Lisa Yee's Blog: 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . . WARP SPEED Launches Today!

I know we were in the middle of our American Girl Tour Across Everywhere, but we're taking a slight detour. Do you know what today is?

Read this to find out . . .

Your are right! (I didn't know you could read Klingon.) Today’s the official debut of my ninth novel . . . WARP SPEED!!!!

Warp Speed is about Marley Sandelsky, a Star Trek geek who gets beat up everyday at school.

Whenever a new book comes out, I get all weird.

(Okay, so I get all weird whenever a book isn’t coming out, too, but let’s not dwell on that.)

You write alone. Unless you’re one of those authors who writes at Starbucks or another place, usually involving coffee. However, my best writing happens when I am all by myself. Mostly because I am not good at drinking coffee, plus I don’t like people looking at me when I write.

(That's a corner of my office, above. When I write there, no one can find me.)

After I finish writing a book, la la la la la . . . it’s a blissful time of unicorns and double rainbows . . . until about a month before the book comes out. Then it’s utter panic. Like, I-am-a-wreck panic. Why? Because the of the Impending Doom a.k.a. Impending Reviews . . .

Some authors don’t read their reviews. They don’t need the approval of others to know that they are good, because they are mature and have self-confidence. I am not one of those authors. Instead, whenever my editors send me a review, I read it with one eye shut to minimize the damage to my corneas in case the review is so harsh that it sears into my eyeballs and causes permanent damage.

Luckily for my family (because my self-pity would be HUGE and I would become impossible to live with), I can keep writing! (At least until the reviews for the next book.)

Here are some WARP SPEED reviews . . .

There are some people who I’d like to thank. They survived being around me during the writing of WARP SPEED. So kudos to my amazing editors, Arthur Levine and Cheryl Klein.

(Dan Santat drew those photo-realistic illustrations.)

Thank you to Hubby and Teen who put up with me denouncing bullies every night at dinner, and speaking Klingon, and acting like a middle schooler. (I tend to morph into my characters.) And a special thanks to Son, who listened to rough chapters of the novel every day after school and gave me valuable input.

Son also offered wonderful insight, like when he said, “Rats. Rats? No one in middle school says, ‘rats.’” Sadly, he gave me this pearl of wisdom after he read the ARC. So if you see the word “rats,” ignore it.

Also, I got the solar system wrong – Son pointed that out too. Who knew that Earth was not the biggest planet? (Don’t answer that.)

(BTW, I found the crocheted planets here)

Accuracy is impartant to me. Er, important to me. So I turned to these three guys for help writing the books. Later I'll blog about who they are, what they did, and why they look so . . . interesting.

Thank you everyone who worked on WARP SPEED!

Come help us celebrate at the OFFICIAL LAUNCH PARTY!!!
Here's the video invite for the WARP SPEED and BOBBY THE BRAVE (SOMETIMES) Launch Party . . .

NEXT BLOG: A Peep in Manhattan.

Disclaimer: No proofreaders were harmed (or even used) in the creation of this blog.

PLACES I WILL BE SOON, AND HOPE YOU WILL BE, TOO . . .

March 12, Boston Court ARTTalk in Pasadena -- a free day of performance art! I'll be onstage at 2 p.m.!!!