Summer State of Mind

I don't know about you guys, but I've got summer fever. It happens this time every year. The temperature gets above 70 degrees, the days are longer, the sun seems brighter, and suddenly all I want to do is be at the beach or the pool. This is not the most condusive way to work, I know, but this year, I've actually found myself writing at the beach. Crazy, I know, but I still love to write with pen and paper. It's how I draft all my ideas. I like to think of each story as a puzzle and I just keep moving around the pieces till it makes sense. I cross things out, write crazy notes like "don't forget to add the zipline" and then try to remember what I was talking about later on. This is how I came up with the idea for my next book, "Summer State of Mind," which will be out next spring 2014. Those of you who are "Sleepaway Girls" fans will be excited about this because the book takes place at Whispering Pines sleepaway camp. This is the same camp used in Sleepaway Girls and there will be many familiar faces in "Summer" that you already know and love, but it will be a completely new story with fresh characters as well. My favorite is Harper McAllister, your narrator. She's a sweet but spoiled freshly minted rich girl whose dad decides she needs a shot of reality. His plan: send her to his childhood sleepaway camp, Whispering Pines. Ziplines, mud, bugs, and bears are not Harper's thing and she'll hilarious have to navigate that world without her iPhone or beloved Twitter account. Can she hack it with the help of some former "Sleepaway Girls?" I hope you'll pick it up to find out. The book has me thinking a lot about my own camp counselor days at a camp here on Long Island where I live. I recently found pictures of myself in our camp polo shirt. My best friend Christi was my co-counselor every year we were, um, computer counselors. Yes, computer counselors! It was the only job open at the camp we worked at so we took it. We didn't have to spend our whole day in the computer lab, thank God. We got outside to the pool and the fields and did get a pretty nice tan when we weren't chasing after children or drooling over the hot male counselors. Boy watching in the summer is so much more fun. Harper does a lot of that herself in "Summer State of Mind" too. I'm so excited about "Summer State of Mind" that it seems only fitting that I do a contest in honor of it. Since it's not out till next year, I don't have copies yet, but I do have copies of "Sleepaway Girls" at my disposal and copies of the "Belles" series and "Reality Check." Any chance you want a copy of one of those? I'm going to give away three copies to three different people at random. From now till July 30th you can enter to win a book of your choice (from the list above) by doing one of the following things: 1. Follow me on Twitter at @jencalonita and say "I'm entering @JenCalonita's "Summer State of Mind" giveaway! #summerstateofmind" 2. Like me on Facebook (Jen Calonita) and post to my wall "I'm entering Jen Calonita's Summer State of Mind" giveaway!" 3.Like the "Belles" page on Facebook--because, hey, the Belles are awesome and if you don't know them yet, you should meet them, which you can on the page. Post "I'm entering Jen Calonita's Summer State of Mind" contest. I hope you all have an amazing summer full of warm weather, great beach days and awesome reads! Good luck in the contest! xo Jen

Hungry for More

Those who know me will tell you that I hate scary movies. I've been this way as long as I can remember. Ghost gave me nightmares for weeks. Just the sight of a photo from The Walking Dead sends me into a tailspin. I am petrified of vampires, but somehow watch Vampire Diaries with my eyes partially covered (sorry, but who can resist Ian Somerholder?) I don't watch or read anything about the apocalypse, end times or movies that deal with 2012.

The best example I can give you of how fears have put a choke hold on me took place when I was eleven. (My good friend Joyce still talks about the story I'm about to tell you to this day.) The day that lives in infamy is the one when I ran crying from the theater during the movie Goonies. Yes, Goonies, the movie about a group of kids going on a treasure hunt--and I love pirates, so what was I thinking walking out like that??? Embarrassing but true, but when Josh Brolin, Corey Feldman, Sean Astin and the gang headed into the attic during a thunder storm and found a treasure map that could save their house, I started to panic. What if there were ghosts or zombies or something awful in that attic? Or on the adventure they were about to take? Instead of waiting the scene out, I ran up the aisle as fast as my legs would take me and tearfully called my grandmother and asked her to pick me up. My mother stayed with Joyce, her mom, and both of our YOUNGER siblings. I was mortified, but convinced I had done the right thing. No nightmares for me!

It wasn't till the movie came out on DVD a year later that I realized how foolish I had been. The flick wasn't scary at all! I've never lived down what happened that day. Joyce even bought me a Goonies tshirt for my birthday a few years back.

Which brings me to today's blog point: sometimes we box ourselves into thinking a certain way and don't give something potentially incredible a chance. Since I hate scary movies, you can understand why I don't like frightening books. I like books that make me laugh and think. I don't do anything remotely upsetting, which is why when author Elizabeth Eulberg (of the brilliant Prom and Prejudice and The Lonely Hearts Club) suggested I read The Hunger Games, I almost fell off the hotel room bed.

We were away on a mini book tour and we talked so much those few days I lost my voice. Of course the topic of books came up. I suggested passionately that she read The Help, which I completely loved. She suggested a post-apocalyptic story about a girl forced to fight other teens to their deaths.

There was NO WAY I was reading something like that.

I had heard about the books, of course, and I knew everyone loved them, but they were never something I would even consider reading. But after Elizabeth brought the books up, they started popping up in my life on a regular basis! All the girls at my Beach Bag Book Club swore by them and would not stop talking about Peeta and Gale (I was like, "Who???"). Elizabeth asked a few times if I had given them a shot. Friends started reading the books and wouldn't stop talking about them. Then I was at the beach a few weeks back, and I kid you not, at least six different people I ran into were carrying one of those darn books. I started to feel wildly out of the loop. Was I missing out on something fun and exciting a la Goonies because I was letting my fear get the best of me?

So I did it. I picked up The Hunger Games...and I couldn't put the first book down for two days. I ignored my husband. I read on the elliptical trainer. I had reading time with the kids so that I could get through a chapter. And I read for hours in the evening. In two days, I was done and racing to Barnes and Noble to get Catching Fire. Same thing happened--I read brushing my teeth, blowdrying my hair. The story was electric, fast-paced and heart-pounding. Scary? Maybe. Teens are fighting each other to the death. But as I read, the post-apocalyptic background fell away and all I could think about was how much I adored Katniss with all her strength, and Peeta with all his love and humanity left intact in this very bleak world. I'll admit Mockingjay was a bit tougher for me--it was scary, and harsh and violent,and included all the things that scare me (plus some new horrors I hadn't even thought of) but it takes place during a war, and war is never pretty. I was pretty depressed by the end of that third book, but was I disappointed? No. Not every book can be happy. I realize that now. Suzanne Collins made me care about these characters and this world I never would have entered if others hadn't pushed me to try it. Almost a week later, I can't stop replaying certain scenes, and moments with characters in my head. That is the mark of a great book--a phenomenal series--and maybe, just maybe, The Hunger Games will inspire me to keep breaking out of this box I've put myself into and try other new genres as well.

But zombies? They're still on a definitive "no" list and will be for life.

SUMMER IS FINALLY HERE AND I WANT TO GIVE AWAY SOME BOOKS!

Like that picture of me you see above? That's me, big hair, braces and all, back in eleventh grade, at the height of my Sweet Valley High books obsession. When I was in junior high and high school we spent our summers on the east end of Long Island (the very East End that Reality Check is set in) and I would pretty much read a book every few days. I'm not kidding--what else did I have to do really? It was me, my younger sister, and my parents in the beach house, and while I loved it, there wasn't much in way of entertainment. I dare say we didn't even have cable back then (how did I ever survive?)! To make matters worse, back then I HATED the beach and we spent every day on the sand. Now I love the beach, but back then I couldn't stand sand in my shorts, in my turkey sandwich, in my hair. And the heat! UGH! The only thing that made the days bearable was that I would devour this series called Sweet Valley High. Thankfully there were over two hundred books in the series along with all these super special books that were double the length. Basically I had plenty to read. I just drove my parents nuts begging them to drive me to the local independent bookstore to get another book. My paperbacks worked hard for me--they had watermarks from being read in the pool with wet fingers. They had sunscreen smears on the book jackets and sometimes even food fell on them, but that's the beauty of a paperback --it takes a licking and keeps on ticking!

I hope you have as memorable of a summer as I had when I was growing up. To help you celebrate, I'm giving away one of my books in paperback a week, every week from June 26th to August 29th and you can start entering to win the first book right now! It could be a Secrets novel, or the new Reality Check paperback that just came out, or maybe it will be Sleepaway Girls, but the book given away will always be a surprise! (No grumbling if you don't get your pick, okay?) Every week starting on June 26th a new winner will be chosen at random and there are a bunch of ways you can enter to win. Here's how:

Each of the following will earn an entry:

Follow me on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/jen.calonita) and leave a comment there saying "I'm entering the Jen Calonita summer paperback-a-week giveaway!"
Became a fan of the brand new Belles page on Facebook. The Belles Series facebook page will have upcoming book giveaways, book excerpts and quizzes so while it looks bare now, stay tuned for major updates! To put an entry on the Belles Series page go to (http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Belles-Series/215745351791683), post on the wall, and leave a comment saying "I'm entering the Jen Calonita summer paperback-a-week giveaway!"
Follow me on Twitter (http://twitter.com/#!/jencalonita) and leave a comment there saying "I'm entering the Jen Calonita summer paperback-a-week giveaway!"
Become an email subscriber of JenCalonitaOnline's newsletter. (Info under contact section on my website).



Winner will be chosen randomly each week and notified via email. Good luck and happy summer!

Make new friends, but keep the old

Do you guys remember that song from, I think, Girl Scouts? Or maybe it was Brownies. Wherever it comes from, the point is, I can remember everyone singing it together: "Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver and the other is gold."

Cheesy, yes, but totally true too. I've found as I grow older it's harder to make new friends. Maybe it's because I spend my days hunkered down at my computer in solitary confinement, but even on the days I venture out, I really don't have the nerve to start chatting up the woman on the laptop at the next table at Panera Bread.
When I think about my new friends--the ones that have come along since I've had kids--I realize I met them all through my children. That's right, the kids are playing friend matchmaker now! You tend to gravitate toward the moms that are most like you, that share your interests and (I hate to say it) your parenting style.

But the older friends, the ones I've had since college, high school and even pre-school (yes, it's true! My friend Joyce and I have known each other since we were four.) are the ones that stick like Crazy Glue even if you annoy the heck out of them sometimes. There's a great comfort in that, I have to say. To be able to call one and cry over something silly like an American Idol contestant, or rant about something that happened at school drop-off or give a passionate argument on why I have to have these super expensive rain boots even though I have a fabulous other pair--it's just the greatest thing in the world. (Husbands are SO not girly that way. My husband wouldn't know what rain boots I wanted even if I mentioned them a thousand times before).

I get a little sadder though when I think about the friends that I've sort of let drift away over the years. Yes, some you just grow apart from, others move away (physically and mentally), and there are still others, I can't for the life of me remember why we stopped being friends in the first place. Perfect example: My friend E. It's her birthday today, which is why I'm thinking about this friend business a little more than normal.

I'll give you the backstory: E and I were part of a little clique back in sixth grade. We did everything you'd think we'd do together: sleepovers, cheesy video singalongs at the local amusement park, buying identical shirts...you know the drill. Then one day, something changed. For the life of me, I couldn't tell you what happened, but all I know is that I (pause for giant gasp) left their lunch table and never went back. Moving to a new lunch table was a huge deal, of course, and things changed radically between me and my old friends. The three remaining girls were close friends all through high school. We were never sworn enemies, thank God, because E and I were never that type to feud, but we just didn't hang out anymore either. I always wondered if high school would have been a little bit different if I'd stayed friends with her, or if I would have gone my own way eventually anyway.

Then six years ago, she Facebook'd me (yes, I'm a FB statistic!). She was living near me again, we both had boys pretty much the same age and our lives seemed to be mirror images of each other. When we got together with the kids, we clicked again. It was if no time had passed. Today she's one of the first people I text when I'm having a crappy day, the one I call I need to get something off my chest, and she's the most giving person I know. She's one of my closest friends again and I have to wonder why did we waste so much time?

So here's my little piece of high school advice again (and I say "again" because I'm assuming you read my prom blog): If you're feuding with one of your friends, take a deep breath, take a step back, and think about what your life would be like without that person in it. Sometimes whatever you're fighting about (if you even remember what you're fighting about!) just isn't worth it. Let it go. Move back to the lunch table and move on. I'm so glad, after almost fifteen years, E and I did.

Happy New Year to YOU and YOU and YOU!

I know, I know, I rarely post (I promise to be better about blogging in 2011, I swear). I guess I'm always worried that what I find interesting to blog about, you won't, but this is one topic I think we can all agree is important: I want to talk about YOU. Yes, you.

I want you to promise me that you're going to be good to yourself this year. I know I sound like a Hallmark card, but it's too: This year, give yourself the credit you deserve, and realize that you're much more beautiful, amazing, and strong than you even realize. Before you roll you're eyes at me (or should I say the computer) I want to explain why I'm on the "be good to yourself" kick.

My good friend and fellow author Elizabeth Eulberg has a new book out called Prom & Prejudice (which you should read and you will love!) and in honor of its release she asked a bunch of authors to share their prom photos.

My first thought was: Please, God, NO.

You see, I don't have warm and fuzzy feelings about the prom like a lot of people do. My big crush, my high school boyfriend (we only dated mere months, mind you, but in my mind that was HUGE), dumped me that night. He was gentleman enough to spend the rest of the weekend doing prom activities with me, but looking back, I probably should have kicked him to the curb. My heart was wounded for a while after that. I kept trying to figure out what went wrong between us. The breakup HAD to be all my fault. There was something wrong with ME! Not HIM. I thought I was too chunky. I hated my taste in clothes. Maybe it was because I had awful, poufy hair, or because I wasn't funny enough, not cute enough, too sheltered, too sweet--you name it, I was convinced it was the reason we no longer were a 'we'. It took me a while to realize that sometimes things just don't work out. People don't click, and that's okay because I went on to bigger and much better things. But prom talk? I'm still not a fan.

This week was the first time I looked at that prom photo in almost two decades (you do the math). Now I kind of wish I had looked at it sooner because when my mom found my old prom photo and showed it to me, I was shell-shocked.

This was the girl I disliked so much?

I'd love to look like that girl now!

I thought I was chunky? I'm not chunky at all! I'd love to fit into that dress now! And my legs!! Look closely! I had decent legs! My hair is big, okay, and sure I'm wearing a pink dress that is way out of style now, but I look pretty good for 1992!
I wish I had realized all this back then. Maybe I would have been better to myself after that breakup. Maybe I would have found my confidence sooner. Thankfully I did get it at some point or I wouldn't have been able to do all the things I went on to do like interview some of my favorite stars like Reese Witherspoon or Orlando Bloom, or hang out backstage at a concert Justin Timberlake or hang out in Utah at the Sundance Film Festival.

I did amazing things that I probably never would have done if I dated a guy who didn't believe in me. And the writing I wanted so badly? That came too, didn't it?

So give yourself some credit this year, will you? Promise not to beat yourself up over what you wish you had, or what kind of body you're lacking, or about that boy that doesn't realize how amazing you truly are. You ARE amazing. I know it, and you know it, or at least you will someday. Hopefully it won't take almost twenty years and an old prom photo to figure that out.

Happy 2011!

Reality Check

Take a sneak peek at my latest book, Reality Check!

Sixteen-year-olds Charlie, Keiran, Brooke, and Hallie live on the quiet and quaint North Fork of Long Island. It may not be glamorous but it is real and teen girls are where the drama is at - at least, that's the rationale of a television studio executive looking for the next big reality series. Thinking that Charlie and her friends might be THE next big thing, she signs them up for a show.

However, soon enough, having cameras follow them everywhere and interfering producers surreptitiously scripting their lives starts to effect their relationships. Brooke seems to want all the screen time. Keiran is scripted out of the show - and the group's friendship - when she doesn't rate well and as soon as Charlie realizes what is going on, she figures out the perfect way to give the studio and her home audience a reality check.

Read an excerpt from Reality Check.

Get the inside scoop on the creation of the book cover.

Download the Reality Check ecard.

Late to the game, but I finally made it!

Hey guys! I hope you're having a great summer. I'm getting a little depressed about it all ending. Does anyone else feel that way? This morning, when I woke up and it was gorgeous and 90 degrees again I started thinking about all the things I hadn't done yet or didn't do enough -- did we get enough days in at the beach? Did we use our pool pass enough? Did Ty, who is starting kindergarten next week, have enough fun?? I feel like I should be outside today doing SOMETHING. Though I'm not sure what. We did the pool this week, went to the beach, had a family photo shoot at the beach last night and saw the most amazing sunset I've seen yet, and just got back from a week on the Jersey Shore (and no, we didn't see Snooki). So I guess I'm over-reacting, right? I've done all there is to do. But still, until it's time for pumpkin picking weather (which I really like), I have a feeling I'm going to be slightly depressed. I may hate bathing suits, but I love bathing suit weather.
Enjoy your Labor Day weekend!