all, Spring is well and truly here. No, the snow isn’t gone yet. (And we are expecting more later this week.) But the farmers are boiling maple sap into syrup down the road, and the snowbanks have retreated from the sunny patches of the yard.

Last October, I planted several hundred daffodil bulbs in my Forest. This was not as easy as it sounds because the Forest grows on top of boulders, not dirt. In order to plant the bulbs, I had to use a pick axe to pry out the boulders. While engaged in the sweaty task, I realized it was a great metaphor for writing. When I spoke at the Rutger’s One-On-One Plus Conference a few weeks later, I brought the pick axe and a bag of bulbs and used them as a tool to talk about the writing process. Then I gave away the bulbs, because I figured 300 bulbs in the Forest was enough.

While I was on book tour, someone (thatgirlygirl, was it you?) gave me an email from a friend of hers who had received one of my Rutgers bulbs. She planted it in a pot and attached to the email a photo of the bulb shooting to life. And then I heard from tracyworld, whose Rutgers bulbs have popped up, too.

So I wandered out to my Forest, still in my post-booktour brain fog. And what do you know?

Image and video hosting by TinyPic As quickly as the tide of snow can recede, daffodils are shouting themselves into our world.

::beams::

14 Replies to “Home & a Surprise in the Forest”

  1. Awwww…how sweet of BH.

    I was able to finish Twisted in the few free minutes I have here at school and loved it. (I sacrificed sleep on a couple of occasions because I couldn’t put it down.) The ending was amazing. I also enjoyed the character of Yoda and his geekiness. Most of the guys here are the same way, if not worse, when it comes to movies/video games. 😛

    little quirk

    PS-I love daffodils.

  2. Hey yes! It was my critique partner, AMP, whose bulb is shooting up. Yours look beautiful too, right there on the fringe of all that snow.

    Here’s a prezzie for you. Remember my 5 year old, who came along? He confiscated my poster. I found it here, attached with packing tape:

    Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

  3. Similar Book Idea

    Dear Laurie Halse Anderson,

    In school (I’m 12, 6th grade)I did a project on space. We had to either write a book or a report. I decided with a book. I based the main character after your last name (HUGE FAN!!!!!) and decided with Katie Halse. In the end, she goes to MIT. I just recently finished Catalyst and got really kind of creeped out when I found out that the main character’s name was Kate and she applies to MIT. The only twist was the Katie to Kate thing and the getting into MIT and not getting in. Also the plot is COMPLETELY different. My dad thought that it was creepy too. So yeah. But I love your writing. I read Fever 1793 when I was in 4th grade. I loved it sooo much and read twice more after that. I then read Speak and was very moved. I made my mom, BFF, and teacher read it. They all loved it. Like I said, I just finished Catalyst and hope to start Twisted and Prom soon. Thank you for writing all of your very wonderful books. I enjoyed them all very much (even the one’s I read nearly 10 times :D)! You are an inspiration on young writers and are in fact one of two of my favorite authors (J.K. Rowling is the other) You have a lot, a lot of talent. Thanks for reading this little comment thingymabober. (You can really tell I’m in 6th grade) I’ll shut up now. Goodbye.

    -Brook in Ohio

  4. I can never post comments on your journal or view the photos on the links. It’s all quite a tease! I am at the library today, so I get to check out all your pictures..Yay for TWISTED! I cannot even waiiiiit to read it! It should be extra cool because I’m a senior and your MC is a senior, if I’m not mistaken…

  5. I didn’t think your bulbs would be sprouting/shouting yet. Very cool. When the daffodils all go into bloom, your rocky, pick axe memories will fade away.

  6. I just finished Twisted last week in one day, and thank you. I connected okay with Speak and Catalyst but taking on the guy’s view, and writing that, that was amazing. It truly… just… yeah. Thanks.

  7. Any word as yet if it has gone into a second printing?

    How about sales on Amazon.com or other online sales?
    Nothing specific of course just curious if its meeting your (and the publishers) expectations and such…

  8. I don’t think it will go into t a second printing for a while. I’ve never seen my sales broken down by type of bookseller, so have no access to data about online sales. (Yes, i find this a little frustrating, but would rather focus my energies on writing.)

    It is hard to tell precisely how many books have sold because booksellers order a bunch of books, then, in a few months, are allowed to return those that haven’t sold.

    I DO know that the book sold well enough in its first week out (direct sales reported by booksellers) that you will see it on The New York Times’ Children’s Chapter Books List published April 8th. I’ll trumpet this in a blog entry in a few days.

    My publishers are pleased.

  9. Twisted

    Laurie…
    I just finished Twisted last night and thought it was great and afterwards just thought about the whole thing. I am currently a 1st grade teacher (I have written on here before) and will be teaching 4/5 grades…well, I know that your books aren’t suitable for those grades, but this summer I will be spending time writing some more Literature guides for books that we will be studying next year. I have written three so far (Milkweed, Bridge to Terabethia, and The Watsons’ Go to Birmingham-1963), I would love to write one for Twisted and send you one so that you can post it on your website or I don’t know how you would do it. I don’t think that I could send it over email because I add alot of stuff in them.
    What do you think?
    Thanks and again, your an extremely talented person!

    John Scovill
    St. George, Utah

  10. Re: Twisted

    Thanks so much! Penguin has put together a reading guide to the book, but I would love to have additional materials that teachers could use, and would be very happy to post your material on my website.

    You can email the material to admin AT writerlady DOT com, or mail it to PO Box 906, Mexico, NY 13114.

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