Official Maria V. Snyder Blog

Ha! You didn't think I'd keep this up, did you??  Well, I will admit to writing all three of these posts in one afternoon and scheduling them to post two days apart.  Why?  I didn't want to bore you with all those stories in one long post, and this week I'll be crunching out the writing big time! Another reason I haven't blogged since December is I've been working very hard on book 3 of my Healer series - TASTE OF DEATH.  It's due out at the end of 2013, but my editor wants it by April 1st!  No fooling!  I have a week...er...a couple days to finish the first draft and make some sense of it!  It's a mess right now - it's going to need some major revisions.  Which is why it's due April 1st - I need time to revise based on my daughter, son, husband, editor and agent's comments.  The art department needs time to design the cover art, the sales staff needs time to get orders from book stores, the marketing department needs time to develop a fabu

Okay, where was I....  Oh, yes, volleyball.  While that did dominate our family schedule, we also squeezed in a little skiing.  While the snow in PA wasn't the best (better than last year by a smidge), we managed to get out a few times.  And I went on another high school trip - this time with the high school ski club up to Vermont for a long weekend of skiing with my daughter. Top of Killington Peak I'm in blue! I love skiing in Vermont - the slopes are bigger, longer and challenging.  They had more snow than PA and the conditions were wonderful.  We spent two days at Stowe Resort and one day at Killington.  The second day at Stowe was freezing cold - 1 degree F at the top with winds 30 mph with gusts up to 50 mph.  Coldest I've ever been.  Sitting on an open lift was torture - I'd just huddle in my jacket, thinking I was an idiot to be out here and promising I would head straight for the lodge once I skied down.  But I'd warm up skiing and the slopes were so

Wow - it's dusty in here *cough, cough* and loaded with cobwebs! I had to clean out a family of mice and two raccoons since my neighbor bloggers were starting to complain.  Yes, I've been a bad blogger :(  The last three months have flown by and while I've kept up with my Facebook and Goodreads pages, I'm WAY behind on my email replies and have neglected my poor blog.  And I owe my newsletter subscribers a newsletter, too. So what have I've been doing?  Get comfortable, grab a drink, this is going to take a while and I'll probably dole it out in parts ;) Me and Jenna The Castle in Magic Kingdom Right after the x-mas holidays, I went to Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida for 6 days.  It was a ton of fun, despite the 20 hour bus ride both ways! and going with 186 teenagers, including my daughter (sleep wasn't on the schedule :).  I made new chaperone friends and learned a lot about high school dating and drama, stood proudly while the Marchin