Here is the difference between my babies.

When my book baby goes out into the world, I have high hopes. I think, "Maybe people will love it! Maybe it will do well! Maybe this one will be the one that people talk about over dinner or think about long after they close it. Maybe . . ." And then the first reviews come in. And I start to hate it. I start to feel so ashamed of what I wrote. I start to think I am worthless, pathetic, no-talent, all those terrible things. I want to cut off all association to it, and want to never write again, never put anything of mine out in the world to be ripped apart like that.

My other babies, when they go out into the world, I have high hopes, too. I think, "Maybe they'll do amazing things! Maybe they'll be so wonderful that teachers will adore them and parents will wish their kids were like mine. Maybe . . . " And then I go and find out my kid had a potty accident. Or got put in time-out. And then . . .

Nothing changes. I still love them. I will never be ashamed of them. I will always want them in my life, and as much as possible.

And maybe I just need to concentrate on that right now. Because the other stuff, no matter how hard I try, is only making me feel worse and worse about myself. While my kids? No matter what they do, at the end of the day, they always make me feel better.

Do you have one?

When you think about it, you must have at least a few of them.... apart from the obvious (getting accepted to the college of your dreams, getting a new job, getting married, having a baby)... some moments, you can just look back on and think, "That moment changed absolutely EVERYTHING in my life."

But it may be something simple. Like the alarm not going off. Or having a knot in your shoe. Those things alone may not mean much, but even the smallest things can have the most enormous consequences. What is a few minutes to a teen with a tyrannical first period teacher? Or...to the man who worked at the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001?

It is true for Nick Cross in TOUCHED. One moment in his life, one seemingly inconsequential decision, and everything begins to unravel.

And even worse, he knows exactly what would have happened had he made a different decision.

Because he can see the future . . . sometimes. Not just one version of it, either... he can see glimpses of all of the versons, melded together, an incomprehensible mystery. And yet sometimes, too late, the pieces begin to make sense.

This is a little bit of Nick's story, TOUCHED, releasing this summer. I hope you enjoy it.

I clenched my teeth. "Green elephant. Green elephant. Green elephant."

I figured if anything could send her away, me muttering nonsensical phrases would be it. The phrase "green elephant" didn't mean anything to her, but I'd invented it when I was 9 or 10, and it meant everything to me.

"Do you want me to get you some water or something?"

Why did she have to be so damn nice? I pulled my head up and stared into her eyes, blue and endless, and

Blood on the staircase

I knew right then I was going to be sick. "Look." I tried to keep my voice even, but it came out as more of a growl. "I don't want anything from you, so just get the hell away from me."

I was surprised by two things. First, at how I could bring myself to sound like a total jerkwad, which is what I probably was. And second, at how she just nodded, as if it all made sense. She hurried up the ramp and jogged off, fastening the headphones over her ears as if we'd been chatting about the weather.

I sat alone for a moment, eyes closed, green-elephanting until the pain subsided and my mind slowed to a peaceful lull. A thousand new memories of the future bubbled under the surface of my eyes. On the bad side, there was something about blood on the staircase, and I had this strange ache in my chest. On the good side, there was kissing that girl. The rest I'd have to sort out later. I felt like I'd gone ten rounds of a heavyweight title match. I couldn't tell if it was because of the cycling or because the new memories would prove too horrifying to bear. I could change them. I could change the bad things, sometimes, by going off script.

You will climb up to the boardwalk and smile at Jocelyn. She will eye you up and down, and a couple of children and a man with a boogie board will step aside to let you pass.

Crazy Cross. That was what they called me at school, and as I felt the eyes of all the beachgoers on me, I knew it wouldn't be too long until they thought the same. As I climbed the ramp, quickly, trying my best to ignore the stares, that same sinking feeling resurfaced. For three months, I'd shed it, but now, it wrapped around me, heavy, like a winter coat.

You will bury your feet in the sand and hurry down the beach.

I groaned and stepped off the boardwalk, sinking ankle-deep into the hot sand.

You will hear the radio crackle with "Ambulance, Seventh Avenue." You will see the crowd gathered at the waterline. Chaos. Shouts. Pedro will narrow his eyes at you when you break through, and scream, "Where the hell were you?"

They will tell you there's no hope of saving the girl in the pink bikini. And you will know it is because of you.

I have three moments in my life (other than the obvious) that changed my life completely. In my next blog entry (whenever that might be!), I'll tell you them! And if you have any, I would love to hear them.

I want to thank everyone for entering the TOUCHED contest! Because I had so many entries, I decided to choose two winners, who are:

Just finished the edits to this book:

Nick Cross always listens to the voice in his head. Because if he doesn't? Things can go really, really wrong. Like the day he decided to go off script and saved a girl . . . and let another one drown. Trying to change the future doesn't work.

But this summer at the Jersey Shore, something's about to happen that Nick never could have predicted. He meets a girl named Taryn and finds out about the Book of Touch. Now the path that he thought he was on begins to shift . . . and there's no way to stop things from happening. Or is there?

In a life where there are no surprises, nothing has prepared Nick for what he's about to discover--or the choice he will be forced to make. . . .


Exciting? I can't really tell. But at least the cover is way cool.

I have a couple ARCS of TOUCHED... these don't include the final edits, so they're a little rough. If you don't like reading rough books, ignore this:

So who wants to win a signed ARC of TOUCHED?  I'll make it easy.  Comment below to win (all comments will be hidden). Tweet or blog about it and post a link in the comments for an extra entry. International ok. Ends Friday, January 20 at midnight EST. 

Good luck!

We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools - MLK Jr.

My husband scolded me for not updating my journal in nearly a month.

But here's the thing.  Not only am I not feeling the whole writing thing right now, I have very little to say. Maybe I'll have more going on next month.

So I apologize for being MIA, but in the event you're concerned, I'm okay! I'm out stringing popcorn and singing carols and crap like that.And I hope you are doing well, too, and that the end of 2011 brings you lots of good things.

Merry Christmas!

This is my pre-Thanksgiving update. I really don't have much worth talking about. A lot of boring little things, like working on a new manuscript while tackling a (scary) revision letter for DEAD RIVER, but that's about it. Around this time every year, my mind becomes a muddle of gift ideas for people on my list, and I really can think of nothing else, so it should be fun trying to revise a book and write another one during this time.

TOUCHED is now up for pre-order on Amazon.  So you know, you can get all that pesky ordering out of the way now, and you will be all set. One less thing to worry about.   But PLEASE, remember, if you are going to buy it, the author's name is CYN BALOG. I don't want you accidentally buying a copy of TOUCHED by a certain former Penn State coach that you will undoubtedly regret owning.

Oh, STARSTRUCK has a not-too-horrible review in SLJ in December. I think it says something about Dough's narration being entertaining.  And it says that fans of fairytale romances will like it.  I can't help it, I'm a romantic. I like happy endings. And so I usually write them. There is too much depressing crap in the world.  So I say, Long Live the Happily Ever After!!! Who's with me??

I will be spending Thanksgiving at my parents' house, and a big topic of conversation will be THE WALKING DEAD, since I got both my mom and my sister hooked on it!  I am not sure if I want to see the next week's episode, though, since I was alerted to some spoilers online and don't like where it's going. One thing that I hate is violence against children. I've thrown books across the room that have had gratuitous violence against kids. When Carl got shot, I started hyperventilating. And the whole thing with Sophia... if what I think is going to happen, happens??  I will be a mess for weeks.  I suppose it is not gratuitous, that it fits very well in the story, but still... ugh.

Then, of course, we will partake of Black Friday shopping. I do every year, as it's the only day I actually have TIME to shop. So many people are scared to death of Black Friday, but here's a little secret.  Because so many people feel that way, and because a lot of stores are now open at midnight Friday or ON Thanksgiving.... Black Friday is not really that crowded.  I kid you not. We usually wake up at 5 or so, head to the stores, and get done by noon... and it's never that much more crowded that a normal Saturday at the mall. Plus there are awesome deals. But maybe I shouldn't have told you that.  Because that XBOX is ALL MINE!  (Kidding. I really want the Wii.)

Happy Thanksgiving to you all.

A couple of weeks ago I was alerted to a website that reviewed and recommended books for school libraries. While they loved and recommended FAIRY TALE and SLEEPLESS, they couldn't, because of the sexual nature of some of the discussions, recommend STARSTRUCK.

I'm not someone who takes this lightly. After all, I knew exactly what discussion they were talking about, and I cringed as I wrote it. Would my mother read this? Or my daughters, when they get older? What would they think? While there is no sex in any of my books, some of the popular kids at school do TALK about it. And I felt like it needed to be in there, because the whole deal with STARSTRUCK is "What YOU do you want to show the world?" And the popular girls were so wrapped up in letting the world think they were experienced and knowledgable about, among other things, sex. I felt it was important to the story, to show that though these kids talked a good game, they really weren't as put-together and sophisticated as they wanted other people to think. And while I contemplated a long time removing that scene, I realized that I simply could not.

And I suppose that if I absolutely needed to, I would put sex in my books. If it was absolutely necessary to the story, and if it was right. I never put anything into my books for shock value, or just to have it there, or because it's what everyone else is doing.

Whenever I go to events, I get concerned questions from mothers who want to know whether the content will be okay for their 12-year old. There is no way to answer that, because every 12-year old is different. The covers of all my books state that they are for age 12 and up, but really, I see FAIRY TALE and SLEEPLESS and being PG, whereas STARSTRUCK is a little more PG-13. Because parents know their kids best, my recommendation to parents is always to read a book themselves and decide if it is good for their child and whether they can handle the material.

Anyway, I am still fully mortified over that passage in STARSTRUCK. Which is probably why both TOUCHED, DEAD RIVER, the book I have on submission, and the one I am writing, while containing romantic elements, are ALL PG-rated. Whew, I feel better now.

Hi! I just found out the cover of TOUCHED had gone public. We writers are always the last to know, as we are soooo busy in our little writing caves and way too interested in our characters and plots to care of such superficial things (er, right). Anyway, here it is. It releases August 14, 2012:

I just remembered I forgot to mention a couple things in my Events world.

Since I started working full-time, my free time has been at a premium, so I've decided to really cut down on the number of events I go to. I've said it before; if I wanted to, I could have an event every week, but ouch! Don't get me wrong; I love meeting readers and signing books, but I also have other things I love doing, which have been suffering because of my schedule. Namely, writing. I want to keep writing books, and that pretty much means I need to cut down on my events.

Because of that, I have just one event scheduled for the remainder of the year. On Saturday, October 22, from 2-4, I will be signing books with the KidLit Author Club  writers at the Neshaminy Mall Barnes & Noble. See me there, or see me nowhere!

And... I am afraid I need to cut down on events for next year, which is why I'm probably only going to do a handful.

Luckily, the one I already have scheduled is a big one, and it is ALSO the FURTHEST I have ventured from my home in PA to promote my books.
Yes, I'm going to be at the Rochester Teen Book Festival next May!  I'll be there with authors like Laurie Halse Anderson, Ellen Hopkins, Susan Beth Pfeffer, and so many more. I'm really excited about that one and if you are in that area, I'd love to see you. Which is why I am telling you now, so you can clear your schedule. Okay?

That is all.

I grew up on horror movies. Really. I think the first horror movie I saw was a black and white about zombies, and I couldn't have been more than 5.  I remember sitting with my mom at the age of 7 and watching an R-rated slasher movie called Hell Night. Pretty much no movie was off-limits to me. As a result, I had a steel stomach. Gore and things jumping out of bushes didn't bother me. Nothing was really scary. I understood it was all make-believe.

However, there are few exceptions... things that make me jump out of my skin with fright or disgust or whatever.  For example, despite having absoutely no gore, this is the scariest movie scene ever:

http://youtu.be/mu_WUzaYOqc

(And also, the latest pig-eating challenge on Survivor last night.  What WAS that??  Much worse than any gorefest I've ever seen. For those of you watching X Factor instead, be glad. Be VERY glad.)

So.... in anticipation of Halloween, I have to ask... what movie scene scares the heck out of you?