Hello!

I’m back! The editing for book two is officially done and in the capable hands of my fabulous HarperCollins team. (Insert a little happy dance here.) I’m not going to lie, this one made me nervous.  I usually have no problem hitting deadlines…but after adding this little guy to the mix…free time…and sleep have been hard to come by.

       

(The child does own clothing without a dinosaur on it…I think.)

BUT!

It is finished, and I have reemerged from my editing fog to realize that I’m officially behind on, well, everything. Mt. Laundry is especially intimidating. But I wanted to pop in here to share some exciting news.

The hardcover copies for Edge of Extinction-The Ark Plan are officially here!

I may have been stalking the mailman waiting for the box with the “first glimpse” copies that were sent my way. It’s okay, he already thinks I’m odd because I meet him at the door daily to prevent the dreaded doorbell ring while the babies are napping. I think the eleventh commandment should have been, “Thou shalt not wake a sleeping baby.”  It would prevent a lot of exhausted moms who find themselves tempted to break the “Thou shalt not kill” commandment.

But back to the books…I’m so beyond impressed with how everything turned out. It’s probably weird to describe a book as being pretty…but gosh darn it I think it’s gorgeous!

My cover artist Eric Deschamps outdid himself on the inside illustrations too.  If you missed the post on the evolution of the cover you can check it out here. Anyways, there are three interior illustrations as well as some cool graphics at the beginning of each chapter, and I just keep staring at them.  BUT-I’m not going to post them here…if you want to see all the amazingness, you’ll have to buy the book!

Speaking of covers, the UK cover is officially up on the HarperCollins UK website. They took a very different approach than the US, and I love the contrast.

The audiobook has also been recorded. Which, if you read my post where I pledged my undying love for the discman, then you know this was a big hairy deal. Probably more exciting than the hardcover, if I’m being honest. The fact that the amazing Emma Galvin read it just adds an extra layer of pinch me I’m dreaming to the whole thing. If you recognize her voice it’s because she also read the Divergent series. And if you’ve never read the Divergent series…you need to drop what you’re doing and get on that. Like now.

Anyways, between tackling Mt. Laundry, and its neighbor Mt. Clutter, I’ll be over here petting the pretty cover of this book and trying to convince myself that this is all happening…and soon!

I started writing Edge three years before this one was born.

Now I’m less than three weeks away from having my book on bookshelves…seriously…if I wake up and this is all a dream I’m going to be beyond upset.

In other exciting news I’m gearing up to participate in Writing Con at Carmel High School.

This is doubly exciting, one because I’ll be participating as an honest to goodness author. But secondly, and probably more exciting for me, I’ll be getting to see a lot of my old students. The last class of seventh graders that I taught are now freshmen at Carmel, so my old students are in all four grade levels. (I had around 150 students every year…times four…equals a lot of kids.)  It will be fun to see them as put together human beings, because, let’s be honest, the middle school years are rough on everyone. Including yours truly.

I give you EXHIBIT A

You’re  welcome.

So any ways, I’m excited to get to see them all again, and the two day Writing Con is topped off by a Meet The Author event at the Carmel Barnes and Noble. And folks, I was going to be the only author there without any books to sell since Edge technically doesn’t come out until May 10. However, my amazing HarperCollins team pulled some strings to get some books there, so I won’t be standing around like a big dork with no books to sell. This was a huge relief. Despite all my dork practice in middle school (see EXHIBIT A again ), I was not looking forward to standing around empty handed. So if you absolutely can’t wait to get your hands on all the dinosaur goodness…stop by and say hi on April 28th!

Another way to get your hands on a copy before the rest of the world is by entering the Good Reads giveaway! Hurry! It ends soon!

That’s all for now!  I’m off to bed to sleep…for maybe an hour or two in a row. If I’m lucky.

-Laura