Hey, all. This is probably the longest I’ve gone without blogging, for which you have my abject apologies. Travel makes the internets hard.
As I’ve said, I’m on a research tour for Leviathan, checking out all the European locations for the novel and, of course, the Zeppelin hangars of Friedrichshafen, Germany. (We’re not there yet, but you’ll be seeing those in later posts.)
My first trick was seeing the Alps from above, straight from the plane on the way to Rome:
Awesome mountains. I’m so glad I set part of Leviathan here.
In Rome, I finished the Uglies Guide. (Look for that this fall.)
Then we flew to London for a mini-tour of England. Thanks to everyone who warmly welcomed us there, and asked such interesting questions. My favorite: “Did writing Uglies make you see people differently?” Still mulling that one.
Right now, Justine, Holly Black, Maureen Johnson, Cassandra Clare, and I are all ensconced in a 17th-century tower in Bologna, Italy. We’re attending the annual Children’s Book Fair here, where publishers from many lands come to sell and buy translation rights for teen and kid books.
So far I’ve met with publishers from France, Israel, Holland, Germany, Australia, and the UK, some by chance and some by design. Brazil and Thailand are tomorrow. It’s a great way to meet a lot of the far-flung publishing world, and to find out weird stuff about how teens in different places read. Here are a few factoids:
Germany loves fantasy. The magicker the better, so say the Germans.
Holland doesn’t like fantasy or science fiction, but Maureen Johnson rules there.
Manga is so huge in Italy that there’s a teen imprint named after a manga character.
Ugies is a monster hit in France.
Another cool thing about Bologna is seeing all the art. One of my favorite traditions is the huge bulletin board where hopeful young illustrators pin up their work for publishers to look at:
This photo shows just a tiny fraction of the art here, of course. There are any huge aircraft-hangar sized spaces fool of books and art. It’s an awesome display of creativity.
Less uplifting is the vast Hall of Agents, where agents sit at tiny desks pitching books to possible buyers all day long. My hats off to those who toil in the mighty foreign rights mines:
Anyway, enough of the business end of things. On Friday, the research tour moves into the Tyrolean mountains, and a week later into the Zeppelin hangars of Friedrichshafen!
Pictures will be posted.
comment 50. hehe. don’t i feel special!
okie dokie. well i is goin to bed. night. night.
(p.s. earliest i’ve been to bed for a couple months! yay! go me! i love sleep! -10:28 here-)
I got my Hamster today! And I named her after Tally!
Emily-wa:
1) I think it sounds cooler with a “la”.
2) Who says I don’t like Scott Westerfeld as much as (more than!) J.K. Rowling?
lol.
guys this is scary-making.
we got out of school early
cause there’s a bunch of tornado warnings.
Not happy-making.
Is anybody else sleepy? I am. Which is odd, considering It’s only 5:30 here. Ah well. Just felt like posting randomly. And now, I must go eat dinner so I can get to the school dance on time. Whoo! Toodles all.
I always get tornado warnings. No biggy. they never happen. Ok, so there are small ones but not by my house.
It is 6:16 here and in am a little tired too. Its a friday thing. All you want to do i go to bed nice and late……and wake up 3 days later!
3 days later, lol. I’ve been through one tornado when I was at my Aunt’s house visiting but she lives in a different state. I thought my little brother was gonna pee his pants cuz he was soooooooooo scared!
I went to Borders and got a new copy of Uglies cuz my friends trashed my other one…And I got Marked, Betrayed, and Chosen all by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast. Anyone know if they’re good? I’m gonna start reading them now.
I’ve seen them….not that that helps at all but they look good
Ughh….I’ve been reading tons of different types of books (I got like 8 of them at the store on Monday-Thank you “Easter Bunny”) and I’m stuck on the Book Theif and I have no idea why lol It feels like the story’s never going to end! (Or that might be because I haven’t read much this week and I’m only on page 200 something out of a 550 page book)
Oh and just a question: Does anyone else like the Outsiders by S.E. Hinton besides me?
My book discussion group has to read it and everyone’s going “This book’s stupid, I don’t wanna read it” and I’m about to kick someone if it doesn’t stop lol
I would have suggested one of Scott’s books if it wasn’t for the fact that I knew no one would want to read them, like with the Outsiders
yo all!!!!!!!
it’s 9:12 here, but i’m not tired AT ALL. i’m in the mood for a 3am night (morning?) then a noon morning (afternoon?).
COUNTRY MUSIC ROX!
sry i had 2 scream that, but mom is putting lil’ kids 2 bed, so i’d be like grounded for months if i did.
well gtg
i loved the Outsiders! it was one of the best books i’ve ever read. how can people not like it?! ….that is some serious crazyness!
I know all about those tornado warnings it not as scarry-making as they make it sound, if they even touch gound (vary rare) they only last a few moments. Hurricanes aren’s as bad as they sound either if you are prepared for them. I should know I live in Florida and was here when all 4 hurricanes hit. Charley I think was the worst (i got my braces on the day before ( now off) ). It was torture with no electricity for 3 weeks. It was super hot and humid too not happy-making
Points pointedly at my name. GUESS WHO GOT A BLOG?!? Total w00tness.
Omg! I’m super-excited for the Uglies guide! 🙂 It’s awesome that you got to go around Europe, though I do wish some of your novels were published in Asia and Eastern countries
~i
weird. i got this strange voicemail message on my phone this morning. and i thought it was just my friends pranking me but it’s odd cuz it didn’t appear as a restricted call which is usually what my friends do. and i didn’t know the number. and it was a different area code than usual. strangeness.. well i is gonna go google the area code. see if i can remember who lives there.
thats is kind of weird!
even stranger. i don’t know anyone who lives in or is from Louisiana.
What was the area code? and number???
Lousisiana??? wow thats strange…. what did the message say?
lol i hope this isn’t someone i knows cuz giving it out online would probably p.o. them. but oh well 337-401-0223.
Wow, what a gorgeous view.
The whole bulletin board thing is a pretty sweet concept.
it was really hard to understand and the person said like half of my last name and then they were mumbling and they they were like it’s 7:30 and were boosing up on the boose (did i spell that right? idk. alcohol. that’s what it is.) and then they were like give us a call back at the number i just gave you.
i can think of this one girl who is from Mississippi (which is right next to Louisiana) that just moved here last year and she is in my spanish class. she is semi-friends with one of my semi-friends. so maybe they hung out last night and decided to prank me. idk. only explenation i can come up with.
ugh… i just found out band camp is the same exact week as softball 2-a-days which is going to be hell. cuz i’ll have to wake up at 5:30 go to the softball fields run until 7 then take a shower go to the highschool to march and play my insterment from 8-12 then go home and rest till 2:30 so i can be back out at the softball field at 3 to practice until 5. omigod. i will die. last week i almost didn’t survive 2-a-days alone and that was an entierly different week then band camp. now they are just trying to kill us cuz usually after the morning conditioning i can’t move. my legs get all shaky and i have a hard time walking. and now they want me to march for 4 hours right after. wow. this is going to suck.
ok well i gotta go clean the house. 🙁
My grandma has no freakin computer or, obviously, internet
so I was stuck in the middle of Nowhere, Florida for days without internet or anything to do
okay it was only two days
then we went to do things
but I’m not someone who can live like that
Where in florida?
There are softball camps? Really, I’v been playing 4 years & never heard of 1.
I don’t even know
Hahaha! No internet! that always sucks. It has happened to me! i Dieed and then came back to life!!1
Wow its been like hours since anyone has said anything. Well……i see how it is!
there are softball camps. but this isn’t one of them. see we have a school team that starts up every fall and to make the school team you have to go to summer conditioning at 9 a.m. and then 11-1 practices every day in the summer but those are pretty easy. but then the week before school starts we have 2-a-days which means two practices a day and those you have to be out at the field at 5:45 a.m. and it’s basically pure sprinting until 7 a.m. and usually i get to go home and rest and sleep and strech until like 2:30 so i can be all energiezed to go out and practice softball skills at 3 until 5. and it really does suck. i mean there was this one day where i had decided i was done and didn’t wanna do it anymore cuz it sucked so very much. cuz at conditioning that day i had started hyperventillating and it was just really bad. but eventually i changed my mind, and convinced myself to stick it out. but that week was awful. and now this year instead of having band camp 2 weeks before school starts they’ve decided to have it the week before school starts which is the same week as 2-a-days. which means i will have to go to conditioning, come back, shower, go to band camp for 4 hours, come back, rest, strech, go to practice again for 2 hours. it’s going to be very suckish. i can hardly wait. *says in a sarcastic tone*
today was a lot of fun. we went to the lakes and hung out with all my fawesome fam. and had a bon fire. and made smores. but my eyes burn with fire. cuz the smoke irritated them. well i think i’m actually gonna go watch a movie instead of reading. very strange of me. cuz i’m addicted to the Private books. everybody go read them. they are very good.
Wow fun filled day, I ended playing with my rec team because u cant play w/ ur school & rec team (cuz my schools rules sucks). any way my day is wake at 5am at school till 2 on the bus till 3 and then work from 3-7 and have practice/games about 2-3 times a week from 7-9 then i have the privlege to do my homework, the funnest part of my day(sarcasm there). Im glad u had a good time w/ ur family
sweet!!!!!!!!!!!!1 wow i haven’t been on here for ever!
I have school tomorrow
today is my last day of spring break
*sobs head off*
your just lucky you get a spring break Netta-la. me is not so lucky.
Me 2 Netta-la I am not ready to go back to school just yet =(
Wow, I had started to give up hope on Scott-sama ever posting another entry. I don’t know if I’m going to like the new Uglies guide, because I think most of the fun of books like this is leaving some things to the imagination, but oh well I guess I’ll check it out.
Has anyone else noticed that conversations here always start as about what Scott-sama was writing about and then about halfway down the page, people forget why they’re here and start talking about themselves to each other? it’s kind of cute.
Because I will totally make the Top 100 😉
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7348103/ uglies the numan are
so very bored. writting a journalism report. well….procrastinating writting a journalism report. lol. hehe.
yipes that phone call would be creepy……….probly some drunk dude or something.
last night my dad and uncle heard like, a loud rustling in the woods, and my older sis heard a noise on the other side of the house, and this morning we checked and there were footprints like in this mud and nobody’s been there after this big rainstorm, so we called the police, and he says he thinks it’s just some teenagers or something, so ya. it still’s sorta creepy…..o well (i hope).
i’m sorta paranoid now, and i keep thinking someone’s gonna grab me from behind or something so o well. mom and dad won’t let us out by ourselves but dad let me out by myself cuz it was still light, then when it started getting a little dark he called me in…..don’t blame him tho…..
sigh this is wierd. we live on this big BIG hill so we dont get many…visitors. make that none at all.
it could make a good story plot tho: stalkers from a drug dealer and think that u know something so they kidnap you….something like that. o-]-< dunno
wow. that’s like a million times creepier than the phone call i got. freaky. be careful!
YEAH!! Besides being my normal book reading, liturature loving, novel writing self (i like that!) i i like to get on the computer. And as we all know there are some really fun games to play. Well……theres this game that came out about a year or so ago and i fell in love with it!!! there the original version called The Sims but they came out with the new one (again) a year or so ago and its called The Sims 2. anyone ever played it? have it? LOVE it? Well if you didnt say yes to any of those you need to go to
Sims2.com
It is awesome. And yes i no it isnt a link above!! Basically, you make people and you play there life. I always make me because i love me!! and becaus its fun to play urself. You get married ahve kids and your kids have kids and you die and there kids have kids and it keeps going and its awesome. there tons of all these expansion packs to make the game play better too and i just had to tell you about that becasue i finished playing it about an hour ago and my toddler became a kid. Shes so cute!
You should look at the site cause it shows you some awesome stuff!
ha yeah i love the sims2 too. very fool. it came out awhile ago though, cuz i had it before i moved. and that was like 3 years ago. the day it came out me and my brother both bought our own. and during the move mine got lost in all the boxes and whatnot. so i haven’t had mine for 3 years now. and now my brother has lost his too. so now no one in my fam has one. kinda suckish. but i might go buy another one sometime.
Yeah!!!! I got my dad to buy Sweeny Tod!!!!!! I am so excited. The only reason he bought it though is because he is starting a Tim Burton collection.
I love Superman/Tom Welling!!!!
What up peeps? I’m Back! I was gone, of anyone noticed…or cared…so I have my first Softball practice tomorrow! Excited much! It’s gonna be really fawesome!
yeah, hi, i’m not dead and all that.
YES! I FINALLY HAVE SPRING BREAK! A WEEK OF FREEDOM!
stop rubbing it in! we don’t have it for WEEKS! sigh. 😥
well gtg.
Okay, so it’s the first day back from spring break
I shouldn’t have too much homework, right?
WRONG
I have roughly 50 math problems and homework in every other subject.
we lost our sims 2 cd and my dad went to washington DC, but he never loaded seasons on my computer so I can’t use that cd either and I’m probably making no sense.
no ur not making that much sense