Happy Superbowl Sunday! I hope whatever team you’re pulling for wins! I thought about rooting for the Saints, as they’re now my friend Carlin’s team, but they beat the Cardinals and I’m a little vindictive, so I think it’s better that I cheer for no one…

I had another little idea nugget come to me today while I was trying to clean up the little hell hole that is my room. While some of you have been buried under Snowmaggedon, I’ve had the worst cold known to mankind. I didn’t leave the apartment at all on Saturday, which was probably for the best as I didn’t really have a voice. But today, with my idea nugget in mind, I went to do some work at the Union Square Barnes & Noble. Talk about a zoo! I keep forgetting that the Superbowl is on later here than it is back in Arizona, so I definitely underestimated the crowds today.

Anyway, while I was scribbling down some thoughts about the idea, and skimming through some potential comp titles for a few work projects, I realized that… I’m kind of burnt out on reading. I know that sounds terrible given both of my professions, but I really just have… so little patience when it comes to books these days. If it doesn’t hook me in the first fifty pages, I’ll put it down and never pick it back up. This is a total change from my pre-college days, when I would finish a book even if I didn’t really like it. In college I had no free time to read for pleasure, so maybe I just fell out of the habit?

Or I read so much for work that the last thing I want to do when I come home is read for fun?

I’m going to try to make a goal to read one book every two weeks. Lord knows that I could definitely use a break from the ten thousand TV shows I’ve become emotionally invested in. I really do need to fill some of the major reading gaps I have (including, but not limited to: The Giver, The Hunger Games, Fire, books by Robin McKinley, To Kill a Mockingbird, etc.–apparently I rebel against popular books…)

ANYWAY. This isn’t so much of a downer as it is an FYI, but for everyone that’s been inquiring about a Brightly Woven sequel, I have no news for you. I have plenty of ideas for where the story could go, but I think, to be brutally honest, that the likelihood of my publisher asking for a sequel entirely depends on the sales of Brightly Woven. But the GOOD news is that I finally got to see the finished map that’ll be included in the final copies of the book and it is super spiffy and lovely. I’ve uploaded it over on Tumblr for those of you reading ARCs or just wanting a peek.

Right now I’m working on developing a few different projects with my agent. And by different, I meant everything from more traditional fantasy like Brightly Woven to Urban Fantasy to Sci-Fi. I suppose it was kind of inevitable that I would get around to trying Sci-Fi given my not-so-secret shameful past as a Super Fan:

My dad called me yesterday JUST to tell me that he had booked all of our flights and hotel reservations for CELEBRATION V. After five Star Wars conventions, I’m a little convention-ed out at this point… but I am TOTALLY PUMPED FOR THE GRAND OPENING OF THE WIZARDING WORLD OF HARRY POTTER!! My dad knows exactly how to bribe me.

So! While my job is usually not all that glamorous, one of the occasional perks of it is that I get to see advanced screenings of movies based on children’s books. You might remember that I had a chance to see Where the Wild Things Are a few months back, but it was a screening specifically for people in the publishing industry and librarians. When I went to see Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief last night, I thought it was going to be the same deal. Except it wasn’t. It was the actual NYC premiere, and we only discovered this because my boss, my coworker, and I rolled up to the theater at the same moment Pierce Brosnan did and got to listen to all of the photographers scream, “Pierce!! Pierce!! Will you sign autographs, Pierce!!!” (Former Mr. Bond is much shorter in person than I was expecting.)

We ended up having to wait in a longish line out in back of the theater to pick up the tickets that we had reserved. That took QUITE some time. After we finally made it upstairs, we were ordered to “surrender” our cellphones (I should have just lied and said I didn’t have mine!! That was dumb of me.) to the little plastic bags in the big plastic tubs outside of the main theater. The main theater that was, unfortunately, already full. I’m trying to think of how to explain the set up since aforementioned surrendering meant that I couldn’t snap any pictures for you guys. They split the upstairs hallway lengthwise so that there was a continued red carpet up there, where all of the stars were posing as they walked into the main theater, but they were blocked by big backdrops. We ended up in a much smaller overflow theater, which was fine by us!

I wish I could give you a review of the movie, but I’m not terribly familiar with the Percy Jackson series. In fact, I’ve only read the first half of the first book. But! From that I can tell you that there are a number of major differences, none of which I will spoil for you, except to say that they aged all of the kids up so that they’re 15-16 instead of 12, the monsters are pretty scary, the special effects were very cool, and the gods were great (Poseidon is a ginger Kevin McKidd, so that’s automatic 10+ in my book)… but it seemed like they took A LOT of liberties with the story and characters. So basically, now all of the Percy Jackson fans will know exactly how the Harry Potter fans have felt for years. I think people coming to the film with no real background on the series (much like me) will enjoy it, weird plot holes and all, but the diehard fans might be disappointed. The Greek mythology aspects are explained well–I thought the Lotus Eaters bit was especially clever.

Oh, and Logan Lerman? I thought he was great. Very charismatic, with good comedic timing. He kept reminding me of a young Chris Pine, otherwise known as Chris Fiiiiiine.

To be honest, I was pretty worried about the movie to begin with, since February is usually where studios send horrible movies to die. I have NO IDEA why they aged the characters up, though. Was it to capture some of the Twilight audience? I really hope they don’t alienate the book series’ actual 8-12 audience, though I do think the boys will find Percy very cool and the girls will find him very cute. I wouldn’t bring kids under 8 to the film, though. I was surprised by how scary and nasty many of the film’s monsters were.

I think I’ve talked about this before, but every morning I get the LIMITLESS pleasure of riding an over-capacity L train on my journey into work. (I’m actually really pissed after reading that Wiki page–runs every four minutes during rush hour my ass!) Because it runs through Williamsburg and Bushwick (two neighborhoods of Brooklyn), it’s earned itself the nickname “The Hipster Express.”

Do you know what I’m talking about when I say Hipster? They’re most definitely not unique to NYC. My baby brother goes to school in Orange, California and I almost passed out when he rolled in wearing a plaid shirt (but never with two pockets on the front, because that would be “farmer” and not “hipster”–thank you Daniel Bracken), tight jeans, and converse. They’re pretty easy to identify: often super skinny (especially boys) kids who wear ironic clothing, plaid everything, skinny jeans, black converse all stars, wayfarer sunglasses (and now, apparently, using their frames for normal glasses), swear they don’t buy into mainstream trends, shop at thrift stores and American Apparel (and, though they’d slit their wrists before admitting it, Urban Outfitters), ripped leggings… Oh, look, I found a How to Dress Like a Hipster guide for you! While I really like some elements of the Hipster dress aesthetic, it can sometimes come across as looking… a little homeless chic? The whole point is to be ironic, I guess. I don’t know, it seems like a whole lot of effort to put into your dress when you’re supposed to look like you didn’t give two farts when you got up that morning and threw on whatever you found on the floor.

Anyway, THIS is the mental image I have of “Hipster”:

Which is why I laughed when I saw this in Publishers Weekly’s review of Brightly Woven:

Between [Syd's] sharp tongue and emerging powers
and North’s grungy appearance and hipster attitude, they make a charismatic pair.

I’m pretty sure they’re referencing THIS kind of Hipster, but now I have a rather excellent mental image of North kicking it in skin-tight skinny jeans and a rainbow plaid shirt, sipping Pabst Blue Ribbon instead of his usual ale.

All of that is just to say that I got my first professional review!!! It was pretty much all positive, but had the usual one line zinger, of course.

Anyway, have a wonderful night! May a shaggy-bearded hipster guide you sweetly to dream land.

Hi Bloggers!

Many of you have emailed me over the past couple of months to do interviews/host contests. Would you mind sending me another email at bwinterviews@gmail.com and the date you’re hoping to put the interview up? It would be so, so helpful to me (and ensure you’d get your questions back on time).

Thank you!!

(Taking a five minute break from writing. Finally figured out one of my MC’s voices. Giving myself a high-five. Just as awkward as it sounds.)

from Cynthia Bracken
to Daniel 3 Bracken , Alex , Stephanie
date Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 5:19 PM
subject Dads mousepad picture

Dad had this in the picture in his mouse pad [at work] and just brought it home. He loves this picture.

from Daniel Bracken
to Cynthia Bracken
cc Alex , Stephanie
date Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 9:29 PM
subject Re: Dads mousepad picture

WHOS THE NERD ON THE FAR LEFT??

from Alexandra Bracken
to Daniel Bracken
cc Cynthia Bracken , Stephanie
date Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 9:53 PM
subject Re: Dads mousepad picture

WHAT HAPPENED TO THAT PRECIOUS BOY IN THE MIDDLE?

from Stephanie Bracken
to Alexandra Bracken , Daniel Bracken
cc Cynthia Bracken ,
date Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 9:56 PM
subject Re: Dads mousepad picture

I LOOKING F*CKING AWESOME.

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

Holy smokes! Blogging three days in a row?? Am I getting back to my daily-blogging self??

Thanks for all the feedback on last night’s trends post. It got… a lot of attention. A lot. I think I might have underestimated just how many people are out there, trying to be published in the children’s market. Which is weird, right? I was there only two or so years ago, and while I have very strong memories of the agony of rejection and the frustration of revisions, it’s been a while since I’ve poked around on Verla Kay’s or Absolute Write. I’ll try to post more about my pre-publication life, and, if I think I can get away with it, more about what I do at work.

But! Today I want to talk about something else, something for those of us who are published or are soon-to-be published. (Friday Five to come later!) And that something is reviews.

You all know what a wicked perfectionist I can be about everything, and I find that this perfectionism is rearing it’s ugly head lately. I’m at the stage now where I’m getting more feedback and reviews about Brightly Woven, and while many have been very positive… some have been less than positive. Or average. Which is fine, because everyone’s taste is so subjective and what some like, others inevitably won’t. But I’ve been surprised to find that my reaction to lower rated reviews of BW hasn’t been anger or despair, but disappointment. When a reader doesn’t like BW as much as they hoped they would, or when certain characters or plots don’t ring true to them, I feel like I’ve let the reader down and have no way of making it up to them. It’s a horrible feeling, trust me.

I’m learning now that I really should stop reading my reviews, or at least actively seeking them out. This is the advice that many of the Debs gave us Tenners, and I never really understood why until recently. Star-based reviews can be a flawed system when it comes to trying to determine the merit of your work, because every reviewer has different requirements for different stars. Becca and I were talking on Twitter last night about how getting a 3-star review feels like getting a “C,” and Chelsea chimed in to say she often feels like her GoodReads average is like a GPA that she can’t control. Even though I graduated in May, I still have a very student mindset about my writing. I went to a school that had zero grade inflation, and if a professor curved a test, it usually had a slight or negative impact. I expect some reviewers, like professors, to grade more harshly than others—to come into a book looking for flaws, rather than to automatically tune into the good qualities alone. It’s not that the other reviewers are “easy”—they just approach stories in a different way. Reading, much like writing, is a very personal experience.

(And I must say that my favorite reviews are the ones without stars, but really delve into what worked and what didn’t work for them.)

Anyway, my point in all of this—as Roommate H so wisely quoted her boss’ grandfather last night: You will never be as good as your best reviews, and you will never be as bad as your worst. And, as my mother quoted Mick Jagger last night:

So! This weekend, my dearest of dear friends Carlin (who is (in?)famously known as being “She Who Alex Originally Wrote Brightly Woven For” and “She Who Will Be Annoyed to See Alex Still Ending Sentences with Prepositions”) came to visit. Andrea also came up for the weekend, so it was nice and crowded in our apartment, especially when Roommate H let us know that her wonderful cousin would also be staying with us. I’m a little bummed, because I definitely meant to record a vlog with Carlin to talk about some of the changes from the first draft (which I still think of as “her” draft) to the final draft (which is “everyone’s” draft)… but we were so tired! So busy! So windblown! And really, I don’t think she’s had a chance to read the final “everyone’s” version, so it might not have been much of a conversation. Also? Spoilers would have been abound.

I find it really, really hard to entertain people in the city, if only because it’s so expensive and hectic. We did hit up a lot of big sights, namely our Department Store Tour, the Rock, Central Park (We accidentally walked 30 blocks!! Shows you how awesome my navigation skills are.), and we saw a Broadway show with my friend Mike and his friend who were ALSO up for the weekend.

In what must be my first true case of NYC FAIL, we waited in the freezing rain for about an hour to get tickets to a show. All along, we were saying, “Oh, let’s just see one of the big shows like Westside Story or Billy Elliot…” but they have these people who walk along and answer questions you have about the shows, and everyone we talked to (even the ones promoting other shows) recommended that we see “Next to Normal.” So we paid our $$$ and then promptly had nothing to do for the next two hours but wander around in the aforementioned freezing rain. We ended up at Grand Central Station, but everyone seemed surprised that I couldn’t offer up any place for us to eat dinner off the top of my head. You have to remember that I really only spend time in Midtown while I’m at work, and the only meal I eat there is lunch. So I found an Italian food restaurant for us to eat that was in the next building over… only it was closed. No-Lights-Doors-Locked Closed. A security guard, who must have thought he was being exceedingly helpful, told us he knew of another pizza place around the corner. We asked him if the pizza was good and he claimed it was “very good, very good.” What was this pizza oasis, you might ask?

Friends, I am not proud. It was a dark night and very cold. And I was hungry. So, so hungry.

“Next to Normal” ended up being very good… but also very depressing, which, after eating a thoroughly depressing dinner, was not something that we could truly appreciate. In order to salvage our night, Carlin and I went back to Union Square to buy cupcakes and get a movie (…which may or may not have been FernGully…), only it was pouring and the wind was strong enough that it kept blowing our umbrellas inside-out. Crumbs? Closed. The 24 hour Best Buy? Closed on Sunday nights.

We were sad.

But anyway, anyway, the whole point of this post was to say that we ended up going to see the movie Leap Year, despite the terrible reviews it’s been getting. While it’s certainly not an Oscar contender, it was a fun little movie. Fun after you got over the fact that this girl is flying across the Atlantic to propose to her boyfriend on one day, when she could have stayed in Boston and proposed on all of the 365 other days of that year, of course. But while Carlin and I were walking back to the apartment, I finally realized what was REALLY bugging me about the movie.

They use the old I-Hate-You-I-Love-You routine, which is still something that I really love (you can blame Han Solo and Princess Leia for that) despite all of its faults. The PROBLEM with using it in this movie is that the I-Hate-You moments were TOO good. They hated each other so much that it was almost palpable. Really, they were just ruthless with one another. So when the time came to flip the switch, or at least to start hinting at future bliss, it was too unbelievable, and fell flat.

You have to be so, so careful when it comes to this kind of relationship in literature and movies–I know from first hand experience. It took several rounds of revisions in Brightly Woven to get the point where Sydelle could still be angry that North had taken her away from her home, but she could also–in a believable way–come around to him eventually. My situation was a little different because the I-Hate-You was fairly one-sided on her part. North is frustrated and slightly annoyed with her in the beginning, because she (rightfully) acts like a little wretch, but he doesn’t act on those feelings. He’s not antagonizing her (intentionally). My then-agent and I came to the conclusion that we there needed to be many more hints of North’s better qualities in the beginning, so later it would be easier for Syd to accept her first opinion of him wasn’t really accurate. While he wasn’t nasty in the first drafts, he wasn’t quite as… restrained? I would say his problems were very exaggerated, considering the original first scene had him dealing with alcohol overload.

I definitely spent more time fine-tuning Syd’s emotions, though. She has a rollercoaster of emotions that come into play within the first thirty pages: curiosity, fear, anger, resentment, frustration, etc. Definitely a mess in the first draft, but I’m really proud of where she ended up. Sydelle still gives him a piece of her mind on several occasions, but she doesn’t come off as a shrew or unlikeable.

(I might try to post the original first chapter so that you all can see how different it was… but I don’t want to scare you away! Maybe Carlin’s TRUE gift is the knowledge that she is one of very few that gets a description of North’s puke.)

Crazy, insane day at work, but I had to drop a quick note to you guys because…

One of my absolute favorite reads of 2009 launched today! Run, do not walk, to Amazon, B&N, your local indie, etc., and buy this book immediately! Especially if you’re a fan of mysteries of the Veronica Mars variety (and really, who isn’t?), and you’re looking for something so well written it will make you weep with the beauty of it all (for reals).

(Dead Cover Girl is going to keep staring at you until you purchase this book. Just so you know.)

In all seriousness, I inherited my mom’s ability to accurately predict the ending of any movie/book/play–an ability that has ruined the last few books I read. But Anna kept me guessing right to the end, and the last couple of chapters were so intense that I almost threw my book across the room because I was so nervous for the characters.

Buy, buy, buy!!!