Wow, Texas was a lot of fun!
People in Texas are SUPER nice. Almost Minnesota nice (but let’s face it…no one–except Canadians–are Minnesota nice). I had a blast on Good Morning Texas. And what can I say about the signing at the William Scott Theater in Fort Worth? All 500 or so of you who came out to see me instead of watching The Gilmore Girls finale—you completely rule.
And some of you even brought me presents! I’ve told you before you don’t have to do that…but thanks so much to Hannah for the awesome CD mix, and Lyndi, Anna, Samantha, Claire, and Megan, who brought me a lovely gift bag….
…and of course to Nevada (who always comes furthest for my signings, this time from San Antonia, once even from Hawaii) who did the same–all of you girls, you AND the homemade tees ROCK!
I even got to meet two HarperFanLit participants, Mary and Brie! Texas sure does seem to breed winners, not to mention writers….
Anyway, I’m off to my Connecticut signings now, and I can only hope they’ll be HALF as fun (and successful) as the one in Fort Worth.
But before they start I want to share a couple of things with you. First:
Did you check out the fact that web mistress extraordinaire Janey posted a whole slew of sneak peek pages to Avalon High: Coronation here (scroll down to see them–the evil girl is Morgan Le Fay…Morgan Frank in this incarnation)? Are they not fabulous? Is Jinky Coronado not an artistic genius? Yes…yes, she is.
And check out this sneak peek at the US cover of my teen paranormal, Jinx, coming out July 31. Could you die? All that yellow stuff is gold foil, in case you can’t tell.
(Yes, the girl in the black dress is the heroine, Jinx)
Jinx pages on this site (including a preview chapter) coming soon!
I also have the cover to Big Boned, the final (at this point) book in the Heather Wells series….But I’m saving it to show you later. Because it’s a surprise. And you might die of shock when you see it.
Speaking of dying of shock, I’ve been thinking about the fact that Katie Ellison, the main character in Pants on Fire, is such a liar. Everyone keeps remarking on it (and also the fact that the book’s main theme is surprisingly timely, considering the fact that it’s about popular people being held accountable for their actions—kind of like a certain heiress who shall remain nameless. I love that Patty Hearst says that having to be Paris Hilton’s cellmate is “cruel and unusual punishment.”).
I always say my books are autobiographical to a certain degree, and that’s because they are. But Pants on Fire REALLY is. Because, number one, I was much more like Katie in the dating arena than I was like Mia or any of my other characters (not ALL the time—I had my dating dry spells), but number two, I was also a huge liar.
And I mean huge.
Although I think lying has its advantages—it can be both fun and often kinder and less complicated than telling the truth–it’s really time I came clean about a few things. And where better to do it than here, in the blog?
So this is it. Confession time. Here are some of the all time biggest lies I’ve told (that I’d admit publicly. I’m not telling you the REALLY big ones. My MOM reads this. Oh, hi, Mom!):
Lie #1: That all the Disney characters lived in my brothers’ bedroom.
I told this one to all my friends when I was five. I had them going until one of them demanded to SEE the hundred and one Dalmatians. I said that would be impossible because they were napping. One girl expressed wonder that the Dalmatians could nap in the same room as the dragon from Sleeping Beauty. But I said they were old friends.
Oh, that awkward moment when the girls actually cornered me outside my brothers’ bedroom door (I actually have two brothers, Officer Friendly and The One Who Is Not A Cop), and demanded to meet Snow White, and I was forced to admit that Walt Disney had come in the night and taken all the characters back to Disneyland because he’d heard that there were nosey little girls in the neighborhood who didn’t believe that Cinderella lived with me.
And those girls believed me. Some of them even cried. Heh, heh, heh.
Lie #2: That I like all my books/characters the same.
This is my answer when people ask me which of my books/characters I like the best, but the truth is, I do not actually like all my books/characters the same. Like all of you, I have favorites amongst my books, and even amongst my characters. I only tell you that I like them all the same because I myself am disappointed when authors tell me what their own favorite books are and they’re not my favorite books that they’ve written. Sometimes their favorites are books so insipid that I wonder about the author’s sanity. This puts me right off the author and I can never read her books again.
So I just don’t admit I have favorite characters and books when people ask me, in case admitting my favorite has the same reaction on them. Do you see what I mean about lying sometimes being kinder–and less complicated–than the truth?
The thing is, you can’t tell what my favorite is by reading my books. Part of my job is to deliver quality merchandise regardless of my personal feelings towards it. It’s like acting—actors might not love a part, but they wouldn’t be a very good actor if they allowed their personal feelings for it to show, would they?
But you will never get the truth about which character is my favorite out of me (my agent Laura is the only one who knows, and she’s not telling).
Those are all the lies I’m going to get into at the moment. I’ll be back with more lies soon, though, I promise. Until then, like Paris, I’ll be giving the honest approach a try for a change.
Ha! I was totally lying there. Did you guess? Fibbing is too much fun to stop!
See you in Greenwich at Diane’s Books on Thursday!
More later.
Much love,
Meg
PS I just found out Jericho got cancelled. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
