SMALL THINGS

Two really great new Tiny Desk Concerts

Wilco
Lisa Hannigan

Six Famous Novels penned in under a month (in honor of National Novel Month!)

Super excited to try Scrivener out for a ride.

Last year I read all but two of the Publisher's Weekly's best Yong Adult books of 2010. I think I'll do it again for 2011's best. Here is what they got so far. Most looking forward to Brian Selznick's Wonderstruck, the Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler collaboration The Future of Us, also The Apothecary, The Girl Who Circumvented Fairyland in a Ship of her Own Making (which I started already and wow!) and The Flint Heart, the latter of which I will read with my daughter.

Speaking of reading with my daughter, I bought this book for $1. Should arrive tomorrow. Damn, looks like the price jumped back up to $8.

I wanna take the hat class at Home Ec Studios. But it's $85 and spending that on me right now seems rather selfish.

That said, I think I am gonna splurge and buy myself this Pendelton bag on UrbanOutfitters.com - it's half off, as is a lot of the Pendelton collection. Damn, I want it all.

A very long list of the writers who support Occupy Wall Street.

Five interesting food politics stories that made news this week.

Ever wanted to be a screenwriter? Well if you think the creator of Buffy, Angel, Firefly and the wonderful Dr. Horrible is an evil genius, then this article is for you. Essentially Joss Whedon gave up his top ten writing tips to a magazine called 4Talent (to the writer Catherine Bray) and blogger Danny Stack asked permission to reprint them in full.

I'm gonna post just one here and I have to tell you, it made me laugh and laugh. I have 12 completed books under my belt, but about 100 more unfinished ones...

1. FINISH IT
Actually finishing it is what I’m gonna put in as step one. You may laugh at this, but it’s true. I have so many friends who have written two-thirds of a screenplay, and then re-written it for about three years. Finishing a screenplay is first of all truly difficult, and secondly really liberating. Even if it’s not perfect, even if you know you’re gonna have to go back into it, type to the end. You have to have a little closure.

To read the whole 10, go here.

My husband and I love this house in our neighborhood. It has a bridge to the front door. It's weird. And wacky. And wonderful. And the old couple who have lived in it since it was built in the 60s are moving out and their son called us and wanted to know if we wanted to buy it. O. My. God.

I don't have a real job. And I impatiently await to see if any of my new book proposals will be loved and purchased. Dreaming of this house got me through the tumor and the hospital stay. Weird that exactly two years later (seriously, like to the day) we get a call about this house. Yep, it's the two year anniversary of my very own heirloom tomato being removed from my heart and lungs. Yipee for me! I'm alive and healthy and well and occasionally wise.

So this being a writer thing, it's wonderful and joyous and painful and rough. I can look at other writers' books and blogs and think, why didn't I do that? I could have done that, I think. And then I proceed to beat myself up. And to an extent, rightfully so. Because I am not the most focused person in the world and I try and juggle so many different ideas and thoughts and roles and personas and geez, even blogs that I end up doing all of them sort of half-assed. Which isn't a new concept, I mean it's common, it's a cliche. I'm a cliche. It's such a cliche that I just called myself a cliche. I am so not good at the meta thing.

I probably should pick one thing to be and be it. Or at the very least one blog to write and write it.

If I Had My Way, I'd Read Peaches Everyday

You know that Presidents of American song from a handful of years back? I used to think of that everytime I smelled a peach. Now I think of Jodi Lynn Anderson's book, Peaches. It's a mighty fine read filled with fabulous girl characters,

I know Jodi enjoys music quite a bit and so I asked her if any songs inspired her while she was writing Peaches. She said yes! So here is her answer and you can hear/download the songs below. I can't thank you enough Jodi... I just love the relationship between song and story and you've further illustrated the connection and process.

"Each of my characters usually reminds me of a song. Leeda reminds me of this Laura Veirs song, Spelunking, I don't know if you've heard it but I love it for Leeda because of this bit that talks about how if someone looked inside her they'd see fish without eyes and bats with their heads hanging down to the ground, you know, all albinoey and stuff, and I feel like Leeda, or at least what I want Leeda to be, is someone who feels cavelike -- who doesn't really know where her center is, she is sort of all these caverns inside that aren't filled up, because she's never been loved very openly or unconditionally -- just kind of repressively and remotely/politely. Birdie, in the second book, but as an extension of the first book, reminds me of that Tracy Chapman song She's Got Her Ticket -- because Birdie has tickets to do all these things (fall in love with a migrant worker, and in the second book, to branch away from home) but you don't know if she'll use it -- and the song is a very soft, tropical sounding song, and Birdie is soft and sort of has this tropical lushness about her (her body, her sweetness). And actually, what inspired me to do the sequel at all was the Bruce Springsteen song Thunder Road. I was lying in bed with it going through my head and just hurting over the story of the song, and suddenly it seemed, that was Murphy's song -- that she spends so much of her life wishing to get out of this town that contains her - but when she has the chance (when she graduates) will she do it? In the song you feel like they so desperately need to go, but that they never will -- that they can't escape their upbringing, you know? And there's the element of Murphy and Rex being in love - and what do they do if Murphy's only chance to really survive is to leave him and Bridgewater, but there's also this thing that Murphy thinks he's the only guy there is -- because all the other ones have let her down so much -- it could be years or never before she finds someone like that again. It's a gamble for her in every way, and it's this thing calling her out of town and away from ghosts, I guess."

Laura Veirs, "Spelunking"
Tracy Chapman, "She's Got A Ticket"
Bruce Springsteen, "Thunder Road"

Jody has also written another fabulous book recently, May Bird and the Ever After: Book One. You can (and should) buy that one and Peaches at Amazon.com or some other fine indie establishment.


Next month I'll bring you Ned Vizzini's musical inspiration for his latest (which I have in my hands), "It's Kind of a Funny Story."