Random Thoughts from Mexico

I just got back from an amazing 8 day trip to Cancun last weekend. It also happened to be my 30th birthday. Here are just a few of the things I learned or observed while I was there:

1. Apparently I speak Spanish with a French accent--at least according to SHH. I disagree, but whatever.

2. I'm going to miss everyone saying, "It's a pleasure" whenever I say thank you for something.

3. I've always known I had temperature control issues (I'm always too hot or too cold), but I didn't realize just how bad it was until I got caught in a downpour in the jungle (for an entire day!) and everyone else seemed fine while I was shivering uncontrollably and my fingers, lips, and toes were all purple. The couple we were with kept talking about how fun it was to be in a warm rainstorm. I wasn't quite sure we were in the same jungle as they were.

4. Mexican beef tastes different. At first I liked it and didn't mind, but by the end of the week (and a bout of Montezuma's revenge) it was starting to make me sick just to smell it, let alone eat it.

5. I miss waking up to room service and the ocean below my balcony. Also the sun. And warmth. And the gorgeous blue ocean. What a beautiful place.

 

6. People who are drunk and who have never driven a boat before should not be allowed to drive a boat. We got rammed from behind, breaking our motor and throwing it into full throttle. Luckily SHH did some quick maneuvering and saved us from another collision and then shut off the engine and had to beach it and wait for them to bring us another boat. The guy who hit us tried to claim a wave did it. We were in a cove without any waves. Mmmhmm. Sure. 

7. Humidity + my skin = no bueno.

8. Humidity + my hair = massive amounts of volume and frizz

9. You should never post pictures when you're out in the bright sunlight and can't tell for sure just how much detail is visible in the picture.

10. I loved having the chance to feel like I was in the world of DEFY for parts of this trip. There were times walking through the jungle, both in the sun and the rain, that I totally felt like Alexa. Minus the sword and all of that. So cool.

It was an incredible trip! Now I'm trying to get back into the grind of reality and normal life and work and being a Mommy and everything else again!

The big 3-0

So, I have a rather big birthday heading my way next week. But will I be here, celebrating in the cold?

No way!

I will be here, relaxing on the sunny, gorgeous beaches of Cancun with SHH!

Sun and sand and all-inclusive restaurants and I can't wait!

See you all on the flip side!

So much gratitude

*warning, this post is long, but hopefully worth reading

Wow. Just, wow. The response over the last few days since my book deal for DEFY got announced have been absolutely amazing. So many messages, emails, comments, tweets, and more--some of which even made me cry! An amazing book blogger that I admire and have followed for years already added DEFY to Goodreads and it just made it that much more real: my book is going to be a REAL BOOK. People want to read it! People are excited about it! I can't even begin to express my gratitude to all of you for making this such a wonderful moment in my life--and for being excited about DEFY!

Guys, most of you know what a looooong road this has been for me. And I linked to a bunch of posts about that in my last post, so I won't repeat it again. Instead, I'm going to talk a little bit more about this particular book, and how it came to be.

Tomorrow is the one year anniversary of Josh's death. My sweet cousin Megan's birthday is today. I can't believe a year has passed since we lost him. After his death, I couldn't write. I'd sit down at my computer and nothing would come out and the reality of Josh's death would hit me over and over again, and I'd just sit there and cry. This is the post I wrote after we lost Josh: sometimes the answer is no. 

It was a very difficult time in many lives.

One thing I didn't talk about on my blog, was that three weeks before he died, I'd made the gut-wrenching decision to leave my first agent after two years of working together. Within a couple of days after his funeral, my month of waiting was up and I began querying again. I was terrified. And broken in so many ways. Everyday that I sat down to write (because as I've said before, the best advice anyone gave me was to always WRITE ANOTHER BOOK), no words would come. 

Then one of my friends told me to just let whatever I was feeling come out. To not worry about a story or a plot, just write what was in my heart. 

So I did. It was a dark scene, in a jungle. Someone had just died. I poured all of my emotions into those words.

And that scene became the first words I wrote of DEFY. I had no idea what it would turn into. I had no idea who these characters were--yet. All of my pain, the stark reality of death I had just experienced, and my wish for eventual happiness in the face of death became a story that is full of hardship and loss, but also a story of courage and life. A story of magic and love and sword-fighting and defiance and characters who surprised me and took me places I didn't know we were going, and who I love so intensely, I can't wait to share them with all of you. But it was a difficult story to figure out. I wrote the first 10k quickly, within a few days. And then I hit a wall. I had a different idea that I decided to pursue instead. I figured DEFY (which was called Daughter of War at the time) would be nothing more than an exercise to help me sort through some of my emotions after Josh's death. 

But it wouldn't leave me alone. And when July came and I still hadn't received another offer yet, I decided I needed to come back to this book. To figure out what the heck was going on with it. 

For weeks, I tried to figure out where the plot was going, what needed to happen. I barely got any words written. It was unusual and so frustrating for me. I barely managed to eek out another 5-10k words. By early August I had almost come to hate this book. It just wouldn't speak to me. And the book I was querying, while it garnered some very serious interest, a near-offer, and a request for a revision, ultimately didn't seem as though it was going to get me another agent.

It was the closest I'd ever come to quitting. I knew I couldn't quit--I knew I wouldn't quit--but after six and a half years of rejection and trial after trial after crazy trial, and now seemingly unable to write a new book, I didn't know what to do. 

Did I truly want this dream or not? Was I willing to give up now after everything I had been through, suffered, pressed on and endured? 

Yes, I wanted it. And I was NOT going to quit. So I sat down, and just made myself write. It didn't happen that day, or the next, but about a week later, suddenly, it clicked. The plot FINALLY fell into place. The characters finally told me their secrets. And I wrote the last 60k in about five days, including one marathon session on a Saturday from eleven in the morning until eight at night. (I had to hire a babysitter because my husband worked.) When I finished DEFY, I was crying. I was drained. But I'd never felt more proud of a book in my life. I knew there was something special about this one. I love all of my books, but I truly felt like this was the best work I'd ever done. 

I revised it for a couple of weeks and sent it to some readers. Two had read for me before and one hadn't. The one who hadn't loved this book so much, it blew me away. I waited for the feedback from all three, and then spent another month revising it, and then decided to bite the bullet and query it. 

Well, you know what happened next. 

And now, here we are. DEFY is going to be published in about a year. 

Life is so interesting. One year ago, I was the one in the hospital wondering why the whole world hadn't stopped spinning, why so many people were living their lives, blissfully unaware of the heart-shattering loss we were enduring. 

Today, one year later, my sister is in the hospital, but not because of death. Instead, she is there to deliver life--to welcome her first child, her newborn son, into the world.

And today, one year later, the book that grew out of grief and loss, and turned into so much more, has been announced to the world. 

All around us are triumphs and failure. There is joy and devastation. As I sit here, trying to figure out how to put my gratitude and excitement into words, I can't stop thinking about my cousin who is celebrating her birthday for the first time without her sweet husband. I can't stop thinking about my sister, about to usher new life into the world. I can't stop thinking about everything that has brought me to this moment. Death. Life. Joy. Sorrow. Life is made of all of these and more. 

DEFY is a story that grew from a broken heart and a desperate hope, and became something that I am truly proud of and excited to share with all of you. I hope that when you get the chance to read it you will love it as much as I do. 

And I hope that no matter what your dream is, no matter what heartaches you may be enduring--or that may come someday--that you will never give up. That you will keep fighting for your dreams, for happiness, for the joy that will always come, if we just believe long enough

And I hope that when that day of triumph comes, that you will have as many wonderful people to celebrate with you as I have been blessed to have in my life! I have been so fortunate to have very supportive family and friends to celebrate with me and here is some picture proof:

 Going to The OG with my family to celebrate! (This is the sister that is having her baby boy right now!)

 Another one of my beautiful sisters (and my darling niece)!

 Most of the family (a few had to leave early). This was such a memorable night! The server at the table next to us shouted out to the whole restaurant that someone had a birthday, so then my dad stood up and shouted to the whole restaurant that I had sold my book and was getting published! Everyone cheered, and the women at the birthday table were very excited to ask me about it. The most ironic part is that a couple of weeks ago, we all went to Chili's and the same family was there and she remembered my dad and came up and asked me if we were the ones from the OG who he'd yelled about getting published! A memory I'll never forget, for sure.

 My husband's parents, a couple of his cousins, and his aunt and uncle also wanted to celebrate with me! We went to dinner, where his aunt brought me flowers, his mom bought dinner, and SHH had the sweetest surprise for me!

 A personalized pen!

 This is the box the pen came in (as I said, the book was originally called Daughter of War).

 The pen inside has my name on it and a bunch of inspirational words/phrases. It was the most thoughtful, wonderful gift. I saved that pen so that the first time I used it was to sign my contract a week ago!

 And then my parents surprised me on Christmas Eve by giving me a Christmas/Congratulations present: my very own Le Creuset!! (Any of you chefs out there know how amazing this gift is.) That is the face of super excitement and shock!

And I also had some wonderful friends take me to dinner: Natalie Whipple and Michelle Argyle made me feel so special! Thank you girls!

I also celebrated with many other wonderful people in many ways. But this post is already SO long, I better stop. I just want to say thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. 

And don't ever, ever give up. No matter what. 

THE post!

I've been staring at this blank screen for ... well, a while now. There are so many things I could say today--things I want to say. But I honestly don't know how to put into words what I'm feeling right now. Ironic, considering that words are what I use for a living.

I've already said much of what has lead me to this point before in THIS post, or THIS one, or even THIS SERIES of posts, way back in the distant past detailing my path to getting my first agent. (That link is the first post, I think I did it in 5 parts or something crazy like that. Also, I probably sound incredibly naive in those posts, so don't judge too harshly!)


It's been a long, long road.



BUT.


SOMETHING BIG HAPPENED.

Since I'm struggling to figure out what to write, instead of words, I'll use images. Today, this post is about something that makes me feel like this:




 And this:




And now, finally, I get to share this from Publisher's Weekly:

Lisa Sandell at Scholastic Press has bought Sara B. Larson's Defy, a debut YA adventure romance pitched as in the vein of Kristin Cashore and Leigh Bardugo. In the novel, the fiercest member of a prince's elite guard is actually a girl disguised as a boy, who gets embroiled in a deadly game of thrones while keeping her secret, and realizes she has far deeper feelings for the prince than she thought. The book will pub in spring 2014; Josh Adams at Adams Literary brokered the deal for North American rights.

I've been dying to share this news for a while and now I finally get to! AAAGGGHH!!!! ALL THE HAPPINESS!!!

When I got the call from Josh, he asked me how I was doing and then said, "Well, you're going to be published!"

I thought I'd do this:



And this:



Which I totally did... eventually. But when he said that to me, before I even knew who or what, I think I said, "I am?" and then did this:



And then when I found out who and what I did this:


(Except, they were ECSTATIC tears... But the ice cream is really appropriate because my hubby brought home ice cream to celebrate!)

Tears of joy, tears of relief... I'm sure Josh thought I was crazy.


But after my tears dried, there definitely was a lot of this:




Wow, that's a whole lot of emotion, right??

Guys, I am so so thrilled to be working with Lisa and to have my book published by Scholastic! It's an absolute dream come true!! And I can't wait to share DEFY with you! (This is the book I wrote last August, that used to be called Daughter of War--I'm pretty sure I talked about it in one of those posts I linked above.) I still can't quite believe it's going to be a real book, on a shelf, in my hands--possibly in your hands--in about a year! SQUEEE!!!! *happy dance* *all the tears of joy in the world*

 See? Here's me and my ice cream (after the happy tears had dried up), after I got my offer, with a nice little placement of a decoration beside me. In case you can't read it, it says "BELIEVE."

And here I am just last week, signing my contract!

I will do a post soon about all of the celebrations that have taken place over the last couple of months, including the amazing gift my sweet hubby gave me (other than ice cream). And I'll probably talk a lot about not giving up, and and inspirational shtuff like that. Because, let's face it, this is me we're talking about.

But for now, all I have to say is:



WOOOHOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Craziness and stuff

So, I'm in the middle of moving right now. You always forget how much moving stinks until you get to do it again. The being in a new house, and organizing everything, and all of that--I love. The packing up the old space and transporting everything and all of that--I hate. Add to that three kids who like to "help" a lot (to varying degrees of usefulness), and a mountain of writing work to be done, and let's just say it's kind of a crazy week! But I'm so excited. This has been a long time coming, and I can't wait to get settled in and make our new house a home!

THE NEW HOUSE!

(kind of a funny angle to hide the numbers on the garage... just to be safe.) 

And as far as the writing goes, well, that's good stuff, too! #ProblemChild (aka my WIP) has finally decided to behave (for the most part), and I'm more than halfway done. Probably closer to two-thirds. Which is good, because I'm hoping to finish it before I get hit with some revisions that are looming on the very near horizon. It probably won't happen, but at least I'll be close! This book is very different from the other ones I've written in many ways, and while I'm extremely excited about it, I'm also nervous. It's always a little scary to branch out to something unfamiliar.

Also, it's snowed about a foot in the last twelve hours. Or maybe more. Between the never-ending-inversion-of-death and now the never-ending snow, I'm kind of done with winter. Good thing I get to escape to Mexico in March, just in time for my birthday (the Big 3-0!) with SHH! I can't wait!

What are you all up to these days? Has this first month of 2013 treated you well? Or are you grateful to see January go, and looking forward to change on the horizon for February?

Wishing sunshine for us all. And lots of wonderful words in our WIPs. And magical moving faeries that will surprise me and have all of my stuff moved when I wake up in the morning! Oh, wait...

Friday Five: the long-winded story version

1. SonB (who had a birthday on Monday and will now only let me refer to him as "Big Four-Year-Old" and not his name) is quite the... independent little boy. A bit precocious, one might say. (Or A LOT.) He used to be a really good eater, but for the last year and a half, almost every meal is a struggle with him. My husband decided to start telling him that with every bite he took, he was getting taller, to give him incentive to eat. So, now SonB has decided that he'll take a bite, then he gets down on the ground and tells his older brother "Tell Mommy that I'm coming to surprise her!" I have to wait for SonA to tell me, and then say, "Oh, no, where did SonB go?" and then he pops up and points to his head. I must then say, "Wow! Look you got taller, you must have had a bite of food!" To which he nods and tells me what he ate. And then it starts all over. EVERY. MEAL. EVERY. BITE. And if any of these steps gets messed up (if I jump the gun and say, "Where is SonB?" before SonA tells me he's coming for example), hoo-boy. Tantrum City. Well, now Baby Girl (who is officially 18 months old now) has decided that she needs to start patting the top of her head when she eats, too. Except she still uses a combination of a spoon/fork and her hands to eat, so this usually means that part of her meal ends up on top of her head. And I have to tell her, "Wow, you're getting taller, too!" and then she nods emphatically and grins at me, then eats some more. (She's still a good eater--in fact, she usually out eats my boys.) Living with these kids is never dull, that's for sure!

2. So for Mother's Day last year, SHH gave me a gift certificate for a massage. I save things like that for a "special occasion" which usually means I save it and save it until it's about to expire and then have to rush to get in time. Worried that it would expire, he told me to book it for last night, since he had the night off. I left to meet him and switch cars (and hand off the kids) in a total blizzard. I barely made it out of our neighborhood. I called him to say I wasn't sure this was a good idea, but he said the roads were barely even wet where he was, and it was probably just bad on the benches. So we made the switch, and off I went. The roads were fine, the weather was ominous, but not bad, until I was about half-way there. (The place was downtown.) Suddenly, from one second to the next, I was driving in a near white-out, on a freeway that had suddenly turned into an ice-rink with half a foot of snow on the ground. Surrounded by semi's with no visible lane-lines and crazy drivers who were going too fast and spinning out of control, I clutched my steering wheel with white-knuckles and kept on going. It was pointless to turn back now, right? Needless to say, I was late. So instead of being nice about it (HELLOOO, I came to you during the snowpacolypse rather than cancelling!), they cut my massage short. And I had a male masseuse for the first time ever. He was a little... different. I figured since it was going to be short, I'd try to get the most out of it that I could, and had him do fairly firm pressure. (As in, I was clenching my jaw and holding my breath to not cry out in pain at times. I have a very tight/knotted back.) This was a mistake, as it turns out. Because today? I feel like my entire back got beat with a sledgehammer. So rather than helping me stand up straighter, I can barely handle lifting my daughter. #epicfail


3. Many of you have probably seen me tweeting/FBing about my "Problem Child." This is what I'm (semi) lovingly calling my new WIP. I'm a fast drafter. It's just how I write. Usually. This book? Not so much. This book is trying to kill me. I have moments where I think I'm prevailing, where I feel like I'm figuring it out and whipping it into line. And then my characters and this plot just laugh and laugh at me when I'm floundering five minutes later, totally frustrated and lost yet again. Does this mean I'm on the brink of brilliance--or the cusp of utter and total failure? Maybe somewhere in the middle. I hope.

4. So recently I've been thinking a lot about social media, and the negative effects it has in life. We are SO interconnected now; I don't think it's necessarily a good thing to see every picture and hear every detail of each other's lives. It can lead to moments of jealousy or feelings of inadequacy or being left out or a myriad of other negative emotions. Or at least it does for me sometimes. Maybe I'm just insecure like that and that doesn't happen to anyone else. But there are also moments when social media can be absolutely incredible, and SO helpful. Like when I tweeted about #ProblemChild and how it wanted to be set in a place I know nothing about... and one of my amazing friends/followers tweeted back and when I told her about it said, "It sounds like it wants to be set near where I live!" SCORE! Her help has been invaluable. So the point is that I'm torn in my feelings toward FB and Twitter. I guess that's how most things in life are though, there are always good and bad sides to most everything.

Wow, these were all so long, let's just call it quits at 4, shall we? So that's a glimpse of what's on my mind on this snowy cold Friday morning. How about you?

Friday Five: The New Year Edition

Why hello, shiny new year! We didn't get off to the best start, but we're not going to let that shape how this year turns out, are we? No. No we're not. We're going to shake off this flu/bronchitis of death, and rise victorious, making this year the best one yet! Right? Right.

Okay, so I might still be suffering from the lingering effects of lack of sleep, and cough syrup,  but here are just a few of my thoughts on this first Friday of the New Year:

1. Last year was quite the year -- some of the worst lows of my life, and some of the best highs. I learned a lot, I grew a lot, I reached some amazing new milestones in my writing career and in  my personal life. I can hardly believe it's over and that 2013 is already here.

2. I've been super sick for almost two weeks, and all of my kids have been, too. And SonA had his tonsils out two days after Christmas. And it's 2 degrees outside right now. We're finally on the upswing, getting better, but still not quite there yet. Can you say recipe for going stir-crazy????

3. Luckily I had some great books to keep me sane during all the hours of sickness. There are some amazing books coming out this year, and one of the first ones is THROUGH THE EVER NIGHT - the sequel to UNDER THE NEVER SKY. I was lucky enough to get to read an arc of TTEN during the break and I'm here to tell you Veronica Rossi knows how to write a sequel. SERIOUSLY. SO. GOOD. I'm still thinking about it and contemplating ways to bribe her into letting me read the last one. I HAVE TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS! So, if you haven't already pre-ordered this baby, go do it. Like, right now. Or you can wait until it comes out January 8th and go buy both of her books to celebrate!

4. I love spending time with good friends. Last night I got to go to dinner with two wonderful friends (who are also writers), and it was SO very needed. I got to escape the sick house, enjoy amazing food and even better company, and talk books/writing/life for hours. Just what the doctor prescribed!

5. There are so many exciting things coming up in 2013, it's going to be a year to remember! (AKA, I have too many thoughts to put into a list of five, so I'm finishing with a vague, "wait and see what else is coming" tease to round this list out.)

So that's it for now. How's your new year starting off? Do you make resolutions? Do you have a good feeling about lucky 13?