Wow! Can you believe February is almost over? Goes fast when you’re on a deadline. Spring is right around the corner!

Over at the Debs we’re talking about our bad habits this week. I don’t really have many, so I wrote about my husband’s. Check it out.

In book news…ummm…well, I don’t really have anything. I mean, I’m trying to put together some signings and release parties and things, but nothing to announce quite yet. If you live in Portland, what bookstore would you be most likely to go to for a signing? I would love to know!

Do you know about this video of Oprah’s Mob Scene Dance? Well, you might want to give it a watch (or at least half of it to get the idea), and then pop on over here to see this fantastic version some kids put together in support of reading. You’ll be smiling the whole time. Thanks to my editor, Stacey, for the links!

Have a great weekend.

If you’re looking for a great middle grade, look no further than Drizzle. I got my hands on an ARC of this and really enjoyed it. I’ve since passed it on to the Grade 6&7 at the school and last time I was there, it was already dog-eared from being passed around. Thanks for stopping by, Kathleen and welcome!

• Kathleen Van Cleve is the author of Drizzle, a book coming out in March about a girl who lives on a rhubarb farm that grows chocolate rhubarb and rains every Monday at one o’clock… until it doesn’t.  Information on her other books and other things can be found at www.kathleenvancleve.com.  She also teaches screenwriting at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

Are you a sports fan? Who’s your team?
I love sports.  Love everything about them (except, well, steroids and bad behavior and the Dallas Cowboys.)  I was a rower in high school and college, and have been running mostly on (sometimes off) during the past twenty years. My favorite professional sport to watch is football.  Specifically, I love the Philadelphia Eagles, and oh, how they break my heart.  I’ve loved them since I was a little girl, and went to the games with my brothers and father.  Why can’t they win a Super Bowl?  Why???  And a question: is it better to lose all the time, or get really, really close to winning the Super Bowl and then lose?  Argh!
What’s on your iPod or CD player?
A lot of songs from musicals, like Wicked, Hairspray, Rent (Seasons of Love!), Avenue Q, Chicago, you get the idea; a lot of pop songs – Lady Gaga, Madonna, Michael Jackson, Black Eyed Peas; some rock – Green Day and Bruce Springsteen and The Who; John Legend (This Time!) Barbra Streisand, Jill Sobule, Cat Stevens (If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out) and oh, a bunch of classical music too.  Also songs from the show Glee, and Neil Diamond, and the Beatles.  I have no idea what this list says about me.  It’s giving me a headache.
What were your favorite books when you were a teen?
Books by SE Hinton, (all of them), Agatha Christie (all of them but especially The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and And Then There Were None), Judy Blume (all of them), Susan Isaacs (all of them, especially Shining Through and Almost Paradise), Jane Austen (Emma & Sense & Sensibility and eventually all of them, although I didn’t read the rest when I was a teen), all fairy tales (especially a book of Irish Fairy Tales which I cannot find despite looking everywhere) and Edith Hamilton’s Mythology. I remember thinking I was awed by One Hundred Years of Solitude by Garcia Marquez when I was 18 – which is truly amazing – but I wonder if I really had any idea, then, what was going on in it.  Hmm…
What’s the best piece of advice anyone ever gave you (or you learned from a book)?
After my first novel was bought, my best friend said “Enjoy this.  You’ll write more books, but it will never be like this again.”  She was right and I had a blessed, Cinderella-like experience that will assuredly never happen again. (I wish every writer could be as lucky.)  Another time – long before I started to write – an old boss yelled at me when I said I couldn’t possibly “do” the deal (don’t ask) because both the accountant and the lawyer had said no, it couldn’t happen. He went on to say that they were paid to say no.  “Your job is to make it happen.”  I didn’t know it at the time, but it turned out to be really good advice for all kinds of endeavors.  Finally, when I met my future husband, my now-deceased father (among others) said “marry that man.”  It was the best decision I ever made.
What are you reading now?
A Man for All Seasons (Robert Bolt), The Thief (Megan Whalen Turner), I Am A Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to be Your Class President (Josh Lieb), and Dominic (William Steig).  The latter is a read-aloud for me and my boys.
What author or book have you recently discovered that you want the world to know about?
I’m on a bit of a reading binge right now, and have been wowed by the following authors, all of whom (through no real intent) women:
Hilary Mantel (Wolf Hall), Katherine Paterson (Bridge to Terebithia – I know I’m late), Sharon Creech (Walk Two Moons – again, late) and Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge.
If you could live anywhere for a year, where would it be?
Rome.  Or Paris, although I’ve never been.  But I think I’d like to live there; it seems kind of perfect.
Do you know how to cook? What’s your specialty?
No, but I’m trying.  The thing is that when you have kids, they want to eat every day.  It’s killing me.  But I do make a pretty mean meatball.  And the three year-old can order takeout.  So we’re doing okay.

Since I’m not doing much updating on Need to Read anymore, I thought I’d use this Monday post to give you a heads up on a few books you might want to check out.

Fat Cat by Robin Brande is a fascinating read. It’s got all the topics close to my heart like simplifying your life, science, food, and vegetarianism, plus it’s got a bit of romance, chapters that make you laugh out loud, and an overall great hook that carries you all the way through the book.

Once Was Lost by Sara Zarr. I know I’m late to this party as it came out a while ago, but I actually put it off because I was scared of it. I won’t tell you if my fear was warranted or not because I don’t want to spoil the book in any way, but I will say that what finally swayed me toward reading it was Sara as an author. I know from reading her other books that even when she tells us gritty things, she handles it with truth and grace. What more can you ask from an author?

Siesta Lane by Amy Minato came recommended to me via Janet Reid’s blog. It’s a beautiful nonfiction blend of memoir, poetry, and revelation. I’m actually reading it very slowly, just a bit at a time. Partly because it’s so wonderful, but also because it stirs me into action and I can only take so much stirring at a time. It’s about a city girl who moves into a tiny cabin in rural Oregon. The tagline is: A Year Unplugged, or The Good Intentions of Ten People, Two Cats, One Old Dog, Eight Acres, One Telephone, Three Cars, and Twenty Miles to the Nearest Town. I actually bought it for my husband, but was hooked from the very beginning. He blew through it a while ago.

I’m over at The Debs today spilling a little about my next book, walking at work instead of to work, and whatever else I can think of. Drop on by!

I had a very stellar review this week for Restoring Harmony and I can’t help but share the link with you all. Thanks to Lauren over in England for my first UK review!

I finished work on the book trailer for Restoring Harmony.It will be a while before I post it though…maybe around the first week of April, but honestly, I’m so excited about it I can hardly stand it! I hope you all had an excellent week! Feel free to share your news in the comments section.

Last spring, an Australian teen book blogger contacted me about my Red Hair article and wanted to put it on her website. Of course, I said yes. When she heard I had a book coming out, she asked to interview me for her site. I was all over that idea! My very first interview.

This is the way I remember us meeting, but since I’m so old, and I’m about to feel much, much older in a minute (and you’ll know immediately why), I could have some of the facts wrong. Between the marketing and the writing, it’s really hard for me to remember that far back these days. However I met Steph Bowe, she did a very nice interview of me, and I appreciate it. Just the other day, I dropped by her site and you would not believe what I saw! It’s one of those lovely shocks that made me so happy for her, I knew I had to get her over here for an author interview. Yes, I said author. Did I mention Steph is sixteen?

Welcome Steph! Tell us a little about you.

I’m a 16-year-old YA author represented by Ginger Clark of Curtis Brown. My debut novel – a story about love, loss and garden gnomes – will be published by Text Publishing in September 2010 in Australia & New Zealand and by Egmont USA in America in Summer 2011.

• What’s on your iPod or CD player?
• At the moment, these songs are on constant rotation: ‘Lola’ by The Kinks, ‘Romeo and Juliet’ by Dire Straits (beautiful song!), ‘Short Skirt/Long Jacket’ by Cake and absolutely everything by The Killers, Matchbox Twenty and Cobra Starship.
• What are your hobbies that don’t have to do with writing?
• Dancing! Not in public. Also singing, photography, reading (obviously!), blogging, acting, playing with my dog…
• Where do you see yourself in ten years?
• I’ll be 26 in ten years time… wow! So I’ll definitely still be writing, and hopefully publishing. I’ll have long finished high school, and hopefully a creative writing degree. I’d love to have a job in writing or publishing – working at a newspaper or as an editor in a publishing house. I want to stay close to my family… and I think that’s about it! I’m not super ambitious. I just want to be happy.
• What are you reading now?
• Solace & Grief by Foz Meadows – a vampire YA set in Australia, but that’s refreshingly different than other vampire YA. I also just finished Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green & David Levithan, which isn’t out until April, which I absolutely LOVED and you would be wise to get your hands on the moment it’s released.
• Do you know how to cook? What’s your specialty?
• I can cook, but not much! My specialty is definitely cakes and I make great healthy muffins – banana and dried fruit. I also make a mean tomato-and-cheese toastie. My mum’s trying to teach me to cook, but I’m a bit klutzy and forgetful so it doesn’t tend to work out well!
• What’s the coolest writing-thing that’s happened to you since you sold your first book?
• Meeting my Australian publisher for the first time was pretty cool – all the people at the publishing house are really lovely. Everyone was really impressed with me – since I’m young, I think – and it was so strange! I’m not used to being the centre of attention.
• Go on, give us some writing advice. You know you want to!
• Read a lot, write a lot & send your work out there! If you stay committed to your goals, you will achieve them – so persist!

Thanks, Steph for the great interview. And congratulations on your upcoming book!

Remember last week when I wrote about knowing I was almost done with my current WIP because a new idea was forming in my brain? Well, the idea grew some after that post and I got pretty excited. Each day, I built on the plot, and the characters. I even named my MC.  Then one morning, I woke up and realized I hadn’t actually thought about that grand new idea in a couple of days. “I was busy,” I told myself, and it was true, so I bought it. For a while.

Then on Saturday, I thought I’d better get it down on paper. Just in case. Since new things hadn’t occurred to me for a few days, putting it on paper would get the juices flowing again, right?

Now, I have never written a synopsis and just had it fall out of the sky. All synopses are a challenge, but after a couple of hours, what I realized was it wasn’t the synopsis that was giving me trouble, it was the idea. That was not a leaky balloon, or even a frustrated sigh, you heard on Saturday around noon…nope it was a the Big Fizzle…fwoooshhhhh…..and the idea sputtered and died.

On the plus side, I am not alone! I know of at least two other writers dealing with this right now too, and each day on Twitter they post how excited about their new idea they are, and then they hear the fwoooshhhhh….

The thing is, this is not really a sad thing for a writer (at least not for me). Just because this idea fizzled doesn’t mean it won’t come back to me someday, maybe not for years. Or it might be gone forever. Who knows? But by letting it go, instead of fighting to hang on to it, I’m wide open for whatever great idea I get this week!

BREAKING NEWS!!! BREAKING NEWS!!! MY PUBLISHER JUST SOLD THE FOREIGN RIGHTS TO RESTORING HARMONY TO CHINA!

What do I love besides my husband and avocados? Find out over on The Debutante Ball.

Not much news…finished my new book (again) and sent it to agent before it goes to editor. Spent the week catching up on publicity stuff. Speaking of that, if you want a sneak peek of Restoring Harmony, there’s a new ARC tour afoot. She’s still taking sign-ups for now, but I think she’s capping it at twenty. And who’s the host, you ask? Well, she’s appropriately named Harmony!

That’s it. What’s up with you guys?

I’ve decided two things for 2010 in regards to reading. First, I’m going to branch WAY out from YA and start reading a lot of other stuff. I talked more about it here . The second thing I’m going to do is keep a running list of everything I read here. Normally, I only tell you about books I love. Since I won’t be writing any reviews though, I’m just going to list everything.

If I read more than fifty pages, but stop reading for some reason after that, I’ll make the notation: SR for Stopped Reading.

If I really love something, I’ll put MR next to it for Must Read.

January 2010

Marzan by Nevil Shute

Death of a Gossip by M.C. Beaton

On the Road by Jack Kerouac – SR pg. 100 or so

Gracie – A love Story by George Burns – MR

Saving Francesca  by Melina Marchetta

The Long Fall by Walter Mosley

Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert (audio)

Siesta Lane by Amy

February

Waiting for Alibrandi – Milina Marchetta

Front and Center – Catherine Gilbert Murdock

Eat, Pray, Love – Elizabeth Gilbert

Dani Noir – Nova Ren Suma

Fat Cat – Robin Brande

Murder at Longbourn – Tracy Kiely

I’m very excited to have Catherine Gilbert Murdock here today because I’ve been a fan of hers since I read the first book in the Dairy Queen series. Probably since I read the first sentence. What a wonderful voice D.J. (and Catherine) have. If you’re not familiar with them, what rock have you been living under? try to remedy that as soon as possible. You’ll be highly entertained as well as experience a whole range of emotions while you follow along with D.J. and her adventures in small town America. The third, and final book in the series came out last fall, and I recently read it. Front and Center is as wonderful as the rest and I blew through it in one sitting and then was mad at myself for reading it so fast because then the series was over! Luckily, they’re books, so I can reread them whenever I want!

And now for Catherine.

1. What’s your favourite website?

Cake Wrecks (cakewrecks.blogspot.com ) which features pictures of horrible bakery cakes. I now have to check it daily because the woman who hosts it is so hilarious, and the cakes are so awful, that it really . . . well, frankly, now that I think about it I’m not sure what it does “really,” other than both undermine and reaffirm my faith in humanity. But it’s great.

1. What do you read in the bathroom?

This is luscious . . . I got a copy of Henry Fowler’s Dictionary of Modern English Usage for Christmas, and that’s what’s in our loo now. His articles are so dense that I can only read so much — so loo length is ideal — but I still emerge inspired, and often howling in laughter. Fowler has a real, and legitimate, bone to pick with pedantry, and as I’m writing a book right now with a very pedantic character (though intentionally so), The Dictionary of Modern English Usage really keeps me on the straight and narrow. I hope, at least. Let’s just say I’m glad Fowler’s no longer around to critique me.

1. What’s the best piece of advice anyone ever gave you (or you learned from a book)?

I was an aspiring but unsuccessful screenwriter before I was an aspiring but ultimately successful author, so pretty much everything I know about writing comes from my screenwriting days. Including this tip, courtesy of  Writers Book Camp (no apostrophe — it’s a Hollywood thing), to develop a list of fifty little insights about each character. For example, if you have a character who’s really into sports, you could demonstrate this by describing the sports posters in every room, or the sports pages spread everywhere, or three TVs playing ESPN, or . . . how all the cows are named after football players. Which turned out to be one of the most memorable elements of Dairy Queen. The point is, don’t just say “Mary was, or felt, so-and-so;” show us. Show with images, show with actions, show with dialog or smell or flashback, but show it. Don’t just lecture.

1. What are you reading now?

I just finished (finally, I know) the seventh Harry Potter book. I saved it for vacation, and gobbled it up in almost one sitting. Man, can J.K. Rowling tell a story. I’m in awe.

1. What author or book have you recently discovered that you want the world to know about?

A few years ago I read Jim Malusa’s Into Thick Air, and absolutely fell in love with it. He describes a six-continent bike trip in such vivid and enthusiastic detail that I wanted to do it myself, and I hate camping. Why this wonderful book hasn’t received far more attention I can’t imagine.

1. Do you know how to cook? What’s your specialty?

Anything that’s quick, or easy, or one-dish. Preferably all three, but that’s tough. Tonight I’m making Peposo, which is 3 pounds beef, ten garlic cloves, salt, pepper and a bottle of red wine, all baked together for 3 hours. So it fills fills both the “easy” and “one-dish” categories, even if it’s not exactly quick. Actually, I need to get to the supermarket soon if we’re going to eat before nine PM . . . The recipe is from In Nonna’s Kitchen, another great book that should not be out of print, but sadly is. If I ran the world, everyone would have this book. And be much better off for it.

1. What’s the coolest writing-thing that’s happened to you since you sold your first book?

Other than hugging Neil Gaiman? Actually, the coolest thing happened before I sold, or even wrote, Dairy Queen. My sister Liz — Elizabeth Gilbert — got nominated for a national book award (this was for The Last American Man, way prior Eat Pray Love), and she invited me to an event held the night before the actual awards ceremony, when the nominees each read aloud for five minutes. Needless to say, this is an amazing experience, and it inspired me so much in my own writing: not just to write well, but to write each sentence as though I were standing on stage reading it to this audience. Which I’m sure sounds horribly pretentious, but trust me, it really helps eliminate the chaff. There are worse goals in the world that aspiring to write a paragraph that will hold 500 people’s attention.

Thanks so much, Catherine! It’s great to have you here, and I am definitely going to use that fifty things when creating characters. I love it!

P.S. As any of you regular readers know, I am a big fan of Eat, Pray, Love but I want you to know that after I read it and went to E.G.’s site, what I was excited most about was the fact that she was related to the fantastic and famous YA writer who had actually answered a few of my emails, Catherine Gilbert Murdock!

A favourite topic among writers is that oldie, but goodie: “How do you know when your book is done?” I can’t answer for any of you, but I think I’ve finally figured it out for myself.

When I am writing a book, the occasional new idea flits through my head. Some are better than others, and I write those down. I might even journal about them a bit. While writing this WIP, I went so far as to try to do a synopsis of a new idea, which I then passed back and forth with my agent  a few times before finally giving it up as dead. No matter how excited I might get about something new, it never, ever sticks. After a few days, I forget all about it. When I’m working on one book, I can edit another (I alternated editing Restoring Harmony and writing The Right & the Real for the last six months), but apparently, there’s No Vacancy in my brain for a new book idea.

And that’s how I know I’m wrapping up work on a book. Last Friday, as I came into the homestretch on my revisions for this WIP, I got a fresh book idea. A good one. One that I’ve journaled about and it expanded instead of deflated. One that is flooding me with more and more details. One that is making me anxious to sit down and start writing something – a synopsis probably. While there will be months of revisions with my editor ahead of me, this seems like a strong indicator that my initial draft of The Right & the Real is essentially done.

This new book idea is a big relief because when you only have room for one story in your head at a time, you can’t help but wonder if you’ll ever get another good idea or if this will be the last book you ever write.

How do you know when you’ve finished a book?

As always, I’m over at The Debs today. The topic this week is “Covers” and there are some great posts. I talk a bit about mine and the artist.

A fun thing happened when I was teaching my writing class to the Grade 6-7 class. One of the students raised her hand and told me that she’d gotten an email from a teen friend who wanted to tell her all about a book she’d seen around the web that she wanted to read. Yep! You guessed it. It was Restoring Harmony. My student got to say to her friend, “I know the author! She comes to our classroom and teaches us writing sometimes!” Super cool for me, as you can imagine.

Since you all pretty much would have to be blind not to know what my cover looks like, I chose this other nice picture to include today, just because it makes me really happy. It’s a photo of my husband after he walked into the house and discovered eight of his friends had delivered a surprise gift for him while he was gone. A piano! Quite a surprise, don’t you think? You really have to click on it to make it bigger so you get the full effect of his astonishment. Thanks to Allan for the pic.

I’m very excited about this interview because as you all know, I love my agent. I mean, just from his pic, you can tell he’s a nice guy, right? So far, I’ve mostly just talked ABOUT him, but now he’s here to speak for himself. Feel free to say nice things about him in the comments section. With me (and all his other clients who adore him) he’s used to hearing good stuff about himself, but a little more won’t hurt!
Michael Bourret joined Dystel & Goderich Literary Management as an intern while studying film and television production at New York University, and began at the agency full-time in 2000. After ten years as an agent in the New York office, Michael now works in Los Angeles in the West Coast office of DGLM.  There, he continues to represent his own list of bestselling and award-winning clients while also aggressively pursuing new film and television opportunities.

1. What were your favorite books when you were a teen?

I didn’t actually read YA as a teen, so I’ll mention a few younger books I loved: Bunnicula, The Cricket in Times Square, The Castle in the Attic, Ramona Quimby, Age 8, Freaky Friday.

1. Do you have any pet peeves in query letters that make you quit reading?

I have many, many pet peeves!  I hate when my name is spelled wrong, I hate typos in the first sentence, I hate being queried by writers who haven’t done their research.  But in the end, none of that really matters if the query is compelling.  As I’ve mentioned on our blog, the details aren’t the most important thing, the idea, the narrative, the storytelling – that’s what hooks me.

1. What’s the most embarrassing thing that happened to you in high school?

High school was the most embarrassing thing to happen to me!  More seriously, one time I leaned against a container in the dark room and unknowingly got the entire back of my (rather baggy) pants wet.  I looked like I had a very serious bladder problem the rest of the day.

1. What are you reading now?

Client manuscripts!  It’s a busy month.  But I intend to finish The Lost City of Z by David Grann, Jumping off Swings by Jo Knowles (whose Lessons from a Dead Girl I adored, and then I need to read The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.

1. If you could live anywhere for a year, where would it be? And what kind of a place would you live in?

Northern Italy.  I love big cities, but I’d really love to live in a tiny Italian town, in a small cottage.  I’d want to garden and cook and read and live quietly.  Honestly, I’d probably go nuts after a couple of weeks, but it sounds lovely in my head!

1. What was the first book you sold? Tell us what it felt like to make that sale.

I won’t share what the book was, but I will say that it was very practical nonfiction.  Selling it felt fantastic, and it was only my second submission!  I really thought I’d figured it all out.  What strikes me now is that there is no way I could sell the book in this market.  None.  Our business changes all the time, and I think that’s what I love so much about it!

A while ago, I asked readers to leave questions for Michael and he would choose a couple to answer. The following are two of the submitted ones.

1)      What was it about Restoring Harmony that made you request a full?

It was a great concept: a little post-apocalyptic, but set in a near-future which was entirely believable – and very scary!  It was the kind of book that could have been so many different things, and I was so pleased that there was great narrative to go along with the high-concept idea.

2)      What happens in client Lisa McMann’s upcoming book, GONE?

I’m sorry I can’t share the answer to this one, as you’ll just have to read it!  But I will say that I think the series ends in a way that will be surprising, fulfilling and just perfect.  Not long until you can find out!

Thanks for stopping by, Michael! And if you get tired of that house in Italy before your year is up, just let me know. It sounds like a great place for me to spend some time writing another book!

Tuesday Bonus Post!

I just got an email from a reader and she wrote the most amazing piece on her blog about how Molly, the main character in my book, has inspired her to try to share her own music more. She also gives a lovely review of RH, but this piece is special and I wanted you to see it. It has less to do with me, and a lot to do with this reader and her musical path, and she’s a beautiful writer too, so I hope you enjoy it. Thank you, Rebecca, for making my week.

Way back at the beginning of this year, which is already 1/12 over, I posted here about how my husband and I had decided to try and lower our footprint even more, and so we were parking the truck for one month.

So guess what? We did it. And guess what else? It was totally easy. I’ll admit that it was easier on me than on my husband because I just don’t go out at night that much, so walking everywhere during the day was just fine. The weather was pretty mild too, which helped. A couple of times we car pooled with neighbours who were going by our house to the same destination, and we hitch hiked (no problem getting a ride and safe here) and Victor spent a lot of time on his bike too.

Our three biggest challenges were water, night, and Victor’s gigs. We have a water dispenser and have to refill it at the store about a mile away. We stocked up with 17.5 gallons on Dec. 31st, and then Victor carried one gallon a few times  a week on his bike. And in the middle of the month, we hitched a ride with the neighbour and refilled all the empties.

Victor didn’t have a light on his bike though, so he had to walk to evening meetings. And we got rides with other musicians in the neighbourhood to the music gigs Victor did in January (in 2009, he did 3…this year, he’s done 5 already!)

We were most proud of finding a solution to the following challenge. Victor heard about a house concert at a friend’s house up island. Not our island, but on Vancouver Island. That meant a ferry ride and somehow getting north 35 km and then getting back in time for the last ferry home. He ended up posting an ad on a local Yahoo group asking if anyone wanted to drive and he would pay for the ferry and he got a taker right away and they had a blast! He also took the ferry/Greyhound bus down to Victoria for a rehearsal this past week.

My biggest accomplishment was not so much solving a problem, but increasing my exercise by a lot. Each weekday, I walked about 2-3 miles on my treadmill while writing my new book (see, you knew I could work writing into this post somehow, didn’t you?) and then did the two mile loop to the Village to get library books and a few groceries. On average, I increased my walking about 10 miles per week. Not bad, if I do say so myself.

And how much did we spend on gas for the truck? Yep. $0

Victor wrote about his experience here. And I think it pretty much says what I didn’t. I know that my critique partner, Kim, has been eating all her evening meals by candlelight to save electricity. Have you done anything I should know about and try to do to save energy or reduce my impact on the Earth? I’d love to hear about it!