What a Difference a Year Makes...

by Brittany Geragotelis

A friend of mine just reminded me that it was a year ago TODAY that I threw my book launch party to celebrate self-publishing my first novel, Life's a Witch. Now, a year ago exactly, my biggest dreams have come true and I'm writing books full-time. My first traditionally published novel, What the Spell?, will be available in bookstores across the country on Jan 29th. (Pre-order your copy here!)

What a difference a year makes. Seriously.

So, to show you JUST how things have changed, I decided to do a comparison from 2011 to 2012. Enjoy.

CAREER
2011: Working as Managing Editor at a magazine, reporting for a 8-6 job where the possibility of a raise was nowhere in the future. My co-workers were some of the hardest working, passionate, underpaid and under-appreciated people I've ever known. At the same time, I was writing Young Adult fiction in my spare time (from about 11pm-1am every night) and had just completed my sixth novel.
2012: Toward the end of Jan this year, I was on vacation when I found out the magazine I'd worked at for 10 years had been sold and all of its employees had lost their jobs. Including me. Monday we arrived home. Tuesday I cleaned out my desk. Thursday we went into an auction for the rights to my Life's a Witch series. By the end of the day Friday, I'd decided to go with Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers in a 6-figure, 3-book deal. Today I am a full-time fiction writer and get to wake up every morning excited to do what I love: write books!!! Not only do I set my own schedule and get to work from home (in my pajamas!), I get so much respect from my publishers and my peers that I can't help but feel loved and appreciated every day. It's a pretty amazing feeling.

PERSONAL
2011: Living with my boyfriend and enjoying life. Matt and I celebrated our anniversary in December of last year, and after four fabulous years together, we were beginning to talk about spending the rest of our lives together. Of course, this was all still talk at this point, but we were excited to be entering a new part of our relationship.
2012: About a month ago, Matt took me to Paris. He said that the job he'd recently started working at was sending him there to meet with investors and asked if I wanted to tag along. I said, "Duh!" and we planned a trip about a week before we were to go. When we got there, I quickly found out that he'd orchestrated the whole thing. There was no business trip. And he gave me a ring! Now, we're furiously planning a wedding that's going to take place on April Fools Day in Disney World. And we'll live happily ever after.

So, that's what's been going on in my life this year....how has your life changed from 2011 to 2012? What do you hope happens in the year to come? Leave your comments below and let me know!

5x5,
B.

Celebrity Stalking

by Brittany Geragotelis

photo credit: Kim Kardashian

The latest celeb to join the cheer-ranks is Kendall Jenner. Not sure where you know the name? Well, this lovely brunette beauty is the much younger sister of Kim, Kloe and Kourtney Kardashian and one of the stars of the uber-popular E! show, "Keeping Up With the Kardashians."

I recently read (on some celeb-based site) that the daughter of sports legend Bruce Jenner, and social butterfly and mom-ager Kris Jenner, has joined her school's cheerleading squad. Now, although I'm not a fan of many reality shows (you'll never catch me watching "The Jersey Shore," "The Bachelor" or "The Real Housewives" of whatever), I have to admit, I sort of love the Kardashians. They all fascinate me, in the same way that most celebs do. Theirs is such a different lifestyle than the one I live, and I wonder what it must be like to be them. Not that I want to be them (don't think I could handle the 24/7 cameras and the scary paparazzi), but it's interesting to me to think of what it must be like.


Anyways, I've always really liked both Kylie and Kendall on the show. They're the perfect blend of sweet and innocent mixed with the sassyness that only a teenager who's trying to discover who she is can have. And they're both major beauties. So when I found out that Kendall was a cheerleader, my first thought was...how can we get her on the cover of our magazine?

And my second thought was...this could be a really fun interview! There are so many things I'd like to ask her and I'd love to see what she's like sans video camera (although if they wanted to tape the shoot, I wouldn't hate the idea!). Now all I have to do is try to get in touch with Kris...which I thought would be easy, but has proven more difficult than I'd imagined. After leaving several e-mails at a few addresses, I'm wondering if I'm going to have to resort to sending them messages about it via twitter. How crazy is it that FB and Twitter have become acceptable ways for people to do business? So weird.

Anyways, if you had the chance to interview a Kardashian, what would you ask?

5x5,
B.

Alone time with my magazines & Query Letters

by Brittany Geragotelis

photo credit: SHAPE magazine

I hope you all had great Labor Day weekends and really enjoyed the beautiful weather while it's still around (I have a feeling fall weather and sweaters and boots are right around the corner). I, for one, had a fabulous time. Matt and I headed to Maryland to spend the weekend with the 'rents. With the exception of Saturday, when everyone in the Gielen household had work to do, the rest of the weekend was pretty relaxing. After I finished writing our cover story for AC, I was really able to turn all of my attention to the magazines I've neglected over the past few months. Glamour, Self, Shape, Cosmo—Oh, my! Sunday I had a truly devine day. I slept until noon (which I rarely do anymore), went to the mall and shopped for a b-day present for a friend of mine while Matty and his brother went to see The American (I had no interest in the flick, and from what I hear, I made the right choice). Then, after a leisurely stroll around the mall (Man I miss those....the one thing NYC doesn't have...), I went next door to Chicago UNO, sat at a table outside and ordered myself a gluten-free pepperoni pizza and an Arnold Palmer (YUM!). And then I sat there and read my magazines. It was PERFECTION!

And the rest of my weekend was just like that. I ate good food, relaxed in the sun, read my magazines, hung out with awesome people, and played a super-fun board game (Loaded Questions. You've gotta check it out!). I couldn't have asked for a better weekend.

And amidst all the lounging and reading and eating, etc, I still somehow managed to squeeze in some research on agents. Yep, that's right. I'm officially starting to send out queries on Wednesday. So far, I've got a list of about 9 agents ready to go. And getting all of that together took me a good four hours or so. For those of you who aren't familiar with the querying process....it's actually a lot more difficult and time-consuming than you'd think. A query letter is sort of like a cover letter for a resume. You start off with a one to two sentence hook and then a brief book pitch (1-2 paragraphs max) and then a bio including any past publishing experience.

photo credit: New World Library

But that's just the beginning. Then you have to find the right agents to query (either by doing research online or using a guide like Jeff Herman's Guide to Book Publishers, Editors and Literary Agents), which means you have to research who handles your genre and more specifically the type of books they usually rep. After that, you have to find out what each agent's submission guidelines are. This can range from a query letter to sample pages to select chapters to summaries. And everyone wants something a little different.

So, as you can tell...the whole thing can take some time to get together....Luckily, I made good headway this weekend and am fully prepared to get started on Wednesday!

Wish me luck and of course, I'll let you know how it goes!

5x5,
B.

Check me out!

by Brittany Geragotelis

I told you in an earlier post that a young boy named Matthew (pictured left), who started a sports fan site called TeensOnSports.com, contacted me recently and requested an interview. With me. That's right...he's all about sports and he wanted to interview me. Because I report about cheerleading. So what if Matthew's younger sister (who subscribes to American Cheerleader) was more excited to talk to me than he was. The point is...someone out there is interested in what I have to say as a magazine editor.

How cool is that?

Anyway, I had so much fun talking to Matthew and his sister, and now part of the interview is up on his website! I can't help it...I feel like such a celeb!

5x5,
B.

8 Reasons Dakota Fanning is Awesome

by Brittany Geragotelis

All photos courtesy of Marie Claire

A couple of years ago I had the profound pleasure of interviewing Miss Dakota Fanning for the magazine. I had exactly 10 minutes to talk with her according to her publicist...that day, I talked quicker than I'd ever talked in my life, in order to get as many questions in as I could. Even after such a short amount of time, I could tell that Dakota was a cool character. And by the looks of this Marie Claire cover and spread, she's like wine...she only gets better with age.


Here are my top 8 reasons that Dakota's awesome!

1. Student by day, actress by night. She goes to regular school and is treated no differently than her classmates despite her hollywood status. And it was her decision to go to regular school instead of being homeschooled. She's said that it was important for her to have normal teenage experiences.
2. She's beyond her years...but in a good way. When I spoke with her, she carried herself like someone twice her age. She was well-spoken, confident and was conscious of everything she said. And although she's clearly more mature than her 17 years of age, she's not itching to grow up faster than she has to. In other words, you won't see her dancing drunkenly on any bars anytime soon.
3. She makes smart career choices. Check out a few of her past projects: I Am Sam, Uptown Girls, The Cat in the Hat, Man on Fire, Hide and Seek, War of the Worlds, Charlotte's Web, Hounddog, The Secret Life of Bees, Coraline, The Twilight Saga: New Moon, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse and The Runaways.
4. She went through her awkward years with grace. She began acting at the age of 8, and as she got older, she lost teeth, had pimples, developed curves and attempted to discover her own style. And yet, you never really heard her complain about it. I'm not saying that she never felt awkward during this time, but she's certainly come out on the pretty side and minus any eating disorders, plastic surgery or drug and alcohol abuse problems.
5. She's a cheerleader! Yep. Dakota stars in hit movies and somehow still finds time to cheer on her high school squad. Though she'll leave to do projects, she always comes back to her team and cheers alongside them on the sidelines. The girl sure knows what's important to her.
6. She's freaking cute! I mean, seriously. Just look at her. Go ahead, look....I'll wait.
7. She doesn't mind pushing the boundaries. She shot a rape scene when she was 12 years old for the movie Hounddog. When people became outraged that Dakota's parents had allowed her to shoot such an adult scene, she told them that it wasn't really happening and that "it's called acting." She recently had her first onscreen kiss in the movie Runaways...with Kristin Stewart!
8. She's pretty badass. Her character in the Twilight saga hasn't had a ton of screen time yet, but Dakota has nearly stolen every scene she's been in. I'd love to see this girl really bare her fangs.


5x5,
B.

Creepy Aliens on top of buildings

by Brittany Geragotelis

So, I was at a photo shoot all day today for American Cheerleader. We were shooting back-to-school fashion, as well as having a test shoot for a possible cover girl. I'm usually the one who starts the morning off and today was no exception: I had to work with the girls on their poses, coach them on what kinds of shots we want and talk to the photographer (the lovely and always fun Matthew Karas; if you need great photos and like low-maintenance, easy-going people, he's your guy!) about what we're looking for.

photo credit: The CW/ANTM

Shoots are a lot of fun, but they're also a TON of work. Watch "America's Next Top Model" and you'll get a little taste of what shoots are like...minus the judging panel, of course (unless you count us picking through the photos as a sort of judging session) and super-high drama. There's so much more that goes into a shoot then you'd think. There's the hour, hour and a half that it takes to do hair and makeup. Then, there needs to be a stylist figuring out what the girls are going to wear and keeping track of all the clothing credits. Then there's my job which is usually working with the girls (which can sometimes be tough because for the most part, we only use real cheerleaders for our shoots and not professional models). Then there's, of course, dealing with the unexpected: running short on time, finding out that a pose we'd wanted to try doesn't work, finding out the clothing we LOVED on the hanger doesn't look as good on the person and having to switch things up at the last minute.

Today, our shoot was outside in NYC in the Madison Sq Park area (around 23rd and Broadway). And that posed its own problems. First, when you're doing a location shoot, you're at the mercy of the elements. It was a little breezy out, so we had a few hair issues, and the temp was a very nice 77 degrees, which meant we had to deal with sweat and makeup running off the models' faces. Also, when you're outside, you have to find public bathrooms for the models to change in, because there's just not enough time to run back to the studio after each shot.

And then there was the crowd control. I'm always amazed at how cool and sometimes oblivious New Yorkers are. For the most part, when people see lights, a photographer and models all done up, they may glance at you, but then tend to move on, completely unfazed. However, there always seems to be that one skeevy guy standing right next to us taking pictures and leering. Can you say uncomfortable?

But today, I think the creep award definitely goes to the 31 statues standing on top of the buildings in the area we were shooting in. I know, I know, the figures are all a part of an "art" intallation called "Event Horizon." But when you first see them (they're in the shape of a naked man...and yes, you can see ALL of him hanging out there) standing on the edge of super-tall buildings, it's a little unnerving. I couldn't help but envision them as aliens who were sent from planet Creepyonia to look down on us until it was time for them to obliterate the human race. Seriously. It's that creepy. Either that or it looks like someone's about to jump, which is also frightening. And once you notice one, you see them everywhere. Ick.

Anyway, the day is nearly over and I'm looking forward to a quiet night of writing at home. I'm up to page 196 in Painless and need to finish a few blog projects, one of which is an interview I recently did with the authors of the really cute book The Geek Girl's Guide to Cheerleading. Check back in on Monday for the full scoop on this awesome book and how the authors (yes, there are two) came up with the idea.

5x5,
B.

Don't Stop Believin'

by Brittany Geragotelis

One of my favorite shows on television right now is hands down, "Glee." The show is so original, packed with witty, dark comedy and of course, full of some of the best music ever made!!! It's one of those shows that literally gives me tingles every time I watch it.

photo credit: FOX/Glee

So, you can imagine how psyched I've been to see the show using our magazines(American Cheerleader and the All-Star Insider) in some of their scenes. Well, we just recently saw this behind-the-scenes vid from the "Glee" set, and noticed that our publication, Cheer Biz News, has finally made its way onto the scene as well. So, check out the following video, and pay extra close attention to the magazine on Sue Syllvester's desk...who knew Sue read CBN?

5x5,
B.