Here we are, at the end of January already. We have lived through the first month of 2016!!!
I've seen worse Januaries
Which means it's time for some fun.
But, before that, my hooman mom says I'm supposed to tell you that today, for her blog tour, she's at The Young Folks giving an interview.
And she's also over at Writing From the Tub today as well, so check them out!
So I was planning on a Wednesday Weird post today, but my laptop is being a consumate ass. Most likely it's just time for a new one. But the issue is, all my weird posts I save up for Wednesday Weirds are bookmarked on my laptop, which means I don't really have a back up.
My bad and all that.
So instead, watch this cute video.
YOU'RE WELCOME.
Also, today my blog tour continues on Tween 2 Teen Book Reviews with a guest post on World Building, so stop on by!
Seven days until ASSASSIN'S HEART is released and out in the world for real.
THIS IS A THING THAT IS HAPPENING AND WILL BE REAL
I don't even know what to think about that.
Honestly, it still doesn't feel very real. Even holding it in my hand is amazing, but still kind of like, surreal. Or like maybe it's just a fake book or something. I dunno. Emotions are dumb.
I had some fun this weekend, going out and buying silver pens for signing. The title page is all black, which means the usual black signing pens don't work. But luckily there are blog posts out there that rank the different silver pens specifically for their use in book signings. So that was fun.
Because, I mean, who doesn't like to buy pens, right?
But today continues the blog tour, too, with an ASSASSIN'S HEART review over at Brittany's Book Rambles, so maybe stop on by!
I've been away for a few days. Ten, actually, for my MFA residency.
My last one *sniff*
But what that means is . . .
I AM NOW A MASTER OF THE FINE ARTS.
That's right, I hold all the knowledge. There isn't any more to learn because I have learned it all.
In all seriousness though, this residency was the best one of the last 2 years. There were multiple reasons for this, one of them being that since it was my class's last one, there was a lot of love tossed our way, which is always wonderful, when you realize just how close you've become to everyone in the program (real close, by the way)
But also, some great things happened. Right before residency Gene Yang was named the Ambassador for Children's Literature, and since he's one of our faculty in the program, that was awesome (if you ever get a chance to see Gene speak, do so. He is fantastic and really entertaining)
Then, during residency, Matt de la Pena and Laura Ruby won the Newbery and the Printz respectively, and since they, too, are faculty, there was a ton of celebrating (cheers in the hotel lobby was especially fun)
Throw in me and my class's graduate readings and great lectures by faculty and other students and it was a residency to remember.
I'm glad to be done with the program, though. Well, that's not entirely true. I'm ready to be done with the work, especially since i have enough work with my other books to keep me busy, but I am going to miss the residencies. I think I could go to them every six months for pretty much my entire life.
So, yeah. But now that I'm a master, it's time to turn my attention to ASSASSIN'S HEART'S release. EEEEEE!
Speaking of which, Today begins the blog tour for ASSASSIN'S HEART.
I'm over at Adventures of a Book Junkie, talking about ASSASSIN'S HEART (natch) as well as giving some more information on more of the assassin Families that make up the world of ASSASSIN'S HEART. So stop on by if that sounds like your thing.
Here we are with another Wednesday and here with are with our continuing themes of strange deaths in preparation for the release of ASSASSIN'S HEART in just a few weeks. WEEKS!!!
Today, we're talking about the strange death of Elisa Lam.
On February 19th on 2013, Santiago Lopez, a maintenance worker for the seedy Cecil hotel in LA, got a complaint about bad water pressure for the hotel. He climbed to the top of the hotel, turned off the alarm and unlocked the door to the roof, and went to check the water tank.
He noticed immediately that it was open. And inside he found Elisa Lam, naked, floating face-up, her belongings scattered in the water beside her.
Lam had been reported missing at the beginning of the month. There were security cameras in the elevator and they had captured Lam acting strangely and the police had released the security footage in hopes that someone would be able to recognize and identify her.
The video is 4 minutes long, but it's worth watching at least a minute or two to see her strange behavior:
Her actions in the broken elevator are so strange, that many people believed she was on some sort of drugs, but her toxicology came back clean. She was bipolar, though, and taking medication for that, but the autopsy didn't include blood work. The autopsy results, actually, only said one thing. She had died of an accidental drowning.
Access to the roof, though, was complicated. There were four ways to get up there. Three were via fire escapes, and the fourth was through the locked door that would trigger and alarm if opened. The same one Santiago unlocked and unalarmed before going up to the roof where he found her body.
To this day, no one knows how she got up to the roof.
So. Elisa Lam is on video, acting strangely, perhaps being pursued. She's cleared of any sort of narcotics and no one even really knew why she was at the hotel in the first place. A few days earlier she had been moved from a hostel style group room to a private room after her roommates had compained that she had been acting oddly. This was the last day anyone saw her alive.
It's also the first Wednesday of 2016. I don't know how that happened.
And, honestly, I have plenty of things to be insecure about.
In a week I'll be doing my grad reading and a few days after that I'll be actually graduating from my MFA program.
And a few weeks after that, ASSASSIN'S HEART will finally be out in the world. I'm sure some people won't like it (no one likes everything), but I know some people will like and some may even love it and that's great, because those are the people I wrote it for.
And with the book launch comes a launch party and all that jazz.
So, yeah, lots of things to be worried about.
But, honestly, I'm not feeling very worried or insecure right at the moment. I know that could easily change (it could change as soon as I'm done with this parenthetical)(it didn't)
but right now I'm feeling fine. Probably I'm just too busy to worry about anything right now.
The worries will come back, but I'm not about to go looking for them, if you know what I mean.
Well, the holidays are over and we're into a new year. I suspect 2016 is going to be awesome.
In just over a month ASSASSIN'S HEART is going to be out in the world and I'm so excited! I also have so much to do. Not to mention that I earn my master's degree in just one week! I'm super excited about that, too! But also sad that I'll be done.
But, all of that aside, since we've started a new year, I think we should begin with something fun.
A quiz! The fun kind, not the kind where the questions had right or wrong answers.
In ASSASSIN'S HEART there are nine assassin Families, and each one is different and varied and it's a big deal to be a part of one.
So what would be more fun than taking a quiz and finding out which Family you would belong in?
Take my quiz and find out! And let me know which Family you end up in!
(also if you feel like sharing it on twitter or facebook, I'd love it!)
(if filling out the quiz on my blog doesn't work, just click on the hyperlink and that should bring you to the quiz)
