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• The last thing I want to do first thing in the morning: clean up cat barf. Guess what I just did?
• My (awesome) brother just picked me up for the airport. I know, I'm surprised as you are that I got up this early.
• Worst CVG security line ever! Walked straight on to my (exit row) seat when I got to the gate.
• A guy in the back of my plane had a seizure. First time I've been on flight where they paged for a doc. Nice delay in CVG. Just left LAX!
• Why are LA cabs always uncomfortably hot?
• The cabbie has hockey playing curious George hanging from his rear view mirror which makes me like him better. Wish he would get off phone
• At faculty dinner sitting with @EllenHopkinsYA, @Suzanne_Young, David Diaz and others. The bartenders make fab cosmos.
• David Diaz kicked our butts at Hannah Montana Uno #SCBWI09

• Ahh. King size hotel bed. Goodnight, tweeps. Lots of tweets and blogging tomorrow! #SCBWI09
• #scbwi09 SCBWI TEAM BLOG @PaulaYoo; @leewind; @cuppajolie; @jeaimetem; @suzanne_young #followfriday
• Breakfast with Team Blog in The Breeze. Everyone is playing with devices. We start conference coverage in an hour. #SCBWI09
• Just went last in the faculty word parade. My word: blog! #SCBWI09
• Sherman Alexie has the room laughing. #SCBWI09
• Sherman Alexie can go seamlessly from tragedy to comedy. #SCBWI09
• Sherman Alexie has perhaps the best story ever about how books helped him get through childhood. #SCBWI09
• Sherman Alexie: "I'm rich but I still have class issues." #SCBWI09
• Sherman just dropped a very appropriate F-bomb. #SCBWI09
• Sherman: "The book is safe. The book is where I can hide." #SCBWI09
• Sherman: "It's easy to hand a book to a kid that's about that kid." The challenge is to engage a kid in a book that isn't. #SCBWI09
• It's super cold in the conference ballroom but David Wiesner's beautiful images will warm me up. #SCBWI09
• David Wiesner is showing clips from The Shining in relation to his process. Makes sense in person. #SCBWI09
• David Wiesner loves him some movies. Now he's discussing 2001: A Space Odyssey. #SCBWI09
• But really, is it any surprise movies inspire Wienser? Look at his books if you're not sure. #SCBWI09
• Lobby court restaurant is trying to starve me and make me late.
• Lin Oliver is telling contest winner jokes. There are some witty peeps here. Oh--door prizes! #SCBWI09
• Editor panel going on. I love listening to editors discuss books they're passionate about. #SCBWI09
• Ari Lewin from Hyperion: bookstores love series. Stand alone connected stories, even better. # SCBWI09
• RT @gregpincus: #scbwi09 Tweetup tonight at 9 in the lobby bar area. Come say "hi" or something longer than 140 characters!
• Agent Marietta Zacker is reading the first paragraph from an unpublished novel she says "gives her shivers" every time she reads it #SCBWI09
• Marietta Zacker said she recently counted how many manuscripts her agency receives daily. Answer: 10. #SCBWI09
• Check out the secret stuff behind the book jacket of Frank Portman's latest novel, Andromeda Klein

• Just rode the elevator with a guy who bathed in cologne. I can still smell it. #SCBWI09
• Karen Cushman just took the stage. I love her books. #SCBWI09
• Someone's phone just rang. Karen Cushman: "Sounds like the ice cream man is here." #SCBWI09
• Cushman: Writing is like exercise. I wanted to do it, planned to do it, but never got around to doing it. Until she was in her 50s. #SCBWI09
• Karen Cushman quoting a poet: Write what you know. This should leave you with a lot of free time. #SCBWI09
• Karen Cushman: I figured I could say 'shitty first drafts' since Sherman said 'f*** you' yesterday. (Big laughs.) #SCBWI09
• Karen Cushman: Tell the truth--the emotional truth, the truth of your passion, the truth revealed from you research. #SCBWI09
• Karen Cushman: publication isn't the only reason to write. Let go of the outcome. #SCBWI09
• Karen Cushman: Like Flannery O'Connor, I write what I can. #SCBWI09
• Holly Black is leading an active discussion on critique groups. Blog posts soon. (No wifi in Brentwood room.) #SCBWI09
• Holly Black always wears cool shoes. #SCBWI09
• Holly Black just had the people in her session write something, swap with a partner, and tell each other what's good about it. #SCBWI09
• Ellen Hopkins: "The $8000 advance I got for Crank was not life changing." #SCBWI09
• Ellen Hopkins: There were dark phases in my life. I got through them. I worked them into my writing. #SCBWI09
• Ellen Hopkins is making me cry. I wish you were all here listening to her story. #SCBWI09
• Ellen Hopkin's Crank sold on 75 pages. #SCBWI09
• It took 2 1/2 years for Crank to hit the NY Times bestseller list. #SCBWI09
• Ellen Hopkins: Learn the rules before you break them. #SCBWI09
• Courtney Bongiolatti (S&S); "Literal hell or metaphorical? Because that would be important for the synopsis." #SCBWI09
• #SCBWI09 Conference F-Bomb Count--number of keynote speakers who have have dropped the f-bomb so far: 4. (I'll update you as f-bombs happen)
• Wendy Loggia (Delacorte) googles writers before she takes them on. So watch what you say in the blogosphere, tweeps. #SCBWI09
• Wendy Loggia: Contrary to popular belief, we do not take pleasure in crushing writers' dreams. (She's given a great session). #SCBWI09
• Our sundae came with an extra gravy boat of fudge.

• Doing last minute presentation prep for my breakout session Practical Online Promotion. #SCBWI09
• Holly Black: Fantasy has real stuff to say about our own world and real things to say about us. #SCBWI09
• Holly: We have to believe in the fantastical when we read it. World building is one of most difficult things for fantasy writers. #SCBWI09
• Holly Black: In many ways fantasy resembles historical fiction. #SCBWI09
• Holly Black's crazy theory: fantasy plotting is slightly different than non-fantasy plotting
• Holly Black: When I started, I wrote a lot of scenes with elves sitting around drinking coffee and experiencing ennui. #SCBWI09
• I'm talking about twitter
• Just left the Golden Kite Luncheon. Getting ready to blog Marla Frazee's session, How Your Words Inspire Me to Draw Pictures #SCBWI09
• Marla Frazee: I [illustrate] one page at a time and I do them in order. Because I'm a Capricorn. #SCBWI09
• Elizabeth Law: Egmont's profits go to children's charities. They are technically an not-for-profit publisher. #SCBWI09
• Elizabeth Law: Writers need to know what the hook is for their books. Elevator pitches aren't two minutes long. #SCBWI09
• Elizabeth Law: She thinks agents are important and advises writers to find one. "I rely on agents to weed things out for me." #SCBWI09
• Elizabeth Law: "Winslow the Whale spouted emotions through his blow hole." (Posted because it's just as funny out of context.) #SCBWI09
• Elizabeth Law on social networking: Join networks, make comments, make friends, don't be embarrassed to talk about your work. #SCBWI09
• Elizabeth Law: "If anyone does introduce me to my future husband, there's a contract for you at Egmont." #SCBWI09
• @mbrockenbrough That was one excellent banana.
• @chavelaque Thanks! And thank you for contributing. (Everyone be sure to read Cheryl's great piece on revision in the 2010 CWIM.)
• I'm having my final breakfast at The Breeze at the Century Plaza. (I recommend the oatmeal.)
• On my way to my least favorite airport LAX. (It is no CVG.)
• My cab driver's name is Igor. That's kinda cool. I've never met an Igor. (He's a very good driver.)
• Just drove past a Live Nudes place right next to Carl's Jr. I'm so not in the Nati.
• I'm standing in the line to get to the next place I will stand in line. LAX: you are living up to my expectations.
• Number of times 20-something dude in security line said 'dude' in his 5-minute phone call: 13. (I counted.) Dude. His Vegas trip ROCKED!
• I'd forgotten all about humidity until it smacked me in the face outside the airport.
• Back in the Nati and stuck in LA-style traffic. But someone's here to help.
  

There’s something I’ve seen in the world of mommy bloggers called Love Thursday, and today I’d like to contribute to that tradition.

Love is…

knowing you are supposed to wear your haiku T-shirt when you go into your fifth grader’s class to read, because you’re reading poetry and because you promised fifth grader you would wear it, but then you spill tiny drops of makeup on the chest and the drops of make-up are very noticeable and might stain, so you wash them off but get a little overzealous and end up getting half of the shirt soaking wet, but since you have to wear it in ten minutes you throw it in the dryer, not realizing that ten minutes is not going to be enough because when you take it out, the shirt is still pretty damp, but you’ve got to leave so you wear it anyway because you said that you would.

A Haiku T-shirt will be among the prize packages of the 48 Hour Book Challenge, with thanks to Threadless for the donation.

Cool prizes to offer? Scroll down to the ever exciting Email MotherReader! button and make me an offer I can't refuse.