June 26, 2007

The Final Post

Wow.

Before I go into my goodbye, I'd like to say what a true pleasure it's been being part of the LC. All of you regulars have been so much fun, and I hope you'll continue to show up where ever we are, because I know we'll all miss you. Also, to Alesia, Michelle, Whitney, Eileen and Beth, I can't tell you what an honor it's been to keep such inspiring company with such amazing women.

The thing about goodbyes is, I like to keep them brief. So, I'll just say that anyone who wants to find me, can do so here, or here, or here. And if I go anywhere else, just follow the trail of breadcrumbs, you'll be able to find me.

And, with this post, the LC goes dark. On behalf of all the Literary Chicks, I'd like to give our best to you all, and thank you again for the wonderful ride.

Posted by Lani at 4:54 PM | Comments (5)

June 25, 2007

To new beginnings!!

but the endings are too sad

My mother always used to say that every ending is simply a new beginning. Of course, this is the same woman who also sniffed my refrigerator every time she came to visit me for nearly ten years and packed the Lysol in her carry-on bag, so I’m not exactly holding her up as the voice of reason, but on this one, she had a point.

All of us, as Lani said, are facing some new challenges in our lives and going in different directions. Teen fiction, collaborations, urban fantasy, and paranormal romance. When you get pulled off into seventeen different directions at once, it’s hard to give your very best to each one of the competing challenges. We at the LC love you all for faithfully stopping by for – wow – almost THREE YEARS!!! (That’s longer than most of my pre-Navy Guy relationships lasted!!) And you deserve only our best.

So we’re on to new beginnings and leaving the Literary Chicks behind. But thank you, thank you, thank you for sharing our ups and downs, our stories about our writing and kids and writing and dogs and writing and crazy mad funny adventures and misadventures that make up our lives. This author gig can be a tough one – it’s very isolating to live and work both in the same four walls. Stopping by here every day was one of the things that made it great during the good times and at least bearable during the bad times. I’m going to miss you all more than you know.

But back to the new beginning part!! Please stop by and visit me at my BLOG, for the continued misadventures as I become Nature Girl, brave the cross-country move back to Florida next month (was it only 2 years ago you suffered through the trip up here with me?) and GO TO VISIT MICHELLE AND TOUR ENGLAND NEXT SPRING!!!!! And please please sign up for my NEWSLETTER and my DISCUSSION GROUP to hear what’s new with me and talk about books. Because, new beginning or not, this still feels like an ending, and it’s making me cry.

Thank you to Lani, Michelle, Eileen, Beth, and Whitney for being my sisters on this roller coaster ride, and thank you to all of you – our wonderful readers - for being blessings in my life. As a goodbye hug, here is a pic of me, Science Boy and Princess from the tent in Williamsburg

May your summer be filled with terrific beach reads and your lives be filled with joy and love.
hugs,
Alesia

Posted by Alesia at 3:28 PM | Comments (3)

June 24, 2007

Breaking Up is...

Hard to do...

I'm such a wimp when it comes to good-byes. Really, I hate them. I could get all emotional and weepy and say what a blast and privilege it's been hanging here with all the cool chiclets, and Lani, Beth, Whitney, Eileen and Alesia, and how much I'll miss you all, but that will just make me blubber like a baby.

Instead, I'm going out with a little tale of female empowerment. Remember the milk story from last time? Well, it happened again, yesterday. I got overcharged for my milk, and when I pointed it out to the cashier she got all huffy with me, like it was my fault that her bloody scanner machine was overcharging me. She told me (in Dutch, which, surprisingly, I understood) that prices could change on a daily basis, and special offers didn't last forever, in a tone of voiced that implied I was basically an idiot for even suggesting that the supermarket was trying to do me out of ten cents per carton. I felt pretty mad at that, because I was politeness personified! Instead, I calmly told her that I had this problem with the milk all the time. She tried to guilt me into letting the extra ten cents pass, because of the accumulating line.

You'd have been proud of me, chicklets! I insisted that the price be checked and lo and behold, I was right! The cashier proceeded to throw my shopping though the scanner in a very irritated way, as if I was, you know, public enemy number one! Anyway, after I'd retrieved my shopping in a very polite way and paid her, I wished her a good day and left.

So what am I trying to say here? Well, apart from good manners cost nothing, and that you should always go the extra ten cents in a supermarket, because ten cents is ten cents, I'm really trying to avoid crumpling in a tearful heap over my keyboard...

Love and hugs,

Michelle

PS. You can always find me and any new news via michellecunnah.com. Later in the year you'll be able to find me on Myspace, too...

Posted by Michelle at 2:45 PM | Comments (4)

June 20, 2007

Happy trails to youuu...

And stay warm and pack extra socks, just in case

This kinda feels like the day after college graduation, doesn’t it? You know, you’re hugging all your friends and patching up the nail holes in your dorm room wall with toothpaste so you don’t get fined by the resident assistants and you’re wishing you could just have ONE more day but it’s really time to go and the powers that be are kicking you out at 5 p.m. sharp?

Sigh. That’s how I feel about posting here for the last time.

But it really IS time to go. We—all six of us and probably lots of you guys, too—have gone crazy overscheduling ourselves this year. The decision to say goodbye was agonizing, though, because we’ve had such fun sharing stories and theories and important insights about high-speed car chases. I hope you had fun, too. I hope we’ve entertained you and brightened up a little corner of your day. If we’ve accomplished that, we can call this blog a rousing success.

You can still track me down at my website, where I’ll keep you posted on upcoming releases (I have one in the hopper right now, actually; it’s called THE PRE-NUP, and trust me, it’s a barn burner!) and the ongoing insurgency of the dogs.

I know it won’t be quite the same, but here’s the thing: being a literary chick is a state of mind and, as the Eagles so eloquently put it

You can check out any time you like…but you can never leave.

So keep on keepin’ on and we’ll keep writing the kinds of novels that brought us all together in the first place. See you at the bookstore. Mwah.

P.S. Oh, and Mr. Tall sends you all his best.

Posted by Beth at 8:06 PM | Comments (6)

And now, the end is near . . .

. . . and so I face the final curtain.

Have you ever really listened to the lyrics of “My Way”? Really freaking depressing.

Anyway, this is not really my final curtain (thank God) . . . but it is my final post at the L.C.

I’ve had a blast hanging out here for the past eighteen months! I’ve loved posting with my fellow Literary Chicks – Michelle, Alesia, Beth, Eileen, and Lani. Not only are they amazingly talented writers, but they’re all kind, generous and lovely women.

And the L.C. wouldn’t be the L.C. without our readers! I’ve so enjoyed reading your comments, and truly appreciate how much you’ve all contributed to the community here.

So, where am I headed now? Well, life has gotten hectic lately, but in a good way.

I have two books coming out this year:

First, Mommy Tracked, about four friends facing the challenges of motherhood, is being released on August 28th.

Then, my first Young Adult book, Geek High, written under my pen name, Piper Banks, is coming out on November 6th.

2008 will bring even more releases. The second book in the Geek High series, Geek Abroad, is coming out in the Spring, and my next chick lit novel, tentatively named Good Luck, will be out in December 2008.

And, as always, you can keep up with me on my blog at whitneygaskell.com, where I’ll keep you updated on the big ball of craziness that is my life.

Thanks again for everything!

XXXOOO, best wishes,

Whitney

Posted by Whitney at 6:00 AM | Comments (3)

June 19, 2007

Not so good at good-bye

So run alongside the car with me for just a moment, will you?

Back when I was a little girl, we used to spend our summers at my grandparents' farm in Kentucky. Yes. My grandfather was a Jewish tobacco farmer in Boone County, Kentucky. I'll give you a second or two to wrap your mind around that.

Right. With me now? Super. Good job.

Anyway, we used to go there for the summer. At the end of the season, we'd all load up into the car and head home. As we pulled down the long long driveway, my grandmother would follow along. My dad would start to pick up speed and my grandmother would start to jog a little. She was all of four foot nine. A little jog was pretty much her full sprint. Anyway, she'd jog along until we hit the road, turned and accelerated out of sight.

It always made me cry.

Since that's how my family introduced me to good-byes, I don't think it's my fault that I'm not very good at them.

Continue reading "Not so good at good-bye"

Posted by Eileen at 7:00 AM | Comments (15)

June 18, 2007

Our Last Hurrah

In early 2004 I formed a life-altering (in a good way) friendship with two incredibly wonderful women; Michelle Cunnah and Alesia Holliday. We came together on a project that turned out the be short-lived, but we bonded like mad and adored each other to pieces. One day, it occurred to me that it would be a lot of fun to do a group blog together. We all wrote chick lit, and we were all fabulous, so why not? From this idea Literary Chicks was born, launched in August 2004, and to my knowledge it was the first author group blog out there, although it certainly wasn’t the last. The three of us came together and blogged like mad, telling stories of Choppy Thoughts and Authors for Dinner (no, not in a cannibalistic way) and Slagroom. We had a great time, and hardly any readers, but we didn’t care. We were having too much fun.

Then, in January of 2006, we decided it was time to expand. But who to bring in? We had very strict requirements. They had to be people we all loved, people whose work we respected, and people who we knew would bring the energy we wanted for the LC. We chose Eileen Rendahl because we loved her writing, and we’d all met her at the 2005 RWA National Conference in Reno, NV, and fell madly in love with her; Beth Kendrick, because her books were also wonderful, and her sense of humor fit in so nicely with ours when she guested in April of 2005; Whitney Gaskell because I'd been a huge stalker fan of hers for years, and dragged her into our wild bunch whether she wanted to come or not. In the same way that Michelle, Alesia and I bonded originally, the new additions came in and rocked the house, making the LC even more popular than it had ever been. Which makes sense. They’re fabulous.

It’s probably obvious to you now why I’m reminiscing. Some of you may have noticed a little bit of a slowdown here at the LC recently, and there’s been good reason. Alesia’s Atlantis series (written as Alyssa Day) has skyrocketed, and she’s been hit with all the hard work that comes with well-earned success. Eileen’s newest book, Un-Veiled, just came out, plus she’s been working on a few projects which will become public soon, but in the meantime, just know – they’re awesome. Michelle’s working hard on her new YA series, the first of which will be called Almost Fabulous, due out Winter 2007, and don’t let the title fool you – it’s fully fabulous. Beth has a number of projects in the hopper (including her YA series written as Beth Killian), and the dogs, and the golf cart. Whitney’s working on a YA series as well, written as Piper Banks, not to mention her women’s fiction is still going strong, with Mommy Tracked coming out in August. And as for me... well, I’ve got a few things in the hopper as well. All of it combines to create the situation we’re dealing with now – how to find time for it all.

At the end of many long discussions about how much we love each other and the Chicklets, it came down to this – there just weren’t enough hours in the day. There are children, books, husbands, golf carts, new projects, cross-country moves to consider. And while we all enjoy each other and you guys so much, in the end, we had to make the hard decision to discontinue Literary Chicks.

Now, it’s not a total shutdown. All the archives will be here, and the site will remain, but we’re all going to be concentrating on everything else we’ve got to concentrate on. So this week, we’re each of us going to be posting one last time to reminisce, to appreciate you all, and to say goodbye. We’ve had such a great time with you all, and trust us, we wouldn’t leave you if it wasn’t absolutely necessary. But don’t worry – you’ll be able to find us all at our various homes on the web, and we’ll let you know in our goodbye posts where to find us and how to keep in touch, and we really hope you will. While the six of us have had so much fun together, it was you all that made us complete, made us the LC, and as Dorothy said to the Scarecrow, we’re going to miss you most of all...

Thanks so much for all the good times,

Lani (and the Literary Chicks)

Posted by Lani at 6:00 AM | Comments (18)

June 17, 2007

My Ten Cent's Worth

Is it trivial of me, do you think?

Okay, so I have a problem with supermarkets and store discount cards. I never ever these days have a store discount card, even when I can do "buy one get one free," or get a free turkey for Christmas, because, and call me a little paranoid if you like, but when you get those store discount cards you have to share personal info. I never pay by debit card or credit card, either, if I can help it. For the same reasons. Personal information all the way, baby. Who's watching what I'm spending my money on?

See, you have to provide a snail mail address to GET the card. Ensuing paper spam to follow ad infinitum et ad nauseum. And you have to provide an e-mail address. Ensuing online spam ad infinitum et ad nauseum (currently 1,000 spams per day on my most public e-mail address).

But...

Continue reading "My Ten Cent's Worth"

Posted by Michelle at 3:11 PM | Comments (3)

June 16, 2007

What's Left to Unveil?

You'd be surprised...

I've been thinking about this blog for a while. I mean, let's face it - it's not like I've been withholding here at the LC. I've talked about meeting my husband in a bin of halibut fins, about the time I forgot Delaware was a state, about the time I realized there was something very wrong with my girl cat. Setting water on fire. Obsessions with Hello Kitty, Colin Firth and Buffy.

So, now we're on call to unveil ourselves and... I'm worried that there's nothing left. It never occurred to me to hold back for a rainy day when I'd be asked for a secret unshared. The only secrets I ever keep are those that affect other people and since they still affect those people... well... I'm at a bit of a loss. So all day yesterday, I thought and thought and wondered what I could possibly....

And then an idea hit me. But you're gonna have to click over the jump to get it.

Continue reading "What's Left to Unveil?"

Posted by Lani at 12:01 PM | Comments (7)

June 14, 2007

Unveiling reasons why I'm an idiot

I have no memory

I used to have a fabulous memory. I could rattle off phone numbers, addresses, keep track of appointments and do it all in my head. I turned forty and it was like someone flicked a switch. Bam! No memory.

So, here are the things I forgot to tell you in my last blog:

I have this somewhat funny kind of quirky new website up called Unveiling Yourself. It's a video exploration of the secrets people keep. The second week's worth of videos are up. Stop by and check them out.

Remember when I asked you all to take a survey at my website? Well, the results are now up. Stop by and check that out, too!

And finally, if anyone is in northern California, stop by the Borders in Davis on Tuesday, July 17 at 7 p.m. to celebrate the release of UN-VEILED with me. I know. It's like a month late, but Cowboy's in Malaysia until the end of June (click here if you want to see some examples of his fabulous underwater photography) and then it's July Fourth and then it's RWA Nationals and that's the first week I felt we could do it. Stop by. Have some cake. Perhaps a glass of wine. It'll be fab.

This blog was brought to you by UNVEILED, Eileen's terrific new book about the secrets we try so hard to keep, but never do.

Posted by Eileen at 9:53 PM | Comments (5)

June 13, 2007

Whitney: Unveiled

I'm putting it all out there . . .

It’s hard to have a secret life here in blogland. I’ve already admitted to my weaknesses for celebrity gossip, the Amazing Race and thrift stores. And, frankly? I’m not all that interesting. The average day finds me sitting in front of my computer, wearing sweat pants, banging out my latest book. Days go by where, from the time my husband leaves for work to the time he’s returns, the only adult conversation I have is with the UPS man. So it’s not like I have a whole lot of time for a secret life.

And yet . . . I do have one final admission.

Continue reading "Whitney: Unveiled"

Posted by Whitney at 6:00 AM | Comments (6)

June 12, 2007

Accidental Unveilings

When what you say says more than you meant to say

So I was over at my friend's house, grilling her about the life of a psychologist to use for a book idea I've got. Her husband (who happens also to be my friend and is a totally awesome guy) walked through and started asking questions. So I explained that the psychologist was the heroine and the cop would be the hero.

He pointed out that I'd done that before. Did I maybe have a thing for cops?

I turned bright red.

Continue reading "Accidental Unveilings"

Posted by Eileen at 7:00 AM | Comments (4)

June 11, 2007

Unveiling . . . My Bad Habits

oh, the humiliation

Sorry we've been somewhat MIA here at the LC lately; we're all going into summer with kids on vacation, deadlines breathing hot and heavy down our collective necks, and some mondo changes going on behind the scenes. But we're THRILLED to spend this week bragging about our brilliant and beautiful EILEEN RENDAHL and her wonderful new book: UNVEILED.

It's a marvelously warm and funny book, all about keeping guilty secrets and what happens when those secrets are -- as they always are, don't we learn ANYTHING from soap operas??? -- UNVEILED. (Speaking of soap operas, am I the only one pissed by the 'let's leave room for the movie' crappy ending of THE SOPRANOS last night?)

In honor of UNVEILED - oh, and be sure to go to Eileen's hysterically funny and slightly weird website where people actually talk about their guilty secrets!! -- I decided to admit to some of my worst "I'm on deadline" secrets. Trust me, chocolate and caffeine are involved in a pusher-quantity way.

Continue reading "Unveiling . . . My Bad Habits"

Posted by Alesia at 11:24 AM | Comments (4)

June 6, 2007

What's your "Judy Blume moment of truth"?

Sometimes you just have to eat it or wear it

I’m delighted to announce the publication of a brand spankin’ new anthology called Everything I Know About Being a Girl I Learned from Judy Blume, which includes essays by authors like Meg Cabot, Megan McCafferty, Julie Kenner…and moi. Our topics run the gamut from bullying and masturbation to romance and rejection, but one thing they all have in common is our shared love for the Judy Blume novels we grew up reading.

Seriously, thank God for Judy Blume. When you’re muddling through the hellish quagmire of middle school, it’s good to know that someone out there knows exactly what you’re going through and isn’t afraid to put it all down on paper. Remember waiting (and waiting and waiting) for your breasts to develop? And despairing because your parents just didn’t understand you? And dealing with the soul-crushing reality that all the really cute, sporty boys preferred your busty, bubbly best friend to you, just because you were a freakishly flat-chested introvert who preferred Sylvia Plath to Seventeen?

(Note: I’m not saying any of this happened to ME, mind you. No. This is merely a “for instance.”)

Continue reading "What's your "Judy Blume moment of truth"?"

Posted by Beth at 10:43 PM | Comments (3)

Scenes from a Marriage

On sleep and Sex and the City.

Last night, while in the middle of a conversation with yours truly, my darling husband fell asleep.

I think it had more to do with how exhausting his day was than my conversational skills . . . or, at least, I hope so.

Part of me was incredibly jealous. I have a hard time falling asleep under the best of circumstances: the room needs to be dark and a perfect 75 degrees, my white noise machine has to be on, I need to have read for at least a few minutes before turning off my light, and even then I need to take prescription sleep medication.

So the idea of being able to fall asleep in a well-lit room while my spouse is in the middle of telling me about her day wrestling an almost-four-year old who has suddenly discovered the phrase, “I WANT!” . . . how delicious would that be?

Continue reading "Scenes from a Marriage"

Posted by Whitney at 7:58 AM | Comments (5)