I grew up on horror movies. Really. I think the first horror movie I saw was a black and white about zombies, and I couldn't have been more than 5.  I remember sitting with my mom at the age of 7 and watching an R-rated slasher movie called Hell Night. Pretty much no movie was off-limits to me. As a result, I had a steel stomach. Gore and things ( Read more... )

I am just really excited today to find out that people have read my journal. Because there are something like 4 gazillion blogs out there, and I really only have time to read like, 1 gazillion of those ( Read more... )

Things have been kind of crazy lately, so I'm not sure I posted what I'd intended to on Dear Bully. For the record, with work and other things going on, I only have a few minutes here and there to post, and so I apologize if my thoughts come out a jumble. I realize they probably will even more than ever with this post, because it is something that ( Read more... )

You may have noticed I removed my most recent post. That was because I received a rather negative comment from an aspiring author who accused me of playing "poor author" and pleading with reviewers to stop giving me bad reviews.

To that person, I say: Okay, I'll admit that bad reviews don't make me jump up and down with glee, but they are part of a ( Read more... )

There are a lot of really depressing YA books out there. Dystopians, dark paranormals... the world is coming to an end, zombies are ruling the planet, and people's faces are melting. Hooray!

There's nothing wrong with books like that. Obviously. But if you want to switch it up a bit, please consider the new ebook that I co-wrote with the awesomely ( Read more... )

Yesterday I had a conversation with my mother that went something like this.

Me: "Hey, did you want a copy of Entertainment Weekly? My book is in it."

Mom: "Oh. Okay."

Me: "Entertainment Weekly. You know, that really popular magazine?"

Mom: "Oh. Right."

Me: "My book is in it.  Isn't that . . . exciting?"

Mom: "Well. You've been in so many things."
( Read more... )

Last week I discovered that STARSTRUCK would be featured in the Fall Movie Preview issue (August 19) of Entertainment Weekly! Hooray! Strange that the second I started working and stopped refreshing my email every two seconds, something good happened. The pot I'd been watching for two years finally boiled, when I wasn't looking ( Read more... )

These past two weeks, I've been rushing around like crazy with the kids, trying to pack a summer's worth of fun into a few short days. We've been to the shore, to Dutch Wonderland, to a corn maze in Lancaster, to Knoebel's... etc, etc. That's because on Monday I will be starting a new job. This job is not at all YA-literature-related, which is what ( Read more... )

Well, since STARSTRUCK is about to descend about the world (this coming TUESDAY, July 12!) I'm giving away some stuff.

You see, I am mostly confined to my home, and do not get a chance to frequent bookstores, so....

If you happen to see STARSTRUCK (or SLEEPLESS, in paperback, coming out the same day!) in the wild, snap a picture and email (cyn at ( Read more... )

I spent a few days away, working on finishing up a book I'm revising, and came back to 3 fun things on my doorstep.

First, copyedits for TOUCHED! I can not wait to dig back into this story because I love it.

Second, this:


( Read more... )