I’ll be at the Texas Library Association conference on Thursday morning, 10:15 with Jandy Nelson, Sarah Ockler, and Francisco Stork for a panel on First Time YA Authors. Come see me if you’re in the area! I’ll also be signing some books immediately after!

6 hours on the plane each way, though. Bringing plenty of books and paper for drawing! Maybe I can crank out a few drawings I’ve been wanting to do. Knowing me, though, I’ll just shift about uncomfortably in my seat, trying and failing to sleep.

ALSO! Here’s a funny “trailer” for Happyface that my editor filmed at the company Halloween party:

I’m sure more people read the Blue Rose Girls blog than visit my website, but if you don’t check in regularly like I do, my editor Connie Hsu posted there with her thoughts on the process of making Happyface with me. See the story from the editor’s side!

http://bluerosegirls.blogspot.com/2010/03/guest-post-beyond-book-happyface-by.html

And check out BRG in general for lots of behind-the-scenes info from artists, writers and editors at Little, Brown. Always something interesting going on!

6 more weeks until you can walk into a store and purchase HAPPYFACE! I’m really excited to see the finished hardcover book.

Sorry for the lack of updates! I’ve been working on a bunch of Christmas present paintings. I had the bright idea to save some money by giving the gift of art this Holiday Season. Of course that was before I spent $90 on supplies and shipping costs.

I’ll post pictures once they’re all delivered, don’t want to ruin any surprises! It’s been fun and I’ve been playing around with color inks and silver paint.

Besides that I was working on a christmas-themed sketch comedy skit, and a promotional video for Happyface I’ll hopefully have available soon. It’s just a little fun video to post here and talk a little about the book. I plan to do a series of 3 videos.

I’ll post that art soon – promise! And then it’s back to work on the next book!

Here’s some more art from my presentation slide show.

So the NCTE has come and gone! I spent a good month nervous about it, only to end up sad to see it go!

Getting to Philly went pretty smooth aside from my mom almost getting us killed driving in New Haven. She’s worse than I am. We got lost, which didn’t help my nerves, but it was the driving on the wrong side of the road that really fried my nerves.

Once I was in Philly, I met up with my editor Connie. We went through the Reading Market terminal to see “authentic” Philly, although it was busy enough there that we grabbed coffee and headed right over to the convention center.

Seeing the room I’d be speaking in helped calm my nerves a bit. I prepared my notes outside, and headed in where I met Gladys, who was moderating the panel for Gareth Hinds and I.

Gladys was very complimentary and assuring, which was a good help. Once I was in the room, Connie and Gladys and Gareth and his wife and I, and the 15-20 or so teachers in attendance, started to feel like a little group. It was comforting somehow.
Gareth spoke first, and talked about his process in adapting Shakespeare and most recently the Odyssey. He did a great job and was smart enough to incorporate some demonstration on how he composes his pages.

I was up next. It’s a really, really strange thing talking to a group. I mean, really it’s a group of people that just stare at you for 20 minutes. It’s one thing to have a conversation or to tell a story at a party, but to start talking and know you can’t stop for 20 minutes and that no one is going to react to you in any way is very odd. I couldn’t help but feel like I was really blowing it.

About halfway through, my mouth got unbearably dry. I had to excuse myself for a second to grab my water. When I got back, I really had an empty mind. I took out my notes and started reading off point-by-point trying to wrap it up. I went short. I felt so embarrassed by the end. I took questions – the first guy was really sweet and asked if I had this speech online anywhere. He said it was powerful and that kids would benefit so much by hearing it. I was pretty blown away. Was he pulling my leg?

After my talk, we had some books to give out, so I signed books, drew pictures and talked to the teachers there. This was easily the best part. Everyone was exceedingly nice. I kept asking if I did all right, and everyone said I was calm and down to earth and real and inspiring. I’m just going to go ahead and believe them. :) Connie reminded me these are all people passionate about books, and in my panel, passionate about graphic novels and finding new ways to get kids to read.

Connie walked me to my hotel before dinner – I was going to head to my room to drop off a few copies I took for myself, but encountered more teachers by the elevators. They were so excited to see an author – I ended up signing more books and giving them away. I felt like an author throughout the trip but I felt like a rock star by the elevators!

The hotel bathroom was huge!

I should also take a second to say there are some really cute young English teachers! I don’t know why I had this image of older English teachers hitting me with rulers.

Dinner was incredible, too. I ate at Supper with editors Connie Hsu and Alvina Ling, and authors Grace Lin, Matthew Quick and Alicia Bessette. It was great just talking about books and publishing and options and genres. Again, I felt more authorly in that one night than I do most of the rest of the year!

The next morning I headed over to the convention to check it out. When I got there, there was a huge pile of HAPPYFACE books. By the time I circled the floor, they were all gone! It was so neat to see people walking around thumbing through the HAPPYFACE arcs.

I really did spend November thinking “As soon as I get through this speech I can relax and focus on work again!” but getting home Sunday, I was bummed to leave the world of Super Cool Published Author behind! Or at least the world where people other than me act like I’m Super Cool Published Author.

I have 2 more appearances scheduled for May, and a book release party in CT when the book is out in March, so there’s that to look forward to! And I’ll be putting together an author appearance kit so I can go visit all the great teachers I met!

And now, back to procrastinating.

Well, it’s finally arrived – I’ll be doing my first panel/talk this saturday at the NCTE. Talking about my book in front of a bunch of english teachers – hoping mine aren’t there – I wasn’t the best student!

For those that won’t be there, I have an accompanying slide show of art. Here’s a few slides.

I’ve been bouncing from project to project since I finished up Happyface and the Emo Boy script, without a ton of direction. The first thing I did was start a movie script, not really for anyone, but just to have it should I get the chance to do any other movie work. So that was a portfolio piece. It was a character study with some horror elements. I plotted it out and got about 50 pages in and was enjoying the process when I started talking ideas for a followup to Happyface with my editor at Little, Brown. I decided to take another stab at this fantasy epic idea I had. I meant to do a rough outline and sample chapter but that turned into a nightmare of plotting and this thread and that thread and how do I explain this and where does that fit in. I was going nuts from that when I had a very simple idea pop into my head that I really liked. I started thinking of it as a webcomic, then I thought it could be a movie, and my editor at L/B thought it could be a book. So I was working on that when I met with my editor this weekend and we decided maybe this other suspense novel idea I had was the best way to go. So now I’m trying to come up with an outline for that.

Really, any of these projects I’d love to work on, whatever the medium. I’d like to get really involved in something again. I wish I could just make all of my ideas turn into finished products and put them out there as soon as I think them up. I love the creative process but it takes so much time! How will I ever do all the things I want to do?

And I’m still trying to make time to do more art and painting. I started a Gauntlet 4 painting I’m really excited about. I hope to finish it next weekend.

Here’s some pictures of the Happyface advance copy.

My YA novel HAPPYFACE won’t be in stores until March 2010 (sooner than it sounds!) but there’s been a lot of activity off the shelves. With the advance copies floating around, so far I’ve heard only good things, with most people reading at least the second half in one sitting. After the mixed reactions EMO BOY had, I was bracing for the worst.

This week in particular has been eventful. First off on Monday, I got the Little, Brown Books for Young Readers 2009/2010 order catalogue in the mail. It has a great two-page HAPPYFACE spread with a book excerpt.

Also, on Friday I heard from Little, Brown about some new appearances they lined up for me. I’ll have to get over my stage fright. I can talk, and I think I’ll do alright, but like Happyface, I have a tendency to turn red and self-conscious when eyes are on me.

This is my line-up so far:

November – I’ll be in Philadelphia, PA to do a talking thingy at the National Conference for Teachers of English, with a slide show to talk about why I decided to use art in HAPPYFACE. Hopefully none of my old English teachers will be there, as they’ll likely think I have no business writing books.

In April, a month after the Happyface release, I’ll be doing two panels – one for the Texas Library Association, dealing with first time authors, and another for a conference in Chicago, I forget which. I’ll be on a panel for “the Illustrated Teen.”

Nervous, but in a good way.