If you'd like a signed copy of the book itself, click here to order one from Tattered Cover, my local independent bookstore. They handle all the tricky stuff, like payment and addresses, I scoot down to the store and sign a copy for you, they ship it out. Boom!

If you'd like a bookplate that you can paste in your own copy, click here to fill in your info. I can take personalization requests, but bookplates are small, so it's best to just have it say the person's name.

If you'd like a bookmark, click here to fill in your info. You can request up to 8 bookmarks. I can sign them if you request, but there's no room for personalization.

Yes, I will ship bookplates and bookmarks internationally. I'll accept bookmark and bookplate requests through May 10 - you can order books through Tattered Cover any time! 

Any questions, let me know!

The Weird Sisters: Even Weirder, February Edition

Events: 22

Longest hotel stay: 4 days

Shortest hotel stay: 3 hours (long story)

Official TV show: Friends

Show I never want to see again: Friends

Most frequent room service order: Hamburger, green salad

Meal I never want to eat again: Hamburger, green salad

Song that came up most frequently on shuffle: "Gimme Shelter," Rolling Stones

Number of books read: 4 (2 audio)

Miles driven: Oh, thousands

Smallest number of attendees: 3

Largest number of attendees: 1,000

Babies held: 2

Approximate adorableness of said babies: Immeasurable

Biggest surprise: A tie between my sister-in-law driving 2.5 hours to see me in Dayton and Mary Kay Andrews showing up in Atlanta to tell me she was a fan.

Awesome people met and hugged: Countless!

Thanks to everyone who supported me by coming out to meet me at one of the events or cheered me on via Facebook or Twitter!

To be fair, it is a very nice laundromat (with free wifi), and given that I am currently wearing clothes I had to buy at Target yesterday because I was out of clean ones, I am grateful that in 37 minutes my clothes will be dry and I can pack them up and get back on the road.

I'm really having a great time - it's a delight to get to talk to readers, to meet folks from Facebook and Twitter, to see so many wonderful bookstores and libraries. I've been on a number of local news shows, where I invariably seem to have to follow the Pet of the Week or some adorable child, and therefore no one will pay attention to me, but I just love seeing everything behind the scenes.

This week I showed off the gift I bought for my editor to celebrate the paperback release of The Weird Sisters. I had a lot of anxiety about being able to top what I got her last year when the hardcover was published, but when I found Sherry Lynn's shop on Etsy, I knew I had a winner!

She was kind enough to make these custom coasters for me, featuring pages from the Hungarian, Dutch, Italian, and UK editions of The Weird Sisters. She also made some others for me, but those are presents for friends, so we'll keep those secret for now.

I've been so happy to see The Weird Sisters doing well in paperback - the first week it was released, it was #14 on the New York Times paperback bestseller list, and #7 on the Indie Bestsellers list (that includes sales from independent bookstores).

This week, it's #5 (!) on the NYT list, and #2 (!!!) on the Indie list. Just to give you a frame of reference, The Help is #3 on the Indie list. Kind of amazing. AND it hit all these regional Indie bestseller lists:

#2 The Southern Indie Bestseller List 

#2 The Southern Indie Bestseller List

#2 The New Atlantic Indie Bestseller List

#3 The Mountains and Plains Indie Bestseller List

#3 The Heartland Indie Bestseller List

#3 The New England Indie Bestseller List

#3 The SoCal Indie Bestseller List

#3 The Northern California Indie Bestseller List

#10 The Pacific Northwest Indie Bestseller List

I've found that to preserve my sanity, I don't read reviews of my book and I don't check sales rankings online. So when news like this comes in, it's both thrilling and surprising.

And of course it would never happen without YOU, my lovely readers, and I'm amazed and grateful every day to have such wonderful people supporting the Andreas sisters.

And now I'm off to do a little reading while my laundry finishes. Huge hugs to all of you.

But I have grown to realize it is not that.

Love is when we were doing a recycling drive at school and my mother asked the man in charge of the vending machines to save all the bottle caps for me.

Love is when J.C. went out in single-digit temperatures to get me soup to nurse my cold.

Love is when my friend Tammy texts me just to tell me to have a nice day.

Love is when I fall asleep on the couch and J.C. tries to wake me up once, and then just brings me a quilt and lets me sleep.

J.C. himself actually has a great way to describe this. He calls it "silent love". Putting away the laundry when it's not your turn, leaving the last bite of dessert, picking up dinner when it's not fast-food night, changing the channel away from the thing you want to watch.

And these are things that do not have to come from your partner - they can come from family or friends or anyone at all who loves you.

While I've been lucky enough to have some grand gestures of love thrown at me in my time, those little examples of silent love are my favorites. String quartets and dancing ConEd workers (it's in the video, just go with it) doves and roses are wonderful, but something about seeing that J.C. has taken the garbage out when I had promised I would gives me a feeling of exhausted gratitude and a rush of emotion far deeper than any of those "romantic" ideals.

What says silent love to you?

So I suppose the publication of The Weird Sisters was the universe's way of telling me I needed to learn to let go. There are lots of ways in which that lesson was presented to me last year, but one of the biggest ways was flying.

I've never been one of those people who loves to fly, but during a period of the book tour where I was flying every day, I had a flight with a takeoff that scared me. After that, I developed a fairly crippling fear of flying.

In my mind, I knew that the issue was not really flying. It was exhaustion, and stress, and pressure, and a lack of control over too many things, and as much as I loved the events I was traveling to, getting there was hard for me.

I was recently at dinner with some other authors, two of whom also have difficulty flying, so I promised I would give them some of the resources that have worked for me, and I thought I'd share them here, in case any of you are suffering from something similar.

What worked for me:

1. Pharmaceuticals.

Think less of me if you must, but I take a Xanax before I get on a plane. I don't tend to run for medication when I can manage things another way, but in this case, my fear was getting in the way of my life, and I needed to fix it. However, I found last year that the sedative alone didn't work. I needed coping strategies, too.

2. Fly Without Fear: Guided Meditations for a Relaxing Flight.

I listened to the entire thing a few times before I had to fly again. Then I listened to it in the airport, and while on the plane, and I plan to do so again. Super-helpful.

3. Fear of Flying Help.

Knowledge is power, and this is AMAZING. It's a website created by an American Airlines pilot, set up as a free course you can go through (though I did make a donation).  He walks you through every part of air travel, from maintenance to turbulence, with video and audio. At the end, he gives you a list of statements you can print out and take on the plane with you (I wrote mine on an index card to help memorize them).

4. Distractions and comfort objects.

I have learned what makes me comfortable on a flight, and I come prepared. I bring snacks, gossip magazines, a pillow and eye mask, books, video games, and music and tv shows on my iPod. I want to be sure I will be occupied no matter what mood I'm in - basically I come with a week's worth of entertainment for a two-hour flight. I also have a little gift from my sweetie that I hold during takeoff and landing that makes me feel calm and centered.

So have I learned my lesson? Resolved my "control issues"? Honestly, no. I think this is going to be a long battle for me. But I do feel better about flying, which is a good metaphor for relenquishing control.

One of the statements in Fly Without Fear is this: "Your fear does not keep this plane in the air." This is an excellent reminder for those armrest clutchers among us.

My fear also does not help me write my next novel, or give me strength and endurance at the gym, or help me be a better friend. So I'm working on learning not to fear what I cannot control, and to let go.

Okay, not all of you (unless someone invented teleportation when I wasn't looking?), but I do have 26 events lined up so far and I'm so excited to get back on the road and meet more readers!

The events page has the latest info, but remember, if I'm not coming to your town, your book club can invite me to call or Skype in here, or you can order a personally signed copy from my local bookstore, Tattered Cover, right here!

Oh, and I'm also on Facebook and Twitter! Come say hello!

A fun little piece of news - I got a peek at the Spanish cover for The Weird Sisters today. I can't show it yet, but I can tell you the title: Una Casa Llena de Palabras (A House Full of Words). Isn't that wonderful?

A few folks have written to me over this year asking where they can get a signed copy, if I'm not coming to their town. Well, I have great news! I've partnered with a wonderful local bookstore, Tattered Cover, to sell signed copies.

Here's how it works! Go to this page (or click the Order Signed Copies button on the sidebar) and fill in the form to send an email to Tattered Cover. Be sure to tell them:

• How many copies you'd like.
• If you'd like them personalized (you can specify a name or something for me to write, or I can just sign them).
• Where you're located (Montana? Mexico?)

They'll contact me, I'll scoot on over to sign your copies, and they'll send them out to ya!

Neither Tattered Cover nor I are making any additional money off of the signing - they'll charge regular price for the book and shipping, and I don't get anything other than my regular royalty.

It's a great opportunity to support a terrific local bookstore, and for me to be able to send you a thank-you until we can meet in person!

Oh, and have I mentioned that signed books make great holiday gifts? :)

Thanks, as always, for your support, and please let me know if you have any questions!

Few people ask directly for a reading list of other collective narrators, but I always include one when I answer this question, so I thought I'd record it here for posterity:

• "A Rose for Emily", William Faulkner (short story)
• The Virgin Suicides, Jeffrey Eugenides
• The Fates Will Find Their Way, Hannah Pittard
• The Buddha in the Attic, Julie Otsuka
• The Sisters 8, Lauren Baratz-Logsted
• And Then We Came to the End, Joshua Ferris

Can you think of others I should mention?

Edited to add: I just learned that Laura Lippman's most recent book, The Most Dangerous Thing, uses a first-person plural narrator in parts.

Do you use a specific outline method or did you make up your own? and how detailed do you get?
 
I don’t outline (as in list plot points) at all at the beginning. At some point in the process I find myself having to create a sort of “leapfrog” outline, where I say, “Okay, I know A, B, and C need to happen in the next few chapters,” and then once those have been written, I look and say, “Because A, B, and C happened, now X, Y, and Z need to happen in the next few chapters.” But I don’t even write those down. I don’t write in order, so I do outline at the end when I’m ready to revise.
 
Do you single or double space?
 
Haha! This cracks me up because it’s such a superstition of mine. I single-space because it makes me feel like I’m not doing something daunting like Writing a Novel. But it is harder to read that way.
 
Do you use long-hand and type or only type?
 
I handwrite a lot at the beginning – thoughts, ideas, character sketches. Actual writing is done mostly by typing (I don’t think you could do NaNo without it primarily being typed), but if I get stuck or am in a place where typing isn’t practical, I handwrite. Handwriting is for brainstorming, typing is for writing.
 
Do you have a certain word count range per chapter or try to stick to one scene per chapter?
 
Chapter breaks are a mystery to me, and they’ll get changed out later on anyway. I set a word count for the day and just go for it.

I hope some of that is useful - happy NaNo-ing!

However, I got a fun treat from HarperCollins UK that I wanted to share. Over there, the original release was a trade paperback (the larger format paperback) with the gorgeous cover of the woman in the gingham dress.

I love that cover, so when they told me they were planning for a different cover for the mass-market (smaller paperback) release on April 12, 2012, I was a little hesitant.

However, I shouldn't have worried. Take a look at how lovely this is:

What do you think?