You may have noticed that the blurb for my book is by Suzanne Selfors. I feel particularly lucky about this, not just because of what she said, but because I have been a fan of Suzanne’s fantastic writing for a very long time. Her YA, Saving Juliet, was one of my Fave Fifteen of the year, and her latest book, Coffeehouse Angel is one you don’t want to miss.

Suzanne was nice enough to answer some questions for me today. Welcome, Suzanne!

Joëlle: What were your favourite books as a teenager?

Suzanne: I’m remembering sweeping historical romances like The Thornbirds, The Crystal Cave and then there was the Fitzgerald period, and the Herman Hesse period, and the Steinbeck period. The one writer I never connected with was Jane Austen. Guess the Victorian era wasn’t my thing.

Joëlle: Oooh…I love The Crystal Cave myself. I might have to go reread it! So, if I picked up your iPod, what kind of music would I find on it?

Suzanne: I just downloaded Adele’s “Chasing Pavements” and, though I’m not usually a country fan, I really love Sugarland and just downloaded “It Happens” and “Something More”.

Joëlle: Fess up…what do you read in the bathroom? Good lit? Bathroom humour?

Suzanne: Smithsonian Magazine and if I’ve read that, then I’m stuck with my husband’s latest edition of Surfing Magazine, which is really boring.

Joëlle: Do you eat right, get plenty of exercise and eight hours of sleep, or are you too busy writing?

Suzanne: HA! Exercise? Eat right? Sleep?

Joëlle: What’s the best piece of advice, writing or otherwise that you’ve been given?

Suzanne: In the writing world, the best piece of advice I got was from a writer with a very long career who said, “The worst mistake writers make is staying with the wrong agent for too long.” This piece of advice is the reason why I’m published today.

The best piece of life advice I got was from my mother. She said, “When you’re in high school, do not date boys who are out of high school.”

My favorite piece of advice came from my grandmother who said, “Don’t sit on the cold wet grass or you’ll get hemorrhoids.”

Joëlle: Hmmm…I’ll have to ask my grandmother if she’s ever heard that. What’s the riskiest thing you ever did (besides possibly sitting on wet grass)? How did it turn out for you?

Suzanne: This whole writing thing is pretty risky. You send your words out into the world and people can say whatever they want about them. Sometimes they say nice things, sometimes they don’t. It’s hard not to take it personally. It takes time to get used to.

Joëlle: Where do you see yourself in ten years?

Suzanne: I’d love to write for television. I’d love to create a series. Whenever I see a really great new show, like “Glee” or “Community” I think, I could write for that show. Wouldn’t that be fun?

Joëlle: What’s the most embarrassing thing that ever happened to you in high school? Come on…you know you want to tell us! And you other authors reading, no fair lifting this and putting it in your own YA!

Suzanne: When I French-kissed my boyfriend for the first time, and it was my first kiss too, I asked him if I’d done it right and this girl I hated and her friends were spying on us and they told everyone. But guess what? I did it right!

Joëlle: What’s the coolest thing that’s happened to you since you sold your first book?

Suzanne: Cool things happen all the time and they usually come in the form of readers, young and old. Why, I was just in Portland and this eleven-year-old girl told me that I was her teacher’s favorite author. Huh? Me? What?

Joëlle: Well, I can totally see adults loving your work as well as teens. Before we finish up, I’d love it if you’d leave us writers with some worldly wisdom.

Suzanne: Create a writer’s group for yourself. My work-in-progress has been a total nightmare because I veered way off track, and couldn’t recognize the story, and got to the point where I had no idea what the story was about. My group is always there to set me straight.

Thanks Suzanne for stopping by! And for those of you who didn’t know this, Suzanne also writes fantastic Middle Grade. Today is my niece’s birthday and I’ve helped make it special by sending her Suzanne’s wonderful MG, Fortune’s Magic Farm. Happy Birthday, Ashly! And thanks again, Suzanne.

Unless you’re head’s buried in the sand (or a book), then you probably know it’s Banned Book Week. And while I feel very strongly about this, I can’t really think of anything new to say on the subject. I did write about it here last Friday on The Debs site. And I’ve written about it here in the past. Also, Alexa wrote a beautiful piece about it here.

So, since I have nothing new to say, I decided to ask for your help in the form of a contest instead. I am going to start a new feature on Wednesdays on my blog which will include author interviews, book giveaways (when possible) and guest posts by authors. The thing is, I need something catchy to call it. Like Friday Five, but you know…for Wednesday and cooler!

The person who makes the suggestion I decide to use wins an ARC. Not of my book, unfortunately, don’t have those yet…but one from the HUGE pile I have from my friend who works at Penguin. And I just got a whole new box yesterday, so these are hot, hot, hot. I’ll work with the winner to find one they’d really like to have too. Just leave your idea in the comments section, or go to the contact page and drop me an email. I’ll run this contest until I get a suggestion I like or I just give up and call it something boring like Author Spotlight. While you’re all working hard on this, I think I’ll go read a banned book.

Join me over at the Debs where I talk about my dream of being banned.

Readers the world over love Maud Hart Lovelace’s Betsy-Tacy series. Everyone from the little girl whose librarian handed her Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown yesterday, to celebrities like Bette Midler and writers Anna Quindlen and Meg Cabot sing the praises of this series. People often ask me, “What’s your favorite book of all time?” and without hesitations I answer, “All of the Betsy-Tacy books, of course.” As a writer, I’ve also learned how to write from reading about Betsy. To help celebrate the re-issue of the Betsy-Tacy High books, here are ten things Maud, Betsy, her loving family, and abundance of friend have taught me about life and writing.

1. Watch sunsets. Pay attention, enjoy life and it will make you a better writer. Nature stimulates your imagination. Betsy-Tacy, Chapter 3 – Supper on the Hill.
2. Never neglect your writing for friends, parties, or nay Sayers. Heaven To Betsy, Chapter 27 – The Essay Contest.
3. Green ribbons, scented notepaper, and adding an “e” to your name won’t make you mysterious, only miserable. Be true to yourself. Betsy in Spite of Herself, Chapter 22 – Betsye into Betsy.
4. If you’re not sure what to write, try a little of everything and see what happens. Betsy-Tacy and Tib, Chapter 5 – Everything Pudding.
5. Lists are part of being a writer. “But perhaps people who liked to write always made lists! Just for the fun of it.” Betsy Was a Junior, Chapter 24 – Growing Up.
6. Stubbornness and the inability to apologize will only bring you and others pain. Betsy and Joe, Betsy and the Great World.
7. Procrastinating until the night before your deadline will keep you up all night and probably cause you to do poor work. Betsy Was a Junior, Chapter 22 – The Consequences of Folly (Gaston and the herbariums).
8. If something’s important enough to you, make sure you grab it and don’t wait around for someone else to provide it. Heaven To Betsy, Chapter 17 – The Brass Bowl.
9. Instead of trying to make enough writing sales to pay the housekeeper for a year, earn enough to pay her for a week. And then another week…and another…and another… Betsy’s Wedding, Chapter 8 – Of Meat Pie and Other Things.
10. Keep submitting. “Many of her manuscripts had made twenty and thirty trips” Betsy and the Great World, Chapter 2 – “Haply I May Remember”

My book has taken on a life of its own. I know this happens to books, but it never occurred to me it would happen so soon. To be honest, I think I thought that maybe a month before it came out, there might be a little buzz on the internet, but I never thought this would happen eight MONTHS before the book came out. Don’t get me wrong, Oprah hasn’t called or anything. And there aren’t even any ARCs out yet, so it’s not like there are reviews (except two on Good Reads by a couple of my readers who got a sneak peek). But it is showing up here and there on writer and reader blogs. And what I am here to say today is that if you have a book coming out, be prepared!

You see, I was not prepared. I got extremely lucky, but I wasn’t prepared. What happened is this. Right after I sold my book (a year ago, now!), people started emailing me and saying, “Congrats! What’s it about?” So, on the high only your first book sale can give you, I pounded out the answer and posted it here on my blog. It was basically a rewrite of the hook I’d written for my agent, with some changes to make it fit the revision I’d done before submission. I posted it that day, fully intending to go back and write something better at some later date. And then I forgot about it.

Guess what? That blurb, the one I wrote fast and furious without a lot of thought, yep…it’s what people have started posting on their blogs along with the cover. It is even the description of my book on Good Reads that some wonderful person posted there.

I am somewhere between fairly and extremely careful about what I post on my blog. I proof things, I go back and fix typos after the fact if they get through, I hope for the best with commas, and so in a way, it was not just luck that this blurb I wrote turned out okay. It was a cultivated habit.

But it is a wake-up call to me in several ways too. What I post on the web (on my site or anyone else’s) is there for the duration. What I write might take on a life of its own (you’d think the Red Hair article would’ve already taught me this!). And while I was never a Boy Scout, the whole be prepared thing has got something going for it.

And just in case you’re interested, here are some of the wonderful blogs that have mentioned Restoring Harmony already.

Here are some links to people who are already talking about RH. Thanks, y’all! I really appreciate it.

Restoring Harmony – blog mentions

Sharon Loves Books and Cats http://sharonlovesbooksandcats.blogspot.com/2009/08/books-that-i-would-go-zombie-for.html

Devourer of Books http://www.devourerofbooks.com/2009/09/tss-some-serious-book-coveting/

The  Debutante Ball Reading challenge info (this doesn’t have anything to do with us, it’s two bloggers who are putting it together): http://www.devourerofbooks.com/2009/09/upcoming-challenge-the-debutante-ball/

Interview with Suzanne Selfors where she mentions me and my book. http://www.mrsmagooreads.com/2009/09/saturdays-scribe-suzanne-selfors.html

Steph Su reads http://stephsureads.blogspot.com/2009/09/waiting-on-wednesday-28.html

(loads of comments!)

Good Reads: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6659597-restoring-harmony

The Divining Wand Interview: http://thediviningwand.com/2009/08/on-the-red-carpet-with-debutante-joelle-anthony/

Steph Bowe (Australian teenager) interview with me: http://heyteenager.blogspot.com/2009/05/interview-with-joelle-anthony-enviro.html

Not Enough Books http://notenoughbookshelves.blogspot.com/2009/09/bbawbook-blogs-i-love.html

Lauren’s Crammed Bookshelf http://laurenscrammedbookshelf.blogspot.com/2009/08/waiting-on-wednesday-week-38.html

Dulemba.com http://www.dulemba.com/2009/07/joelle-anthony-on-breaking-in.html

Guest post at Darcy Pattison’s blog: http://www.darcypattison.com/authors/joelle-anthony/

The Debutante Ball – I blog every Friday – http://www.thedebutanteball.com

Everything above is current as of 14 September 2009

I am a rule-follower. Or maybe, I should use the past tense, as the longer I live with my husband, the more I see that most rules are just guidelines, and the more often I am able to just chill and do what comes naturally, instead of what I think I’m supposed to do. He’s a bad good influence on me because he comes from Tennessee where even the laws are just guidelines!

More than ten years ago, my parents gave me Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. They could tell I was struggling to get back in tune with my art (more with acting, than writing, as I always did that). If you were on TAW bandwagon, as so many people were, then you probably know about morning pages. Julia assigns her devotees (Followers? Students?) a task – hand-write three full page journal pages every morning. She asks you to commit to 12 weeks (it’s a twelve-step program for recovering your art, after all), but encourages you to do them for the rest of your life. So guess what happens if you’re a rule-follower?

Yep. Ten years later you have four huge boxes of journals in your closet and you can’t go anywhere or talk to anyone until you’ve written your three pages every morning.

I want to say straight away that these morning pages changed my life in more positive ways than I can count. They got me through trying times, they recorded my husband and I falling in love, there are travel stories, plot lines worked out, scraps of stories I’ll never write…Every single word written was worth it. However…

Lately, I just don’t feel like writing. At least not every day. It was hard to admit at first…like a Southerner saying, “I don’t want to go to church anymore. I just don’t feel like it. I’ve gotten what I need out of church.” Almost sacrilegious!

What I finally decided, and this literally took me six months to work up to, is to write on the mornings I feel like it, and not on the days I don’t. In the last week, I’ve taken three days off. It was weird at first, but kind of freeing too. I don’t think I’ll ever stop entirely. And to be honest, writing in bed, with a cup of tea and the wood stove blazing on a cold winter morning is a true pleasure. As is sitting outside in the lawn chair on a summer’s morning and watching the deer traipse through the yard while I scritch-scratch out my thoughts. But I’m cutting myself some slack here. After all, I plan to live a good many more years. Where in the heck am I going to put all these journals if I write every day?

Do you keep a journal?

Our new cat, Marley, takes you on a walk through my office over at The Debutante Ball.

I love words…

Here are a few of my favourites:

Crunch

Munch

Paradigm

Fruition

Quirk

Swirl

Majestic

Flurry

My husband wrote and recorded a song called 26 Letters. I heard him perform it live 5 years before we actually met and while I was simply smitten (another favourite word) in a fan-rockstar sort of way then, it really did speak to me. And now, thanks to Eileen Cook’s wonderful husband, Bob, I have new upgrades on my website and I can share a song with you, right here, right now. So thanks, Bob. Or should I be more flowery since we’re talking words here…I am ever so grateful for your unselfish generosity and your truly heroic abilities to update my website.

Without further ado, 26 Letters – written and performed by Victor Anthony.

26 Letters

Hiya. I’m rethinking my Friday Feature (I’m still going to do interviews and free books, but maybe not on Fridays since that’s when everyone else is doing them). Anyway, today I’m over at The Debs blathering on about the end of summer. Drop on over there and say hello.

If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to give two writers the same words/topics and ask them to write a book just so you can see how differently they do it, now you can find out.

Here are the words:

panic attacks/disorder

therapist

Seattle

houseboat

zoo volunteer

Starbucks

Now go to your bookstore or library and pick up E. Lockhart’s The Boyfriend List and Deb Caletti’s The Nature of Jade. Read and enjoy. Two totally and completely different books, different writing styles, different stories. All encompassing the above words/phrases as main parts of the books.

Today, I’m over at The Debutante Ball talking about how to make butter and other assorted things. I will be there every Friday for the next year. I’ll be starting the Friday Feature here next week (still trying to line things up for interviews). In the meantime, put on your dancing shoes and drop on over to the Debs so that I don’t have to be a wall flower. Or worse yet, dance alone, pretending like I want to dance by myself. If you leave a nice comment, I’ll let you wear my tiara.

Part of me wants to wax poetic about this book, but really all that needs to be said is it is perfect. Yes. Perfect.

My husband has a music gig tomorrow night and he’s been practicing a lot. It’s great…you can’t beat live music, and he’s good (I married him for his music). The other day, he said to me, “Can you get on that Facebook thingie or Tweeter or whatever and ask if anyone here on the island has a tambourine I can use in my gig.” So I did (and I found one – thanks K.G. & Wild Iris).

However, after he asked, we had a strange conversation. It went like this:

Me: Doesn’t Kathy have a tambourine? She used one in one of your gigs together.

Him: She did? I don’t think so.

Me: Yes. Definitely. Or was it Chelsea? Are you sure we don’t have a tambourine.

Him: We don’t have one.

Me (getting slightly insistent because I like to be right I remember this so clearly): But I’m sure there was that one time when you were doing a gig with someone…a woman…Kathy or Chelsea…and you gave her a tambourine to use.

Him: I’ve never had a tambourine.

Me: Okay…but I’m sure someone has used one with you. I remember.

I let it drop then, certain I would eventually recall the exact scenario and then I would produce our tambourine from some drawer or something and be able to say, “See? The Wife is always right!”

So this morning…in that state between sleep and coffee…it hit me. This is what I was thinking of. A scene from my Work In Progress, KEEP THE FAITH.

“Well…Becca’s just standing there a lot of the time,” Daddy said. “I know she’s singing and you don’t want to add some two-bit dance steps or anything but…wait here.”

He got up and went into his office.

“This is great!” Becca said. “I can’t believe we didn’t think to ask him for help before.”

“Yeah. I just wished he’d offered his expertise two weeks ago,” I said.

“Here, try this,” Daddy handed Becca a tambourine. “It’ll make you look a bit more musical and add something to your songs too. We can work out how to use it best in a minute.”

Becca shook the tambourine happily. “What a great idea!”

 Okay…so the wife is not always right. Just most of the time. In my defense, the character of Daddy is pretty much my husband…so it’s almost like it really happened!

I have a bad habit. I say things like, “I have sooooo much to do today!” and “Things are crazy-busy here!” when the truth is that my life is very relaxed and chill and that I have to add things like “shower” and “breakfast” to my to-do list just to have enough things to even justify a list in the first place.

So last night, I was sitting outside in the dark, feeding a four-point buck (rubbery) carrots* by moonlight. I admired his calm demeanor and thought, “He’s got a great life.” And then it hit me…THIS IS MY LIFE. This is it. I’m not actually busy or stressed. For the most part, I don’t have much more to do than Bucky, here. For some reason I’ve decided that I need to say those things, that I’m busy, but why?

I’ll tell you what it is, and maybe, because this is a writing blog and you’re probably a writer too, you will understand. Even though I write full time and it’s working out really well for us, I feel like I have to be busy to justify this wonderful, creative, peaceful existence and when I’m not writing (like now), I fabricate things to the point that leaving the house for an hour appointment makes my entire day “swamped with things to do”. It’s the same thing as people who feel guilty reading (believe me, it’s taken me a long time to get over that idea…that I should be doing something else instead of reading…like writing, dishes, laundry, cooking, exercising…).

Now you might be thinking, “Ummm….shouldn’t she be telling her therapist this instead of the world?” Maybe. But then I’d have to make an appointment, block out the time during my busy schedule, go to the appointment…it would take a lot of time. Besides, you guys are free. The truth is, I think it’s important to write about this because I do think that other writers out there are probably doing the same thing. I mean, I can’t be the only neurotic writer, right? Right???

By “the same thing” I mean trying to justify their right to relaxation and to do nothing if they want to.

So today, as an experiment, I made a to-do list and then I added up all the time it will take. I’m into it for about 6 hours. But that’s only if I include cooking three meals, going for a walk, reading, and other fun stuff. Today, I plan to keep things in perspective. What about you? Do you have any bad habits you want to share (just to make me feel better!)?

*I don’t technically believe in feeding wild deer, but occasionally I will give them vegetables just because I cannot resist having a huge, beautiful creature like this nibble my fingers and look at me like I’m the bee’s knees.

So this is pretty much the first press release that ever mentioned me, so I thought I’d share.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 31, 2009

ROLL OUT THE RED CARPET….THE DEBUTANTE BALL WELCOMES 5 DARING DEBUT AUTHORS

On August 31st, five talented new female authors will take center stage at The Debutante Ball (www.thedebutanteball.com ) a popular grog – or group blog – which chronicles each writer’s “launch year,” providing personal and detailed accounts of what really happens when a first-time author finally gets published.

The site was founded in 2006 by author Kristy Kiernan (”Between Friends”). Since then, Kiernan and the authors who have followed credit the “Deb Ball” for helping them establish impressive careers, eventually “graduating” and handing over the website’s reins to the subsequent classes of Debs who have enjoyed the exposure and female camaraderie the site offers. The 2009 Debutantes ran a highly competitive contest to select the 2010 Deb class.

The five new Debutantes are listed here in order of release date:

*Maria Garcia-Kalb, author of the amusingly dark and humorous chick-lit manual “101 Ways to Torture Your Husband” (Adams Media/January 18, 2010)

*Sarah Pekkanen, author of “The Opposite of Me” (Atria/Washington Square Press/March 9, 2010) a funny, poignant novel about twin sisters who are complete opposites – or so they think.

*Joelle Anthony, author of the inspiring young-adult futuristic novel “Restoring Harmony” (Putnam/May 13, 2010)

*Emily Winslow, author of  “The Whole World” (Delacorte Press/May 2010) a literary mystery told by five narrators, plunging readers into the depths of desperation and malice.

*Alicia Bessette, author of the uplifting tale  “All Come Home” (Dutton, August 2010) about a widow’s journey to self-discovery and happiness.

“We had a dizzying number of candidates to choose from,” says outgoing Debutante Katie Alender, whose book, “Bad Girls Don’t Die,” (Disney-Hyperion) was recently picked up for a series.  “It was difficult to choose the winners, but in the end we were satisfied with the mix of genres we selected.  I think our readers will thoroughly enjoy what’s ahead.”

The Debutante Ball is widely respected within the publishing industry.  The website features a new daily “Deb Blog,” and also publishes news, contests, and appearances from high-profile guest authors. Past guests include John Grisham, Meg Cabot, Jane Green, and Evan Handler.

“I’m honored to join this incredible group, and I look forward to the exciting year ahead,” says incoming Deb Sarah Pekkanen. “The Debutante Ball is a wonderful way to interact with readers and will offer us the opportunity to mentor new authors in the future.  It’s like a giant sorority, and everyone’s invited to the party.”

For more information, please visit: http://www.thedebutanteball.com/