First of all, thank you SO much for all the warm, wonderful SUGAR AND ICE wishes yesterday.  I woke up to a bouquet of blog posts and good wishes that kept coming all day, and I want you to know that it was downright sparkly to know people were celebrating with me, however busy the day was. Thank you!

It was a busy day on my whirlwind blog tour, too…I had a coffee break with writer-friend Debbi Michiko Florence here, shared the first page of SUGAR AND ICE with a great blog called First Page Panda, and was celebrated in grand culinary style with Jama Rattigan here.  Today, I’m talking about how my kids get involved in my writing at Great Kids Books.

I am also having winter-envy today.  Across the lake in Vermont, some places got more than two feet of snow yesterday.  Two feet! Here, the grass is still brownish-green and showing, and the lake remains stubbornly liquid.  Sigh. It’s December, and I am ready for some of this….

The good news? I’m headed to Lake Placid this weekend, where Sarah at the Bookstore Plus tells me they have at least 15 inches on the ground. Winter, here we come!

My figure skating novel, SUGAR AND ICE, is officially out in the world this morning!  I’m visiting a couple more blogs today, talking about winter inspiration with Terry Lynn Johnson and chatting with Jill of the O.W.L. and her students.  You can read the first page of the book today on First Page Panda.

I’d probably be remiss if I didn’t tell you that I’ll be signing books at The Bookstore Plus in Lake Placid this Saturday from 3-5. And that you can get a personalized, signed copy even if you live far away – just call the awesome Bookstore Plus people at (518) 523-2950 by Friday to order.

But the real reason for this blog post is to answer this question that authors are almost always asked when a book’s due out in the world:

So what are you doing for your big release day?

Fits of laughter threaten to consume me when someone asks this question. I suspect they are imagining long leisurely lunches with publicists, limousines, caviar, unicorns, fireworks, and other kinds of revelry. I explain that reality is slightly different:

What I’m doing for release day:

6:00 Put meat & veggies in crock pot, pack lunch, check email.

6:40 Leave house to get son to jazz band on time.

7:00-8:00 Respond to students’ reading letters. Drink coffee. Try not to spill on reading letters. Spill on skirt instead.

8:00-8:11 Homeroom. Take attendance. Pass out school pictures. Attack coffee stain with Tide Stain Stick from desk drawer.

8:15-3:45 Help students find additional notes to add detail to Colonial America diaries, parent conference.Teach bibliography format. Show Easy-Bib website. Conference with student writers in computer lab.  During lunch, finish grading reading letters. Help find books for kids who finished theirs last night. Then use last eight minutes to eat soup, chugging second half straight from Tupperware as students arrive for silent reading period. Clean soup off shirt with Tide Stain Stick while taking attendance. Read & conference with student readers. Recommend books. Record progress.  Cheer. Try again with Stain Stick. Teach more 7th grade English students. Bibliography, conferences on student writing, etc. Answer email, call parents, prep for Friday school-wide book club mtg & Skype visit with Nora Baskin. Work with students who need after-school help.

3:45-4:30  Take daughter to piano lesson.

4:45-5:15  Pick up son from track practice. Go home. Thank Universe for crock pot.

5:15-9:00  Dinner with family, clean up, homework help, answer email, (and okay…Twitter, too)  listen to Jingle Bells played on piano, violin, and recorder, read aloud.

9:00-11:00 Write.

11:00-11:03  Bedtime…Try to stay awake for a few more pages of reading. 

Fail.

Remember in the haze between sleep and waking that readers have my new book today.  

Smile. 

Dream.

Hope you had a great weekend, too!

We have been busy Christmas wrapping and getting ready for holiday skating shows and a book launch this week and were so due for some fresh outdoor air yesterday. So with a nod to Robert Frost’s "The Pasture" …here is an invitation.

I’m going out to walk along the lake
I’ll only stop to skip a stone or three

And feel the gnarled wood of one lone tree.

I sha’n’t be gone long. You come, too.

I’m going out to touch the layered rocks,

To tread on leaves that mat the forest floor

And watch the silver sun set at the shore.

I sha’n’t be gone long. You come, too.

1. SUGAR AND ICE has made an appearance on a Best of 2010 list (other than my  mom’s…my books are always popular there!)

It’s on Fuse #8’s SLJ Blog list of 100 Magnificent Children’s Books of 2010, along with so many other books I read and loved this year. You can check out the full list here.

2. I’m guest blogging today with Carol Rasco, the CEO of Reading Is Fundamental, an amazing organization that puts books into the hands of kids. The post is about literacy and student athletes, like my main character Claire in SUGAR AND ICE.  You can read it here.

3. I’m reading two books right now because they’re both so good I can’t commit to one, so I keep juggling back and forth. This one…

…is about a Texas teenager who meets Christa McAuliffe in the days leading up to the Challenger space shuttle disaster.  And isn’t that a gorgeous cover?  TAKING OFF is by my friend Jenny Moss, whose characters are so real my heart aches for them. Beautiful, beautiful writing – and due out from Walker in January ’11.

4. I’m also reading this book…

SEAN GRISWOLD’S HEAD by Lindsey Leavitt (Bloomsbury – March ’11).  I’m only a few pages in, but already, it’s fantastic. It’s funny and poignant and about a girl who discovers her true love sitting in front of her in science class the same week she learns her father has MS. I can already tell it’s going to make me laugh and cry in that way that only special books do. Lindsey is going to be Skyping with my creative writing class in a couple weeks, and I’m so excited to share this book with them!

5. This is our new bedtime read-aloud at at the Messner house.

My daughter and I are loving Jennifer Choldenko’s latest, NO PASSENGERS BEYOND THIS POINT (Dial, February ’11).  It’s full of characters that we’re already in love with,  twists that have us perplexed and guessing, and magical realism that’s filling us with smiles and a sense of wonder.  It’s a keeper, for sure. 

What about you?  Any bookish updates this Friday, either on the writing front or the reading front?  Share away in comments!

In real life, I’m home drinking tea and fighting off a sore throat today.  On the blog tour, I’m visiting Jennifer Petro Roy at her group librarian blog, "Stacked Books" to talk about the accidental inspiration for my figure skating novel, SUGAR AND ICE.  And here at my own blog, I have a visitor, too.

A few weeks ago, I posted an early review of Lauren Oliver’s DELIRIUM, a book that fascinated me so much I had to send Lauren a note asking a few questions about her process.  She was traveling but got back to me with some answers that I think are great food for thought for anyone who loves dystopian literature and especially for anyone writing a book that requires world building.  Here are my original thoughts on the book:

Kate-the-reader/teacher says:

This was the first e-galley I ever read on my iPad, and even though I’m not a big fan of e-readers, I’ve never been so motivated to finish a book on one. DELIRIUM is a major league page-turner, full of romance, conflict, and action. Like Ally Condie’s MATCHED, coming out this fall, it’s about a future world where people’s mates are chosen for them by the government. In DELIRIUM, love has been identified as a deadly disease (Delirium Nervosa!) that is "cured" by a mandatory procedure performed when a person turns 18. What happens to those who resist — including main character Lena — forms the central conflict of this book, and keeps readers turning pages through a whole lot of great twists, to find out how it will all end. My 7th grade HUNGER GAMES fans are going to eat this one up.

Kate-the-writer says:

I knew this book was classified as dystopian and assumed that it was set in the future. Because I’m revising a dystopian novel right now and navigating my way through all the related world-building details relating to everyday life and technology, I pay close attention to the way other authors handle this challenge. As I was trying to figure out the time period in which DELIRIUM was set, I found myself confused by the references to present-day name brands, even though oil was strictly rationed and other elements of the novel (regulator squads, government approved music lists) felt more futuristic. It was only after I’d finished reading that I realized that the novel is actually not set in the future but in an alternate reality of our present times. (Note: I read this one quickly, and it’s entirely possible that I missed a reference to the time frame early on in the text – or perhaps I was just so sure it would be futuristic that I ignored the references. I do things like that sometimes…)

Anyway, as a writer, I find this setting choice fascinating because it allowed the author to manipulate the elements of society that needed to be changed for the story to work without reinventing the world in other areas. Now I find myself wondering how the story might have been different if it had, in fact, been set in the future instead. Would the technology changes and other futuristic elements have detracted from the main conflict and the love story? Maybe. Either way, I think it was an interesting choice, and one that worked beautifully for this particular story. 

Here are Lauren’s thoughts, in response to three quick questions I asked her:

Why did you make the choice to set this book in an alternate present day instead of the future, like much other dystopian fiction?

I chose to make it an alternate present because I wanted it to feel as real and as accessible as possible for the readers. I wanted them to perceive both the parallels and the differences between this society and ours as clearly as possible–I didn’t want to give them "space" to see this as a futuristic fantasy.

Was DELIRIUM always set in modern times, or was that something that happened during the revision process?

Yes, DELIRIUM was always meant to be in modern times. That was very important to me as I was writing.

Can you talk a little about how you handled the world building for this book?

I kept a separate document, in which I brainstormed (before beginning) all of the ways the world would have to be reconceived/altered in order to support a society of the kind i needed to create. I thought about what kind of music they would listen to, what kind of books they would and wouldn’t have, etc. As I wrote, I added to this document, and brainstormed additional aspects of this world as I got to know it better. Then I re-read the big "world-building" doc before beginning my revisions, so I could strengthen and deepen the world in edits.

Thanks, Lauren, for taking the time to share some of your process!

DELIRIUM is due out in February from Harper Teen and is definitely one that fans of MATCHED and THE HUNGER GAMES will want to read.

I’ve been feeling those almost-time-for-book-release jitters lately, so two pieces of happy SUGAR AND ICE news were especially welcome today.

First…School Library Journal called it "delightful" in the December issue and said:

Messner has a flair for depicting engaging characters who are imperfect without being quirky. The dialogue between classmates and siblings is realistic, and the intergenerational or extended family relationships are interesting. The author shows the intensity of the world of competitive skating without dwelling on its rough edges, making it accessible not only to tween readers, but also to those who might have Olympic aspirations.

The full review is here.

Then I found out that SUGAR AND ICE has been named one of Amazon.com’s Best Books for December.  I was floored to see there were only three kids/YA titles on the list and more than a little delighted to see my book next to Ally Condie’s MATCHED, which I just loved.

SUGAR AND ICE is also on the Winter 2010-2011 Kids IndieNext List, so it should be available at your favorite indie bookstore as well as Borders and Barnes & Noble on December 7th. If you have plans to purchase, I’d love it if you supported your local bookstore if you can!

I’ve gone visiting again…  Today’s SUGAR AND ICE blog tour stop is at Janni Lee Simner’s blog, where I talk about a sense of place in fiction and the influence of my North Country home on SUGAR AND ICE.  Go visit   if you’d like to see some photos & read more!

SUGAR AND ICE, my latest middle grade novel from Walker/Bloomsbury, comes out on December 7th, a week from today, and I’ll be visiting a whole bunch of blogs over the next few weeks, talking about everything from revision to research to skating schedules.  I hope you’ll visit some of the great bloggers hosting me to check out their home bases and read about some of the secrets behind SUGAR AND ICE.

Today, I’m at Laura Pauling’s blog to talk about parents in middle grade fiction (and you should also check out her previous post on the topic, called "Dead, Missing, or What?" which explores the tendency of authors to ditch the parents in stories for kids (something you actually don’t see in my books…I kind of buck the trend on that one.)  Enjoy!

Also…an invitation!
The Bookstore Plus in Lake Placid is hosting a launch party from 3-5 pm on Saturday, December 11^th.  If you can’t make it but would still like a signed, personalized copy, just give them a call at (518) 523-2950 by December 10th. They’ll take your order, have me sign your book after the event, and ship it out to you in plenty of time for the holidays.

Our family partakes in many of the usual Thanksgiving traditions…pie, turkey, naps…and then there’s the figure skating. 

Almost every year, the touring skating show Stars on Ice launches its season Thanksgiving weekend in Lake Placid, and with a house full of skating fans, we’ve made it part of our holiday Saturday.  This year, it was extra-special spending a night at the Olympic Center, since that’s where most of my soon-to-be-released figure skating novel SUGAR AND ICE is set.  I kept looking around, thinking of my main character. "Oh! Claire would love that costume." or "Claire can do that jump!"

The show itself is always incredible, and this year was its 25th anniversary. 2010 Olympic Gold medalist Evan Lysacek was one of the headliners.

I enjoyed watching him skate…but more than that, I enjoyed the commentary of the older ladies who were sitting behind us. "He is SO handsome! Look at him!" they’d say, every time he appeared on the ice.

Jamie Salé and David Pelletier skated one song that was just amazing. This move made the skater-mom in me want to shout, "Be CAREFUL!"

And the group numbers were, as always, spectacular.

For more on the show, you can check out Lake Placid Skater’s blog review…and if you’d like to see the whole thing, it airs on NBC on January 22nd.