Category Archives: Romance

A Pirate’s Life for Me!

Posted on by
1

Hey everyone!

So I arrived safely in Los Angeles…without my suitcase.

Which wasn’t actually the crisis I feared because LAX drove it out to Ventura later that same night.

That said, I definitely had a momentary freakout when I pictured strolling into the RWA conference with absolutely nothing clean to wear.

On the plus side: I knew I still had fifteen ARCs of Decked with Holly with me.

On the negative side: um, I kinda wanted my clothes too.

But it all worked out!

(Marni releases a huge sigh of relief)

And today I went adventuring!

Marni and Emily are the classiest pair at the Pirate Festival!

See, my visit to Ventura lined up perfectly with the Pirate Festival! So I put on my most pirate-y outfit and headed out with me matey!

That’s when I got into a wee bit o’ trouble…

Kidnapped by the pirates!

I may have inadvertently mentioned that the spin-off sequel to Awkward takes place on the high seas…and that’s when they ordered me to hand it over.

I would post more about my adventures here but…my computer doesn’t want to let me do that.

So here’s the deal: you can check out my pirate adventure by following me on Twitter.

Which totally sounds like I’m just using my pirate adventure to get a bajillion followers on Twitter…I promise, that’s not the case.

Then again…can you really trust the word of a pirate?

More later, mateys!

Love,

Marni

California Scheming (aka Marni’s Airport Adventures!)

Posted on by
Reply

Hey everyone!

I am heading to Los Angeles today!

Which means all of you get a very funny airport story.

So I had to wake up at the ungodly hour of 5:15 today. Okay, so it was supposed to be 5:00 but my alarm clock was a little, erm, easy for me to dismiss.

Maybe I just need a crocodile to come with my alarm clock like in Peter Pan. That might be effective!

Anyhow after scurrying around my room like a crazed person (or a slightly neurotic person who absolutely has to get to an airport at least an hour before her flight) I managed to shove my enormous suitcase into the car and drive off into the sunrise.

My trusty suitcase. It’s been with me since high school.

Well…my mom did the driving because I failed the exam last week. But that’s another story…

I looked kinda like this. Except, you know, not so blonde and significantly more freaked out. Then again, it was Friday the 13th! 

Where was I?

Right.

The airport.

My mom dropped me off with a big hug and a grin as she told me (and I quote): “Give Tessa Dare a kiss from me.”

Um…right. Because that’s a great way to put one of my favorite authors at ease when I meet her at the Romance Writer’s Conference.

Not that I’m geeking out about attending or anything. Who me? Nah.

I’m totally playing it cool.

But my mom’s mission of making me laugh (at 6am no less) was a success and I hurried over to the check my bag with a big ol’ grin on my face. That’s when I discover my checked bag was roughly 7 lbs overweight. Probably because I stuffed almost all of my Decked with Holly advanced reader copies inside of it.

Coming to stores soon! AIYEEEE!!! So excited!

And unless I wanted to pay an extra $100, I had some major rearranging to do.

Let’s just say that airport security was significantly less excited to see twenty copies of Decked with Holly than I was when they arrived.

Still, I refused to let a little problem like an overweight bag get me down. I greeted TSA very nicely (Word to the wise: never piss off people that can give you a full body search) and made my way to the gate.

Where I sat all by myself.

Because there was nobody there.

I’m talking ghost-town levels of nobodiness. You know, when you see tumbleweed roll across an empty road and you think, wow, that place is dead quiet.

Yeah, that’s the Medford Airport at 6am.

But being of the nervous/neurotic temperament, I started freaking out when it looked like the flight was supposed to be boarding within the next fifteen minutes, and I was still completely alone.

Okay, so I took a few dozen photos with my ARCs of Decked with Holly first. 

Which is when my lovely new TSA friends pointed out that I had booked a 7PM flight.

Translation: I woke up at 5:15 for nothing!!!!!

Oh, and instead of picking a convenient time for my best friends’ parents to pick me up from the airport, I had scheduled the worst time possible!

*Headdesk*

So I had to walk back to the baggage counter, site of my earlier display of book related idiocy, and explain that, yes, I understood that I royally effed up.

Then I called my mom who had a good laugh at my expense.

Gee, thanks, Mom! Don’t think I’ll forget that the next time you ask me to be a freaking bobbin in the 4th of July parade!

But a little computer magic later…and I’m waiting to board my new flight.

One that should get me to LA exactly when my friends’ parents expected to get me.

So…nobody needs to know this ever happened, right?

Well, except for all of you!

I’ll be sure to update my blog lots to capture all the RWA madness that is about to happen.

Good times ahead, folks…

Oh, wait. New announcement. My flight is delayed and the likelihood that I’ll be making my connection looks pretty grim.

Sigh…

Love,

Marni

Here’s Some Ridiculousness for You!

Posted on by
6

Hey everyone,

I debated whether I wanted to share my 4th of July photos with all of you.

Part of me was like, “Um…Marni? You’re going to the Romance Writers of America conference soon! You want to be taken seriously. Maybe you should, you know…not share everything.”

And then I realized that everyone who reads this blog already knows how geeky I am! So my parade pictures aren’t exactly going to come as some big shock.

I mean, if I wanted to hide my high geek quotient…I probably shouldn’t have shared my celebrity stalker journals “idea notebooks” here.

A sneak peek at Decked with Holly! That’s Dominic Wyatt on a cruise ship. That’s right: he’s on a boat.

Plus, I totally posted about the time I forced the UPS guy to take a photo with me. To be fair, he was handing me the copyedits for Awkward…

And he was never to be seen again.

Probably because I don’t tend to stalk mail-carriers.

Then there was the time I spent 12 straight hours in the Lewis & Clark computer lab creating these:

I still look back at that night fondly. That whole month, actually. Roughly 94% of the Lewis & Clark people I shared them with, loved it. The other 6% placed bets as to when a cease and desist/ restraining order would be issued.

But I like geeking out with all of you. So here it is:

Yep. I was the “Dancing Spool of Thread” in the Sew Creative parade entry. You can’t tell from the picture but I was wrapped in blue yarn to emphasize, you know, my spool-iness.

I’d like to take this opportunity to point out that it is not easy to dance with a huge cardboard circle around your waist. And that when I absent-mindedly imagined running into old high school classmates, it was not bedecked as a spool of thread.

But I earned so many daughter points.

So it was worth it.

Anyhow, I hope you all had a wonderful 4th of July!

Sincerely,

Marni

GRADUATION!

Posted on by
3

Hey everyone,

I’m done with college.

Finito! Terminado! Finished!

I have to say, it’s a really great feeling. No more homework. No more pretending to be paying attention in my boring SOU class, while I secretly read romance novels.

Or not so secretly, actually. I’m pretty sure the teacher knew something was up when I started grinning. Probably because I was not smiling as he blithely wasted my time ranting about Obama’s first girlfriend.

Yeah. Never again!

Although, it is kind of scary because now I don’t have schoolwork to use as an excuse for procrastinating on my work. Like editing Invisible. Not that I would ever do that. *Blinks innocently*

My actual college graduation ceremony happened a few months ago. And I wrote a whole long blog post on it and then delayed actually sharing it because I wanted to include photos.

Then I saw the ones my family took of my very special day.

Complete and total failure.

First of all, they snapped all of five photos. And nobody noticed that my hair was absolutely ridiculous!

Don’t believe me. Here’s the proof:

I look like Count Dracula.

And nobody said anything!

Here I am with my lovely aunt! You can tell that Count Marnula is speculating about when she’ll be able to drink her blood.

And smiling at the thought.

Actually, that day I was feeling more zombie-like than vampiric. I came down with an awful flu the night before my graduation. I was able to keep it at bay until after the ceremony, but not by much.

Thankfully, my amazing friend Diana W. Rosengard drove me back to the hotel, where my aunt was waiting. She wisely let me nap before taking me out to dinner in the hotel. Honestly, I didn’t have the strength to move any further than that.

But even with the shivers and the sore throat, it was a magical day. And it was really great hanging out with all of my friends for the brief amount of time I was, you know, fully functional.

Still, it was kinda hard to feel graduated when I knew I had my SOU midterms waiting for me in Ashland.

But now all of that is over! Well, everything but the paperwork. I need to transfer my SOU classes to Lewis & Clark, but…c’mon, that doesn’t really count.

So what have I been doing with my time?

Well, my mom just bought a quilt store in Ashland! It’s called Sew Creative and in my unbiased opinion, it’s going to be spectacular.

That said, right now it’s in the work in progress stage. Which means I’m going to be spending this week sanding shelves, painting fixtures, cutting fat quarters, and doing anything else she needs.

I like to think this will earn me tons of daughter points, which I plan on cashing in very soon.

Specifically, July 19th when my mom is driving me very early to the airport.

Where am I headed?

LOS ANGELES!

Why?

Because I’m going to the ROMANCE WRITERS OF AMERICA CONFERENCE!

More on this soon–I must return to my sanding.

Sincerely,

Marni

Hotties of Literature!!!!!

Posted on by
10

Hey everyone!

Okay, so a bunch of authors have agreed to blog about one of our favorite topics today: hot guys!

Gah! It's just so much cuteness!

Gah! It’s just so much cuteness!

Where was I? Oh, right. Hot guys.

So I spend a lot of my time thinking about what makes a guy attractive. It’s one of the things I love most about my job. And while I know some people may scoff and start muttering to themselves something along the lines of this girl needs to get a life, just hear me out.

I think what we read does affect the way we live. Which isn’t to say that after reading Harry Potter you should try to play quidditich.

Still laughing!

But I do think that books (and movies) send strong messages to their readership about how men and women should behave. So when I write my novels I definitely spend a lot of time trying to find the line between confidence (hot) and arrogance (erm, no).

It’s surprisingly hard!

I think most people agree that Edward Cullen overdoes it with Bella by being on the creepy side of protective. But wanting to make sure that your friends, you know, live to see the ending?

Super attractive!

So when I first started writing I had this small epiphany. I like my guys the way I like my girls: witty, snarky, flawed, and willing to fight for what they believe in.

And yeah, that means I like my guys to have some personal damage. That’s what makes them feel real to me. It’s also what makes me fall in love with them. If Logan Beckett wasn’t so touchy about needing a tutor, I wouldn’t have been able to finish writing Awkward. I would’ve stared at the screen and yelled “Stop being so freaking perfect all the time!”

Because perfection is boring.

But you’re here for the pictures of hot guys, right? So let’s begin!

Zach Gilford.

Um, swoon! I think it’s the grin. It’s part confident and part sweet and full on adorable! Small confession: Zach Gilford is the reason I watched Friday Night Lights. Larger confession: I didn’t exactly watch Friday Night Lights. I skipped the football stuff so I could get to the good parts. You know, like every scene with Zach Gilford sans football uniform.

Although I soon learned that watching only the high school drama parts of Friday Night Lights earns a girl absolutely no cool points with the members of her college football team.

Sigh.

Still…while Zach has just the right amount of adorable, I think he’s too old to play Logan. The guy was pushing believability as a high school student even back with Friday Night Lights was on the air.

So let’s check out a different FNL hottie:

Matt Lauria.

If you’re wondering why I seem oddly fixated with the guys from this show, I’d like to point out that that they managed to get the largest collection of hot unknown actors to join the cast.

Like Grey Damon.

I’m a little afraid to post a picture of him here since YA rockstar Brigid Kemmerer has told me (repeatedly) that he belongs to her. She may have told me to stop ogling her protagonist without permission. Although, I think her exact words were: MINE, MARNI. MINE MINE MINE.

But…can’t look away! So. Much. Hotness.

*Fans self*

Damn. The good ones always go quickly. Which is why I’m staking my claim right now on…

Logan Lerman!

For the record: the name thing is a total coincidence. I did not have him in mind when I wrote Awkward. He’s ridiculously perfect for the role though. The sexy smirk? Check. The effortless hot factor?

Um, yeah. I think he has that too!

I didn’t stumble across Logan Lerman until I was writing Decked with Holly (my holiday sequel spin-off which will be released this September!) and that’s when I fell under his spell.

Here’s the embarrassing part.

I made a collage. To be fair, it’s not all devoted to Logan Lerman. I used it to plot out the novel and…it looks like I’m a stalker.

(Hey Logan. Um, just in case you’re reading this…I swear, I’m not a deranged fan. Really.)  

I took this picture a year ago and as you can see not a lot has changed.

Yeah…it’s still pretty embarrassing. But the collage totally helped! Decked with Holly is the funniest of my novels and since I’m still swooning over Nick Wyatt, I must have done something right. For those of you who read the teaser at the end of Awkward, I pictured Emma Roberts playing Holly and Molly Quinn as Jen.

Although I’m always interested in hearing who you would cast in those roles!

I don’t want to spoil anything for future readers so I’m going to attempt casting three of my favorite YA hotties:

1. Rob Wilkins from Meg Cabot’s 1-800-WHERE-R-U series.

(A young Ian Somerhalder!)

Why is he hot? Well, there’s the dark mussed hair, the piercing blue eyes, the confidence, oh, and the motorcycle! He’s a good guy who is willing to break into a government compound to bust out the girl he met in detention. Rob might not be good when it comes to actually discussing his feelings, but he’s always solid in a crisis.

2. Ash from Julie Kagawa’s Iron Fey series.

Okay, so this is kind of cheating because I know Julie so I’m 95% sure she would cast…

Ben Barnes! (I’m guessing she likes his hair longer, but I think it’s sexier this way.

So what makes Ash sexy? Correction: what makes Ash so sexy that he distracted me from the wildlife in Africa?

For starters, he’s a prince among faeries. He’s got a sly smile, a quick wit, and he’s a crazy good kisser.

Or so I’ve read.

He’s also noble and sweet, with a sensitive streak that I find utterly charming.

Which brings us to our final hottie!

3. Colin from Torn and Tangled by Erica O’Rourke.

Matthew Goode.

Not sure if Erica will agree with me about the casting (I’ll be sure to post her response) but here’s why I think Matthew Goode captures Colin’s off-the-charts sexiness.

He’s got that skeptical look, which makes you rethink decisions…but he’s also going to back you no matter what happens.

Colin has made some decisions in the past that are making his life very difficult in the present. And the fact that he’s hired to bodyguard a girl seeking vengeance for the death or her best friend isn’t going to help matters. But he does what he thinks is right and that’s why I’m completely in love with him.

Plus he’s ridiculously sexy.

(Side note: Jenn Rush (author of Altered and Bot Wars) believes that Colin is destined for disappointment. She thinks Luc will get the girl in the end…but she couldn’t be more wrong. I think. Poor Erica will have to listen to a lot of grumbling no matter what happens!)

Anyhow, that’s all the sexiness I can handle right now!

I hope you join the conversation by tweeting with the hashtag #HottiesofLit today! Or if you don’t feel comfortable with Twitter, maybe you can leave a picture of a hot guy here for me? I’ve got a novel to write and I can always use some hot male inspiration!

~Marni

P.S. Don’t forget to check out these blogs for more hotness!

Jenn Rush’s Blog

Brigid Kemmerer’s Blog

Julie Kagawa’s Blog

 

My First Blog Tour!!!! And serious amounts of hotness…

Posted on by
1

Hey everyone,

So, I’m officially participating in a blog tour for Awkward!

Yeah, I’m only a little excited about it…

Blog tours are super awesome. Here’s how it works: I get emailed roughly ten pages of questions. Then I spend the next three weeks obsessing over my answers.

I’d like to send a big shout-out to my friend Laura who helped me through one particularly rough set of questions intended for Logan Beckett to answer.

If it weren’t for her, I might still be staring at my laptop screen muttering “Whales or Bears? Whales are really big and cool. But so are bears! I don’t know! THEY’RE BOTH AWESOME!”

Yes, this an example of an honest-to-goodness work-related freak out.

Which is yet another reason for me to love my job.

Anyhow: I’m going to update my blog here with links so that you can check out my blog tour and join in the fun!

You can read my tips for surviving high school (and college) here:

Marni’s Advice!

I discuss some of my experiences in high school here:

High School Flashbacks!

And you can read a wonderful review of Awkward (and score a chance to win a copy!) here:

Fun times ahead!

And for those of you who enjoy geeking out over hot (potentially shirtless) boys: I hope you’ll drop by my group twitter event on March 15th. A bunch of amazing YA writers (including my friends Brigid Kemmerer and Jenn Rush) are getting together to share pics of some of their favorite hotties.

I predict there will be a lot of this:

And this:

And if you’re thinking um, why aren’t they reading? Don’t you know that there is nothing more attractive than that?!

All over it.

Four words: Hot. Guys. Reading. Books.

Here’s the link: Hot Guys Reading Books!

Oh, and for all you Ryan Gosling fans out there . . . this always makes me smile.

Ryan Gosling Reads Young Adult!

Anyhow, March 15th is going to be a ridiculous amount of fun. I’m hoping it will also inspire YOU to share who you would cast to play the characters in Awkward! So drop me a comment here or send them to me via Twitter!

And if you are feeling extra awesome: you can always send me fan art!

Isn’t this adorable! All pics will completely make my week. This particular masterpiece is brought to you courtesy of My Cute Bookshelf! You can check out the review that had me glowing for over a month here!

So many reasons to be feeling giddy!

Now I better get back to work. Chelsea is yelling at me . . .

~Marni

P.S. This blog tour wouldn’t be happening if it weren’t for Shanyn Day and Pamela van Hylckama Vlieg! Thank you so much ladies! I really appreciate it!

The Get Marni On Ellen Campaign Starts Now!

Posted on by
Reply

Hey everyone!

Remember that TOP SECRET project I’ve been working on? Well, it’s here.

I have just launched the Get Marni On Ellen Campaign!

HOORAY!

That’s right: the girl who has never campaigned for any position EVER has now set her Santa hat at landing a spot on The Ellen Show!

But I’m going for it, because I have wanted to meet Ellen for quite some time now. Throughout high school (when I was alone…usually) I would have whole imaginary conversations with her.

“Well, Ellen,” I’d say, “I’m okay with being one of the biggest geeks at Ashland High School. Really. Because I went on to do Something of Great Importance which is why you are talking to me now!”

I had no clue what my Something of Great Importance could be . . . but I still had regular interview sessions with her. And putting high school in the past tense (even if it was only in my head) made it easier to handle in the present.

So when I was writing AWKWARD (*Spoiler Alert*) the scene where Ellen interviews Kenzie was one of the easiest to write. I just watched a boatload of her interviews on YouTube for “research” and suddenly I had Ellen in Awkward!

There are a whole host of reasons I wrote her into my novel. And I will admit, the thought that this could be my Something Great of Importance definitely crossed my mind. But the honest to goodness truth, is that for Kenzie to face her fear of the spotlight there had to be someone seriously awesome right next to her onstage. And I knew instinctively that was Ellen.

Ellen always strikes me as sincere. I have never felt like she was capitalizing on a tragedy to score points with the audience. And when she talks to celebrities about the pressures in their lives, she lets them voice the reality of their situations. She doesn’t cut them off or railroad them into a lie or splice scenes so that it looks more controversial. I find all of that truly commendable. If I felt that the news covered subjects with the same amount of heart as Ellen, I’d watch it more often.

And, yes, I think it is absolutely fantastic that she is openly gay. Maybe it’s not fair to idealize celebrity relationships, but when I look at Portia and Ellen it makes me feel good about the direction our world is headed. I was thrilled when they were allowed to get married. I was way more excited about that than I was for William and Kate’s wedding. Because, fair or not, I was able to hug some very important people and say, “See! It is possible to be gay and loved and happy and married and AWESOME!”

I feel very strongly that this is a message that needs to be repeated at a VERY LOUD VOLUME!

Because it’s true.

And I thought that if certain characters were to ever come out of the closet, the Ellen Show is the safest place for that to happen.

So . . . that’s why I wrote her into my novel. And I hope I get the chance to tell her all of this in person.

So please support my Get Marni On Ellen Campaign! Watch my video here: ! And please be sure to “like” it, Tweet it, and Facebook share it!

More Soon!

~Marni

Birthday-ish Blog!

Posted on by
1

Hey everyone!

I am officially 22!!!!!

I had an absolutely fantastic birthday! Actually, I got the whole Birthday Celebration kicked off early with a visit from my mom. I showed her around Portland, which translates to the two of us wandering around looking at art and drinking copious amounts of Starbucks. My definition of a perfect day.

 

My lovely mom. Without her support, I wouldn’t have my writing career. Or, you know…life.

Then on my actual birthday I went out for dinner with some friends, which inevitably led us to Powells. And then when my friend Laura asked me to introduce her to the world of romance novels…well, things got a little crazy.

See, when I’m excited my Italian genes kick in and I can’t stop making sweeping hand gestures. Which is how I nearly smacked my friend Emily in the face.

To be fair: I was telling them about Tessa Dare’s latest, A Night to Surrender, which was unbelievably good. So when I was explaining about the sheep bombing, I might have gotten a bit overenthusiastic.

Fun side-story: I tweeted about how much I loved this book and then Tessa Dare tweeted me back. And I freaked out. I reacted like a twelve year old Justin Bieber fan at a concert. Lots of squealing. And then I stared at my Twitter screen and repeated, “I am not worthy.”

Erm, so I need to work on that. Otherwise when I eventually meet these authors at the RWA conference, it’s just going to be embarrassing.

Anyhow, I had a fantastic night out with my friends and I spent my birthday in a little cocoon of happiness.

So it was hard to go Isaac’s memorial service the next day…but I’m glad that I did. The service was absolutely beautiful. There were chess pieces surrounding the chapel and  near the end of the service everyone replaced them with a lit candle. So now I have a pawn dangling off my backpack and the memory of being surrounded by the glow of all those candles.

Best of all, I got a real sense of closure from the service. So it’s pretty much back to life as usual for me. Thank goodness!

Now I can focus on important things…like erm, Twitter?

Sigh. Sadly I think the correct response to that is actually “my Henry James thesis paper.”

Then again, I’m discussing (at length) the phallic imagery in Henry James’s The Portrait of a Lady so I don’t think it’s going to be as boring as I once feared. Plus now I can discuss male genitalia in public while pretending to be classy. Of course, I think I lost classy points when I grabbed a friend from class in the cafeteria and began crowing, “It’s a penis! I get it now! IT ALL MAKES SENSE! How did I miss that keys are codes for penises throughout the whole freaking novel?”

I’ll be sure to post my thesis here once it’s finished so I can try to redeem myself with all of you classy people.

Wow, Henry James was way cuter than I expected!

Although, after going to see David Sedaris I’m not so worried about my class-o-meter. I feel like as long as I don’t discuss people pooping in their hands, I’m doing okay. I have to say, I really dislike it when people say the crudest things they can think of for a cheap laugh. I’m generally not laughing if that’s all you’ve got.

I prefer really sophisticated humor, like tripping and food-related accidents.

And on that note, I need to get some breakfast!

More Later!

~Marni