I had a crazy week last week and didn’t get your questions to Ally until yesterday so…..I won’t have answers until later this week!

But to make it up to you I am going to give you an excerpt from United We Spy!

It was dark when the jet finally landed. I’m sure I must have slept on the long ride over the Atlantic, but I didn’t really remember. I just stared out the window: watching, thinking, waiting for something, but what, I didn’t know.

On the tarmac, Agent Townsend whispered something to Abby, then squeezed her hand and kissed her softly when he didn’t think we were watching. But we’re Gallagher Girls. To tell you the truth, we are always watching.

Abby let him go, her eyes a little misty. And I couldn’t help myself—I thought about Zach. He was out in the world somewhere. And a part of me worried that I might never see him again.

Love you guys ; )

I will have answers later this week so check back!

Have a good week!

xoxo,

Shellie

P.S. I think it would be fun if you guys would send in pictures of your Ally books in fun & interesting places (the beach, farm, Eiffel Tower, etc.). I will do special postings of the pictures here and on Ally’s Tumblr page. Send pics to allycartercontest@gmail.com !!!!

The post Magnificent Monday Excerpt! appeared first on Ally Carter.

What follows is an honest, genuine, and hopefully helpful post about having “try outs” for movies.

I get this question a lot. As in every day. As in multiple times a day.

In fact, I’ve already answered it several times, but such is the way of the world. I will answer it here and…you know…tomorrow someone will ask it again. And yet I feel myself compelled to answer it tonight because tonight is the night I snap.

Okay. Here goes.

Again, I don’t want to be flippant or condescending. I’m trying to HONESTLY answer your question.

So the 100% truth is that there are not—nor will there ever be—open auditions for movies based on books. At least not my books.

I think they did it for Harry Potter but, dude, that was Harry Freaking Potter. The normal rules DO NOT APPLY.

If there is a movie (which right now there are no movies in the works), then the studio and production company will likely hire someone do to the casting. The casting person will work with TALENT AGENCIES who will say “hey, I have this super talented actress” and so on.

Also, the producers and studio will likely have someone in mind. Will they get that person? Maybe. Maybe not. Will that be the case for every role? Probably not. Does this mean “Ally is opposed to casting an unknown as Cammie! Ally sucks!!!!”

No. It really doesn’t mean that.

It just means that basically, (and, again, I don’t mean to sound flippant, but it’s true), a $30 million dollar movie doesn’t happen in the same way a school play happens.

It just doesn’t.

It can’t.

So…you want to be an actress.  Great! Awesome! Then I’d suggest you get to work building your resume with local theater and maybe commercials. I’d recommend you start preparing TO BE AN ACTRESS. That may mean moving to Los Angeles. It may mean classes. It may mean head shots and a huge investment of both time and resources.

It does not mean finding out when “try outs” are because, again, 1: there is no movie in the works at this time. and 2: if and when there is a movie, there will likely be no try outs. There will be auditions and those auditions will likely go to people who are pursing acting professionally and have professional representation.

I genuinely hope this helps,

Ally

PS: and please remember, I’m not involved in the movie industry. I write books. I don’t have any real advice on becoming a working, agented actress beyond what anyone can find on Google. But Google is a pretty darn good place to start.

The post Movie try outs appeared first on Ally Carter.

I hope everyone has had a chance to read Ally’s post with some really cool fun facts about how she came up with character names and other fun stuff!! This got me thinking about what fun questions YOU guys could come up with for Ally.

So, Today’s mission is to send in a fun/interesting question for Ally!

I will choose about 20 questions from those submitted and make Ally answer them!

I will post all questions and answers next Monday.

xoxo,

Shellie

P.S. You guys are the best fans EVER!!!!

P.S.S. Thanks for all the fan art. Keep it coming to allycartercontest@gmail.com !

SINCE THE TIME HAS EXPIRED,

COMMENTS HAVE NOW BEEN DISABLED FOR THIS POST

The post Magnificent Monday Questions! appeared first on Ally Carter.

And a happy weekend to you.

I just turned in a first draft of a secret project (kept secret because it is highly unlikely that anything will ever come of it, and I don’t want to confuse anyone or open myself up to endless questions about it.)

But…short version…this means I’m taking it easy this weekend. And for me “taking it easy” = “watching lots of movies”.

One of my favorite things about movies? The special commentaries!  I just love listening to how the filmmakers…ya know…made the film. I’ve often wished there were a way to do that for novels–to add my personal notes and stories as you read along.

Well, I haven’t figured out a way to do that for a whole novel, but there are a few tidbits I thought I’d go ahead and share. Like…

TITLES
I’ve come up with all the titles of my books except two:

–Perfect Scoundrels was the brainchild of Lisa Yoskowitz, an editor at Disney-Hyperion
–United We Spy was a suggestion from fab YA goddess, E. Lockhart

DEDICATIONS
Many of the dedications of my books have been pretty clear. For my family, for my friend, etc. But a couple bear some explanation:

–Perfect Scoundrels is dedicated to “The Hale Girls”. A lot of you have taken that to mean “all the girls who are in love with Hale.” As nice as that would be, it is actually intended an a tribute to my great aunts “The Hale Girls”, one of whom (Hazel) passed away when I was writing this book.

–Love You Kill You is dedicated to one of my sister’s best friends who also, sadly, passed away when I was working on the novel.

NAMES
Sometimes the names of the characters come to me easily. Sometimes not.

–Cammie was named Cammie because I wanted a first name that could be a last name that started with the letter C (so there would be alliteration with “chameleon”)

–Bex was a cool nickname I heard once for Rebecca

–Liz and Macey were just always Liz and Macey

–I’d always just liked the names Josh and Zach

–Joe Solomon was because King Solomon was the “wise” king and that seemed appropriate

–Rachel is maybe my favorite name ever (and originally there was a fifth roommate named Rachel, but I decided four was a better number).

–Kat was the name that came with the idea–”a book about a girl named Kat, who is a burglar”. But I did debate for a long time if she should be Cat or Kat, Katherine, Katarina, Katrina…etc.

–Hale came while I was in a museum in Salt Lake City. I saw the name on a plaque, and I realized it would be perfect (I had already decided to have the hero of that series go by his last name only.)

–Gabrielle is named after the actress who plays Fiona on BURN NOTICE, Gabrielle Anwar.

–Bishop was the last name of the hero in one of my favorite heist movies (SNEAKERS). So I gave Kat that last name as an homage.

–Townsend: in the first several drafts of GG4 I simply referred to his character as “Teacherdude”. Finally, my friend Jennifer Lynn Barnes (who had read an early draft) told me that she was tired of calling him Teacherdude, and I should just call him Townsend. So I did.

–Preston: ditto the above. For a long time, I called him PrezSon until Jen told me to stop it and just call him Preston. So…again…I did.

–I probably spent more time deciding on the name Visily Romani than I have ever spent on any name. Ever.

RESEARCH
I wish I had the time to visit all the places that I write about. In actuality I’m not quite that organized. I have however made the following research trips:

–Ireland
–Italy–New York
–England

My favorite place that I’ve visited for research was the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland. They were amazing, and I knew I had to put them in a book (which I did. GG5.)

And that’s all I can think of for now. If and when I think of some more fun facts I will do this again. (if you guys enjoy it!)

-Ally

The post Commentary appeared first on Ally Carter.

The answer was: “When you grow up in a house full of spies, you grow accustomed to silence.”

This was taken from Out of Sight, Out of Time page 225.

Languages used were French, Swedish, Dutch, Latin, and Spanish.

I also accepted: “When you grow up in a house full of spies you grow used to silence.”

And the winner is…..

Ruby A. says:

June 3, 2013 at 4:28 pm (Edit)

The post Wednesday Mission Winner!! appeared first on Ally Carter.

This week I have an AWESOME Prize!!!!!!

It is a Limit Edition Excerpt Booklet with the first 9 CHAPTERS of United We Spy!!!!

How do you win this AWESOME prize????

By solving this super tricky phrase:

LPVIY QJPN BMVIYDNNZU D ZOO CPN QJG NKDJIIZI OZ XMZNXZMZ VXJNOPHWMVYJN VG NDGZIXDJ.

First you will need to do a Caesar Cipher and shift the letters to the right 5 spaces.

Second you will have to translate to English from 5 different languages. (Words are grouped together in phrases so they will translate correctly)

Third you should have a 15 English word count as your final answer.

As usual, I will hold all comments for 48 hours, winner will be chosen randomly from correct responses, only US residence can win but please feel free to comment and just state commenting for fun!

Also, this time around I will allow comments that are tips or encouragement for each other! I know all the Gallagher Girls work better as a team!

Good Luck!!!!!

xoxo,

Shellie

P.S. I might even get Ally to sign it before it is mailed ; )

P.S.S. Don’t forget to send your artwork into allycartercontest@gmail.com for Fan Art Friday on Ally’s Tumblr page.

P.S.S.S. I changed one of the words as someone pointed out I had one of the letters wrong!!! NKDJIIZI is the correct word!

The post Magnificent Monday Mission Giveaway!!! appeared first on Ally Carter.

Amanda M says:

May 27, 2013 at 1:03 pm (Edit)

The post Wednesday Winner! appeared first on Ally Carter.

I hope everyone has read Ally’s Memorial Day post about the true meaning of Memorial Day!

To mark the holiday and because we got some super cool tote bags at the Ally Carter Headquarters this week, I have an awesome giveaway!!!!

To be entered please answer in the comments “What is Josh’s favorite ice-cream flavor?”

Winner will receive one “I read YA” tote bag and button, one pair of Heist Society promotional sunglasses, and three GG audio books (GG 1-3)!!!!!!

Rules: Please only answer ONE time! Only US resident only. No comments will be approved for 48 hours.

Winner will be chosen randomly from correct responses on Wednesday at 8a.m. central time.

Good Luck!

xoxo,

Shellie

The post Magnificent Memorial Day Giveaway! appeared first on Ally Carter.

Happy Memorial Day Weekend to those of you who live in the U.S. For my family, it also marks the end of the school year (something about which my nieces are super excited).

Memorial Day has always been one of my favorite holidays. Not because it is about going to the lake or the pool or having barbecues. I was raised to believe that Memorial Day is for…remembering.

We always went to the cemetery as a family to decorate the graves of veterans and our family members. We always have big family meals and gatherings (one of which we had last weekend, actually).

I know for a lot of people this weekend is special because it marks the beginning of summer. But it actually has a much different origin than that, so I’d like for all of you to keep that in mind this weekend.

And even if all you can do is mark the beginning of summer, then enjoy that too. Be safe out there and have a great holiday, everyone!

Ally

The post Happy Memorial Day! appeared first on Ally Carter.

So thrilled to come to you today with something that has been in the works for a very long time.

As many of you no doubt saw, last week EW.com unveiled the title, cover, and description for the sixth–and final–Gallagher Girls book. (Read the original announcement here.)

Well, now I can officially share it here.

I hope you’re as thrilled as I am!

Cammie Morgan has lost her father and her memory, but in the heart-pounding conclusion to the best-selling Gallagher Girls series, she finds her greatest mission yet. Cammie and her friends finally know why the terrorist organization called the Circle of Cavan has been hunting her. Now the spy girls and Zach must track down the Circle’s elite members to stop them before they implement a master plan that will change Cammie—and her country—forever.

Look for it in stores in the US and Canada on September 17, 2013!

(International release dates will vary. Check with a local bookseller for information about when the book will be available where you live.)

I’m completely thrilled. But what about you guys? Are YOU thrilled?!

-Ally

The post United We Spy! appeared first on Ally Carter.