Dreams

I've been thinking about dreams lately. Not dreams as in the life-long wishes/hopes/aspirations of someday becoming an astronaut/princess/superhero variety. Just actual dream-dreams. Nocturnal hallucinations. Bedtime brain entertainment. You know what I mean.....

This is probably because I saw the movie Inception this weekend. Cool movie. Could have been even cooler. But very cool nonetheless. Though I have to say, my dreams rarely have such detailed scenery. They tend to be much more plot and character oriented.

For example, last night, I dreamed I was a vampiric Cinderella, complete with a ballgown and fangs. In the dream, my real-life human husband and I had to sit on a concrete bench and watch a soccer match between humanoid dinosaurs (as in, they wore shirts and sneakers) for one hundred years in order to complete a spell that would turn him into a vampire too so that we'd both be immortal and could live together forever. It was all kind of romantic, except that every once in a while, one of the dinosaurs would eat the goalie.

Sometimes I do have more realistic dreams. When I'm stressed, I dream about transportation issues, like being late for a train. Such a waste of good dreaming time. I've also had many dreams interrupted by scenes where my dream-self has to leave the telepathic dragon/unicorn/whatever to find a toilet.

But typically, my dreams involve visiting with or being attacked by aliens, dragons, Lego-zombies, Ewoks, or killer M&Ms from outer space. (Those M&Ms haunted me for years. Don't even get me started about the Skittles.)

Studies have shown that people who aren't allowed to dream go crazy. I rather like the idea that soccer-playing dinosaurs and Lego-zombies are actually preventing me from losing my mind!

But sometimes I do wonder what my subconscious is trying to tell me. My current theory: it's just trying to keep me amused. It likes the same kind of fiction that my conscious mind likes!

Have you all had any cool dreams lately? Please do share in comments.

Any theories, thoughts, pet-peeves about the movie Inception? I've been bugging my husband with my theories ever since we watched the movie.....

Books of Wonder and ALA Trip Report (part 1 of 3)

Saturday

6am - Wake from dream in which I am on a Huck Finn-like raft in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and I have a stack of copies of Into the Wild that I'm supposed to sign or else the sharks with laser beams strapped to them will shoot me but I don't have a pen so I'm trying to distill the seawater so that I can sign with salt...

6:05am - Pack more pens.


11am - Arrive one hour early for reading/signing at Books of Wonder (Manhattan's best children's bookstore). Admire my book on the front bookshelf. Check to make sure I still have my pens.


11:30am - Eat cupcake with author Staton Rabin, who is very nice plus has a cool hat. Wonder when cupcake-only stores became popular. Why not eclair stores? Or carrot-cake stores?

11:55am - Notice that I will be signing books in the same room as signed first editions of Wizard of Oz, Harry Potter, and the Fellowship of the Ring. Hyperventilate a little. Then notice that the wonderful Books of Wonder staff has provided the authors with extra pens. Feel better.

Noon-ish - All four authors (JT Petty, Ellen Potter, Staton Rabin, and me) talk and/or read, then answer questions. We use a handheld microphone. I am tempted to sing Copa Cabana. I manage to resist, but it's a close call.


12:45pm - Sign books! I have a line!!! And there are even actual kids in it! (Special thanks to Julie Kaplan, the awesome teacher who told many students in Corona about me and to the students who came; special thanks to Leslie Margolis who is so sweet that she bought a copy of Into the Wild even though she's already read it; and special thanks to Penelope who heard me read the same scene twice before but came anyway because she's awesome.)


2pm - Sign the special Books of Wonder notebook. (This is a tradition - every author who has an event at Books of Wonder signs one of these notebooks. Prior notebooks hold signatures from Lloyd Alexander, JK Rowling, Tamora Pierce, etc.) I wish I could draw a picture, but the only thing I know how to draw is a somewhat deranged cartoon bunny. That doesn't seem so appropriate so I stick with just my name.

2:15pm - Arrive at Penn Station, ready to hop on the 3pm train to Washington DC for the ALA (American Library Association) Annual Conference. I'd paid the extra bucks to be on the Acela Express, due to arrive at 5:50pm, so that I can make the Penguin Young Readers Cocktail Party, which starts at 6pm. (Saturday night of ALA, many publishers throw cocktail parties. This will be my very first publisher cocktail party -- at least the first one where I have an actual official invitation and am not crashing -- and I'm determined not to miss it.)

2:20pm - Train is delayed 20 min.

2:55pm - Train is delayed 30 min.

3:05pm - Get on the Regional (slow) train instead.

6:30pm - Arrive in DC and go straight to cocktail party at the Fairmont Hotel.

6:45pm - Someone asks me, "Where's your yellow rose? All the Penguin authors have yellow roses." Feel sad and rose-less.

6:46pm - Steal a spare rose off a grand piano. Feel better.

6:50pm - John Green comes over and congratulates me on the recent release of my book. Gives me his yellow rose as a congratulations present. Now I have two roses. Feel twice as cool.

7-ish - Talk to many librarians, writers, and Penguin folk. No actual penguins are present. Pity. But I did see Judy Blume (from a distance).

8pm - Adjourn to outside patio with several awesome Penguin people (Leila Sales, Rachel Henry, Kathryn Hurley, Alan Walker, Dominique, and Kiwani, who I'm sure spells his name totally differently than I just did, many apologies) and two awesome authors (Simone Elkeles and Shannon Greenland).

10pm - Check into my hotel.

10:30pm - Go to next party in yet another hotel. Walk in to find virtually every YA author I've ever met (plus some I met for the first time, including Marcus Zusak, Debby Garfinkle, Sara Zarr, and Sarah Aronson). Also got to meet Mirrorstone editor Stacy Whitman, who is just as sweet as I thought she'd be.

12:30am - Return to my hotel. Put the yellow roses by my bed so that I'll have rose-scented dreams, rather than shark-filled ones. Sleep.

(Tune in tomorrow for more of Sarah's adventures at ALA...)

Literary Candy Land

This weekend, I'm going to BEA (Book Expo America -- to quote Jay Asher, it's a "literary candy store"). I've never been before. It's in the Javits Center in NYC. I'm told its huge. And scary. I'm a little nervous. Okay, a lot nervous.

When I'm nervous, I tend to have really vivid dreams, often either involving dragons (which is fun) or having to pee but there's no bathroom in sight (not so fun). The other night, I dreamed about going to BEA.

In my dream, I had to take a submarine to BEA. It left from Ace Hardware (because Ace Hardware has absolutely everything, including, apparently, a submarine dock). The sub was manned by the cast of "The Hunt for Red October." Or at least the Russian crewmen. Minus Sean Connery. Pity. The crew did speak in Russian, but there were subtitles so it was okay. Yes, my dream had subtitles.


Anyway, I took this Russian nuclear sub to BEA. It surfaced in the middle of an aisle of booths filled with books. I climbed out of the sub and happily headed toward the booths. I'd been told there were lots of free books at BEA, and I wanted to snag some. But when I approached the stack of books (which seemed to grow taller and taller as I walked closer), a bookseller jumped in front of it with his arms spread wide and said, "No! These are not for you! You can only have jelly beans." And he pointed at a giant vat of jelly beans, in which many other authors were frolicking (imagine those playpens full of balls that they have at Chuck E. Cheese).


So I climbed into the vat of jelly beans, which had by this time turned into Tribbles (from Star Trek). And then I was very sad because all I could do was eat jelly-Tribbles and watch the submarine crew gleefully scoop up all the books.

I don't think BEA will be like that. I hope. I'll post a trip report when I return and let you know. Wish me luck and no jelly beans!

For those of you attending BEA: I will be at the Children's Book & Author Breakfast on Friday morning, as well as the ABC (Association of Booksellers for Children) Evening with Children's Booksellers Auction and Dinner on Friday evening at the Copacabana. (Everyone, sing: "At the Copa... Copacabana...") For the rest of the weekend, I'll probably be wandering around the exhibit hall, most likely forcing INTO THE WILD bookmarks on everyone I meet. If you see me, please come say hi!

Dreaming of My Pub Date

I think I may be a little anxious about my upcoming release date.

Last night, I dreamed that it was June 21 (the pub date for INTO THE WILD, exactly one month from today!). My family and I were celebrating at home with a box of my books. We took a book out, admired it, and smiled happily at each other.

And then the zombies came.


Their skin was blue-green, and they had bits of kelp-like goo dripping off their bodies. Moaning, they shambled up the street.

We didn't panic. We knew just what to do. We took out machetes and ran to the backyard, where we chopped down brambles. We set the brambles up in an impenetrable barrier in front of our house (taking care not to block the fire hydrant). Once the barrier was in place, we fetched shovels, dug a moat around the house, and filled it with alligators. We then went back inside, boarded up all the windows, made ourselves some baked beans*, and again took out a copy of my book to admire.

* In every apocalyptic novel I've ever read, the characters always eat baked beans. I don't know why. We've never actually made baked beans. We don't even own any cans of baked beans. For the record, we also don't own any alligators.

Anyone want to analyze my dream?

On an unrelated note... (okay, maybe really loosely related since Holly was involved in the great zombies versus unicorns debate), this Sunday I attended a reading by Holly Black, Cassandra Clare, Lisa Ann Sandell, and Ysabeau Wilce at fabulous Books of Wonder in NYC. Enjoyed all four excerpts immensely. (Also enjoyed daydreaming about my reading there on June 23!) Had fun talking with Peter Glassman, Barry Goldblatt, and others while the four authors signed about a bajillion books. Afterwards, I joined Holly, Cassie, Theo, and others for a late lunch in a nearby park. Note to self: if weather report says "scattered thunderstorms," bring an umbrella. Or don't eat outside...