On the MONUMENTAL occasion of DIE FOR ME’s UK book release by Little, Brown / Atom, I filmed this celebratory video. WARNING: contains Paris and macaroons.

(Thank you to my friend Amy Reverdy for the top notch cinematography. You can see her reflection in the mirror.)

Three amazing things have happened in the DIE FOR ME universe during the last twenty-four hours.

Amazing Thing #1: Target will be selling DIE FOR ME. TARGET! !!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!! I just can’t even imagine walking into Target and wandering up to the books section and seeing our lovely Kate looking out over the rooftops of Paris. I think that if I did, my head might explode. So it’s a good thing they don’t have Target in France.

Amazing Thing #2: DIE FOR ME received a starred review in the May issue of School Library Journal. STARRED! HOLY COW! I feel like I just won an Academy Award. Where’s my dress? Where’s my speech?

This is what they said:
*PLUM, Amy. Die for Me. Gr 9 Up-
One might think that it’s hard to find anything fresh and new in paranormal romance, that it has all been done. But Plum has succeeded. Revenants are undead who have died and been awakened, or reanimated, and they are immortal. They are not ghosts and would rather not be referred to as zombies. They also tend to be extremely good-looking, and each time they die, which happens frequently since their mission is to save humans, their age is halted once again so they also tend to be fairly young, in a manner of speaking. Kate Mercier, 16, and her 18-year-old sister have just lost their parents in a car accident and moved from Brooklyn to Paris to live with their grandparents, whom they have spent summers with since they were very young. Kate meets a young man and her breath is taken away by the feelings he evokes within her. It so happens that Vincent died for the first time in 1940, and he has been dying and saving lives ever since. Just as they are beginning their relationship, they discover that the numa, the evil revenants, are plotting an attack on the good revenants of Paris, and Lucien, their evil leader, just happens to be Kate’s sister’s new boyfriend. Action and drama abound. Plum has done an excellent job of setting up the rules for her creations and following them closely. Fans of this genre will have their appetites reignited by this new addition.-Genevieve Gallagher, Charlottesville High School, VA

And if that weren’t enough to have me hopping around doing a happy dance, I just got word of…

Amazing Thing #3: DIE FOR ME was named to the Summer 2011 Indie Next list! This is where independent booksellers nominate books and then vote. 54 titles were chosen for “Inspired Recommendations for Kids from Indie Booksellers” and DIE FOR ME IS ONE OF THEM.

I don’t even know what to say. I am amazed. Gobsmacked. And truly truly grateful.

Click here to catch the tour!

When I was writing DIE FOR ME, my brain was on constant alert for a phrase or a word that would make a good title. I had labeled the Word document “Undead” as a temporary measure, but was constantly checking Amazon with ideas for titles, and just as constantly throwing the idea into my mind’s wastebasket because…IT HAD ALREADY BEEN TAKEN.

Finally I realized that—unless I named my book with a made-up word like SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPIALIDOCIOUS (taken), or with a complex multi-word phrase like THROUGH THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW (also taken)—EVERYTHING had already been used at least once.

And finally I came up with a title. SLEEPWALKING. It hadn’t been used for years. And it described Kate’s frame of mind after her parents’ death, and then again when she realized what kind of paranormal world she had just unwittingly stepped into when she fell for Vincent. It seemed perfect.

So I was shocked when—once the book was bought—no one liked it. I got the feeling they thought it wasn’t dynamic enough. And—although nobody actually said it—I think they felt SLEEPWALKING held the subliminal suggestion: This book will put you to sleep. And suggesting that a book is going to make you nod off and then wander around and perhaps even hurt yourself…well that’s not the best literary commendation a title could give.

So the search for another title began. I enlisted a number of friends to help, and suggested several of our top picks to my editor. All were turned down. Finally I gave her this list:

Penumbra; The Risen; My Former Life; Breathless; Wingless; Dark Halo; Death Does Us Part; Truly Madly Deadly; A Darker Shade of White; A Deathly Kind of Love; Afterdeath; Alive Again; Angelheart; Angels of Death; City of Nights; City of Dreams; Dead Again; Dear Departed; Death and the Maiden; Deliver Me; Deliver Me From Death; Earthangel. Eternal Night. Everland; Everwaking; Everdeath; Evermore; Everafter; Forever Dying; Forever Yours; Guardians of the Living; Guardians of the Night; If I Should Wake After I Die; Immortal Love; Immortal Night; Immortally Yours; Inamoratas; In My Dreams; Kiss of Death; Kissing Death; My Heart, Mortality, And Other Jokes; Obsession; Paramour; Return to Me; Revenant; Shadow of Death; Shadowheart; Shadowland; Awakening; The Death of Each Day’s Life (from Shakespeare’s Macbeth); The Guardians; The Rising; The Watchers; Under A Paris Moon; Undying.

Guess what. Nuh uh.

And then my editor came back to me with two suggestions: DIE FOR ME and TO DIE FOR. She asked what I thought. I said I liked SLEEPWALKING. I’m glad I was an ocean away from New York City, or I’m sure I would have been able to hear much groaning and ripping out of hair up on Madison Avenue.

I’m not quite sure what the internal procedure is at HarperCollins, but Tara asked “the powers that be” and everyone agreed that DIE FOR ME was the very best title. And you know what? After about three or four days of letting it sink into my psyche…I agreed. And now I can’t imagine the book with any other title.

According to my ancient email file, the title decision for Book 1 was taken the first week of May, 2010. And here we are, almost one year later, and Book 2 has just received its own title.

My editor has been asking me for title ideas for months. And until two months ago, I had no clue. Until I wrote a certain line in the book and thought…Hmm. Then I did my 4-mile jog—the one I tend to do my problem-solving thinking on—and almost sprinted back to my house near the end because I was so sure it was a good title idea.

But since I hadn’t yet sent the new manuscript to my editor, she didn’t jump at it right away. And then, just a couple of weeks ago, she read that section and wrote me right away. “How about (insert new title)?” she asked, not immediately remembering that I had suggested it.

That’s got to be it, I thought. If both of us came up with the title individually, it was meant to be. And just over a week later, and an official “okay” from HarperCollins, I am overjoyed to announce the title of Book 2:

UNTIL I DIE

*Amy swoons, and then gets back up and keeps typing*

It’s perfect. Trust me.

I wrote this post a couple of years ago, but thought I’d show you it since I’m returning to this writing paradise in exactly 9 days for a week-long writing hideaway!

2/25/2009  Yes, I’m writing you from the smack-dab middle of Writing Week. Since the university is on a break, I decided to run off to Saintes and spend an entire week writing in Nicolas and Paul’s chateau. Since Nicolas is starting on a new film script, it was the perfect time for me to come…when both of us knew we had to be hard-core about writing instead of going to the market, antique shopping, and eating four-hour champagne-soaked meals with his neighbors like we usually do when I come.

Let me tell you, it is SO much easier to get work done here than it is at home, where the phone is ringing, people are stopping by, and I’m doing loads of laundry and cooking between writing paragraphs.

So just to share the wealth of my spoiledness, let me give you a guided tour of what a day of writing in Saintes looks like.

8:00a.m. Open my eyes. See this…

If you can’t see what that is outside of the window, here’s a close-up…

I let my eyes wander around the room and enjoy all of its beautiful colors and objects…

And then maybe I close my eyes again and let myself sleep for another fifteen minutes. Just to get the biggest bang for my buck out of the fact that it’s not 6:45a.m. and I don’t have to go pick up a baby with a full diaper. This is where I should be working…

But instead I work from here…

I write in bed. I know…a very bad habit but I’ve been doing it too long to stop now. And, if you were wondering, yes, the bookshelves on either side of the bed open up to closets that are jam-packed with these…

Costumes from the Paris Opera. (Nicolas has an amazing collection.) When I start to feel hungry, I get up and walk down this hallway…

Say “good morning” to these handsome fellows…

and continue down these stairs…

to the kitchen…

Where I make myself some coffee and eat a slice of the giant carrot cake that I brought to celebrate Nicolas’s birthday and will probably last the two of us ’til the end of the week, if it hasn’t gone rock-solid before then.

After breakfast I go back up to bed and write for a couple of hours, and then take a shower, and come back downstairs to pick up my emails, since the wi-fi signal doesn’t stretch as far as my room. I cross the kitchen and into the living room to see if Nicolas is up yet.

He is…

Since he’s giving me the “Go away, I’m trying to work” look, I say, “Just ignore me, I’m taking pictures for my blog.” He cooperates.

I go back upstairs and work for a few more hours, then come down for lunch, which we take turns making on alternate days. Nicolas has already been out for a swim at the (indoor) town pool, by the time we eat, which is around 2p.m. Today it’s going to be 3p.m. because he’s still out swimming as I write this. Yes, I am dying of hunger, but just went and ate the end off a baguette. It’s not easy fitting into the schedule of a normal person: someone who doesn’t have children to feed at noon and 7p.m. on-the-dot.