If you were window-shopping and saw this:



would you gasp and almost start crying too???

Well, okay, probably not. So it's just me, then, that would have that reaction... but I think you can see why. The blown-up photos are of me when I was a little girl (they're also on my website) and she made it look like I was reading my own book! Very, very cool.

Thanks, Connie at McLean & Eakin Booksellers in Petoskey- your window was one of the most simple, beautiful things I've ever seen!

:)

My trip downstate:

Number of miles I drove- 1,242!

Number of missed exits/wrong turns- 3 (My husband is surprised at how low that number really is. He thinks I might even be lying....)

Number of times I listened to the soundtrack to Sweeney Todd (hey, I don't HAVE satellite radio!)- Um, you don't want to know....but I know EVERY word!!

Number of school visits- 3

Number of apparently happy kids at said school visits (well, they smiled at me anyway!)- about 600

Number of days I was gone- 5

Number of days my kids missed me- 5

Number of days I missed my kids- 4 and a 1/2 (I'm sorry, but that first 1/2 day of freedom is sweeeeeeeet!)

Number of books sold- A lot, I think. I have no idea, but I'm grateful for every one!

Number of books I bought- Too many. It's always too many. Sigh.

:)

Geez, I go out of town and THAT'S when Seven-Imp decides to profile Kelly Murphy??

I need to start getting their schedule and map MY schedule around it so I don't miss this stuff!! What a GREAT profile and interview, even if I am late to the party.

And did you see the tidbit of info about Kelly illustrating a book by Jane Yolen?!?

I believe that puts me only TWO degrees of separation from Jane now..? Pretty soon, we'll be likethis, right? Ha!

:)

While I have a LOT to post about, my brain is fully incapable of organizing thought into one, beautiful post filled with photos and links and thank you's and whatnot. I can't even FIND my camera at this point.

And if you can imagine a dad in charge of 3 kids for FIVE days (involving Back-To-School Night, class pictures, two soccer games, karate lessons, guitar lessons, homework, laundry and cleaning- wait, what cleaning??? Did anyone clean ANYthing around here??? And where did all this laundry come from...?), you can imagine what my house looks like right now.

I had a wonderful, fabulous writing-and-book related trip which I will share in bits and pieces. Between loads of laundry (nobody did laundry???!). And between packing for the next trip. And after I find my camera!

Oh, but one VERY important thing to do right now-

Hi Debbie's Mom!!! Thanks for reading my blog :)

And P.S. You have a lovely daughter!

Drop whatever you're doing and go get your hands on this book:


Check it out of the library, buy it, even plunk down in the bookstore and just read it there.

I don't care how you read it, just do it.

You can thank me later.

:)

I've posted this information on my "What's New?" page on my website, which you can find here, but I realized I haven't blogged it!

I'm goin' on a little roadtrip :)

I'll be at McLean & Eakin Booksellers in Petoskey, Michigan next Thursday, Sept 25th from 4-6pm. Please note the notice of my visit on their home page. And I'm "charming and lively"! It says so right there, so it must be true, right?? Leighanne at McLean & Eakin is my new best friend :)

I'll be reading my book and maybe a few others as well, so please join me if you're in the area. I also have some really cool stickers, made by the awesome Kelly Murphy, and a Make-Your-Own Bookmark craft with ink stamps of characters from Hush, Little Dragon. Yes, they are cool too!

The following week, I'll be at Crocodile Books in Libertyville, Illinois on Friday, Oct 3rd at 1PM and The BookStall at Chestnut Court in Winnetka, Illinois on Sat, Oct 4th at 11AM. Chicago Magazine calls The BookStall the Best Independent Bookstore in the whole Chicagoland area! I can't WAIT to check it out.

And I grew up in Libertyville! We moved to Colorado when I was 13, but all of my fond memories of grade school happened at Butterfield School in Libertyville in the 1970's. Of all the places I've lived, it is my favorite and I can't wait to go back. And my whole family is joining me on this leg, so I get to show my kids where I grew up. And after business (using the term loosely, of course, since writing for kids and signing books is really more fun than work- but don't tell anyone, or everyone will want to write a kids book-ha!!), we get to play- we're going to see Sue!! I LOVE dinosaurs- I am SO excited!

So come see the happy author-lady :)

I've never been this lucky in my life!

Lucky Occurrence #1:

I won this book!!



Do I have to tell you how? Okay, I'll let you in on my little secret, but DON'T tell any more people! Henry Holt has an e-newsletter that they send out (don't ask me how often! What am I, an Information Kiosk??) and lately they have been running a little contest- a free book to the first ten people who respond to the newsletter when they get it! Easy-peasy, for us E-mail Stalkers... mwahhahahahaaaa. I'd post a link to the newsletter sign-up, but y'know, the best fishing hole is the secret one....

In any case, thank you, Henry Holt!!

Lucky Occurrence #2:

I won THIS book!!!



I have been waiting for this book for SO long...not only because it is by Elise Broach (she of When Dinosaurs Came With Everything fame) BUT it is also illustrated by the *fabulous* Kelly Murphy (she of Hush, Little Dragon fame)!

And how did I win this one? I stumbled onto a new-to-me blog that I am definitely going to add to my blog feed AND give some Link Love :) Amanda is a "Children's Librarian by day, Book Reviewer by night." All books, all the time- she's my kind of people.

Thank you, A Patchwork Of Books!!

So, good things come in threes, right? I think this time, I'll take a book... contract. Haha!

But seriously.... I could really use one of those....

Writing is like a puzzle to me.

You start with the pieces (character, plot, structure, etc) and you put them together into the finished puzzle. You need all of the pieces for it to work. It's fun, but it's never easy to put together. And sometimes the final picture isn't what you imagined it would be, but you can see all the pieces in there working together to form the final picture if you look hard enough. And once you see that whole beautiful picture, you hate to take it apart! It's done, after all. Let's just enjoy it...

That's why I hate revision.

But say a *fabulous* editor wants a different ending. Sigh. It happens, let me tell you! So you decide to change the ending. But maybe it doesn't really fit with the pieces around it. So you change those pieces too. Then they might not fit their tangent pieces, which cause other problems, and everything just snowballs out of control. I hate that! Now you have a bunch of pieces that no longer fit in your puzzle! And you don't even know if you're going to like the new picture, because you were rather fond of the old one.

And if that manuscript is in RHYME? Well, it's like having to rearrange all the pieces, putting everything in a new place, but still ending up with the same original picture. Which is, well, I don't want to talk about it anymore. It's making me cranky.

And I have to go change an ending on a rhymer.

Bleggggghhhhhh.

I could not be happier with that headline! :)

My local newspaper interviewed me for a story last week (yay!) and it came out today in the entertainment/arts section. The reporter did a great job, and it's a very nice article, but.... I'm on the cover and I'm as big as a billboard! Yikes!!



It's much bigger in person. And I look kinda, well, scared. But other than that, it was a great experience! Ha!

You can read the article (and see a much better picture!) online here: The Daily Mining Gazette

And yeah, my Fifteen Minutes feels very cool :)

Check this out:



What's that? You say it looks just like a copyright page? Very good! It is. Wow, you know your picture books.

But did you notice THIS?????


That, dear friends, is what a THIRD PRINTING looks like!!

Yay, Hush, Little Dragon!!!

:)

Okay, enough with the fun and games.

Time to get back to business. Serious stuff, business.

Tomorrow, this is available:



I have to go figure out how to get my hands on one!! If I haven't mentioned this before, I live smack-dab in the middle of Absolute Nowhere and everything, especially Hotly-Anticipated New Books, take forever and a day to make their way up here.

This is Bob Shea's third book. The first one was a naive charmer. The second was more sophisticated- it grew on me as great books do after repeated readings. I bet he hits it out of the park with this one.

:)

If you liked my last post, you'll LOVE this:



I love Scrabble. Okay, I'm addicted. I play online, or against Maven on the computer program, because, well, let's just say that it's more fun to play other players of a certain ability level than to play, say, members of your own family who are playing only because you have begged them to play and they want you to leave them alone. And they might, just might, not be very good players. So it's a mismatched game, which is NO fun, am I right??

Banagrams solves that problem! It is a great game for Word Nerds and beginners and kids and everyone and it's fast and easy and fun. Each player plays on their own "board" at their own pace. Yes, I know, it sounds wonderful, doesn't it?!

It is. And yet, do I really need another addiction...?

:)

One is never too old to buy Back-To-School supplies for oneself.

Even if one is not going to school.

Even if one's son picked it out for her (which makes her sound Really Old, but she isn't. I swear.)

But especially if it makes one indescribably happy.

:)

p.s. How much happiness have you been able to buy lately for NINETY-NINE CENTS??!!

Ahhhh.......

Do you hear that sound? Listen hard....

What? You don't hear anything?

NEITHER DO I!!

That, my friends, is the sound of all three Ashburn children (happily) back at school.

Ahhhh.........

:)

p.s. Pretty soon, the sound of clicking keyboard keys will join in, but for now, we're just reveling....