When I found out about Agent Appreciation Day, I knew I wanted to participate, because my agent Jim McCarthy is awesome. And I’m a naturally snarky person, not so much the gushes-with-praise type. But I have to make an exception for Jim.

His notes make my manuscripts wa-hay better. His email response time makes me suspect preternatural reflexes or alien technology. He understands me on the phone, even when I’m slack jawed and, relatedly, incoherent. He somehow knows when it’s time to check in with me, when I could use some encouragement to keep going on a project.

In person, he’s down-to-earth, funny, and so much fun to hang around with I soon forget to be nervous that I’m talking to A Literary Agent.

I have only one issue: week after week, he manages to best my score at Facebook Bejeweled Blitz. Now I know this is an Agent Day post, but seriously, Jim, do you have to always do so well?! (Perhaps you don’t realize I derive 33% of my self-esteem from my prowess at that stupid game?) But I digress.

Jim falls in love with books. He makes you want to write a book he’ll love.

I feel fortunate to be one of his clients.

Want a free advance review copy of Whisper? All you have to do is click here to enter this giveaway. If you win, I'll send you the book, signed, along with a personal card wishing you a happy new year. Feel free to repost this anywhere. I love Goodreads giveaways. :-)




Joy is used to Hearing Whispers--to walking down the street and instantly knowing people's deepest, darkest desires. She uses this talent for good, to make people happy and give them what they want. But for her older sister Jessica, the family gift is a curse and she uses it to make people's lives--especially Joy's--miserable. Still, when Joy Hears a mysterious and frightening Whisper from Jessica's own mind, she knows she has to save her sister, even if it means running away with a boy she barely knows--a boy who may have a dark secret of his own.

"Phoebe Kitanidis is a strong new voice in the young adult, urban fantasy genre, and I can't wait to see what comes next." --Kim Harrison, NYT Bestselling author of ONCE DEAD, TWICE SHY

I'm working on the material for my author site, and I can't help but notice that whenever I start to work on my bio, I'll end up deciding to close the document and go on to something more fun. Like scrubbing the toilet bowl or writing synopses.

I'm not a total wuss. I can write a short bio, no problem. But it's one thing to write a few sentences for a conference presentation or the back of your book. It's another thing to write several paragraphs for your website, for people who presumably care enough to delve deeper. Not trying to put myself down but, well, outside of writing books I haven't achieved anything all that interesting. In my view, most people haven't. And that's okay, for them, because they don't have to write big long bios about it.

"Middle class American Pxoebe Kxtaxixis took the path of least resistance, graduating from an impressive college and lining up a series of jobs..." Who cares? Chill, it's not a freaking resume, says the reasonable voice inside my head. They don't care about your "achievements."(NO one does.) Readers just want to get to know you a little. Oh. Really? Well, but I'm very boring. And secretive. And... complicated. Okay, says the voice, weary now. You are being a total prima donna and I don't even want to deal with you. I leave you to your neuroses for the day. NO! Please, not the whole day! Okay, maybe just the morning. Thank you.

So... my insanity aside... it's new perspective time. If I were a reader and I liked somebody's book enough to click on their site's bio, I sure wouldn't want to see their high school report card there or a list of awards. Or a sweet little note from their Mom saying they were always the best-behaved kid ever. I'd want a little insight, a little dirt. I'd want to know the truth about how totally weird my favorite writers were, weird like me. Human like me. I'd want to skim past the dull stuff that everybody thinks they're supposed to talk about in bios and only include the stuff that makes them unique. Like that I always considered myself left handed until a couple years ago when I realized I could write with my right perfectly well too. Or that I'm best friends with my ex. Or that every two years I drastically change my hair color. Or that English isn't my first language, and as a child I always spent the summer in a small country, getting unrecognizably tan and fielding the same impossible question from hundreds of relatives: "So, which country do you love more, here or there?" What makes me the only person who could have written WHISPER? What makes you the only person who could write your book. That's what I'm going to write in my bio!

As soon as I empty the dishwasher. And fill it again.

Thanks to the Washington-State-area Tenners who braved the gray weather yesterday to show up at Bellingham's Village Books for lunch and good conversation. It was wonderful to meet you in person and talk books (and process)! I foresee some joint bookstore signing events in 2010. :-)

Clockwise from the left: Karen Kincy, Denise Jaden, Mindi Scott, Caitlin Kittredge, Chelsea Campbell, Kim Derting, and me, Phoebe Kitanidis.

Here's what Robert carried home from the West Seattle farmer's market just now. This gorgeous red kuri squash will be sacrificed Thursday morning to make our "pumpkin" pie. More and better flavor than a real pumpkin.





And this cheese, by our local Port Townsend Creamery, is called New Moon. Yes, heh. The seller told my husband that someone down in Forks just had 50 pounds of it delivered, presumably for promotion purposes. :-)

That's me, attempting to become one with the picture of Joy on WHISPER's cover. Did I mention I love my ARCs?

Bound to happen, right? Is anyone surprised? I started off hating Twitter with an irrational ferver, and whenever that happens with a person, it means I'm going to end up loving them and maybe even marrying them. I have no plans to marry Twitter yet--in fact, haven't even hit return on my inaugural Tweet--but I was, finally, curious enough to join. Right now I'm lurking. Trying to get a feel for the medium. Figuring out how TweetDeck works (I know, only a century after everyone else). But I'm committed, and kind of excited  too about starting to use this. Feel free to give me sage advice on how to get and give the most out of it. And of course, feel very free to add me.

Well, tonight, as part of my glamorous writer lifestyle, I spent an hour moving all the chapters of my work-in-progress, GIVEN, into one Word document on my computer. In the midst of doing so, I clicked into a random mystery file (labeled "22," like that's going to be helpful, Past Me!). It took me a few moments to realize I was gazing on an early version of the last chapter of WHISPER. Only... it was bad.

Like, beyond awful. It was tripe. Goat snot. I could not *remember* WHISPER ever sucking quite this much. But in fact, it had. Most of my first draft chapters do.  I just block out the memories and delete the evidence.

Anne Lamotte has famously sung the praises of "shitty rough drafts." She's very wise, but she's not in my critique groups. My friends Kevin and Pete and Barrie all write extremely beautiful first drafts. Pete, who hosts my Thursday group, will amble into his living room from the office next door holding a warm stack of papers, and he'll say something self-deprecating, like, "Well, this one's still a little wet..." And the rest of us just smile, and then we close our eyes and listen. Because we know that it's going to be awesome, gripping and sensitive and poignant and masterfully paced, as always.  When Kevin comes to critique group, he brings us these witty, voice-y, clockwork masterpieces that sound like a crazy cross between Roald Dahl, Carl Hiassen, and Nick Hornby.  I'd always consoled myself with the thought that he must polish these things over a period of years, maybe decades. When he recently let slip that they were all first efforts, the words, "Oh my God, I want to barf" just might  have escaped my internal censor. But my friend Barrie is the worst. Her WIP basically a modern YA To Kill A Mockingbird. I can't wait for her to finish so I can brag that I know her. But it's like the book springs from her head fully formed. She just scribbles down complex, poetic sentences, in period dialect no less, into her pretty Paperblanks journal. I've seen her do this while waiting for me to meet her for coffee. Now that I think about it, who are these people? Are they... a test, from the writing gods?!

Anyway, as I held my nose and hit "delete" on that early WHISPER file, I silently rejoiced. Because--I won't kid myself or you-- GIVEN kinda sucks right now. And SUMMER FALLS sucks. And WISHING WELL (possible WHISPER sequel) sucks too. Somehow I've convinced myself that the only thing I ever wrote that was maybe okay, was WHISPER. But here was the proof that WHISPER wasn't born publishable either... It started off life as a total wet mess, and that's okay. In fact, it's kind of miraculous.

(....But do you think it's possible my friends are all lying? Or maybe Barrie has a magic notebook? Because a magic notebook would totally explain it.)

Long ago, I used to organize my books. Not quite "Autobiographically" a la Rob in High Fidelity, but my system was almost as emotional and eclectic. Some of you who've been friends with me a long time might remember that I had cute little labels printed for each section and everything. Yeah. Those days are gone.

Someone just came by to haul junk away from our apartment, most of which had been hanging out in my office. Like an old computer, which has been sitting on an old gray plastic box in my office two years now without my ever really seeing it.  In fact, even when we made the official List of Junk to Be Removed, it was like I had to put on special glasses to see that junky computer and its boxy accomplice. How does that happen? What kind of magic is that?

Anyway, now that that junk is gone (YAY!) I thought I'd snap some pics of my office. Just to give an idea what the place I try to write books looks like.

Um, yes, I really do need three drinks at the same time. (They are water, more water, and a short Mexican mocha.)


Storage identity crisis? Biking/sports gear shares a corner with girly, frilly boxes holding old cards, letters, and assorted memorabilia ... what used to be my "Sentimental Fool" file, until that spilled over circa 2003.

Speaking of girly, my shitty-first-draft-receptacle has a picture of a bra on it. Top that!

And finally, what writer's office would be complete without one of these?

Writers, what's your workspace look like?

100 people have already added Whisper to their Goodreads to-read shelf. I know that doesn't mean they'll all read it (I'm not INSANE), but buzzwise it's not bad for a debut author who currently has no ARCs, no website, no Twitter, no interviews, and no book cover. Thank you, WoWing book bloggers!

Back in June I posted about my pledge to refrain from purchasing new clothes for the next 365 days. Now over 25% of that year has passed (whoosh!), and just so you know, I haven't caved. Yet. :-)

For awhile (note key phrase), taking away the option to buy new stuff made me stop thinking about clothes and fashion and shopping altogether. No doubt freeing my mind for higher things, like Facebook's Bejeweled Blitz.

But "awhile" is over. Lately, my closet's looking frustratingly bare and boring. Just got rid of a bunch of old clothes that don't feel right or work anymore, and now I'm recycling the same few favorites through the wash over and over. So, it's off to the consignment shops I go... the sooner the better. Still, I'm kind of amazed it's taken me this long to *want* to shop.

Well, hmmph, UPS,  hmmph!  I'd planned this to be Front and Center vacation day, but the thing is still "in transit" at 3 PM on the day it was estimated to arrive. I have somewhere to be at 6 PM tonight, and tomorrow and Wednesday I'm busy all day... so I probably won't be able to read it until the weekend. That's what I get for making plans based on estimated arrival times of books.

Edit: It arrived late that evening and I shuffled some plans around so I could read it. It. Was. Awesome. :-) 

Happy Birthday, Sharon! Wishing you a beautiful day and a great year. :-)

No one has read WHISPER yet. It's not out. ARCs are not out. There's not even a cover yet. So anyone on Goodreads who claims they liked it or didn't like it already? Is either mistaken, or psychic.

Very late last night, someone tried to steal our car.

I've had this 95 Accord since 1997--almost 12 years--and it's been a good car to me. It's also been broken into nearly 10 times, at least once in every city I've lived in. I've had to replace the stereo 4 times, and gave up trying on the 5th. Even the jack and emergency kit have been stolen from the trunk. And a couple months ago, someone broke in and took the drink holder, because it contained some change (mostly pennies). But last night was the first time anyone had made a real attempt to take away the car itself. It's now undrivable, thanks to damage to the ignition and steering wheel. For some reason, this pisses me off more than it logically should. It's just a car. Its parts are worth money. It's not like someone was trying to ruin my day (or week). If anything, they must feel really dumb having failed to steal it.

I mean, you have to ask yourself. What kind of car thief is stymied by an old Honda.

With the immense crossover popularity of YA to adults, this kind of controversy seems almost inevitable. I've always wondered if/how much it unsettles teens to think that people twice their age "get" the same books they do. Will it ultimately undermine teen fiction's authentic appeal? I hope not.

So, are these girls right--do you think it's creepy for a 30 or 40 year old to cut in line in front of 17 year olds to see a 17 year old actor? 

Yesterday I read this article comparing blogging and social networking to a cocktail party. Here's one part I heartily agreed with:


When put that way, it sounds like a no brainer, right? Yet so many of us who write books believe (fervently hope?) that blogging is going to be just like writing on paper, a lonely marathon of faith, perserverence,  and perfectionism. Because, sure, you have no audience to start with, but if you build it they will come. Translation: if you do your best at the writing part, then you'll magically get an audience for your blog. But the internet is already a pretty noisy, swingin' place, and I've known brilliant writers who spend hours composing blog entries that are read only by their 2 best friends. Which would be fine--I for example mainly blog for my friends--except that wide readership and creating a platform to get their work out there and seen were these writers' stated goals. What does the article suggest you do instead of waxing briliiant to empty air? Join a conversation. Listen until you have something relevant to say. Focus on commenting on other people's blogs. But, um, not anonymously, because that's:

A simple, smart post from a former professor of mine: Do you close the loop online?