Dudes, my blog has moved house. Also, I'm knocked up.

How adorable is this ultrasound? 

Now, please bookmark this. www.gemmaburgess.com/blog - I moved about six months ago but have realized a lot of people are still coming here. So come on over to the real blog, my loves...

x

On... Antigua

We’re almost at the end of a lil two-week break in Antigua. I wasn’t going to say too much about it because firstly, we weren’t totally sure we’d be able to go because of worky stuff, and secondly, who the heck wants to hear about someone else’s blissful sunshiney beachtime if you’re not there with them? I don't. I suffer from severe vacation envy. (I know. I'm really not very emotionally mature.)

But then Fox and Errol and I were on the beach at dusk the other night, and it was so beautiful I wanted to share it with you guys.

We point, and dance, and stare, and swim, then point and dance and stare some more... And then he naps and we read. Best book of the holiday so far: The Paris Wife by Paula McLean. Best read in tandem with A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway. Beautiful and heartbreaking. 

PS Fox and Errol.

PPS This is my last post on blogger, so please oh do please visit gemmaburgess.com/blog from now on. xx

On... Pinterest

I wasn't sure if I liked Pinterest at first. 

It seemed to be a lot of girls screaming 'I LIKE STRIPES'. And I really do like stripes. 

But then I started making boards, and following people like Joanna Goddard and Samantha Hahn and Le Fashion and Anna Hoffman, people with immaculate taste who know what I'll like before I do, and realised that hey, Pinterest is interesting and effortless and fun and stimulating! I LOVE Pinterest! I know, I'm late to the Pinning party. I was late to the Twitter party. I was late to the blogging party. I left the Facebook party years ago. I guess I'm just not great at.... timing. (BOOM!)

Back to the point: the lovely people at St Martins Press suggested I create special boards about my upcoming book series BROOKLYN GIRLS on Pinterest. (First in the series out July 2013! With Quercus in the UK! Random House in Germany! Luitingh-Sijthoff in the Netherlands! Wydawnictwo PASCAL in Poland!) 

But something about making a book- or character-'themed' board doesn't feel right. I might do it for someone else's books, you know, like a board that makes me think of Anne Of Green Gables, or something - but not for my own. 

So here's my little experiment. I selected a couple of quotes from the first book in the upcoming BROOKLYN GIRLS series. I've styled them up in two different themes, just to see which is more popular, and maybe if people like them and think they're funny / interesting they'll repin them, and maybe they'll reach new audiences who might like the cut of my jib and decide to read the books. If they don't repin, hey, c'est la oh well, as they say. What do you think, lovely people? Would you repin?

On.... The Lumineers

This is the song that Fox and I have been playing every morning during breakfast for the past few weeks. Errol dances - well, he rocks from side-to-side and wriggles his shoulders - and Fox and I sing along and I get the words wrong but like, totally on purpose.

Then I heard it in a cafe the other day, and I thought 'that's our song!'

Not Fox and my song (which is this), but our family song. Errol and Fox and moi. It also makes me think of all my best friends, and everyone I love, in a sort of mildly nostalgic mental 'best of' montage. It's just a nice ol' hug of a song.

So anyway, press play and make your own mental 'best of' montage. Mwah. x

On... Love.

Lovely.

On... win a free print!

My lovely lovely friend Lydia is running a competition on her blog for a free framed print from Art.co.uk - all you have to do is leave a comment on her blog with a link to the print that you want, and BOOM. It will be yours. (Probably. You know, if you win.)

Just click here to enter and check out the amazing prints at Art.co.uk 

Good luck...

PS I can't enter as I don't live in the UK, but if I could, I'd choose this.

Or this.

Or this.

Or this.

Or this.

On... Right This Second

So, right this second I am lying on our bed, which makes me feel lazy but it's so lovely and relaxing I don't care. It's freezing in New York today, and the sun is shining and the sky is bright blue, so I've opened the doors to the balcony to give me some fresh air while I write. (Actually, it's just a fire escape that is no longer a 'working' fire escape, but you can walk out onto it, so fuck it, let's call it a balcony.) 

Yesterday I finished the copyedits to the second book in the BROOKLYN GIRLS series (the first is out this July! The second by Christmas!). For the next few weeks, I'll be tinkering with two other projects - one publishing, one TV. 

Our lovely nanny isn't working today today, so Errol and I hung out all morning and went to the big playground in Tribeca and then played with his toys and sang and danced along to this. Right now he's napping, so I'll do the aforementioned project-tinkering as soon as I finish this blog, and later on we'll go to storytime at McNally Jackson. Errol is 16 months old, and will probably have at least one tantrum this afternoon, usually due to something like me not letting him suck the toothpaste straight from the tube. (I am such a bitch like that.) Errol's tantrums are so hilarious and adorable that I just crack up and take videos to send to my parents. This is probably the wrong reaction.

What else can I tell you, hmm, let's see.... 

This weekend I'm also finally, seriously now, no more fucking around, getting involved with Pinterest. I'm feeling mildly smug about the fact that I escaped a hangover despite some extremely strong drinks last night - date night with Fox, and yeah, I say 'date night' without irony - at The Bourgeois Pig, Empellon Cocina and the bar next to Momofuku Ssam. We're planning a night in tonight, we're going to order from Westville and eat this chocolate and watch this show, which is insanely funny. And then I'll get into bed and read The Bachelorette Party by Karen McCullah Lutz, which is also insanely funny. 

And that's about it. What about you? 

On... BROOKLYN GIRLS the cover!

Hello kittens

This is the final cover for the first book in the BROOKLYN GIRLS series!

It's the same image that we've been toying with for a while. We loved the energy and composition of the image, but it was a little squeaky clean in its original format. So for the past six weeks, the brilliant cover people at St Martins Press have been playing with different filters and looks to 'rough' it up a little bit. We played with textures, shadows, blocks, frames, fonts, tints... You name it, we tried it. And this is the final choice. 

Isn't it awesome?! I absolutely love it. No lame cartoons and script fonts! No mushy hearts and stars! No fluffy pastels! Just cool girls in a big city with a sunny-yet-slightly-dirty edge. That's the kind of book I would pick up. When I look at it, I'm so happy, I feel like I'm shining a little bit. 

Anyway. What do you think? I hope you like it... 

PS It's out in July! You can pre-order on Amazon or Book Depository for free international delivery!  And to everyone who requested an ARC about a year ago when we hadn't yet decided to delay release (so we could release the SECOND book in the series just a few months later!) - I have your details, my friends. I'll be in touch. x

On... good bad songs

I have a long history of loving good bad songs. I'm not ashamed of it. I truly do love them. I learn all the lyrics. I put them to the top of my iPod playlists. I have special dancemoves for them that involve a lot of miming and shimmying and frowning-head-bobbing. 

The other day I began singing this song, and all I can remember is that it’s from about 2002, the guy’s name is Lemar, and I think he won some kind of talent show like Pop Idol. Fuck, I loved this song. This song is SO forgotten that there doesn't even seem to be a YouTube video for it. 

LEMAR, DANCE WITH YOU  

 

Note the extremely short use of a voice equalizer on ONE WORD. Wow, that is some cheap-ass production values right there. 

PARIS HILTON, STARS ARE BLIND 

 I loved this song too. I actually loved the entire album.
 

Loving Paris Hilton songs means having conversations like this with Chris, my lovely then-art director who is truly into music and used to be in a band and everything: 

Me:    This is the best song. 

Chris: No, it’s really not. 

Me:    Paris Hilton is really talented. 

Chris: No, she isn't. 

Me:    Watch, I can do a Paris face. Don’t I look like Paris when   I do this face?

Chris: No, you don’t. 

(Chris and I found common ground with early 80s new wave music, and this was our Friday song, but it is a really genuinely good song and thus has no place in this post.) 

Loving Paris Hilton songs also means bobbing around the DJ box using a bendy straw as a Madonna microphone and trying to get the Djs attention to ask: 

Me: Hey, will you please please play Paris Hilton’s Stars Are Blind?

DJ: (incredulous pause) No. 

Me: (shouting) WHY NOT? 

ABZ, STOP SIGN

Yeah. That’s right. I mean Abz from 5ive. Stop laughing! This is a great fucking song. I listened to it a lot when doing my early-20s elliptical trainer workouts. God, those workouts were boring. And pointless. Back to the point: turn it up and dorkdance your heart out.