Help Me Start A Fire

It's Opening Week(end) for Wild Bird. 

If you have thought you might want to buy this book - for yourself, for your teen, for your friend, for a Christmas gift, for what/whomever - please consider buying it this week. (Unless you're coming out to see me on tour, and then buy it at that bookstore!)

Why?

Because books, like movies, get (or lose) their momentum from that crucial first week of sales/box office. 

I remember reading an interview with Oprah about her movie Beloved which put the reality of opening weekend into harsh perspective. Here's an excerpt:

Q: And then, after 10 years of struggling to get the film made, Beloved opened and Bride of Chucky beat it at the box office.

WINFREY:  I didn’t know what the hell Bride of Chucky was.  And I didn’t know anything about how the movie business worked because I was doing my daily show.  I was all excited.  I didn’t know that you only had one weekend, and then it’s over.  So,  it came out on a Friday, and that Saturday morning I got a call and they said, “That’s it.”  I got the call at like 8:30 in the morning, and by 10:30, I had my face in a bowl of macaroni and cheese.  

Sammy Keyes fans worldwide would have suggested salsa to go with that mac'n'cheese, but wow, how harsh is that? And this is Oprah - an incredibly powerful force in the entertainment world. 

Creative works need a chance to breathe. To seep into hearts and minds and move people. Unfortunately, their success - or how widespread they are viewed or read - is often linked to early lists. If your work doesn't "make box office" opening weekend, people quit breathing oxygen into it; they turn to a new spark happening over there. Years of intense work and passion and hope slowly extinguish.

So, if you like my work, if this book seems like it would be of value to you or someone you know, if you think it's important for teens to have relevant books that are "real" yet clean - and, of course, if it's within your means - please "vote at the box office" this week. (And if you love the book and want to help stoke the fire, tell your friends, and review it online.)

Thank you for your support - some of you have been fanning the flames of my work all along. I can't tell you how much that means to me.  

Order Wild Bird wherever books are sold.
​IndieBound  / Amazon / Barnes &  Noble

"Bryce" & "Juli" Weigh In On "Wild Bird"

It was in August seven years ago when Flipped came out in theaters. It was an exceptional experience. Many of you have already heard the tales, so I won't repeat them, but for those of you who haven't, track down a copy of the anniversary edition of Flipped and read the thirty new afterward pages to get a sense of what went on behind the scenes. From meeting Rob Reiner (who directed the film) for the first time to why the movie was set in the 50s and 60s when the book was written as a contemporary story, to the how the movie has expanded the audience for Flipped - there are some good stories there!

People ask me when another one of my books is going to be adapted into a movie, and my answer is that it's not right to get greedy. Flipped was turned into a feature film by the director of The Princess Bride for goodness sake. And he wanted to do the film because he read and loved the book.

Hello? He read and loved the book!

It would be bad karma to want more.

One of the fun and also unexpectedly wonderful things about the Flipped book-to-movie experience was meeting the cast of the film. The "kids" were all so nice and down to earth and patient. We had a premiere where, for two showings, they stood with guests for hours, smiling and taking individual pictures as people filed into the theater. They were such troupers!

Premier night, the thing that also struck me about Callan (Bryce) and Israel (Garrett) is that they're funny. Like, really funny. I have lots of pictures of Callan mugging for the camera. They're hilarious, but they're gonna stay in my vault. Seven years later he's not needing to see them pop up around the internet.

What I will share is that since Flipped came out, Callan's been in lots of projects, like I Am Number Four, The Great Gatsby, Blow Your Own Trumpet, and Hacker to name a few. If you want to see the full list of what he's been up to, check here.

Madeline's been busy, too, working on such projects as Mr. Popper's Penguins, The Haunting Hour, Scandal, Blink, with multiple other projects completed just this year. In all our communications, she's kind and upbeat and focused on her faith and doing good. Check out the full list of her projects here.

Stefanie Scott, who played Juli's best friend (Darla in the book, Dana in the movie) was really busy with A.N.T. Farm after Flipped and has lots of other projects completed. Very impressive!

Israel, Stepfanie, Madeline, Callan - an awesome bunch!

And Israel Broussard, (who played Bryce's best friend Garrett) has also been in a bunch of stuff - including Fear the Walking Dead - and is starring in Happy Death Day, which my son (the one who loves "funny horror films") is dying (h-hm) to see. It releases on October 13th (a Friday) and you can learn more and watch the trailer here.

For all of them, Flipped was one of their early projects, and seven years later, Callan and Madeline were both kind enough to make the time to read and blurb Wild Bird. I love what each of them had to say (see opening graphic), and it means a lot to me that the book resonated with them.

So this month brings a sense of nostalgia (how could seven years have gone by since the Flipped movie came out ?!?) and optimism for the future. Wild Bird comes out on September 5th and I can't wait. Years in the making, it's finally almost here and I'm hopeful that everyone will have reactions similar to Callan's and Madeline's.

For more information about the book, click here.

Fly, Wild Bird, fly!

Thanks for checking in - see you in the comments!

Don't Call It Cute!

Images of my upcoming YA novel Wild Bird are starting to appear online. It seems way too early for this. The Secret Life of Lincoln Jones came out only three months ago. Most people haven’t had the chance to read that book yet. And I love Lincoln! I want his story to be heard, to touch readers, to be a source for discussion among kids and teachers and parents. 

Lincoln should have a chance to breathe. 

Plus, I am allergic to people saying or thinking that I “crank ‘em out.” That is the opposite of what I do. I'm productive, yes, but that's because I'm submerged and obsessive and live and breathe and dream whatever book I'm working on.

That, and I've got this increasingly keen (and, yes, morbid) awareness that Death can be capricious. And since there's work to do and finish, I need to get it done today because tomorrow may not come.

But Wild Bird appearing so quickly can definitely give the mistaken impression that I'm sitting at my desk, cranking these books out. It makes that comment/accusation/assumption almost understandable. The vast majority of people in the industry don't actually know me. If they did, they'd almost certainly thank their lucky stars that they didn't live with me. It's a bit much to experience Wendelin in writing mode. And I'm usually in writing mode.

The first time I heard people say I was cranking them out was when the first four Sammy Keyes books were being released. Those people didn't know about the many years of intensive writing while I was in search of a publisher, or that I'd completed all four of those Sammys before I got my "yes." They just knew that (back then) the books were coming out at six month intervals. They assumed the writing was happening in real time; that I was cranking them out.

So I admit to being sensitive about that accusation/assessment/assumption. And while I'm admitting things, let me also address the descriptor 'cute.' Do NOT call my books cute. They are not cute. None of them. Including Flipped. You want to see me flip out? Call Flipped cute.

The Running Dream published in January 2011. The Secret Life of Lincoln Jones came out in October 2016. That’s nearly six years between stand-alone books. And now, boom, Wild Bird is coming out in September 2017. But between 2011 and 2016 a lot happened, much of which contributed to my withdrawing into the research and writing of these two new books. And part of that withdrawing included wanting time to write these stories without the pressure of deadlines…which meant without contracts.

If you don’t have contracts, you’re not in your publisher's book release queue. There’s the whole editorial process to go through, plus, publishers want all their sales and marketing efforts to be in motion before pub date in order to give a book its best chance.  

One of the things a publisher does to introduce an upcoming title is print up advance reader's copies (or ARCs) of the book. This is the pre-pub paperback and “uncorrected” version of (what in my case will be) a hardcover book. They send these ARCs to reviewers, bloggers, and people in the industry who might be excited to share the news about it.

To put some perspective on timing and distribution, the Wild Bird ARCs were printed in December. This past week, I returned to my editor corrections to the “first pass galleys” – the next step in the book writing process. So the text that appears in the ARC (which is already printed) is now slightly different than the text that will appear in the finished book. It’s mostly subtle—more of a fine-tuning in this case. But I remember for Sammy Keyes and the Curse of Moustache Mary, the ending had changed in such a substantial way that I felt compelled to paste over the old ending with a printout of the new one before sending out the ARCs I had on hand.

Even with the latest revision, the work on Wild Bird is still not done. In another month or so, I’ll be getting another pass at it. And the fascinating thing is, there will be more changes. A copy editor will have found mistakes. And I know there’ll be passages that I want to improve. There are always corrections. The trick is to do everything you can to find them before the book goes to press. 

Wild Bird research folder

But for now, the news is out: I’ve written a new YA book. I tear up just thinking about Wild Bird. What a journey! It's the story of Wren, a 14 year old girl who's taken a wrong turn in life and gets forced into wilderness therapy camp in the Utah desert. It's about finding yourself after being lost, about forgiveness and honesty and (if you know my work at all you'll not be surprised to hear...) redemption. And in keeping with my commitment to librarians and parents who've come to trust the lines I do not cross, it's gritty but clean. 

And, as you can see from this picture of my research folder, I did not just crank it out!

Back cover of Wild Bird ARC

Thanks for stopping by the blog. I actually have a lot of exciting upcoming news to share, including a new look for the Sammy Keyes series. (Yes, finally!) 

I also haven’t forgotten my promise to give away a box of books here, so I'll figure that out soon!

And if you’re a YA blogger, a kid-lit reviewer, or work with at-risk youth and would like my publisher to send you an ARC of Wild Bird, please send a brief email at the Contact link here with your information.

I hope you’ll stop by again next weekend. ‘Til then (employing a takeaway from Wild Bird), here’s to remembering there are stars above us, even when we cannot see them..