So, what have I been up to? Primarily these three things:

• Writing. Rogue is coming out in September, and now that copyedits are over, it’s well on its way to being a real book.

Fezzik, like me, didn’t know they made paper that big.

But since it’s the last book in the trilogy, I’ve had to get my act together on writing some new stuff, which is what I have been doing. Nothing I can announce just yet, but stay tuned. (And before anyone starts asking/pleading/threatening my life, the answer is no, I will not be writing any more books in the Croak series. Don’t get me wrong–I love those characters. I LOVE THEM ALL SO MUCH. But their story is over.)

• Being in a musical. Specifically, a community theater production of Little Shop of Horrors, one of my all-time favorite musicals, which I’ve wanted to be in ever since I was a kid and had a gigantic crush on Rick Moranis (don’t ask). I play Chiffon, who is full of sass. Here I am painted up like a common whore, wearing a beehive wig, and holding a carnivorous plant.

Yes, I am a Far Side cartoon come to life.

• Watching the news. Because how could I not? Last Thursday night I happened to still be awake and watching TV when the whole manhunt car chase started, and so I kept watching…and watching…and then Will pulled up some police scanners and twitter accounts and news channels on his fancy CTU-like computer setup, and we sort of, um, stayed up all night. And kept watching throughout the next day. We do not live in the area that was on lockdown, but we do live directly adjacent to that area, which meant that A) we thought it would be a good idea to stay inside anyway, but B) we were still able to order a pizza while doing so. (Turns out we weren’t in much danger in the first place, as we do not own a boat.) And of course, after 18 solid hours of this stuff, it all came to a thrilling conclusion that I wasn’t able to watch because I had to go be sassy in a musical. Le sigh.

So that’s my life pretty much. Oh, and one more bit of excitement! Croak has been nominated for the Teens’ Top Ten, which is a neato thing that is sponsored by YALSA. I’ll let their website explain:

The Teens’ Top Ten is a “teen choice” list where every title is nominated and voted on by teens. The 2013 nominations have been posted on the YALSA website so that teens across the country can read them all summer; voting will take place Aug. 15 – Sept. 15 via YALSA’s brand new Teens’ Top Ten site for teens at www.ala.org/yalsa/reads4teens, and the winners will be announced during Teen Read Week in October.

Cool, huh? So if you are a teen, be sure to read the books and vote come August. (I’d tell you to vote specifically for Croak, but hey, you’re old enough to make your own decisions.) And if you are not a teen, be sure to read the books anyway, because it’s an amazing list and I’m honored to be a part of it.

I did not attend the Boston Marathon this year. Nor did any of my friends or family–all are safe. I am grateful for that, I am grateful for the selflessness and bravery of the first responders and all who jumped in to help, and my thoughts are with the victims (and will be for some time, if this week’s sleepless nights are any indication).

While I didn’t go this year, I went to the marathon last year, and many times before that. I also work part-time in Copley Square, directly across from the finish line; that footage you keep seeing of the blast is almost the exact line of sight from my window. I was there last Thursday when they were setting up the medical tent, literally feet away from me. When I arrived that morning, there was yellow police tape up around the area to keep people out of the way while the workers set up the scaffolding. I joked that it felt like I was invading a crime scene.

[Insert ironic comment here.]

As of this writing, I don’t know who did this, or why. But that’s not what I want to talk about anyway. I want to talk about the marathon, and about Boston, a city that I did not grow up in but that I very much love. Because not every good friend in life is someone you grew up with; some you meet several years down the line. You test one another out, see if you have the same interests, see if your personalities mesh. They might not be New-York-popular, or Los-Angeles-cool, or Paris-smokin’-hot, but you and your city-friend somehow fit together, like one of those world map jigsaw puzzles you buy at Barnes and Noble when you don’t know what else to get your geography-nerd-kid for Christmas. (Uh, not that I was ever on the receiving end of that.)

Okay, so I heart Boston–that’s not surprising. But the marathon? An event at which sports happen? Hi, I’m Gina, and I’d rather attach hermit crabs to my eyelids and listen to them discuss the artistic merit of the Transformers movies than watch an athletic event of any kind. But there are exceptions to every rule, and the exceptions to my ew-yuck-sports policy are:

• Syracuse University basketball (otherwise I’d be disowned)
• World Cup soccer (otherwise I’d be divorced)
• Friday Night Lights 
  
• the Olympic Games, summer and winter (but really, summer)
• the Boston Marathon

My crush on the marathon originated during my years at Boston College. The route of the marathon goes directly past the main gate of the university, and every year my friends and I would wriggle up to the side of the road and yell and scream and high-five all the runners that went by.

I continued to do this long after I graduated. Every year, even though I no longer lived anywhere near the marathon route, I’d get on the train, fight the crowds, stand in the burning sun/freezing cold, and shout clichéd encouragements at total strangers. My friend and I (and that’s friend, singular, because no one else ever wanted to come with us and deal with all that) did this for years, even though we probably had better things to do with our day off and the trouble of planning and getting there was, honestly, kind of a pain in the ass. So why did we do it?

Because it’s friggin’ amazing. I cannot stress this enough. You owe it to yourself to attend a marathon and cheer for the runners at least once in your life, because the experience is something you can’t get anywhere else. Because this particular sporting event is more or less free from all of the junk that mucks up other sports–no exorbitant ticket prices, no $10 hot dogs, no obnoxious fans (except for the hammered college kids, and even their drunken exuberance is tolerable on marathon day). There is something so raw and visceral about witnessing ordinary people do something extraordinary, about being swept up in a miasma of pure support and awe for your fellow man. Every time I’ve attended the Boston Marathon, I leave wrapped in a foil cape of inspiration, like my cold, shriveled heart has grown three times that day. There is nothing in the world like shouting your throat raw and seeing the runners’ faces light up when you call them by name, being a witness to an accomplishment that is, in my opinion, truly remarkable. I know, I know–the mush factor is approaching dangerous levels, all this “triumph of the human spirit” junk that I tend to roll my eyes at. But I swear, there is a heady mix of stuff in the air at that marathon–endurance, joy, pride, humility, and yes, triumph of the goddamn human spirit.

That’s why those spectators were there at the finish line–to be a part of all that, to cheer on their loved ones, to cheer on complete strangers. And that’s why so many people jumped in to help once the bombs went off–because that’s what people are supposed to do. We’re supposed to have each other’s backs, through the ups and the downs, the awesomeness and the shittiness, to Heartbreak Hill and back. Honestly, did the bombers really think the best place to attempt to crush this city’s spirit was the 117th Boston Marathon?

Not even close. Because we’ll be there next year, screaming our throats raw, cheering harder than ever, blaring our goddamn human spirit for the whole world to see.

On to the awards! (Click on the cover to be taken to the author’s website.)

Best Car
Reunited, by Hilary Weisman Graham
Faithful readers of this blog will recall that I did a two-week long road trip last year with my sister, and our car of choice was not exactly an inspired one: a tiny little rental painted the color of feces with a license plate that, as if in agreement, included the letters “YUK”. If only we’d been able to ride in style like Alice, Tiernan, and Summer: in a tricked-out pea-green 1876 VW camper van affectionately known as the Pea Pod. It restores broken friendships, it makes dreams come true, and it has a sink!

Best Score
Seraphina, by Rachel Hartman
Well, not really–I mean, it is a book, and not one of those greeting cards that sing at you until you have to hurl the thing to the floor and stomp on till it dies. But Seraphina’s love for music, her skill on a variety of instruments, and the lyrical way in which all that is described sort of makes it seem like you can almost hear it. Or maybe it’s all the dragony magic in the air. Oh my God…that’s exactly what it is! A sinister plot by the dragons! *hurls book to floor, stomps it*

Twistiest Twists
Shades of Earth, by Beth Revis
This is more of an award for the whole Across the Universe trilogy, which I very much enjoyed. Now that I’ve reached the end, I still can’t understand how many twists and turns and lies and half-lies and fibs and whoppers were crammed into three books, but damn. There must have been some sort of technological wizardry involved. A plot twist consolidator, perhaps? Plotwistcon^©, for short?

Best Advice
On Writing, by Stephen King
This book has been recommended to me by pretty much everyone I’ve ever met, and now I’m going to turn around and do the same thing to you. Read this thing. Captain Ghastlypants (which is not one of Stephen King’s nicknames as far as I know, but hey, it is now) is bursting not only with blood and guts and gore but also witty, helpful advice for aspiring and established writers, gems like:

At its most basic we are only discussing a learned skill, but do we not agree that sometimes the most basic skills can create things far beyond our expectations? We are talking about tools and carpentry, about words and style…but as we move along, you’d do well to remember that we are also talking about magic.

I will admit to a certain amount of breath-holding on my part while reading this, as I was sure that somewhere inside would be a list of Things Writers Shouldn’t Do That Gina Does With Reckless Abandon, but I was relieved to find that most of my process and techniques fall pretty much in line with Captain Ghastlypants himself. I’ll be dragging my family up to a deserted hotel and going crazy and terrorizing them all with a hatchet in no time!

And the winner of the SCORCH audiobook is…
Grace L.!

Winners have also been contacted by email, so get back to me, ladies. Thanks to everyone who entered–and if you’d still like to be the owner of some sweet, sweet ear candy, pick up your own Audible copies of Croak here and Scorch here.

Cent #1: I got involved in community theater when I was around ten. And here’s the great thing (okay, one of the millions of great things) about community theater: it’s a chance for kids to be around grown-ups who are not teachers in a setting that is not school. And not just any grown-ups: talented, welcoming, nice grown-ups who treat kids with the kind of respect that comes with working to create something as a team. As anyone who has ever been in a show knows: you’re in it together, no matter how many times your costume rips open due to some faulty velcro. You embrace the fact that the audience is staring at your lame-ass Sears training bra, you all have a good laugh about it, and the show goes on.

Some of these grown-ups were gay and some of them were straight. But all of them were fun. All of them were cool. And all of them were hilarious. As far as my ten-year-old self was concerned, anyone who could make me laugh until I peed myself was awesome, and I didn’t give a fig who those people slept with when they went home that night. I still don’t. Awesome is awesome. Period.

Cent #2: I am lucky enough to live in a state where gay marriage is legal. (“Massachusetts: Not Just For Sam Adams Impersonators Anymore!”) A few years ago, I attended my first gay wedding. Much like the other weddings I’d been to in the past few years (I am of an age where lots of my contemporaries are getting hitched and shooting out babies like t-shirt cannons) there was cake, there was dancing, and there were M&M favors, which I inhaled well before the toasts even began, as is my way.

But there was something different about this wedding, and it’s this one small element that has garnered it the title of my number one favorite wedding of all time. (Sorry, straight friends–your weddings were still lovely, I swear, and I really enjoyed the steak. It was perfectly cooked.) It wasn’t the wedding program, which was designed to look like a Playbill, and it wasn’t even the brides’ matching custom Converse sneakers. It was the Look.

The ceremony was simple–if memory serves, there weren’t even seats, just an open space where the congregation…congregated. There was music playing, and we waited. The music swelled. It got louder and faster, and just when it hit its climax, two doors on opposite sides of the room opened and the brides walked out.

I’m a writer, so I guess I should be able to describe the looks on their faces, but it’s hard to convey that much joy in words. They were ecstatic. I have never forgotten that look, even though I’m pretty sure I started crying and couldn’t have seen much through the disgusting flood of tears. It summed up the entire marriage equality thing in a single moment of pure emotion. To me, those faces of theirs said more than any Facebook profile logo ever could.

Now, I’m not saying that my straight friend couples weren’t excited to get married. Of course they were, and of course I was when I got married. But there was an extra, added layer in those brides’ excitement that I’d never seen before. As a straight person, I have always known that if I fell in love when I grew up, I could get married and have babies and have the same argument week in and week out about who’s going to take out the recycling. It was a given. But for gay couples, it wasn’t a given. It was something they had to fight for, and in many parts of the country are still fighting for. And the idea that there was a chance that those smiles couldn’t have happened, that these two people in love might not have ever been able to share that moment, is friggin’ ridiculous. It really is.

Cent #.5: Less of the bullshit meanness and intolerance. More of this and this. More plain old human decency, please. This argument has been going on for far too long, and it isn’t even an argument, really. The only argument that we need–that every single American, gay or straight, has the right to shout at each other at two in the morning–is who’s going to take out the recycling.

Everyone deserves that joy.

Oh fine, I’ll just give them away. Fill out the form below and you’ll be entered into a drawing to win one of three prizes:

A) a free download of the Croak audiobook from Audible
B) a free download of the Scorch audiobook from Audible
C) a signed bookplate (5 available)

A winner is you.

The giveaway runs from today until midnight EST next Tuesday, 4/2, and it’s open internationally. You can enter in a plethora of ways: follow on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, or this blog; sign up for my newsletter; or leave a comment below telling me your favorite read-aloud story. Here’s the form, good luck!

Giveaway over, form closed.

For any Boston folk who haven’t been kidnapped by leprechauns/trampled beneath a swarm of drunken college kids wearing shamrock-on-springs headbands/obligatory St. Patrick’s Day reference, I will be appearing with Diana Renn and A.C. Gaughen this Thursday, the 21st, at the Brookline Public Library as part of their New Voices panel. It’s at 6:45pm, and I’m told by a reliable source (their Facebook page) that there will be coffee and cookies. Because caffeine- and sugar-fueled book discussion is the best kind of book discussion.

And this weekend, I’ll be moseying on down to New York City to take part in the NYC Teen Author Festival! Which is pretty much what it sounds like–a whole mess of authors all descending upon the city to shout words at you, shout words at one another in panel discussions, and shout at everyone during one big-ass book signing. I will be appearing at two events:

Born This Way: Nature, Nurture, and Paranormalcy
Panel discussion with: Jessica Brody, Maya Gold, Alexandra Monir, Lindsay Ribar, Jeri Smith-Ready, Jessica Spotswood, moderated by Adrienne Maria Vrettos
Saturday, March 23rd
3:40-4:20pm
42nd Street New York Public Library

The No-Foolin’ Mega-signing
Sunday, March 24th
1:00-1:45pm
Books of Wonder

I urge you to check out the Festival’s full schedule on its Facebook page, because there are so many other great authors and panels in the mix. And for more info and a little bit about the history of the Festival, here’s an article about it in Publishers Weekly.

Hope to see you somewhere!

Good news for your ears! Croak and Scorch are now available as audiobooks on Audible. Here are the steps you should now take:

1.) Click here to buy.
2.) Look like this:

You may opt to listen to them via headphones instead of an old-timey earhorn, but whatever.

Now go feed your head!

Love SHARK! Baby, love SHARK!

Uh, let’s just move on to the awards. (Click on the book cover to go to the author’s website)

Best Pet (animal)
The Last Dragonslayer, by Jasper Fforde
The Quarkbeast is a…thing. A thing that’s sort of like a dog. A dog that enjoys crunching up corrugated iron before breakfast (galvanized corrugated iron only, of course, because the zinc keeps his scales shiny). And the only thing he says is “Quark!” And he has knifelike fangs and is literally made of magic. And he’s loyal to the very end and might just save your life, so I’ll take five, please.

Best Pet (human)
My Life Next Door, by Huntley Fitzpatrick
Okay, George isn’t a pet. He’s a four-year-old human boy, one of the billions of children in the Garrett brood next door. He worries about things like black holes and endangered seals being made into ice cream, because those are clearly both valid concerns. But he’s just so amusing and adorable I’d like to sweep him up like my cat and just hug him until everything is okay again. (And if he’s anything like his older brother Jase, he will grow up to be hot and swoonworthy. Yes, I swooned. No, that doesn’t happen often. Thus is the power of the Garretts.)

Best Makeup
Velveteen, by Daniel Marks
It’s a bummer that you’ve been sentenced to purgatory instead of heaven–if it exists–but hey, at least you’ve got all your memories inside of you. Only one problem–they make your skin glow. So what’s a dead girl to do? Rub ash all over your face to hide the glare, of course. So what if it consists of the remains of all your friends who have passed on before you? It’s exfoliating!

Best Transportation System
Crewel, by Gennifer Albin
I’ve done my fair share of bitching about the subway, I admit. And up until now it’s just sounded whiny, but in comparison to the rebound system in Arras, my complaints are totally justified. In Arras, all you have to do is sit in a chair while the Spinsters (women who have the power to weave reality, like I sometimes do when I will stoplights to change) simply warp time and space until you are in your desired destination. There’s a little bit of nausea involved, sure, but who hasn’t puked on a 4am trip home, am I right?

Best Lines
What Came From The Stars, by Gary D. Schmidt
“It was getting colder and darker, and already the first star was showing over the water–but Tommy didn’t care. It was his twelfth birthday. He had been alive for four thousand three hundred and eighty-three days. He had been alive with his mother for four thousand one hundred and twenty-six of them. He had been alive without his mother for two hundred and fifty-seven of them.”

Aw.

Anyway, this post is not about ice cream, despite all evidence to the contrary. It’s about shards of glass. See, I took a mosaic class a few weeks ago, and it turns out that: broken glass + rocks + jigsaw puzzles + art = cool-ass mosaic. (Also: rocks + hammer = stress relief + blood.) Everyone else in the class was making cute little pictures of seashells and fish and flowers, but ahhhviously it’s nigh impossible for me to make things that are pretty and nice and would nicely decorate the restroom of a country club. Ahhhviously, I made scythes. Specifically, scythes arranged in a design that will play a very important role in Rogue.

The green symbolizes greenness.

And as always, it was difficult to explain to the teacher and students what in the hell I was making. “Well, they’re scythes. Um, weapons. Kinda. From the books I write. Yeah, I guess they could be used for farming? But really they’re more for death. Uh…here’s a bookmark.” *throws a fistful of bookmarks into the air and flees the scene*