So below are random links to blogs or news articles about my latest book, Endure.
If you are in Canada, there has been a wee bit of a distribution problem with the book (and some other books not written by me). That is totally fixed now. But it wouldn't have been fixed if Fans of Awesome Pixie Levels of Awesomedom had not told me about it. So, thank you.... You guys truly rock. And I say that in a making weird finger gestures, happy dance kind of way.
It's a little weird (in a good way) being a writer, and sometimes it's a bit lonely, and when you write a book you kind of get in this weird vacuum of wondering if anyone has noticed the book, and also if anyone has ripped it up and tried to flush it into the toilet, causing thousands in damages to their parents' homes. So, thank you all for noticing it, and for emailing me or messaging or tweeting about it.
Also, to whoever wrote the fanfic about Devyn? You rock to the infinite degree. You are like a rock star of awesome. xo
( All the linky goodness here. )
Let me explain something before I write the recipe:
I am neurotic. I am beyond neurotic, which is part of why I am a writer. I think that most people are neurotic, but I just happen to be totally open about it. So, this below is exactly how I will be making my Celebration Book Birthday Baked Potato Soup. Be warned, okay?
Also, it is posts like these that make sure that I will never run for public office again.
INGREDIENTS:
3 fake bacon strips, diced (The real recipe calls for real bacon, but I like pigs. A lot. Pigs are cute) 1 small onion, chopped 1 clove garlic, minced 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon dried basil 1/2 teaspoon pepper | 3 cups chicken broth (or fake broth or water if you think chickens are cute) 3 large baked potatoes, peeled and cubed 1 cup half-and-half cream (I used skim milk because I am trying not to look like a manatee) 1/2 teaspoon hot pepper sauce (I use more because according to a Dartmouth College graduate, I have the taste buds of a felon. I don't know what this means). Shredded Cheddar cheese (I use whatever cheese I have because I am trying to one day be a mouse.) Minced fresh parsley ( I never ever have this. Ever.) |
DIRECTIONS:
| 1. | Get a big thing that is metal. Put it on the stove. Try to make sure it is not a book award (Sometimes made of metal) or a car. A sauce pan or pot is good. Put bacon in it. Cook the bacon. If you are pig-free, you will have to add butter or something. 2. Save 1 tablespoon of the dripping/butter stuff, but move the bacon onto a plate. Let the bacon hang out. Tell the bacon it is your book's birthday. Hope that the bacon cares. 3. Using the same big metal container also called a pot, sauté onion and garlic in that dripping stuff until the onion loses its rigidness. Compare the onion to an evil reviewer. Imagine everyone who hates your book are pieces of onion. Look how mushy they are. Laugh in an evil pixie way. Look around to see if neighbors have heard you. Smell garlic. Remind yourself you are not a vampire even if your book has vampires in it. Be glad about this. Or not. It depends on if you are into blood. 4. In that same pot thing, add salt, pepper, basil, and flour. Mix it all up. Compare it to mixing up elements of your story line, your characters. Feel smart for a second. 5. Add broth and/or water. Boil it all up. Think about witches in Shakespeare. Realize your book baby is not Shakespeare. Stir and cry as this boils for two minutes. 6. Be terrified. 7. Worry everyone will hate your book. 8. Worry that everyone won't notice that your book was born. 9. Take a brief break to run and hug your book and tell that poor, little book that you love it no matter what. 10. Worry about your own mental health and wonder why you are a writer. 11. Bring your book into the kitchen with you. Prop it on the counter so it can watch you cook. Tell it that it is loved by you and that should be enough. Well, shouldn't it? Shouldn't it? 12. Add potatoes and the cream or milk and the hot pepper sauce. Realize that your soup looks like a soup. Realize that your book is all grown up. Realize that this is okay. Try not to worry that you will never write another book again. Just heat the soup. DO NOT BOIL IT THOUGH! The soup and your book are really done. They exist now. 13. Realize you should celebrate. 14. Wonder how to celebrate. 15. Take soup pot off the stove. 16. Put bacon on it. Put cheese on it. Garnish it with parsley if you are super fancy like that. Put some parsley on your book. Decide that this is celebration enough. 17. Eat. The original recipe is here. It was submitted to All Recipes by Kristi Teague. |
1. Existing
2. Finishing a first draft
3. Selling a book
4. Finishing the revision of a book
5. Did I say existing?
But the big, awesome thing they always celebrate (or most of them) is the actually Book Birthday! I always imagine other authors sort of doing the glam thing, walking their book down the red carpet that is magically in their homes, drinking champagne, eating oysters, speaking with Harvard accents.
Or, um... at least getting flowers or something.
But I am not one of those authors, I just realized. I may have realized this before, but my short term memory is not so good. And the reason I am realizing it now is that tomorrow is ENDURE's official US book birthday. And what am I doing? I am going to a meeting of police dispatchers, bringing the kiddo to school and making baked potato soup.
Scotty the dog says, "Dude. You forgot something."Oh, yeah... and walking the dogs.
There is no super cool party. There is no champagne. There is no awesome red carpet.
And I am totally okay with that, although it would be cool to have a magic red carpet and everything. But I am so ridiculously grateful that:
1. I have sold any books at all
2. People have read any of them
3. That they've made lists and gotten awards
So, I am totally okay with no awesome celebration or flowers or hot movie stars sending me congratulatory tweets. Although, some extra Nutella would rock.
Anyway, I hope those of you who read ENDURE like it. I am very concerned about Zara and Issie and everyone else. I think they would be a little disappointed in me not partying it up. Shh... don't tell.
FRIDAY FIVE SPECIAL EDITION or THINGS CARRIE IS FREAKED ABOUT
1. My book coming out.
2. My book coming out.
3. My book coming out.
4. Not hearing from my agent.
5. My book coming out.
Picture of above-mentioned book.
There is this video made by the local chamber of commerce that has quite a bit of dancing and stuff in it to an ancient rock song. It does show, however, the inside of a couple of stores that influenced settings in the NEED series. It also shows a lot of white retailers dancing. So, if any of you are super diehard, you can take a look. I’ve put it below. Be warned: Maine people are pale.
Should I do an actual video of the places that influenced NEED? Would people want to see that? *ponders*
So I used random.org and the three winners are:
wildangel1974
Kayla Lampher
punkarella6
So, if you all could shoot me a message with your address then I will send you a signed copy.
And I think ENDURE is officially released in Canada today, so Happy Release Day Canadian Endure! xo Good luck to you!
And Happy May Day to everyone else. Rabbits.
Yes, I know I have not posted since... ahem... April 8, and I am supposed to post once a week, but I was traveling in places with HORRIFYINGLY SLOW internet coverage. Honestly, it was like being in 1990 or something.
No excuse. No excuse.
Does it help if I say that while I was traveling I went to a National Show Choir Competition and my daughter’s show choir took second? Which is amazing for a tiny school from Maine.
*Picture by awesome mom Tami PirieIt was not at all like GLEE. Just so you know. I was a bit disappointed because I imagined that there would be a lot of GLEE sort of magic involving hottie guest stars like Matt Bomer and boys wearing boy ties and girls never changing out of their cheer outfits. They were still awesome.
Does it help if I say I’m going to give away three copies of ENDURE randomly to people who post in the comments? I thought it might. You have until Monday, noon EST time to comment. If you are not a logged in person, make sure to check back and see if you won. Sometimes I have a hard time tracking people down.
Does it help if I say ENDURE is coming out May 8 in the US and right close to that in the UK?
Hm.... Does it help if I say this is what I woke up to this morning?
She knows how to work it. Seriously.
*In other exciting news, ENDURE will also be an audio book with Brilliance. YAY!
** And in even more exciting news (Well, for me it’s exciting), I got copies of the Romanian version of NEED yesterday. It was super cool.
*** And from the NEED BY CARRIE JONES Facebook page, which is run by my publisher:
We're so excited that the fourth and final book in the Need series is coming out that we want to do something special to thank you all for being the best fans ever! So we're offering free make-up bags and gold "pixie dust" makeup to the first 100 fans who pre-order the book and send us confirmation. All you have to do is pre-order ENDURE online or at your local bookstore, and then scan, photograph, or forward your receipt or confirmation email to teensusa@bloomsbury.com. We can't wait to get pixie-fied with you!
Eleven years ago, my cousin Lisa died on Easter morning. She was in a car, and I honestly can’t remember if she was going to church or coming from church. I can’t honestly remember if she was heading to her mom’s house or her in-laws house.
All I can remember is this:
She was in the passenger’s seat on a highway in NH. Her bonus daughter was in the back seat. Her husband was driving. They crashed.
They crashed because he was drunk - really drunk.
I don’t have any pictures of Lisa on my computer. I don’t have any words to describe how awesome she was, but she was. She was nine years older than I was and she was beautiful and funny with long, honey-blonde hair and the fastest laugh in the world. She could make you laugh when you were crying. She could make you cry from laughing. She cared about people so much. She wasn’t a rock star. She wasn’t a person with a million degrees. But she was kind and funny and she would do anything to help people, always.
My aunt Rosie, who is dead now, too, always called her an angel and after she died, Rosie insisted that Lisa was with her, watching, touching her shoulder when she made spaghetti, comforting her all the time because Aunt Rosie needed the comfort ... the loss of Lisa was that big. Every once in awhile, Rosie would look up and say out of nowhere, “There’s my angel.” A lot of people thought she was a little weird, but I didn’t. I think she was right. I think Lisa was with her, watching her, trying to make her laugh through her tears.
This is my aunt. She was beautiful. 
Lisa was beautiful, too. They were like champagne bubbles that always floated to the top no matter what happened. You could never hold them down. I think even death can’t. And in a weird way, on the 11-year anniversary of her death, I can kind of finally understand why Lisa died on Easter. Death just can’t hold some people. Thank God for that. We are so lucky to have so many people in our lives. I hope you all have a million trillion Lisas and Rosies in your lives, too.
And I’ve decided that it’s time for some more information about the book and that means... spoilers. Yes, spoilers.
1. Something explodes in the book. The book itself does not explode so there is no need for warning labels.
2. Fire meets ice. This sounds like a Pat Benatar rock song from the 1980s, I know.
When I was little, I thought my Aunt Patty WAS Pat Benatar because she was really kick-butt, and short, and kind of looked like her, but Aunt Patty insisted that she only owned a dance studio, and that it was not a secret cover for her true rock star identity.
I still don’t believe her.
3. Nobody eats strudel with a guinea pig or a manatee. I really love manatees, so I was kind of tempted, but I didn’t think it really worked with the whole story arc thing. Damn, story arc.
4. No characters from Hunger Games or Buffy or Twilight or Walking Dead or Harry Potter make any surprise appearances. Although, to be honest, I totally wanted to write in Professor McGonagall as a love interest.
I know she thinks she should be. 5. The book is about love, but not the kind of love that makes you think TEAM WHOEVER or inspires conjoined names. It’s about the other kind of love. There’s romantic love too, though. Don’t worry.
Bonus: I knew the very last line of the main part of the book from the time I first started writing NEED. :)
There! I hope that helps!
I’m going to go back into my hidey hole and be terrified about the book now. This is what I do. Not all authors are this neurotic, I swear. :)
I know that you are rich, white people of moderate good looks. I know that this has probably made you used to just sort of getting what you want and just expecting things to be about you and only you.
However, when you are late for the van that is bringing you AND OTHER HOTEL GUESTS to the airport where everyone must get to their airplane flights ON TIME, it would be cool if:
1. The first of your party of four didn’t show up to the shuttle three minutes late and then tell the shuttle driver you have “One more,” when you actually have three more and they are scattered throughout the hotel.
2. Didn’t yell at the youngest member of your party for making everyone late when he was the second person in the family in the shuttle.
3. Didn’t forget for ten minutes that people have cell phones exactly for this reason - tracking each other down when making EVERYONE in the shuttle late to the airport.
4. Didn’t finally get everyone in the shuttle 22 minutes late and have changed your clothes in this time somehow magically even though you were “really looking for everyone."
5. Didn’t keep saying over and over again, “It’s a good thing we already checked in. It’s a good thing we already checked in” when other people haven’t ... you know... checked in... because they were on time to the shuttle and expected everything to be fine.
6. You actually apologized for making everyone late.
Yeah. Shuttle People, you have made me cranky. That’s actually super hard to do. I can totally understand confusion and tardiness. I can’t understand thinking that the only people who matter are you and your people. It’s not cool. It’s how hate starts. It’s how wars start. It’s also how assault occurs in airport shuttles.
Oh, and stop yelling at your kid. He was the only one mortified by the whole thing. He is the only one who still has some compassion left. Try not to scream it out of him, okay? And yes, I did slip him a $20 and tell him to be strong. He’s going to need to be. He is only 9 and he has to live with you. I am ancient and I could barely stand you for 30 minutes. I don’t know how he will make it to 18.
Sincerely,
Me, the invisible person (it seems) who was also in that hotel shuttle.
And then do they look guilty when you get evidence? Or is this just a thing my dogs do?
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