Taking a break from YA reading

I started writing for children and teens about four years ago...really focusing my craft for YA and MG. Since then it's been hard for me to pick up a book of mainstream adult fiction and get sucked in. I need to get hooked by page 20, not 100, so lots of books with pretty covers and stamps of approval from people like Oprah don't always do it for me. 

Exception as of late: NEVERWHERE by Neil Gaiman. It was a wonderful book.

I don't want to write myself into a corner, and I definitely don't want to read myself into one either. So, I'm going to take a break from YA reading for a few weeks and get into some classics, some mainstream fiction, and whatever recommendations any of you have out there. 

I'll keep posting my efforts and reviews, and if I read a book you've read too, I'd love to discuss it!

Any recommendations?

Sending another baby out into the world...

It's so hard to believe, but my agent is preparing to send my middle grade mystery out to editors the beginning of next week!

Last winter I went through the submission process for the first time with EVERLASTING, and I'm positively freaking out right now with the What If's. What if that first book deal was a fluke? What if it's the only thing I ever sell? What if this new story I love never finds a home? I'm unable to wrap my head around the fact that we're about to enter another submission process. It was just so stressful last time! Exciting, but stressful ;-)

This weekend I'm going to try and pretend nothing at all is happening come Monday. We have a woodstacking party to go to Saturday (where I will not be stacking wood, but staying out of the way of those people who actually know what they are doing), and on Sunday a birthday party for my nephew. 

I'm also going to continue work on the second draft of EVERLASTING's sequel, and try to ignore the new story idea that just gelled for me yesterday. There needs to be a few more hours in each day, seriously.