Reviews you can use

Em of Em’s Bookshelf posted a terrific review of The Geek Girl’s Guide to Cheerleading. You can read the whole review over on her blog, but I love the way she closes it:

All in all, this book does a great job of breaking down stereotypes and social groups. In the end, you’ll find yourself asking, what’s not to like about a geek girl cheerleader?

I’m beyond pleased with this review (our first! our first!). I saw it last night right before I went to shut down the computer and go to bed. I was so keyed up, I want to say I didn’t sleep. But I did. The only reason I know this is I woke from crazy dreams all night long.

Usually me + sleep = rock.

Be sure to stop by Em’s blog. She has a bunch of great reviews up.

Raiders of the Last ARC

This week over at the Geek Girl’s Guide, we’re giving away the very last ARC of The Geek Girl’s Guide to Cheerleading, signed by both of us–sure to be a collector’s item, an one-of-a-kind.

As part of the fun, we’re also launching our What Kind of Geek Are You quiz, based on the characters in the book.

Now, you don’t have to be a teen to:

  • Visit the Geek Girl site
  • Enter the contest
  • Help us spread the word.

Remember, part of “young adult” is adult. It’s a short list of people we don’t want reading our book. Like Stalin. Yeah, him. I think it’s safe to say we don’t want Stalin reading our book.

And at this point in the game, we’re really only looking at awareness, rather than promotion or marketing. How do you know you want to read a book if you’ve never heard of it.

And hey, over here at Writing Wrongs, you get a sneak peek at the results, too. Below is my result. Big surprise, no?

Your result for The What Kind of Geek Are You Test…

You are: BETHANY, a WORD NERD

You know the difference between a period, a comma, a colon and a semi-colon. You are on a first name basis with all of the characters in Pride and Prejudice, Harry Potter and probably the Twilight books too. No one doubts your supremacy in English class, but your ability to diagram relationships or punctuate a social life can be … well, meh. Get your nose out of those books occasionally. Real life can have happy endings too.

See the other results here.


Take The What Kind of Geek Are You Test at HelloQuizzy

Note of warning: The quiz host site may ask you for demographic information. You do NOT need to provide this to get your result or the code for posting the quiz on your own blog. In fact, I recommend you skip over it.

Now, what are you waiting for? Come on, you know you want to.

Oh, the drama

So, I was doing some promo work tonight, writing a serious email to Darcy (okay, only semi-serious), trying to figure out all the contest stuff for Geek Girl (win books! win books!), when I hear this from the other room:

“Sister, I’m being absorbed. Use the blue monkey! He’ll help you.”
“Brother, I’ll miss you!”
“I’ll miss you too. You must carry on!”

There was much more, in the same vein, but I was laughing too hard to transcribe it.

April Fool’s and Mr. Darcy

Yesterday, the marvelous Miss B played the following April Fool’s Day jokes on me:

  • Mommy, I’m stuck in the toilet! (She wasn’t.)
  • There’s a mummy in your closet! (There wasn’t.)
  • There’s a salmon fish on your head! (Again, there wasn’t, but she wouldn’t say, “April Fools!” until I actually reached up and patted my head.)

Then she went and short-sheeted Andrew’s bed.

In other news, Darcy and I may end up the biggest April Fools. Over on the Geek Girl site, we’ve taken on Twilight, in the epic battle of Mr. Darcy versus Edward Cullen. In haiku. I know. We’re living on the edge.

Writing is hard

This was Andrew’s conclusion last night. More precisely, it was: Writing a short story is hard. But he did it.

To cap off the mythology unit in English, his teacher had everyone write their own original myth (emphasis on original–apparently, she’s read many a variation on Harry Potter, Star Wars, and so on).

Andrew came up with: The Adventures of Gulix.

It has prophecy, an orphan hero, a wise old mentor/sage, fiery death, sword battles, skeleton armies, river journey, wolves with diamond teeth (now that’s original), and romance.

All in 1,250 words.

He was proud, but realistic, said to me, “You can tell a kid wrote it, can’t you?”

And I told him it was a really good story for a kid. And he knows to do things I’ve seen many an adult writer not know or understand. His writing has really improved this year (and yes, I’ll be sending his English teacher a thank you note).

Plus, his story contained lots of terrific action verbs. Andrew is all about the verbs. Of course, with all that fiery death, sword battles, how could he not be?

But you want to know about the romance, right? After the epic battle with Hades, Gulix comes to and sees the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen before. He asks her name (it’s Persephone). Apparently satisfied with this answer, he goes back to sleep.

I’m going to have to figure out how to work that scenario into one of my stories (minus all the fiery death and skeleton armies, of course).

Corralling cats and words

Yes, it’s a commercial, but it’s still pretty funny (and kid safe–my kids loved it). It occurs to me that everyone else has already seen this except for me, since I don’t watch television.

In any case, enjoy!

 And by popular (?) demand, I’ll post that 490-word sentence, but below the cut. Click through if you’re curious/bored. And yes, it’s one big fat paragraph because, after all, it’s one big fat sentence. It also features Dating on the Dork Side characters.

Continue reading “Corralling cats and words”