Paperback Pub Day!

Look inside! (says Amazon) -- it's ready for you today!

To celebrate today, the paperback publication day for JUSTIN CASE, I am heading to a pub.

Well, not really. Or maybe later? Right now I am working.

BUT: today, to celebrate -- it is the last day for you to sign up for the drawing to win a free copy!

You can sign up right here -- all the names are going into a hat (or possibly the popcorn bowl, we shall see) tomorrow, and my kids will pick the lucky winners. You can sign up to try to win a free copy of JUSTIN or of BRILLIANT -- or, what the heck, both if you want.

You can tell a worry you have, or a cause you support, or write a haiku, or tell your favorite color/dessert/song/type of shoes/summer drink... -- or just your name and which book you'd like.

Love,

Rachel Vail

PS If you buy a copy of any of my books before June, post a picture of yourself holding the book and I will send you a FREE OTHER BOOK to go with it, automatically.

As long as I am going to the post office, anyway...

WRITING PROMPT/ GAME

My friend Rima had this odd-seeming game on her facebook page. I had a few minutes to kill while waiting for my editor to call me for a phone meeting, so I tried it -- and found it not just occasionally hilarious and weirdly appropriate for me -- but potentially useful if I took the answers as NOT pertaining to me ME, but rather to my current narrator...

So here I will share it with you, for your own amusement or as a very interesting way to force your writing mind WAY outside-the-box with your current character(s).

Please let me know how it goes for you -- and if you want to be entered into the GET A FREE BOOK drawing, happening NEXT WEEK, you can post your responses here and make sure to indicate if you would rather be trying to win a FREE new signed and personalized copy of JUSTIN CASE or BRILLIANT with your response.

And, have fun with it -- tell the truth!

1. Put your iTunes on shuffle.

2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.

3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS!

4. Tag 10 friends who might enjoy doing the same as well as the person you got the same from.

IF SOMEONE SAYS "IS THIS OKAY" YOU SAY?

Superboy and the Invisible Girl

WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY?

The Wrestler (!)

WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?

What would happen (!)

HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY?

Something in the way she moves

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE?

son of a preacher man

WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?

shining like a national guitar

WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?

Racing in the Street

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?

Trailways Bus

WHAT IS 2 + 2?

Terry’s Song

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?

Perfect for You

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE?

Make Up Your Mind/Catch Me I’m Falling

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?

Sweet Baby James

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?

Don Giovanni (!) (k-527 Deh, Vieni Alla Finestra)

WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?

Requiem - Lacrimosa

WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?

Good Man, Good Woman

WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?

Seconds and Years

WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?

La La Love You

WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?

New Years Day

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?

Somedays

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?

Abdelazer, Or the Moor’s Revenge

WHAT'S THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN?

Ich Ruf Zu Dir, Herr Jesus Christ (I Cry to Thee, Lord Jesus Christ)

HOW WILL YOU DIE?

Shadow of Doubt

WHAT IS THE ONE THING YOU REGRET?

Te Deum (You, God)

WHAT MAKES YOU LAUGH?

Rickshaw Riding

WHAT MAKES YOU CRY?

Air on a G String (hahahaha, never thought of it as a non musical g-string before!)

WILL YOU EVER GET MARRIED?

Thing Called Love

WHAT SCARES YOU THE MOST?

Somewhere in the Night

DOES ANYONE LIKE YOU?

Mock Song

IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN TIME, WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE?

Love is Stronger than Justice

WHAT HURTS RIGHT NOW?

Pollyanne

WHAT WILL YOU POST THIS AS?

Beautiful Boy

FREE BOOK!

Back in the mid-1980's, I was in an Irish pub in NYC with my friend Leslie. Behind the bar was a handwritten sign that said "FREE JOE DOHERTY". So, of course, when the bartender came by to see what we wanted, Leslie said, "What the heck, we'll try a couple of Joe Doherties."

The bartender looked baffled. She pointed at the sign. She wasn't kidding; she wanted the Happy Hour Free Specials.

The bartender doubled over laughing and gave us a couple of free beers instead, so everybody was happy. Well, Joe Doherty was maybe not so happy. But, of course, he was in jail.

Anyway, FREE BOOKS! Not a political slogan -- just, if you want a free copy of the newly released paperback of JUSTIN CASE -- or BRILLIANT -- since both are coming to bookstores THIS WEEK!!!! -- just post here, and, on MAY (not June; June? can you tell I was ready in that last post for summer to come?) 25, I will choose a random lucky winner of each.

Since I am now including BRILLIANT as well as JUSTIN CASE, please post something (a haiku or a hello or a favorite beverage or political cause or month or snack food) along with the title of the book you'd like to be entered to win!

The drawing draws near...

Love,

Rachel Vail

Look what I got! And a free book for you?

The paperbacks of JUSTIN CASE were just delivered!

They look great. I love the extras at the back -- getting to see Matt Cordell's sketch evolutions of the characters, and read about his thoughts... (mine are there, too) is such fun.

To celebrate:

I will choose AT RANDOM from somebody who posts here -- you can just put your name, or something you're looking forward to this summer, or something you worry about, or a joke, a haiku, anything you want to post.

You have until two weeks from today (JUNE 24) to post something. The winner will be notified June 25. I will send you a copy from the top of this box, signed and personalized, on June 26!

Post now!

Love,

Rachel Vail

another chance for a free book!

Click here to discover a terrific blog, read a great review (and wonderful comments) and -- a chance to get a free copy of JUSTIN CASE!

Need

I just spent an hour

and two hundred dollars

in the grocery store

I came home with bananas

and no milk which is what I needed

but with a memory

that a friend once spent

two hundred dollars

on a car

true, it had no floor

and no brakes

but he was young and it was a car

and he had places to go

and no need yet for a floor

or milk, or brakes

introducing my grandson

My 16-year-old son's homework last night included studying for two tests, writing a paper, taking notes on a bunch of stuff and doing doing math/chem work I don't get at all, and also taking care of a baby. It's a computer-programmed doll that cries when it needs its diaper changed, or to be fed, burped, or comforted. It also coos and makes weird Darth Vader sounds and grumbles an OW in a way that disconcertingly recalls his great-great grandmother, my Nana.

Also if you abuse the baby, or forget for even a moment to support his head, or drop it down the stairs by accident as one of my son's friends did to his baby, the abuse is registered on the computer chip inside. It's a graded project. The teens in charge of the baby wear a hospital type bracelet they have to swipe across the doll's sensor -- so they are the only ones who can, for that one night, do the work of caring for the baby.

My younger son was very into his nephew, though a little worried his big brother might not be doing it right. My normally very Zen 16-year-old was a bit stressed and completely exhausted this morning. Stressed, but also psyched, and full of wonder.

My husband and I slept through all the middle-of-the-night fussing, diaper changes, and crying. We loved the whole experience. Not just because our grandson, Alexander Hamilton Vail Elkind, is obviously the smartest, cutest, best-behaved, most wonderful robotbaby ever.

Not even just because I am loving imagining the interesting looks my son got on the M4 bus rides across town from school yesterday and back this morning, as people pretended not to look at or react to the teenage boy with his baby -- and then, once they secretly peered beneath the baby's little Yankees cap and saw the truth, had to puzzle over the teenage boy with the doll...

Not just for the learning experience and reminder/warning of a possible consequence of certain behaviors... or the early bonding with us over all-nighters with baby... or the fact that the boys and the girls in his school have the identical assignment...

But also I guess for the reminder that the future is charging fast at us. The heartbeat of time between my son's being cradled in my arms and becoming a man is -- right now. Someday, someday soon, the baby he'll hold in his arms (stressed and psyched and full of wonder) will be real and breathing, pumping blood of my blood and not to be returned to room 217 by 8AM but here to stay.

I hardly have time to catch my breath.

It catches in my throat.

It's only a heartbreakingly short heartbeat of time before I turn into Polonius, doddering after my sweet earnest little boy who before my eyes is turning into one of the best men I have ever known, spouting advice he's heard or not heard a thousand times before.

Go, I want to whisper to him. Spread your wings and take to the sky as I warned myself in your nightly lullabies you someday would. Fly high. It is a glorious thing to be your mom and watch you grow up. Go and discover. Try. Fail. Survive and learn. Become.

But not quite yet, baby mine.

My arms will never lose the muscle memory of you cradled warm within them, even when someday in the future you hold your own baby in yours.

May

You know what I love about spring?

Finding a bird's nest where one wasn't the day before.
Outdoor cafes.
Hikes.
Picnic tables.
More cafes.
And reading outside.

Also forsythia and eyedrops and tulips.

Know what I don't love about spring? Mud, needing eyedrops, and when it gets too cold to sit at picnic tables or at outdoor cafes or to read outside.

How about you?

Love,

Rachel Vail

PS Tomorrow is my mom's birthday. I like that, too.