Thai Food Tastes Funny

When we were in Salt Lake visiting my brother, Scott, we went to a Thai restaurant. I ordered this noodle mushroom thing that even Mom thought looked good, but when it came, I couldn't eat it. She tried a bite and coughed, then asked the waitress if it could be exchanged. The waitress said in her Thai accent that on the menu it said it had jalapeno peppers in it.

I ate some of my little brother's sweet and sour orange chicken.

Then the waitress came back and said they'd make a different noodle dish for me.

I still didn't like it.

Mom boxed it up and shared it with my brothers, one of who has spent time with Cambodians, and thought it was pretty tasty.

I'll have a bacon burger, thank you.

Tropical Christmas

Well, it wasn't exactly a tropical Christmas, but we got to go to St. George where my brother lives for Christmas. I got an external hard drive to save my writing on, AND I got five new book ideas. I wish I could just plug my brain into my computer and have the stories download just like I picture them in my head.

Come on, someone, get with that technology, okay? Then let me know as soon as it's invented!

Slippin' Away

Mom tried driving in the snow yesterday. She got stuck in the driveway. I tried to get her to rock the car so I could push her out, but she didn't quite get it, so we had to get my big brother Zack to do it. Then Mom flipped a U-ey while coming home from church and got stuck in the slush. Zack and I got her car out and brought it home, then when she was going somewhere else, our 70-year-old next door neighbor had to push her car to get her unstuck.
It's a good thing I'm in the driver's ed car this week so I can my license and drive her wherever she needs to go.

Saving Mom's car

Mom took me to Emery County, Utah, for some school visits. I talked so much I wasn't sure I could talk again, but it was fun.

On our way home, we drove over Fairview Canyon instead of going around through Salina. It was shorter, but it also was more dangerous when Mom went around a curve and hit a rock. It scraped along the ground and she yelled, "Oh, no, I broke the car, I broke the car!"

"Mom, pull over," I said. I told her to turn off the engine and set the emergency brake, then I crawled under the car and pulled out a big, square rock that had fallen off the mountain. A lady stopped and drove Mom to a tow truck place while I stayed with the car. A truck drove by, slowed, took a look at the big puddle of oil running down the canyon road like dark blood, and sped up to leave me behind.

We got towed to a garage and Dad came and got us.

Mom says I saved the day.

I don't know about the day, but I'm pretty sure I saved her car engine.

Drink Faster

Warning: Sometimes when you want to do something funny to someone else, and it ends up back on you. For example, when my little brother was drinking out of a water bottle, I reached over and squeezed the bottle, saying, "Drink faster!" He started laughing, which broke the seal around his mouth, and sprayed water all over him, and me.

I'm not saying I deserved it, but still.

I went to the grand opening of a bookstore in Eagle Mountain called, "Dragons and Fairy Tales." There were a lot of people there, and I did a reading and signed lots of books. I also got to visit Hidden Hollow Elementary, where we had problems with my power point pictures going backwards, but I talked around it and it worked out.

Then I did a presentation at Gunnison High School for Career Day as a writer. It was fun.

Next week, we're going to Ferron, Utah, to visit schools. I'm looking forward to it.

And I won't be drinking from any water bottles my brother can reach, just in case.

Mom said I had to let you know

This lady at my dad's work bought a copy of my book for her granddaughter. When her OTHER granddaughter saw it, she said she wanted a copy. It seems that ever since I visited her school, she likes to read, where before that, she didn't.
Mom said I was inspiring.
Whatever.
(Okay, Mom, can I have dinner now?)

Fish Can Be Harmful to Your Health

I had a good time at Logan's school visits, book signing (on a snowy, snowy night!) and the Bone Warriors book reading. But the most exciting thing is that I got a new laptop. What is interesting is that my old laptop barely let me get my new book off it before it shut down. I still have notes on there for other books, so we may have to take it into a computer shop or something to try and get those off. All I can say is, it was time for a new laptop!

Apparently I'm better at traveling and speaking than being at home, because when I was carrying a jug downstairs to fill with water for my fish tank, I fell, somehow tearing the flesh pad off the bottom of my big toe. Dad took me in for stitches and I didn't go to school that day.

I got another thousand words done!

Headed North

Mom's taking me to Logan to visit some schools up there and do a book signing. I'm writing about 1,000 to 2,000 words on my new book just about every night.

That's all I can think of for now. I hope something fun happens while I'm gone. No, not at home when I'm not here to see it, but something fun in Logan!

You could win a free book!

Hey, you could win a free "Bone Warriors" book if you go to BOOK GIVEAWAYS! (Click here!)

This is a limited time offer, so you'd better hurry!

I got to visit the TLC school in Manti this week, and had a great time!

I hope I can soon visit your community. It would be great to see you.

Quick Cell Phone Fix

Writing is about communication, and so are cell phones. I don't have a cell phone, but my big brother, Zack, does. He came home the other night really unhappy that his phone had quit working. It was too late to go to the cell phone store, but Mom tried calling customer service and trying to see what she could do, which ended up to be nothing, because Zack said no, she couldn't call his friends on their house phones.
So Zack went upstairs because he was upset he couldn't get the numbers and things off his phone. About 20 minutes later, he came back downstairs in a pretty good mood. "It's fixed," he said.
"How did you do that?" Mom asked with a smile on her face.
Zack grinned. "I threw it against the wall."

Motorcycle Madness

Andy's my oldest brother and he wants to buy a motorcycle but doesn't have lots of money. (He's still going to school at 30 years old! Madness, I say, MADNESS!) Mom found this old motorcyle (it's affordable, but needs a lot of work) and told me to stand beside it for size comparison so she could send Andy a picture. I was not thrilled. Why didn't she ask Zack? He was on the other side of her.
But to save time and earn Good Son points, I did it. (She didn't say I had to smile.)

School Visits

I did my first school visits last Friday at Ephraim, Manti, and Gunnison Elementary. I wasn't nervous, but one lady teacher said I needed to speak louder. Kids from one school asked so many questions about my jumping stilts that they were almost late for lunch.
I want to do more visits.
Bring on the kids! Just keep them out from under my stilts.

Peanut Butter Dog Kisses

Well, Mom said she didn't want Michael sleeping at 4:00 p.m. because then he wouldn't sleep at night. I was eating peanut butter, and I'd let our dog, Bibs, in the house, so I had a great idea. I carefully put a blob of peanut butter on Michael's stomach. Bibs licked it off. Michael kept sleeping. So I put on more. Bibs ate more. Michael moved, but stayed asleep.
Okay. Something had to be done. I was helping Mom. So I put peanut butter on Michael's cheek. Bibs licked it off, Michael woke up, and he started shouting.
Why did he do that? Bibs has licked him before, and Michael thought it was funny.
Mom put Michael in a bubble bath. Even after sitting in there for half an hour, Michael said he still smelled like peanut butter.
No he didn't, but Bibs and I did!
(BIBS WOULD LOVE THE KID IN THE PICTURE! He's not Michael, though. Michael is 10.)

Breaking SoBe Bottles

I learned a cool new trick! It took some practice, and fortunately I had to drink a few bottles of SoBe before I got it right, but now I can pop a SoBe bottle on the lid with the flat of my hand and break the bottom of the bottle out!
My mom and my brother are witnesses. Ask them!
Now, what's the number for "America's Got Talent?"

Tape Worm Spaghetti

Sometimes at my house I have to cook my own food. That's just the way it is. I told my mom the other day that I might just go to cooking school to be a chef during the times I'm not writing. Hey, it's all creative, right?

So I cooked some spaghetti and made my own Alfredo sauce and ate it. But there were noodles left over. So I put them in water in the fridge. AND THEY GREW.

The next time I wanted to eat spaghetti, my food looked like giant, fat tapeworms. My mom's cooking looked good next to those.

So I took up a new hobby. I picked up our accordion and taught myself to play the song from "Pirates of the Caribbean II" that Davy Jones plays on his organ with his squid tentacle beard. And strangely enough, now that I think about it... those tentacles look a lot like fat spaghetti noodles.

Making Maces and Faces

It's been a few weeks since I started putting together a mace. I had some structural issues to work out, but with more products and perseverance, it's really starting to come together. I'll have to put a picture on here when it's done. You'll be impressed.
In other news, I got my school clothes, but am not looking forward to school. (Bleah!) Summer was just way too short.

I Wasn't Late for my Signing!

Even though people were waiting for me at 1:00 p.m., I wasn't late for my signing! Mom even called the St. George Barnes and Noble on Friday to make sure it was from 3:00-5:00 p.m.! But when I got there at 3:00, I found out that people had been there at 1:00 to meet me. The newspaper had 1:00 p.m. as my signing time! And guess who sent in the article... Mom. (She tries.) She's got me at another signing this Saturday in Cedar City at Braun Books. This time, it really is at 1:00 p.m.

A human skipping stone

My big brother, Jeff, took me out on Yuba Lake in a tube behind his boat. When he found out he wasn't driving wild enough to bounce me off, he turned up the speed. I got laughing so hard I couldn't hang on any more, hit the water, and skipped across it like a stone. Unfortunately, I got water in my nose. Lots of water. I couldn't breathe. Luckily it didn't last long enough to kill brain cells. Then when I tried to climb back on the raft, my leg wouldn't work. I rode the raft for another two hours, proving the fact that teenager's brain's aren't connected at the synapses.

Riding the Tube

I had a good signing on Whidbey Island. I signed 8 books. Then I went to Confetti Antiques in Spanish Fork and signed two more. Then I went to Mountain West books in Cedar City and signed two there. Now I'm in St. George and will have a book signing on August 1 at Barnes and Noble. Book signings are unpredictable, but so is tubing. Let me tell you about it.
Mom wished she had a camera when I was riding the tube behind my big brother's boat yesterday. Once, he and I hit a wave so hard that all she could see was the bottom of the tube and our feet sticking over the top.
Then my little brother, Mike Mike, wanted to ride, so we gave him the middle seat. He was kind of nervous, but I said, "Hey, has anyone ever fallen off the middle seat? No!" But this time when I was falling off the tube, I held on to the handles and, with the help of a wave, managed to flip it over, dumping Mike Mike and my sister in law, Jamie, into the water. Jamie hit her head on Mike Mike's knee, but no one died, so I don't know what she was complaining about.
It's just too bad Mom didn't have a camera.

Where Whales are...

We're supposed to go whale watching. I hope no lycan sailors are out while we're on the water... I'll let you know what strangeness I see when... and if... I return...

Great review from Sheila Staley!

Hey, I got a new review from Sheila Staley! Click right here to read it: Why Not? Because I Said So! (Sounds a little bit like my mom!)
Thanks for doing this, Sheila.
I've been writing a lot lately, at least 600 words a day, sometimes over a thousand. This comes after my mom said I should set a goal of how many words I would write every day. I decided on one hundred, but I'm doing better than that, and I keep getting ideas to fix plot holes as I write.
When I'm not writing, I'm working on making a pair of dragon wings. They look pretty cool.

Weird things in Vegas

I got to spend a few days with my brother, Andy in Las Vegas. It was an interesting trip. I got to shoot a machine gun, and I saw a dead guy. (NO, it wasn't from my shooting! He was by the road as we were leaving, and some city coroner was putting on plastic gloves. When my mom asked what he looked like, I said, "Dead.")

Hanging out in Vegas

I went to Las Vegas with my brother, Zack, to babysit our brother, Andy's, 3 kids. When I get back, I get to sign books at the Mormon Miracle Pageant in Manti. My mom already sold half a dozen without me!

Teen Writers Conference

It was great to be at the teen writers conference in Ogden, Utah on Saturday June 6. I got to hang out with some great authors I admire and meet some new people about my age who also like writing.
In the top picture, I'm with some writer friends Kim Wayman, Kimi Poulson, and Holly Bishop. In the next photo, I'm signing books. I got to answer some questions on the panel, (in the next picture), although I'll admit that the one about what college degree I got before being published had me stumped. I could only answer that I graduated at the top of my kindergarten class.
For the "What ideas do you start with?" question, I was in favor of asking yourself "What if?" questions, such as, "What if instead of nice town names like "Mt. Pleasant," "Fountain Green," and "Fairview," there was a place named "Crappy Average Town?" What kind of people would live there? What kind of jobs would they do?
Unknown to me, one of the girls in the audience was from Mt. Pleasant, and said so after I spoke!
The worst part of the whole conference was at the end when my little brother sat in the aisle to take pictures of me and ended up picking a scab off his leg. Ew! You can see my annoying little brother in the second to last picture, where he's standing by me. We're both in back of author Jessica Day George. All the rest of it was pretty good. I'm glad I could go, as you can see from my smile in the last picture where I'm standing with some other great authors, Lisa Mangum, J. Scott Savage, and James Dashner. I'm their hero.

More Bone Warrior Reviews!

Hey, the awesome Karlene Browning reviewed "Bone Warriors" at her InkSplasher blog. CLICK to check it out!
Not only that, but Cindy Beck, (who is the acknowledgments of "Bone Warriors" by the way), also gave her review at Write Up My Alley. (It's the second blog down, dated May 30.)
Thanks to these ladies for their time to review.

Looking up to my brother

My brother, Zack, graduated from high school last week. (It was the same weekend I signed 28 books!) Here I am looking over his shoulder. (He hates it when I do that!)

Missing my Launch Party and seeing Shauna Lake

Well, I was excited about our Broadcasting class field trip to the TV stations in Salt Lake City. We left at 7:30 in the morning, which seemed like plenty of time to get back for my first county-wide book launch signing, but nooo. My mom called my class advisor just as 5:00 rolled around, and we were just leaving Salt Lake. So she went to the book signing for me and put sticky notes on all the books people bought with the names I was supposed to sign them to. I was kind of mad because I wanted to be there.
When we were in the parking garage at Channel 2, our advisor had gone somewhere and told us to wait in the van. That's when newscaster Shauna Lake got out of her car. One of the kids yelled, "There's Shauna Lake!"
Ms. Lake came over to our van and spoke right into my window. "What are you guys doing here?" she asked with a smile.
I looked from side to side, but no one else was speaking up, so I said, "Um... we're on a field trip?"
"Okay, have fun," she said, and walked away. I'm sure she wasn't even out of earshot before we all burst out laughing.
Well, we could say I made an impression on a TV news reporter that might get my foot in the door for an interview. Maybe that was worth missing my first book launch party... but I don't think so.

Tristi Pinkston reviewed "Bone Warriors!"

Hi! Here's a picture of me outsigning my mom at my very first author signing. I'm glad Mom was a good sport about it though.
In other news, author Tristi Pinkston reviewed "Bone Warriors" for me! My favorite part about her review was the line: "I have to say, I was impressed. Bron Bahlmann isn't just a good writer for being fifteen; he's a good writer, period." You can: You can read the whole thing here: Tristi Pinkston's book reviews Thank you, Tristi that's very kind!

A Review by Ali Cross

Hey, I got a nice new review from Ali Cross. Go ahead, click here: Girl in a Whirl to read it! Thank you for your time.

Outsold my mom.

I went to my first actual book signing at a small boutique in Elsinore. I outsold my mom by about 6 books or so and met a lot of great people.

Setting up signings

My mom just talked to a guy named Doug Clift of The 3 Little Monkeys bookstore, and he wants me to do a signing there on June 5. He also told Mom she should get me on T.V., and he's checking with people he knows at one of the stations to get me there. I'm doing signings in two weeks in each of three Sanpete towns: Mt. Pleasant, Ephraim, and Gunnison. I'm ready to take on the book world, but in this picture, I'm taking on my little brother, and we are dressed as Sumo wrestlers!

First Book Review!

Hey, I got my books yesterday! And I got my first book review! Check it out at: WENDWORD and see what Weston Elliott has to say!

Waiting, waiting, waiting...

Mom said she would drive me to Springville to pick up the copies of my new book as soon as they are ready. The publisher said probably today. We're waiting, some of us more impatiently than others...

Abandoned but printed!

Well, first of all, I was doing everyone a favor by staying after school to work on Algebra. Mom was visiting Grandma, and said she would be there at the school to pick me up when my torture session, I mean, Algebra study time, was over.
She wasn't.
So I called her from the school phone, I called from my cousin's cell phone, I called as loud as I could yell.
No luck.
So I walked to my cousin's house with him. Then my aunt drove me home. (No, I'm not a wimp. It was seven miles!)
The highlight of the day is that my local bookstore showed Mom an ordering flyer with my book on it. We should be able to pick up copies next week. If Mom won't leave me behind in Springville, I guess I'll forgive her.

Spring Fever

Now that it's finally stopped snowing, it's harder and harder to go to school.
The assistant principal stopped my mom at school today and said he heard I was publishing a book. He said he wants to read it.
Hm. I wonder if he could influence my teachers to give me extra credit?

Storymaker Conference and Me

Just got back from the Storymaker Conference in Provo where I met with an editor from Tor. She said my writing was original, and encouraged me to keep it up. She also said that she thought I could make a living at it.
Now that's what I like to hear.
The only thing that didn't really make sense was when she said I shouldn't worry about getting published right now. When I asked why not? She said it could put me in a niche that would be hard to break out of. I don't really get it. Why would I want to break out of a niche doing something I love to do?
I'm sure she meant well.