OOOoooOOOOooo!

Ever have one of those days where things are totally crazy, and you've got paint all over you, and there is a speck of drywall dust in one eye that just WON'T COME OUT, and you're a little bit behind on your edits, and your house looks like a tornado went through it, and a bunch of people are going to come over to said house that weekend, which is bad, and then you learn that your book was named to the American Library Association 2012 Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers list?

I HAD THAT DAY YESTERDAY!

Quick Picks are books with widespread appeal that are recommended for teens who, for whatever reason, don't like to read.

AND I WROTE ONE.

*thrilled*

*house is still messy, though*

Having a BAD HAIR DAY

I have in my hands a typeset copy of BAD HAIR DAY, the next Kate Grable adventure. This is my final opportunity to make changes (and to argue that YES, bathmats can be made out of human hair) before it gets made into a real book that I can carry obsessively around my house and thrust randomly into people's faces.

I should also note that I just lied. Because if I was holding the pages right now, I couldn't type. But the pages are NEXT TO ME. I AM HOLDING THEM WITH MY NON-PHYSICAL BODY. QUIT BEING SO PICKY ALREADY!!!!

Ahem.

Anyway, it occurs to me that I haven't talked much about BAD HAIR DAY, because it doesn't come out until November and I don't want any of you to kill me. But things will soon be happening! Like, I'll be able to show you the cover! (And holy crapsticks, it gives the first one a run for its money. And not a run for its monkey, which I honestly did type the first time and helps to demonstrate why I need edits.) So...without further ado...here's the cover copy of BAD HAIR DAY to tide you over.

Senior year is positively hair-raising.

Kate Grable is geeked out to shadow the county medical examiner as part of her school’s pre-med program. Except when he’s arrested for murder, she’s left with the bodies. And when Kate’s brother Jonah stumbles upon a dead gamer girl, she realizes that the zombie epidemic she cured last fall was only the beginning of the weirdness taking over her town. Someone’s murdering kids—something really hairy. And strong. Possibly with claws.

Is it werewolf awesomeness like Jonah and his dorktastic friends think? Kate’s supposed to be a butt-kicking zombie killing genius . . . but if she can’t figure out who’s behind the freakish attacks, the victims—or what’s left of them—are going to keep piling up.

It’s scary. It’s twisted. It’s sick. It’s high school.

And man, I can't wait to hear what you think of it.

Still Alive!

I feel a little like a mad scientist's project, and he's desperately attaching electrodes to my head, and Igor is pedaling the lightning bike like Lance Armstrong's about to overtake him at any minute, and the mad scientist is yelling, "It's ALIIIIVE! Still. Er, I think."

I've really missed blogging and talking with everyone, and I do intend to come back and do it on a regular basis. But, you know, the personal life thing tends to get in the way sometimes. On an extended basis, even.

So here's a quick and dirty update on Carrieland:

• I'm going to be at Epic ConFusion in Troy, Michigan this weekend! Come see me talk about why the undead are awesome, and how to survive this whole writing thing, and a bunch of other things that I really need to sit down and think about. You know, during my copious free time.
  
• There's not so much of that free time going around lately, either, because I just got first pass pages for the next Kate Grable book! You know what that means? We'll have ARCs for BAD HAIR DAY coming out in the next couple of months! And I will give some of them to you. Because you are awesome.
  
• These are so freaking cool. I kind of want someone to make a picture of a zombie face out of a copy of BAD TASTE IN BOYS. Sadly, with my artistic skills, the only thing I could manage is a stick figure missing a foot.
  
• I'm a proud member of Team Kraken in Change Write Now! (And I did NOT come up with the name. But isn't it the coolest? Our full name is Lets Get Kraken. And my shoulders are really sore, which isn't particularly krakeny of me, is it?
• You must read this article and learn what the Hoff and Yeti crabs have in common.

What about you? What have YOU been up to?