Wicked Lovely Day

Today I'm sick. I got approximately 1 hour of sleep last night, because my baby is also sick. Croupy, camp out with a snuggy all night on her bedroom floor to make sure she keeps breathing kind of sick. Uh to the Guh. So I am trudging around in a yucky exhausted haze, coughing, rasping like a chain smoker, hating that today was supposed to be a writing day, and it has turned out to be a delirious every-part-of-my-body-hurts day.

But hark, what news from yonder email breaks? It is my editor, and through my yucky haze I am able to glean two pieces of ASTOUNDING NEWS that makes me feel super awake in a flash.

Piece #1: They have moved the release date of Hallowed up by one week! So the new date is: January 17, 2012!  Yay! Y'all can get your Tucker-grabby hands on the book one whole week earlier!

Piece #2: MELISSA MARR has blurbed my book! Seriously, I need a pinch. For a better understanding of the utmost respect I have for this woman, see here, where a year ago I got so tongue-tied in MM's presence at the Smart Chicks tour that I totally forgot to get a picture with her. I was like, "ummmmmm, hi, I'm Cindy, please sign my. . .um, copy of Ink Exchange, I really liked it, I really like you, um. . .thank you so much, ummmmm," and that was it.

Those of you who know me well know that tongue-tied is not something that happens to me all that often. She is Just. That. Cool.

Squee!!!

(later)

(much, much later)

Wow. Note to self: don't squee with laryngitis. It hurts.

I having such a surreal moment, guys, seriously. I'm flashing back to my first days of writing Unearthly, when I said to myself, "I need to read more YA, right now!" and dashed off to the bookstore where I spotted this:

on the shelf, and I thought. Well, yeah, I gotta read that. And that night I was totally freaking over whether Aislinn would become the Summer Queen or if something terrible would happen to her. It was a magical story. I fell in love with reading all over again, reading that.

So, yeah. She rocks. I am so humbled that she would have even read Hallowed, let alone liked it enough to blurb it. I am so humbled, period.

What do you know? :) It turned out to be a wicked lovely day.

This Just In

Wow, am I ever overdue for a post! The summer has flown by, and I am shocked that it's already time to start putting my syllabi together for the classes I'm teaching at Pepperdine this fall. Usually I get so excited at this stage, anticipating all the amazing students I'll meet this year and the great stuff I'll read from them and all the good talks and laughs we'll have, but this year I'm like, wait, WAIT, I haven't finished Book 2 yet! I thought by this point I'd have a first draft! I'm not ready!

Did I mention that the summer has flown by?

Here's the latest book news:

This week I signed my contract with RCR Pictures for the film rights to Unearthly! Woohoo! That contract was a fun read, just thinking about all the amazing possiblities, my book as a film or TV series, consultations, premieres, and my free copy of the DVD when it comes out! Now, to clarify, selling the option rights does not mean that the book will absolutely be made into a film--the producer still has to find a studio, a script, and a budget-- but it is the first step. And it is way exciting! (doing a little happy dance)

This was also a week for firsts, like my first author guest spot on a reviewer's blog. I contributed to the Angels v. Zombies week, which was such fun to be a part of. Angels kicked butt! (of course)

I got my first blurb for the book! I won't say who, since it's not officially on the jacket yet, but I am thrilled that a writer whose book I really enjoyed read my book and had such nice things to say about it. Blurbs are a hard thing, I realize now. I started out with such high hopes, asking a bunch of writers whose work I loved, and then, one by one, they all started to say, sorry, but I'm too busy, I don't have time to read your book. I tried really hard to see it from their side, and understand: they are usually working on the next book of their series, marketing the last book of their series, and have a giant pile of ARCs on their desks that publishers want them to read for blurbs. They are VERY busy. But it was hard not to become discouraged. My editor sent me a very sweet, encouraging email listing several of Harper's books that did very well without any blurbs at all, but I was still disappointed. And then this morning, lo and behold, a YES. And not only did she read the book, she loved it! It's a very good feeling.

This week Unearthly also pushed over the 1000 mark on Goodreads, of people who marked the book as "to read." It's crazy for me that more than 1000 people already want to read my book. This time last year I was just finishing my first draft of Unearthly, just thinking about sending it to me agent, and now. . . somebody pinch me.

Ow. Thanks.

Now back to writing book 2.