When You Wish Upon a Star...

When I was four years old, I read Danny and the Dinosaur by Syd Hoff. So enchanted was I with this little book that I decided, then and there, it needed a sequel. And I decided I was the perfect person to write it. So I gathered up some notebook paper, penned my tale, illustrated it, and then stapled it together and plunked it onto my preschool classroom's bookshelf. I also forced all my classmates and teacher to read it. So yes, my writing career began with four-year-old force-fed fan fiction--and I am not ashamed.


Since then, it's been my dream to be a "real" author. I can't tell you how many times I've daydreamed about opening the front door, finding a box, and discovering copies of my first novel inside. It's a moment every writer dreams of. I always wondered what I'd do, whether I'd scream and hug the UPS guy or faint or cry. It was my most cherished dream and the moment I had been anticipating since I was four years old. It was the fantasy my mind drifted into during road trips or math class. You know the scene in the Back to the Future movies when Marty's dad gets a box with his latest sci-fi novel inside? I choked up at that part, you guys. That's how real and deep this dream has been for me.


Today, that dream came true.


As it happened, I didn't hug the UPS guy--probably because I didn't know yet what was in the box. I thought it was just more advance proofs of the book for giveaways on my blog, which was awesome, but not too exciting since I already had some. So I almost didn't open the box at all, thinking I'd wait until later. OH. So glad I didn't wait. I opened the box and I was confused for a moment--ARCs aren't usually that shiny--and then OH! MY! GOSH! THOSE ARE FINISHED HARDCOVERS. Snap them up. Hug them. Cry. Dance a little dance. Rip through them, staring at the ISBN and the acknowledgements and the spine. Tear off the jacket cover to fawn over the binding. The whole shebang, my friends. I have now combed every centimeter of this thing and I am in love. It's like they've just delivered my first child into my hands and I'm counting all the fingers and toes and hairs on its head. AND YOU GUYS. It is perfect. 


So I'm a happy mama. This baby's not leaving my sight for the next month, probably. Unfortunately for you guys, it won't be in stores until September 4th--but hang in there! Check out this free sampler which contains the first three chapters of Origin and pre-order your copy--so when Sept. 4th rolls around, you too can open the front door and find this sitting on the mat:

Engraving on the front binding, under jacket (I obsess over cool bindings, so I definitely squeaked when I saw this):

35 days!!


AND guess what guess what--the ORIGIN book trailer is going to be revealed on MTV's Hollywood Crush blog on Friday! To tease you guys, we're posting stills from the trailer Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Go to the Breathless Reads tumblr at 11am each day for your first shot, and to the Breathless Reads Facebook page at 2pm each day for the second! Then, on Friday, partay time!


Cheers!
Jess