Joy Preble's Blog, page 8

Spent a few hours at the Menil Collection here in Houston yesterday. An amazing museum complex that is totally free and has a phenomenal permanent exhibit of surrealism (including paintings by Magritte and Picasso) and this really creepy/cool room of items that the various surrealists collected (or facsimiles thereof). So you see their private stashes of feathers and masks and weird statues and those things people used to use to make postcards look 3-D. Okay hang on. I've got to look that up. I know there's word. Ah! It's stereoscope. (the more modern version for kids was called a Viewmaster, but the concept has been around a long while) One of the temporary exhibits was from this Greek artist, Takis (the man, not the shockingly orange snack food) who does all these pieces with magnets that make you go hmm, how the heck did he do that. Like this:
It's magnets behind the canvas that hold those things totally still in the air. Crazy.
Anyway, it's this amazing museum and the full complex includes the Rothko Chapel and the Cy Twombly Gallery. And if you're in Houston, you should really go.

Then because I had some things to drop off at Writespace, where I teach now and then, we had burgers at Stanton City Bites, where you can get the Truckstopper, which looks like this:
Yeah, those are onion rings on my burger. And cheese. And bacon. And ooh look, it's tomato and lettuce so it's healthy!

Then back to revisions for IT WASN'T ALWAYS LIKE THIS (coming May '16 from Soho Press) and some really cool research on hawks and falconry and did you know hawks mate while flying then free-fall while, um, together. And somehow don't manage to slam into the ground. I don't think this factoid will make it into the book, but you get what you get when you sink into those inter webs.
And now it's Thursday and season finale for both Scandal and Blacklist tonight and so it goes her in the Bayou City where it has been raining on and off for weeks, nay, months. We're out of drought conditions, and my tomato plants are thriving, but oh the endless Seattle-esque gloom…

So much going on right now, but the Tuesday three shall be:

1. Happy surprise this morning with this review from a source I very much respect and thus I am totally honored and thrilled about what School Library Journal's Teen Librarian Toolbox had to say about FINDING PARIS:
http://www.teenlibrariantoolbox.com/2015/05/book-review-finding-paris-by-joy-preble/

Every author leaps for joy when a review totally GETS IT, totally understands what your novel is trying to do and how it's trying to do it. Makes my heart quite happy!!

Read the whole thing if you have a chance, but here's a snippet:

 "While this is a mystery and (less so) a romance, it is the much darker and more serious elements of the story that make this a hard book to put down and an even harder book to forget."

2. Just finished ALL THE RAGE by Courtney Summers, which is often a brutally emotional read, about a girl named Romy Grey, a small town, rape culture, recovery, bullying, and how hard it is for some people to believe the truth. As much - although not all-- of that is part of Finding Paris, I think they might someday make a fascinating companion read…

And also on the nightstand: Just started my precious arc of Julie Murphy's DUMPLIN' and I'm already swallowed up in WillowDean's world and hoping she gets the happily ever after I want for her.

Skimming through editor Cheryl Klein's SECOND SIGHT, because if anyone is a genius at breaking down plot, character, voice and revision techniques (besides my own wonderful editors), it's Cheryl Klein over at Scholastic!

And I'm a few pages in to THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN by Paula Hawkins, which everyone is reading and now so am I! I'm sensing this is not going to be a happy read, but a fascinating one. 

3. And in my pop culture report, Jane has had her baby on last night's JANE THE VIRGIN, which if you haven't watched, you should totally catch up on this clever series. I'm newly addicted to CALL THE MIDWIFE, a BBC show that's been on for a few years now and why didn't anyone tell me?! Even the hubs is watching with me, having been primed and perhaps broken in by a few seasons of DOWNTON ABBEY. For now, as I have revisions to finish, let me just say "Chummy Noakes!" I am totally Team Chummy forever. On the Housewives front, Carole is having her fling on RHONY, Bethenny is back and feisty and understandably cranky with all the divorce shenanigans and I kinda like Dorinda, although she needs to dump the boyfriend. (Just saying). 

There's more of course, but like I say, there's writing to do and a talk I'm giving in June to write about setting and a new manuscript to get back to and so I leave you for now.

Coming soon: My interview with debut author Adam Silvera, about his forthcoming MORE HAPPY THAN NOT, out in June from our mutual publisher, Soho Press! 

In my newest YA,  FINDING PARIS (Balzer and Bray/Harper Collins), Leo and Paris begin the story in Las Vegas. Their entire lives, their mother has dragged them from place to place and guy to guy and dream to dream and now they find themselves in Vegas with Mom and the 'fresh start' stepfather. But it's not the pretty, sparkly Vegas. More the dark underbelly, the truth behind the fake stuff.

And that's the thing about setting this novel largely in Las Vegas: FINDING PARIS is a story about hiding and eventually finding the truth. It's about the things that happen to us that we can't or don't tell, the things that no one wants to hear, the things that once we've given them voice, we have to own and accept and that's often not only tough but heart-wrenchingly painful.
And Vegas, well, to me, the touristy part of Las Vegas hides the truth like that, too. As Leo's mother knows all too well, the casinos aren't built on winners. They're built on people losing, even though the glitz and shine and noise and eye candy of the slots and poker tables and roulette wheels and black jack tables would make us think otherwise. Casinos are these winding, cavernous places, designed for us to get lost and lose track of time. They bring us free drinks and entertain us and serve us gluttonous amounts of food and what's not happy about that, right? Leo points out to Max that there's a fake everything in Vegas: A fake Eiffel Tower and a fake New York and a fake Egyptian pyramid at the Luxor.
In a word, it's all a facade. It's not the real Paris. It's not the real Egypt. It's not the real anything.
But it's all so pretty, isn't it? We don't notice that we're going broke. We don't notice that really, the whole thing is making as many people sad as it is happy. Probably more people. 
I find it fascinating to think about the Luxor Hotel--where I once stayed-- and all its rooms angled and slanted to mimic that pyramid, so aggressively artificial--as artificial as the ingredients in the frozen yogurt that Leo sells at Yogiberry. But we tell ourselves it's healthy. And we tell ourselves that we'll win in Vegas.
So what better place to set a story where characters aren't telling their truths? Where one sister tries sends the other on what surfacely looks like a frivolous road trip, complete with the first clue taped with a Hello Kitty BandAid to a statue of Elvis? Where Leo meets a boy over a slice of pie and that boy works at a museum off the Strip that simulates an atomic explosion? Where what looks like fun, fun, fun, is actually masking something else? Where what Leo and Paris (who makes something pretty out of discarded bits and pieces with her jewelry) show you of their Vegas, of their house, of their life, is telling you all sorts of things that they both just can't say? Or rather, that they do say, that they do show you, but just in this slanted way.

Oh how I loved writing FINDING PARIS. I loved giving voice to Leo and Paris and Max, to their hopes and heartaches and painful truths.

It’s release day for FINDING PARIS!!And so, some author facts for you, gentle readers!
FINDING PARIS is:Book number 6 for me!My first contemporary YA. My first book with Harper Collins/Balzer and BrayAn emotional family drama wrapped in a mystery, with a road trip center and a bit of romance.The book I first outlined at what a group of us Texas authors lovingly refer to as The Lodge of Death. I stopped writing to please someone else and out came the book I was supposed to be writing.A book with sparer prose than some of my others. So it felt a little like poetry to me, although it’s not verse. Every word had to count. Lots of showing. Much less telling.About the things we do for the people we love and the blind spots we have for those people About how difficult it is to voice and own our truths.About the secrets that families have and about the strange, wonderful and sometimes painful sibling relationship.About broken families and girls whose voices need to be heard. And about hope.Among other things!

I’ll be talking about all this and more in various places including guest posts at Janet Fox’s blog; Cynthia Leitich Smith’s Cynsations; C.C. Hunter’s blog; various stops on a blog tour arranged by the awesome Jean Book Nerd, and a bunch of places in between.
Here’s the link to the blog tour: http://www.jeanbooknerd.com/2015/04/finding-paris-by-joy-preble.html
I hope you read and love FINDING PARIS. I’m very proud of all my books, but particularly proud of getting to this one at this time and this place in my career. It takes place in Vegas and points beyond and includes more than one Paris, but all of them devoid of anything authentically French. (Which is exactly the point. You’ll see.)
 If you’re in Houston, come join me at my launch party at Blue Willow Bookshop, Saturday, 4/25, at 2 PM. http://www.bluewillowbookshop.com/node/77664
And let’s all find our Paris. Whatever or wherever it might be!

 It's one day until FINDING PARIS pub day!!
Even though the book is not 'officially' out yet, I have:

Signed at Houston Teen Book ConSigned at Texas Library AssociationBook-talked PARIS with awesome Texas librariansBook-talked PARIS with awesome Texas teen readersSigned a few at Houston SCBWI conferenceAnd been crazy excited for 4/21/15!!
FINDING PARIS Blog Tour coming soon through Jean Book Nerd!

http://www.jeanbooknerd.com/2015/04/finding-paris-by-joy-preble.html

FINDING PARIS Houston Launch Party at Blue Willow Bookshop 4/25/15 at 2 PM!
http://www.bluewillowbookshop.com/node/77664

Here are a few pics from TLA!

FINDING PARIS on the Harper Collins shelf!
signing! Aisle 7!
The YAHOUS go to TLA! (with Dotti Enderle, Jennifer Mathieu, Kim O'Brien )
with the every awesome Christina Diaz Gonzalez
And the ever clever Kari Holt with the brilliant Julie Murphy, who shares our brilliant B&B editor with me
And authors Christina Mandelski and Amy Fellner Dominy (aka my partners in crime)

And lots more coming after that!
I'll have other things to say tomorrow, so stay tuned.
FINDING PARIS, coming 4/21/15 from Balzer and Bray/Harper Collins!!

Houston Teen Book Con was amazing! Bravo to the ladies of Blue Willow Bookshop who, as always, do such a fine and heroic job of organizing, arranging, cheerleading. If you have never been to Blue Willow in Houston, you need to go when you are in Houston. They are a world-class indie bookstore and owner Valerie Koehler is a force of nature, as is her intrepid assistant Cathy Berner and the rest of the staff.

(I have a huge love for so many indie bookstores, including Murder by the Book and Brazos here in Houston and so many others around the state and country. But more on that at another time)

For now, let me say that it was a great day! Not only did I get to hang out with authors I adore and authors I wanted to meet but I got to meet thousands (really!) of teen and adult readers and talk about books and writing and FINDING PARIS, which will be here on 4/21. Because of the generosity of Harper Collins, PARIS was available exclusively at Teen Book Con this past Saturday, which was enormously exciting! So if you were there, you got to buy it before anyone else!

A few pictures:

Getting ready for Houston Teen Book Con 2015!
The amazing Valerie Koehler welcoming us to the store.
Me and Alexis Bass. (It's all about that Bass AND Preble)
Our Truth About Love Panel: from left: me, David Levithan, Susanne Colasanti, Alexis Bass, Jennifer Mathieu
All the books!
Awesome moderator Kate Sowa
Awesome moderator Jenn Haight

Today, I'm sitting down laptop to laptop with my friend and mentor, author Cynthia Leitich Smith. Cyn lives here in Texas--Austin--and she is not only a gifted writer but also a generous and fine human being, one I have turned to for advice numerous times while traversing this wonderful but often crazy career. I adore all of Cyn's writing, but I'm particularly fond of her mix of humor and paranormal in her TANTALIZE series, which begins, as she describes it on her own website as: "the story of Quincie P. Morris, a teen struggling to help save her family's Italian restaurant by re-launching it with a vampire them. It's a great idea until some real vampires show up and her best friend, Kieren, is suddenly suspected of murder." 
Plus she and I bonded long ago over our mutual love of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. As fans of the Whedonverse do…
I also admire Cyn's ability to balance a life, teaching, and a writing career, and her willingness and flexibility to write across numerous genres. The latter is not a simple thing. We tend to get branded as authors (and to some degree because our readers have a sense of expectation of what we will produce) and for those of us who want to write more widely, this can be tricky. Cynthia Leitich Smith manages it with skill and ease.
Today I'm catching up with Cyn about her career, diversity in children's lit, writing across genres, teaching, and other Cynthia Leitich Smith wisdom!
JOY: Does having already achieved New York Times Bestseller status and numerous other accolades for your work put a certain level of pressure on your writing? If not, then how do you avoid it? 
CYN: Thank you. Honestly, I’m too busy to worry about it. Between writing, teaching, mentoring, traveling, public speaking, promotion, lunching with friends, lifting weights, power walking, and playing fetch with my kitty, I’m maxed out. Any lingering insecurities will have to wait.
JOY: You have spoken and written widely on the issue of diversity in children’s lit. Can you address your current thoughts on this, particularly with the influence of #WeNeedDiverseBooks on titles being acquired? Are publishers doing enough? Are authors?
CYN: Sure! We did see a slight uptick in certain underrepresented categories in the past year, but it’s too soon to gauge the long-term impact of #WNDB on acquisitions. We all must continue to strategize and try new approaches. The demographics demand a solution. The young reader population is already minority-majority. The deadline is now.
As authors, we are in a unique position to effect positive change: We should thoughtfully work toward offering more diverse casts and topics. We should mentor new voices from all corners of our global children’s-YA literature community. We should raise awareness of great books (including but not limited to our own) that reflect the full spectrum of humanity today. We should advocate for an inclusive approach to event programming.We should keep the diversity conversation alive and boisterous.
JOY: Like some of my other favorite authors, including E. Lockhart, you are a veteran genre shifter, writing YA, chapter books, picture books. Tell us about the creative process that enables such amazing versatility.
CYN: Ah, I’m an E. Lockhart fan myself.
I start with character and setting. The protagonist dictates the age-market format. Jenna is a young girl, preparing to dance at her first powwow. She’s a picture book hero. Yoshi is a cougar-like werecat on the front lines of a brewing interspecies war. He’s a YA hero. Simple as that.
As for craft considerations, model texts teach me much of what I need to know.
I read regularly and extensively across the body of youth literature, making mental notes. I also learn from presentations and articles by my colleagues, especially my VCFA family, and I lean heavily on transferable skills.
The lyricism and precision of picture book writing improved my novels. Short stories offered confidence-building opportunities to employ humor and points of view farther from my comfort zone.
When I approach a new format—like graphic novels—I ask myself: How is thislike that? Both graphic novels and picture books involve writing visually. Both prose and graphic novels require plotting a novel in the whole.
I remind myself of what I do know rather than spin pointlessly on what I don’t (yet). I make every effort to be my own best cheerleader.
JOY: And that said, do you have a favorite genre? Why is it your favorite?
CYN: I’m most comfortable writing YA fiction, but my ultimate goal is to write at least one middle-grade novel. My favorite of my titles is a picture book. I’m not sure how all that shakes out. I have either great range or a complete lack of focus.
JOY: You do a lot of teaching. What do you enjoy most about the act of teaching the craft of writing?
CYN: I’m continually blessed with inspiring students. It gives me such joy to watch them grow in their literary art and cheer as they triumph in their careers.
That said, I’m an intuitive writer. Teaching forces me to analyze and articulate. That, in turn, forces me to quickly access, to define and refine my insights.  Doing so, again and again, for students facilitates my being able to better serve my own works in progress. It’s exercise for my writing brain.
JOY: What would be your top bits of advice for writers aiming at publication?
CYN: Embrace your apprenticeship. Experiment. Play. Join SCBWI. Make friends. Educate yourself about children’s-YA literature, its surrounding conversations, and both the history and current societal forces that brought us all to this point.
Read. It’s the most obvious advice, the most repeated, and, alas, the most ignored. It’s also nearly impossible to succeed in the conversation of books if you don’t speak the language, if you aren’t familiar with the cultural touchstones (defined broadly). Remember: Reading counts as writing time.
Study writing with established author-teachers, professionals who’re accomplished on both fronts. Just be sure to consider their track records (and your budget) carefully.
Beware of cycling too long exclusively on one project. I’m not suggesting that whatever you’ve been working on won’t eventually sell. But it may be the skills built while working on other manuscripts that facilitate it reaching that milestone. Most of us improve story by story, not with one story over time.
JOY: For writers aiming at maintaining a career?
CYN: Choose yourself. Don’t wait for the publisher to promote your book to lead title. Don’t wait for your head to be graced with a crown or your slippers to be buried in laurels. Raise that chin and vow to do this:
Decide who you want to be in the children’s-YA community.
If a vision doesn’t immediately occur to you, consider various models—authors whose craft and careers you admire. Ask yourself what about them appeals. Strategize affirmative, achievable steps to work toward that goal, that identity with your unique style and spin.
Then snap to it. Own your awesomeness, claim the author you want to be today.
JOY: What’s coming next for Cynthia Leitich Smith?
CYN: Next fall, my chapter “All’s Well,” will appear in Violent Ends, edited by Shaun David Hutchinson (Simon Pulse, 2015), and I’m currently working on a realistic contemporary YA to be published by Candlewick.  

Thanks again!
For more on Cynthia Leitich Smith, go to:http://www.cynthialeitichsmith.com
And for her acclaimed blog on all things publishing, head to: CYNSATIONS

Congrats to the two winners of my bonus Rafflecopter giveaway that was part of YA Scavenger Hunt!

Jen S wins the complete DREAMING ANASTASIA trilogy!
Sarah S wins the complete SWEET DEAD LIFE duology!

Hooray!!

And thanks for joining YA Scavenger Hunt!

Welcome to YA Scavenger Hunt! This bi-annual event was first organized by author Colleen Houck as a way to give readers a chance to gain access to exclusive bonus material from their favorite authors...and a chance to win some awesome prizes! At this hunt, you not only get access to exclusive content from each author, you also get a clue for the hunt. Add up the clues, and you can enter for our prize--one lucky winner will receive one signed book from each author on the hunt in my team! But play fast: this contest (and all the exclusive bonus material) will only be online for 72 hours! The Spring YA Scavenger Hunt goes live on Thursday, April 2nd at 12 pm Pacific Time and comes down on Sunday, April 5th at noon Pacific time.
Go to the YA Scavenger Hunt page to find out all about the hunt. There are multiple contests going on simultaneously, and you can enter one or all! I am a part of the TEAL TEAM--but there is also a red team, a blue team, an orange team, a gold team, a green team, a purple team, and a pink team-- for a chance to win a whole different set of signed books!

I’m Joy Preble, your hostess for this stop on the hunt! I’m the author of two YA series: the DREAMING ANASTASIA series (Sourcebooks) and the SWEET DEAD LIFE series (Soho Press). I’m also the author of the forthcoming contemporary FINDING PARIS, a dark mystery/road trip novel arriving on 4/21/15 from Balzer Bray/Harper Collins. Next year, IT WASN’T ALWAYS LIKE THIS—pitched as Tuck Everlasting meets Veronica Mars— will arrive from Soho Press in Spring 2015.I will give you an extra special chance at the bottom of this post to win some of my books!! So make sure to read to the end!You are currently hunting on TEAM TEAL!!
SCAVENGER HUNT PUZZLE
Directions: Below, you'll notice that I've listed my favorite number. Collect the favorite numbers of all the authors on the TEAL TEAM, and then add them up (don't worry, you can use a calculator!). 
coming 4/21/15Entry Form: Once you've added up all the numbers, make sure you fill out the form here to officially qualify for the grand prize. Only entries that have the correct number will qualify.
Rules: Open internationally, anyone below the age of 18 should have a parent or guardian's permission to enter. To be eligible for the grand prize, you must submit the completed entry form by April 5, at noon Pacific Time. Entries sent without the correct number or without contact information will not be considered.My secret number is highlighted in TEAL.SCAVENGER HUNT POST


Today, I am hosting N.K. Traver on my website for the YA Scavenger Hunt! N.K Traver is the author of DUPLICITY.  N. K. Traver has awesomely requested to remain gender neutral, and so has provided no picture!
Bio: As a freshman at the University of Colorado, N.K. TRAVER decided to pursue Information Technology because classmates said "no one could make a living" with an English degree. It wasn't too many years later Traver realized it didn't matter what the job paid--nothing would ever be as fulfilling as writing. Programmer by day, writer by night, it was only a matter of time before the two overlapped. Duplicity is Traver's first novel.
Find out more information about N.K. Traver and DUPLICITY by checking out the author website or find more about the author's book HERE !

EXCLUSIVE CONTENT


Here’s a brief bit about DUPLICITY:
A computer-hacking teen. The girl who wants to save him. And a rogue mirror reflection that might be the death of them both.



In private, seventeen-year-old Brandon hacks bank accounts just for the thrill of it. In public, he looks like any other tattooed bad boy with a fast car and devil-may-care attitude. He should know: he's worked hard to maintain that façade. With inattentive parents who move constantly from city to city, he's learned not to get tangled up in things like friends and relationships. So he'll just keep living like a machine, all gears and wires.
Then two things shatter his carefully-built image: Emma, the kind, stubborn girl who insists on looking beneath the surface - and the small matter of a mirror reflection that starts moving by itself. Not only does Brandon's reflection have a mind of its own, but it seems to be grooming him for something--washing the dye from his hair, yanking out his piercings, swapping his black shirts for … pastels. Then it tells him: it thinks it can live his life better, and it's preparing to trade places.
And when it pulls Brandon through the looking-glass, not only will he need all his ill-gotten hacking skills to escape, but he's going to have to face some hard truths about who he's become. Otherwise he'll be stuck in a digital hell until he's old and gray, and Emma and his parents won't even know he's gone.
N.K. Traver has provided a prologue for DUPLICITY, a bonus scene that shows the falling out between Brandon and Emma before the book starts:
I didn’t realize how terrifying spaghetti could be until Emma set it in front of me.
It’s not that I’m worried what Mom’ll do if I get sauce on the carpet. That would be preferred, actually, because it means I’d get to talk to her this week. It’s not even that I dislike spaghetti, or the notion of food, or especially the notion of sharing such a small Tupperware of it with Emma Jennings, because we’ll have to get pretty close together to not make a mess.
It’s that I told Emma last week how tired I was of frozen burritos and peanut butter sandwiches. You know, like when you say you’re tired of winter or mosquitoes. They’re realities I don’t expect to change because that’s just how things are. Emma was supposed to brush it off like everyone else. 
Instead she brings this to this week’s tutoring session.“With my dad’s homemade meatballs,” she says, setting the plastic container on the carpet, her dark hair curling soft around her smile.
Homemade meatballs.
“Um.” I poke the container with my stylus like it’s an alien, pushing it a little toward Emma where she sits across from me on the floor. The walls of my room are stretching cataclysm-tall. My Nirvana posters, my furniture, even the legs of my desk are suddenly skyscrapers around us, shadows locking me in, and I hope the dim light of my lava lamp hides the panic simmering up my face.
“When I said … Last week, when I—” I drag my hand down my jaw. “I didn’t mean you had to …”
“It’s no trouble.” She waves a hand and digs around in her backpack. “My dad always makes way too much. I have cornbread, too. And forks in here somewhere …”
“Cornbread?” I say, then clear my throat when I realize I sound offended. “I mean, cool.”
But sweat’s pinpricking my neck. I already slipped up last week, getting bored with our lesson and suggesting we take a break to visit the school stadium—the roof of it, more specifically—where I’d forgotten how many stars came out on clear nights. Evil stars that made us talk about things like homemade dinners and dream colleges, how pressured Emma felt by her dad to get perfect grades … how I sometimes regretted what I’d done to get my own parents’ attention.
Somehow her head ended up on my shoulder. 
And my arm around her back. 
I glance at the dresser looming next to me, the wood too new and clean and looking nothing like the one I had a year ago in Massachusetts. Looking nothing like the one I’ll have a few months from now, when Mom’s assignment ends and she’s sent to a new office nowhere near here.
Emma smiles in the dull glow of the lava lamp, and I already feel this moment turning into a memory like an old film strip developing in my head, a picture that will haunt me the rest of my life with all its what ifs.
“You shouldn’t have,” I say. And I mean it. I mean it so much that it hurts, because I know exactly how this evening’s going to end, and I already hate myself for it.
“I wanted to.” She sets the cornbread between us on a napkin (she even brought napkins) and offers me the handle of a plastic fork. This is becoming more than a memory. This is becoming one of those things that will needle into me at the most random times, and in seven months when I’m eating the world’s worst frozen spaghetti meal on the other side of the continent, I’ll see the ghost of her offering me this fork and—
“I’m not hungry,” I say.
“Oh.” She shrugs. “Do you mind if I eat? I haven’t had dinner yet. The rest will keep for days though; I can leave it—”
“No. I don’t want it.”
“O-kay.” She withdraws the fork, her smile slipping from her face like the lava lamp’s shadows. “Everything all right?”
“Does it really matter?” 
“To me, yes.”
That stings harder than a slap, and I grit my teeth to keep it from sinking into my skin. I’ve let this go on too long. She’s starting to think she cares, and so am I. I bury the picture of her with that fork, down, down, down where I can’t find it, and imagine my veins turning to wires, my muscles to gears. A machine of steel and copper. By the time I say, “We’re moving again,” it’s just a fact. Same as knowing it’ll rain or be dark at night.
A corner of Emma’s lips twitch, relaxing. She thinks that’s all it is, and I have to remind myself I’m gears and wires to stop the stabbing in my chest.
“When?” she asks.
“Two months. Six. Who cares? Soon enough.”
“So your mom doesn’t have a new assignment yet.”
“She will.”
“But not yet.”
“What’s your point?”
Emma’s smile is pained, the kind new principals wear when they’re paging through the names of all the schools I’ve been to. I turn my attention to the tablet in my lap.
“My point is …” She inhales, and I wonder if she’s finally put together why this isn’t going to work. “My point is, I’d rather make the most of the time we have than live like it’s going to end.”
That makes me look up.
That makes me look right at her and see how hopeful she is and how vulnerable and how scared, and that even now she kind of regrets saying it, because she knows how I feel about attachments. How I feel about losing people over and over again. 
But she’s still trying. 
As if I’m worth it.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say.
“I’m trying to understand. I’m telling you I want to understand.”
“You think I care what you want?” 
It’s out of my mouth before I can think about it, my defenses rising, reminding me how much more this will hurt if I don’t run now. The shock on Emma’s face hits my chest like a bullet. I push up off the floor to get some distance, pulse jumping, the smell of tomato sauce choking me. 
“I think you should leave,” I say.
“You don’t mean that.”
“You’re only going to make it worse.”
“Then tell me how I can make it better. Like I said last week—”
“Don’t.” I lock my fingers around the back of my head, looking anywhere but her. I need to stop the pain. It’s already splintering through my veins, cracking me to the marrow. Sucking the air from my lungs. Getting so dangerously close to me thinking I could give in to this. I could tell her I feel the same, I could let her in, and maybe this time would be different.
I close it down. I breathe in, and the last of the gears shift in place. Breathe out, and it’s electricity going through my veins, not blood.
“Last week was a mistake,” I say, and even I’m surprised at the change in my tone, how calm and steady and cold it is.
“You’re lying.”
“You were a mistake.” This time the hurt on her face deflects off me like sand against metal. I’m safe, safe, safe inside my shell. “And I told you to leave.”
Emma sets her jaw, rage trembling through her fingers as she packs up the spaghetti and the forks, crushing the cornbread into a ball of crumbs before stuffing it into her backpack. She glares around my room, shaking her head, and just when I think it might be over, just when I think I might be able to breathe again, she pauses in the doorframe.
“Someday you’re going to look back at everyone you think you lost,” she says, looking more sorry now than mad, “and you’re going to realize the only person you have to blame for that, is you.”
She stomps down the stairs, the front door dinging, then clicking closed behind her. I glower at the cornbread crumbs on the carpet, breathing in, breathing out, assuring myself I did what I had to. Emma doesn’t understand. She’s lived in the same house her whole life, and it might be a day or two, but she’ll move on from this without a scar. That’s how it should be. Someday she’ll thank me for making it so easy.
I think of her head on my shoulder.
I think of her under a million stars, telling me the thing I didn’t want her to repeat before: that happiness is something we make, not something we wait for.
I bury it with everything else. I’m a robot as I pick my tablet off the floor and set it on the desk. Unaffected as I catch a glimpse of myself in the closet mirror, this monster I’ve manufactured from the inside out, calm and expressionless. Stone and steel.
The engine of Emma’s car fires up, and I wait until the sound fades, until the house echoes with a terrible, familiar silence, to turn and slam my fist into the dresser.And don't forget to enter #YASH for a chance to win a ton of signed books by me (Joy Preble), N.K Traver, and more! To enter, you need to know that my favorite number is 13 ! Add up all the favorite numbers of the authors on the TEAL TEAM and you'll have all the secret code to enter for the grand prize!
To keep going on your quest for the hunt, you need to check out the next author, fellow Balzer and Bray house-mate, Gretchen McNeil !! Just click on her name to move forward in the hunt!
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EXTRA GIVEAWAY from JOY PREBLE!!

In honor of YA SCAVENGER HUNT, I am also giving away copies of my other books!!

You can win the complete DREAMING ANASTASIA trilogy or the complete SWEET DEAD LIFE duology (2 winners chosen, one for each prize) by entering my Rafflecopter giveaway below!
















a Rafflecopter giveaway

Last Friday in March! Now that is madness. (okay, a weak pun that vaguely alludes to basketball. Best I can do today)

1. Getting very excited for HOUSTON TEEN BOOK CON, which is coming up on 4/11! Here's the link: http://www.teenbookcon.org  I am absolutely thrilled that FINDING PARIS will be available for sale there early and exclusively! So yes, if you are in Houston and want to read two weeks before everyone else, come to Houston Teen Book Con! I am also insanely, fan-girl ecstatic that I am on the Truth About Love panel with Alexis Bass, Susan Colasanti, David Levithan (!!), Jen Mathieu and me!

2. Getting equally excited for TLA the following week, which for the uninitiated, stands for Texas Library Association. I am very honored to announce that I will be signing FINDING PARIS in the author area on Wednesday 4/15 from 11-12, courtesy of Balzer and Bray/Harper Collins, but my other publisher, Soho Press, is generously providing some stacks of  SWEET DEAD LIFE series to sign as well! Now that makes me so happy. My full schedule will be up in appearances soon, and also includes TT4L and the Texas Author Tea.

3. It is finally spring here in Texas. At least more or less. Of course the pine pollen has coated the world in a dusting of yellow, but even that seems to be fading. *sneezes*

4. Very excited for the debut of Meredith Moore's I AM HER REVENGE on 4/7! Click on the title and get a copy and we can read together! She'll be debut launching at Blue Willow Books on 4/4!  (and fyi, Meredith and I will be signing together on 5/2 at Murder by the Book. More on that soon.)

5. And in my iZombie report, I can say that episode 2 has kept me coming back for episode 3. Rose McIver continues to nail it as Olivia. The writing is clever, although definitely hits every trope beloved to my have CW shows. Still giving it 2 brains up!