Random Thoughts on a Friday

1. I'm a Wikipedia entry! I'm so excited about this I can hardly stand it. I use Wiki like, a million times a day, and here I am, listed and everything. Check it out....Leigh in Wikipedia!

2. The winner of a free signed hardcover of LOVE, MEG will be announced next week. You can still enter to win over at Teen Book Review's blog where I was a guest blogger. Just post a comment, something like, "Leigh, you're the most awesome writer that ever lived!" or maybe just, "Hey, give me a free book!"

3. And speaking of blogging, I'll be a guest blogger at Young Adult's blog next week. Not sure of the date yet but you can come check that out too.

4. Next week I'll be on the east coast, doing some east coast book-type things. On June 26th I'll be reading and talking at the Wallingford Public Library (Connecticut) at 7PM and on June 29th I'll be reading and signing at the Borders in Farmington (Connecticut) at 2PM. I'm pretty excited about both of those visits - as you know I love libraries and who wouldn't love people who sell books? Especially mine!

5. The first rewrite of the book I finished last week is almost done. My deadline for getting it finished was this upcoming trip. I hate having things hanging over my head. Now I will be free to think about the rewrite of another book (I swear I do love rewriting) and developing a brand new idea which I am super-duper thrilled about. I can't wait to allow my mind to explore a new story with new characters - so many possibilities!

And last but not least...
6. Who watched Celebrity Circus on Wednesday night? Come on, raise your hands! How much fun was it to see Peter Brady (a/k/a Christopher Knight) set himself on fire? Or Wee Man tumble around in a wheel? Personally, I'm rooting for Rachel Hunter, who is the most graceful of all of them. Maybe she's not as athletic as the others but she looks fantastic!

Fat Girls in LA

The title of this post, as many people know, was the original title of ALL ABOUT VEE.

While I was visiting schools last week – particularly the high schools in Wallingford and Cheshire and my old college in Massachusetts – most of the teens and women expressed surprise that the beautiful young woman on the cover of my book was considered “plus-size” by the modeling world. The comments I got were:

“She’s the same size as me and I am not plus-size.” (She wasn’t.)
“She looks like a regular woman to me.” (To me as well.)
“I don’t care what they say – she’s gorgeous and I love that dress.” (So do I.)

The conversation then moved onto the recent win of the first plus-size model on “America’s Next Top Model.” Whitney is a size 10.

“Size ten? That’s my size! And I am not plus-size.” (She really wasn’t.)

I mention this because it made me so happy to hear those comments from teens I hope to influence with my book. I’m glad to know that there are lots and lots of girls out there who don’t subscribe to the “thinner is better” philosophy like so many people do (and as a dancer, believe me, I see and hear it all – that’s another blog post).

You know, there are so many blogs in what they call the Fatosphere that host fantastic discussions about what it’s like to be heavy in a skinny world and all of the discrimination women face when they don’t look like models (check out some of my faves, like Shapely Prose, The F-Word, Disordered Times, Fat Lot of Good, and many more) and I wouldn’t pretend to try to give an account of that sort of discrimination. I can only talk about weight issues from my point of view – that of someone who has ALWAYS considered herself to be overweight.

So I will.

Stay tuned…

Whoo-hoo, Cheshire High!

Ah, the old alma mater...so much has changed, so much has remained the same. For instance, I walked in the side door which used to be near the main office and I told them I was a visitor and they looked at me like I was crazy. The main office had moved to the front of the building!

This is the WRONG door!

This is the RIGHT door!

But the Senior Walk was still there and the gym (there are 2 now) and the library looked the same too, although they had way more computers than we ever had (computers were just a bare figment of the popular imagination then).

Me with Ellen Speirs

The first class librarian Ellen Speirs introduced me to was Diann Milone's Creative Writing class. I think they might have been a little shy (or sleepy?) because they were kind of quiet but they did get very animated when talk turned to Veronica and her size (they didn't think the girl on the cover was at all plus-size).


Second class was World Lit, Megumi Yamamoto's class, which we sat for in the library. They had a lot more questions and wanted to know about writing and publishing and what sort of movies I like that had been adapted from books.


After lunch (with the teachers in the faculty lounge! I felt like I was spying!) where I met a teacher from my old days, Rob Schaefer (although I didn't have him as a teacher), I went back to the library to talk to Donna Carbone's Film and TV class. After telling them all about my experience as a script supervisor and standards editor, talk quickly turned to writing, especially screenwriting and books and LOST and movies and Denzel Washington and how great Robert Downey Jr was in "Iron Man."


It was another amazing day with more amazing students! I hope they all remember to email me if they have questions I didn't get to answer.


I think I'll have to devote an entirely separate blog post to all the stuff I observed at CHS and how it influenced what and why I write about schools in my own books.

Oh and a Cheshire Herald reporter was there to interview me which was way cool because I remembered that a couple of the very first things I had ever written were for that publication many, many years ago! They were sports articles! Wow, strange how things come back to you, huh?

Whoo-hoo, Sedgwick Middle School!

Wow - Sedgwick Middle in West Hartford was A-MA-ZING!

Even though I knew I was going to be in an auditorium, I had NO idea so many students would be there. OMG - it was like two hundred, I think? All I know is that I made nowhere near enough cookies (yes, more cookies because Vee would want that, ya know?).

I had to use one of those handheld mikes. This is me looking oh-so-cool(It was my tribute to the final showdown on Idol tonight! Good thing no one asked me to sing!)

The students asked some great questions, like:

--What do I think of books being turned into movies? (some yes, some no, but mostly no because I have it all pictured in my head the way everyone should look)

--What genre of books do I prefer to read? (science fiction, absolutely)

--What famous authors have I met? (the fantastic Ray Bradbury)

--Do I have a lot of stories I want to write? (YES!!!)

--What keeps me writing? (all the stories in my head that I want to write)

--Do I ever get bored writing? (NEVER!)

--Was it hard keeping all the different Vee characters straight? (Yes, but that's because all their voices sound different to me)

And then they wanted to know about my schooling and the previous jobs I had and that was fun too. I showed them my website and a couple of the videos Ninja did for me and they liked those but they had so many questions! I wish I could have kept answering them.

If any Sedgwick student reads this and has more questions, please email me!!

And then at the end I met a group of girls who had read my books or were on the waiting list for them, which is very cool. Some of them want to be writers too!

So even though I was scared to death walking into that auditorium, I left feeling really terrific. I had a great afternoon. Thanks to Shannon McNeice and all the teachers at Sedgwick - and the amazing students!

Tomorrow I am headed to Cheshire High (my alma mater!). Btw, Rachel has extended the deadline for the VEE contest so get on over there and enter to win yourself a FREE copy. Free Vee! LOL! I love it...

Whoo-hoo, Sheehan High!

Yesterday, I visited Laura Cappelli's creative writing class at Sheehan High in Wallingford, Connecticut. You may recall I mentioned this school was a rival of the high school I attended back in the Stone Age (you know, the pre-Internet and cell phone days).

Some people, not naming any names here but you know who you are, teased me about being a cheerleader. I'll have you know I was the captain of the squad, thank you very much. I hope you'll bow down a little lower next time I pass...:)

I was all set to talk to them for a typical class length period of time - 40-45 minutes. Imagine my shock when I heard the teacher say, "We work in blocks here...so your class will start at twenty to one and go until...

...two."

Um. An hour and twenty minutes?

"Actually an hour and twenty-four minutes."

AUGHHHHH!! went my brain.

"That sounds fantastic," went my voice.

I could not have believed that I would talk for that long - and thanks to the students and their great questions, I really didn't have to. They all wanted to know about writing, about the process, about my process, about publishing. I mentioned to them a horror story I had written and they really wanted to hear that.

I promise to put that on the website when I get back to LA. Promise, promise.

I even read a little from the new book which they seemed to like. So all in all, whew, it was a great time. For me, anyway. I hope it was for them too.

So today, I'm off to Sedgwick in West Hartford. I've got cookies (shh!) and my Ninja Webmaster is going to project my website and maybe show off the little video interviews he did. I hope it goes as well as it did at Sheehan.

More to come...

Leaving on a jet plane...

Very soon, I will be winging my way across the country to the east coast where I'll be visiting some schools and teaching a class at my college reunion in the next week or so.

First up on Monday is a visit to Sheehan High School in Wallingford, Connecticut - very excited about this. Sheehan was a rival school when I lived in my hometown of Cheshire. I can remember being a cheerleader and getting on the team bus to travel there for basketball games. That was so much fun! I'll have to ask if they still do that or if they all drive themselves. We did have cars back then (duh!) but it was a team-building thing to travel on the bus together.

Next on Tuesday will be a visit to Sedgwick Middle School in West Hartford, Connecticut. I'm a little nervous about this one! I'll be in an auditorium of 100 kids, not in a small classroom or library like I'm used to. What will I say? I hope they're nice to me. Monica Ahern and Shannon McNeice have been super about getting things together for my visit and prepping the students with information about me and my books so maybe they'll ask questions. If all else fails, I'll start dancing.

Then on Wednesday I'll be talking to several classes at my old alma mater, Cheshire High School. These students want to know about writing as well as the stuff I used to do, the script supervising and standards work. Boy, did I have to take some time to refresh my brain! I think your mind sort of throws away the things you don't do anymore so it can make room for new things and lately, I've had a lot of new things so I've had to throw away a LOT of old things. I'm lucky if I can remember my own phone number!

Then at the end of the week, I'll be at Mount Holyoke College, this time to celebrate my class reunion and also to teach a class to my fellow alums. This should be a lot of fun because I will be talking, not about myself, but about other YA authors and their books. I'm calling the discussion, "Not Your Mother's YA: Beyond Judy Blume." I'll bet you didn't know I put titles to my talks, did you? When I discuss writing, I call it "Just Finish It!" because that's the number one thing I tell people they need to do.

And speaking of...I have to finish getting ready to leave soon. I can't wait for my trip!

Taft’s Passport to Awesomeness

On Saturday, I had a great time at Taft High School’s Passport to Reading event and got a chance to hang out with my student escort Dorna and her sister Aida who are pictured here with me and their friend (whose name I didn’t get, sorry!!).

They showed me all around the school –which is HUGE! I would certainly get my workout running from class to class there everyday. They even took me to the brand new art gallery which showcased some amazing work from the students. I was majorly impressed.

I also got a chance to meet the fantastic, award-winning author, Sally Nemeth, who is in the picture with me below. She told me all about her book, “The Heights, the Depths and Everything in Between” which has been nominated for an Oklahoma State Sequoyah Award! Whoo-hoo! How awesome is that? Come check out her website for more info.

Thanks to all at Taft but especially Dorna and Aida who made my visit totally memorable!