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For your consideration

Yes! I ran outside yesterday! The wind chill was about 20 degrees, but there was no ice on the side of the road and I saw robins. ROBINS! Granted, they had wrapped their wings around themselves and were hopping up and down to keep warm. And, granted, they were accusing each other of making a big mistake flying north so soon. But they were ROBINS.

My daffodils are still sleeping under the snow, but I bet they are starting to think about doing something green.

Here is your quote for the day, from photographer Dorothea Lange: ““The secret places of the heart are the real mainsprings of one’s actions.”

She was quoted by my friend, Elizabeth Partridge, in a wonderful Horn Book article about the spirit that fuels all us artists, and what makes life worth living.

What do you think about this article?

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One blizzard, 953 crazy people & countless vats of chili

When you suspect you are a little crazy, it’s nice to have company.

Yesterday BH & I ran in the 4th Annual Chilly Chili 5K Race in Cazenovia, NY. When we started running 18 months ago, 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) seemed an impossible distance to cover. Now that we’re training for the half-marathon (13.1 miles) it’s a piece of cake.

Usually.

A snowstorm blew in at the beginning of the race yesterday. A wicked storm. The temperature was around 18 degrees, but the winds were gusting 20 – 30 mph, which made for a wind chill just below zero degrees(F). It was snowing sideways. The road was covered with slippery, scary snow and ice.

And nearly 1,000 people ran, shuffled, and walked the distance. Finishing a race under those conditions is a lot like completing a book on deadline: it’s not very pretty, but the sense of accomplishment is huge.

Image and video hosting by TinyPic Even if your face is frozen. I don’t know if you can see it in the photo, but the ice on my face is frozen sweat. The rest of me was toasty warm, thanks so several layers of warm running gear, but the face was a little ouchy.

The whole point to completing this race is the party afterwards.

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Quick Thursday

Quick thoughts:

A 6am diner breakfast with my dad is a nice way to start the day.

Sarah Dessen’s North Carolina Tar Heels basketball team is still dominating. Sadly. But my Hoyas don’t completely suck.

Yesterday’s run was long, slow, and lovely. And I woke up with a sore right knee. I checked the mileage and sure enough, I’ve put in 325 miles in this pair of running shoes. The last time I had knee trouble, it was when the previous pair of shoes got to 325. You are supposed to only have to get new shoes every 400 miles, but I think I have a snobby knee. (Think Princess and the Pea. Or Knee.) So it’s off to the store we go. Thank you, darling children, for the gift certificate at Christmas!

Along with working on my book and keeping various family plates spinning in the air, I am preparing for my workshops at Kindling Words next week. Are any of you going to be there? If you are, help me out: this is my first KW (I’ve been wanting to go for years). What is your favorite part of KW?

Writing note – I keep circling around the description of a character’s room, putting stuff in, taking stuff out, walking into it, walking out of it, etc. Why am I struggling with this? Because I am still trying to understand this (secondary) character. Hmmmmmm.

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An award list to dance to & how running helps my writing

Thank you, thank you American Library Association committee members!!!!

I am very proud that TWISTED made both the 2008 Best Books for Young Adults and the 2008 Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers lists!!!!

This feels awesome. Excuse me while I take a moment to bask.

::baskingbaskingbaskingbaskingbaskingbaskingbaskingbaskingbaskingbaskingbaskingbaskingbaskingbasking::
Ahhh. So, so sweet.

OK, back to work. I have spent the day rewriting Chapter 19, because the same thing happened to that chapter as happened to 17 on Sunday. But it’s all good.

nudged me about answering a question she posted to my Facebook a while back. She wrote: Do you think that running/excersize helps your creativity/creative process?

(Truth in blogging disclosure: I just finished a carb-heavy lunch and am staring at my clothes that are laid out for this afternoon’s long run. It promises to be a chilly one.)

Does my running help my writing? Yes. Absolutely. No doubt. Ja. Si. Absolutement.

If I ever write a book about writing (do you think I should do that, BTW??), it will contain long passages about how moving your body fires up your imagination. For now, here are my top five reasons why my running helps my writing:

1. Running makes me happy, thus, it is a very good reward and incentive to do my work.

2. When I write, I am a) sitting still and b) dangerously close to my kitchen. If I didn’t exercise regularly (and trust me, there have been times in my life when I didn’t) I eat more than my body needs. This slows down my brain and expands my rear end.

3. Running is a meditative exercise – it helps me process my stress in a healthy way.

4. My travel schedule is often grueling. Running (and weight lifting, which I don’t talk about much, but I do, too) keeps me physically stronger and better able to fight off the germs that try to attack unsuspecting travelers.

5. Running has helped me develop mental discipline, which allows me to stay immersed in my stories longer. I have several writing/running mantras that I repeat in my head when I am tempted to stop writing or hit the Stop button on the treadmill.

6. Yes, this is a bonus reason. The human body was designed to move. If we want our minds and spirits to produce their best, we have to help our bodies be the best they can be, too. It’s all connected.

(Thank you for the nudge, )

Now, I have three more pages and a long stretch of road ahead of me.

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Skinless

Yesterday was a very, very intense day. Wonderful, every single minute of it, but wicked intense. I feel like an apple that was peeled with a dull knife and left on the counter overnight.

It’s weird because I used to be a profoundly shy person, and then I learned how to be brave and extroverted, and now I actually love hanging out at conferences and meeting hundreds of people, but then I have moments like this when I feel shy again. Balance, I guess, is the key.

The highlight of yesterday was booksignings, an hour at Anderson’s Bookstores booth, and then an hour at the PermaBound booth, where the line stretched forfreakingever.

Image and video hosting by TinyPic I was thrilled when Ms. J. from Hawaii showed up! I met her on my MySpace page when she wrote asking some questions her students had about the symbolism in SPEAK. Her MySpace photo has her sticking her tongue out, so it seemed appropriate.

Old friends, strikers, and desserts

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