~~~Lara Zielin~~~

STATUS: Itching to do some gardening, which is hilarious because I have nothing like a green thumb. What’s the opposite of green? Brown? I have a brown thumb, then. It must be spring fever that’s making me want to plant, plant, plant the night away.

FAVE LINKEY-POO RIGHT THIS SECOND:Miley Cyrus, who you may or may not know as Hannah Montana, is writing a book. It’s a memoir, and she got seven figures in the deal. Um, she’s like fourteen. How can you write a memoir at fourteen? And how can it be worth seven figures? I guess the lesson here, kids, is that if Disney is in your back pocket, you can do just about anything.

A couple days ago, Rob showed me swaptree.com, and I think every writer in the world should know about it. Why? Because every writer in the world should also be a reader, and this is the place where you can swap out your old books for new ones. That is, if you’re like me and your pocketbook was taking a hit every time you went to Borders to buy the latest Sarah Dessen book or similar tome.

The deal is that you put your books — or movies or music — on the site, and then it tells you what you can get for it. For example, I traded Sarah Dessen’s novel JUST LISTEN for a cute, fun read called SLOPPY FIRSTS. Since I’m a newbie, I can only execute a couple trades at a time, so I can’t swap my entire bookshelf, which is what I would do right this second if I could.

Overall, I’m thrilled to be consuming less and trading books with other readers. Don’t be afraid to sign up and get swappin!

STATUS: Wearing white before Memorial Day. Don’t tell Serial Mom.

FAVE LINKEY-POO RIGHT THIS SECOND: Here’s the deal. If you’re not watching Battlestar Galactica, you should be. It’s the best show on TV, bar none. This photo was taken of some of the BSG characters and mirrors Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper. It’s brilliant.

It’s exciting times in Laraland. I sent my second book to my agent and am totally thrilled about getting her feedback and, eventually, sending it off to my editor at Putnam. Did I mention this one has bass fishing in it? It’s totally going to rule.

Can’t wait to share more when I know more!

My sooper creative husband just made a lamp out of old film strips from the move Ghost World. How creative is he? The top is even an old film reel. I love it! Right now he’s listed it on Etsy, and he plans to make a bunch more. Oh, but the fringe on the bottom? That was totally my idea.

STATUS: I missed the second episode of Battlestar Galactica last night, but that’s why there’s hulu (see below).

FAVE LINKEY-POO RIGHT THIS SECOND: Hulu.com, where you can watch everything. New episodes of BSG, old episodes of the Golden Girls, it’s all there.

My friend Ellen and I once discussed which is more the heart of a book, plot or characters. I’m decent with plot, worse at characters, so I said plot; Ellen is good with both, but she’s definitely a character-driven writer, so she said characters. Ultimately, they both matter and we of course agreed you can’t really have one without having the other.

Since I struggle more with building compelling characters, I always have my eye out for anything that might help. And that’s where a little book called Microtrends comes in. I should say first that the author, Mark J. Penn, is an adviser to Hillary Clinton and has been in the news lately for a ruckus involving Columbia and some money. It’s totally more Clinstones drama and is yet another case for why I no longer crush on Bill. So, yeah, Penn is smarmy, but his book is really good and it provides some good launching points for character work.

For example, one of the Microtrends that Penn cites (a microtrend being something that 1% of the population is doing) is having kids later in life, especially men. So he says there’s this growing niche of older dads out there. How cool would it be to have a character who has a dad who’s like Larry King’s age? Okay, not that old, but still — an older parent could be a rich detail if you worked it right.

Here are a few more microtrends to sink your teeth into:

- More kids are being home-schooled, eating vegan diets, and starting their own businesses.

- Lots of grown-ups play video games, don’t have time to clean (and are labeled slobs in the book) and are hiring live-in nannies.

- Some people hate the sun and avoid it like the plague; others met on the Internet and later got married (that last microtrend I can relate to!).

Anyway, these are just a few microtrends that, if explored and fleshed out, I think could make for some really interesting characters. And if you’re like me, you can take all the character help you can get!

STATUS: Singing the Lemonheads. Obv.

FAVE LINKEY-POO RIGHT THIS SECOND: This interactive quiz that tests your geography know-how. So far I’m doing okay, though I think I put the Pyramids of Gaza in, like, Chad or something.

So, this month has been a wee bit tight financially because we owed some taxes and some other stuff came up like it always does, and that got me thinking about how hard it can be (potentially) to make ends meet when your only income is from writing. Not that it can’t be done — many writers do it and do it well — but I’m just saying it can be challenging. Here’s why.

Let’s start with the obvious which is that if you’re writing YA like me or, say, sci fi or romance, the advances on these books aren’t huge. Four figures isn’t uncommon; five figures is really good. Then, if your agent takes 15% and taxes take, like, 30 percent, that doesn’t leave much for living expenses, health care, and retirement (assuming you aren’t employed elsewhere).

Even if you hit the gold mine and you did get a six-figure advance, you shouldn’t quit your day job. That’s because you gotta sell, like, a bazillion books to earn back that big, fat check. And if you don’t sell that many books, your publisher will probably hesitate to give you a six-figure advance again (unless of course your ab fab agent negotiated a two-book deal, each at six figures). The bottom line is that you might hit pay-dirt with a book but then, a couple years later, if sales are slow and you haven’t been able to produce another hit, things could get tight.

Of course I say all this knowing a.) there are lots of writers out there who write full time and make it work; and b.) I totally want to write full time myself, someday. Perhaps the lesson here is to give it time and build up a fan base and residual sales, and then keep producing new stuff.

For now, I guess I’m glad I love my job, as it looks like I’ll be here a while.

STATUS: Fabulous since I witnessed two of my favorite things combined last night: Biggest Loser and Australia.

FAVE LINKEY-POO RIGHT THIS SECOND: Rob just sent this to me. The story goes that someone once challenged Hemingway to write a short story in six words. The result was: For sale: baby shoes, never worn. Recently two enterprising writers issued a similar challenge by asking a whole bunch of people to pen their memoir in six words.

I love this idea. I am going to take a stab at it. Of course, I highly recommend the exercise, especially for other writers. Life in six words ain’t easy.

The following is just a start, and I’m not sure this is my final, final six-word memoir. But here goes anyway:

Looked inside finally; not so bad.

Maybe I’ll add s’more later. Is that cheating if you write more than one, then just pick the best one at the end? So, anyone else want to pen one and share?

Okay, I’m totally tacking on a post-script to this blog entry. I have two more six-word memoirs:

Sparkle is my other middle name

God was different than I thought

I can’t even say I’m done now. This is addictive!