If the Internet was High School, I'd Vote Book Bloggers Most School Spirited

I want to take a minute to say how much I love book bloggers. Seriously, book bloggers are THE BEST. Before I was on the published author track, I loved reading book blogs to find out about great things I should be putting on my Goodreads list. I have book bloggers to thank for finally getting into Sarah Ockler, Gayle Forman, Rachel Hawkins, and Jenny Han. Is there any greater gift than a good book? I don't think so. I love their enthusiasm over books and how contagious that enthusiasm could be.

But now that I'm a mere 7 months (!!!) from publication of my debut novel, I love love LOVE book bloggers. Over the last couple weeks, I've been spotting a ton of Waiting on Wednesday posts, which are inevitably followed by a slew of comments from people who are psyched up about reading Meant to Be, some of whom heard about it for the very first time from a blog post! Thanks to book bloggers spreading the word (and the love!), the adds on Goodreads have jumped to exponentially! You guys, thank you so much for blogging and sharing and talking up my book. I really hope you all love the insides as much as the outsides!

And if you're psyched about Meant to Be, I have some good news for you:  I'm almost done with the second book on my Random House contract, another stand-alone contemporary YA comedy. I can't tell you much about it yet, but I can tell you that I'm working hard to make sure it's HILARIOUS (with some swoony bits in there, too!). There's a little bit of The Parent Trap meets a little bit of The Cutting Edge, and I promise, you're going to lust after it, too!

While I've been a little absent from these parts due to my insane writing schedule, I have been tumbling fairly frequently over at laurenmorrill.tumblr.com, so follow along there to see little snippets of my brain. Posts over there seem to fall into one of three categories:

• Writing is hard, ya'll
• OHMYGOD HE IS SO. CUTE.
• OHMYGOD THAT IS SO. CUTE

It's basically like being inside my head, except less messy and slightly less insane.

Once I finish book 2 (which should be just four short weeks from now!) I'll be a lot more into the whole long-form blogging thing. I'll probably also have a lot more news to talk about, if these recent Waiting on Wednesday posts are any indication!  Keep up the blogging, and if you have a post to share about Meant to Be, leave it in the comments!

A Round-Up of News

The first piece of news is that I'm blogging over at the Apocalypsies today telling you all about how freaking fantastic Lissa Price's Starters is. It's out today, and you will definitely want to pick up a copy.

The second piece of news is that I have my very first author appearance scheduled! Looks like I'll be speaking at Literacy Night at Foxboro High School for World Book Night. I'll be talking about reading, writing, and Meant to Be, and we'll even have a few ARCs to give away! I'm really excited about it. I'll post more details when I have them.

And finally, a huge thank you to all the people who commented, tweeted, facebooked, smoke signaled, or e-high-fived me about Meant to Be's fabulous cover. The internet love was out of control, and I definitely have a case of the warm fuzzies.

Now that the cover is out, I can share these great pictures of my family's traveling ARC of Meant to Be!

My mom, reading MTB at the entrance to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park

My grandparents diving in after my mom handed it off to them

If you have an ARC of Meant to Be and want to show off a picture of it out in the wild, send it on to me (lemorrill at gmail dot com), and I'd love to post it!

An announcement!

I know, I know ... it's been too long since I've blogged, but it's all because I've been writing my behind off on book 2! And also because I got my wisdom teeth out yesterday, which is no fun at all. But now I'm back, because I have a very exciting announcement about book 1, Meant to Be. Are you ready?

Like, really ready?

Because I'm SO ready.

Drumroll please ....

I HAVE A COVER!

Oh wait, you want to see it?

Hmmm....

Well....

Ok!

One second, lemme grab the file ...

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Introducing ....

Isn't it so pretty??? I am in LOVE with the color bursts and the London skyline and the green grass ... and also the fact that that's MY. NAME. on the cover! I just couldn't be happier...

So now when you head on over to Goodreads, not only will you see the full synopsis, but you'll see the cover, too! And I recommend that you do that right quick!

Alrighty, back to work on book 2 (which I can't wait to tell you more about!) with frequent breaks to stare at my cover!

I want to tell you about Trafficked

Yes, I'm emerging from the weeks-long writing/life/derby cave. No, I'm not done with book 2. Only about half done, actually. But I had to climb out, because I have something oh so important to tell you:

You need to read this book.

No seriously, you should read it now.

The other night I was curled up in a fluffy hotel bed in Montreal, midway through a vacation weekend that included a game of roller derby against Montreal's New Skids on the Block and some serious writing research (because, as I mentioned earlier, book 2 takes place in Montreal!). It was late, and I was using the Westin wifi to catch up on my GoogleReader. A post from The Story Siren came up, and I nearly blew by it. It was a guest post by Kim Purcell, talking about her own research travel to Moldova for her YA novel that came out last week, Trafficked. And the post was intriguing and terrifying.

I immediately went to Amazon and read the sample, and when I got to the end of it, I bought the whole book. And then I didn't stop reading, in the dark on my laptop while my husband and my dog snoozed, until I finished. And then I laid in bed thinking about the story, and Hannah, the main character. You have to meet Hannah. She's a victim of human trafficking who refuses to see herself as a victim. In every situation where she can give herself agency, she does it. She has spunk and life, even in the most horrible of situations.

****HERE BE SPOILERS! CONTINUE AT YOUR OWN RISK!****

Kim Purcell, please write a sequel to Trafficked. Please. I want to see Hannah further come into her own here in the US. I want to see the work of the organization that helps her. I want to see her stand up to Lillian and Sergey and Paavo in court. I want to see what happens to the children. I want to know a little bit more about the neighbor boy, who was so thoughtfully written. He wasn't a savior, he wasn't swoony. He had his own problems, and he was confused by Hannah. And yet he did the thing that needed to be done at the moment it needed to be done.

****SPOILERS OVER!****

So please, pick up this book. I promise you, you won't be able to put it down, and it will change the way you look at your safe little world, at least for a little bit. It's an Important book with a capital "I." And then come back and tell me what you thought of it.

Curiously Absent ... aka, the Life of an Author Between Book 1 and Book 2

I know, I know, I've been a little MIA lately around these parts, but that's because I'm smack in the middle of Book 2. And also starting to prep for the release of Meant to Be, aka Book 1 (only 285 days to go!).

And well, I've been spending the last 48 hours gazing longingly at this:

Yep, that's the title page to my very YA first novel, our November 13, 2012! Wendy, my editor, sent first pass pages, which basically means the thing is typeset and LOOKS LIKE A BOOK. My job is to go through looking for typesetting or small proofreading mistakes. This is not the time to decide that I want to change a setting or conversation. That ship has sailed. All I can do now is look for misplaced commas or misspellings.

I estimated that I have to read through 23 pages per day to get through it all by February 14, when it's due back to Random House. I sat down last night to get started, and can you imagine my shock when I ended up at 40 pages! I actually got sucked into my own story, which is kind of crazy since I wrote it and I know what's going to happen. And then I looked over at my husband, blinked back a few tears, and said, "Um, I think this is pretty good." I can't wait for you guys to have Meant to Be and fall in love with it as much as I have. It's funny and sweet and swoony ... it's a rom com with some serious heart.

But it's not all daisies and roses around here. Yes, it's really exciting to have Meant to Be in my hands, almost a real live book, but there's WORK to be done. Serious work. Beyond reading through it carefully for mistakes, I'm also knee-deep (well, maybe more like neck-deep) in the first draft of book 2. So far I've got 6 chapters, 18,900 words, and 2 POVs. Oh, you didn't know? Book 2 is told in dueling perspectives!

And so while reading through Meant to Be, I also have 4 new chapters due, plus a revision on the first 6. All by February 14th. There's going to be some serious celebrating come Valentine's Day, that's for sure! Luckily I can do that celebrating in Montreal, where I'll be playing roller derby, eating poutine, and doing some vacation book research. Oh, you didn't know? Book 2 is set in Montreal!