In Which I Inundate You With News and Cool Stuff

Hello, y'all! I've haven't been around the blog much in the past couple of months. I was tired. Then I was sick. Then tired again. Then sick again. It was a lot of sick and tired.

This is what happens when you finish a series.

But there's a lot happening in the next few weeks, and I have to get off my butt now and tell you all about the great stuff that's coming:

1) RADIANT! Is coming out! In 2 days! To celebrate (and because it feels kind of weird that this is ebook only, therefore my fans won't have anything tangible in their hands when they buy this book, I am going to do a little promotion. THIS WEEK ONLY, buy or pre-order a copy of RADIANT, take a screenshot of your screen confirming the purchase (here's an awesome page with instructions on how to take a screenshot, if you don't know), email me (writercynthiahand@gmail.com) the pic along with your mailing address, and I will send you a little autographed special something. So you will have something to hold in your hands.

note: If you buy on Amazon, there is a little tab where you can email me saying you purchased the book directly, if you don't want to go through the trouble of messing with the screenshot, but please remember to add your address to the email.

Here's my screenshot. Yes, I just bought my own ebook. I may have to give myself an autographed special something now.

2) BOUNDLESS is coming out, in like 50 days! I will be having a special promotion for that too, but I'll tell you about that later.

3) TOURING! I will be doing a whirlwind of touring this winter for Boundless. Check my events tab for the full details, but in a nutshell I will be going to:
Salt Lake City (UT)
Idaho Falls (ID)
Boise (ID)
New York City (NY)
Huntington Beach (CA)
Decatur (GA)
Cary (NC)
Cambridge (MA)
Washington D.C.
Redondo Beach(CA),
Thousand Oaks (CA)
Jackson Hole (WY)
Kansas City (MO).
And that's just what I know about so far!

4) UNEARTHLY is dirt cheap right now! (Well actually, it might be cheaper than dirt. I mean, have you seen the prices of high-quality dirt these days? I'm just saying) Ahem. The ebook version is only 2.99 for the next few weeks, so if you haven't started the series yet (or you know someone who you think would like it), now is a very good time!

5) HALLOWED is coming out as a paperback. . . the day after Christmas! However, it's not a hard release (meaning that the bookstore can put it out whenever they get the shipment) so you could check before Christmas if you want to give it as a gift (or buy it with Christmas money, which is what I always do. . .). You can pre-order the paperback here. Here's the link for the Hallowed audiobook, if you know someone who likes to listen to the story.

Wow, I'm kind of light-headed after all that shameless self-promotion. I should go do the dishes now. There's nothing that will put you in your place in the universe faster than scrubbing dirty dishes.

*Rolls up sleeves.*

Signing off.

The Cutting Room Floor

I'm back to the grindstone with Boundless, working on a new round of edits. And I'm preparing for my son's grand debut into kindergarten. And I'm prepping for two classes that I am teaching at Pepperdine, also starting next week: my Intro to Creative Writing class and a YA lit class that I've never taught before and therefore have a ton of extra prep work to do. And I am writing a short story for an anthology. I have a very long interview to write up. And reading a friend's manuscript. And a bunch of other stuff.

In other words, I just got really freaking busy.

So, in the midst of all this craziness, I am coming back to Boundless with the intent to cut at least 5,000 words. At least. Whole scenes are hitting the cutting room floor. Whole scenes, people!

Trimming an entire scene always hurts like a paper cut.

In the past, I've taken some consolation in the fact that the deleted scenes from my books can be made available in different ways. I can use them as exclusive content for the Young Adult Scavenger Hunt, which I do twice a year, and there are a few other sites where my cut stuff has ended up since Unearthly was published. It makes the cut sting a bit less, knowing that even though the scene wasn't good or important enough to make it into the book, that doesn't mean that nobody will ever see it. Deleted scenes are fun!

But here's what's bugging me today:

Hmm, where to begin? Okay. Here goes. I try not to read reviews. I am getting better at it, too, the not-reading-reviews thing, I mean. I hardly ever check Goodreads anymore, because I ultimately think that it's not good for me as an artist. If I read too many reviews I start thinking differently about my story, not for the sake of the art, but for the sake of people pleasing. I start having imaginary conversations with people I don't know at 2am, where I say to them, pleadingly, "Yes, yes, I know that it's a love triangle, technically, but really, if you'd just examine the entire thing more closely, you'd see that it's not a real love triangle. . ."

It makes me think about Daniel Radcliffe during an interview, when he was asked, "Do you read what people say about you?" and he immediately responded, "No. That way lies madness."

Yes. Reading your own reviews=madness. I get that. I try to resist the temptation. Most of the time.

So imagine me this morning, sitting down to chop away at my current manuscript. I work for a while. I check Twitter. I check my email. A Google alerts comes up, which alerts me to the fact that somebody has just reviewed Unearthly 2.1. Wha?????! I think. But no, mustn't read a review, I think. But what the heck is Unearthly 2.1?

I click the link. Yes, it's true. There is an Unearthly 2.1, a cut scene from Hallowed. 252 people have rated this scene, and something like 30 people have reviewed it.

My first thought is, Cool, 252 people have read my deleted scene!

My next thought is, Wow, there are about 20 people who really don't like this scene.

My next thought is, Oh come on, people. It's a DELETED scene. Which means it didn't make the cut. It wasn't good enough. Relax! There are real scenes, IN THE BOOK, so go read those.

And I'm back to having imaginary conversations with people I don't know.

Sigh. Well, that's why I avoid reading reviews, isn't it? I remind myself. No biggie. Except now, when I go back to work on my Boundless manuscript, I think, well, this scene has to go, but is it good enough to ever see the light of day? Because if I release this scene, it will probably get REVIEWED.

This makes me want to revise the scene I'm going to cut. Which is so not the point of cutting extraneous scenes. And so not a good use of my time.

And, ultimately, it makes me less likely to want to share my deleted scenes. I cut them because they weren't good enough. To cut them and then have people criticize them for not being good enough is a bit like pouring lemon juice in my paper cut.

Ouch. Ouch, I say.

Now, I also want to make a few things clear. Prepare for the disclaimer:

1. Goodreads is good. As an avid reader, I adore Goodreads. As an author, it kind of terrifies me, but that's okay. That's natural. As an author, I should be scared of Goodreads. But I am 100% glad Goodreads exists. In fact, I attribute Goodreads to a big part of Unearthly's success. To date Unearthly has 3,781 reviews (and over 25,000 ratings), so many of them good. People are talking about my books, and I am so grateful that there is a place like Goodreads where they can talk about my books.

2. I think people, on Goodreads and elsewhere, have an absolute right to their opinions, and should be able to write whatever they want in their reviews. Period. I have imaginary conversations with some of my negative reviewers, but never in a million years would I ever dream of actually communicating with the writer of a negative review. They deserve to be able to voice their opinions without being confronted by the authors or their friends. (I do, however, sometimes think wistfully about the old days when all the critics ran in the same social circles as the writers and occasionally Hemingway liked to quote a critic's bad review back to him at a party and then punch him in the face. There was a kind of accountability for what you said, back then, before the basic anonymity of the internet.)

3. I most likely will release more deleted scenes, not to worry, because my publisher thinks it's good publicity and because, at the end of the day, I still like those scenes, and it makes me happy to be able to share them with people who will get a kick out of reading them. Which leads me to. . .

4. Maybe I'm overreacting. I am willing to consider this possibility. Maybe this whole post is a kind of knee-jerk reaction to the surprise of being reviewed on something I didn't expect to be reviewed on.

So tell me, what do you think? Are reviews for deleted scenes a good thing? Do you think this practice will make authors more hesitant to release deleted scenes, or is it just another sign of the technological age we live in, that we get to see and judge all content, not just what makes it into the pages of a print book? What should become of all that extra stuff on the cutting room floor?

Title for Book 3

I've been a bad blogger. People are always asking me how I juggle all the balls in my life: writer, author, mother, wife, professor, blogger, housekeeper, laundress, cook, dishwasher, etc, and my answer is always the same:

I am always dropping one or two of the balls.

Blogging is a ball that's been left on the floor for a while now. I hope to pick it up again soon. Right up there with housekeeping. :)

Right now I'm on the road, a combination research/publicity/family vacation kind of trip. This past week I've been at Stanford, interviewing students and hanging out the way I did with Jackson Hole High School when I was writing Unearthly and Hallowed. I lived near Stanford a few years ago, and worked at the Stanford Cancer Center as a "social science research assistant" for a while there, so it's a pretty familiar place, but let me tell you, going there with the writer's cap on, trying to understand the university the way Clara would see it as an incoming freshman, has been so fun and and the same time overwhelming! Special thanks to Estella Go, especially, for showing me around and answering all my endless questions! You rock!

On Thursday I did a signing at Not Your Mother's Book Club with Brodi Ashton and Bree Despain, which was awesome. I love those ladies. We laughed. A lot. And Brodi occasionally went completely blurry, she's so quick-witted. See, here's the proof. And here's me in my new purple glasses trying to sound like I know what I'm talking about. It was awesome.

Later this week I'm off to The Dalles, Oregon for an awesome event with 11 other writers on June 2. See the sidebar for details.

And then I'm headed to Boise for a couple of days and then to my dad's mountain house to revise Book 3 while my dad takes my son on long tractor rides.

Oh, wait.

I don't have to call it Book 3 anymore.

It has a TITLE.

And I've been given the green light to tell you that title!

So I suppose I should get on with it!

Okay, here's the definition:

adjective

having no bounds;  infinite or vast; unlimited: His ******** energy amazed his friends.

Synonyms 
limitless, endless, unbounded, inexhaustible, illimitable. 

Can you guess?

What's that you say? Stop stalling and just tell us? You've been scrolling down frantically ever since you saw the subject line of this post.

Okay, okay. 

The title is (deep breath)

Boundless

I am so happy with this title. Like all of my titles, I like that it works on multiple levels, each that can be applied to what happens in the book. Because what happens in this book is VAST, people.

Yay titles!


BOUNDLESS is still (fingers crossed) on schedule to be released in January 2013. I know that's a long ways off, but I still need some time to tinker with it.

In honor of this big reveal I also want to share a song that inspired me as I wrote this book.

Sigh. I love this song. When I listen to it I always imagine it being sung to Clara by Christian AND Tucker, alternating with the lyrics.

Here are the words:

I'll sing it one last time for you
Then we really have to go
You've been the only thing that's right
In all I've done

And I can barely look at you
But every single time I do
I know we'll make it anywhere
Away from here

Light up, light up
As if you have a choice
Even if you cannot hear my voice
I'll be right beside you dear

Louder louder
And we'll run for our lives
I can hardly speak I understand
Why you can't raise your voice to say

To think I might not see those eyes
Makes it so hard not to cry
And as we say our long goodbye
I nearly do

Light up, light up
As if you have a choice
Even if you cannot hear my voice
I'll be right beside you dear

Louder louder
And we'll run for our lives
I can hardly speak I understand
Why you can't raise your voice to say

Slower slower
We don't have time for that
All I want's to find an easy way
To get out of our little heads

Have heart, my dear
We're bound to be afraid
Even if it's just for a few days
Making up for all this mess

Light up, light up
As if you have a choice
Even if you cannot hear my voice
I'll be right beside you dear

Sigh.

Uh oh. The kids are awake now. Time to go.

Oh, but there's one more bit of news:

THE AUDIO FOR HALLOWED IS NOW AVAILABLE. Click here for the Audible.

And now I go back to juggling.

See you tomorrow, Texas

I am overdue for a post, I know. But I have been working so hard on Book 3, you guys. I'm in that stage when I'm even writing it in my sleep (I never have writer's block in my sleep, amazing!) and revising it in the shower. I am so deep in the writer's cave they're going to have to send spelunkers to find me. . .

But. . . tomorrow I am headed to TEXAS on the Dark Days tour. I am so very excited. Being on tour is about as glamorous as it gets for us writerly types. You get picked up by the black sedan and the guy in the suit. You stay in nice hotels and get to order room service and eat at fancy restaurants. Everywhere you go, people know your name and think you're awesome. And, best of all, on the Dark Days tour you get to hang out with other writers!

Me and Ellen Schreiber on last year's Dark Days tour

I am SOOOOO excited to meet this year's group: first, the fabulous Courtney Allison Moulton, who I have chatted with and tweeted and cheerleaded for but never met in person. And Brodi Ashton and Jodi Meadows, who are both debuts. I have read both of their books and I think they are awesome and I am so happy that I'll be able to get to know them.

(If you listen carefully you might be able to hear my frantic packing for this trip, right now. . .)

My Dark Days Texas stops:

Thursday, February 16th
DALLAS
B&N Southlake
5pm

Friday, February 17th
AUSTIN
B&N Austin
7pm

Saturday, February 18th
HOUSTON
Blue Willow Book Shop
4pm

See you tomorrow, Texas!

Bull's eye and the New York Times

It's been a crazy week. I am now home from my Idaho tour (yay Idaho!), and will post a recap of that later. With pictures. There are a 372 photos of the trip for me to sort through. So yeah, later.

But let me tell you about Wednesday. Wednesday was one of those pinch-me days. Wednesday I was on cloud surreal.

I am still on cloud surreal. . .

So, Wednesday I was up at my dad's mountain house, which is smack between Challis and Mackay, Idaho. It's the middle of nowhere, high desert with a gorgeous view of Mt. Borah, the tallest mountain in Idaho, and a lot of snow. It's so quiet up there I swear I can hear my thoughts rattle when they bounce around in my head. It's also a wonderland for my son, who gets to ride the tractor and ATVs and sled down the perfectly-pitched-for-sledding driveway and play with my dad's four Labrador retrievers. Heaven is Pop-Pop's house!

View from my dad's front porch

We started the day with a fine breakfast that my dad cooked: scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast made with homemade bread. I was in heaven, too. I'm generally in heaven when somebody else cooks.

I had been up all night coughing with a nasty cold, and the baby had been up all night because I kept waking her up with my coughing, so we were slow to get moving that day. I was deliriously tired. We lazed around in the morning and then, around noonish, decided to go sledding. I bundled up the kids and outside we went. Fun times were had by all. Even the baby got in on the action.

It's all fun and games until you crash into some sagebrush. . .

We came in and put the kids down for their naps. Then my dad and I went back out. My dad was going to teach me how to shoot a pistol.

Yep, you heard me right.

Now, I've never had any interest in guns. Like, ever. My dad is a bit of a gun fanatic, truth be told, and I grew up watching him clean his rifles and fill shells at the kitchen table and head off into the wilderness intent on killing a poor defenseless deer every fall, so I'm comfortable around guns, to an extent, but I never had the desire to shoot one. I like Bambi.

But this year I have a novel simmering on the back burner (which I have not allowed myself to write a single word of because I need to finish Book 3 of the Unearthly series first, but I have taken copious notes) where my main character is quite the sharpshooter with a six-shooter. And she needs to be. And that's about all I can tell you at this point.

So I decided I needed to know how it felt to shoot a pistol.

My dad was all too happy to oblige. He set up the target and cleaned the gun and taught me how to load it. We marched out into his backyard (remember that we are out in the middle of nowhere) and he taught me how to hold the gun, how to position my feet, how to aim.

Six bullets.

The first shot I hit the paper with the target on it. Barely. I was pleased that I hit it at all. My heart was going pretty steady just holding the loaded gun.

Second shot I missed. Not sure what I hit. Bah.

Third shot I hit the paper again.

Fourth shot I actually hit the target. I was feeling pretty spiffy about myself.

Fifth shot I missed the target completely. Double bah.

"Squeeze the trigger slowly," my dad advised.

I cocked the gun. Steadied my hand. Squinted at the target. And slowly, slowly, squeezed the trigger.

And hit the bull's eye.

Up to that point I wasn't sure if I liked this gun-shooting thing, but I'll tell you, it was quite the thrill to hit the bull's eye. I was channeling my sharpshooter character. I couldn't wait to get inside and write some notes about how the gun bucked in my hand, the way it smelled, how it felt to aim at something and hit it, and hit it perfectly.

I was all aglow when we came inside.

And then: there was a barrage of texts from my agent waiting on my cell. Texts like, Have you read your email yet? and I will call you as soon as I'm off the subway.

Oh boy. My heart really started going then. I turned immediately to the computer with the tar-slow-satellite-internet and waited for my email account to load.

It was a long wait. A nail-biting wait.

And lo and behold, an email from my editor at HarperCollins. Hallowed is #10 on the Children's Chapter Books bestseller list of the NEW YORK TIMES.

Congrats, my editor wrote. You are now a New York Times Bestselling Author.

Good thing I was sitting down.

Right then my phone rang, my agent off the subway, and we laughed and I may have even cried a little and my dad brought me a glass of champagne.

I've never been one to put too much stock in labels, but what I kept coming back to in those first few moments, again and again, was that this makes it so much more likely than I will be able to continue to write, beyond the Unearthly series, beyond this year or next year, beyond one book or two, but for my lifetime. I can be a writer, I thought. For good.

I made a bunch of calls, one of the first to my best friend, Lindsey.

She said, "Well, I hope I can still be your friend. . ."

Me: "Huh? What?"

Lindsey: "You're an all-important writer now. You're going to need new friends, of course. Important friends."

Me: "Well, I've heard that those New York Times besties are pretty great. . ."

Lindsey: "You see?"

Me: "But I think I can still squeeze you into my top five friends. If you're nice to me. . ."

We laughed and she said she was proud of me. Everyone kept saying how proud they were of me, and I felt proud of myself, too. Proud for being able to write Hallowed even though it was crazy-hard and maybe the most stressed I'd ever been in my life. Proud that I'd made it through. Proud that I'd written some pretty good stuff there. And also grateful and humbled and amazed and knocked over.

It felt pretty amazing.

Like hitting the bull's eye.

Happy Birthday Hallowed

It's been a long but happy day. Hallowed is on the shelves! You'd think I'd get used to the idea, after all this time, but this year I was yet again struck dumb at the bookstore in sheer amazement that it was my. book. on. the. shelves!!!!! Wow. There's some sneaky little corner of my mind that still whispers, "Don't they know that you made this entire thing up? No, really. You made this entire Clara-the-angel-blood thing up. From your brain. That's all."

See? Don't I look dazed?

 And there was a HUGE pile of my books at the Idaho Falls Barnes & Noble, in preparation for Saturday's signing, and posters with my picture on them all over the store. Talk about surreal. . .

See the lovely display and the bunches of books?

Yup. That's me.



This is a day that I am truly thankful for all the wonderful, supportive people in my life, most especially my writerly-super-hero agent, Katherine, my kick-butt-and-take-names editor, Farrin, and my sounding-board-and-support-system husband, John. I couldn't have done any of this without you three. (come on, group hug!)

Now I have to go to sleep, because I am doing my first ever Author School Visit tomorrow morning. For someone who teaches writing for a living, I am surprisingly nervous. Wish me luck!

And thank you, all you readers out there, all you book bloggers, all you friends and neighbors and colleagues, all you fellow writers, for making me feel so loved and so important on this very fine day.  



Winners for the Final Hallowed ARC giveaway

Thanks to everybody who posted, tweeted, and facebooked my Hallowed trailers this week! I have 2 winners for my contest, which my son drew randomly out of a tub with all the entries in it. He was rather disappointed when nothing spectacular happened after he drew the names.

The winners are:

Vetsy
Solange

Please email me with your mailing address and I will get your signed books in the mail TODAY, as I am going to Idaho tomorrow and won't be back for 2 weeks.

I always feel so badly for the people who didn't win. But take heart, Hallowed is, as I write this, 3 days, 15 hours, 9 minutes and 20 seconds from being released.

If you would like a signed copy of Hallowed (or of Unearthly), I've worked out a new deal with an indie bookshop nearby. Call them up (or email), order the book from them, and I'll stop by and sign it before it ships. Yay for indie bookstores!

Here's the bookstore information:

Diesel, A Bookstore
310-456-9961
cheryl@dieselbookstore.com

And now for some news:
I am doing 2 amazing blog tours this month, one for the UK and one for the Mundie Moms. The UK info can be found in the awesome graphic in the sidebar. I've already started with the Mundie Moms tour, that you can see here:

Stop 1 (an excerpt from Hallowed)

Stop 2 (a vlog interview, plus an awesome Team Tucker prize pack giveaway)

Stop 3  (a review of Hallowed)

Stop 4 ( today's post, my top 5 things to do in Jackson Hole)

and then these later stops:

 

14th- Books Complete Me, excerpt

16th- YA Bibliophile, review

17th- Mundie Moms, character interview & giveaway

18th- Novel Novice, guest post

19th- Anna Reads, interview & giveaway

20th- Fire & Ice, review

21st- Page Turners Blog, author interview & giveaway

23rd- GReads, review

24th- Once Upon A Twilight, guest post

25th- Hypable- interview

Whew! I'm tired just looking at that list.

And excited to be headed off to Idaho for my real life signing in Idaho Falls on January 21 at the IF Barnes and Noble, 1pm and my signing in Boise on January 28 at the Hyde Park Bookstore, 1pm.

See you there!

Hallowed Trailer for the US

Yay! I am so happy to be able to share the US trailer for Hallowed with you, finally! I love this trailer. Live action!

I will give double entries for my final ARC giveaway to people who post this trailer to their blog, facebook, and twitter. Just leave your posts in the comments section.

Enjoy!



7 days until Hallowed hits the shelves!

Hallowed Giveaway and News

Hi y'all. The YA tournament was so much fun! Whew!

I am up to my eyeballs in writing Book 3 right now, deep deep deep in my writerly cave, so I am taking a wee hiatus from blogging, but I want to announce a couple things.

First, I am hosting a Hallowed Christmas giveaway on Goodreads.
See here to enter (I don't think it officially opens for a few days, so check back):

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Hallowed

by Cynthia Hand

Giveaway ends December 25, 2011.
See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.
Enter to win

I also wanted to announce a few tour stops. First, I will be in Idaho in January. I'm still nailing down the details, but I will be doing school visits in the Jackson Hole and Idaho Falls areas mid-January (definitely a reading at the Idaho Falls Barnes and Noble on Saturday, January 21. I will announce the time as soon as I know). I am also considering traveling over to Boise and down to Salt Lake City around this time, so stay tuned.

In February, HarperTeen is sending me to Texas on the Winter Dark Days of Supernatural Tour, with the lovely Courtney Allison Moulton, author of Angelfire and my hilarious horse-loving friend and fellow angel writer, and debuts Brodi Ashton (Everneath) and Jodie Meadows (Incarnate). I am so thrilled to be spending time with these ladies. Dark Days is awesome!

Here are the dates and times:

Thursday, February 16th – DALLAS – B&N Southlake – 5pm

Friday, February 17th – AUSTIN – B&N Austin – 7pm

Saturday, February 18th – HOUSTON – Blue Willow Book Shop – 4pm

In March I plan to do a few stops in my local area of Southern California, hopefully a reading at Pepperdine in Malibu and a few school visits and signings in Ventura County and Los Angeles County.

In April (11-15) you can catch me in Chicago if you attend the Romantic Times Booklovers Convention, for Teen Day, where I am on a panel, doing some speed reading, and signing and hanging out with a huge bunch of wonderful fellow YA authors. Seriously. So many amazing writers are going to be there. Like I will totally have to resist fangrrling all over the place.

That's all the stops I have planned at the moment. But there will be more. Oh, there will be more.

In the meantime, I'm going to go back to my cave and continue to scribble furiously.

The Clock Tolls 6--Winners of the Hallowed for Halloween Contest

Okay, first let me start out by saying this was HARD. I had no idea when I came up with this little contest idea that I'd get such a big response, which is so cool. There were more than 100 entries, and I have to narrow the winners down to 4 (2 for the cover, 2 for the description). I wish I had like 100 ARCs to give out, seriously.

But, there can only be 4.

Plus 6 runner-ups, who will not receive Hallowed ARCs (boo), but who WILL receive any other kind of Unearthly-related stuff I can scrounge up, like bookplates and bookmarks and maybe Clara's favorite Halloween candy.

So, without further ado, the winners:

For the cover contest:

an entry by Jessica M. I thought this was gorgeous, first of all. And I liked how she incorporated the quote from Unearthly but gave it a whole new and devious meaning. Awesome. Congrats. An ARC of Hallowed is yours.

The other ARC will go to Roberta Mansfield, for this image:

This made me laugh out loud. Tucker's dismembered head was such a nice touch, and changing the name to Hollowed and having a hollowed-out space in Clara's chest. Classic. Plus fire and black wings and blood. Wow.

And now the runners up, who won't get an ARC but some other cool stuff:

Priscilla Peters, who sent me this lovely image:

Priscilla sent me 5 different entries, and they were all beautiful, but in the end I went with this black and white one. It was just . . . creepy. Bravo.

Christina Rose:

This was the first entry I received that really made me sit back and go, WOW. So Halloweeny. I loved it. I swear Clara's been looking a bit thin lately.

And last, but not least, Katie Kelly:

This was so beautiful and eerie and cool. I loved it.

Maybe this is torture, but I also want to mention Alexandra Torres, Ashley Ferguson, Faithe Maher, Kaylee Maddox, and Olliver Hood (Olliver's had this quote: "Simply brilliant"--The Devil, which also made me laugh out loud.) You guys made my top 10.

And on to the book descriptions.

Winner #1, funkelstein17, with this:

She´s waited such a long time for this day. It was October 31. Halloween. Night of demons and vampires. Her night. This was the night to finally fulfil her purpose. Clara Gardner, supernaturally beautiful and pale faced vampire, who had the ability to switch between dimensions - has trained for this day for years, mentally and physically. It was the darkest night of this year too, no moon, no stars, just blackness. Together with her mate Christian Prescott, scarred and red-faced king of demons, she´d do it tonight. Standing on top of a mountain near Jackson lake she´d raise her hand and with her high pitched scream a gap in space and time would appear like tongues of flames out of nowhere. Through the tunnel-like flame hole she would be able to see right into Cynthia Hands home, watching Cynthia writing at her desk while she was being completely oblivious to what was coming for her. Christian Prescott writhed in agony as he read Clara´s thoughts: Tonight Clara would torture Cynthia painfully to death if Tucker could not be her boyfriend anymore in the next book. He was determined to avert this, he was supposed to be her soulmate for eternity…

I was highly entertained by the idea of Clara torturing me to death if I separated her from Tucker.

Winner #2:
Mimi Valentine

Clara Gardner wasn't dead.

But every zombie hunter wished she was. Dubbed the legendary Severed Hand because of her missing right arm, Clara was one of the most notorious undead beings to haunt the Earth. She ate hearts and stole hands, as if to compensate for the she'd lost; according to rumors, she didn't even chew before she swallowed. There wasn't a single hunter who had managed to stop her wrath.

Until Tucker. Gorgeous, golden, and absolutely determined, Tucker Avery was one of the best zombie hunters out there... except he was dead too. As a zombie-hunting zombie, he was trusted by neither the dead nor the alive. Not that it mattered much to him. After watching his family die at the hands of a zombie and then being infected by the same guy, Tucker's only goal was to rid the world of all undead beings -- and then himself.

So it was natural that he'd take it upon himself to destroy the one-handed girl who haunted the boonies. Only problem? There were some things about the mysterious Severed Hand that not even the gory stories told.

Like the fact that, once upon a time when they were both alive, Tucker and Clara had known each other.

And she remembered him.
I picked this because, well, it was just an excellently written description. I want to read that book. And nothing says Halloween like Clara and Tucker as star-crossed zombies.

Runners up for this were Shannon (my agent liked this one!), Sara, and Gabi. Bookplates, bookmarks, and fun stuff for you!

If you didn't win, never fear. There will be more giveaways and contests in the future, and some not as difficult, I promise.

Whew. This was SO fun. Thanks for all the support for Hallowed.

Unearthly comes to PAPERBACK tomorrow! Tell your friends!

And now I'm off to trick-or-treat with my kiddos.

XO

C

Hallowed for Halloween Cover Entries

Below you'll find a video I made of the entries (so far) for my Hallowed for Halloween contest. You guys. This has been CRAZY. There have been more than 60 submissions to the cover part of the contest alone, and they are wicked awesome. I have no idea how I'm ever going to choose two. Thank you so much for making my Halloween so fun and showing such support and excitement for Hallowed. You make me proud!

Enjoy!

Get Hallowed for Halloween!

Okay, so here's my contest for HALLOWED on Halloween. I am seriously so excited about this. I am going to be giving away four (count them, FOUR) ARCs of Hallowed!

There are 2 ways to win:

#1 Download this, the US cover for Hallowed. Aw. Isn't it nice?

Then, using Photoshop or Paint or whatever artsy program you like, dress up my cover for Halloween. Let's pretend, instead, that this is a horror book. Instead of "aw," we want, "ew!" The funnier, grosser, and/or most Halloweenlike, the better. (But nothing, you know, truly obscene or something that would traumatize a person under 12).

I'm not great with Photoshop, but I had all kinds of fun coming up with this example:

Bwa ha ha. I love it.

Anyway, mess with my cover. Then email it to me at writercynthiahand@gmail.com. Make sure the image is a decent size, since I've had trouble posting super large pictures or pictures in a strange format here before.

For those of you who are not artistically inclined, here is method #2 for winning your very own Hallowed ARC.

Let's read the description of Hallowed, shall we?:

         

For months part-angel Clara Gardner trained to face the raging forest fire from her visions and rescue the alluring and mysterious Christian Prescott from the blaze. But nothing could prepare her for the fateful decisions she would be forced to make that day, or the startling revelation that her purpose—the task she was put on earth to accomplish—is not as straightforward ...moFor months part-angel Clara Gardner trained to face the raging forest fire from her visions and rescue the alluring and mysterious Christian Prescott from the blaze. But nothing could prepare her for the fateful decisions she would be forced to make that day, or the startling revelation that her purpose—the task she was put on earth to accomplish—is not as straightforward as she thought. Now, torn between her increasingly complicated feelings for Christian and her love for her boyfriend, Tucker, Clara struggles to make sense of what she was supposed to do the day of the fire. And, as she is drawn further into the world of part angels and the growing conflict between White Wings and Black Wings, Clara learns of the terrifying new reality that she must face: Someone close to her will die in a matter of months. With her future uncertain, the only thing Clara knows for sure is that the fire was just the beginning.

Awesome, isn't it? Makes you just want to jump right in and read. But now (you guessed it) you get to rewrite the Hallowed description. What if Hallowed were a horror novel? You can either write it like a really messed up, scary sequel to Unearthly, such as:

For months part-demon Clara Gardner trained to start the raging forest fire from her visions and murder the alluring and mysterious Christian Prescott during the blaze. . .

or you can toss the original story and start from scratch, using just the cover and the title, like:

 Six years ago, Clara Gardner drowned in the icy waters of Jackson Lake right after the Halloween dance.  For 364 days of the year, she rests peacefully in her coffin as a corpse. But every year on Halloween night she comes to life and claws her way out of the grave, determined to find Christian, the boy who jilted her, and literally eat his heart out . . .

Leave your description in the comments below (not on Goodreads or on Facebook, please, but here). Have fun with it! I can't wait to see what you come up with.

 

I will award ARCs to the 2 best covers and the 2 best descriptions, along with a few other little tricks and treats of my own. On Halloween night, sometime in between taking my kids trick-or-treating and lapsing into a candy coma, I will announce the winners.

 

*Yes, I will ship internationally, thanks for asking, although I only have ARCs in English.

 

Good luck, and Happy Halloween!

Library Time, Nixed Covers, and Sequel Syndrome

I am into the hard-core writing to get a draft down for Book 3, so I don't have much time to blog these days, but I wanted to tell you that today, I put M in daycare for a half day, and I drove to Malibu and spent 4 hours in the Pepperdine library, writing my brains out. And it was wonderful. So quiet and uninterrupted. I got loads done. I plan to do it again on Thursday.

Things are heating up for Hallowed, the release date creeping closer and closer. I want to have some sort of ARC giveaway tied with Halloween (Hallowed on Halloween, get it?) but haven't hit on a great idea for how to do this yet. For as creative of a person as I believe myself to be, I am dreadful with contest ideas. Any suggestions on a contest that would be fairly simple where I could give away, say 3 or 4 copies of Hallowed? I am all ears and eager to give some away. . .

And there is one piece of news regarding the UK version of Hallowed. The publisher nixed the Christian cover. I am, of course, disappointed. I loved that cover. It was my favorite of all my covers to date, I think because it channeled the feeling of Hallowed so well. But the booksellers were nervous about a boy on the cover, so Egmont UK completely redesigned it with a girl. And it's very nice. But it's not Christian. Sigh. Oh well. Such is life in the publishing world.

Happier news: Kristi at The Story Siren blog, which is indisputably one of the best blogs, like, ever, read Hallowed! And liked it! Her exact words on Goodreads were "Holy shiz!!!! AWESOMESAUCE!!!" I laughed at that and breathed a huge sigh of relief. It's crazy how much more pressure I feel about whether people will like Hallowed, not because I don't think it's a good book--in many ways, I feel it's a better book than Unearthly, more sophisticated in the telling, more powerful and more emotional on all kinds of levels, but because it isn't Unearthly.

I'm that way about sequels myself. I fall in love with the first one, and then I'm all "meh" about the second one because what I really loved about the first one was being introduced into the world, meeting the characters, discovering what the story is about with them. And the second book is a middle book, typically. A book full of struggles, but not usually solutions. The book where the characters get hurt, they fall, and then they're going to have to get back up. Not saying that Hallowed is a bummer, mind you. Clara is still Clara, after all; she's still got her sense of humor, her sarcasm, her dumb jokes. She makes me laugh as much as she makes me cry. But she is absolutely smack in the middle of her emotional struggle in this book. And some people don't like middles. They like beginnings. They like endings. But not middles.

*Refrains from biting nails thinking about it. Refers you to a blog post by Kiersten White where she basically says the same thing but way more articulately here. Tells myself to STOP READING the FREAKING reviews!!!!!

Lol. I need sleep. And some more time in the library. That is all.

Wicked Lovely Day

Today I'm sick. I got approximately 1 hour of sleep last night, because my baby is also sick. Croupy, camp out with a snuggy all night on her bedroom floor to make sure she keeps breathing kind of sick. Uh to the Guh. So I am trudging around in a yucky exhausted haze, coughing, rasping like a chain smoker, hating that today was supposed to be a writing day, and it has turned out to be a delirious every-part-of-my-body-hurts day.

But hark, what news from yonder email breaks? It is my editor, and through my yucky haze I am able to glean two pieces of ASTOUNDING NEWS that makes me feel super awake in a flash.

Piece #1: They have moved the release date of Hallowed up by one week! So the new date is: January 17, 2012!  Yay! Y'all can get your Tucker-grabby hands on the book one whole week earlier!

Piece #2: MELISSA MARR has blurbed my book! Seriously, I need a pinch. For a better understanding of the utmost respect I have for this woman, see here, where a year ago I got so tongue-tied in MM's presence at the Smart Chicks tour that I totally forgot to get a picture with her. I was like, "ummmmmm, hi, I'm Cindy, please sign my. . .um, copy of Ink Exchange, I really liked it, I really like you, um. . .thank you so much, ummmmm," and that was it.

Those of you who know me well know that tongue-tied is not something that happens to me all that often. She is Just. That. Cool.

Squee!!!

(later)

(much, much later)

Wow. Note to self: don't squee with laryngitis. It hurts.

I having such a surreal moment, guys, seriously. I'm flashing back to my first days of writing Unearthly, when I said to myself, "I need to read more YA, right now!" and dashed off to the bookstore where I spotted this:

on the shelf, and I thought. Well, yeah, I gotta read that. And that night I was totally freaking over whether Aislinn would become the Summer Queen or if something terrible would happen to her. It was a magical story. I fell in love with reading all over again, reading that.

So, yeah. She rocks. I am so humbled that she would have even read Hallowed, let alone liked it enough to blurb it. I am so humbled, period.

What do you know? :) It turned out to be a wicked lovely day.

The Good, the Bad, and the Pretty

I know I've been MIA for a while. It's fall. This is always a crazy time for me, what with school starting and book deadlines and all that jazz. But I know y'all forgive me since I have been working so very hard on Book 3.

But today I have big news!

The good: the doorbell rang today. A guy put a box on my doorstep and ran. Normally that's cause for alarm and the box just may be full of dog terds or something, but this time it was a big box from HarperCollins. I smiled big when I saw it because awesome things come in boxes from HC!!!!

The bad: the doorbell woke up my daughter right in the middle of her nap and right when I was really getting smoking on my Book 3 work for the day.

The pretty: Inside the box was:

ARCS for HALLOWED!!!!!!!!!!

Now, before I get inundated with ARC requests, let me say: um, I can't take any ARC requests this time. Sorry. Truly, I am. I fully understand your need for a Tucker fix right now (he's on page 1, people)--oh yeah, and Clara too, right?

Never fear, I will be having some contests to give away the books in this box. But if you want an ARC you'll  have to contact the publicity department at HarperTeen and/or go by the usual book blogger channels. Last year I tried to handle the requests myself and it was a mess and ended up with me wanting to crawl into a corner and suck my thumb, there were so. many. requests.  And that was before most people even knew there was a Tucker.

So--YAY! Even though I've been on this published-author train for a while now, there's nothing quite like opening a box full of books with my name on it. Huge rush. Huge. I need somebody to pinch me. I can't believe this is my life.

Now I have to go calm my crying baby.

UK Cover for Hallowed

I am allowed to share my UK cover for Hallowed! I love it so much! It has CHRISTIAN on the cover!

SQUEE!!

Okay, I should stop squealing over it and just SHOW YOU, right?

All right, if you insist.

Here:

Seriously, I am in total love with this cover. Swoon, swoon, swoon.

First off, I love that it's Christian. I wish that more YA books had boys on the cover; it'd be a change-up from all the pretty girls in their pretty dresses. I do love my covers with my pretty dresses, but still. . . Christian! Which is awesome because Hallowed is so much about us getting to know Christian better.  (Not to worry though, Team Tucker, because Tucker gets his fair share of page time.)

I love that the clouds behind him are parted like wings.

I love his expression and his stance, hands on the pockets, very much the way that Clara sees him in her vision of the fire (except she always sees him from the back).

In short, it's beautiful. It rocks my world.

On the Fourth of July and how dirty rotten piraters stole my air conditioning. . .

July 4 is my favorite holiday of the year, for a number of reasons:

1) parades. I dig parades.

Me waiting for the parade, in my riduculous hat, which proves that you can take the hick out of Idaho, but you can't take Idaho out of the hick.

2) dressing up in fun-but-casual red, white and blue clothes

My DD is her 4th outfit, which even she thought was pretty fun. . .

3) good food, but not the kind where you have to slave all day in the kitchen to prepare

DS getting ready to chow down on corn. We also had BBQd ribs and homemade potato salad

4) summer--nice weather and crickets singing and cool breezes blowing and starry nights

5) fireworks. I REALLY dig fireworks, and I also love sparklers!

6) the movie 1776, which I endeavor to watch every year on the fouth of July. I always get a chill at the end where they are all signing the Declaration and then step into their place in the painting. . .



(this clip is not the signing part, but this really funny song about how the national bird was chosen).

And finally, reason 7) because it's an exciting day that you get to spend with family. Some years it's more exciting than others--just ask my Uncle Kim about the time my dad pointed one of those firecracker cannons at him. (On second thought, don't ask him--sorry about your pants, Uncle Kim. . .), some years somebody gets lit on fire or eats WAAAAAAY too much watermelon, but there's always togetherness, as a country and as a family. I like that. And there's always a moment of beauty.

This year my moment of beauty was sitting in my backyard in a lawn chair, my dear little baby snuggled up into my chest, seeing her wide, wide eyes as she watched her very first fireworks.

Le sigh. LOVE the 4th of July.

This year it was also slightly problematic that the 4th was on a Monday, and I had my very last round of revisions for Hallowed due on Tuesday at like 6am. So I had to fit all my parading and dressing up and cooking into much smaller time slots, and then ended up staying up until 2am revising like a madwoman, up again at 4:30 with the baby and right back to revising until 6. I had that "Idiot. I can't believe you did that" message from my body all the next day, but it was worth it. I got to have my Independence Day, and now HALLOWED IS OFFICIALLY IN PRODUCTION. Which means:

FREEEEEEEEEEDOMMMMMM!!!!  I am done (okay, there will be copy edits, but that's not real hard) with Book 2. Finally! And now I am free to work on Book 3. (doing the dance of joy!)

Ahem. Anyway. How lucky am I that I get to do what I love, which is to write new books. I love my job.

There's a roadblock to all my creativity, however. It's called July. In Southern California. In a house with no air conditioner. Yesterday it was 87 degrees in the house when I sat down to write. Under these conditions, what typically comes off my fingertips is: Wow. Hot. So unbelievably hot. I need a cool drink. I need a cool shower. I need to drive to the store to buy something bogus so I can be in the cool car and the cool store. Bleh. I'M MELTING, what a world, what a world. . .

Yeah, it's not that productive.

But Cynthia, you say, weren't you complaining about this last year? Aren't you some hot-shot author now, with your book selling like hotcakes? Why haven't you bought an air conditioner?

Well, see. That's a funny story. Part of it is California's fault. That's right, CA, I'm looking at you. What it costs to buy a house in you is simply ludicrous. I could have 2 nice brand-new houses in Idaho for what we are paying for a almost-completely-unrenovated-since-1961 house in southern California. Pbbt, California. But I'm not complaining too much, since me selling Unearthly is what gave our family the ability to buy a home here. Otherwise, even though my husband has a great job, even though I teach to supplement our income, we simply could not have afforded to buy a house. And I love our house. But it doesn't have the frills. Like AC.

Shame on you, California. Shame. But I do love your beaches.

The other part of the blame lies with piraters.

Now, I say "piraters," as opposed to "pirates," because as the mother of a four-year-old boy I am obligated to think that pirates, the type with the eye patch and the shoulder parrot and the black flag with the skull and crossbones are awesome. I play the role of Captain Hook at least once a day, and my son is of course Mister Smee, and I've found that he listens to what I tell him to do way better if I phrase it like, "ARGHH, matey, methinks you should eat up all your waffle, otherwise I'll be forced to plunder it. . ."

Piraters are people who download free (illegal) copies of my book.

So not awesome.

Now, if you are one of those people who thinks it's okay to steal books, I will refer to you to Lilith Saintcrow's blog post on this subject. It has some spicy language, so be warned.

Right here.

I adore Lilith Saintcrow. Strange Angels kicks butt. And her blog is hi-larious. I am regularly stricken with writerly envy over her copious and amusing blog posts.

And on the subject of piracy, I agree with her one hundred percent.

I never thought so much about piracy until I became a published author. Sure, I'd heard of it. It wasn't something I'd ever dream of doing any more than I'd try to slip in the back door of a movie theater for a free movie or pocket a candy bar in a convenience store. My momma done taught me that's WRONG. But it really came to my attention when my own book started to be pirated.

The first time, it was a question on one of those question-and-answer websites, some girl asking where she could find my book for free. I felt obligated to respond. I said that I hoped that no one would help her to steal my book, but if she would provide the name of her local library, I would gladly send them a copy. She, of course, didn't reply.

Then I signed up for Google Alerts. Every morning I get a nice email from Google that tells me what Unearthly-related stuff has popped up on the web. Most of the time it comes up with reviews, and most of the time the reviews are nice (there's a blog post coming about why I should stop reading the reviews, and possibly why I should stop with the Google alerts--that's another day), but every now and then up pops a site that offers my book for free.

One such site, a few days ago, claimed that my book had been downloaded over 7,000 times.

7,000 times???!!! I thought. Holy crapzol.

Indeed.

Here's where the math comes in. I have had numerous estimates done on installing central air conditioning in our house. The lowest is 12,000 (yes, 12,000 US dollars, darn you California) and that was a rather seedy guy who, when I asked if that included the price for permits was like, "permits? you sure you want permits?" The highest was upwards of 20,000. Yes, 20,000 smackers. I know. Crazy.

I'm planning on 14,000-15,000.

You see where I'm going with this. On the hard copy of my book, I make about $2 for every book sold. If everyone who illegally downloaded a copy of my book actually bought a hard copy, I would make $14,000. (Of course, my agent gets 15% and I save about half of what I earn for taxes, but let's say for argument's sake that I just make that money.) That's 14,000 US dollars, people.

That's my air conditioner.

Pirating is not cool.

Now, before I get flooded with indignant emails/comments telling me how I've over-simplified this scenario on a massive scale, or how I shouldn't be writing for money but out of the sheer bliss of being a writer, or any of the other dumb-but-persistent things people say to justify themselves in this situation, I will simply say this: I don't write for the money. I write because I love it. But I also believe that I deserve to get paid for what I do, and I believe that pirating is STEALING. And my point in all of this is that, so often, people think that the little bad things they do, like slipping in the back of a movie theater or swiping a candy bar from a convenience store, don't really hurt anybody. It's not going to bring down Universal Pictures or Hershey, right?

Pirating my book is not going to bring down HarperCollins. But it does, in a very real way, hurt me.

I'll get my air conditioner someday. I'm thinking it will probably be next spring before I have enough money to fork over that much for an air conditioner. But for now, today, as I sit down to start work on Book 3, I will merely say, "curse those dirty rotten piraters!!!"

I need a popsicle.

Cover Reveal

Yay! I get to reveal the cover for Hallowed!

I woke up this morning to discover that the cover had been loaded to Goodreads and was floating all over the web, which is kind of a bummer, since usually these cover reveals are a big deal and the publisher very carefully times when you can reveal them. :( No idea how it leaked out, but it leaked, so now I've been given the green light to show you all!

Yay! I get to reveal the cover!!!

So here it is:

Of course it will be all silvery and shiny like the UNEARTHLY cover was, so this image won't really do it justice. And it's blue this time. I will have to get me some blue sharpies.

I love it.

Mountains and lake in the background. Pretty cloudbursts. Pretty girl. Pretty swirly lettering with a feather.

Love.

Hope you love it too!

O Wondrous Night

Yesterday I finished up the next round of edits for HALLOWED, which means that we're getting very close to having the book ready to send to production. Whew. This book has been a doozy to write, let me tell you, but of course it's totally been worth all the long hours, tears, and contractions (there was a time in February where I was having major Braxton Hicks contractions while I was trying to finish that round of edits, and they stopped pretty much as soon as I sent the draft off to my editor. Clearly I was stressed. . .).

There's a reason why writers talk in hushed voices about the terror of writing the sophomore novel.

For me, writing the second book was an entirely different experience than writing the first one. With Unearthly I spent every day for six months at my computer (generally during my son's naptime), moving along at the average pace of 800 words a day. It grew slowly, and I started nearly every writing session by circling back over what I had already written, revising as I went.

With Hallowed I didn't have anywhere near that kind of leisure. I was pregnant. Teaching two classes at Pepperdine. Working on marketing and promotional stuff for Unearthly. And running after my four year old, who no longer took his nap. To top it off, my husband had to go out of town for almost a month during the summer! It's no surprise that, under these conditions, the writing didn't exactly flow out of me the way it did when I wrote Unearthly.

During that time I wrote the following email to my agent. The subject line was : One of those nights! Woohoo!

I thought I'd share it now:
So, last night. Very hot. No AC. Been feeling horrid all day (see: hot, no AC, terrible stomach with no desire to eat anything, which only leads the stomach to become more terrible) then actually veered the car over 2 lanes when I saw the $2 sign for biscuit and gravy at Denny's. Haven't eaten at a Denny's in possibly more than 10 years. Ate the $2 biscuits and gravy, which was fine, but very Denny's quality. Drove to grocery store, bought sausage and milk to make my own biscuits and gravy. Came home. Really freaking hot in the house. Too hot to cook. Tried to write. Will's in daycare, which means I really MUST write, otherwise it is wasted money. Tried for a couple of hours to write. Like pulling teeth. Miserable. Finally went to see Inception (which I liked btw) just to cool off. Went and bought two huge fans. Picked up Will. Spent evening putting together the fans. Still too hot to cook. We ate cereal for dinner. No real writing done all day. Feeling failure stifling me like the heat. Still lately my writing has been uninspired, work, not play. Been feeling panicky about it, like can I do this? In such a short space? Pregnant and cloudy-headed and sick all the time and exhausted by 2pm? Why will this book 2 come not to me?!!!! How can a little life form the size of a pencil eraser be playing such havoc on my body?!!! Why now? Clearly casting around for a metaphorical paper bag to breathe into.

So, in essence, horrid day.

Fast forward to 2am, one of the big fans blowing directly over my bed. Woke to a huge crash outside my open window. Completely terrified, clutching baseball bat by the bed, cursing stupid insensitive husband who thought it was a great idea to leave his pregnant wife home alone. Crashing outside continues. Turns out to be a possum? Raccoon? Some large creature eating the plums out of our plum tree. I can actually hear munching.

I wait to fall back to sleep. Munching creature. Fan that sounds like an airplane taking off.

And then:

tidal wave of book 2 inspiration. I turn on the light, grab notebook by the bed, and write what turns out to be about 15 handwritten pages of notes. It just comes pouring out, complete with dialogue in places. A totally improved arc for almost the entire book, all the way to a few scenes before the end. So, in essence, an outline of the book, scene by scene, sometimes coming in order, sometimes not, but understanding completely how it all weaves together: Clara, Christian, Maggie, Jeffrey, Angela, Tucker, Wendy, even a bit of Kay. Kept going back to bed and having to reach over and turn on the light again to write just one more thing. And one more thing. And one more thing. Then laid in bed for an hour just wanting to write it all out, get it ALL on paper as quickly as possible.

Marvelous night! O wondrous night!

This morning: thrashed of course. Exhausted feeling in my stomach. Need to take Will off to tee-ball.

But first I'm going to make us some biscuits and gravy.

Looking back, I honestly don't know how I made it through, except that I was determined to keep writing. And that's the lesson I get out of all of us. Sometimes it's not easy. But keep at it, keep jumping over your obstacles, and the magic will hit you when you least expect it.

Such is the mystery of writing.

Now I'm going to go play me some video games, for the one-whole-day I'm going to allow myself to simply waste my brain power before I start working on Book 3 (which I am totally excited to get to, btw!)

And, in you live near San Diego, come to my signing at the Mysterious Galaxy bookstore at 2pm on Saturday. I'll be there with Timothy Power and Greg Van Eekhout kicking off the Summer Reading for Teens and Tweens.