Good News, Good Cookies, Good Friends

­4-8-09: Good News, Good Cookies, Good Friends

Good News: So guess what happened? My hardback books arrived from the printer—early! Two whole weeks early! And it was a serious case of déjà vu as one day after lunch, Anne knocked on my door and held up a copy of my book. But this time it wasn’t the ARC, no sir, it was the real thing. And it’s beautiful! It seems like I say it a lot, but I still can’t believe it’s happening—a story I wrote down is being published and will be out there in the world for everyone to read. It really is a dream come true.

Good Cookies: Yes, it’s that time again—cookie-making time! Tracy teaches Genres of Film part-time and for every midterm and final, I make homemade chocolate-chip cookies for him to take to his students. He believes that they should have something sweet on test days. The only problem is that he has a lot of students. This time I ended up making 10 dozen cookies. Whew

Good Friends: Yesterday, Tracy and I stopped by our neighborhood Barnes and Noble bookstore to visit with two of my good friends (and fellow authors!), James Dashner and J. Scott Savage. They had quite the line of kids waiting patiently to have their books, posters, and bookmarks signed and it was a lot of fun to watch them interact with the kids. I, too, had my copy of Hunt for Dark Infinity for James to sign and Water Keep for Jeff to sign. Hey, I may be their editor, but I’m also a fan and I didn’t want to miss this chance for an autographed first edition. (And, yes, I’ll admit, it was a good excuse to give both of them a copy of my newly printed hardback book and sign my book for them.) It’s one of the best parts of my job as an editor—not only did I get the chance to meet such wonderful people like James and Jeff, but I also get to count them as friends. (Shameless plug: you should go out and buy their books!)