Okay, wow, has a lot of stuff happened recently.

--My brother and his wife had a baby late last week, and I now have an adorable nephew!

-- I went to the ALAN workshop in Nashville. I saw a lot of authors speak, sat under a chandelier that was about the size of my house, and learned that it is indeed possible to put a river inside a hotel. And then build a boat ride for it. (Yes, really!) I also learned that driving to Nashville takes a long, LONG time. Also, Nashville is on Central Time, which really surprised me. Especially how I realized it. (I passed a billboard that said "Now entering Central Time Zone." Who knew?)

-- I found out bloom is going to be published as a trade paperback. (!!!!!!!!!!!!)

-- And! My cover!!!! Rather than post it here, and let blogger blur it up (as it did when I posted it to the news page), I'll just say you can see it by clicking here. It's so pretty, I can't believe it's mine. And the blurb from Deb Caletti *still* makes me giddy every time I see it.

The amazingly talented (and kind!) Michele Jaffe, author of the fabulous Bad Kitty, has given bloom a blurb! I am so touched and excited I don't think my feet have touched the ground since I got the email.

Yesterday I met Melissa Marr and had a really wonderful time talking to her. She's smart and funny and her book, Wicked Lovely, comes out in June. I pre-ordered it from Amazon as soon as I got home and can't wait to read it!

Last week just flew by--I worked on (and finished--yay!) the copyedits for Bloom, went to New York to see my agent and go to Simon & Schuster with her, where we saw my amazing editor, Jennifer, and I got to meet the Editorial Director and also Michelle Nagler, who is so sweet (she gave me an ARC of Robin Wasserman's Sloth which is *fabulous*--I love the Seven Deadly Sins series!), and had my friend Jess come to visit. I had a picture of the two of us, taken with Jess's phone (since mine's main feature is the amazing draining battery!), but I can't get it to upload properly so you'll just have to pretend you can see it. Jess is the cute one with dark hair, and I'm the very pale one.

It was great to have Jess visit because we went to about six zillion bookstores and the National Museum of the American Indian and also watched all the best episodes of Relativity. And also because she's one of my best friends and a totally amazing person PLUS she made a huge fuss over my dog, who was all disappointed after Jess left because you all know how my dog is when it comes to attention.

As everyone and their fourth cousin twice removed has already indicated, today is election day in the United States, and if you can vote, you should. Not because it's your duty or whatever but because it's an easy way to make sure your voice is heard. And that's something that's so easy to take for granted, but is actually pretty special.

Moving on, here's some interesting links...

P.S.I ALSO GIVE ADVICE -- Once again, Bennett Madison proves he's the funniest YA blogger around.

John Green's take on National Novel Writing Month, otherwise known as the month I live vicariously through others (more than usual, even!) because I couldn't write a novel in a month if Rufus Sewell was awarded for doing so.

Well, maybe I could do it for Rufus.

And speaking of writing, you should check out the hilarious Create Your Own Young Adult Novel page, which was created by David Lubar and Dian Curtis Regan. My favorite bit? The last choice for the main character's location. It's probably not a shout-out to the US version of The Office, but I'm pretending it is!