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Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Charlie's Most Embarrassing Kisses

Today is your last day to enter (here, on my facebook page, or on twitter, with #kissmeagain) your 6-word memoir of your Most Embarrassing Kiss!

I have been reading the hilarious and pithy entries, and it got me thinking: how would Charlie, the main character and narrator of both IF WE KISS and the about-to-be-published KISS ME AGAIN, answer this challenge?

She has so many embarrassing kisses to chose from.



So here are SIX 6-word Most Embarrassing Kiss memoirs of Charlie Collins:
(note: these do NOT appear in the books! They are subtext, though...)


From IF WE KISS time:

Spit out gum; busted by Vice-Principal

Outside, shivering; came inside -- still shivering

Denied it happened until too late



From KISS ME AGAIN: (trying not to include any spoilers!)

Didn't realize that's what was happening!

Said "no" but meant "not yet"

So awesome... until we were caught


And one bonus one, not really embarrassing in the kissing -- but excruciatingly embarrassing to be feeling this, for Charlie, during KISS ME AGAIN:

Kiss me like never again, again.






Now it's your turn!!!

Love,
Rachel Vail

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Enter to win KISS ME AGAIN!

Post here or tweet a 6-word memoir of your most awkward kissing moment for a chance to win an ARC of KISS ME AGAIN! 

@harperteen says: use #kissmeagain

share this post (and tag me) to be entered a second time!

Monday, October 22, 2012

My little boy


We had my younger son's Bar Mitzvah last weekend. It was wonderful. My sweet yummy boy blew us all away. 

He amazes us every day – with his wit, intelligence, compassion, courage -- and his panache. I am so explodingly proud of him – of all that he has accomplished, and the fine young man he is becoming in front of my eyes.

When he was a little guy, he was, as he remains, a very intense person. "Formidable" is how I described him in my journal when he was only 6 weeks old. Hadn't known the kid 2 full months but already I could tell -- I knew from the first moments he breathed air and looked into my eyes -- it was inescapably clear that this was a lot of person I'd be contending with. This is a kid who can smell the electric stove warming a tea kettle from across a house and up a flight of stairs (and yells to see if the house is on fire); he could hear the math in a Mozart piece when I took him to a Carnegie Hall concert at age 5 -- and was frustrated with me that I didn't know what he meant when he said "that one had so much math in it! You know what I mean, Mommy! Come on! Stop kidding." But I wasn't.

When he was four, I went into his room to kiss him goodnight one night. He was lying there grinning. What, I asked him. His eyes twinkling, he said, "I wish I could be pizza dough, so you would knead me. Get it Mommy? Knead, need? I want you to need me, both ways! It can mean two things! You know what I mean?" That time I did know.

But he was also the one nursery school kid who could not let go of his mommy’s leg. The one kindergartner who could not stand up in front of the multi-purpose room at school to sing jingle bells at the Winter Concert – he was turning blue, shaking, beyond my reassurances that he didn’t have to do it. Because he felt that he did have to do it. I watched him as he mustered his courage, his little fists balled up – and willed himself toward the front of that room for the final song, which he sang with grim serious determination: This little light of mine, he promised, frowning – I’m gonna let it shine. This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.





And holey moley – what a light it is. A glorious light. He stood up there on the bimah last weekend chanting Torah, singing songs, giving a thought-provoking sermon -- and he ROCKED. He danced, he smiled, he brought the blazing light of his intelligence and the glittering dazzle of his ebullient personality to shine over all of us.




As always, this boy kept his word because wow -- he did and does let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.


And hallelujah for that.

Thursday, October 4, 2012

Looseness

I am in the busiest stretch of my life so far, so you won't be hearing from me much -- we've got a Bar Mitzvah for one son and applications due for both, and birthdays, homework, life stuff, and, also, I'm writing a book.

So much I want to write about life and moments of transition and some hilarious stuff and some intense stuff... but I will have to wait for a free hour to reflect before I can. Writing requires that, for me -- a block of time to think. I am one who likes FINISHING, so when I have a 2 page double-spaced TO DO TODAY list, I can't allow my mind the time and looseness that writing requires.

That's why I am taking a short break, to focus on family and on crossing things off lists.

Back to JUSTIN and my other imaginaries in 10 days.

Meanwhile, I just got this nice review on TEEN INK of my book YOU, MAYBE. You, Maybe has always generated a fair amount of controversy because (avoiding spoilers but) the narrator, Josie, makes some choices many readers (justifiably) find really bad. I think this reviewer feels that way, too, but seems to have been able to engage fully with the book because of those choices and her own reactions and thoughts to them. I'd be interested in your take, too, if you've read Y, M or another book where the protagonist makes choices you think are wrong... were you able to understand her and connect with her anyway, or was your pleasure in the reading dashed? Did your anger at the character ever make you think about your own life-choices in a different way? Did you ever reread a book (or rewatch a movie and, even knowing what will happen, root for the character to make a different choice this time?

I LOVE when that happens. You?

Okay, thanks for the break. Back to my lists go I...

Til soon,
Rachel Vail

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