Summertime …

With apologies to George Gershwin.

Summertime, and the writing is easy,
Verbs are jumping, and the word count is high
Your agent is quick, and editor forgiving
So, hush, little writer, don’t you cry.

Yes, Darcy and I have been busy writing. Will anything come of that? You’ll have to stay tuned … it’s kind of like a cliffhanger, isn’t it?

Oh, and here’s the real version of that song:

Our next book

At long last, the plot for our next book, as provided by my seven-year-old daughter (AKA the marvelous Miss B). Here’s the premise:

A girl has four (!) boyfriends:

  • Two strong ones (by which I think she means jocks/athletes)
  • Two nerd ones (self-explanatory)

The title for this magnum opus?

Boy Trouble

Yes, I think that (almost) goes without saying.

But seriously, this thing is going to write itself. Write. Itself.

Day job goes geek

Okay, since I work for as a technical writer for a software company, the day job has always been a little geeky. Yesterday, it got a little more so.

Our tech writing compatriots in the Manila branch created T-shirts for all the writers. On the back are haiku-like sayings, based on job/personality (or so I’m guessing). Here’s mine:

 I’m not actually sure what this says about my personality, but I like it. Other favorites include:

XML, CSS, CMS, HTML, XHTML, XSL-FO, PDF, TIFF, GIF
Alphabet soup
Makes me nauseous

Not to mention:

The haughty reviewer
Demands to see the document
I send an XML file
He has no viewer
Vengeance is mine

And of course:

Young Jedi tech writer
His mind corrupted with unstructured Frame and the madness of Word
You must unlearn all you have learned

The last gets bonus points for the Star Wars reference. Very talented, our Manila tech writers.

This week in Dear Reader

Guess which book is featured this week over at Dear Reader! Come on, guess! Okay maybe it’s obviously, since I’m blogging about it.

But … The Geek Girl’s Guide to Cheerleading is the featured book in the Teen Book club. Do any of you subscribe to Dear Reader? They have a club for just about everything from fiction, to nonfiction to even a pre-published club. It’s a great way to discover books you might not otherwise know about.

The zombie cheerleader giveaway!

To celebrate the one year anniversary of The Geek Girl’s Guide to Cheerleading being in the wild–and still available in many bookstores–we’re teaming up with Stacey Jay to bring you two awesome prize packs.

Zombie Cheerleader prize pack #1:

A tote bag with original artwork inspired by MY SO CALLED DEATH
A signed copy of MY SO CALLED DEATH
A signed copy of THE GEEK GIRL’S GUIDE TO CHEERLEADING
One zombie emergency T-shirt (just in case)

 

Zombie Cheerleader prize pack #2:

A tote bag with original artwork inspired by UNDEAD MUCH?
A signed copy of UNDEAD MUCH?
A signed copy of The GEEK GIRL’S GUIDE TO CHEERLEADING
One zombie emergency T-shirt (just in case)

For more information and to enter, see the Geek Girl site.

Geek Girl and the final frontier

Yes, it’s true. Geek Girl has gone where no geek girl has gone before (that we know of):

That’s right! We’re in American Cheerleader Magazine, or more precisely, there’s a review of The Geek Girl’s Guide to Cheerleading in the May/June 2010 issue (which we haven’t seen yet, but copies are on the way).

And Darcy and I chatted some more with senior editor Brittany Geragotelis for an interview on their website here: Time Out With: Authors Charity Tahmaseb & Darcy Vance.

Plus, keep an eye on their contest page. Pretty soon, five autographed copies of Geek Girl will be up for grabs as well.

May is shaping up to be a cheer-tastic kind of month.

Chatting with Brittany the Book Slayer

Today Darcy and I are over at Brittany the Book Slayer’s blog. Brittany is a senior editor at American Cheerleader Magazine and an aspiring YA author.

Why, you may ask, are we chatting with a senior editor from American Cheerleader? All will be revealed soon. As in tomorrow. Pretty much tomorrow is the day.

But in the meantime, enjoy the interview at Brittany the Book Slayer. This interview contains some in-depth information on just how we go about writing as partners, which may convince you never to attempt to write with a partner.