I'm sorting through some old research files (because this is the kind of thing that's far less difficult/more entertaining than actually writing but still, almost, counts as "work") and came across some of the images I used for an underwater scene in Crashed, and they were so cool that I thought I'd share.

(I'm pretty sure that I found these on io9, and that they're part of some kind of art exhibit, but it was a long time ago, so don't quote me on that.)**















You know when you're in the middle of telling someone a story and you suddenly get that sick feeling in the pit of your stomach as you realize that you've told them this story before and they're just too polite to mention it? I'm starting to wonder if I've actually posted these before (partly because I think they're so amazing that I can't quite imagine not having posted them). But if I've forgotten, there's a good chance most of you have, too, so it'll be almost like you're seeing them for the very first time.

Or you can just smile politely and mock me and my failing memory behind my back.

---
**Okay, it turns out the file format I saved them in is not uploadable to livejournal, so I had to track them down at the source, which indeed was io9. The exhibit is called the Underwater Sculpture Gallery, and if you live in the West Indies, you can see it for yourself.

As promised (and I bet a lot sooner than expected, given my recent blogging record -- but now that we're only 28 DAYS away from the Skinned paperback and 61 DAYS away from Crashed, I'm trying to be at least somewhat more faithful to this lonely little blog), here I am to post my playlist for CRASHED. 

Now, I actually hate listening to music when I write (unless it's total crap music, which is a lot easier to tune out). When it's something good, I'm too tempted to stop what I'm doing and sing along. (Also problematic is working while listening to music that Maureen Johnson likes, at least when she's around, because then she'll start dancing in her chair, and then I'll start dancing in my chair, and then it's just one big embarrassing chair dance party, which is not conducive to the whole words-on-the-page thing.)

But listening to music before starting to write, to get into the story and inside the heads of the characters, is a genius idea that I totally stole from some awesome writer whose name I have forgotten because lately I'm just a little bit losing my mind. But thanks, anonymous genius -- I value our friendship and look forward to stealing more excellent ideas from you in days to come.

Without further ado, the music of Crashed:

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“Die, Vampire Die!” from the [title of show] soundtrack has nothing whatsoever to do with Crashed . . . except for the fact that every time I got stuck, I would turn the speakers up to eleven, blast this song, dance around my apartment, and try to remember how the whole putting-words-together thing worked.  Without this song, I suspect there would be no book.

Now, here's the issue. I'm writing the third book in this trilogy as we speak. (Well, not literally as we speak, since obviously I'm procrastinating and blogging instead of working on the book, because the former is slightly more delightful and significantly easier than the latter.)

Because I have really bad taste in music, like epically bad taste, I stopped picking it out for myself a long time ago, and now subsist almost entirely on the music recommended to me by much more cultured friends.  So, friends...what should I listen to next? I need a new playlist for my new book.

So send me the name of a song that you think goes well with teenagers downloaded into mechanical bodies, religious fundamentalism, daredevil cliff-diving, love, lust, betrayal, explosions, redemption, and all that good stuff. (You can post it in the comments, email it to me, tweet me, whatever.)

On Friday I'll pick my favorite new song and whoever sent it will get a signed copy of Skinned.

(Everyone else will get my sincere gratitude, which I recognize won't be quite as satisfying. But I'll be very grateful!)

In anticipation of the release of the Skinned paperback (30 days away!) and the sequel, Crashed (63 days away!), I'm working on updating my website. If all goes well, this will include a playlist of the songs that got me through writing Crashed.  Now, as I think I've mentioned around here before, I'm not known for having particularly good taste in music. You're talking to a girl whose first cassette tape was New Kids on the Block, which was maybe excusable because I was about 11, but far less excusable is my first CD when I was 14 and thus old enough to know better: The Sign, by those musical maestros, Ace of Base.

(You know, I was going to just link to this video, but I'm sorry, I can't resist.)




Anyway, the point is, I'm not sure anyone will want to see my Crashed playlist, or that it's a wise thing to make it available for public consumption, but putting it together has reminded me of something I've been meaning to post here for an incredibly long time. A few months ago, very awesome reader McKenzie B -- who, unlike me, has incredible taste in music -- decided to put together a playlist for Skinned.

And it is, like her, very awesome.  Enjoy:

"All Dead, All Dead," Queen
"Golden," Fall Out Boy
"Everything We Had," The Academy Is
"Somebody Hates Me," Reel Big Fish
"Backstabber," Dresden Dolls
"There's a Good Reason These Tables are Numbered," Panic at the Disco
"We Both Go Down Together," Decemberists (this was a particularly excellent choice, since it's actually on the real playlist, ie songs I listened to while I was writing the book)
"The Ghost of You," My Chemical Romance
"One Day, Robots Will Cry," Cobra Starship
"Coppertone," The Academy Is

And, because in addition to being awesome, McKenzie is brilliant, here's where you can listen to the whole thing yourself.

Yes, yes, I know, I have been ludicrously negligent about updating my blog. So much so that some people may have suspected that I didn't have a blog anymore or (this would perhaps be the more conspiracy-minded among you) that I'd been kidnapped by aliens and imprisoned in some kind of Andromedan zoo of interesting humans.

But the truth is I've just
a) had a lot of work and a lot of deadlines
b) been lazy
c) had my soul and my will stolen by twitter (which, not so coincidentally, is down for maintenance -- and apparently this is what happens when I go into withdrawal)

All of the above. 

So yes, I'm sorry! And will endeavor to do better in the future. I need to come up with some kind of system of punishments and rewards. Like no blogging = no cookies. That would definitely be effective.

Next order of business, a little business. Specifically, for those of you wondering why this blog is now set to Iran time. (Or at least, I'm doing my very best to make sure that it is, if I can get lj to cooperate.)  It's because the anti-protest forces in Iran are trying to shut down protesters' blogs, and according to the always wise Scott Westerfeld, they're doing so by searching for blogs with Tehran local settings. So the more blogs with those settings, the harder it is for them to find the ones they want to censor. I wish there was something else I could do to help, but in the meantime, this is what I've got.

(if you don't know what I'm talking about: There's a revolution brewing in Iran, in reaction to the probably-stolen elections this weekend.  Many of the protesters are students, and there are reports that they're being attacked by government security forces.  You can and should read about it -- and see some amazing and terrifying pictures -- here.)

And now I shift gears to a somewhat more frivolous topic: ROBOTS!

There's much talk these days of zombies and unicorns and vampires and who would kill who in the epic knock down drag out monster on monster fight.  All I will say is that I'm pretty sure robots could take them all. (Hello, Terminator.  How you doin', Cylons?) And I'm not just saying that because
a) Battlestar Galactica is the best show ever made
b) Justine Larbalestier will probably agree to ghostwrite my next book for me if I can manage to get Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles back on the air
c) the Skinned trilogy is, technically, about a bunch of robots, even though I never, ever call them robots, because the whole idea sounds kind of goofy (so actually, forget I just said that)

I know a lot about robots. The fictional kind, at least.  And also the historical kind. (You really want to click on that second link.  At least if you've ever wondered why anyone would build a mechanical Defecating Duck.)

Not so much the modern day, real live kind that -- according to actual, PhD carrying-experts in the field -- are inevitably going to take over the world.

Oh, you heard me.

TAKE OVER THE WORLD.  Like, for real.

Last weekend, I went to a panel about the future of robotics, featuring a few Battlestar Galactica actors and several scientists and philosophers. Now, this escapade had several highlights (the first of which was actually getting to exchange small talk with Colonel Tigh himself, for those of you who are as geeked out on this show as me, and thus understand the glory of the moment).  But getting to see all the cutting edge robotics was pretty interesting, too. (Especially the part about the inevitable robo-pocalypse. The idea of this being that once we manage to create artificial brains that are smarter than our own, with the ability to create their own goals, the law of averages suggests that some of those goals might not be so human-friendly.  These were not kooks, people. I'm just saying.)

The coolest/creepiest stuff I saw:

Cyberneticist Kevin Warwick has undergone several surgeries to turn himself into a cyborg. One of them let him use his brain to operate a mechanical hand located several thousand miles away.



Then there's Hod Lipson, who built a robot controlled by a rat brain.  Which I thought might win the cool/creepy contest, but that was before he started explaining about robot evolution.  Lipson's team has been working on a way to force robots to evolve -- basically building themselves. (Basically -- extremely, and probably erroneously basically -- they throw a bunch of robot parts into a big robot evolutionary soup, and out comes the robot best able to accomplish the goal. Except they do most of it in a computer.)

Here's one of his robots that learned how to replicate itself.



And here's a robot that became self-aware of its own structure and taught itself to walk.



I consider myself one of those people with ridiculous faith in the ability of science and technology to do pretty much anything. But I have to admit, I didn't know we'd done this.

(And yes, I know "we" is wishful thinking, but if I had a time machine, you can bet I'd use it to go back in time and learn some engineering.)

I, for one, welcome our eventual robot overlords. Hopefully they'll remember I said that. And hopefully they'll be as friendly as this guy.


Who's your favorite robot?

Teen Libris is giving away copies of Mind-Rain, the amazing new anthology of essays about Scott Westerfeld's Uglies series.



Reasons you should enter:
1. It's ridiculously easy.

2. Hello, did you see that cover? Is it not obvious that you want this book?

3. If it's not obvious, let me point out what's inside: Essays by people like Jennifer Lynn Barnes, Delia Sherman, Diana Peterfreund, and me. (Oh yeah, and one by Scott Westerfeld. Maybe you've heard of him.)

4. You can find out why I think Shay is TEH AWESOME, not to mention the true hero of the series. You will also discover my true feelings on the subject of David. (Here's a hint: Team Zane 4Evah!)  (If you can't wait to find out, you can take a look at an excerpt from the anthology, here.)

5. If you win, you'll also get a free copy of Skinned. Because Teen Libris is cool like that. 

6. Even if you don't win, you'll get a coupon so you can buy Mind Rain nice and cheap. (Or if you're really eager, I guess you could just buy it now.)


Now, moving onto the next thing in the category of Good New 4 You (at least if You live in new york), tomorrow is Teen Author Reading Night. 6 pm, Jefferson Market Branch of NYPL, 425 6th ave, at 10th street.  I'm going to have to miss this one, which makes me extremely sad, because of the excellent lineup:

Nick Burd, The Vast Fields of Ordinary

Cecil Castelucci, Geektastic

Susane Colasanti, Waiting for You

Sarah Cross, Dull Boy

Jenny Han, The Summer I Turned Pretty

Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus, The Real Real

Kieran Scott, Geek Magnet

Bonus: I hear it was Sarah Cross's birthday this week, so if you're in the audience, you should definitely try to start a group sing-along of "Happy Birthday." (And then take a picture of Sarah as she tries to crawl under the table and hide.)

I promise, my next post is going to be
a) not very long from now, and
b) neither promotional nor self-aggrandizing in nature

But that said...the ARCs for CRASHED are HERE!!!!

And here is how excited I am.



Well, you'll just have to extrapolate how excited I am. I'm smiling. (I'd let you see my face, but my camera's broken and thus I had to take this picture using the camera on my computer, and I think we all know that technology is about as far from flattering as you can get...)

The book comes out in September, and someday soon I'm going to stick an excerpt up on my website, but in the meantime, here's the first official taste of what this thing's going to be about:

NO ONE TO TRUST...EVERYTHING TO LOSE

Before the accident, Lia Kahn was happy.
Before the accident, Lia Kahn was loved.
Before, Lia was a lot of things: Normal. Alive.

Human.

Lia no longer believes in before. Six months after the crash that killed her, six months after being reborn, Lia has finally accepted her new reality. She is a machine, a mech, and she belongs with her own kind. It's a wild, carefree life, without rules and without fear.  Because there's nothing to fear when you have nothing left to lose.

But when a voice from her past cries out for revenge, everything changes.  Lia is forced to choose: between her old life and her new one. Between humans and mechs. Between sacrificing the girl she used to be and saving the boy she used to love.

Even if it means he'll hate her forever.

It seems like forever until this book actually comes out, but I am now officially counting the days...

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to go celebrate this and some other excellent (but more secret) news. (To my beloved editor, if you're reading this, "celebrate" means "write my new book." It definitely does not mean "go out in the sunshine and buy myself some new summer dresses." I don't know where you got that idea.)

I don't think I've mentioned before, officially at least, that an edition of SKINNED is due to come out this summer in Australia and the UK. (June 1 in Oz, August 3 in the UK.)  Technically, this isn't the first book I've ever had on sale in a foreign country. But it is the first one that's gotten itself a brand new cover for its trip abroad.  And can I just say, I am in LOVE with it?




I seriously cannot wait to see what they're going to do with CRASHED.

So Maureen Johnson, as you may have heard, has decreed this month Blog Every Day in April month, and so far, has followed through on her insane pledge. I, on the other hand, can't help but notice that I seem to be silently waging my own counter-campaign, Blog No Day in April month, which I would argue is the perfect movement for all the lazy procrastinators who can't be bothered to, well, move, much less blog every day. Or any day. As is fitting for a manifesto of laziness, I've offered no manifesto at all on this front. Until now, I suppose. Violating the whole spirit of the thing in the process.  But this also seems fitting, since apparently, having noticed that I'm midway through BNDA, I'm too lazy to follow through.

Anyway, the truth is, several people have asked me recently why I never post anymore (okay, by "several people," I mean "my mom"), and I hate to disappoint the people. (Perhaps "the people" would like to reciprocate by making me some chocolate chip cookies next time I'm home? Ahem.)

So while it might have seemed that I winked out of existence about the same time as Battlestar Galactica (and it's true, slogging through the days is markedly more tedious without a roguish band of insane-robot-massacre survivors leading the way), I've been here the whole time.  Just too cold and too cranky to think of anything particularly fascinating to say.

As you can see, I've elected to return despite the continued lack of fascinating things to say. (Blame Maureen. It's usually a good default position.)

Actually, you can probably blame the book I'm supposed to be writing, since I've hit that phase in the writing process where anything, ANYTHING is preferable to opening the document and adding one sentence after another until I get to the end. (This is what I like to think of as the Zeno moment, at which the end of the book, despite getting closer and closer, is still receding an infinite distance away.)

My sad little manuscript has done quite a number on my sad little brain, leaving me unable to complete a cohesive train of thought, much less sustain a single theme or argument or point or anything over the course of this post.  So instead, I'll leave you with some of the questions buzzing around in my head (although I'll spare you the most obvious and prevalent, ie WHEN WILL IT FINALLY BE SPRING BECAUSE I AM ABOUT READY TO LIGHT MY WINTER COAT ON FIRE, because I'm starting to suspect the answer to that one is NEVER, and if so, I'd really rather not know).

Am wondering;
-What is the deal with these tea parties? I know I don't follow the news quite as carefully (read: obsessively) as I did during the campaign (speaking of which, did everyone see this?), but I feel like I blinked and the entire country went insane. Perhaps Senator Stuart Smalley can set us straight.

-Am I too old to think Hunter Parrish is hot? (Answer: Um, yes.) (On the Weeds front, did you hear that Jennifer Jason Leigh is joining the cast as Nancy's sister? Could that casting be any more perfect? Next I request Phoebe Cates and Parker Posey and, while we're on the subject, how about the entire cast of the Anniversary Party.)

-Am I too cool to get a little shiver of excitement every time I pass one of those posters for the imminent JJ Abrams Star Trek reboot? (Um, no.) (And speaking of unabashad geekiness, I'm still thinking of investing in a set of these. Just. Can't. Resist.)

-Is the new Turkish version of the Golden Girls going to approach the awesomeness of the original? Is that even possible without the presence of Bea Arthur? Will they still eat cheesecake?

-Because I am going to keep asking this question until someone gives me a good answer: Where is Whit Stillman?

-Did Dollhouse really, finally get good, as in so good that I have to catch up on all those episodes I missed and start watching the show?

Finally, here is a question that anyone who's crossed my path recently might want to ask me: When will Passover be over, thus allowing you to eat bread again, thus allowing you to stop being such a CRANKY, FOOD-DEPRIVED PSYCHOPATH?

Answer: Eight hours and counting.

And trust me, I am counting.

So here's my issue with the Battlestar Galactica finale.

( (Well, okay, HERE's my issue with the BSG finale, so that those of you who don't care -- or haven't seen the episode yet -- don't have to read it. )

but I would really like to see this movie:

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And yes, that is Matt Saracen from Friday Night Lights in the role of Willy Wonka victim #3.

Sadly, it's just an internet spoof.

For now.