Breathless statistics

Here we are before our first event.

Hi guys. I got home yesterday from the Breathless Reads USA tour. I did not do the Canada leg because when I was invited, the Canadian dates were planned for this Mon and Tues with a return home on Wednesday and my work and grad school is mainly on Mon-Tues-Wed and I just couldn't afford to miss two weeks. I heard Canada was awesome though, so I hope to go someday.

I had a blast on the East Coast and in Memphis and thought it would be fun to share some random statistics for the US part of the tour.

Number of tour days: 6 + 2 travel days = 8

Number of events: 6 bookstores + 4 school visits + 4 blogger interviews = 14

Number of flights: 9 (for me--varies on how far you went to get there and back).

Number of times Beth almost killed us driving to South Carolina: 0 (She was awesome).

Number of times I forgot to open the mini-van door and let people out of the back: 6? 7?

Number of flights Jessica slept blissfully through while I looked on in envy: most of them
Number of hours spent in transit from airport to hotel to school to bookstore: 15?
Number of motion-sickness pills I took: 7
Number of days before I started to lose my voice: 3
Number of hottie male YA authors who moderated for us: 1--Hi Nathan!
Number of high school boys who proposed to Elizabeth: 1 

Number of times we made fun of Morgan for how she says "about": 30? 40?

Number of things I accidentally left behind in hotel rooms: 3

Number of nights I got more than 4 hours of sleep: 1

Number of twiglets Elizabeth tricked each of us into eating: 1

With the zesty flavor of blackened toast combined with sun-baked dirt, twiglets might just make you swear off snack food forever. Is this why the British are so slender?

***Apparently tricking non-Brits into trying twiglets is a Thing. Watch Justin Bieber enjoy his first tasty bite.

Number of students at our biggest school event: 250-280

Number of attendees at our smallest event: maybe 25-30
Number of schools where the kids cheered like we were rock stars: 1
Number of schools where the kids started to fall asleep five feet from us: 1
Number of days I turned on the TV in my hotel room: 1

Number of days I had time (and energy) to work on revisions: 2

Number of days I had time (and energy) to exercise: 1

Number of NYT bestsellers Beth brought to our final event: 1

Number of churches we got kicked out of: 1
Number of times Jessica got carded: 2

Number of tiny cupcakes I ate on Valentine's Day: 3
Number of times we saw the beach in Miami: 0 :(
Number of future retreats we planned due to things like not seeing the beach: 3? 4?
Number of critique partners I met for the very first time: 2 (YAY!)
Number of awesome bloggers, readers, and booksellers we met: a kajillion! :)

Number of awesome TV appearances: 1--go Morgan!

Number of awkward and unflattering photographs snapped: I don't even want to know. But no worries, here's more evidence of our loveliness. What an awesome team :)

Here we are after our last event. Yay! We made it.

***Check the comments for some awesome additions :)

Breathless Reads tour--East Side style

You've probably heard by now that Penguin Teen is running two Breathless Reads tours--one on each side of the country. Sucks to be in the middle. Trust me, I know. I live in the middle. So if you live in the middle and are sad you can't come, I feel for you. Hey, maybe you live close enough that you can come to St. Louis Comic Con! I will be hanging out with the good people from Left Bank Books. Also Inara from Firefly will be there. And Stan Lee. If that isn't motivation to don your craziest comic costume and hop in the car, I don't know what is.

Okay, back to the Breathlessness: If you live in any of the places listed below, you should totally come hang out. So far I only know about one of them charging a fee, but you get to use that fee toward the purchase of a book :) Buying books is awesome, but if you can't buy books I still want to meet you so don't be shy. If you come and just say hi I will feel less uncomfortable sitting alone at my table while NYT bestseller Beth Revis signs eleventy-million autographs :) *fidgets* *organizes pens* *checks phone for fiftieth time* 

Seriously, come come come to the tour because I have talked endlessly online with most of these gals and they are all teh awesome. (FYI, according to Urban Dictionary 'teh awesome' is often used by internet geeks. Well, if the sparkly pink Converse fits...

Breathless Reads Tour 2013 EAST COAST LEG FEATURING:

• Fiona Paul (Venom)
• Beth Revis (Shades of Earth)
• Morgan Rhodes (Falling Kingdoms)
• Elizabeth Richards (Black City)
• Jess Spotswood (Born Wicked)
• Lili Peloquin (The Innocents) (NYC & Boston events only)

Sunday, February 10th – BOSTON
Wellesley Books 2pm
82 Central Street, Wellesley, MA 02482

Monday, February 11th – CHAPEL HILL
Flyleaf Books, 7pm
752 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd, Chapel Hill, NC 27514

Tuesday, February 12th – GREENVILLE, SC
Fiction Addiction, 6:30pm
1175 Woods Crossing Road #5, Greenville, SC 29607

Wednesday, February 13th – MIAMI
Books & Books 7pm
265 Aragon Avenue, Coral Gables, FL 33134

Thursday, February 14th - MEMPHIS
The Booksellers at Laurelwood 6pm
387 Perkins Road Extended, Memphis, TN 38117

Friday, February 15th – NEW YORK
Books of Wonder, 6pm
18 West 18th Street, New York, NY

Saturday, February 16th – MADISON
RJ Julia Booksellers 6pm
768 Boston Post Rd., Madison, CT 06443

***These are the latest times I was given, but stuff like this sometimes changes so your best bet is to call or email the store to verify the time and place. 

P. S. I can't wait to meet you :)

Five things you might not know about Andrea Cremer and an AUTOGRAPHED BLOODROSE contest

Imagine my surprise to see a tweet from my editor sister Andrea Cremer announcing that she was in St. Louis last week. No one comes to St. Louis, especially not in January! Then again, Andrea grew up in Wisconsin and lives in Minnesota, so she's used to even colder weather.

Andrea read a passage from Bloodrose and then took questions for close to an hour. Here are a few fun things you might not know:

1. Andrea feels that as much as 50% of her readership is outside of the 'teen girl' demographic.

2. Her characters can shift from human to wolf without ripping all their pants because of a physics idea known as String Theory.

3. She used to (still does?) play World of Warcraft.

4. She is currently writing a book with awesome author/Scholastic editor David Levithan, a gig she got when she made a joke on her blog about the two of them collaborating someday. *Fiona raises her hand* Hi David. Can I be next? ;)

5. Andrea started seriously writing after a horse stomped on her foot and left her housebound for the summer. Fifteen or so months later she had a deal for Nightshade. Yay for serendipitous accidents!

Andrea and me. She's the one with the pretty red hair and awesome writer glasses. I'm the one with the awkward, camera-shy smile and stylish blue fingernails. And look, there's your AUTOGRAPHED copy of Bloodrose down in the corner.

So how do you win? Write me something 150 words or less that uses all of the following words:**

night
shade
wolf's (or wolf or wolves)
bane
blood
rose

Post your submission in the comments. One entry per person. I'm going to leave this open until the end of the month. You're welcome to edit or repost, but if you don't delete your old comment I'll consider your latest post your official entry. I'm making this open internationally, but if it takes three trucks, a ship, a bus, a helicopter, and a yak to go from me to you, I can't guarantee it will ever make it. Hey, all we can do is try :)

Don't freak out--this isn't an assignment for class. If it's 152 words, it's okay. It can be a story or a poem or a scene or a joke or manifesto. (I love me a good manifesto. Don't you?) Bonus points for funny or cool or creative or anything that makes me go OMG. Selection of the winner will be completely subjective, kind of like how an agent or editor reads submissions.

Questions? Tweet to me @fionadarkwaters

**I borrowed this idea from Janet Reid's blog, but it's okay because she probably borrowed it from someone else.