GOING GREEN (the story blog)

A while back I started a YA story on my blog called GOING GREEN. I figured it might be time to revisit it. To catch up on the story, Click here! Thanks!


GOING GREEN

It was the day of the prom and I didn’t have a date. I didn’t have any friends either. Instead I had a father-approved green dress and a free ticket to any loser that would take me. Right. Like I’d show my face there now.

Conner had called me a slut. Becker drove away nearly crushing my foot. And everyone at school was gossiping about how I was trying to steal Trish’s boyfriend. Reality check! When he’s kissing me, he’s not her boyfriend! But I wouldn’t dwell. Dwelling only left me lonely and with a headache.

“Stella?” my father called, knocking at my locked bedroom door.

“Not in the mood, old man.”

“I have a surprise for you though.”

Hm. He sounded suspiciously kind. I eased off my bed, glancing once at the green prom dress hanging on the back of my closet. It made my stomach turn, thinking about what that dress could’ve symbolized. A fresh start. A new boyfriend. Now it just symbolized my extremely bad judgment.

I opened my bedroom door and gasped. “Dad?”

My father stood there, completely proud of himself, in a tuxedo. With a bow tie. “I was wondering if you needed an escort to prom.”

My mouth hung open. “Father,” I began like he'd just suffered some serious head trauma. “You’re creeping me out in unspeakable ways, and if you rented that tux because you thought I was pathetic enough to—”

“Relax, Stella,” he laughed. “They asked me to be a chaperone. I have my own date.”

My face froze. He hadn’t been divorced from my mother all that long. “You do?”

He nodded. “I’m meeting her there. You remember your Math teacher, Miss Roundtree?”

“Ew!”

“Yeah, my girlfriend looks nothing like your teacher. I just wanted to freak you out.” He chuckled. My father was acting especially evil tonight, mostly because he knew it cheered me up. I had to smile.

“Can’t believe my dad has a date to prom and I don’t.”

My father pressed his lips together and looked at me seriously for the first time. When he did, I felt my eyes well up.

“I’m sorry things didn’t work out so well, kid," he said quietly.

I sniffled. “Me too.”

We stood there for a minute until finally he reached over to mess up my hair. “Go get dressed, Stella,” he ordered in his best dad voice. “You’re going to prom.”

I laughed. “Am not.”

“If you don’t, I’ll tell everyone you’re sitting home crying and then make them come over to the house to cheer you up.”

“You wouldn’t!”

He grinned. He so would. Realizing that the world knowing I was pathetic was worse that actually being pathetic motivated me.

“Fine, old man,” I said. “But we’ll talk about this later.” Then I slammed my door and turned to stare at my prom dress.
.

My favorite kind of email

Now that The Naughty List is out in the world in ARC form, I've started getting emails from readers. These are my favorite kind of emails. With her permission, here's some of Alicia's email. What's really cool about this one is that Alicia is one of the fabulous bloggers who I met in LA!!

You can visit her at: http://shootingstarsmag.blogspot.com/

Ahhhh!!! Suzanne!!!!

The book was sooo good. I totally loved it. I am now going to refer to it as "Veronica Mars meets cheerleaders plus lots of naughtiness". I think I am going to write the review up soon too. I don't like putting them up early, but I think I will for this one. I could honestly just keep gushing on the book. That's how much I loved it.

Love, love, loved it!!! I don't think I'm going to be able to wait until next year for the second book. And I also have one question, which hopefully you will answer! (EDITED OUT SPOILER) I'm really curious about it.

Ok, so that was more than one question. Sorry! And I am going to repeat myself.

LOVE, LOVE, LLLLOOOOOVVVVVEEEEEDDDD ittt!!
-Alicia

Okay, now how much do I love my job??? Sigh. Thank YOU, Alicia. I'm so grateful for your email!!!!!!!

My First Time!

Wait. You didn't think... oh. Um... you'll be disappointed.

Anyway, today I was sitting at a school when it happened. I saw something out of the corner of my eye and turned to come face to face with a gigantic killer bee!! Okay, it was actually sort of small, but I jumped up, screamed and did the Get-this-bee-off-me dance. In my panic, I think I tried to karate chop it.

When the saga was over, I sat back down and felt a pulsing in my hand. I lifted it up and on my ring finger was a mark. THE FREAKING THING STUNG ME!! How dare it! It was on MY shoulder!

Sigh. It was my first bee sting. The secretary stared at me, maybe not believing me, and told me I'd have to wait there fifteen minutes to make sure I wasn't allergic. Awk-ward.

But I was fine. I actually feel a little cooler. Like a new scar to show off. Tell you what, those bees are gonna freaking quake in their stingers when they see me coming...

Suz

A Wish or Two

My children have a new favorite saying. It starts like this:

"If I had a wishing rock, I would...."

So whenever I tell them to do something, drive them somewhere, or stand close to them, they look at me and begin this sentence.

Tonight, we went out to dinner and my son put his head on the table and sighed loudly.

Me: "Yes, son?"

Him: "If I had a wishing rock, I'd make my stomach bigger so I could eat more ice cream."

Me: "Okay."

Daughter: "Oh! Well if I had a wishing rock, I'd wish to be a flower girl in every wedding ever."

Me: "That's sweet."

Daughter: "Because then I'd be the prettiest girl in the world."

Husband: "You think exactly like your mom."

Now, if I had a wishing rock, I'd wish for the ability to teleport. Sheesh. My kids are unimaginative!

THE BOOK COVERS!

I've gotten a few emails about how it's hard to make the cover for SO MANY BOYS bigger from the blog sidebar, so I've decided to just give it its own post. Next to THE NAUGHTY LIST.

So yay! Here is the beginning of what my series will look like! The colors are so pretty..... :-)

Suz

The Naughty List-Feb, 4th, 2010 / So Many Boys-Summer, 2010

..

EXCITED!!

I'm thrilled to tell you that I was just invited to join the Girlfriends' Cyber Circuit! And in a rambling, barely coherant email, I said yes!!!

The GCC is a group of amazing female authors that the wonderful Diana Rodriguez Wallach introduced me to (thanks!!!) I'll be hosting blog tours for the members as their books debut and when The Naughty List comes out, they'll do the same for me!

I love joining groups! And seriously, a BLOG GROUP!? I'm totally made for stuff like this. This is so much better than that time I won prom queen. Totally kidding. I was never prom queen. So this is like, a zillion times better!! Stupid high school.

Anyways, wanna know who else is in the group??? Check them out! So excited!!! Now, I need to go think up some awesome interview questions....

Some of the Girlfriends:

Jennifer Echols
Diana Rodriguez Wallach
Lucienne Diver
Jennifer Banash
Linda Gerber
Teri Brown
Wendy Toliver
April Henry
Melissa Walker
Megan Kelly Hall
Eileen Cook
Stephanie Kuehnert
Sara Hantz
Carrie Jones
Megan Crane
Shanna Swendson
Amanda Ashby
Laurie Stolarz
Kelly Parra
Jennifer O’Connell

So Many... things to do

I handed in my final revision of SO MANY BOYS today, and soon I'll be working on book 3 (which I can't tell you the title for yet) Right after I finished my edits, I realized that I hadn't done my acknowledgements for it yet. And they were really hard to do!

In book 1, you thank everyone that's ever known you--or at least, I did. But for book 2... do you thank them again? I wasn't sure. I thought about it, and decided to trim the list. But I wanted to share with you a few pieces of it.

As always, my book is dedicated to my grandmother--as they all will be. And then, here is my opening line:

Disclaimer: The same ex-boyfriends that were not harmed in the writing of Book 1 were also not harmed in the writing of So Many Boys. However, some of the emotions in the situations may or may not reflect feelings the author could have possibly experienced at some point in her life.

I swear, with that I could hear a collective sigh of relief! Now, I wanted to rewrite my bio. The one in The Naughty List... well, it makes me sound very responsible. ME?! So here's my new bio:

Suzanne Young is a brilliant scientist. Not really. But she is a former middle school teacher turned zookeeper (mother).

When Suzanne’s not fending off zombie squirrels or narrating her daughter’s Barbie soap operas, she can be found camping on the Oregon coast or writing obsessively.

To learn more about Suzanne’s strange and sometimes exciting life, visit her at: www.suzanne-young.blogspot.com

So there you have it. An early peek into my new book! Sort of....

Have a great Friday!!!!!

Tenners everywhere!

If you haven't heard of the Tenners, I'd like to introduce you. They are a group of super rockin' authors with debut books coming out in 2010. I've decided to start collecting them. :-)

My new goal is to meet all of the Tenners! I've met quite a few. In fact, I'm not entirely sure I could list them all. But as far as I can keep track, I've met at least 15. WOW! That's a lotta Tenners!!!

So if you get a chance, scoot on over to the site and check us out! We're very friendly.... mostly.



Suz

Mama's got a plan

So I'm pretty sure my mom can be a marketing genius. She has a plan. Seriously, if you live in Utica, NY, I'm sorry. You'll probaby hear about The Naughty List. Also, if you are affiliated with the Ellen Show, you will also receive letters about my book.

The latest step in the master plan is preorders. What do I think is a reasonable goal? Honestly, no idea. But we came up with a number. Right now, I think I'm at like 5. So, I'm really close, right!?

Mom said she's going to tell all the ladies at work, aunts, uncles cousins--totally like 10 people. She feels motivated. But you know, so do I!

I'm going to make some swag. Maybe some bookmarks, keychains, lollipops? So here's the deal, if you do preorder The Naughty List, shoot me an email (roskoebaby@yahoo.com) And I'll send you some swag.

Now... where did I put that glue gun??

Where you can order: Indiebound, amazon, borders, and others

Back to life

I think I am just now getting back to life after a long vacation. And you know what... there's a lot to do! So I'm catching up on emails, writing outlines, perfecting pages. I saw my final cover for SO MANY BOYS and I'll show it soon. But I'm going to slyly slip it into the side panels, so keep checking back. One day it'll be there.

I guess the hardest part of getting back to real life is the people I'll miss. The people I only get to see... what? Once a year? So to all of you, I'll hopefully see you sooner than later. It was a fun ride...

Oh, and cool thing. I saw that my cover made it onto Amazon.com today. Yay! Hey, have you preordered The Naughty List yet?? :-)

Ps. shout out to my girls Heather and Mandy. My bedroom is so lonely! hahhaahahha

My Weekend at the Beach House

Wow, don't I sound fancy? Well, a few months ago I went to an auction for the beautiful Bridget Zinn. While there, I bid on a weekend at a beach house down on the Oregon coast. Turns out, another couple ALSO bid on it. Hm... We nearly fought to the death but then decided that 6 of us would go in together and win this retreat. And we did!!!

So this was the weekend and it was FUN! Not to mention one day after I got back from LA. Go figure, my alcohol tolerance was higher than anyone else's! Thanks, Heather and Mandy.

Anyway, here are some of the fun pics!!! Happy Monday!

Suz

Pictures guest starring Suzanne and Jesse Young. Matthew Holm of BabyMouse fame and his
wonderful wife, Cyndi. And amazing artist Johanna Wright and her husband, Gabe. Oh, and P.S. I hate dominos.

These are a few of my favorite things... LA SCBWI

Ever have a morning where your coffee filter folds over, pouring grinds into your coffee pot? Ever just drink the coffee anyway? That's how I feel today. haha.

So, I have to say SCBWI was an amazing experience. First off, Team Blog. Talk about a fantastic group of bloggers/writers/illustrators. Alice Pope-so wonderful. I'm going to miss getting up at 7:15 (barely conscious) and meeting her for breakfast. Thank you for this opportunity, Alice! I'm not sure I'll be able to pay you back. And please check out Lee, Paula, Jolie and Jaime. I couldn't have been in better company. :-) (I might cry a little)

Team Blog was so crazy successful. And I have to say, when they called us up on stage (paging Mrs. Johnson) I nearly died. Especially when Heather informed me later that they zoomed in on my somewhat goofy expression. But I got a thank you gift! Still, I should have been the one giving gifts.

I was so happy to see some of my wonderful friends--Heather and Mandy. Not to mention the tribes from last year. The amazing TENNERS! and of course, the sweet teen bloggers that came down to have lunch with us. This conference was everything I could have hoped for and more.

Thank you.

Now, I did have a few WTF moments. For example: I was sitting at the blogger table, typing up a post, when an elderly gentleman comes up and asks one of the bloggers to review his book. (um, not why we were there). She politely told him so and we gave him our cards to move him along. When he gets to me, he takes my bookmark and says.

"The Naughty List?"

I nod and smile. To which he replies, "Well, that's a good way to get murdered."

"Um... what?"

"Guess next year you'll be back with a crime novel."

And then he walked away. I talked to several friends about this crazy 8am conversation and none of us were exactly sure what he was talking about. But let's just say, it made me pause at the next bookmark I handed out.

However, any other time I gave one out--including to some VIP's, they all said. "Wow." Usually followed by, "That's some cover." Or "Is she pinning him down?" or "Do you have a copy with you?" So if nothing else, THE NAUGHTY LIST is eye-catching.

I handed out a few copies of my book and immediately started getting feedback. UNBELIEVEABLY good feedback. They loved it! They wanted to know about book 2. They wanted to do interviews about it. I was blown away, flatttered and maybe a little scared. SCBWI is a great place to make connections.

But it's an even better place to make friends. So with that, here are a few more pics. Hope you all had a great ride.

Suz

Want more LA SCBWI?

Well, I have more fun stories, but I'm too tired to post them tonight. You know, the after conference hangover and all. But if you'd like to see some of my shenanagins pics, check out the album here on facebook.

Thank you, SCBWI! Blogging was the best fun EVER!!!!!!!!

BLUE MOON BALL LA SCBWI

She-nan-agins!

Prom king Varian Johnson

Heather's a little sad. She just realized how long the drink line is...