So I Wrote 15,000 Words AKA Retreat Recap

Over the weekend I escaped from the streets of Philadelphia (or...you know, the suburban roads somewhat near Philadelphia) to go on a writing retreat with the First Novels Club (AKA my critique group) in middle of nowhere Pennsylvania, in a barn guest house where our only company was a horse, two goats, some chickens and three barn cats.

No really!

The most smiley goat ever!

Cletus the horse. Actually not named Cletus, but I thought of him that way because Gilmore Girls. When he was not Cletus, he was also Shadowfax because Lord of the Rings. Alas, we have NO idea what his name actually is.

One of the adorable barn cats we had. They were super friendly and this one liked to wiggle his butt and slam it into people and inanimate objects. We think it meant he liked you.

We stayed at the Oasis, which also made me think of Gilmore Girls. Because of the EIGHT O CLOCK AT THE OASIS episode.

Fake apples that I tried to eat when I arrived. Twice.

Working at the writing/snacking table

So here's a rundown of the weekend!

Friday Night

Arrive! Eat! Drinks! Hot Tub!

(Hey, it was Friday night, what did you expect?)

Saturday

Breakfast!

WORD WAR!  (for one hour you must write non-stop, no talking, no internet, no getting up, no stopping)

SNACK! (we gorged after every war, it was all brain power, but they were as tiring as running a marathon)

WORD WAR!

SNACK!

WORD WAR!

SNACK!

WORD WAR! (The 4th and final war of the day which gave me a total of 11,000 words!)

Dinner!

The most appropriate wine for a bunch of YA authors!

NO wine for Sara!

And after all that writing and snacking and writing, we ended the night once again in the hot tub!

Also, special moment of the day came a little after the final word war of Saturday (we still wrote outside the wars, but it wasn't as concentrated).

Janine typing...THE END!

I'm so glad I caught this moment! Congrats, Janine!

Sunday

Breakfast

Pack!

Visit the animals

and..

FINAL WORD WAR! This was the word war to end all word wars because.... I wrote 3,082 words in one hour. I think I went into shock after I did that because,

A) I had no idea I could write that fast

B) This meant I'd written over 15,000 words of my new novel

C) This also meant I'd written 1/4 of my novel in the course of 2 days!

Whew! This was probably one of the best AND most productive weekends of my life. I totally recommend getting away with a group of writers if you can! Following this I got into a big talk on twitter with other YA authors about how productive these retreats can be since it's so tempting to want to socialize and catch up.

I think as an in-person critique group we have an advantage. We see each other in person all the time--we're best friends as well as CPs. But even if you don't see your retreat mates as often as us, I really think the word wars worked magic--because it's a focused hour where NO ONE is allowed to talk or get up or stop.  In the 40 some hours we had together, only 5 were devoted 100% to writing, but in those 5 hours we wrote over 36,000 words as a group.

So...that was my weekend! Needless to say my fingers are tired, but I'm hoping not to lose my momentum. I seriously cannot wait for us to do this again!.

P.S. Gilmore Girls fans....The Oasis had a guest book! It was so tempting to write: I sat and forever am at work here.

It wouldn't have been that far from the truth...

How was everyone else's weekend?

Friday Five (or more) Retreat Edition!

1. I haven't been this excited for a Friday in a LOOOOOONG time!
2. Because normally--with the way my schedule goes--Fridays mean nothing to me! Nothing!
3. Because you know...I tend to work on the weekends and thus weekends don't really feel like weekends to me.
4. Mondays have actually been my best day of the week these last few months.
5. How's that for irony?
6. Anyway the reason that I'm so excited for this Friday is I'm going AWAY!!!!!!!
7. That's right! Away! And not to a conference or a workshop or an expo or signing or any other number of things that are fun and that I love (though tend to be exhausting). I'm going on a retreat!
8. I'll be escaping to the Poconos with the First Novels Club.
9. We have ourselves a house!
10. We have ourselves electrical outlets to charge our laptops.
11. We have ourselves a HOT TUB!
12. Honestly, it's the hot tub I'm most excited for.
13. And writing.
14. But HOT TUB!
15. No really...there's a HOT TUB!
16. So needless to say, today is a GOOD day! And tomorrow is going to be even better. And the next day will be pretty good but not as good as the day before because it will involve returning to the real world, but maybe will still be really good because of the HOT TUB. Ok... I'm pretty sure I exceeded the limit of times one can actually say hot tub in one blog post, also 16 has nothing to do with 5.
17. So I shall end...
18. This post...
19. Right....
20. Now! (because 20 is a multiple of 5)

Have a great weekend everyone!

Top 10 Reasons You Should Come To My Class

Hey Guys! So in case you don't know...my new belly dance conditioning class begins this Thursday, and for this week and this week only, it's FREE!

And because I'm a listy type person and everyone loves a top ten, here are my top ten reasons why you should come! Well....if you live somewhat nearby.

10. Did I mention this class was FREE? Because it is and people love free shizz!

9. Coming to this class is going to be fun! Because we'll be dancing, and dancing is FUN!

8. What other time is butt-shaking more sanctioned than at a belly dance class? And don't we need more sanctioned butt-shaking in this crazy, crazy world?

7. Dance! Dance! It's good for your heart! The more you move, the less you.... Nevermind.

6. Every time someone comes to my belly dance class, Florence and the Machine records a new song.

5. You get to hear me say things like "squeeze your glutes." And see me say that with a straight face.

4. For all of you writer types who get brilliant ideas while in the shower...did you know that belly dance class is the new shower? Also black is the new black.

3. Every time someone comes to my belly dance class, a vampire loses its sparkle.


2.Coming to my class makes you cool... Down! Because you'll do a cool down! Oh, I crack myself up!

1. Dancing, and dancing strongly, is one of the best expressions of Girl Power around. And these days, we need all the girl power we can get! GIRL POWER<---say it like a Spice Girl.


And here are the official details!

Conditioning and Toning: Fitness through Belly Dance

FREE INTRO CLASS Thursday, April 26, 2012 at 7:30 pm. 

Weekly starting in May. Thursdays at 7:30 pm. Studio B.

A belly dance toning and conditioning class perfect for anyone looking to sculpt their body through the ancient art of Middle Eastern dance. Through belly dance we’ll do resistance training, strengthening and conditioning exercise. Perfect for belly dancers looking to intensify their workouts and anyone else interested in a more unique approach to fitness. All levels of experience welcome.

$15 Drop-in Rate

Shakti Yoga Class Cards can be used at this class

Instructor Bio:

Frankie Diane Mallis has over ten years of experience in the study, training and performing of belly dance, specializing in tribal fusion. She performs regularly across the tri-state area and hosts the monthly Tribal Expo show the first Tuesday of each month at The Fig Cafe.

Ask and Ye Shall Receive Scottish Man Belly Dancing

Yes, that's right. For all of you who saw yesterday's blog post  and requested actual video of me teaching Simon C. Larter to belly dance at the Irish Pub...it exists! Thanks to E.C. Myers!

So yeah...enjoy!

Yes We Dance Here

So in case you missed the shenanigans on twitter and facebook...I finally convinced Simon, my Philly Lit Night co-host to stand up and have a belly dance lesson. And the result was something like this:

Photo stolen from Jenna because Instagram makes everything better!

Demonstrating a few hip lifts, hip circles, shimmies and undulations, I'm pretty sure I just spent the whole time hysterically laughing inside. Outside too, but also inside. Throughout this insanity, our poor waitress kept trying to bring us food all while attempting to act like she was totally cool with this amazon girl making this Scotsman shake his hips. I've heard there's video--I'm a little scared to see it. Only because I worry about how many laughs one belly can take.

Suffice to say, Philly Lit Night was awesome as usual. Following our excursions to Barnes and Noble and the Irish Pub--our base of operations, I went off for a belly dance performance and was delighted to have a few Philly Lit Nighters come see the show.

Following these crazy shenanigans on Sunday, we had our second ever Philly Book Club to discuss The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater.

Philly Book Club and The Scorpio Races!

I had the best time talking this amazing novel over with these equally amazing ladies (dudes in book club, you need to represent). But for now I'm trying to get the image of Scottish Man Belly Dancing out of my mind so I can get some work done for this crazy week.

Did you know I have a new belly dance class I'm teaching on Thursday and it's the last week of the semester at Arcadia and my next semester of classes starts next Tuesday so I have a ton of curriculum planning to do, plus grading plus...AUGH? Yeah...well, there's that.

How was everyone else's weekend?

In which I try to tell you things but mostly live-blog about customers with Fifty Shades of Grey

What's happening this weekend?

ALL the things are happening this weekend!

We have Philly Lit Night!

We have Philly Book Club!

Hey! We even have a Philly Belly Dance Show!

So pretty much I have something for everyone.

Also I feel I should note that as I write this, I'm sitting by the bestseller's section in Barnes and Noble and every 10 minutes, like clockwork, someone walks by and picks up Fifty Shades of Grey. One woman grabbed all three books in the series at once!

I know you needed to know that!

Anyway here's the agenda for all you locals (or non-locals who want to make a big trip--which you should because here in Philly we are SUPER fun).

Heee...some dude just walked by and plucked the book off the shelf without looking and sped away. Clearly a planned  operation.

And...another woman did the three book grab!

Ok back to events!

Saturday:


Philly Lit Night: Saturday, April 21, 2012, 4PM, Rittenhouse Square Barnes and Noble followed by The Irish Pub.


Belly Dance Performance: Saturday, April 21, 2012, 9PM. The Fig Cafe and Hookah Lounger. Jenkintown, PA.


Sunday:


Philly Book Club: Sunday, April 22, 2012, 4:30PM, Chester County Books and Music
Book Choice: THE SCORPIO RACES, Maggie Stiefvater


As always you can check out my EVENTS tab.


And to end this...we have a woman pretending to be very interested in another bestselling novel. But...I know why she's really stalking the shelf.

Frankie's Five Favorite Websites

Oh how I LOVE alliteration!

So since it's Friday and I sometimes do a Friday Five...or more...I thought this week I'd share my current top 5 websites to waste time on...or not. Sometimes these are productive.

But anyway, in no real random order...here are my...

Five Favorite Websites!


1. Suri's Burn Book: Told from the point of view of Suri Cruise, Suri shares her disdain for the rest of Hollywood's children and their lack of fashion. There is also much agonizing over the possible pregnancy of Kate Middleton whose future baby WILL be more important than Suri.

2. But You're Like Really Pretty: Celebrity cartoons all centering around that line from Mean Girls. It's pretty hysterical!

3. Texts From Hillary: Ever wonder what Hillary Clinton is texting? This is one of the funniest sites ever! Only I'm le sad, because the texts got SO big, they even had a REAL text from Hillary and I can't say I blame them from feeling like their life is now complete and they are not adding to the site, but at least you can go there for some good laughs!

4. Mean Girls Of Panem: Honestly, is there ANYTHING that can't be paired with Mean Girls? Mean Girls makes everything better, a task I would have thought impossible with something as perfect and amazing as The Hunger Games movie, but...it's HYSTERICAL!

5. Jezebel: It's pretty safe to say that I'll be on here multiple times a day reading the new posts.




What are your favorite websites? Any gems I'm missing out on?

In Search of Fairies

Some afternoons are magic.

You let your feet lead you forward...

To a beautiful place...

Where you gather flowers...

And wishes...

And benches invite you to sit and stay...

But you dance around what you choose to believe is a fairy ring...

And skip stones...

And you make wishes...

And every wish is the same, "I wish to meet a fairy."

So you check for fairy hiding places...

And under bridges...

You find more flowers...

And a lizard (real or not real)...

Even the Easter Bunny makes an appearance...

But despite no fairies...it's still a really good day.

Hope yours is magical too!

Totally Tuesday

Have you noticed lately that I really like naming my blog post titles after days of the week? The posts have actually very little to do with their weekday counterparts besides the fact that they are posted on those days. That and I've been kind of sitting down to blog lately without a plan of what to say other than I know I want to say something.

Thus you get today's brilliant blog post title of Totally Tuesday. Will tomorrow be Wacky Wednesday? The world may never know.

Actually, that's a lie. You'll all know tomorrow.

Anyway the biggest things happening right now that I can report on are:

1. I'm grading papers! Spring semesters is ALMOST gone. EEEH!

2. Check the EVENTS tab above. I have a hella lot going on this month. Not to mention I'm teaching a new belly dance fitness class.

3. I still can't stop taking pictures of flowers.

4. I'm contemplating renaming this post Terrific Tuesday. Or Talky Tuesday. Or Tell Me Tuesday. But none have the ring that Totally Tuesday has.

5. Oh who am I kidding? I'm too lazy to change the name.


What are you guys up to on this fine 2nd day of the work week?

BELLY BELLY Dance Fitness Class With Me!

For all of my local friends, dancers and non-dancers alike, I'm returning to my post as belly dance instructor, this time with a class focused on conditioning and strengthening exercises that are perfect for dancers (or non-dancers) of all stages who want to improve their practice and/or fitness.

The last Thursday of April will be the first intro class (free). And here's all the info you need from the Shakti Yoga site.

“Belly Belly” Belly Dance Fitness

Conditioning and Toning: Fitness through Belly Dance

FREE INTRO CLASS Thursday, April 26, 2012 at 7:30 pm. 

Weekly starting in May. Thursdays at 7:30 pm. Studio B.

A belly dance toning and conditioning class perfect for anyone looking to sculpt their body through the ancient art of Middle Eastern dance. Through belly dance we’ll do resistance training, strengthening and conditioning exercise. Perfect for belly dancers looking to intensify their workouts and anyone else interested in a more unique approach to fitness. All levels of experience welcome.

$15 Drop-in Rate

Shakti Yoga Class Cards can be used at this class

Instructor Bio:

Frankie Diane Mallis has over ten years of experience in the study, training and performing of belly dance, specializing in tribal fusion. She performs regularly across the tri-state area and hosts the monthly Tribal Expo show the first Tuesday of each month at The Fig Cafe.

The April Tribal Expo Recap!

I had my second belly dance show last night and dare I say--the second show was even better than the first.

Hosting, dancing, and hanging out with everyone is pretty much the most fun one can have on a Tuesday night.

Well that or watching several hours of Big Bang Theory on TBS...there IS that...

Our next show is going to be May 1st...check the Events Tab above for more information.

But the real reason you're here....PICTURES!

Opening the night with my solo performance

Jen and Suzie perform a tribal imrpov

Jenna wowed with lots of beautiful shimmies

Sanchali performing for the first time at our Expo

The amazing Brenda who dances with TWO swords!

MaTribal who are both graceful and hilarious

Tribal Spirit, funny and kick-butt!

ALL the dancers at the end!

Quick shot I took of the audience--who was amazing!

Me and my dance partner, Heather showing that belly dancers have a ton of GIRL POWER!
I haven't snagged any pictures of our dance yet.

There are a few more, but I think I just broke my picture uploader. So we'll stop there--though there are more on facebook.  So now that I did THAT....back to writing!

Teen Author Festival Recap

I have finally recovered from my weekend in NYC.

And by weekend, I mean Friday and Saturday.

And by recovered I mean I'm no longer announcing to twitter that it's Saturday when it is in fact Friday. Also I have quit trying to go down Up escalators.

Please note that I have promised myself NOT to see The Hunger Games in theaters anymore and to wait for the DVD because my mascara and my wallet just cannot take it.

But...aside from all of that you're probably interested in fun details from The Teen Author Festival. And luckily for you, I have all sorts of fun. Details...maybe.... But mostly fun.

And by fun, I mean pictures.

Elizabeth Eulberg, Terra Elan McVoy, Jenny Han, Stephanie Perkins and Sarah Mlynowski  at the Being Friends with Boys Panel.

This was such a cute and fun panel. But the highlight was definitely Stephanie Perkins reading the movie theater scene in Anna and the French Kiss. She is a super dramatic reader, and pretty much acted out the entire thing in her seat, from Anna's gasps, to the way she shifted her leg. It was pretty much made of awesome. Also I liked how a lot of the authors shared the idea that anything is possible at anytime between boys and girls (this didn't tie in to the books read but I think also the idea of between girls and girls and boys and boys would also apply). Most importantly, I liked how Stephanie Perkins, despite writing very classic high fantasy romances (where the romance is like a fantasy not the world), emphasized that her heroines have major character arcs so by the end they win the fantasy boy because they are perfect for each other, not because they NEED or are dependent on each other.

Suzanne Weyn, Matthew Cody, Judy Blundell, Leanna Renee Heiber, Jennifer Donnelly and David Levithan on the Historical Panel.

A highlight from this was the idea that stories are stories no matter what time period they take place. Someone mentioned the goal of writing a great story that surpasses the historical setting. Much the way that people will say Ian McEwan's Atonement is a great book, not a great historical novel.

In between panels I took the one and only picture of myself with  blogger Rachel Scroggins.

The Paranormal Love Story Panel: Margaret Stohl, Andrea Cremer, Jeri Smith-Ready, Melissa de la Cruz, Victoria Schwab.

Highlights: Hearing each author read from someone else's paranormal romance. If you've never heard Jeri Smith-Ready read out loud, you are MISSING out! Also...Jeri's editor Annette Pollert came with a hot-off-the-press copy of SHINE which is awesome.


Following the panels, Jeri and I headed off for drinks with Victoria Schwab, Kim Harrington, Tiffany Schmidt, E.C. Meyers, and Zoraida Cordova.

And then...we headed to Barnes and Noble for the Theater Reading where David Levithan, Andrea Cremer, John Corey Whaley, Emily Danforth, Lucas Klauss, Stephanie Perkins, and Siobhan Vivian acted out scenes from their books. Which basically meant this was the best event ever!

Andrea Cremer, Siobhan Vivian, David Levithan

Andrea Cremer, Emily Danforth, Lucas Klauss, Stephanie Perkins

The night then ended with a highly misguided adventure to the movie-theater, the buying of Hunger Games tickets, the navigating of the most confusing Whole Foods ever, and finally, seeing The Hunger Games again and going to bed.

On Saturday, I slept late (thank goodness) went out for brunch, and headed back to the Festival for two more panels.

Rising to the Challenge Panel: Kody Keplinger, Siobhan Vivian, Tara Altebrando, K.M. Walton, Susane Colasanti, Matt Blackstone, David Levithan.

And the final panel I went to dealing with killers: Barry Lyga, Jennifer Lynn Barnes, Gina Damico,  and Kim Harrington.

After that it was back to the hotel and back to the train and then several hours later...back to Philly!

All in all, pretty awesome time! Did anyone go to the epic book signing on Sunday? Did anyone else go to their final showing of The Hunger Games? Have you ever announced it was Saturday on a day that was not in fact Saturday?

Let me know:)