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TWISTED teacher contest

Uncle Viking-Penguin (my publisher) has 30 TWISTED advanced reading copies to give away. Are you a teacher who is interested in having them as a classroom set?

All you have to do is answer two questions. Email your answers, your name, and the address of your school to comments AT writerlady DOT com.

Slightly edited deadline details: You have until midnight, EST, on August 31st to get your entry in. I will put the winning emails in a hat and draw one. We’ll take pictures of the drawing and announce the winner as soon as the drawing is complete.

So…. the questions:

1. What is the significance of the name of the game Tyler plays on his computer?

2. Which classic American play, often taught in high schools, helped inspire TWISTED?

If that last question is too hard, I’ll post a clue later. But you are teachers. You can handle the pressure.

Good luck!

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Melting

Ack. It is officially hot here. I don’t do hot. Nor do I do humidity. I am the Ice Queen, fond of blizzards and lake effect snow.

Last night was horrific. The air was so sticky that I kept waking up convinced that critters were crawling on me.
Then a bat flew into the screen window TH-WACK!

BH and I lay there, in a pool of sweat, debating whether the bat was outside the house, trying to get in, or (much worse) inside our bedroom, trying to get out. As my husband drifted back to sleep I held my breath, listening for the flutter-flutter of bat wings. Because I knew, I just knew, that the bat was waiting for me to fall asleep so it could swoop down, nest in my hair, raise a brood of baby bats which would all latch their fangs into my neck and suck the life out of me. No, wait, they would almost suck the life out of me, but they would leave just enough so that I would become Undead. Then when the sun rose in the window directly across from my pillow, it would pin me to the sheets and fry me alive.

Don’t even try to tell me how silly this is. It was hot, I was tired, and I hallucinate at the drop of a hat (or bat) under stress.

Anyway, I woke up. I was not a pile of ashes. I was just sticky. No bats in the house. A few bats in my belfry. I keep checking the weather channel in vain search of a cold front that will rumble through here and save me from my fevered brain.

STARVING ACTOR ALERT: If you live in or can travel to Central New York and want to become a voice actor for the amazing, fantastic Full Cast Audio company, then pay attention. They are auditioning men and women ages 16 to 18, and men ages 28 to 32. Auditions are August 28th. See Shelf Life for more details.

In other news, Mom is doing great and my new sneakers make me run faster. Now I will go lay in front of the fan and whimper.

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Back to the well of optimism

I really appreciated hearing from all of you about the absurd farce that is the health care/insurance system in America. To summarize the solution: Register. Learn about the candidates. Vote for change. Hold the elected officials accountable.

(Why do I think I will be ranting about this again?)

Yesterday I got up close and personal with the health care system as I spent all day and part of the night with my mom as she went through various and sundry procedures in an attempt to make blood flow through her body. It was a hard day for her and she rocked it. She kept her sense of humor and when they finally let her eat, she ate enough for three linebackers. Best of all, she did not die. Good work, Mom! She was treated at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Syracuse. I was very impressed with every single person there; from the guy who pushed her stretcher to all of the nurses on 5-2. Thank you all very much!

Today was mostly spent recovering from yesterday. Tomorrow: back to work.

Other good news: I bought new running shoes today!!! Woot!!!! In related news, there might be hope for me after all. And even more good news, we’re having sushi for dinner. Must go make fire-breathing wasabi.

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A Mad Woman Rants

My health insurance company, Aetna, sent me a letter on Thursday. It was polite, up until the point where they raised our monthly premium 25%. On the same day, Aetna announced a 16% jump in their second-quarter earnings.

I have been an Aetna customer for years. They took good care of us. But we officially cannot afford them anymore. My husband is a self-employed carpenter. I am a self-employed writer. That means we don’t have any companies helping to pay our premiums. (The policies offered by SCBWI and the Author’s Guild do not extend to where I live. Think long and hard about this, friends, before leaving your day job to become an author.)

With the rate hike, we are looking at paying $18,000 next year just in premiums – for two people. (We do not have any dental or vision coverage, but we do have a decent prescription plan.) We cannot afford to basically spend an entire salary on health insurance.

Now don’t go feeling sorry for me. We will find other coverage. BH spent half of yesterday working the phones and we have a couple of different options. The next insurance company that we go to will be expensive, but not out-of-reach. The other option is that one of us could get a job that offers benefits. If any local colleges want to hire me to teach, I’d do it for a minimal salary as long as I could have benefits. Regardless, we will find a way to make this work.

But you know what really makes me mad? Makes me want to scream and hurl spears? Makes me want to chain myself to the Washington Monument or wear a sandwich board that says SHAME while walking back and forth in front of the homes of health insurance execs like UnitedHealth Group CEO William McGuire, who made $125 million in 2005?

Too many people don’t have the choices I have. In my country, which I dearly love, having a job with benefits can mean the difference between life or death. About 18,000 people died last year because they didn’t have insurance. Fifty-four million people were uninsured at one point or another in 2006. Fifty-four million – this is an obscenity.

Our local newspaper is always announcing a spaghetti dinner or a pancake breakfast or a bake sale to raise money for someone’s surgery or chemotherapy. This is an abomination.

I am not the only person who has snapped about this. In a recent poll, health care was the second-most important issue that voters wanted to hear presidential candidates discuss, behind only the Iraq War. I don’t want them to talk about it. I want them to be leaders and make a change for the good.

If you are lucky enough to be covered and to have premiums that you can afford (this could change tomorrow), I ask you to do me a favor. Spend a little time figuring out what it would cost you if your employer dropped your coverage. After you pick yourself up off the floor, please write a letter to your congressional representatives and demand that they quit sucking up to the health insurance lobby.

I’m really tired of letting the bad guys win.

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Taking stock, answering questions, counting to 100

I am feeling an enormous, cranky rant coming on, but I was raised to believe that before you complain about something, you should take stock about what is working in your life. So today, I am digging for the good stuff. (But I swear I will rant tomorrow.)

To start with, the ALAN online chat was a blast. It was like a giant IM session with everyone able to see all posts. At one point, so many people were trying to get on the board, the server crashed and we were all booted off. That was a pain, but also kind of cool. Thank-you to everyone who participated, and David Gill and CJ Bott who set it up. I think there will be a transcript of the discussion at some point. When I hear about it, I’ll let you know.

One of the participants kindly sent me a few of his questions about TWISTED that I didn’t have time to answer.

Q: did you intend the eroticism that i and my friends found pretty prevelant in the first part of the book? (mostly in repeatedly describing how well built tyler is, and ongoing comments about his erections) my gay/bi friends and i loved it on that level and on the deeper more significant levels as well.

A: Wow, I never thought of it as eroticism; I felt it was an accurate reflection of the kinds of things teenage guys think about. If anything, I toned it down. I don’t see how anyone can write about older teens without working in some mention of sexuality. It’s a core component of their existence. They don’t have to act on it, but they think about making themselves attractive to people that they find attractive. A lot. That’s part of being 17 going on 18.

Q: this may make me sound stupid, but what was the point of the duct tape on yoda’s ass? just to pull hairs when he had to remove it?

A: You are describing the very ugly locker room scene in which a secondary male character is attacked. I don’t know that there a deep significance other than the removal of the duct tape will cause more pain and shame. This kind of assault is way too common. I want to help make it go away.

Q: will bethany’s family ever level out? will bethany become more selfconfident/less slutastic as time goes on? will chip realize that he doesnt have to be an ass to have “friends?”

A: There would have to be a massive internal earthquake to change anything in that family. They are very unhappy people, despite all the expensive trimmings in their life, and they have no clue how to change things. My heart goes out to them. (“Slutastic” is a wonderful word, btw.)

OK, what else am I grateful for today? That local libraries have air conditioning (we don’t and fans can only do so much). Our kids are all healthy; that is a blessing. My knee, which has been acting up so much I’ve had to take a break from running, is responding to time on the elliptical machine. Blueberries still in season. I have eaten so many my mouth might be permanently stained. JK Rowling seems to be getting her life back; that’s nice. (Thanks for the link, Shelf Life.) That I finished HP Book 7 without being exposed to any spoilers. That people are talking about Robert Heinlein, whom I still grok.

And I got these drawings from fans of THANK YOU, SARAH in the mail.