GNF: Wedding Bells!

My Good News Friday is that I'm getting married tomorrow in Grafton, Vermont!

Here's a hint at what I'm wearing for at least part of the evening. I've got my something blue covered!

I'm really excited, and ready to eat red velvet cake! Happy weekend, everyone!

Food! Glorious Food!

I've become That Woman. I'm the person who, if Nancy Drew invited me over to dinner so I could give her my advice in solving a case, and housekeeper Hannah Gruen came out of the kitchen bearing her typical "platter of steamed meats," would have to deliver a perky, "None for me, thanks! I'll just have some of these vegetables!"

That's right. I'm That Woman, the one who won't eat everything put in front of her.

About two months ago, I underwent a food conversion. I read a sentence that struck me, something along the lines of, "You can't keep doing the same thing over and over again, and expect different results." Since I'd been doing the same thing over and over again (eating the poor on-the-run diet of writers who practically live in their basements) and getting the same results (slight weight gain, low energy, raging allergies, mood swings), I decided, 'Hmm...maybe do something...different?'

That's how I became a vegan.

Yes, I realize that's a radical change, when I could have tried something more moderate first like giving up one or two items. But why be moderate when you can be extreme???

You know what, though? It really hasn't been hard. I hadn't been eating much meat or chicken for years and while I would have thought the dairy would be hard, it turns out that eating soy cheese instead is a small price for not having a runny nose and runny eyes all the time.

And I really am not totally That Woman, meaning if you invite me over, I don't expect you to make anything special on my account. Really, people seem more than happy to let me eat the salad while they eat everything else.

The benefits so far have been substantial: decreased allergies, increased energy, less dramatic mood swings, a harder body without increasing my usual exercise, and yes, weight loss.

But do I think everyone else should do as I do? Nah. I'm not one of those. And I'll only keep doing it myself so long as it makes me feel good and happy. If it stops, I'll find something else. Maybe the All-Cookie Eating Plan will be next for me? Hmm... Now if only I lived closer to those vegan cupcakes someone posted here earlier this week...

How about you?

QUESTION OF THE DAY: GOT ANY DIETARY QUIRKS I SHOULD KNOW ABOUT BEFORE I INVITE YOU OVER FOR A PLATTER OF STEAMED MEATS?

Be well. Don't forget to write.

Cupcakes for many TFC celebrations!!!!!

Since the topic of the week here at TFC is food, I thought it would be a good day to post about cupcakes. Why? Because we have a lot to celebrate around here! Last Monday was Lauren's birthday. Today is mine and Linda's. Saturday is Melissa's wedding. ETA: (because how could I forget) Saturday is also Sara Hantz's birthday! Alyson's Immortals series is crazy successful. I got to meet Kay at the ALA conference (dude, I think that is totally dessert worthy!) and the list goes on. I mean have you read our Good News Friday posts lately?!?

Now I personally prefer cupcakes to cake. They are the perfect dessert size and come in so many flavors. I love cupcakes so much I decided to get them instead of cake for my upcoming wedding in October. Since I'm vegan, I found this fabulous new business in my area called Vegan Bomb.

We met them at a coffee house and they brought us a bunch of samples to try:

Coconut Lime

Lemon-aide (with vodka injected into it so it tasted like a vodka lemonade!)

Cookies and Cream (with an Oreo on top!)

Mint Chocolate Chip

Peanut Butter (with peanuts on top!)

Strawberries and Cream (with a strawberry wafer on top!)

Chocolate ganache (which was just like a Ho Ho or hostess cupcake!)

Vanilla chocolate chip

They were the most beautiful cupcakes I've ever seen (even more decorative then the generic cupcake picture I found and posted above) and neither my fiance (who is not vegan *at all*) nor I could believe they were completely dairy-free. They were more moist and tasty than any cupcakes we ever had!

My mom's fave was the chocolate ganache. Scott was between the Coconut Lime and Mint Chocolate Chip. I was between Coconut Lime and Peanut Butter and Strawberries and Cream and the Chocolate Ganache. Obviously I am very indecisive. This is another reason why cupcakes instead of cake is good, especially when it comes to a wedding. We can choose a bunch of flavors and guest can pick their faves!

So today I am serving up virtual cupcakes in honor of my fellow TFCers various big days and big news! What flavor will you choose? Today for my bday I am pure chocolate ganache. Mmmmm.

Oh and if you want to come celebrate my birthday and my upcoming Ballads of Suburbia book launch with me even more, please come visit my blog today. I kicked off the Ballads of Suburbia Cyber Release Party! Many of my fellow TFC authors will be participating. But today I did my very first vlog. Actually I did two. One showing off my new tattoo and the other doing a special reading from Ballads of Suburbia! Go here to check out!

Now back to cyber noshing on cupcakes!

My vacation wish list

I don't know about you, but I'm often dreaming about what I'd do if I won the lottery. The big bucks, that is...... like millions and millions (unfortunately, it didn't happen this week, I've just checked my ticket).

Top of my list is to travel. I have so many places I want to visit (I'm lucky enough to have visited many countries, but there are so many more).

So.... where have I visited so far: UK (does that count I lived there most of my life?), New Zealand (I live here now), Australia, Portugal, France, Italy, Greece, Corfu, Rhodes, Ibiza, Israel, Turkey, Venice, Singapore, Hawaii, San Fran, Spain, Fiji.

Where do I want to go: Vietnam, China, Hong Kong, Japan, New York, Canada, New Caledonia, Egypt, Dubai, Barbados, Peru, Switzerland, Alaska, South Africa, Russia, Poland......

Okay, I'm sure there are many more places.

What about you? Where would you love to visit, and where's the most memorable place you've been?

More GNF!!!

Huge congrats to Lauren on her awesome review of CRAZY/BEAUTIFUL. I was lucky enough to read an early copy and I can definitely say that it's all that and more!

My good news this week is that BLUE MOON was released on July 7th (yay!), and that EVERMORE landed at #4 this week on the New York Times Bestsellers List for Children's Paperbacks making for 23 weeks in the top 5 (!!!), and it's at #103 this week on the USA Today list (up 5 from last week!)!

But what I'm really really excited about is the new website my publisher put together--a destination for all things IMMORTALS--and they did such a great job, I'm totally addicted, I keep sneaking back there when I'm supposed to be working! There are chakra charts, screensavers, wallpapers, a place to download your aura--and every time you click on a tulip you will hear an audio clip of a scene not contained in the book!! To check it out for youself just click HERE!

And don't forget to subscribe so you can be the first to know about any exciting IMMORTALS SERIES news!

Well, that's it for me--how about you--what's your good news this week?!

Have a fun weekend-

Alyson

Good News Friday: Early Kirkus

Got the Kirkus review for CRAZY BEAUTIFUL, due out Sept 7. The last line: "Somehow, this romance transcends all of its potential pitfalls to create a powerful story about recovery and friendship. " I'll take it!

How about you? Got any GNF to share?

Be well. Don't forget to write.

Heading for ALA!

For travel week, I thought it would be fitting to talk about what I'm looking forward to most as I travel to Chicago for the ALA national conference. I'll be there Saturday and Sunday, haunting the exhibits area. My ARCs won't be on display until the ALA Mid-Winter Conference in Boston in January, so I get to attend this one solely as a booklover (and host of The Great Scavenger Hunt Contest). Much fun to be had. Here's what I'm excited about:


1. Meeting my fabulous editor. Really, I'm excited to meet the entire Egmont team. They're all completely fabulous. Gooooooo Team Egmont!


2. Getting to hang out with some of the Great Scavenger Hunt Contest librarians. What a terrific bunch of people! If you'll be there, we're meeting near the Egmont booth at 3:30pm on Saturday. Stop by and say hi!


3. Hearing Laurie Halse Anderson speak at the Margaret Edwards luncheon. I'm delighted that I'll be joining my editor and fellow Egmont author Julia Keller for the event.


4. Meeting two of my favorite YA book bloggers. (Waving to Chelsea aka The Page Flipper and Kristi aka The Story Siren.) Chelsea is the very first reviewer to have read The Cinderella Society, so that makes it double the fun.


5. Attending the Egmont launch party Saturday night at the Art Institute of Chicago. I've heard nothing but raves about their BEA launch party, so I know this is going to be a blast. Especially since I get to hang out there with my lovely (and funny) librarian friend Cathy.


6. Did I mention books??? So many great books to discover. I'm hoping to pick up a few ARCs of upcoming Great Scavenger Hunt Contest books so I can do some special giveaways for participating Hunt librarians. We'll see how I fare while I'm there.


Who else is heading to ALA? If you've been there before, what suggestions do you have for a first-timer?

Twilight Goes to School

Clearly, I am too easily amused. Maybe it's because I'm recovering from a non-vacation vacation. Maybe it's because I'm up against a tight deadline. Or maybe it's because these things are just plain funny.

Did you know that Twihards can go to summer school in Forks? I am not kidding. You can read the article here.

This is my absolute favorite, though... Edward schooled by Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Enjoy!

Schools Out!!

This week we’re blogging about school, and, I’m afraid my attitude toward it can best be summed up by THIS.

For those of you who are click shy, that’s Alice Cooper singing the infamous, end of school anthem—"Schools Out." A song they used to play in heavy rotation back in my day, especially around mid-June.

The last day of school was always my favorite day of school. Sure I liked the new clothes, the sharpened pencils, and the nervous making anticipation that the first day would bring—but what I liked even more was ditching the books I had to read in favor of the books I wanted to read and swapping my school clothes for bikinis and flip-flops. Those three, long, glorious months stretched out before me like an overfed cat. Nothing but long days—warm nights—and, as the song says, “No more pencils, no more books . . .”

So tell me, what was your favorite day of school? First or last or somewhere in between?

 

Embarrassing Moments With Tyra Banks

It's Embarrassing Moments week on TFC, and I have to say that one of my most embarrassing moments of this year was when I went to a taping of the Tyra Banks show. I talked about it on my blog, but I'll relive the humiliation here, just for you:

First of all, the three of us got sat in the front row, so Ty Ty was about five feet away from me and I can confirm that she has the smallest ankles you've ever seen. She's genuinely gorgeous, and her body is a great mix of not-too-thin curves.

Here comes the mortification: I got pulled up on stage to dance with the audience prep guy (who ruled and knew all the moves to Beyonce's "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)"). Unfortunately, I do NOT know all the moves to "Single Ladies." In fact, I know zero dance moves. Period. I'm one of those people who won't even get in the middle of a dance circle among friends, so I was totally red-faced. But I realized that if I fought it, it would just draw more attention to me (which I definitely didn't want) so I sucked it up and did some horribly doofy moves up there!

I'm really glad those 2 minutes are over. Confess an embarrassing moment of your own? It'll make me feel better.

GNF!!!

So,  during my morning blog hop I visited The Cafe and thanks to Lauren's post (see below!) I realized it was Friday.

That's right. I had no idea what day it was. This is occurs more often than I'd like to admit!

Anyway, I do have some good news to share--stuff I'm pretty dang excited about, so here goes:

EVERMORE remains at #4 this week on the NYT Best Seller list for Children's Paperbacks, making for 5 straight months in the top 5!!!! It's also still on the USA Today and Publisher's Weekly Best Seller Lists and I can't thank YOU enough for all your support!

Also, I just agreed to add a sixth book in THE IMMORTALS series!!!

And, Riley (Ever's ghostly sister in EVERMORE) will be getting her own series debuting in Fall of 2010!!!

I can't tell you how excited I am to extend THE IMMORTALS and to give Riley her own story line. She was so fun to write, and I can't wait to reprise her!

Also, Turkish rights were recently sold- so Woo-Hoo to that!  My husband and I had planned to go there for our honeymoon, but work plans derailed it, but now it looks like we'll get a second chance!!!

Also, just 11 more days now until BLUE MOON hits the stores and it just got an awesome review from The Story Siren today who gave it 5 Stars!!!  You can read it HERE!

Oh, and the BLUE MOON trailer is up on YouTube!! You can see it HERE!

Okay, that's it from me--what about you???  Any good news?  Any weekend plans? Spill all in the comments!!

Good News Friday: The "Where's Alyson???" Edition

I'm sure I could come up with some piddling GNF item to post today of my own, and I know I'd like you all to know my husband Greg Logsted's latest book ALIBI JUNIOR HIGH came out on Tuesday - please buy it and tell the world! - but what I'd really like to know is:

Where is Alyson Noel??? And why hasn't she posted her own GNF yet???

More GNF!!!

Huge Congrats to Lauren and Stephanie on their exciting news, and since it's GNF I figured I'd add some of my own!

Just 18 more days now until BLUE MOON, book 2 in THE IMMORTALS series, hits the shelves, but you can watch the book trailer HERE!

Also, EVERMORE hit #4 this week on the NYT Best Seller list for Children's Paperbacks--making for 19 weeks in the top 5, and it also jumped to#89 on the USA Today list, and remains at #2 on the Publisher's Weekly Best Seller list for Children's Fiction!

So THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for that!!

And in case you're wondering, those pictures above are of the EVERMORE and BLUE MOON cakes my publisher served at a little party they threw for my in NYC last week!! They were so beautiful I was reluctant to eat them--but, I did, and they were Delicious!!!!

So what about you--any good news to share?  Any plans for the weekend?

Happy Friday Everyone!

Alyson

xoxo 

GNF: The Lauren Edition!

In the immortal words of Stephanie K: Happy Good News Friday!

Here's mine for today, two new advance reviews for Crazy Beautiful:

A Curious Reader

Teens Know Best

It's making me happy.

How about you - any good news to share?

Be well. Don't forget to write.