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I am currently not answering my phone or text messages, responding to emails or IM invites, or answering the door. All forms of communication are turned off. I am incommunicado until next Friday¹ when the rewrites of the Liar book are due.

Rewriting the Liar book is all I am doing right now. It is the beginning and the middle and the end of each day. It doesn’t matter how much I want to play in my brand-new, shiny, shiny 1930s novel, or how much I want to gallivant about town, I’m not allowed.

I will probably still blog. If I don’t blog my head explodes. But I am unlikely to respond to your gorgeous comments. Though I will read and cherish them as I always do. Of course once I’m finished with the rewrites I head to Texas.

Right then, back to the grindstone goes me.

1. Or, um, possibly next Monday.

I was going to finish up one of my long-promised posts on writing, which I’d planned to encourage all those NaNoWriMo types. Something on how to get going, or characterisation, or how to push forward even though your plot died.¹

But who am I kidding?

Like everyone I know my concentration has been totally shot by the US election. I’ve been writing and rewriting the same sentence of the Liar novel for the last three weeks. This afternoon when all our attempts to work failed, me and Scott went and phone banked. The Bowery Hotel was overrun with volunteers, using their own phones to make calls to people all over the country,² telling them where their local polling station is, giving them a phone number to call if they need a ride.

Last election I knew maybe two people who volunteered and I thought that was amazing. This year I have friends working for the Obama campaign in California, Florida, Kentucky, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. There’s a whole YA for Obama site. Here in NYC it’s all anyone is talking about. At my hairdressers, at the gym, in the laundromat, at our favourite cafes, at the cheese shop, everywhere!

I cannot wait for tomorrow. I cannot wait till there’s a result—a good result. Because then I’ll get my brain back. Fivethirtyeight doesn’t need my constantly refreshing it anymore and I suspect the Liar novel would like me to work on more than one of its sentences.³

Let it end now, please.

If you’re USian go forth tomorrow⁴ and exercise your democratic right: vote!

1. Write like the wind!
2. Particularly battleground states like Indiana and Ohio. Wow, they must be sick of all those phone calls. Though I gotta tell you all the people I spoke to were lovely. Chock full of enthusiasm and rearing to vote if they hadn’t already.
3. You’ll be shocked to learn the Liar novel has more than one sentence. There’s at least a few dozen. Possibly more.
4. If you haven’t already.

I’ve been trying to diagnose my current writing woes. While, yes, there has been an insane amount of admin, travel, and the site disasters of the last two days¹ have not been helpful, but they’re not the cause, they’re just hindrances.

This is my current theory:

The world I’m living in right now is much more interesting than any world I could write.

I can’t look away from the election. From the world financial crisis. From all the crazy stuff that’s going on.

Is anyone else having the same problem?

1. Plus now having to look for a new webhost

All the problems of the past two days appear to have been resolved. Sorry for the inconvenience. Especially to those of you who had your comments eaten.

Thanks for chiming in on last post. I no longer feel like I have lost my mind. Just my website for a couple of days. And, praise Elvis, may it never happen again.

We can now resume normal blog activity.

For those who missed the post that was only visible to a handful of you for most of the day there’s a sneak preview of my latest published effort.

Thanks to everyone who wrote to share their concern about the absence and/or weirdness of my site today. It’s nice to know you care.

In a bit less than a month, Love is Hell, an anthology edited by Farrin Jacobs for Harper Collins will be out. It contains stories by me and Melissa Marr, Laurie Faria Stolarz, Scott Westerfeld and Gabrielle Zevin. I’ve only read Scott’s story, which is one of my favourites of his, and I heartily recommend it, but I’m sure the others are just as fab.

My story is called “Thinner Than Water” and is the longest short story I’ve ever published. In fact, I think it secretly wants to be a novel. It’s also one of the few I’m happy (ish) with. So I decided to share a teaser with you.¹ Enjoy!

I’ve been working on this story on and off for well over a decade. It’s based on various Demon Lover ballads and, I realised just today, stories, too. Like this one by Elizabeth Bowen, which I read many, many times as a teenager. And various ones by Shirley Jackson collected in The Lottery and Other Stories, which I didn’t read till well into my twenties.

But those stories stuck, oh, how they stuck.

I think upon reading “Thinner Than Water” you too will see the influence.

Don’t you love how stories beget stories? I sure do.

1. Though be aware this is the pre-copy editing version.

If you want a signed copy of HTDYF and you live in Toronto you should go to Bakka Phoenix Books, a lovely sf bookshop located at 697 Queen Street West. I believe you’ll also find books signed by John Scalzi and Scott Westerfeld.

My history with Bakka Books (as it used to be known) goes back to the 1990s when I was in Toronto doing research for my Phd at the Judith Merril Collection. I spent many hours at Bakka, gossiping with the staff, and feeding my book habit. So it was quite the thrill to be back there and signing my own books. Who’da thunk it?

I was also reminded me of how much I like Toronto. It’s not the prettiest city in the world but who cares when there’s so much cool inventive stuff going on? It totally reminds me of Melbourne. Queen St and Brunswick street bare a very close resemblance. I stumbled into Magpie Designs¹ and may have accidentally wound up with some clothes. Can’t be sure.

It was lovely to be reminded even briefly of another of my favourite cities. I could totally live in Toronto.²

1. Sadly, none of the images on the site are as fabulous as the clothes they have in their shop right now.
2. Just not in winter.

Even though I am much better at writing novels than I’ve ever been before it’s still insanely hard. Actually, it’s MUCH harder than it used to be when I didn’t realise how hard it was. Why? It makes NO sense!

Right now, stuck in the middle of rewriting the Liar novel, I have the distinct sense that I’ve exceeded my skill set. I simply don’t have the writerly chops to get this book to where it needs to be. Yet tragically, the only way I can get to the level of skill I need to be at is to, well, rewrite this book.

Did your head just explode? I know mine did.

To make me feel better I think you should all go to Holly Black’s blog and vote for her to watch Shaun of the Dead. She is afraid of zombies and attempting to conquer her fears. Let’s make her do it! Her other options, quite frankly, are deeply lame.

You will watch Shaun of the Dead, Holly, oh yes, you will!

Because the talk everywhere I go is of the US election¹ or of the general economic collapse I thought that I would share the rest of the YA writers’ fairies.

Holly Black: The coffee fairy—a fairy that would make sure I always find the most delicious cup of coffee (free-trade, with milk) wheresoever I am.

Cecil Castellucci: I’d like a fairy of perfect timing.

I mean that in every way, from timing everything perfectly, to everything being on time, to it being the right time for things, and to telling a good story/ joke with perfect timing.

Cassandra Clare: I have an umbrella fairy. Umbrella fairy tells me to take my umbrella, then it doesn’t rain. But I wish I had a typing fairy. Typing fairy could teach me to type with all fingers.

Jenny Davidson: My fairy is a sense of time fairy—I always know when it is, it is easy for me to be punctual and I have a good sense of how to pace a class (use of 75 mins) or a project (use of 3 months). But I wish I could trade it in for a sense of direction fairy! Because I can get lost at the drop of a hat, it is utterly absurd, I never know where I am or how to get anywhere, I am often finding myself (though less in age of Google Maps, where foresight can largely compensate for sense of direction) on the verge of tears and not at all sure which direction I’m pointing in!

Cory Doctorow: I wish I had an email answering fairy who knew exactly what I wanted to say to every email and took care of them all!

Cory really needs that fairy. I have seen how much email he gets: nine hundred bajillion katrillion pieces in a single day. It’s insane.

Maureen Johnson: Right now I wish I had a Book-Finishing Fairy. Or, at the very least, a That Section Clearly Adds Nothing to the Plot Fairy. Or a Make this Suck Less Fairy. Failing that, I would accept an Answer My E-Mail Fairy or a I Will Make You the Next Doctor on Doctor Who Fairy . . . because that last one sounds kind of fun.

Ellen Kushner: My fairy seems to be the Find Your Friends Fairy. I run into people I know on the street in foreign countries, in airports, and in restaurants.

David Levithan: I’ll go for a Wakefulness Fairy. You know, one who would whisper something really funny or (barring that) really loud in my ears whenever my eyelids started to flutter shut in the middle of the day.

E. Lockhart: I have a “finding things that belong to other people” fairy. If someone I live with has lost something, I can put my hands on it in a minute or two.

Sadly, my fairy won’t actually work for me. My postal scale went missing in my house 6 months ago and hasn’t turned up yet.

I wish for an anti-clutter fairy. Clutter is cluttering up my cluttered life.

Jaclyn Moriarty: I think I have the fairy of relentlessly excited expectations. Every time I hear an e-mail arrive, or the telephone ring, I think something amazing is about to happen. At the moment I have a letter by my front door, to remind myself to post it, but every time I walk by the door I notice it there and get a rush of excitement. I think: ‘Somebody has slipped a mystery letter under my door! How fantastic! Who could it be?!’

If there was a fairy that could meet my excited expectations, such as a fairy of
regular yet surprising news of good fortune, that would be my choice.

If not, I’d like the fairy of decisiveness.

Ooooh! I want a fairy of met expectations, too. Frabjous!

Sarah Mlynowski: I am a hypochondriac. So the fairy I wish I had is one who would point out germs. Such as: Sarah, do not eat that chicken! It is not well cooked and is riddled with salmonella. Or, Do not shake that guy’s hand, he just went to the bathroom and did not wash it. Or, Do not sit next to that girl on the subway because she will sneeze on you and give you Diphtheria.

I have a perky fairy. I can usually cheer friends up when they are depressed.

Garth Nix: I have a slightly warped Punctuality Fairy. He/She/It forces me to be on time, the twist being that if I am actually late, the Punctuality Fairy will make everyone else late too, or delay my plane, or cloud my mind so that I’ve thought the meeting is earlier than it should be, so that any meeting, engagement or booking that I would have been late for by the original schedule, suddenly becomes on time.

I have been asked many times over the years by Sydney’s State Rail to sell them my punctuality fairy so that all their late trains will suddenly become on time, but the fairy just won’t leave me. I’m hoping that HOW TO DITCH YOUR FAIRY will give me some ideas.

Diana Peterfreund: I think I have a hat wearing fairy. I tend to look good in hats, and I never lose, sit on, or have hats blow off my head. I also don’t get hat
head.

I don’t know if I feed her often enough, though.

John Scalzi: I did have a “know who is calling on the phone as soon as it rings” fairy for a while, which used to freak people out when I would pick up the phone and call them by their name without saying hello first. However, in the age of call waiting, this fairy has become far less useful than it was back in the day. Stupid advances in technology.

I wish I had a fairy that would make bacon double cheeseburgers a slimming health food. Because that would rock.

Robin Wasserman: My fairy is a last minute fairy, that lets me start anything at the last minute and still get it done on time. That works out rather nicely, but I suppose if I had my pick, I’d take a say the right thing fairy — which, as you might guess from the name, means that in any and every situation I’d always know exactly the right thing to say. (Perhaps this fairy would first have to kill the say the wrong thing fairy who often stops by for a visit.)

Scott Westerfeld: I have the simile fairy. Whenever I need a cool simile to nail a dramatic moment, my fairy comes and hits me on the head like a pillowcase full of naked mole rats. Or, if I come up with a lame one like that, I pick a book from the shelf and open it at random. And, lo and behold, there’s a great simile to steal right on that page. So it’s a simile-stealing fairy as well.

But I want a good-night’s-sleep fairy.

You can find more fairies here. And, as usual, feel free to share your own fairies.

I would like to wish everyone in the US over 18 a good voting fairy.

1. I’m in Canada! They have their own election! Why are we still talking about the US one? Um, because it’s really important?

I’m sure you all know about it, but I am having a ball going through shorpy’s historical photos. Though there aren’t nearly enough from the early 1930s. Still. Dead fascinating.

To everyone who sent me the photo of the Aussie spider eating the Aussie bird: Why, yes, out spiders are tough. But our birds are not wussy.

I am noticing an odd phenomenon: Readers of this blog apologising for not reading my books.

Please don’t!

I do not write this blog to get people to read my books.¹

I write it cause it’s fun and because I’m shockingly opinionated—seriously there is NOTHING I don’t have an opinion about²—and I like to share. Blog writing is the most relaxing fun writing I do.³

It saddens me if any of you are feeling guilty about not reading my books. Put that guilt away. You are excused from ever reading them. So no more apologies, okay?⁴

In other news an interview with me can be found here. Thanks for the great quessies, Cynthia.

Brooke Taylor is giving a copy of How to Ditch Your Fairy away for Faery Week of her Monster Month of Giveaways.

Bloomsbury’s HTDYF contest also continues. There are several different prizes but I think this one’s best: $150 gift certificate to Forever 21.

Shortly, I am off to Toronto. If you’re there come see me and Scott Monday:

Monday, 27 October, 7:00PM-8:00PM
Indigo Bookstore
Yorkdale Mall
3401 Dufferin Street
Toronto, Ontario

1. Ewww!
2. Ask me about wolves some time. Or chewing gum. Or musicals. Or corks.
3. Way better than smelly novels.
4. But do read E. Lockhart’s Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks or Coe Booth’s Kendra or The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner.

Who among you uses the nouns “shellacking” or “argy-bargy”? Please to tell how you use them and where you are from. Not just your country, but what state and/or province, what town and/or city or igloo number or whatever?

If you’ve never heard of these nouns you have my condolences.

One of the biggest culture shocks for me as an Australian living (some of the time) in the USA is voting. Every election year I’ve been here there have been voter intimidation and fraud scandals. Maybe I missed it, but that does not happen at home. Not every single election.

Seems to me that the aim in the US is to make voting as difficult as possible. Why? I don’t get it. I’ve had friends disallowed to vote because the official said they had the wrong ID. It didn’t exactly match the name on the voter rolls. As in, their driver’s license had their middle name spelled out in full, “Rachel”, but the voter roll had just a middle initial, “R”. I’ve heard of all sorts of arcane local voting rules that are aimed solely at keeping people from voting.

I find it incomprehensible because I come from a country where voting is made as easy as possible. In fact, you get fined if you don’t vote. Back home there are no books teaching you how to avoid having your vote suppressed.

Also what’s with the voting day being a Tuesday and then that day not being declared a holiday? I know people who have a really hard time getting off work in order to vote. Sadly they live in areas where early voting isn’t possible.

And what’s with all the different areas of the US having different methods of voting? Paper ballots here, mechanical machines there, electronic machines way over there, and goat’s entrails in the hinterlands. Wouldn’t uniform voting laws across the country so that everyone casts their vote in the same way make a lot more sense?

Again. I just don’t get it. At home we have an independent electoral authority in charge of the whole thing. And, like I said we don’t have voting scandals every election.

A country that makes voting hard is making democracy hard. Voting isn’t just a right, it’s a duty.

So you don’t think I’m entirely down on the USian version of democracy here’s what I like about the US system:

Fixed terms.

Brilliant idea. I wish Australia did that. One person in power for more than eight years is a really bad idea.

I keep coming across wannabe writers who believe that writing is an easy way to make heaps of money. Nope.¹ Your odds of being paid good money to write novels year after year are vanishingly small. Most published writers aren’t.

I cannot emphasise this enough: If you don’t love writing don’t try to get published.

Let’s get specific:

While on tour I was asked how much money I make. Since I’d done my taxes not long before I was in a position to say exactly how much I made in the US financial year of 2007:² $29K. And that’s gross.³

It’s also the most money I’ve ever made from writing. But there’s no guarantee I’ll have as big a year this year or next or the year after that.

Twenty-nine thousand dollars doesn’t put me in the top percentage of earners in the US or at home. But it does put me up the top for writers. Like I said, most published writers don’t earn enough money to make a living. They’re lucky to make $5k a year from their writing. That’s why most published writers have other jobs.

Writing is an insanely tenuous profession. Even when you’re published there’s no guarantee that every bookshop will stock your books. I’ve had chains skip various books of mine. But even if every bookshop in the universe has your books on the shelves there’s no guarantee anyone’s going to buy them.

Every single day the vast majority of people are busily not buying my books.

That’s a writer’s life right there.

Forget about the latest six or seven figure deal some debut novelist scored. They’re the exceptions, a teeny tiny fraction of all writers. Odds are that those highly paid debutantes won’t earn out. The reporting about their huge deal may well be both the first and last reporting about their publishing career. They won’t be alone in not earning out: the vast majority of writers don’t.

Did I mention you have to really love writing to be in this game?

Just as well I do, eh?

1. On both counts but I’ll focuss on the money today.
2. Note to Oz readers—their financial years are calendar years.
3. In both meanings of the word!

Allen & Unwin, my Australian publisher, has a blog: Alien Onion. (See if you can figure out why it is thus named.) And they has written a post welcoming me. I is dead chuffed. Thank ‘ee!

There’s also a preview of the Oz cover of How To Ditch Your Fairy. See if you can spot what’s different to the US cover.

Do check out the rest of their blog it’s the most lively fun publisher’s blog I’ve seen. With lots of excellent guests and pictures of cake. I think it will give you an inkling of why I am so ecstatic that Allen & Unwin is my new Australian home.

E. Lockhart’s Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks has been shortlisted for a National Book Award.

Let there be w00ting and w88ting across the land!

If you haven’t read it yet what the hell have you been doing? Off you go! Get thee a copy.

Congratulations, Emily. You SO deserve this!

The full shortlist:

YOUNG PEOPLE’S LITERATURE

Laurie Halse Anderson, Chains (Simon & Schuster)
Kathi Appelt, The Underneath (Atheneum)
Judy Blundell, What I Saw and How I Lied (Scholastic)
E. Lockhart, The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks (Hyperion)
Tim Tharp, The Spectacular Now (Alfred A. Knopf)

(I have not read the other titles. And, sadly, I wont get a chance before the winner is announced. I’m in deep 1930s immersion and reading only books about or published then.)

Good luck and congrats to all the nominees.

Until recently I had little respect for acting. My line was that all actors have to do is say words written for them by someone else and prance about making believe. Plus the few actors I’d met had been, um, how do I put this? Not the smartest people in the world. (Not all of them! Not, you!) But most of them.

However, going on tour has changed my opinion. TOTALLY.

Basically what I did for the last two weeks in Michigan, Ohio, and then Kansas City, Missouri was get up and perform in front of audiences ranging from 5 to 200. And I did it between two and six times a day.

It was shockingly hard. Astonishingly so. One of the most exhausting things I’ve ever done. Why did no one warn me?!

Yet I did was play myself. Talk about my books, answer questions. Doesn’t sound like much, does it? I can’t imagine what it’s like getting up night after night on stage pretending to be someone else. Or doing it take after take in front of cameras.

My tour gave me a glimpse of how hard acting must be.

Don’t get me wrong: touring was heaps of fun. I now also have a glimmer of understanding of why people want to be actors. The energy you get from an engaged audience is amazing. I can see how it could get addictive.

So there you have it. I was wrong. I take it all back. Acting is hard. I sure couldn’t do it.

I finally figured out why I always often get into mega fights disagreements with my copyeditors.

Eureka!

Thus far all my novels have been in first person or limited third. I view these as the colloquial points of view and write them to mimic the character’s speaking voice as much as possible. That way, if I do it right, the reader will feel like the protag is talking to them because the language I use is conversational.

And there I fall into arguments with many copyeditors (not all of them—certainly not YOU). They wants everything to be gramatically correct and conform to house style. I wants for it to be colloquial, flowing, rhythmic language. Sometimes that means flouting conventional grammar rules and house style.

And leads to stet wars.

I also don’t believe that any one word is inherently “weak”. I do not believe there are “weak” adjectives or verbs or nouns. Or anything. Even words like “good” or “nice” have their place. Their use reveals a tonne about the character saying them.

There are very few grammar rules or commandments that I think are always and for all time. I is all about context. One of the reasons I love the English language so much is on account of how crazy flexible it is. I can bend and twist it. Sometimes make it go SNAP and BANG and BROKEN. But it always bounces back good and nice.

It’s the job of copyeditors to disagree with me. Which is for the best. Having them query my language messing, forces me to check that I’m doing what I think I’m doing, and that it actually works.

I can’t believe it took me so long to figure out why me and they is so often at loggerheads. It’s because our jobs be quite different.

Which is a good thing. Excellent even.

Scott here again. We return to NYC tomorrow after another week of grueling gruelling travel and energizing energising visits with schools, librarians, and booksellers. And readers!

Thanks so much to everyone who came to the events. It was great to meet you, see your faces, and hear your awesome questions. Justine had a fantastic time. (And I couldn’t be more proud of her.)

In less than an hour, we’ll be heading off to the last gig until mid-November, when the Texas tour begins. Until then, hope to see you at

Kansas City Library
Thursday, 9 October 2008, 7:00PM
4801 Main Street
Kansas City, MO

And that’s it from me! Justine will be returning soon to her regularly scheduled blogging.

Scalzi’s law that the cheaper the hotel the better the wifi is 100% correct. I write this on my iPhone in a four star that has no wifi in the rooms. Night before last in the crappy motel we had the best wifi of the trip and it was free. What gives?

Many tales of the tour to come. Tonight I am in Dayton. Hope to see a few of you there. Check appearances for details.

The movie version of Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist turned a crappy day into a lovely one. While it’s not as good as the book, it left me grinning and happy. It managed to be faithful to the feel of the novel as well as a real crowd pleaser. All around me people were laughing, squealing, and sighing. Sighing a lot whenever Michael Cera so much as quirked an eyebrow. I don’t think I’m ever going to understand his charms, but this movie gave me a bit more of a clue. He’s kind of like a young James Stewart—awkward in his own skin, totally harmless, safe, gentle and quietly smart. Kind of like a sentient teddy bear or something.

I’m adding Nick and Norah to my list of fun teen films. Although most of the cast—as usual—looked to be a few years older than they were supposed to be it wasn’t as egregious as some teen films and TV series. Most importantly, the cast sounded like teenagers. Unlike Juno who’s eponymous character speaks and thinks like a cynical thirty-something. I didn’t buy anything in that movie.

I had the privilege of hanging out with Nick and Norah’s authors, Rachel and David, afterwards.¹ They’re both over the moon happy with the film and its reception. And not just because it’s propelled their book onto the New York Times bestseller list. (Woo hoo!) The odds of having your book made into a movie are very very small, but having your book made into a good movie? Smaller than small. David and Rachel lucked out big time and they know it. Couldn’t have happened to nicer people. Go Rachel! Go David!

If you haven’t already read Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist go do so immediately!

1. They went to three screenings on the opening day. Talk about dedication!

Lessons learned today:

• Beef jerky on it’s own is not enough to keep a girl going all day.
• Also never diss a hometown boy just before visiting his state. I don’t take a word of that back, but let’s just focus on Deanna Nolan’s awesomeness instead, eh? Plus, really? It’s news to the folks of Michigan that some do not appreciate Bill Laimbeer? I find that very difficult to believe.
• I am not yet ready to talk in detail about the new book (the one set in the 1930s). At the appearance tonight I started to, but then I got a weird feeling all over, and my mouth closed. How weird is that?

I am now an expert on what clothes travel well and what don’t. I have enough outfits with me for a thousand appearances and it all fit into one teeny tiny suitcase. I am now a packing genius!

If you’re in the Grand Rapids, MI area here’s where I’ll be tomorrow, or, er today:

Wednesday, 1 October 2008, 4:00PM
Pooh’s Corner
Breton Village
1886 1/2 Breton Rd. S.E.
Grand Rapids, MI

Hope to see some of you there!

Thanks to the lovely folks at Voracious Reader for uniting me with my new fairy!

And thanks to everyone who showed up to my appearance. You were all wonderful!

The New York Liberty won the first game of the Eastern Conference Finals. It was an ugly win. An ugly game. The only grace notes were Deanna Nolan’s gorgeous shooting—I swear she stays up in the air for seconds at a time, she looks great even when she misses—the great turnout, and the fact that we won.

I didn’t think it was possible for me to hate Bill Laimbeer more than I do. But his performance tonight pushed my hate a few notches upward. How he managed not to get a delay of game call or a technical I will never understand. Sit down, Bill!

Later today I will be in Larchmont, which is a mere twenty minutes from Grand Central:

Saturday, 27 September 2008, 1:00PM
Voracious Reader
1997 Palmer Ave
Larchmont, NY

I am wondering if this is the Larchmont that the term Larchmont lockjaw comes from. I hope I get to meet some of you there.

I’ll let in on a little secret: YA authors are political.

After all, our books are all about what the future holds, who’s got power and who hasn’t, and how bullies can and should be taken down. They’re about figuring out your place in the world, and making a stand when things are just plain wrong.

What could be more political than all that?

As novelists, of course, our politics are conveyed by Story, which creates a cushion between our world and the real one. Our characters are figments of our imagination, however human they seem. And that softens our politics around the edges.

Like in movies when the president shows up, and it’s Morgan Freeman instead of George Bush. Because who doesn’t trust Morgan Freeman?

But when it comes to politics, “fictional” doesn’t mean the same as “not real.” Our politics are very real.

And here’s secret number two: teenagers are political too.

Teens understand that power matters. Their lives are controlled in some pretty astonishing ways, both by adults and by each other. (I’ve always said that the success of Uglies is partly thanks to high school being a dystopia: a bell rings and you march to your next station; what you say and wear is monitored; the newspapers are censored—for your own good!)

And teenagers also have a huge stake in the politics outside their schoolhouse. I’ve had lots of fan letters from kids whose father and mothers are in Iraq and Afghanistan. And guess what? There are soldiers there today who were 13 years old when Midnighters came out, so some of them may be my readers. Young people fight wars.

Not planning on signing up? Well, guess what: Young people also foot the bill.

As I said in my last post, when the Secretary of the Treasury asks to borrow $700 billion dollars, you guys are the ones who get to pay it back. Every paycheck in your entire lives will reflect those missing billions.

Read that last sentence again, and tell me you’re not interested in politics.

So I think it’s time to skip the fictions for a moment, and say that I support Senator Barack Obama for president of the United States.

The people in charge right now are sucking at being in charge. And all of you are going to feel it for a long time, longer than me. So it’s time to transform the powers that be—not with a small change, but with a big one.

Now, if you’d rather pretend that Morgan Freeman is the president in Westerblog-land, that’s fine. I won’t be posting here about icky real-world politicians. But if you want to read me and about a zillion other YA authors (including Meg Cabot, John Green, Libba Bray, Cecily von Ziegesar, Robin Wasserman, Megan McCafferty, and Judy Blume) weighing in on the election in bone-rattling detail, check out this new site, YA for Obama. The awesome Maureen Johnson set it up as a place where you can network, learn about issues, and make a difference.

Click here to read my first post for YA4O, in which I do the math, Dess-style. And am joined by Gossip Girl herself!

Because as I said yesterday: “You’re going to spend your entire adult lives in the future, after all. So it’s your job to think about it, worry about it, and read about it.”

Go and rock the world.

Visit YA for Obama

For those asking why I haven’t been blogging the US election:

It’s because I cannot believe what I’m seeing and hearing. Seriously if I had made up a tenth of what’s been going on and put it in a novel no one would credit it. They’d be all, “The characters keep changing! They don’t make any sense. And one of them seems to be a malfunctioning robot! Also there’s a zombie! I thought this was meant to be realism. What the hell?”

Not to mention that I cannot talk about wolf killers dispassionately. I love wolves. Almost as much as I love quokkas.

Plus I’ve been in a really great mood lately. I don’t want to bugger that up.

So that’s why I’m not blogging the election.

But if you want to know what some other YA authors think check out Maureen Johnson’s YA for Obama social site.

And just so you don’t think I’m being partisan, which I’m not on account of I’m not USian and have no vote in the US of A, here is the YA for McCain site.

Enjoy!

Me, I’m retreating back to the simpler and happier times of the 1930s—researching my next book—when there were no earth-shattering world-wide financial crises, no wars, and no environmental disasters. Oh, wait . . .

Never mind.