This is my very first blog entry. Ever. And even though I feel quite comfortable calling myself a writer. This feels a little bit weird because… who am I writing to? In order to answer this question I have been reading other peoples’ blogs. Obsessively. And what I think is this—people write to their friends. Or their fans. In some cases these people are one and the same. I don’t think I have any fans. But I do have friends. And they listen to me quite patiently. Maybe in the writing of these entries, I’ll even make some more… which gets me back to the reason I am starting this blog: I JUST SOLD MY FIRST BOOK! (this is me giddy and delighted) which somehow makes me feel, well, legit. So this is my blog. Which I’ll use to write about all things directly or quite indirectly related to my BOOK (and all the books that will come after). So the first thing I want to say is this: when I was 12 or 13 I already knew I was going to grow up and be a writer. But then I read this book called Over the Moon. And I knew I wanted to write a book exactly like that one day. I can still remember the floors of Maddie’s bedroom that she painted with white porch paint and the sounds of her feet on the creaking floor and the sadness Kate felt when her sister left home on a motorcycle, and the first time Kate went to New York alone to see the boy she loved, who had loved her sister. I feel like I walked in Kate’s footsteps from her Aunt Georgia’s house all the way through New York and across the ferry to find her sister and herself and a boy. And then a few years ago the amazing author Elissa Haden Guest (who writes fantastic children’s books now) even took me out to lunch in Santa Monica and sent me a signed copy of the original hardcover version of Over the Moon and I couldn’t believe that I got to meet her and she was so nice and we talked about living in New York City and writing stories and her daughter getting ready to go to college and after lunch I hugged her and walked back to my car and I thought. Whoa. Real people write books.