Help with the writing process

Today I went to #Teach21c and spoke with a room full of teachers about writing, rewriting, technology, kids, reading, and listening. It was lots of fun.

What I didn't mention is who REALLY writes my books.

I'm coming clean; here's how it really happens:

prom!?

My big guy is at the prom.

I'm gonna leave the piles of laundry and editing and dishes where they are and take the little one out for an ice cream, quick while I can.

Tempus so fugits.

4 PM

Sometimes the day just gets away from me.

I think I've got it well in my grasp and then, wham. How the heck is it 4PM already? And June? And my kids are all big and stuff?

I was just sitting there making stuff up for a bit, and when I got up to refill my tea cup, I realized the world had gotten way spinnier.

Trying that whole giveaway thing again...

So here's what happened:

The day JUSTIN CASE: Shells, Smells, and the Horrible Flip-Flops of Doom came out, my sweet husband brought home roses and cava, to celebrate. My older son had his laptop on the counter, and was choosing good music to play. A fantastic celebration was starting, just the four of us, laughing, dancing around the apartment, catching our breath in the midst of the busiest year of our lives to CELEBRATE -- and that's when we knocked over a glass of cava right onto my son's keyboard.


The thing clicked off instantly. BAD SIGN.


I will not bore you or torture myself with the details of what happened after that, for the next 3 weeks of phone calls and trips around Manhattan and stress. Suffice it to say that my son, who handled the situation with so much more grace than I would have mustered had the situation been reversed, is in 11th grade. May of 11th grade. He had papers he'd written on that computer -- and half-written. Applications that were due for stuff at school next year. Plays he'd written and was revising. Hundreds of songs. Thousands of photos. Some backed up; most not.


Plus -- no computer on which to communicate with all his friends and co-workers on multiple projects; no way to write all his papers and other stuff except to borrow mine -- less than ideal.


It was, as a cousin of mine says, Not Good.


So I suspended the book give-away contest that was supposed to happen mid-celebration, since the celebration was abruptly halted. 


Until today. Because:


The good news: everything from my son's cava-soaked hard drive has been rescued!
The bad news: the computer itself is in the trash. 
The necessity: New computer has been purchased.
The upshot: a sad goodbye to so many dollars.
The celebration: the book giveaway is back on track! 



So here it is!


The JUSTIN CASE contest:


Win a free copy of JUSTIN CASE: Shells, Smells, and the Horrible Flip-Flops of Doom!
All you have to do is type JUSTIN CASE in the comments below. Share this link to be entered 5 times -- and have a donation made in your honor to First Book!
Winners chosen at random Sunday night sometime... so enter asap.


You can go here to get more info on the book, and buy it from Amazon here or Bank Street Bookstore here.

But whatever else you do today, take these two pieces of advice:
1. back up your stuff.
2. keep your cava away from your (and your kids') computer

okay, and,

3. enter to win a free book!

Love,
Rachel Vail

Balls

Sometimes, like today, I think, Holy Crap! Is it hailing in here?

But it's not.

It's just that I have so many balls in the air and I forgot for a second to juggle them. So the balls all fall down on my head.

It's not a terrible thing, especially because the balls are metaphorical, and not as embarrassing as that time last month when I was wandering around lost in New Haven in my pajamas (don't even ask), but it does make me feel a bit discombobulated.

This stage of a book is always a bit odd, for me. Does this happen to you?

At least I didn't slam my own head in a bathroom stall door this time. That really sucks.

Pub Day Give-Away!

It's Pub Day today for JUSTIN CASE: Shells, Smells, and the Horrible Flip-Flops of Doom!

My case of books came yesterday -- so that means that today I will give some away!

CONTEST TIME!

All you have to do is write JUSTIN CASE in the comments section here on my blog or on facebook to be entered into the contest. I will give away one book for every 20 people who enter the contest so your odds stay good no matter what! 

If you retweet, reblog, or repost this, I will also donate a dollar in your honor to First Book, a terrific charity that gets books to kids who need them desperately. 

The contest starts now. Winners will be chosen tonight at 8:30 PM. So enter now!

And if you are a kid and you want to make a book trailer about JUSTIN CASE, send me a link. The trailer should be 30-60 seconds long, be original and creative, include non-copyrighted music, and capture what you like about Justin. The winners of the trailer contest will win signed copies and maybe also gummy worms. I'll chose winners of the trailer contest in a couple of weeks.

Thanks for celebrating with me today! 

Love,

Rachel Vail

PS Do you want a preview? You can get more info, read reviews, even read an excerpt right here!

Happy birthday

It's my mom's birthday today.

She's probably the kindest person I know. I love how willing she is to have her mind changed about most things, how non-defensively open she is to new ideas, how positively she chooses to look at everything - and everybody. My husband calls her the Master of Unconditional Positive Regard -- and when my kids imitate her (they are dead-on mimics, not always the most welcome of skills I have to admit) they say "Oh! That's wonderful! You are so terrific!"

She is also, like her fictional grandson Justin Case, quite the worrier. Until last summer, she had never been on a trampoline and certainly never planned to be on one. She hates jiggling movements, gets extraordinarily anxious when she doesn't have stable ground under her feet, and is not a fan, to say the least, of jumping. But her grandsons said, "Come on, Grandma!" So she came on. She squealed and screamed and gripped her hands tight in fists -- but she even, eventually, jumped. Hanging on to her grandsons. And her courage. And her endless enthusiasm.

Happy birthday, Mom.