1. Kudos to all of you who are brave enough to head out shopping on this rainy (here, anyway) Black Friday. There’s not a chance in Wal-mart I’m going shopping today. (And yes, for me that is exactly the same as saying not a chance in hell. Can you tell I’m not a good shopper?)
2. THIS may be one of the reasons I’m staying away from the stores. Yikes. How awful. Even without tragedy, though, there’s no way I’m going to tackle this: or this:Way too scary for me. (Actually, there probably aren’t as many people in my town as there are in that crowd picture, but still, even small-town crowds are too big for me. I’m very much a wuss when it comes to large gatherings of any sort.)
3. Instead, I’m staying home to bake desserts for a potluck lunch date with some writer friends (old and new) tomorrow. I’m thinking cappuccino cheesecake may be in order. And maybe spice cookies. Mmmm….
4. It’s almost time to start Christmas baking, too. I love Christmas baking! And this year my work schedule actually allows plenty of time for Christmassy things, so yay for that.
5. And hey! Only three weeks until this:
   
   Son 3 and I can’t wait! Have you read the book? Kate DiCamillo is an amazing storyteller.

Peace, my friends. And don’t be afraid to just say no to shopping.

I bought a pair of shoes yesterday, which isn’t what I would usually consider blog-worthy. But see, I hate shopping. HATE it. I wait until I’m absolutely desperate (like, my jeans are falling apart and can no longer be worn in public without eliciting gasps from passersby). The exception, of course, is shopping for books. That’s a whole different story. But the clothes and shoes thing… blech. So yesterday, I came home and told my husband I’d actually browsed in a shoe store. I told him I bought a pair because they were so cute and they were on sale. Then I slapped my hand over my mouth, realizing I’d just said the most stereotypically girly thing I’ve ever said in my entire life.

But I do like my new shoes…

You probably know I’m thrilled that my town has a gorgeous new indie bookstore, Coho Books. I came across some great ideas on supporting local bookstores on Justina Chen Headley’s blog and thought I’d share…. Maybe one or two of them are things you can do for your own fave bookstore!

Justina’s Fab Five Ways to Support Your Local Bookstore:

1. Attend an in-store author event. Actually, don’t just attend one event. Attend a bunch of them. The sad thing is that so many author events aren’t attended by many people. Oh gosh, at readergirlz, Ann Brashares (she of Sisterhood book, movie, and fame) told us about a recent signing where NO ONE showed up. SAD for the author, but GOOD for you. This just means that you might have a super intimate conversation with one of your favorite authors of all time.
2. Bring your friends. Make a pact to bring a group of friends with you to these author events: the more, the merrier. It could be a standing date with all your favorite readergirlz buddies: author comes to town; you all head out to hang out with the writer.
3. Buy first edition books…from your local indie bookseller. Soooo…about 7 years ago, my hubby trotted home with an auction catalog from Sotheby’s where they were selling off a book from the very first UK printing of Harry Potter 1. He said, “We should go for it!” I said, “What? That’s the dumbest investment idea I’ve ever heard of. We should invest in…HomeGrocer.com.” (I know, I know.) Well…guess what that first edition copy is worth now. And it’s not just Jo’s books that become valuable. But forget collectability…go to 4!
4. Give books as gifts. (And books autographed to your BFF are even better…) Over at readergirlz, we created our gift giving guide for the holidays: Best Books for Your BFF. Those bookmarks, filled with fun and fabulous book lists from our beloved postergirlz advisory committee (the smartest and kindest and most expert children’s lit bloggers on the planet), are actually perfect year-round. Books are a gift from the heart. Your heart.
5. Negotiate a Package Deal with Your Bookseller. I thought this was such a good idea from University Bookstore here in Seattle. They’re offering a bundle of autographed books from visiting authors for a set (read: discounted) price. Why not pitch this idea to your local bookseller? Eoin Colfer, Jon Scieska (new Children’s Lit ambassador for the U.S.), Libba Bray, Shannon Hale and so many other fantastic authors are TOURING the country right now. As in: RIGHT NOW. If they’re heading your way, talk to your bookseller. That way, even if you can’t attend the booksigning, you can still get a book personalized for yourself and / or your BFF.

Long live (and love) our independent booksellers. Feel free to REPOST these ideas everywhere.

We have a bookstore! A brand spanking new bookstore in my little town (why is something new spanking?), and I am one happy girl. Not that I need more books. That’s never stopped me before, though, and now I can actually browse the shelves and see all the wonderful covers and smell the new paper and feel the pages between my fingers and…. Shopping at Amazon.ca just doesn’t compare. I get my books, sure, but I don’t get the multi-sensory experience of actually shopping for them! And now I can. Yay!

I pored over the YA section then had a nice chat with the owner. Maybe next time I’ll suggest a few potential additions to her YA collection (which was quite impressive for the small store, but still missing a few key authors, IMHO — like Sarah Dessen, one of my fave YA authors, whose books consistently offer realistic feels-like-you-know-them characters, in addition to their compelling storylines). I selected a couple books (how could I go in there all happy to discover the store and not support it?!) and headed home.

I hope our little store makes it. It should — the only competition is the grocery store’s poorly arranged aisle of books. There’s not a chance of a big box store coming in here to defeat it (a la You’ve Got Mail) so as long as people stay away from Amazon and support their new indie, it should be a success.

And now, for some strange reason, I’ve got the urge to watch something with Tom Hanks in it. Ah, but I see my new book sitting on the coffee table, and it’s calling me. Sorry, Tom, you’ll have to wait.

This is sad. It’s inventive, I suppose, and proactive. But sad.

I just did the back-to-school shopping thing with my youngest the other day. I always loved new school supplies when I was a kid — and I still do! Pencils, pens, fresh new notebooks. Yes, I know I’m a dork. But I always love an excuse for new post-its or pens. Like, you wouldn’t want to mark your needed edits to your current writing project with the same colours you used for the previous one, right?

New gym shoes and jeans and backpacks are part of the back-to-school thing, too, but I can’t foresee ever, ever buying bullet-proof packs or clothes for my kids. (It’s not like I’m Cody Banks’ mom, or like I’m employed by CTU or something.) It’s horrible that there are very real, tragic events that prompted the invention of the bullet-proof backpack, and I’m all for working to ensure the safety of kids everywhere. But I can’t buy into this one. I refuse to see our schools as war zones. Maybe some people will think I’m in denial, but somewhere in the midst of the risks and fears, I think there must be room for a measure of faith.

True, I’m not the one heading into the war zone… er, classroom. So what do you think?

Is there a support group for people who can’t stop buying books? I know I’m not alone in this addiction. It is so getting out of control. Help. Somebody. Save me. I’m binging without purging (get rid of some books? are you crazy?!), and now I’ve become a closet book-buyer. No, I don’t take my laptop into the closet so I can shop online in private (hmmm…), but I am starting to hide my purchases, pretend I haven’t bought any more (“that old thing? had it for ages”), and generally do anything I have to do to get away with bringing more books into the house. It’s bad, I know. So, a 12-step program, you think?

I’m having jeans issues. I was getting desperate for a new pair because I live in my jeans and they were all very worn out. So a couple weeks ago I went shopping with my daughter at Bluenotes (because we have no Old Navy here) and found a great pair… I thought. Maybe I was blinded by the back-to-school sale price. Anyway, this week the weather has turned fall – which I am so not ready for, but that’s a different story – so I pulled out the jeans. Not good. They fit fine, but suddenly between my last pair and this pair I seem to have gotten too old for low-rise flares. So off I went and found myself some Levis. Nice faded blue wash (not the weird dark wash with near-white wear areas added for, um, fashion). Nice fit, too. So I dished out the $$ for those yesterday. After I got home, I realized they over-charged me. Sigh. So I’ll have to go back and check about that. Still, I was so glad to have my new jeans. Put them on this morning and thought my feet looked weird. I know, usually it’s the butt that we worry about, but I looked down at my shoes and thought, “that just looks wrong”. I’d purchased the straight-leg instead of the bootcut. Man, I don’t believe it. So do I want to exchange them? Will I regret it if I don’t? Tune in next time….

That was a whole lot of rambling nonsense, but, honestly, it’s what was on my mind at the moment. Now that I’ve gotten that out, I can focus on other things. Like writing! I sat in bed last night with my laptop and stayed up way too late doing character sketches for my next YA novel. I love doing those – gets me psyched for all the writing that’s to come. I still need some “pondering” time, tossing around ideas for the story, and then I will begin.

I’ve registered for Lauren Barnholdt’s classes on writing YA fiction for girls. It starts October 1. I’ll start writing the story then. Can’t wait!

At the moment, it’s time to bake some chewy, chocolately cookies. If I eat too many, my jeans decision will be made for me ’cause they won’t fit and I’ll have to exchange them. Not a good plan – won’t do that! But I still think my feet look funny….

Just bought a mouse for my laptop. Took me AGES to open the blasted packaging! What’s with that over-sized perma-sealed heavy-duty plastic? Do we really need that much protection for anything? It actually says on the packaging that the mouse is “tough”, among other desirable rodent traits, yet apparently it still needs a hard shell of environmental poison to protect it until I get it home. It’s pretty dangerous, too (the packaging, I mean – the mouse itself looks pretty tame); you could take an eye out with it. Well, you could seriously cut yourself on the edge of it while ferociously ripping at it with one hand while you cling to your sanity with the other. Oh, save me from over-packaging.

Other than that, the day has been lovely.   My hubby rode his bike 40-some km to the next town and I drove there to meet him for coffee – all these quiet hours to fill, you know, now that the kids are back in school.

Time to polish up the synopsis for The Best Worst Year. ‘Til later….