Marni On Safari: Serengeti-Style!

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Hey everyone,

I am in the most beautiful place on earth. I admit, I had my doubts about Africa before I came. Mainly because I had to get a boatload of shots and the woman who gave them to me kept insisting that I would experience all sorts of awful side effects. That part of the process was so freaking stressful and expensive that it made the idea of returning home after finals sound awfully tempting.

But now I am so glad I chose to travel with my family.

On the road in Kenya.

Not that some parts of it haven’t been rough. Yesterday we were supposed to drive from Kenya into Tanzania in a completely doable three hour long journey. Excellent plan. It would have been absolutely perfect if it weren’t for the fact that our bridge was washed out by recent rain. Our three hour drive became fourteen hours. Now, one of the problems with traveling as a family is that everyone inevitably acts half their age. So for almost this entire fourteen hour drive I was stuck behind two of my cousins (24 and 21 years old) who kept punching each other. Hours and hours of listening to:

“Hey!”

“Stop hitting yourself! Stop hitting yourself!”

“Cut it out.”

Bam! Whap!

“OWWW!!!!”

“You jerk.”

“Don’t be a wimp.”

I think you catch my drift. To top it off, one of my cousins had some gastrointestinal issues. Let’s just say that the lions could smell us coming.

But now I am in paradise.

I am “tenting” at The Soroi (located in the Serengeti, Tanzania)!

Yeah, if this is tenting, I’m down to do this any day of the week!

Here’s my shower:

That’s right: I’m going to be bathing with this as my view:

Right above the freaking Serengeti!

I have wireless Internet too!

So…now I think I’ll leave you with a few last photos while I enjoy the lightning display over the land and nibble on popcorn.

All of these blobs are very happy members of my family.

I’d love to hear about your travel experiences? Have you ever gone somewhere that you never wanted to leave?

~Marni

 

Marni on Safari!

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Hey everyone,

I am in Africa! That’s right: I took all of my finals at Lewis & Clark College early so that I could go on vacation with my family. So now I’m in Kenya and even though I’m exhausted, I will do my best to fill everyone in on my most recent ridiculous adventures.

I guess I should begin with my very up close and personal experience with some giraffes on my very first day in Nairobi.

There was some serious kissing!

Let me explain: giraffes love food pellets so much that as long as you put one in your mouth (and keep your lips firmly closed) it’s like letting a dog lick your face. Except, you know…it’s a giraffe!

Apparently they have very sanitary mouths, which is excellent because I was slobbered all over. I enjoying it immensely and would highly recommend the experience. Definitely keep your mouth shut though.

Then the next day I went to a baby elephant orphanage and it was every bit as adorable as it sounds. I got to pet baby elephants–one of which was only four weeks old.

And then my whole family piled into two jeeps and bounced around on rocky roads for five hours until we reached Masai Mara (where I am currently writing this post). It’s gorgeous here. Over 1000km of protected land where I have seen the warthogs and the antelope play. One of the biggest highlights for me was seeing a cheetah on the drive to the hotel. It was about seven feet away from me and without the aid of binoculars I could see every windblown tuft of hair on him. Or her…not too good at distinguishing genders yet. Another highlight was being surrounded by a herd of elephants and today I saw an endangered black rhino as well as a pride of lions!

The cuteness factor here is ridiculous. Even the baby warthogs have me cooing over them. I will prove it by uploading photos…eventually. In the meantime, if you want to follow my adventures I’ll be tweeting the highlights (MarniBates is my handle) at #MarniOnSafari.

I’m running out of Internet time but I’ll be sure to post more soon!

Sincerely,

Marni

The Get Marni On Ellen Campaign Starts Now!

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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

EXCITING THINGS . . . Will Be Here Soon!

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Hey everyone,

So I have to keep something underwraps right now. Which is super hard for me because I have a ginormous mouth and have already told a bunch of people about it. But I shouldn’t have done it. So for those of you who know what I’m referring to . . . zip it!

This is an excellent representation of how I feel right now.

But I wanted to give everyone a heads up because I don’t want anyone to miss my Very Exciting Thing once I’m free to talk about it.

It really is this exciting:

And, no, I am not talking about anything school-related. Especially not right now when I have a thesis due this week and all I have to show for it is a four page rough draft. Yeah, classy.

Why, Henry James? WHY!!!!

Anyhoo . . . so my plans for today? I’m going to write my thesis! And work on my TOP SECRET PROJECT. But I’ll be sure to try to schedule in some sleep . . . maybe over Thanksgiving?

This turkey and I have a lot on common. Both so scared of upcoming events (Me: thesis. Turkey: dinner) that we are speechless.

But I’ll be sure to keep you all in the loop, just as soon as I get the all clear!

More later!

~Marni

Birthday-ish Blog!

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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

 

Life and Death Situation

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Hey everyone!

(This is one of my darker blog posts but hang in there. I think it’s worth it.)

Two weeks ago I found out my friend Isaac was dead.

And I didn’t see it coming. Nobody expected it because it was a random accident that could happen to anyone at anytime. I still don’t know much beyond the fact that he was skateboarding in Portland and then…then he was in a hospital and he didn’t wake up.

Now you see him…now you don’t.

And when I was told via Facebook and clicked on his page and saw all those rest in peace messages, I didn’t believe it. I just stared at the screen and thought, wow, what a completely un-funny joke. 

Then I figured out it wasn’t a joke at all.

I didn’t know Isaac very long but he was an incredible human being. He tutored me every week for my Perspectives in Mathematics class last year. Well, that’s not entirely true. He had certain hours at the Math Skill Center and I memorized them because I knew Isaac would make even the most daunting of my assignments fun. Since I got an A- in the course, I can say with some confidence that Isaac worked miracles.

I think we became friends that first day when we played checkers on a torus. I oh-so-charmingly tried to psych him out and kept insisting that I was messing with his head.

Then I informed the professor that I was “kicking the T.A.’s ass!”

I miss Isaac.

I didn’t see him on a regular basis but I found it comforting to know that he was around. He was one of the good guys that redeemed his gender on the rare occasions when I felt bitter and cynical. So when I discovered my lovable safety net had been cut down, I didn’t know how to handle it.

Denial soon became a good friend of mine…until I moved into grief. Crying helped but it wasn’t enough. I needed a way to avoid the pain. That’s when I immersed myself in romance novels. Dozens of them.

Note to self: romance novels can’t actually raise the dead.

I’m doing better now, partly because I went to see one of the therapists on campus. I’m trying to be grateful that beyond the death of my grandpa this is the first loss I’ve ever experienced firsthand. What has helped me the most is my firm belief that Isaac now has the answers to all his questions about the universe. I keep repeating that to myself. And I think I’m handling the loss.

But it’s hard to get excited about my birthday when I know that his funeral will be the very next day.

I guess in a seriously messed up way, it’s a nice reminder that life and death are intimately connected. You know, if by “nice” I meant “terrifying, horrible, rip-your-heart-out nightmare” instead.

Still, I think it is important to live each day to the fullest.

So I’m trying to write again: something I’ve been struggling to do since he died. And I’m doing my very best to appreciate this extraordinary, precious, fragile existence of mine to the fullest extent.

I have a feeling Isaac would approve.

More later!

Marni

Catch Up!

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Hey everyone,

Well…I’m back in school! In fact, I’ve been a bit distracted lately (mainly by school) which is why I’ve been a lazy blogger. But no longer, friends! Still, why don’t I recap?

So, I had an AMAZING time in Texas. One of the highlights was definitely riding around on the back of my cousin’s vespa. A guy in a Beamer even offered to race us (an offer I immediately accepted) so that was exciting. I also crashed a party at Rice University where the theme was: Don’t Mess with Texas.

They were foolishly giving out squirt guns and badges.

So naturally, my cousin and I were instantly armed combatants. Don’t worry, y’all: I kicked her ass.

Sort of.

Anyhow, one of the other highlights was spending time with my good friend Stephanie. I hadn’t seen her in roughly four years, so you could say this visit was long overdue. She decided I needed an authentic Texas experience.

Which led to this:

And then to this….

Go Rams! Or…longhorns? GO TEXAS FOOTBALL TEAM WHOSE NAME I CAN’T REMEMBER!!!

This is my best impression of sports spirit.

Anyhow, Texas was fantastic but it was a relief to escape the humidity. Portland is gorgeous right now and I definitely appreciated being able to walk outside without feeling like I just entered a sauna.

It really does feel good to be back. I’ll be sure to post pictures of my dorm room soon….once I clean it again.

And just when I thought life couldn’t get better at Lewis & Clark (because I’ve been able to see so many of my amazing, gorgeous, brilliant and talented friends) a special something arrived in the mail….

AWKWARD!!!!!

I have my Advanced Reader Copies (ARCs)!!!! They are so insanely beautiful that I couldn’t resist carrying a copy everywhere I went. Part of me felt like if it wasn’t in my hands at all time it would disappear.

BUT I STILL HAVE THEM!

Can you tell that I’m excited?

This leads me to a very exciting announcement: if you live in Portland, have a blog and are willing to pass on AWKWARD after you read it…you can have an ARC!

I know, there should be no strings attached. But I REALLY need help spreading the excitement of AWKWARD into the the blogosphere. And the Twitterverse. And Facebooklandia. So I’ll be sure to announce when AWKWARD hits NetGalley so that everyone can review it.

In the meantime: Portland people! Hit me up!

I have to admit: it’s pretty tough to beat out an ARC for exciting news but I am definitely looking forward to being the proud parent of three fish! Right now they are recovering from a fish disease called ick (I’m not making this up. At first I was tempted to tell the Fish Lady that I suffer from ick too. Primarily when people serve me food that I really don’t want to eat) but soon they’ll live with me!

I’ve set the aquarium up in anticipation.

And that’s about it for now. I should probably start my homework now…you know, since it’s due in 9 hours….

More later!

~Marni

Houston, We Have a Problem…

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Hey, everyone!

Continuing my mad year of traveling, I am currently sitting in Denver’s airport waiting for my flight to Houston.

Denver from the air still looks pretty when you’re running on no sleep.

I am exhausted.

And not just because United Airlines has made me jump through more hoops then a dog in a circus act.

For the record though: GRAWR!!!

When the coffee cart lady tried to deny my (perfectly legit) voucher at 5:30 this morning, airport security nearly had an incident on their hands. Which probably wouldn’t have bothered TSA one bit considering that they had just chosen me as their surprise target for a security check. I bet they would’ve shaken their heads and muttered something about knowing I was suspicious from the very beginning.

Although how crazy do you have to be to deny someone caffeine at 5:30 am?

Freakin’ nuts, if you ask me.

Except the Coffee Cart Lady was not this cute. She was snippy.

Anyhow, it worked out in the end. You know, except for the fact that my first flight was canceled and then I was booked with a five hour layover in Denver that I then turned into a two hour layover…which United then never confirmed.

But still…the planes didn’t crash. That’s encouraging.

Speaking of encouraging: lot’s of good stuff has been happening for me lately.

If you follow me on Twitter (hint, hint) you probably already saw the link that KTeen came up with to promote their upcoming line of YA fiction titles.

But for all of you who aren’t already stalking following me, here it is: finditem.cfm?itemid=19942

There are no words to express how excited this made me.

Which might explain why this happened a few days later…

 

Those are the final copy-proof pages of AWKWARD! And I was freaking out the second that I saw that Mr. FedEx’s (ahem) package came from Kensington…so I didn’t let him leave. Not until he agreed to this photo shoot.

A lot of people have told me that it is considered strange to start hugging strangers. However, when a gentleman flat-out says that he has a package just for you…what does he expect will happen?

And, yes, I find these package jokes hilarious. Just go with it.

Anyhow, I forced myself to ignore the copy-pages of AWKWARD and to finish writing the rough draft of FAUXMANCE so that I could feel all accomplished and successful before I left Ashland. Except I had no idea how much writing that actually entailed at the time I checked out the calendar, nodded my head and said: game on!

That’s how I ended up writing 64 pages in four days. I even set a new personal best by writing 29 pages the night before I was supposed to fly out to Houston.

And typing the final paragraph made me feel invincible. Although, that could have been the copious amounts of caffeine in my system talking because about two hours later I crashed.

Hard.

Which brings us back to me, standing at the airport, gaping at the United guy and stuttering, “Wh-what do you mean I can’t fly out of Oregon? I don’t understand. I FINISHED FAUXMANCE, I SWEAR!”

He doesn't believe me so he's just walking away.

The amazing thing is that even though flying to Houston was one long, stressful ordeal…the situation paid off big time. My aunt proof-read AWKWARD for me, which was perfect since I wouldn’t have caught the nit-picky details that she noticed.

For example: turns out there is a difference in meaning between discrete and discreet. I was using the wrong one.

And while I started this post in Denver, I have now officially arrived in Houston. I’m enjoying my cousin’s air conditioning right now, as a matter of fact.

But since I’m still exhausted…it’s nap time!

More later!

~Marni

GAH! Forgot to mention that everyone should check out KTeen’s Facebook page! And not just because the cover of AWKWARD is in their super cool collection of book covers for 2012! Here’s the link: ?set=a.261830603845238.83430.222843874410578

Willamette Writers Conference 2011

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Hey everyone!

Okay, I’ve been anticipating the Willamette Writers Conference for a long time now. I used it as a reference point on the horizon when I was struggling with homesickness in Australia. I could flip open my agenda and point to the first week of August and know that I would find people there who would understood me.

There’s something about being surrounded by other people who also see people who don’t exist that I find…comforting.

Which might sound funny since The Sixth Sense scared the hell out of me.

Haley Joel Osment and I both must like pens way more than pencils.

I was so excited to go this year that…well, my enormous grin never faded.

I’m surprised TSA wasn’t afraid I would spontaneously combust.

And when I got there I was allowed to hang out in the VIP room with all the agents! Unfortunately I didn’t snap any pictures of it (I was trying to play it cool) but it looked classy to me. Well, definitely by college standards. No PBR here.

It was all fancy french cheese and crackers.

I can actually report back every single dish on that table because I was that determined to absorb every detail. Which sadly includes the baby corn, olives, and spinach and polenta squares.

But I’m guessing you guys don’t care about any of that.

So here’s something you might like to know: the WWC attracted some of the coolest people I’ve ever met. Seriously. I could not have asked to spend my time with a nicer, more interesting group of agents, managers, producers, oh, and writers!

So typically I was already in the wee small hours of the morning before I called it a night.

And that’s why I drank copious amounts of coffee throughout my panels.

I had so much fun! I love giving advice to other writers. And I love talking about YA fiction. Nothing else I’d rather do.

Now this is where you probably want to hear the details…but I’m too tired to go into it. I thought I had the energy when I started blogging. All of it drained out of me though. There are just too many of them for me to even know where to begin.

However, I am thrilled to announce that one of my very good friends now has an agent. Way to go Katherine! It really can/does happen, people!

Anyhow, the conference has made me seriously consider making some huge changes, like moving to LA and trying to break into TV.

On the one hand: terrifying.

On the other hand: thrilling.

I guess we’ll all have to just wait to see what happens. In the meantime, I need to get back to work on my books for KensingtonTeen, fly to Houston and finish college.

But right now I need more sleep!

~Marni

 

I’m Going to AFRICA!

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Hey everyone!

It’s official! I’m going to be leaving for Africa on December 13th!

Specifically, I’ll be going on safari in Kenya and Tanzania. I have no idea what to expect. I’ve travelled to some pretty amazing places but I think this will be the winner as far as off the beaten path trips go. I can’t wait.

But that’s what I have to do this week:

Wait.

The wedding isn’t until Saturday but I have a family dinner tonight and the bachelorette party tomorrow. Oh, and apparently there is something happening Sunday night too (although I’m not sure if my presence is required). Then I have three days of babysitting before I fly to Portland!

Most of which will be spent glancing from my laptop screen to my empty suitcase and groaning.

So originally I had planned on being finished with my rough draft of FAUXMANCE before the conference. That way I could sit on panels with Laurie McLean and Grace Ledding and say really cool things like, “oh, yeah, this latest novel came together for me in about three months. No big deal.”

But…yeah, that’s not going to happen. Unless, of course, the whole novel suddenly explodes out of my fingertips and I spend the flight to Portland banging away at my computer watching my page numbers spiral from 170 to 200 to 250 and then, at last, oh yes! 265!

That’s the dream, right?

Still it’s not like I can get kicked off the panel for being unable to meet my own absurd deadlines. No one is going to escort me out, right?

Security Guard: Ahem, Miss? You’re not allowed in here. We read on Twitter that you’ve been watching Burn Notice and White Collar at your grandma’s house instead of writing. And that can of Pringles you’ve been eating did not fuel any amazing scenes the way you claimed it would.

Me: Uh, I’m sorry. I’ll get back to work, officer?

Security Guard: Don’t try that on me! I deal with your kind all the time!

Me: Um…Oregonians?

Security Guard: You procrastinators are all the same! You make great promises and then what happens? NOTHING! It’s all: hey, man, sure I’ll file the paperwork after we interrogate the suspect. But then nobody does! So now payroll is breathing down me neck and you want to know whose fault it is? Procrastinators who muck everything up!

Me: (backs away slowly) I’m sorry! I’ll get back to writing! I didn’t mean to cause any trouble.

Security Guard: Oh, yeah? Well, it’s TOO LATE NOW!

Me:

Actually…I think I’m done with this blog post. Once I create a security guard who enjoys yelling at me that’s generally my cue to get back to work.

Plus, I don’t think I’ve finished off the Pringles. Yet.

More later!

~Marni