On Tuesday I finished the first draft of my latest WIP, the right-now-untitled first book in the upcoming FIREBIRD trilogy. And there was much rejoicing! In celebration I took two days off — and now, the work begins again.
For those of you who missed the second half (or all) of our Hunger Games rewatch on Twitter, here’s the final hour of the film, picking up just as Rue and Katniss team up —
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Behold the cover for STEADFAST!
If you’ve enjoyed SPELLCASTER (and I hope you have, or will soon!), then maybe you’d like to see what book two in the trilogy is going to look like? Well, wait no longer –
So, the Hunger Games rewatch ran afoul of the mysterious High Gods of Twitter; apparently in my zeal to both tweet my way through the movie AND reply to all those of you who were sending me such hysterical comments, I broke the invisible boundary between “enthusiastic Twitter user” and “Internet criminal.” Therefore we had to take a break, which means the second half of the rewatch will be this Thursday at 8 CST. We get to watch Hunger Games two nights instead of one, so maybe that’s actually a plus? Anyway, I thought some of you who missed the first half might be interested to see how far we got —
You guys seemed to enjoy the “Titanic” rewatch/livetweet I did back on the anniversary of the sinking, so I figured, let’s do it again!
If you follow me on Twitter or GoodReads (and you should), you know by now that I am a huge fan of the Maisie Dobbs mystery series by Jacqueline Winspear. Although I don’t tend to read tons of mysteries, some friends recommended these to me and I got hooked but good. Maisie’s combination of determined practicality and occasional mysticism struck me as unusual and compelling, the cases she investigates are satisfyingly twisty, and her personal life is written with such an extreme level of restraint that it only makes me wilder to find out whether any of these guys stand a chance against Maisie’s fierce independence. Yet when I began looking for fellow fans of the books, whether in person or online, I kept running into an objection: “Oh, she’s just a Mary Sue.”
I might be taking a break from traveling right now – but it’s a very short break. Right now I’m still working on a lot of potential stuff for the fall, but I already have two big appearances I’m excited to share with you guys —
A very thoughtful reader sent an interesting email asking about the writer/editor relationship, and about the drafts you send in while writing a series. I suspected other aspiring writers would be interested in the answer too, so I’m answering it here. (I, uh, failed to ask permission first, so that’s why I am keeping the reader anonymous for now; however, if you are willing to be known, oh ingenious reader, say the word and I’ll edit this post to credit you!)
If you’ve already read SPELLCASTER, you know that one of the characters, Verlaine, absolutely loves vintage clothing and wears it virtually every day. (And if you haven’t read SPELLCASTER yet — what are you waiting on?)
Today, as I scroll through my Twitter, I see tons of my fellow authors talking about packing and departing for Book Expo America in NYC. When I lived in New York, I always got to go; now, I occasionally attend, but not always — and this year is one of the years off. Mostly this is because I only just returned home from the Feria del Libro in Buenos Aires a week ago, which involved about 12 hours of flying time on the way home, and if I got back in an airplane so soon I would probably lose it in some spectacular fashion that would regrettably but inevitably involve an air marshal. BEST AVOIDED.