Most people take hiatuses for the summer, but I’m taking one for the fall.

I will definitely pop in if I have something to say, but in the meantime, I’m signing off Robin Friedman’s JerseyFresh 'Tude for a spell. I’ve blogged faithfully since January and it’s been a mah-velous adventure.

Who knows? Maybe I'll come back reinvented with something exciting and different, or at least different.

Thank you so much for visiting me, supporting me, and encouraging me.

Incredible, brilliant, prolific, inspiring Laurie Faria Stolarz and I share a publisher, and she answers this question for us today: Can you tell us about your road to publication?

My path to publication is paved with an array of rejection – from the standard form letter and the fortune-cookie-sized pre-printed note, to the more personalized invitation to send future work.

I tried selling my first novel, BLUE IS FOR NIGHTMARES, for over two years before I finally found an editor who was willing to work with me. That editor, Megan Atwood, though no longer at Llewellyn Publications, was really excited about the project and so I knew I was in good hands.

Finding a suitable agent or editor is a full-time pursuit in itself and luckily I didn’t give up – even 50 rejection letters later. I’d keep a log detailing to whom I had sent my work, what exactly I had sent (i.e., a query letter, sample pages, the full manuscript), how long he or she had kept it, and what the outcome was.

My favorite rejection letter came from an editor who said: “While this is an interesting project, I do not feel it is strong enough to compete in today’s competitive young adult market.” That same young adult novel (BLUE IS FOR NIGHTMARES) has sold over 150,000 copies, was named a Reluctant Reader Quick Pick through the American Library Association, a Popular Paperback, and was nominated for YALSA’s Top Ten Teen pick list. When I speak to young people and aspiring writers, I always tell them this story, that if I had stopped persevering, I may never have been able to enjoy the success of my work.

Since the publication of BLUE IS FOR NIGHTMARES, I have gone on to create a series, adding three more books that come after BLUE: WHITE IS FOR MAGIC, SILVER IS FOR SECRETS, and RED IS FOR REMEMBRANCE. And, in the fall of 2009, BLACK IS FOR BEGINNINGS will also join that list. In addition to the series, I have also written BLEED and PROJECT 17, also for young adults, and published by Hyperion/Disney. I am currently working on a new series for Hyperion/Disney (the TOUCH series), the first book of which, DEADLY LITTLE SECRET, will be released in December 2008.

Sarah Mlynowski is amazingly versatile, talented, classy, and nice! She answers this question for us today: What’s it like to write for both teens and adults?

I definitely feel more pressure writing for teens in terms of my own responsibility as a writer.

Fourteen is far more impressionable than 24. Finding the balance between reflecting reality and forming reality is a lot trickier. I’m extra careful about using labels, or having characters swear, drink or hook up...When my teen characters are 14, I tend to write them as if they’re 12, because I know readers like to read up.

When I write for adults, a 23 year old is a 23 year old. And that includes the 23 year old’s bad behavior in all of its glory. (Or at least my bad behavior at 23...)

Lots of Jewish holidays in October; if I don't pop in, it means that I'm out honoring the day. Meanwhile, a nice review in SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL. Excerpts:

This short novel examines the life of a boy with bulimia. Parker Rabinowitz, 17, is good-looking, smart, and rich; he's bound to get into Princeton. He is expected to maintain perfect grades, participate in multiple extracurricular activities and service projects, and, in other words, be the perfect son. His sister, Danielle, is jealous of the attention he gets, but she is the first to notice that something is terribly wrong... Compelling reading.

“It is worth mentioning, for future reference, that the creative power which bubbles so pleasantly in beginning a new book quiets down after a time, and one goes on more steadily. Doubts creep in. Then one becomes resigned. Determination not to give in, and the sense of an impending shape, keep one at it more than anything.”
-Virginia Woolf

This may not be a sexy or snappy sentiment, but it is Truth with a capital T.

The Early Show at CBS News featured a segment, Skinny America: 'Man-orexia' on the Rise, last Tuesday. I'm so grateful that these issues are finally getting the attention they deserve.

NOTHING was profiled in two Jersey newspapers this week, which is as thrilling as life can get for a Jersey Girl like me:

THE STAR-LEDGER
Peek: "In reading and researching this topic, what made me feel very heartbroken was how people with bulimia would rather die slowly than tell someone about it," Friedman says. "There's such a profound sense of shame in having the disease, they would prefer to get sicker and sicker than to get help."

THE WARREN REPORTER
Peek: "That just made me want to write the book more...I really wanted to understand how someone develops bulimia, why they would binge and purge," Friedman said. "It's such an unusual behavior and yet millions of people do it. I wanted to put myself in their shoes so I would understand."

David Slater is the first author to contact me about answering a Question of the Week Thursday, and I’m very happy to pose one to him: Is it unusual to have written all five books in your upcoming young adult series?

Yes, I think it’s unusual for an author to have a series completed before the first book is published. It’s a big risk of time and effort because if the series doesn’t take off, the later books may never wind up in print. But the project was both a joy and a passion to put together—I had to finish it. And there was one tremendous advantage, which was that I could continually revise the earlier books as I went along. The volumes are all intimately interconnected, with clues in book one only coming to light in book five. I’ve been told that if you put Harry Potter, The Golden Compass, and the Da Vinci Code in a blender, you might come up with the Sacred Books series.

Emily Wing Smith, a fabulous fellow-Flux-author who also shares an agent with me, sent this report today via Ypulse, a group that features all things Generation Y:

Manorexia: Thin Is In…For Guys, Too
Posted in TV

Male stars of Gossip Girl - Back when I worked at Oxygen TV on a teen show called Trackers, we aired a POV-J (Point of View Journalist) segment about teen boy wrestlers and the insane rituals they go through to "make weight" -- everything from running in warm clothes to actually purging after meals. In some circles, this purging behavior is called eating disordered. Still, guys doing radical stuff short term for a sport seems unhealthy but more temporary than guys having full blown eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia. Whenever we talk about the role of the media in eating disorders, we usually talk about its impact on girls -- from the modeling shows, celebrities Mary Kate or Kate Moss to the recent criticism of "90210's" younger female stars. But new research coming out of the UK and Australia reveals that "manorexia" or male eating disorders are a growing problem for young men -- and not just jocks. From this BBC report:

-One of Britain's leading eating disorder experts says as many as one in five young men are deeply unhappy with their body image.

-Dr John Morgan said that for every man with an eating disorder there were 10 more who desperately wanted to change the way they looked.

-"One in five young men have some degree of quite extreme distress," he said.

-Dr Morgan said he had also seen a big rise in the number of men with anorexia and bulimia.

-Dr Morgan, who runs the Yorkshire Centre for Eating Disorders in Leeds, told the BBC's news programme for teenagers, Revealed, that men who were unhappy with their bodies would like to change them.

I know this has been an issue in the gay community for some time, but what's new is the awareness around this trend for younger heterosexual guys. So maybe as we criticize The CW for its stick thin actresses, we should also be critical of how teen guys are portrayed or the lack of realistic teen body types (female or male) in these high school dramas. Did anyone else notice that the returning "90210" characters "Donna Martin" and "Brenda Walsh" look almost-heavy compared to their younger co-stars? Are you seeing or hearing teen guys talk more about this issue? Is it a theme that's popping up on any teen TV shows or in YA literature?

Fellow-Jersey-Girl Kieran Scott, who also writes Alloy Entertainment books under the pseudonym Kate Brian, is prolifically fabulous. We ask her: What’s your secret to being so prolific?

Strangely, I’ve never really thought about this before . . . maybe because I haven’t had TIME to think about it! :) But I believe there are two secrets to my system. First, my ridiculously detailed outlines, and second, my meticulous scheduling.

I have never written a book without a very detailed outline. Once an idea is formed, these take me about a week to pound out. Sometimes they do stink and need to be thrown out, but generally I have a good idea of where the story should go and how to get there. Knowing that, I’m able to write an outline with lots of detail about timing, place, emotion, and all that good stuff, so that when I go to write the book, I’m just adding the fun things—the dialogue (which is my favorite aspect of writing), the fun observations, the movement . . . It all flows much more easily when the nitty gritty things have already been laid out.

Also, when I start a book, I always figure out exactly how many scenes or chapters I’ll have to write each week in order to meet my deadline. Sometimes the deadlines come from the publishers (as with the PRIVATE series, which publishes two to four books a year), or they’re self-imposed (as with my hardcover novels, which are more on my own timeline). Then I do my very best to stick to that schedule. If I have to write three scenes in a day, but I don’t feel like writing that day, I will still sit down at my computer and do my best. It might not be great, but at least I’ll have something down that I can edit the next day. Then I always start the next day by reading over what I’ve written the day before and editing it. This both gets me into the creative mood and reminds me of where my brain was going the day before, thereby jumpstarting me for the new writing I need to do.

Sometimes I get off schedule because of writer’s block or exhaustion or an unexpected meeting or appointment, but then I do my best to catch up as quickly as possible.

I know that none of this plays into that romanticized view of writing . . . a girl and her muse sitting down to create great art . . . . The writer just letting the character take her where she wants to go . . . . But that’s just never been my approach. I have to always be working and moving and knowing where I’m going and what I’m doing next. Maybe it’s all that Dunkin Donuts coffee I drink . . . :)

So those are my secrets to being so prolific. Now I’d better get back to work!

“Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.”
– Anonymous

Nothing could be more true of the publishing business.

Waiting for your agent to read your next manuscript (weeks, maybe months), waiting for publishers to read your next manuscript (definitely months), waiting for that manuscript to become a book – but only if you’re really lucky, of course – (years, and we’re talking an average of two to three here), waiting for reviews (months, years), waiting, waiting, waiting…

And all of this doesn’t include waiting for ideas to come, waiting for those ideas to turn into stories, waiting to finish a first draft, waiting to finish a second draft, a third, a fourth…you get the picture.

Our up-to-the-nanosecond Google world does not comprehend the peculiarly anachronistic system that is writing and publishing. But it is what it is, and the more patience we can bring to it, ultimately, the more rewarding, fulfilling, and enjoyable it will be, for us, and certainly for everyone around us.

I had the pleasure of meeting David Levithan once at a cocktail hour following BEA in New York. I sat between him and my editor, Andrew Karre, and between the two of them, I learned more in that hour than I’d learned the whole week. David and I are also indirectly linked by a connection having to do with my day job (how’s that for mysterious?). In addition to being a prolific, supremely talented author, David is an editor at PUSH and Scholastic. He answers this question for us today: What’s it like being both an author and an editor?

It’s really quite a blast. Because, in truth, I love playing with other people’s words as much as I enjoy playing with my own.

I was lucky I was an editor first, because I think it would be harder to go from writing to editing - I would have gotten so used to my own voice that I think it would have been harder to recognize other people’s. But who knows?

Basically, I spend the week working on other people’s books, and then the weekends on my own. It’s good to have a natural divider.

The only time it gets surreal is when I’m in one context and someone starts talking to me about the other role - that’s the only time the balance doesn’t work. But I do enjoy the times when I’m out as an editor and someone says, “Wait, you write?” or I’m out as a writer and someone says, “Wait, you have a day job?”

“There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly.”
-Buckminster Fuller

In a business where so much of the work is based purely on vision, this sentiment is particularly appealing to me. After all, writers are used to working with a blank page, but how do we show someone who needs more than that the potential of what’s to come?

Sometimes it takes pure tenacity on our parts. Or a leap of faith on the part of others.

Mostly, we need to surround ourselves with people who see our promise - who can see the butterfly within the caterpillar.

I'm so grateful and honored by the fantastic review of NOTHING by Abby (the) Librarian, who writes that she "stayed up until 2am because I couldn't put the book down."

Wow! I can't think of any higher honor for a writer. And I have to say, again, that there is nothing more profoundly fulfilling than knowing my writing has resonated so deeply with another person.

"Parker Rabinowitz has been holding it together for a long time, but as our story begins, things are starting to unravel...

Meanwhile, little sister Danielle is completely overshadowed. She looks up to her big brother but it bothers her that sometimes she doesn't seem to exist in her parents' eyes. And she wonders if people are friends with her because it's the easiest way to get to know Parker. Sometimes she wants to be him, just to see what it's like getting all the attention and basically having everything one could ever want.

But Parker's got a secret.

His only relief from the tremendous pressure is binging and purging, a cycle that gives him some measure of control over his life. Although Parker knows it's a problem, he doesn't know how to find help...

The hook for me, the thing that made me want to read this book, is its unique perspective. Although I know that guys suffer from eating disorders, I haven't seen many books about eating disorders told from a guy's perspective. Friedman includes an extensive author's note about eating disorders and a Q&A with the man who inspired the character of Parker Rabinowitz.

This story is a gripping portrayal of a life spiraling out of control. Parker's frank tone is coupled with free-verse poems from Danielle's point of view, giving us a complete picture of a family falling apart...

As the countdown crept down to zero, I found myself racing through the pages to find out what was going to happen. Robin Friedman has created characters that I really cared about and I liked that we get two different perspectives...

I have to confess that I stayed up until 2am because I couldn't put the book down..."

“You’ve got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em, know when to walk away, know when to run. You never count your money, when you’re sitting at the table, they’ll be time enough for counting, when the dealing’s done.”
-Kenny Rogers, The Gambler

I see much more here than mere advice for a card player, and I’m sure you do too.

Knowing when to fight and when to retreat, when to stand up and when to sit down, when to speak up and when to hold your tongue – these are everyday decisions that we have to make – sometimes on the spur of a second.

How do we accomplish this? By acting with wisdom, reason, and courage, forgiving ourselves when we make the wrong decision, making the right one next time, and believing there will be a next time.

I'm so thrilled and grateful for this review by Confessions of a Bibliovore, who, along with other smart reviewers, understands the nuances in NOTHING, including its tricky narration depicting an Unreliable Protagonist, with all the subtle and not-so-subtle details that go along with that. Excerpts:

"Parker 'You Don’t Look Jewish' Rabinowitz seems to have it all...

Of course, nobody knows about his secret binges and his equally secret purges, when all the pressure and the terrible feelings of inadequacy go swirling down the toilet, leaving him cleansed and able to deal until the next time.

He manages to keep it under wraps at first... The pressure mounts, until Parker has gone from purging a few times a week to three times a day. Something’s got to give.

It may be Parker himself.

Friedman does something interesting in telling this story both from the inside and the outside. Poems from his little sister Danielle, both chafing and basking in his shadow, show the perfect facade that starts to develop cracks and then full-blown canyons. Though she knows something’s wrong, she doesn’t know what to do about it or who to tell, and so is as helpless as Parker himself in the face of his disorder.

As to what it’s like inside Parker’s head, well, that’s a pretty screwed-up place. Friedman’s POV is so intimate that you understand how little he thinks of himself and how hard he’s fighting to live up to the Parker Rabinowitz image, even if it means destroying himself in the process.

At first, Parker’s Jewish background seemed incidental, but then I realized it was just another part of the disconnect between what he really is and how the world perceives him. I wasn’t being flippant up there in the first line--Parker’s apparent non-Jewishness is commented on by almost everyone who meets him for the first time, and his dad wants him to go to Princeton because Harvard and Yale are too Jewish.

10% of all reported cases of anorexia and bulimia are men. This is a deeply moving story about one of the lucky ones.

Beautiful inside-and-out Sarah Beth Durst, who I was lucky to meet at the Princeton Teen Book Bash, answers this question for us today: Are sequels easy or hard to write?

Yes. :)

I can’t bring myself to say any writing is easy - I feel like I’d be jinxing myself and my muse would exact revenge in some humiliating manner that would involve my only being able to write sentences with words beginning with “Q.” Or something.

I know there are people out there for whom writing is easy. Every day, they wake in a sun-dappled bed, stretch out their manicured toes, and then...the muse strikes. Words pour out of them, and the characters well out of the depths of their souls and guide the pen through the story.

My muse... She’s a chocoholic who delights in making snide comments about my hair. She also likes loud music, so one of my writing tricks is to play loud music when I want to write so that my muse starts dancing and leaves me alone to get some work done.

So I wouldn’t ever call writing “easy.” But I would call writing a sequel “easier.”

My latest book OUT OF THE WILD (Penguin Young Readers, June 2008) is the sequel to INTO THE WILD (Penguin Young Readers, June 2007). Both books are about fairy-tale characters who escape the fairy tale and what happens when the fairy tale wants its characters back. And both are all about Julie, Rapunzel’s 12-year-old daughter.

Writing OUT OF THE WILD was easier than writing INTO THE WILD. I think this was because I’d already done all the groundwork with INTO THE WILD. I already knew the rules of the world - most importantly, how the Wild works. (In my books, the Wild is the essence of fairy tales, and it has the power to force people to relive fairy tales over and over again, as if they were puppets in a play. It helped a lot to have already figured out how this works.) I also knew the theme: both books are about free will. INTO THE WILD is about choosing free will; OUT OF THE WILD is about deciding what to do with it once you have it.

I also already knew many of the characters. So it was a lot like visiting old friends. And then turning their lives upside down, of course. I had really missed these characters, so I was very grateful to have the opportunity to play with them again.

There were technical challenges that are unique to a sequel (for example, how to take the story to the next level and how to make the story accessible to readers who haven’t read the first book). But all the groundwork that I’d done with INTO THE WILD meant that I could jump right into the story, and that made it a really great writing experience.

I may be running out of clever alliterationisms for my posts, but I'm honored to excerpt a great teen book review at the NEW JERSEY JEWISH NEWS (my day job) by Rachel's Reviews for Kids. Enjoy:

Many people are aware of bulimia in females, but did you think it could happen to males, too? I didn’t, but NOTHING, Robin Friedman’s new novel for young adults, sheds some light on this hidden secret.

Parker Rabinowitz is a very successful high school student — smart, popular, athletic. It seems he has it all...

Although he puts on a good face, the stress is too much...

There is a constant link between the book’s title and Parker’s story. Basically, “nothing” is what he withers away to and what he says to cover up what’s really bothering him. People with bulimia are ashamed and often deny that what they are doing is a problem...

What I learned from this book is that you have to follow your heart. Parker didn’t. He was too concerned with pleasing his dad, who was clueless about his son’s condition...

Robin Friedman handles the plotline in an interesting way by telling the story from the points of view of Parker and his younger sister, Danielle (they switch off in each chapter). This particular style helps express the emotion and opinions of two characters directly. Danielle is jealous of her brother and all the attention that he gets, but notices something about him is just not right. Too bad none of the adults could say the same thing.

“Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time.”
-Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln is a personal hero of mine. Not only was our 16th president a wise and brave leader, a man of honor, and an exceptional thinker, he was a brilliant writer.

We writers sometimes want so desperately to get “there” – to our publication date, to a bestseller list, to a movie deal, or just to a finished first draft – that we forget there is no “there.”

There is only “here.”

That's the SYDNEY STAR OBSERVER (as in the land down under!) giving NOTHING an excellent review. I am so tickled!

The wonderfully talented – and wonderful, period! – Dianne Ochiltree returns again, this time on assignment for us, to answer this very important question: To blog or not to blog?

That is “the question” facing pretty much all of us involved with the world of books today. Although I’m pretty good at maintaining an author website…it remains to be seen if I could maintain the large commitment of energy and time required to make a splash in the every-expanding universe of the internet blog-o-sphere. Since I can’t answer the question myself, I tossed it out to those who have bravely gone where this writer has feared to tread. Some of the answers are below. Kudos to all those who have pulled off this balancing act in their business and creative lives!

Cynthia Leitich Smith

I believe that blogs are having a steadily increasing impact on sales, though I’m not sure how we could quantify it. The content quality of many blogs is as high as you’ll find anywhere in the industry, and by the very nature of the Web, there are fewer barriers to diversity of point of view. Blogs help raise name recognition for authors and titles. They shine a light on quality books that haven’t been blessed with large marketing budgets. That said, I don’t recommend thinking of blogging first as a sales tool. Instead, think of it as a venue for making a contribution to the conversation of books. Consider the interests of your readers and the needs of the youth literature community. Enjoy the experience. Big-picture, the kidlitosphere is an inspiring, thought-provoking, uplifting place to be. If sales follow, that’s a happy side effect.

Lisa Yee

I don’t have any solid facts or figures about blogs equating to higher book sales, however my gut tells me that it certainly can’t hurt.

For many authors, it could be a long time between books. What blogging does is keep you out there and in touch with your readers. I certainly couldn’t publish a book a week, but I can blog that much or more!

Bill Barnes

Every Sunday we recommend a book via our Unshelved Book Club, and many of our readers indicate that they take said recommendations religiously. This surprised me at first - we pick a pretty random selection of books, fiction and nonfiction - until I realized that the only reason someone would read our comic strip is if they shared our point of view. And if they share our point of view, they’ll probably like the books we like. And that has proven to be the case. Unshelved is not a blog (though we do have a blog) but I think the same basic premise holds. I read several opinion blogs having nothing to do with books. When they speak highly of a book, I give it serious consideration, because my opinions are already highly calibrated with theirs. Really, aside from bestseller lists, how else do people find out about books than by the recommendations of those they like and trust?

Debbi Michiko Florence

I do think some blogs have the ability to influence books sales positively. I wonder if anyone has done a formal study? A friend and I have done a very unscientific, informal study by watching our rankings on Amazon. When I ran a contest on my blog, asking others to mention my book and contest on their blogs, my sales ranking dropped (this is a good thing). When my friend’s YA novel was mentioned in several articles, her sales ranking, also, dropped. Recently, I ran another contest on my blog, promoting my book, and my ranking dropped again. But since my book is about China, and the Olympics are going on right now I can’t be sure how much my contest affected sales. Of course, we have no real way of knowing what exactly influenced the change in ranking, and I have no clue how the rankings are determined.

Additionally, I have purchased books solely on the recommendations or buzz on other blogs. Often, it’s a book I’ve never heard of, but seeing it blogged about several times does influence me. I have also purchased books after reading about the author in a blog interview. I make a point of blogging about books I love and cheering on my friends by promoting their books on my blog.

But in order for blogging to equal sales, I think it’s important for a blogger to gather a following. If a blogger doesn’t have a regular audience, then blogging about any book won’t make a difference. Bloggers should keep audiences interested and keep them coming back. Some blogs have a very specific focus – either discussing the writing process, interviewing children’s authors, or promoting a group of authors’ works. There are a couple of author blogs I read solely for the tickle factor – they consistently make me laugh. Other blogs, like mine, dabble in many topics – books, writing, family, travel, pets, and more. Posting regularly also makes a difference. If weeks/months go by between posts, a blogger can lose his/her audience.

As long as a blog is fun to read and/or informative and the blogger comes across as friendly and knowledgeable, I’ll keep going back to read it regularly and should the blogger recommend a book or promote his/her book, chances are, I’ll look for it!

Rebecca Grose
SoCal Public Relations
Specializing in Children’s & Young Adult Books
619/460-2179
[email protected]

I think book blogs have much more of an impact on the YA market than for other children’s books. Teens love to interact with authors, and each other, about their thoughts and feelings and why a book has affected them, or not. A blog is a great way for fans to find out more about their favorite authors, but it’s also a wonderful way for the author to keep fans informed about what they have coming up next. This translates to building more of a buzz about their books, which leads to an increase in sales. Anything that heightens awareness of an author and his/her work is a good thing.

This is not to say that authors of other types of children’s books shouldn’t start a blog, but it may take more effort, and more time before any effect is felt. Bottom line, if you’re comfortable with writing a blog, and have the time, you should definitely explore this option. And if you do, be sure to get the word out about it in as many ways as you can: postcards/bookmarks, jacket flap, link w/your publisher, alert libraries and bookstores (especially locally), etc.

“Flatter me, and I may not believe you. Criticize me, and I may not like you. Ignore me, and I may not forgive you. Encourage me, and I will not forget you. Love me and I may be forced to love you.”
-William Arthur Ward

The simplicity of these sentiments are beautiful and true.

Prolific Janette Rallison and I share a publisher, and she answers this question for us today: Did your publishing experience turn out as you expected?

No, I don’t think my publishing experience turned out like I thought. When I was first published I thought my main job was to write a book. Since then I’ve learned that writing the book is only half of it. The other half is promoting the book and that involves all sorts of things that I hadn’t expected - like public speaking, blogging, school visits, and such.

Luckily I’m not overly shy - because I think writers who are might want to think twice about this business.

“Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back in the same box.”
-Anonymous

No matter how different we are, we’re truly all in this together. Treating everyone – not just people who can do something for us – with respect and courtesy does wonders for us, other people, and the world.

Here’s an article I wrote for Style magazine, Don’t Be Cruel, on the power of nice.

The supremely fantastic Barry Lyga answers this question for us today: Did your publishing experience turn out as you expected?

Absolutely not. It would have been nearly impossible for it to have turned out as I expected, though. See, I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was about eight years old. When you spend the bulk of your life fantasizing about something — and when you’re blessed with a good imagination — it takes on a ridiculously inflated position in your mind. Reality can never match up. So, no: My first book did NOT sell ten billion copies. I did NOT win the Pulitzer and the Nobel in the same year. My book did NOT spontaneously cure cancer, acne, and halitosis in those who read it. I did NOT instantly become a household name from here to Senegal and back.

All that said, the experience actually ended up being BETTER than I ever dreamed or anticipated. If you look at the (oh-so-slightly) tongue-in-cheek “disappointments” above, you’ll notice that they’re pretty much about me, about what my writing could do or mean for me.

Here in the real world, though, I’ve learned that the best part of a writing career is what means to OTHER people: The e-mails I’ve gotten from teachers who tell me that students have learned the joy of reading thanks to my books. The letters from kids who read them and feel compelled to contact me. The parents who read them along with their kids and bonded. The very special girl who e-mailed to tell me that reading BOY TOY helped her to understand her boyfriend, who had been molested as a child.

I always knew that my work meant something to me, but I never in a million years could have imagined that the words I write all alone in my office could mean something to people I’ve never met. And that’s the best part of publishing — touching the lives of people you’ll never even know.