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WIP update and burglars and challenge news

Thank you to everyone for the amazing song selections for Melinda and SPEAK. Next week I’ll ask about CATALYST, so start thinking! (Note to self: finish note to Theo about website update.)

I have been hammering away on the WIP despite the best attempts of the universe to interfere. My mom wound up with a medical incident early in the week (she’s fine, thanks for asking, all the problems are working out) so I spent a day and a night with her. My father-in-law has also been struggling. (Elderly parents are the replacement stress inducers after your kids go to college.) And then around three this morning, our burglar alarm went off. Have you ever heard one of those suckers? It’s the loudest sound in the entire world. I think it blew over some of the trees in the forest. Woke us up in a hurry. Scared off the bad guys, too, if in fact, it was bad guys and not critters. Lucky for them. I am not nice when woken rudely.

Despite all the craziness, it’s been a decent writing week. Somehow 4000 new words popped up yesterday. I have the first full draft complete, and am now on draft 2. I’m not sure how long the darn thing will be, but the first 60 pages are in really good shape. Stay tuned.

Oh, yay. My high school is in the news again.

Congrats to the National Book Awards winners and finalists!

A standing ovation for the good people at Ridgefield High School in Ridgefield Washington for successfully working through the challenge to SPEAK. The book has been taught there for five years, but an objection was raised a few months ago, which led to it being pulled from the curriculum. The staff and administration worked with community members to go through their evaluation process and earlier this week, the book was reinstated. (I will try and collect more specific information and post it when available.) These challenges are so hard on the teachers involved…. many, many hardy congratulations to them for caring about their students enough to fight for a good book, and for the administrators who backed them up. I hope it was a good experience for the entire community. Go Spudders!!! (Yeah, that really is their mascot. Yes, I love it.)

Speaking of good teachers, I am facing south and waving to everyone in Nashville, TN for the annual NCTE conference. Waving with a very brave face, trying not to pout, wiping away the tear trickling down my cheek, lower lip quivering. I am so bummed I am not at the conference this year. Gah! I am watching a couple of blogs for tidbits about the workshops and parties. Sigh. Deep sigh. Deep, pathetic, damp sigh. Guess I better write another book. Maybe, if I’m a really, really good girl, I’ll get to go next year.

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Music for Melinda Sordino

Hey there, guys.

This has to be one of those weeks when I turn off the Internet and beat my head on my WIP manuscript in the hopes that some words will leak out of my forehead and onto the page. In fact, the rest of the year is going to be that, with time off for good behavior on the holidays.

I want your help. I figure we can use my temporary absence from the Net for a fun project.

Help me develop playlists for my characters. Respond to this post here or comment on my MySpace with the names of songs (and the artists) that makes you think of one of my books. We’ll start this week with SPEAK. What is the best playlist for SPEAK. Why?

If you give me enough ideas, I’ll have Theo dream up a new website page for the playlists. Maybe I can figure out how to set them up over on iTunes, too.

(I am smelling a class project, teachers.)

While you give me tunes, I will write. Does anyone want to hear about the progress of that, word counts, etc.?