MAY I SHARE SOMETHING FUNNY?

Today is Star Wars Day! Thanks to a German mistranslation that thought “May the force be with you” really meant “We are with you on May fourth,” we have this unofficial holiday. So go out and get your Luke Skywalker on…or your Hans Solo on…or perhaps your Yoda on? (Um, that sounds dirty, huh?)

MAY I TELL YOU SOMETHING ABOUT SOMEONE ELSE?

It’s May 3 and it’s the Godfather of Soul’s birthday!

To celebrate James Brown and the stamp he put on music, let’s all get FUNKY for a minute and DANCE!

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WHEW! Now don’t you feel GOOD?!?!

Today’s question in the Blog Me MAYbe universe is:

MAY I ASK SOMETHING ABOUT YOU?

What I want to know is…if you were reincarnated as a Crayola crayon, what color would you be and WHY???

This has nothing to do with anything other than my own curiosity and the box of crayons on the floor that my daughter refuses to pick up. Next time, I may ask you whether you prefer Diego, Dora, or Team Umizoomi. You’ve been warned. Anyway, for me, I think I’d want to be Magenta…it’s got a little bit of Pink’s sass, Red’s sophistication, and Purple’s mysteriousness — all in one staple color. BAM!

So that’s it. What crayon would you like to be in your next life?

It’s May, it’s May! That means it’s time for Blog Me MAYbe! If you don’t remember the specifics or have no clue what I’m talking about, let me point you here.

Since today is TUESDAY, here’s the question:

MAY I TELL YOU ABOUT MYSELF?

Something you may not know about me is that I drink THIS for breakfast every day:

It’s a green smoothie. Four cups of spinach (that’s Popeye’s JAM, yo!), a whole banana, peanut butter, Greek yogurt, almond milk, and a few strawberries. Okay, so it looks kind of like something Oscar the Grouch may have regurgitated, but it’s actually pretty yummy since the spinach doesn’t have much taste. The best thing is that it’s loaded with tons of vitamins and packs a whopping 21g of protein and 10g of fiber!

Have you ever tried a green smoothie? If so, share your recipe in the comments! If not, MAYbe you should try it…it’ll give you lots of energy AND (BONUS!) will keep you regular!

My Green Smoothie recipe (there are tons of variations out there — just adjust to your liking!):

• 4 cups of organic baby spinach (mix it up and add a few leafs of kale for extra fiber and vitamins!)
• 1 tablespoon of natural peanut butter (sometimes I add less pb because I find too much tends to overwhelm the taste)
• 1 cup of unsweetened vanilla Almond milk
• 1/2 cup of no-fat vanilla Greek yogurt (mix it up and try it with a flavored Greek yogurt if you don’t like vanilla!)
• 1 whole banana (can be sliced and frozen the night before)
• 3-4 whole strawberries (or whatever berry you prefer…sometimes I throw some blueberries in for an extra dose of antioxidants)
• 3-4 ice cubes (optional — no need for ice if you freeze your banana slices)

(350 calories, 21g protein, 10g fiber — obviously this nutritional info will vary depending on any variations you make)

Enjoy and see you tomorrow!

(Psst! It’s not too late to sign up for Blog Me MAYbe and add your name to this list of cool people!)

created by Tracey Neithercott

So one of the things I’m trying to do this year is blog more. I know, I know. I’ll wait for you to stop laughing. And it’s true — I say this every year, and every year I make a good go of it for a few weeks or so. But 2012 has been especially baaaaad. Like, even my dog looks at me pathetically. *hangs head in shame*

ENTER SARA MCCLUNG AND HER MAGICAL IDEA.

Sara came up with the concept of Blog Me MAYbe and invited some of us (Katy, Tracey, Lola, Alexandra, Alison, and Jessica) to get back in the practice of blogging regularly. Here is her breakdown:

Blog me MAYbe

The purpose: To get back in the habit of blogging regularly by following a weekly format for the month of May. (Or if you already post regularly, to have an easy schedule to follow without having to struggle with what to blog about.) (But if posting every day sounds like too much, or if you miss a few days, or only do a couple posts a week, who cares, yanno?)

What you DON’T have to do: Follow every blog that participates and comment on everyone’s posts every day. This isn’t a blogfest to gain followers–although maybe that will happen! And of course if you WANT to follow everyone, feel free

Here are the rules:

1. Go to page 7 or 77 in your current manuscript (or I guess if you have 777 pages, that’d work, too)
2. Go to line 7
3. Copy down the next 7 lines/sentences AS THEY ARE. No cheating/editing/tweaking/weaving magical word spells!
4. Tag 7 other authors

And that’s it. Super duper easy peasy, right? I don’t think I’ve ever shared a snippet of a WIP on here, so in the true spirit of following the rules, here are the 7 lines on page 7 of my current WIP:

“Because this is one of the only weekends I have left to spend with him and…talk things out.” Britney’s words settle heavy as she walks along my desk, gliding her fingers over the keys of my keyboard like she’s already missing their future words.

“So why me?” I ask.

She presses the space bar and a second later the computer monitor hums to life. “Why not?” When she turns to face me, I realize why this all seems so wrong. Why her showing up at my house after months of ignoring me seems to have wedged a spiky ball into my diaphragm.

And there you go! I can 100% guarantee you these lines won’t make it past this draft. BUT, I followed the rules, so there. Now it’s my turn to do the tagging to see if any of these writers are willing to post 7 lines from their WIP.

Kristine Asselin

Laura Pauling

Alison Miller

Riv Re

Karen Hooper

Alexandra Shostak

And YOU

I can’t wait to see some Lucky 7 snippets!

And you know what else? Today’s my birthday. And you know what I really want for my birthday? For everyone to participate in ROCK THE DROP. And why is that? Because today’s Teen Lit Day and what better way to spread the awareness of YA books than to leave them for others to take and explore? If you haven’t heard of Rock the Drop, you can check out the details here, here, and here. Even better, if you Rock the Drop and take a pic of your book in the wild and then email me the pic, I’ll throw in a special prize. Maybe an ARC…or two. Just leave a comment below letting me know you participated and then shoot me an email (cambriadillon at gmail dot com) with the pic. That’s almost as easy as the Lucky 7 meme!

All right. Off to go Rock the Drop. I’m leaving White Cat, How to Say Goodbye in Robot, Iron King, and Dirty Little Secrets in random places for people to find and enjoy! Hope you do the same!

*cue dance music*

*finger guns*

*Travolta walk*

THIS BOOK, PEOPLE. Oh man. *swoons* I don’t want to take anything away from Cristin, so I encourage you to stop by her blog to read more about her book and to give her a hearty CHEERS!

I’ll wait.

*checks watch*

*flips through TV channels*

*watches The Hunger Games trailers 1 AND 2 for the millionth time*

Okay, back? Doesn’t her book sound downright spectacular?!? Well…I happen to know first-hand that All Our Yesterdays is pretty damn amazing and brilliant. You see, myself and Sara McClung rode this wave of fingernail-biting and squee-overloading with Cristin and got to celebrate this life-changing milestone with her. It’s an experience I’ll never forget and as a friend and writer, I couldn’t be happier! WAIT until you guys read this book!

HUGE CONGRATULATIONS, CRISTIN!

So for those of you who don’t know, today is the release day for TANGLED TIDES – Karen Hooper‘s debut novel! It’s about mermaids and selkies and all sorts of underwater creatures. PLUS ROMANCE! The world Karen has created is truly magical and unique…and kind of makes me bummed I don’t have a real mermaid tail.

I mean, CHECK OUT THE COVER. How does that NOT make you want a splashy tail?

And here’s the official blurb:

I mean, how AWESOME does that sound?!

As part of Karen’s release day, she’s thrown the gauntlet for an all-out UNDERWATER WEB WEB WAR! Don’t know what that means? Check out Karen’s blog, pick a team, and leave her a comment to be entered to win a copy of Tangled Tides. SUPER EASY.

Want to know who I’m rooting for? I’ll give you a hint:And why did I choose Merfolk? BECAUSE THEY HAVE TAILS! THEY CAN BREATHE UNDERWATER. AND THEY’RE THE COLORS OF THE RAINBOW. I mean, the choice should be obvious. MERFOLK FTW!

Please go congratulate Karen on her debut release (@Karen_Hooper) and tweet your team choice with the hashtag #TangledTides to take part in all the web war fun! GOOD LUCK!

So here’s the deal: If you stop by YA CONFIDENTIAL and leave a funny/unique/espionage-laced comment welcoming our new teen spies, you’ll be entered to win:

AND

That’s right. Leave a fun comment over at YA CONFIDENTIAL (mention you came by way of my blog) and you’ll have the chance to win Heist Society AND Uncommon Criminals (Heist Society #2) by Ally Carter.

So what are you waiting for??? Go welcome our teens!

What’s YA CONFIDENTIAL, you ask? *adjusts sunglasses* *clears throat* Well, YA CONFIDENTIAL is a new group blog I’m working on with five other YA writers who are AHMAAAAZING.

So, what makes this blog different than other group blogs? *cinches trench coat belt* Our goal is going to uncover more about what it’s really like to be a teen.

And just HOW are we going to do this, exactly? *pops collar* *looks around furtively* *whispers* We have teen spies. We have teen spies who have special missions. And these missions are going to help us writers learn more about the very young people we’re writing about. This kind of intel can be really hard to tap into if you’re not a young adult yourself.

The thing is, if you’re an adult writing about teens, then chances are good you’re writing your characters based on (outdated) memories. Or maybe you’ve resorted to trolling around your kid’s friends so you can jot down real teen dialogue. Or maybe you’ve dissected every Justin Bieber song, hoping to bring some authenticity to the page.

NEVER FEAR, my nostalgic, creepy, Biebs-obsessed fellow adult YA writers! That’s why we created YA CONFIDENTIAL! We’re going to have teen roundtable posts where we approach our teen spies with a general topic and see what they think about it. We’re going to have our teen spies tell us what books they’re loving and why, what books/movies/tv shows get it right and why, what makes them happy/sad/stressed/anxious/etc and WHY. Everything we’re doing will be focused around the teens of today and will be accessible to YOU. How cool is that, right?

So, I hope you’ll stop by YA CONFIDENTIAL today and meet the operatives: Alexandra Shostak, Alison Miller, Karen Hooper, Cristin Terrill, Sara McClung, and yours truly.

Tomorrow, we’ll be introducing our teen spies and we’re also having a HUGE giveaway this week with some of this season’s HOTTEST ARCS, agent critiques, AND some super secret goody bags from each of the operatives. This week will be full of FUN and FANTASTICAL things and I really really REALLY hope you’ll stop by and say hello. (And don’t you also want me to stop using CAPS already??? If so, you should probably just pop on over to YA CONFIDENTIAL so I’ll stop screaming at everyone.)

Hope to see you there!