SCARE ME

So the other day, Lauren Myracle writes to me and says, “I CHALLENGE YOU TO A HALLOWEEN SCARE-A-THON.”

And I was all, “Okay! I’ll do it! Also, what is that?”

Because I will often say I will do things long before I ever have the slightest idea what they are. I find that this keeps things interesting.

So she explained that she is challenging 13 authors (me, Meg Cabot, Scott Westerfeld, Libba Bray, Holly Black, M.T. Anderson, Melissa De La Cruz, Cassie Clare, Shannon Hale, Kirsten Miller, John Green, Sarah Mlynowski, and Stephenie Meyer) to do something that REALLY SCARES US by the Halloween. This thing must be recorded, either in blog or video format, for the world to see.

So I thought I had this one in the bag. Not that it is a competition . . . but I was still SO GOING TO WIN. I was going to win this in the same way that I used to say I was going to WIN several plays I was in by saying all my lines fastest and knocking over the other actors until I achieved VICTORY!

You can see why I thought this, I am sure. If you’ve read this blog ever, even once, you know that the one thing I have covered is fear. I have made a celebration of my many fears. I list them. I cultivate them. I treat them like they are my very own precious children. Asking me to name one fear is like asking me to pluck one beautiful flower from a garden the size of Rhode Island.

But as I started working my way down the list, I realized that this was going to be a lot harder than I first imagined.

JELLYFISH: Jellyfish are pretty much my number one fear, and the one I am sure people would suggest. But it is actually pretty hard to find a jellyfish in New York City. It was suggested that I could find one at the Natural History Museum, but a dead, stuffed jellyfish in a glass case does not alarm me. If anything, it convinces me that we are winning against them.

No, my fear is of the jellyfish in the wild, sneaking up on you, alone or in a gang, while you swim. I could go to the beach, but it is kind of freezing out, and I’ll bet you I don’t even SEE a jellyfish there. I would probably have to go to Australia or something to see a jellyfish, and I am not going to be able to do that by Friday.

AMUSEMENT PARK RIDES: Roller coasters, turny-turny things, spinny things, upside-downy things, ferris wheels . . . I hate ‘em! (With the exception of the tilt-a-whirl, which for some reason, I like. But it must be a genuine tilt-a-whirl.) I am the person who never wants to go to the annual “street fair of death” in my neighborhood, with it its questionable, rickety rides designed to thin out the population, one carnival ticket at a time.

(Oh, they don’t CALL it the “street fair of death.” They call it a fun fair. That’s exactly what they called that festival of bad ideas I went to in the Midwest, where the biggest attraction was a crane manned by two fourteen year old guys—the one that had a cardboard sign that said, “crane rides $5” and when you gave them the $5 they would hoist you up and swing you.)

But all the local amusement parks/street fairs of death are closed, as far as I know. Problem!

WATERSLIDES: My loathing of waterslides is profound. I can think of almost nothing worse then being flung down a dark, twisting tube filled with water until you are expectedly dumped into a larger pool of water. But again, it is cold, and they are closed.

You see what I mean. I kept working my way down the list. Wasps, butterflies that go right for your face, the coming explosion of the sun . . . there was no way I could directly confront these things. In several cases, I found that I had already confronted fears. Like my fear of swimming with/touching tiny, colorful tropical fish. I committed this act of madness in Aruba a few months ago.

Even more annoying . . . I don’t seem to be concerned by many things that scare other people to death. I love to fly. I even enjoy turbulence. I find a ride in a New York taxi cab going ninety miles an hour through heavy traffic and yellow lights healthy and enjoyable. I snoozed through horror movies like The Ring. Clowns are quite nice people. Spiders don’t particularly bother me. Snakes are okay. I downright ADORE zombies. (Why, nothing brings a smile to my face like that scene in Dawn of the Dead where all the zombies are trying to ice skate and use the mall escalators!)



I was starting to seem . . . kind of brave. Which was incredibly distressing. Because I KNOW I HAVE THE MOST FEAR.

I got more and more desperate. I even checked in with the New York Trapeze School, because that is definitely on my “no &#^$ing way” list. But they were all booked! And when I watched the little video, it didn’t even seem THAT scary. Al Roker did it. (I am not saying Al Roker is scared of everything. I’m just saying that things seem much less scary when you have seen Al Roker do them.)

What it essentially boiled down to were three kinds of things:

1. Things that I am afraid of for good reason: running into traffic, falling down elevator shafts, being shot at.

2. Things that I am definitely afraid of, but will not come up: being sent into space, being attacked by the Jonas Brothers, somebody making a sequel to the movie “Rat Race.”

3. Things I’m not so much scared of but just don’t feel like doing: getting a lip piercing, listening to two hours worth of recorded Robocalls, eating a large piece of government cheese, etc.

I was in a total panic, and then I remembered . . . I have you guys. And you guys are smart. You will know a scary thing. I need your help. It needs to be something scary and achievable by FRIDAY.

Your ideas will be featured, discussed, and celebrated . . . so make them good!

Leave your suggestions in the comments. If I use yours, you get a signed book OF YOUR CHOICE, Suite Scarlett or Let it Snow!

LET IT SNOW!

I’m sitting here listening my holiday iMix. At the moment, that means I am listening to Bing Crosby’s “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas.” You may be wondering why, since it is October 1st. Even by the most extreme standards, this is a little too early for holiday music.

I would argue that, actually. If you have been reading this for a while, you will know that I love HOLIDAY CHEER in the same way that I love ABBA. I am a holiday freak! I come from a family of holiday freaks! (OK. My mom.) Also, Bing Crosby! It’s always time for Bing.

But there is a specific reason. I am listening to holiday music because LET IT SNOW COMES OUT TOMORROW.

Some of you might not know what that is, so let me explain.

About a year ago, John Green, Lauren Myracle and I thought it would be a very good idea to work together on a three-author book—three separate stories that took place in the same town during the same storm, over Christmas. So we did.



John, Lauren, and I. Not in that order. I’ll let you figure out who’s who.

So here’s a little about Let It Snow . . .

Story one: THE JUBILEE EXPRESS, by me

I feel that the important thing to tell you about this story is that it is kind of based on something very real in my life, namely, MY MOTHER’S ALL CONSUMING OBSESSION WITH HER DICKENS CHRISTMAS VILLAGE.

I’ve talked about this a lot before . . . the village, and my mother’s crafting superpowers. How she can embroider, paint, wreath-make, bake, tie fancy bows like they sell in swanky stores, arrange. It was my mother’s crafting that resulting in our being chased by a deranged squirrel in a park and then accidentally pepper-spraying ourselves in a Burger King ten minutes later.

For years, I have been looking at this village. Things happen in my brain, especially late at night when I am full of nog and cheer. And at some point I started speculating on what kind of trouble an addiction to tiny holiday houses might land you in. What if it got you arrested? On Christmas Eve?

Which is where my story starts. Jubilee Dougal’s parents are arrested in a riot while attempting to get the newest piece in the Flobie Santa Village. Now the daughter of convicts, Jubilee is forced on to a train against her will to spend the holidays with her grandparents, thus missing her one-year anniversary with her boyfriend . . . Perfect Noah, President of Everything, and his family’s annual Smörgåsbord. (With pickled fish. Which turns out to be better than it sounds and more important that you’d ever think pickled fish could be. Also, this is a Swedish Christmas tradition, one that I am sure the members of Abba enjoy.)

Unfortunately for Jubilee, the train is heading right into a monster storm, one that will bring the entire East Coast to a standstill. It’s this storm that lands her hundreds of miles away from home and her destination at a roadside Waffle House, with fourteen cheerleaders and a beautiful but sad guy named Jeb. It is there that she also meets Stuart, a recent dumpee and Target employee with a paralyzing fear of Starbucks. He will take her on a follow-the-yellow-hazard-light-lit-road journey through ice and sexual politics, smack into fake cheer, bizarre family relations, and madness.

This is not going to end well.

It’s here that we run into . . .


Story two: A CHEERTASTIC CHRISTMAS MIRACLE, by John Green

Tobin, JP, and the Duke are sitting around watching Bond movies. Tobin’s parents have been trapped in the snowstorm at Boston airport, and Tobin and his friends have free reign to celebrate the holiday eve in any way they see fit. Hence, Bond.

But everything changes when they get a call from Keun, their friend who works the counter at the Waffle House. Santa has arrived early, having delivered fourteen cheerleaders to his humble place of work—a Waffle House on the side of the road, on Christmas Eve.

There are two other employees at the Waffle House, and they will be calling THEIR friends, and there is only room for ONE CARLOAD OF GUYS in this high, holy temple, where cheerleaders do splits on the counters. So Tobin, JP, and the Duke must brave the biggest storm of the century in a death race to the Waffle House to be THE FIRST GUYS THERE.

Oh, except the Duke is a girl. This is just the first of the night’s complexities, which grow more serious and surreal as they venture further into the storm. (Something to watch for: one of the best chase sequences I have ever read. Seriously. I read this first on a train, in a snowstorm, in January (fitting) . . . and I did something you should not do on a train . . . BURST INTO UNCONTROLABLE HIGH-PITCHED LAUGHTER THAT MADE EVERYONE MOVE AWAY FROM ME.)

As we go into the weary dawn of the 26th of December, our tale is FAR from over. Because the storm has wrecked some damage and people are missing. So we enter . . .


Story three: THE PATRON SAINT OF PIGS, by Lauren Myracle

Addie has screwed up. Seriously. She had it all . . . an incredible boyfriend in the person of Jeb, normal hair, good friends . . . and then she went and messed it all up.

First, a major misunderstanding resulted in her kind of cheating on Jeb, and losing him. He’s out there somewhere in the storm, not calling her. Which explains why she has dyed her hair pink. Kind of.

Addie is NOT WELL.

When her friends Tegan and Dorrie come to pick up the pieces, Addie tries to salvage her wreck of a life by picking up Tegan’s new pet teacup pig from the pet store the next morning. The pet store is across from Starbucks, where she works. (This Starbucks has seen heartache before.)

What’s a teacup pig?

It’s one of THESE!



PIG!

Yes, that’s a pig. And you can raise it as a pet. Tegan has been waiting for her teacup pig for a VERY LONG TIME. And how hard can it be? Just going across the street to get a small pig?

Very hard, if you’re completely heartsick, and your head is pink, and your nemesis works in the store, and you’re behaving kind of strangely in general. It could all be fixed by ONE PHONE CALL from Jeb, letting Addie know that everything is okay and she is forgiven . . . but the storm has turned the world upside down. The town is full of cheerleaders and other strangers . . .

Want it? Get it NOW and it ships TOMORROW. It will be available EVERYWHERE YOU BUY BOOKS. I’d recommend an independent bookstore, but you can also get it at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Borders (which apparently thinks that John wrote it by himself), Target, or THE LIBRARY!

I’d give away copies today, except they are all at home in New York. But if you are in England, I will READ IT TO YOU from the copy I have on my computer if you can FIND ME!

CHALLENGE! FIND MJ!

Or just GET LET IT SNOW!