My Lady Jane

The new book!

For those of you curious about what's next for me, I should probably tell you about MY LADY JANE. It's coming out on June 7, 2016, published once again by the wonderful HarperTeen, and it is quite possibly (cover your ears, UNEARTHLY and THE LAST TIME WE SAY GOODBYE, Mama loves you, too) my favorite book that I've ever written.

Let me explain.

Writing THE LAST TIME WE SAY GOODBYE was difficult. It was a subject that had been tumbling around in my brain for a while, and it felt important to talk about, but I knew from the start that writing it was going to just about kill me. It was so hard, and there were so many days I wept copiously at my keyboard, but I did it and I was so glad I did. I am so proud of that little book. It's my heart's truth, right there on the page.

But needless to say, it took a lot out of me. I went into a bit of a funk after I finished writing THE LAST TIME WE SAID GOODBYE.

So I needed something else. Something that would be a joy to write. Something to make me laugh.

At this point I'd been talking for more than a year with my friend Brodi Ashton (author of the EVERNEATH series) about writing a book together. I had this strange little idea that we could retell the tragic story of the Lady Jane Grey. If you know British history, you'll know that LJG was "the Nine Days Queen," as she was the queen of England for nine(ish) days in the year 1553, before Mary Tudor kicked her off the throne and had her beheaded.

I thought we could rewrite Jane's story. . . as a comedy. And Brodi Ashton had the best comedic sense of any writer I knew. So it made sense to team up.

You should have seen the look on Brodi's face while I was trying to pitch her this idea. We were having lunch at Cafe Rio. I was yammering about how great the real Jane was--a book nerd even before book nerds were a thing, so smart and passionate and awesome, and how dare she get her head chopped off, a girl like that! We could write an alternate version, and we could write it so Jane lives! We could use magic in place of the religious elements of the real story! Then I started talking about this idea I had that maybe our magic could be that people turned into animals, and maybe Guildford, the guy Jane was forced to marry, could be cursed to spend his days as a horse, wouldn't that be funny, and then the story would kind of be like THE PRINCESS BRIDE and like SHREK and like LADY HAWKE and there's not really anything like that in YA, right, so it'd be so cool and it'd be funny and it'd be a blast to write, don't you think?

I am not great at pitching. Kudos to Brodi for keeping her face so carefully blank as she ate her salad and listened to me go on and on about how awesome it was going to be. "Sure," she said a the end of this conversation. "Sounds like . . . er, fun."

We didn't talk about it again for, oh, about six months. This time we were hanging out in Virginia with our friend Jodi Meadows. Somehow I got on the subject of this awesome novel about the Lady Jane Grey that Brodi was going to write with me (you're still going to write it with me, right Brodi? Right?) and Brodi turned drowning eyes to Jodi, hoping our friend would say something reasonable like, "Hmm, Cynthia, a comedy about a famous beheading? That seems a little far-fetched."

Instead Jodi said, "That sounds amazing. There's not much comedy in the YA fantasy market."

And I blurted out, "Hey, you write fantasy. You're funny. Would you like to write it with us?"

And Jodi (poor, dear Jodi) said yes, why yes she would. And Brodi looked relieved that now she wasn't the only person who'd been fool enough to agree to such a thing.

Fast forward six months. California. Jodi and Brodi were visiting to do a couple of events in Los Angeles and talk to my novel writing class at Pepperdine. And what did I keep bringing up, over and over and over again?

That novel about the Lady Jane Grey.

Sometimes I can be like a dog with a tooth in a towel, I tell you.

Me, Jodi, and Brodi that fateful week in California

There was a free day in the middle of that week. We were thinking about going to Disneyland.

"But instead, we could stay home and start writing this Jane Grey novel," I suggested cheerfully. "I mean, we could go to Disneyland any old time, but how often could we write a book together? And maybe there are three characters, and we could each write one and rotate chapter to chapter."

And that's how MY LADY JANE was born. Because I shanghaied my two besties into writing a book with me instead of spending the day at the happiest place on earth. But it worked out, because now that book is a REAL book, and it's going to be out this summer.

I loved every minute of writing MLJ. We each wrote an opening chapter that day in California, each taking the point of view of a different character: Edward, Jane, or Gifford (who you'll notice that we slightly renamed). We talked about the story a lot and hashed out plot points and revised a little, and then a couple months later we met in Utah to hide away in Brodi's mountain condominium to really work on the book. The days went like this:

We'd get up, eat breakfast, shower and get coffee.

We'd spend the morning writing and brainstorming and giggling to ourselves at our own jokes.

We'd eat lunch.

We'd write hard all through the afternoon and finish our individual chapter.

We'd eat dinner.

We'd sit around the living room with our laptops and read our day's chapter out loud to each other, and we'd laugh and laugh. Sometimes we'd laugh until we'd cry. We'd make suggestions. We'd plot. We'd plan for what we'd write the next day.

We'd stay up late talking.

And then we'd get up the next morning and do it all over again.

It was the most fun I'd ever had writing anything. It was exactly what I needed. Fun fun fun.

At the end of that week we had twelve chapters of a novel, and we'd fallen in love with the story of Lady Jane Grey.

A comedy. An adventure. A fantasy. A story about friendship and loyalty and love and being true to yourself.

It's so good, you guys, the best book I've every written a third of. Seriously. And the best part is that now I get to share all the joyful fun with all of you.

If it sounds like MY LADY JANE is going to be up your alley, please check out our website, The Lady Janies for more information about where you can pre-order the book and join our new fan club.

Trust me. It will be good for a laugh.

Deadline Week Rundown

This is what last (deadline) week looked like for me:

Monday - Friday:

6 am - Woke up, drank coffee, and worked on my revision for the new book.

7:30 am - Woke the kids up, drank coffee, and got them ready for school.

9 am - Returned home from dropping off the kids, drank coffee, dinked around on the internet and/or called my agent / editor to freak out over my impending deadline and book issues.

10 am - 4 pm WORKED WORKED WORKED on the revision, eating lunch at my desk. Also drank some coffee.

4 pm - Picked up my kids. Homework. Shenanigans.

6 pm - Threw something together for dinner and shuttled the kids to various activities and / or found a movie for them to watch so I could WORK WORK WORK on my novel.

8 pm - Bedtime for kiddos, which is always a circus entitled, Tricks My Children Do To Avoid Going To Bed. I should charge admission for this. . .

9 pm - WORKED WORKED WORKED on the novel.

12 am - Went to bed. Stared up at the ceiling thinking about the revisions.

1 am - Fell into fitful sleep in which I actually revised my novel in my dreams. All night long I wrestled with phantom lines.

5 am - Woken up by two cats jumping all over me who had decided it was time for the human to WAKE UP AND PLAY. Threw ungrateful cats out of the bedroom.

6 am - Started all over again.



Behold the oh-so-glamourous life of a writer! It went like this until Friday, where I'll add -

11:52 pm (8 minutes before my deadline) - Pressed send to give the draft back to my editor

12 am - Went to bed, stared up at the ceiling for no good reason.

3 am - Finally got my brain to turn off enough to fall asleep. But that's okay because it's Saturday so I can sleep in. . .

5 am - Woken up by my 4 year old because she was cold. Also, was it time for cartoons?


The weekend was a total blur- not even sure what I did there--maybe cleaned up the house and had some friends over for both me and the kids, ate donuts and pizza, played the game Munchkin for the first time, which was highly entertaining, but mostly just sat still with my brain going DUHHHHHH DOHHHHHHH DERRRRRRRR.



Which leads me to this morning, which went like this:

7 am - Woke up and laid in bed for a while.

7:30 am - Woke the kids up and got them ready for school

9 am - Returned home and threw myself into my To Do pile: finished several writer errands I've been procrastinating on, like signing up for YASH and filling out my author profile stuff they make me do for every book for the new book, sent a barrage of emails

10 am - Stared at the computer.

11 pm - Spent an hour making homemade banana bread. The house now smells amazing.

12 pm - Ate leftover pizza and took a shower so long it would have made Al Gore cry.

1 pm - Stared at the computer.

1:30 pm - Wrote a bizarre blog post about my schedule for the past week.

2 pm - Eyed the notebook for the next project. . .

2:03 - Picked up a pen.

Novel #6

So last Wednesday I finished the first draft of my sixth novel!!!!

 . . . which I can't tell you much about yet.

*frowns* Well, that's no fun.

What CAN I tell you?

Hmm, well:

-It is a stand-alone.

-It is NOTHING like my last (solo) standalone, (i.e. THE LAST TIME WE SAY GOODBYE) in that it is not a straight contemporary, and it will probably (hopefully) make you laugh more than it will make you cry. (I did sniffle a bit writing a scene or two at the end there, but that's just me. I'm emotional about the needs of my characters.)

-It is also nothing like my last (group) standalone (i.e. MY LADY JANE) in that it is not a fantasy, and I am not writing the point of view of a sixteen year old boy.

-It was a blast to write, because I've had this story in my brain for, like, three years now and it was awesome to finally get to write it.

-It was the fastest I've ever written a book.

-It's probably the roughest first draft I've ever produced, which is both exciting and terrifying for me, because, at this point, so much could change.

-The main character is EVIL. I love her so much. I also kind of hate her. She and I have a love-hate thing going.

-It is mainly set in Manhattan, and also a little bit in Malibu, and I listened to Taylor Swift's new album a lot while I was preparing to write it. Like, a lot a lot. Welcome to New York.

-It will (fingers crossed) be out Fall 2016.

These last few days I haven't even really known what to do with myself, because I have been working SO HARD for the last six months and my brain just wants to keepgoingkeepgoinsomuchtodo. I spent a few hours today playing SKYRIM, which, I kid you not, I have not played since May 2012. And the whole time I was playing I felt vaguely guilty, like I was betraying my writer self by letting my video-gamer flag fly for even a little while.

But that's how it goes.

If you need me, I will be over here either a) working on my mad-bow-skillz or b) pacing while waiting for my editor to tell me what she thinks.

Either way, it's always good to be at that place where I've written a NOVEL. It feels like a miracle every single time.

Playing Catch Up

Wow, I have been absent from this blog for a long time. Sometimes this crazy, unreal writing life of mine leaves me very little time for anything else. What have I been doing these past few months? Well, let's see:

1. In February I went on the Epic Reads tour with Victoria Aveyard and Jasmine Warga to Chicago, North Carolina, and Florida. This was so fun, especially because I got to meet two lovely debut authors and get to know them beyond their books. These girls were so smart and funny and great to be around. Some highlights of this tour include: a. being in a Chicago cold spell that was so fierce that they cancelled school and my nose hairs froze (but I did get to eat the most amazing pizza), b. getting to interact with so many amazing readers and booklovers, c. HARRY POTTER WORLD at Universal Studios, and d. Girl Scout cookies that a wonderful reader brought us.

Book tour!

2. In March I went to New York City to throw a book launch for my friend Jodi's new book, THE ORPHAN QUEEN. We had an awesome event at seriously the best children's book store I've ever been to (Books of Wonder!), ate dinner that night at a place that uses chocolate in everything on the menu (Max Brenners!) and then tearfully said goodbye to my friends (it was okay; I'd see them next month). I spent an extra few days in New York researching for my new book (which takes place in NYC), meeting with my HarperTeen editor, and hanging out with my agent--who is one of my favorite people in the world.

A picture my agent took of me outside of a restaurant in New York

3. In April I went to ENGLAND with the Lady Janies. In case you missed this from an earlier post, the Lady Janes are myself, Brodi Ashton, and Jodi Meadows, three authors who wrote a book together this year about the Lady Jane Grey called MY LADY JANE. (Click here to go over to the Lady Janies page and find out more about this.) Anyway, in between the first and the second draft of the book we went to England to do some research and work on the revisions all together.  I'll save the highlights for the Lady Janies web space, but I will just say that it was the best trip ever. We wrote, we laughed, we took a gazillion pictures and video, we got lost, we got found, we wrote some more, we laughed some more, and we enjoyed every bit of our adventure.

The Lady Janies at Windsor Castle

4. In May I went to Texas to take part in the Romantic Times Book Convention, which was, as usual, both overwhelming and awesome. I was on a couple of brilliant panels, the first on how to throw a successful launch of your book (led by the always-charming Victoria Scott), and the second on writing tips and techniques led by Aprilynne Pike. On this second panel was Alyson Noel, Rachel Caine, Claudia Gray, me, and . . . Kathy Reichs. KATHY REICHS, as in the real life forensic anthropologist who writes the books they make the TV show BONES about. She may have asked me to pour her some water. I may have poured her a glass, and then poured some water on the table. Because I am smooth that way.

My view from the giant book signing at RT. That's Rachel Harris on my left.

5. I worked my backside off all this time on MY LADY JANE. Yesterday we turned in our final draft before the book goes to copy edits, and I have serious revision hangover. I would be just lying on the couch going GAHHHHHH for a few days, but I can't. I have a draft due on my next solo book (which I can't really tell you about yet) coming right up.

So consider this the part where I peek out of my writing cave, wave to you all, and then . . . crawl right back in.

I'll be out more at the end of summer.

I hope.

Coming Out of the Cave

I've been in the writing cave for a while.

The bad news about the writing cave:

I let the emails / student papers / laundry / dishes / prettymucheverythingthatisn'twriting pile up disastrously.

The good news about the writing cave:

I have a new book. (claps hands together excitedly) A new book! A NEW BOOK!

Yeah, it's going to need some revision, and I will have to creep back into the cave for a few solid intervals between now and January, I'm sure.

But every time I finish drafting a novel, it feels like a miracle.

This novel, especially, feels like a miracle. I've been working on this novel, in one way or another, for about two years, and it's been a story that's been waiting inside of me to write for much, much longer.

(dabs at eyes) Ahem. Anyway. I will tell you way more about it soon, I swear.

Right now I will simply say that it is a contemporary stand-alone that will be out in Winter 2015--that's the plan, anyway.

(goes to wash some dishes)

Writing Short

I'm a writing fool.

I finished a novella yesterday, which was great fun. Unfortunately I can't tell you much about it. Stay tuned.

I celebrated finishing said novella by having ice cream for dinner. Don't judge: it was 86 degrees in my house at seven o'clock last night. (For more of why I don't just buy an air conditioner already, see this old post from last year's hot season. Still true this year.) I had a chocolate shake from McDonalds. With a cherry. Mmmmm. It was delicious. It was 750 calories. That's dinner.

This week I'm also working on a short story, which has brought a few things to light:

1. It's been a long time since I've written a short story. Like, more than six years. This blows my mind since writing short stories used to be what I did best. That's what I was trained in, after all. I have written two separate collections of literary short stories. I also got my publishing start with short stories; in fact, it was an old short story of mine that brought my agent to me. So writing a short story again feels like visiting a past version of myself as a writer. A ghost of the writer I used to be.

She's more concise than I am.

2. Writing short stories is hard. Before I'd written any novels, back when I was simply a proud short story writer, I used to tell my students that good short story writing was actually harder than good novel writing. You have to be ruthless. Economical. Smart. You have to make an arc fit within the span of fifteen or twenty pages. You're not free to ramble about the way novelists do. Every single word has to count.

Then I wrote a novel. And another. And another. Today, if somebody told me that short story writing is easier than novel writing, this would be my response:

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

And then I would quite possibly slap him/her.

Short story writing is not easier than novel writing. You don't have to keep 1400 pages of story straight in your head all at once. But short story writing is hard. It requires an intense focus. It's like a fast sprint, whereas novel writing is a marathon.

3. I am rusty at being ruthless. I find this odd, since my writer's brain is in good shape right now. I've been bench pressing more than 1000 words a day for quite a while. I'm fit. But this week as I sat down to write this story, thinking to myself, this will be easy, I can do it in an afternoon, I'm sure, I was struck by how lazy I've become when it comes to word count. I'm used to writing horizontally as opposed to vertically, which means that I often just let myself go and write whatever strikes me, focusing on getting something down and fixing it up later. (As the writer Chris Offutt used to say, "When I write, I throw in everything but the kitchen sink. . . and then I throw in the kitchen sink and turn on both faucets." Yeah. That's me. Sidenote: Is Chris Offutt that guy in the rocking chair on the credits of TrueBlood? Because I swear that's him.) Writing this way allows you more surprises, more discovery of the story as you go, but it's also less meticulous than writing vertically, when you don't leave a sentence until it's as good as it can be.

Writing horizontally also makes for chubby drafts.

This is the part of this blog where, if my editor was reading this, she would snort and point out that my last draft of Boundless was close to 115,000 words.

It's not fat. It's big boned, I keep telling her.

So this writing a short story is good exercise. I'm slimming down.

Writing For Joy

When I get stressed I am easily distracted. For instance: when I was working on the revisions for Boundless, I had to actively work to not play The Hunger Games, which is one of those facebook games where you spend about three minutes at a time on before you run out of "energy." Is it a good game? Um, no. Not really. There's nothing challenging or cool about it. But I still felt my mind returning, over and over, to the desire to play. Ooh, I would think. Maybe I have enough energy to pick all the roses in President Snow's garden. . . And off I would go.

Not productive.

I also had to work to stay off Twitter and facebook in general and refuse to give in to the urge to check my email every few minutes.

Why? I kept asking myself. You have work to do! Get to it!

But it was hard work. Intense work. My brain was metaphorically sweating, for hours at a time. And all it wanted was a little breather to do something mindless for say, three minutes.

What's funny to me is that pretty much the minute I pressed send and sent the new-and-improved Boundless draft to my editor, I lost the desire to play the game. Or hang out on Twitter and facebook. It took about a week of resting, getting adequate sleep, weaning myself off the caffeine I used via iced tea to get myself through the deadline, cleaning my house so that my mind felt uncluttered, but at the end of all of that, I felt like myself again.

Whew.

And then I wanted to write. Not for work. Not for pay (although pay is good. I like pay.) but for the sheer joy of writing. For the fun of finding characters and watching them go do their unexpected things. For the beauty of language. For the play of ideas.

It is soooooo good to write out of joy again.

Right now I am working on:

• a novella. Details on that to come.
• a short story for a very awesome anthology that I was thrilled to be asked to be a part of
• a new novel
• and still stewing over the final changes I need to make to Boundless. Cuz we're not done yet, folks.

So yeah, I'm busy. Again. Still. Whatever. But it feels so good to write!

All the Pretty Notebooks

This week I've finally started drafting on my new project. I wish I could tell you more about it, I really do, but I can't. All I can say at this point is that it's a completely different world from my Unearthly universe (although, in some ways, not so much, as this new novel takes place largely in Idaho--at least the settings are similar) with a very different type of main character. Which is a good thing. I love Clara, and I've had so much fun with her for the past four years, but at this point I am getting a bit tired of her voice. It happens.

Love you, Clara. Now be quiet.

One of the things I love best about a new project is a new set of notebooks. These days I often write my draft zero out long hand, so I can get away from the computer and the allure of facebook and Twitter and the tons of emails that await me every time I sit down at my desk. I get a lot more done if I slip off to some quiet place with a notebook. And, like most writers, I am particular about the kind of notebook I work with. I like me a lined journal (college ruled or smaller, if I can find it) that will lay flat on a table. I like these pens I found about a year ago from Pilot that are made of recycled water bottles-- a gel roller with a super smooth line. I love those days when I go through all the ink in a pen in one day of work.

Yes, I'm a pen murderer. At least these pens are refillable.

I've found that one novel typically takes me 4 notebooks, to get from the first draft through the last draft of major revisions. I'm getting quite the collection, see?

Not all of my notebooks, but some: the bottom one is for Maggie's story, which I've been jotting down for a couple years just to understand Maggie and her past, the white and green is 2 out of the 4 of Hallowed, the 4 green with elephants is Boundless, the black and white composition book is--can you guess what that might be? If all goes well you might get to find this out in December or so-- and the top, my new project!!)

So, yay! New project! I have been refraining myself from working on this new book for almost a year now. The story is burning bright in my brain, and I only hope I can get it down fast enough, so it does not burn out before it's all on the page. I have about 50 handwritten pages of notes on the characters and their world so far, just waiting for me to pick it up for serious and draft.

I am so ready! Let the fun writing begin!

The Very Busy Spider

Ever so often, I read this book to my son:

It's about a spider building a web.

On every page, a new animal shows up and asks the spider to hang out with it: "'Quack, quack,' said the duck. 'Want to go for a swim?'" But the spider never answers. She is always very busy spinning her web. This goes on and on, page after page, from morning until night, the spider not responding to anybody, just spinning and spinning and spinning, until finally she finishes her web. Then an owl flies by and says, "Who? Who? Who built this beautiful web?" But the spider doesn't answer then, either. She's asleep. "It had been a very, very busy day." And thus ends the book.

I am so totally the spider right now.

(Eric Carle, by the way=genius.)

So. I have turned in the next round of revisions for BOUNDLESS. Over the past several weeks many, many people have tried to get my attention, and I have not responded. So sorry for that, people. I was very busy spinning my web.

Revisions are usually tough and slow for me, but THIS revision. Oh dear Lord. So many threads. So many characters and their arcs. So much to set up. There were days a pesky fly flew into my web and thrashed it to shreds. There were days when I was inexorably trapped in the web and I started to feel suspiciously like the pesky fly. There were days I honestly considered whether this web-spinning thing was a healthy career decision. 

I drank a lot of iced tea. Which helped me stay up into the wee cool hours of the morning when the house was quiet and I could think. And then I would lie in bed later trying to turn off my brain, which insisted on revising my book, even when I'd clearly told it to stop. Even in my sleep, I revised. I often woke with a dull headache and the sense that I had been working all night.

I am a morning person, by the way. I suck as a night owl.

I am, quite frankly, exhausted.

Stay tuned for the Grouchy Ladybug, is what I'm saying. . .

But, at least for now, it's turned in. I am finally free to work on a new project. (and possibly a new, NEW project that is Unearthly-related. I shall tell you when I know. . .) And this is great. I have been wanting to work on my new project for almost a year, and I can't wait to really dig into it.

Tonight my husband came into my office to warn me about a spider on the back patio, who was building an enormous web. My husband thought it would be, er, icky, if I walked into that web on my way to water the lawn in the morning.

"He's out there now, building it?" I asked. For some reason I think of this spider as a he. Don't ask me why.

Yes, he was.

I went out on the patio and located said spider-and-web. My husband was right; it's a big web. The supports easily stretch across a ten-foot space, with the center positioned to intercept any unlucky bug who happens to make a suicide-run for the porch light. (Well played, spider. Well played.)

I've seen this spider before. He's a very large orange and black orb weaver, with stripey legs exactly like in the Eric Carle book. I have resisted the temptation to squash him, because he eats many bugs, and he's not doing any harm or trying to get in the house to bite my babies. He's a good spider, and I have just read Charlotte's Web to my son and James and The Giant Peach and I am supposed to be okay with good spiders. (Embarrassing side note: someone recently asked my son about reading Charlotte's Web. He said he never wanted to read it again. Because it -and I quote- "makes Mommy cry like crazy." Seriously, though. Those last lines: "It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and good writer. Charlotte was both." I could start sobbing right now. . .)

Ahem. So back to the patio spider. I haven't ever seen a spider building its web before, not in real life, anyway. So I stood there for a good twenty minutes and watched as the little guy worked to fill in the web. Around and around and around he went, the glossy threads occasionally catching the light. And I noticed one thing right off:

Part of the web is easy for the spider. Starting from the bottom left, he just cruises along, goes a little bit, secures the thread to the support, spins a bit more, secures, climbs the left side, secures the line, goes across the top, spins, secures, spins, secures. No problem, right?

Until he hits the top right, and he has to go down.

Then the spider falls out of his rhythm, he wobbles, the entire web dangles unsteadily as he lowers himself, secures the line, twists and waves his legs frantically and looks all kinds of unbalanced, then finally reaches the bottom and hiccups across two more anchors before he finds his groove again.

Every single time.

I can practically hear the little guy cussing: "Oh for $%^&&**$*!!!! This stupid #$^*&#$&!!! web!!!!" And toward the end there he was looking so very tired. Like, "Please, please, can't this web  be finished now? Pant, pant. I need a vacation." But on he went, until the web was done. I wish I could have taken a picture of it for you, but it would not show up with my camera. Trust me, it was glorious.

It made me smile. Because I am so totally that spider.

This web building stuff is HARD. Even for spiders. And they were made to spin.


(This web is a fair approximation of what both my spider's web and BOUNDLESS look like right now. . .)

Join me tomorrow morning where I forget about the web and walk right into it on my way to water the lawn and run around screaming and swiping at myself. Because that's going to be fun.

Vlog in which I show you my Unearthly corkboard

And now for something completely different. A video I made, showing off the giant corkboard I used when I wrote Unearthly.

Enjoy.

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.

Cracking

I just received my first round of notes on Book 2 from my editor, which means, while it was nice seeing the light of day up here on the sunny surface for a few weeks, now I've got to dive down again. Back to the cave. And, like with my revisions of Unearthly, there are wrecking balls crashing through the carefully-constructed house that is my book, which is painful but necessary, even more necessary than last time.

Because this book has to be wonderful.

Here's why: This is a sequel. In my lovely editor's words, it has to be fabulous, in some ways even more fabulous, than Book 1.

Something that has kept me up nights is Richelle Mead saying, after she read my book and gave me that wonderful blurb, that she was laying awake at nights wondering what would happen next. As in Book 2. A few days ago, Melissa Marr tweeted that she was definitely going to read my Book 2. Melissa. Marr. These people, in my world, are rock stars. And they are waiting for my Book 2. As are the tons of readers who have read Unearthly and then promptly bombarded me with emails about how there has to be a Book 2, where's Book 2?, when's Book 2 coming out?, we can't wait for Book 2!!

No pressure or anything. :) It's a nice problem to have, my dad keeps reminding me. Yep. It's the kind of problem you dream about, as a young writer. And Unearthly leaves some definitely unresolved issues. Yes, I'm aware. Let me tell you about the first draft, which ended on the line, "Come with me." on page 427. Talk about cliffhangers.

So. Back to the writing I go. I've found that I always go through a seriously emotional process when I get notes back: first, I mourn. I wallow. I cry and feel stupendously sorry for myself. Then I rage. I contemplate killing off characters just because I can't think of how to deal with them anymore. I doubt everything. I seethe with anger, because my book, which I worked so hard on, is not perfect. Not even close to perfect.

And then I get over it. I accept that the book is flawed, that I, as a writer, even with all my fancy degrees and know-how, am deeply flawed. I tell myself what I tell my students: real, gut-wrenching, wrecking-ball revision is what separates the amateurs from the professionals. I remind myself that I trust my editor. I look back over the notes. I see the wisdom in what she's telling me. And then I get cracking.

Right now I am still cracking on Chapter 1, which is slow progress, but the book is shaping itself up in my mind and the first chapter of a sequel is a very tricky thing, dangit!

This whole revision process is complicated, this time around, by the fact that Unearthly hits bookshelves in 2 WEEKS!!! And I still have my website to finalize, swag to get organized, a gazillion interviews to do and a tour to prepare for. ( I am still stoked, so freakishly excited, about going back to my hometown of Idaho Falls for the launch! Not to mention the Dark Days tour!) Plus there's Christmas and family and finals week at Pepperdine.

This takes the word BUSY to a whole new level. There have been times over this past week where I've wanted to scream, to no one in particular: Just. Let. Me. Write!!!!!!!

Again, nice problems to have. This is also the part where my dad says something like "houses are built by putting in one nail at a time," and everybody in my life, my husband, my parents, my friends, all start chanting, "You can do it!" (Thanks, everybody in my life.), except my son.

He just wants to know why he can't have a candy cane for breakfast.

Pressing SEND

Yesterday I turned in a draft of the as-of-yet-untitled Book 2 (yes, for those of you who have just finished Unearthly and have been fretting over it, there is a sequel) to my lovely editor, F, at HarperCollins. It was quite the emotional experience when I pushed SEND. It took me back to this same week last year, when I sent F my first revised draft of Unearthly.

Here is one of the most important things I learned this past year:

I am extremely lucky/blessed to have an editor like F, who, in this crazy-busy day and age in the publishing world, still takes the editing part of her job so seriously. F has a gazillion things on her plate at any one time, (seriously, a GAZILLION) but she never loses sight of the book. She doesn't say, "okay, good enough," and move on to the next item on her to-do list. She stays with the book, with me, until the book is as finely crafted as it can possibly be.

Last year when I turned in a draft of Unearthly to Farrin, I thought it was pretty good. It was all polished up, in my mind.

I had no idea how much better it would become. It is worlds better. And that's all because of F.

I heart F.

So as I pressed SEND this time, I was so excited, because I knew that this new book was about to get the benefit of F's discerning eye and amazing brain. And I got so emotional about it, because I know that it's about to go from something "good enough" to something wonderful.

Pressing SEND also was a big relief because it means, at least for a few weeks (until I get my first round of edits back from F), that I can have my life back. You know how I talked about "the cave" before, the place where writer's mysteriously disappear to when they are working on their books? I have been in the Carlsbad Cavern of writerly caves this past couple months. As evident by my lack of blogging. Or emailing people back. Or doing dishes/laundry/pretty much anything else. All my time and energy has gone into WRITING. THIS. BOOK.

And now it's out of my hands for a little while. Le sigh. Now I can have afternoons at the park with my son. And homecooked dinners again. And time to knit, because it's getting cool out, (as cool as it gets for Southern California) and my fingers always get the urge to knit this time of year.

Take a deep, cleansing breath with me, won't you?

Smart Chicks Really Do Kick It

I have been writing. Writing, writing, writing. Book 2, Book 2, Book 2. And sometimes talking about Book 2 to my husband, who patiently listens and even throws in his two cents occasionally as I try to work out my novel's issues out loud with him. And writing some more. And dreaming about Book 2. And listening to music that particularly inspires me for Book 2. And researching stuff I need to know about for Book 2, the rodeo, for instance. And talking into my voice recorder, which mostly happens while I am driving, the recorder swinging from my rearview mirror while I dictate dialogue and plot points and genius ideas, all for Book 2.

In other words, I haven't been doing much but writing these days.

But yesterday I made an exception, because the Smart Chicks were here. This is a group of YA authors who are touring all over the country this month, a fun and rowdy and talented group of women who all have amazing books. Last year, when I was writing Unearthly, I read all the YA books I could get my hands on, for research, I told everybody. But really it was because I loved reading them! And so many of those books were written by these women.

(Smart Chicks Pasadena from left to right: Rachel Caine, Alyson Noel (behind), Margaret Stohl, Melissa De La Cruz, Kami Garcia, Melissa Marr, Kelly Armstrong, Rachel Vincent, Mary E. Pearson)

I am a total fangrrl, is what I'm saying. So I packed myself up and made the one-hour trek in LA rush hour traffic to Pasadena to see them. Geek to the core, I arrived an hour early, went straight up to the info desk to grab my signing ticket (at these things, the lines to have the authors sign their books is so long they give you a number, so they can call you inside the bookstore in groups) and spent the next 15 minutes agonizing over which books I wanted to buy to have signed. Up until this moment I had thought the Kindle was the best invention ever. Now, because I read almost everything on Kindle, I had nothing for the authors to sign. There were just so many books, and so little money!

I settled on a few books, then headed outside to this nice little area where the Smart Chicks would be presenting. I found myself a good seat. I met all the women sitting around me. Seriously, one of the girls sitting right next to me brought more than 30 books from home to be signed. 30, people. Seriously. I was worried for her back, lugging that bag around. I was worried for the authors' cramped fingers.

A couple of my Pepperdine students showed up, so we chatted about the difference between literary readings and YA signings. Here's the difference in a nutshell: screaming. Especially when the Smart Chicks started handing out ARCs of their latest books. Screaming, jumping, wild cheering. That and I've never heard fans of Ron Hansen or Annie Proulx play MarryShagCliff, where the fans name the character from the author's book whom they would like to marry, the one they'd like to um, kiss, and the one they would throw off a cliff.

(Kami Garcia tries to explain how height was not a factor in who contributed more to the novel Beautiful Creatures, written by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl.)

The writers seemed be having loads of fun. I've been to some literary readings where the writers looked like they'd rather be getting their teeth pulled, so I found all the fun and games refreshing. And the fans. . .wow. Did I mention the screaming? My students, of course, were far too cool and sophisticated to get so excited as the wild-eyed, book-laden YA fans, but my student Lauren proved to be pretty adept at snagging stuff out of the air when the authors started throwing book-related knick knacks and gifts out to the crowd. My other student in attendance, Zach, was simply trying to maintain his testosterone level in this large crowd of mostly women. Oh, what students will do for extra credit. . .

(Melissa Marr answers questions from the fans)

I, for one, was encouraged by the enthusiasm of the fans. Some of these people could be my fans someday soon. And that was indescribably cool to think about. And humbling, in a way.

After the authors answered questions and played and riled up the fans, they retreated inside to an upstairs section of the bookstore. I was milling around with the other folks, waiting for my number to be called, when I bumped into another fabulous YA author/ fellow fangrrl in the audience: Katie Alender. Katie's book, Bad Girls Don't Die, was the best and only ghost story I read this year--I picked it up off the shelf of a Barnes and Noble because of its perfectly beautiful and creepy cover:

(This book was awesome! See Katie's website here)

I was so excited to meet Katie that I hugged her. She was nice enough to not get too freaked out. We had some time to talk as we waited for our numbers to be called, and it was so great, just shooting the breeze about our current deadlines and our experiences in publishing and our writing lives. I would have driven the hour just to meet her. I'm sure I sounded starved for companionship, but really, that's what I am. I need the companionship of other writers, YA writers especially! That's been largely missing from my life since I moved to California, and it's something I yearn for (here's the part where my husband says, "what I am, chopped liver?" and I say "no, dear, but you're my husband, you don't count" and he looks all offended). I need me some writing peeps!

Finally my number was called and I got to go inside and up the stairs, where the Smart Chicks were sitting at long tables signing copies of their books. First I got to meet Mary Pearson, who wrote one of my favorite books this year, The Adoration of Jenna Fox. I own this book on Kindle but bought a hard copy, I liked it that much. In fact, I remember turning to my husband after I finished reading it and saying, "Well, I wish I had written that." Very cool book.

I was completely tongue-tied when I got to Melissa Marr. I managed to get out that I had bought a book for her to sign for my old friend and college roommate, Amy, who adores Melissa Marr. A-dores. And she said thank you and then said something nice that I didn't catch because I was so star struck, and I totally forgot that I had my camera. Now kicking myself that I didn't get a picture with Melissa Marr. I did get pictures with some of the other authors, but most of them didn't really turn out because, in order to get a picture, the author had to lean forward and I had to lean way back over the table, which is not the best angle for me.

Everyone was sooooo nice. Margaret Stohl even pulled off her own name card and signed it for me when I told her how much I loved Beautiful Creatures, but alas, it was on my Kindle!

(Margaret Stohl's name card, which reads "Cynthia is a beautiful creature." Aw.)

After the signings I went back downstairs and found Katie again, who was still outside waiting. It was a long line, did I mention? She mentioned a group of YA writers in the LA area called the LA YAs. Woohoo, writing peeps! Then, after a little more talk with her, I went home. Through traffic (although not so bad now, as it was close to 8pm), in the dark.

(the drive home--don't worry, traffic was fully stopped on the freeway when I took this pic; I don't click and drive)

I didn't mind at all.

Dynamite Days

When I was first learning to write short stories, I printed and cut out tiny pictures of writers I admired and taped their faces all around the outside edges of my computer monitor. Whenever I sat down to write I could feel their serious eyes on me: Joyce Carol Oates, Alice Walker, Richard Ford, Virginia Woolf, Flannery O' Connor, Rick Bass, Louise Erdrich, Tobias Wolff, Jane Smiley (who was in her picture always smiling--I appreciated that) and anybody else I loved at the time if I could locate a decent picture. I vividly remember J seeing my computer for the first time, when we'd only known each other for a few days. He stood in front of the monitor and went around the edge identifying the writers, knowing them only by their faces since I hadn't labeled them. He knew them all. My heart gave a little flutter watching him -how could it not?

My favorite picture was a little photo of Hemingway in the bottom left corner of my screen. It was taken while he was on safari in Africa. He's in a tent, sitting at a table with his glasses on and a pen in his hand. He's leaning into the table, holding down the page with his left hand as he writes with his right, his lips slightly pursed in concentration. His whole body seems oriented to the writing. I love that.

Hemingway once wrote, "There is no rule on how to write. Sometimes it comes easily and perfectly; sometimes it’s like drilling rock and then blasting it out with charges." In other words: sometimes you struggle. In the photograph it might look like everything is going so easy for good old Ernest, the words just flowing out of his pen. But it also might have been one of those dynamite days.

I have been going through a whole week of dynamite days. I don't want to beat myself up too much about it, considering that I just finished a novel, I'm on pins and needles waiting for my agent to read said novel, I have a sprained ankle, my husband just had major surgery, the school year is about to begin, I have a two-year-old who has decided this week to stop taking his afternoon nap, and my babysitter is currently on vacation. It's okay, I tell myself, if the words are not just winging their way off my fingertips. I still want to write. I still show up, plunk my butt down in front of the monitor, and set the charges. That's about as much as I can ask of myself at this point.