SCBWI and other stuff! :)

I can't believe summer is already winding down! We just got back from a fab family vacay down in San Diego and the kids are getting ready to start school next week!

I sent out ARCs of LENGTHS tonight. Liz and I are so *happynervous* for it to be out there in the wild! It has an official release date of August 13, 2012.

I went to SCBWI this weekend (I probably mentioned that before!) :)
We all had an amazing time! I got to hang out with some of my favorite writerly people, and sit in on some amazing workshops.

I went to a couple of workshops with speaker Tim Ditlow, an editor for Amazon publishing, and were super informative.

We also attended one with Jay Asher (yes, the Jay Asher) on how to create suspense in your novels. It came at the perfect time, because I have really been struggling with a super secret project I've been plotting for a while now, and I actually managed to sort out a few things that were hanging me up during Jay's (first name basis, naturally) ;) presentation.

And....I was lame and barely took any pics, but Jolene, Christa & Nyrae took several!

Here we are with Jay Asher

And I bought some gorgeous signed books

One of the absolute highlights of the seminar, was hearing Ruta Sepetys (author of Between Shades of Gray) speak about how to write broken characters. Her speech was helpful of course, but also heartbreaking and beautiful in all of the best ways that make you feel your own humanity and leave you itching to sit down and write because somewhere in you, you may have an amazing story to tell. (I can't wait to read Between Shades of Gray, either.)