The World According to Maggie

Foreign Cover Round Up

2012-02-21T11:37:00.000-08:00

It's been awhile since I posted foreign covers, and as I find them intriguing, I figured I'd share the ones I'd gotten since my last wrap up.

In other news, I have a Lego Dobby on my desk and for some reason, he's always missing his head when I first sit down in my office. I'm not sure who the culprit is (knowing Dobby, maybe he's doing it to himself). Regardless, it's extremely distracting.

French and Russian editions of The Scorpio Races.

Indonesian editions of Lament & Ballad, Polish edition of Ballad, new German editions of Lament & Ballad

Japanese edition of Lament, Russian and Danish editions of Forever

New UK Mass-market (super market) editions of Shiver, Linger, Forever

Czech, Dutch, Finnish, Lithuanian, and Swedish editions of Forever

Favorites? Ones you hate? Ones you wish we had in the U.S.?

I Was Going to Answer Reader Questions

2012-02-19T08:50:00.000-08:00

. . . but because of the high prevalence of norovirus in our house (if you don't know what that is, I highly suggest NOT googling), I lost interest in operating my brain and I will instead share a photograph Lover took yesterday.

Two of our three dogs, Ginger (Banded Mountain Terrier) and Cooper (Swiss Mountain Dog). Ginger is demonstrating a canine's ability to use problem-solving and tools. In this case, she's decided to use Cooper as a dog bed.

I reckon Cooper is allowing her to do this because when he gets bored, he pulls her around by the tie out until she agrees to play with him. They have hard, hard lives.

I will be more coherent next week. And maybe even tackle reader questions.

If You Give a Cow A . . .

2012-02-15T04:55:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure how much time you've spent with cows, but they're pretty friendly.

Not the brightest bulbs out there, but still, more willing to give you the time of day than say, a squirrel or a [redacted].* It turns out that I will be seeing a lot more of cows than before, because our new house has several hundred feet of quality cow frontage. In fact, the cows closest to our house are not just cows, but super-friendly 4H cows with large and liquid eyes, grubby halters trailing leads, and bewildered but pleasant expressions.

*joke redacted here because it is Wednesday and I have already gotten more hate mail than I want to deal with.

Anyway, after closing on our First!Ever!House! on Friday (that sounds an awful lot like grown-up business, by the way, that verb -- "closing." It's like the phrase "mutual fund." Whenever I hear myself say one or the other, I check the mirror for signs of gray hair or the gleaming reflection of a staid silver Mercedes sedan)(just like Edward Cullen!),** I journeyed out to the Future House of Stiefvater with Lover to prance around and celebrate the largest and most brick thing we'd ever bought. After the obligatory standing in the halls and testing the echo-power of a house with no rugs or window treatments or furniture, we all trailed outside to look at the cows.

**Who am I kidding? I'm going to get hate mail anyway. First from people with gray hair, and then from a Cullen. Possibly also from Mercedes.

With uncertain but inevitable amiability, the cows — more like calves, these were definitely YA cows — wandered up to the fence. On previous occasions seeing The Future House of Stiefvater, we had coaxed them into being scratched. Things 1 and 2 had also allowed themselves to be licked. I don't know if you've seen a cow tongue, but I would like you to appreciate the intestinal fortitude of my children. I always felt a little bad that I had nothing to offer to YA calves in return, however. If they'd been dogs, I would've given them a biscuit. But they were cows. We had no biscuits, and anyway, what do you give as a treat to an animal that has four stomachs (well, four chambers in their stomachs, if you want to be technical)? I scrounged around in our vehicle and found a bag containing eight sweet potato chips.

I became filled with a burning desire to find out what happened when you combined cows and sweet potato chips.***

***Add an angry email from PETA and the American Angus Association to the ones already mentioned in this post.

I proffered the first chip. YA Calf #1 was very pleased with the offering, and despite the fact that YA Calf #1, like all cows, had no teeth on top, the chip seemed to go down just fine.****

****Yes, that's right. I was told this fact about toothlessness by the previous homeowner, and a bit of Googling bore this out. It's hard to imagine, though. Can you imagine us without teeth on top?*****

*****I am seriously regretting photo-shopping that photo of Julia Roberts to include a toothless upper maw, because I will now be having nightmares about that for a week.

This made YA Calf #2 eager to have a taste, but YA Calves #1 and #3 were in his way. What was a curious cow to do? Extend its blue tongue fourteen feet over the heads of the others, of course.

Okay, it wasn't really fourteen feet. But it was about twelve inches. And blue. And sticky. The tongue merely touched the chip and then withdrew back into the mouth, like a frog catching flies. Delighted both by the cow's evident enjoyment and the realization I still had my hand, I fed two more of the chips to YA Calves #3 and #4, respectively. I was certain that we'd become firm friends and that later, when cows had taken over the earth, they would remember me and spare both my family and my Camaro. It was a realization I pondered again and again after returning to the weekend rental cabin to play approximately 17 games of pool. I considered the day a rousing success.

Later, Lover fed YA Calf #1 the remaining four chips, which made YA Calf #1 emit one dry cough. So, basically you can send any angry e-mails about inappropriate cow feeding to him, not me. I have since googled and found that the following make good cow treats:

-apples
-oranges
-bread
-SWEET POTATOES

Admittedly, maybe not fried. But just in case you are planning on going forth and befriending any of our future bovine overlords (I might be channeling Gary Larson here), you're now equipped with 100% more knowledge than I had when I started out.

More Info About The Raven Boys

2012-02-09T05:48:00.000-08:00

Ah! Behold -- Amazon has updated their page for THE RAVEN BOYS, and it has a longer description. That means I'm safe to share it here, too

“There are only two reasons a non-seer would see a spirit on St. Mark’s Eve,” Neeve said. “Either you’re his true love . . . or you killed him.”

It is freezing in the churchyard, even before the dead arrive.

Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue herself never sees them—not until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks directly to her.

His name is Gansey, and Blue soon discovers that he is a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble.

But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way she can’t entirely explain. He has it all—family money, good looks, devoted friends—but he’s looking for much more than that. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents all the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul who ranges from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher of the four, who notices many things but says very little.

For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She never thought this would be a problem. But now, as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure anymore.

From Maggie Stiefvater, the bestselling and acclaimed author of the Shiver trilogy and The Scorpio Races, comes a spellbinding new series where the inevitability of death and the nature of love lead us to a place we’ve never been before.

(and for those just seeing this for the first time, it comes out September 18 of this year, is the first in a four-book series, and as always, can be pre-ordered from any bookstore, online or not. But also also like always, you can pre-ordered a signed and doodled in copy by pre-ordering from Fountain Bookstore).

Interestingly enough, every time I think about the book being released, I get a little squeeze of nerves in my stomach. Ha! look! there it went again.

GO Somewhere and DO Something

2012-02-03T12:55:00.000-08:00

I am generally a productive person. I have vices, but they generally are vices that make me work more, not less, which is convenient when you are in the writerly line of work. I have even honed a fine system of reward and punishment which grants me time to procrastinate on an earned basis, which probably makes it more properly "free time" than "procrastination." Oh yes, I am a productive person.

But it also means that I am extremely unprepared for coping with times when I suddenly find myself not productive, as I did this week. Rather than writing, I found myself making bread, eating cookies, reading novels, watching Ghost Hunters, winning awards, animating hands, and playing Irish pub music on Hannibal the piano. And I seemed incapable of breaking this vicious cycle. So I turned to my authorial friends. I rely a lot on the wisdom of my friends when I get stumped, and so last night, I reached out to my friend Jackson Pearce and asked for her oracular advice on my unproductivity. (that's Jackson ---->)

The following occurred.

This struck me as sage advice as I had not left the house in approximately three months when I was last on tour, so I went to bed early with the intention of taking Thing 1 and Thing 2 to school the next day (a task ordinarily relegated to Lover) and then Going Somewhere and Doing Something. The following morning, I rose with the birds, packed school lunches (bread and cookies, because as you could see, we had plenty on hand), and journeyed off to the Big City with the children, driving Slick the Wonder Car.

Well! I thought as I drove. This is already doing quite well! I have story ideas already! I am quite awake! It is not even 8 a.m.! Truly Jackson is wise!

Then I dropped off Things 1 & 2, and because I needed to Go Somewhere, I went to the Big City's Super Target to get some bagels for Thing 2 and some acid for my contact lenses and also several pairs of cheap sunglasses because I had lost the Very Expensive Ones that Lover had gotten me and because the sun was a lot brighter than I remembered from 2011, when I last left my house. By virtue of it being not even 8:30 a.m., the Super Target was virtually empty, apart from the 4,002 employees restocking the shelves. I ogled my books in the book section, because I'm classy like that, and then I collected my items and headed toward the front. There was only one register open, with the cashier standing in front of it (I told you, I was the only customer there), and I made a bee line toward her, smiling in a way that I hoped was more "good morning I am human" and less "my teeth are bared run away." Cashier smiled back, but then her face abruptly changed.

CASHIER: Oh my God.
ME: !
CASHIER: Are you?
ME: . . .
CASHIER: Maggie?
ME: . . .
CASHIER: Stiefvater?

My thoughts were twofold. 1) She pronounced my last name right! 2) This is all Jackson Pearce's fault.

ME *in retrospect, with probably more wariness than was warranted*: How did you know it was me?
CASHIER: I read your blog!
ME: *I am never leaving the house without brushing my hair again*

If you are reading this, friendly cashier and blog reader, I am sorry for goggling my eyeballs at you. I had not left the house in a very long time, as I mentioned, and when I did finally emerge, it seemed that I had become famous. Or at the very least, like someone who really ought to brush their hair before leaving their house. And so I'm sure I would be more coherent now, but at the moment, I know there was eye goggling involved.

Anyway, I then staggered back to Slick the Wonder Car. For a moment, I was distracted from Jackson's advice by my urgent need to drink the mango smoothie I had just purchased while listening to a very obnoxious piece of music (you won't like it) and picking the UV sticker off the cheap sunglasses I had just purchased. Then, putting on the sunglasses and coming to, I realized that it was not enough to have Gone Somewhere. Remembering Jackson's exhortation to Do Something, I put the car in gear and drove to the Mitsubishi dealer*.

*Oh, I am so relieved that I have announced RAVEN BOYS so this following story involving Mitsubishis will have a modicum of context.

Because it was not yet 9 a.m., I assumed the dealer was closed, so I cruised into the parking lot and backed Slick the Wonder Car into an empty spot. Ha! I was woefully mistaken, dear reader! The moment I stepped out of the car, a dealer-man manifested directly next to me.

DEALER-MAN: What can I DO for YOU?
ME: I am here to look at Evos.
DEALER-MAN: *strangled noise*
ME: What was that? That noise?
DEALER-MAN: *wordlessly points from Slick the Wonder Car to the Evos.* *finally manages* But you have that. WHY?
ME: That is anti-salesmanship, my good sir.

Do you know what a Mitsubishi Evo(lution) is, dear reader? It is this:

This marvelous thing goes from 0-60 in 4 seconds or something close to it, is not very expensive in the general sense of things that go 0-60 in less time that it takes you to find your car keys, and is generally clumped in the greater automotive lexicon of Boy Racer. It is quite precisely what you would expect to find a Raven Boy in, which was why I was there, but it was also quite clearly not what DealerMan expected to find a Maggie in (which is patently false. If I did not have Loki and Slick the Wonder Car, I would consider a Boy Racer because I enjoy both speed and irony, and me in an Evo would accomplish both neatly).

For a moment, I thought about inventing a story about how I was contemplating trading Slick the Wonder Car in for an Evo because I'd caught my husband and my dog trainer in the back seat of Slick the Wonder Car, or how I had watched 2 Fast 2 Furious so often that my life wouldn't be complete without an Evo, or how I just couldn't bear the unremitting Slickness of Slick the Wonder Car and needed something less slick, but then I remembered that I lived in the Big City and had just been recognized in a Super Target, so it wouldn't behoove me to go around telling grandiose falsehoods in case I ran into DealerMan again in a different context.

So instead I told him who I was and that one of my characters was driving an Evo in my next book (the sequel to Raven Boys) and that he had absolutely no chance of selling one to me as I merely wanted to poke around for research's sake. Unperturbed, DealerMan spent the next 30 minutes talking about Evos and then he got the key and let me sit in it and start it up. I would've test-driven it, too, although there was no earthly reason to test-drive one for purposes of my novel, but apparently you cannot test-drive Evos, because they know that all you want to do is find out if it really does go 0-60 in less time than it takes you to say "Excuse me, ma'am, can I have a ham and cheese sandwich with lettuce but no mayonnaise, please?"

Then DealerMan and I parted ways amicably and I drove home and wrote a chapter with a Mitsubishi Evo in it. It's a very fine chapter, if I do say so myself.

So thank you, Jackson Pearce. It turned out all I really needed was to Go Somewhere and Do Something.

And My Next Project Is . . .

2012-02-02T05:31:00.000-08:00

Okay . . . so it is that moment. That moment where I reveal what MagicalNovel is really about. On Monday I mentioned that it was the most ambitious thing I’d ever tackled and I showed MagicalNovel’s baby photos, and then I encouraged readers to guess what it was about, with hilarious results. (One reader — Cathrine M.H. — did get it precisely right and I will be sending her something prizey).

But now the guessing is over. It will be coming out September 18th of this year, and here is the cover.

*cuddles cover*

*cuddles it some more*

And here is the official summary:

Filled with mystery, romance, and the supernatural, The Raven Boys introduces readers to Richard “Dick” Campbell Gansey, III and Blue Sargent. Gansey has it all—family money, good looks, devoted friends—but he’s looking for much more than that. He is on the hunt to find Glendower, a vanished Welsh king. Legend has it that the first person to find him will be granted a wish—either by seeing him open his eyes, or by cutting out his heart.

Blue Sargent, the daughter of the town psychic in Henrietta, Virginia, has been told for as long as she can remember that if she ever kisses her true love, he will die. But she is too practical to believe in things like true love. Her policy is to stay away from the rich boys at the prestigious Aglionby Academy. The boys there—known as Raven Boys—can only mean trouble. When Gansey and his Raven Boy friends come into her life, Blue realizes how true this is. She never thought her fortune would be a problem. But she was wrong.

It doesn’t mention that Gansey wears top-siders for practically the entire novel, but that is also true. It doesn't mention that this was the book that had me soliciting Twitter for all that "boys behaving badly" music for the playlist while I wrote it, but that is also true. It also doesn’t mention that THE RAVEN BOYS is book one in the four-book Raven Cycle, but that is also ALSO true.

So . . . there it is. I feel weird releasing this into the world, because it feels like such a different sort of project for me (which I now realize I have said every time I announce a new book). I’ve never planned out a series so painstakingly before, nor worked with so many characters. I’m having more fun than you can possibly imagine.

Well, possibly you can imagine it. Just insert my face hovering above three bowls of a cookie dough. That emotion is quite similar.

As always, if this sounds delightful, you can pre-order a signed and doodled in copy from Fountain Bookstore. Or you can pre-order from Amazon here.

I hope you guys love it. I leave you with the two songs iTunes informs me I listened to the most in this novel's playlist.

I realize the songs are very different, but so are Gansey and Blue. If you put those two tracks together, I think you have a pretty good idea of what this book is like.

The Cagey is Almost Done

2012-01-31T04:49:00.000-08:00

I am very pleased to report that my caginess about MagicalNovel is nearly done. Scholastic has given me the okay to reveal the details of my next project this Thursday. That is barely any time away from now! That is practically now!

But I'm still impatient.

So I shall tell you things that MagicalNovel is not. It is not the sequel to LAMENT & BALLAD. That's REQUIEM (briefly known on Twitter as WinterNovel), and I'm working on it on the weekends and it will eventually appear. It is not a sequel to THE SCORPIO RACES or FOREVER (these things will not happen).

And I shall tell you something that it is: namely, a project I've been cooking ever since I was 19 or 20, back when I was not a good enough writer to pull it off, an origin story that might sound similar to THE SCORPIO RACES'. What can I say? I wrote lots of crappy novels with good ideas back then. I have in fact been carrying around a hand-written draft of this manuscript through four moves, written in a journal which pretty much begged for something like MagicalNovel to be scrawled in it.

Now, MagicalNovel doesn't resemble that old manuscript very much, but the central conflict and most of the main characters' names are unchanged. Even back then it was the most ambitious thing I'd ever tackled, and even using everything I learned so far, it is possibly the hardest novel I have ever written, a fact I hope will not be obvious on the pages.

So, guesses? Closest to the actual novel will get a prize that I haven't thought of yet. Something prizey.

From Rough to Final: TEN Dissections

2012-01-23T12:32:00.000-08:00

So, do you remember the last time I blogged? Like, two hours ago? This blog post was originally scheduled to be that blog post, because I hadn't planned on winning a Printz Honor or Odyssey Honor today. Anyway, I did, and I posted about them first, but now that that little life-paradigm-changing news is out of the way, I can talk about a group effort that I'm really pleased about.

This is going to be a writing post.

I'm a hands-on learner, one of those people who would prefer to be told "recreate x" without a strict set of directions on how to get there. So when I posted my dissection of a rough chapter from THE SCORPIO RACES, with a description of why I changed the things I did, I was doing it because it would've helped starting-out-writer-Maggie in a way that theory never seemed to. For me, it was all right to be told how to do something. But it was even better to see someone at work at that something. If they would describe what they were doing at the same time, even better, but really, the most important thing was the work in progress. It's why when I taught my colored pencil classes, I used to do the same thing:

The reaction to my chapter dissection suggested that I wasn't alone in my learning style, and a few commenters wished that other authors might do something similar. I shot out some feelers and I'm pleased to tell you, some other authors are doing just that. Below is a list of dissection blog posts by ten other authors. I hope this helps show just how many different ways there are to get from A to B, and also gives everybody ideas on which way might be right for them. And thanks to the readers who prodded me in this direction. Without further ado, the blog posts:

Kimberly Derting writes about THE PLEDGE, developing real characters, and debating swearing and no-swearing.

Jaclyn Dolamore writes about MAGIC UNDER GLASS and pacing issues, struggling with descriptive versus info-dump, and the cutting of entire human beings from drafts.

Sonia Gessler writes about THE REVENANT and how to flesh out a moment using knowledge gained through multiple drafts. Fascinating stuff for those of you who tend to end up with really short drafts and aren't sure what you're missing (as I was when I first started out).

Dawn Metcalf writes about LUMINOUS and the process of finding out the difference between what the reader needs to see in order to know what's going on versus what you need to write to find out for yourself what's going on.

Saundra Mitchell writes about THE VESPERTINE and how drastically pacing can and should change, especially in crucial early chapters. Bonus round: examination on how to balance period language in your novel.

Jenny Moss writes about SHADOW and, like Sonia, talks about how you can take a very spare manuscript and turn it from a skeleton into a creature with flesh and facial features. Moreover, looks at the timeline for writing a novel, and just how long a quick draft can really take.

Jon Skovron writes about MISFIT and a very satisfyingly changed final draft — lots of red Xs and vanishing prose in this one, people. Though my Scorpio dissection made me look like a very tidy reviser, my process with MagicalNovel and Shiver looked a lot more like Jon's process with Misfit.

Kiersten White writes about PARANORMALCY and her line-by-line attack on her draft. To me, it feels very familiar — definitely similar to the thought process I undertook when cleaning up Scorpio.

Brenna Yovanoff writes about THE SPACE BETWEEN and her extremely skeletal first drafts. Brenna's one of my two critique partners and I've always been stunned and delighted and afraid of her first drafts — they are alien things of terror, full of non-words. I'm wishing she would've shown one of her more terrifying pages (they are full of place holder thingies) but you probably will learn more frm the one she picked.

Margo Lanagan writes about THE BRIDES OF ROLLROCK ISLAND. I very much enjoy Margo's precise language and in her dissection of her latest selkie novel, I can see where it comes from. Click on the images below to see them larger.

Rough Draft

As Novella

Final Draft

Margo's Comments:

Okay. So now what is going to happen is I am going to go make the world's largest batch of chocolate chip cookie dough because I just don't see how I can process the events of this week without it. Tomorrow I'm flying out to work on my anthology with Brenna Yovanoff and Tessa Gratton and I'm afraid they're going to have to bear the brunt of my demented grinning.

How Caller ID Nearly Prevented A Very Nice Sunday (Twice)

2012-01-23T07:42:00.000-08:00

I'm trying to figure out how to write this blog post. It wasn't the post I'd thought I'd be writing this morning — I actually have another major writing blog post that's going to go up later this afternoon, a collaborative thing with a bunch of awesome authors — and I reckon if I'd known how today was going to go when I was scheduling it, I would've done things differently.

Because today was the day of the ALA Youth Media Awards. You know, that fancy day when they announce the winner of the Newbery (for excellent children's books for 14 and under), the Caldecott (excellent illustrated children's books), and the Printz (excellent young adult books). I was keeping my eye on them for no other reason than the Alex Award winners would also be announced at the same time, and I generally make it a point to read and love all of the Alex Award winners.

But yesterday while I was vacuuming my house for company, my cell phone rang. I didn't recognize the number and I am hateful of telephones, so I nearly didn't pick it up, but then I thought: perhaps it is one of my author people's cellphone.

ME: Hello?
THEM: *garblesmackgarble*
ME: I can't quite —
THEM: *garblesmackErinfromgarblePrintzsmack*
ME: (thinking, this is a bad connection, truly, I thought they said Printz committee there!)
THEM: ERIN, THE CHAIRMAN OF THE THE PRINTZ COMMITTEEsmacksmackgarble

I then rambled incoherently in their ear about how I couldn't really hear them and moved into my piano room as if that would make the connection better (it did not) and then out of shame and regret that I couldn't hear the Printz committee when they were clearly trying very hard to be heard by me, I lied and told them I could understand them perfectly. So I'll relay the rest of the conversation to you, but in order to understand it, you have to imagine their voice with an octopus' accent. You know, watery.

THEM: We're calling to tell you that THE SCORPIO RACES has been awarded a Printz honor!
ME: . . . of course you are.
THEM: . . .
ME: I'm going to pass out now.
At that point the phone connection failed. I debated for a moment if it was unprofessional to call THE PRINTZ COMMITTEE back as they probably had extremely important things to do and had, after all, conveyed their message to me. However, I was struck by the knowledge that if I didn't call them back, they might believe that I had fallen down and struck my head on my piano and then decide to give my Honor to a more physically able candidate.

ME: *dials* Hi. I didn't pass out.
THEM: We thought we'd lost you!

I can't remember what happened then. I think I said "thank you" approximately 17 times, and then they told me I couldn't tell anyone anything until Monday, and then they left me in the silence of my unplayed piano room to stare at my phone.

And as if that wasn't enough, I had to pick up another call from an unrecognized number yesterday, which turned out to be the producer of my audio books, letting me know that The Scorpio Races had won an Odyssey Honor, which is the ALA award for excellence in audio books. You see? I TOLD YOU I loved my narrators.

I still haven't really processed it, though I watched the ALA webcast of the awards and my legs got all noodly when they said my name and saw the medal on my book. I mean, my book. With a medal. So many of the books I grew up loving bore one of these three medals — Printz, Caldecott, Newbery — and now I have one too.

Saying it that way makes me a little breathless, so maybe I am starting to internalize it. Maybe.

I should tell you, too, that by way of celebration, I went immediately to Fountain Bookstore's website and ordered all of the Alex Award winners that I didn't already own.

What a fine, fine day.

/noodly

My Top 15 Music Recommendations for 2011

2012-01-19T04:33:00.000-08:00

Pretty much everyone who knows me knows I have a music problem. They might not know the full scale of it, but they know it's there. Well, it's time for me to try to rub that problem off on you with my 2011 favorites. iTunes informs me I purchased 583 tracks in 2011, and a bit of simple math tells me the top five songs with the most plays have been listened to forty seven hours total. That means for my top five songs (all used while writing MagicalNovel), I listened to them for two entire days of my life. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

Anyway, this list will be skewed toward the pop/ rock that I bought rather than the folk/ Celtic/ soundtrack that I bought, just because I realize that the latter has a more narrow listenership. But I can be bullied into talking about those too, and many of them will come out when I post the playlist for MagicalNovel (which I can talk about and reveal a cover for, turns out, in just a few weeks). Without further ado, here are my top four albums for 2011.

**actually, further ado: musicians, like authors, are able to do this crazy thing for a living because of legal purchases of their intellectual property. If you love a track, please buy it legally from iTunes, Amazon, or your local music peddler.**

1 - Death Cab for Cutie - Codes and Keys
Full disclosure: I'm a huge Death Cab fan. Their album Plans has always been my favorite, and I was hoping for something even remotely similar. Well, I think this album might beat out Plans for me. The album is one of those rare and lovely things: a bunch of songs that work perfectly by themselves but have even more impact when played together. "Monday Morning" is one of my favorites.

2 - Zoe Keating - Into the Trees

I'm not sure MagicalNovel could have been written without this album. If you are a cello fan, you'll adore Zoe Keatings's latest, which is her cello recorded over itself many times over. It's haunting. (And if that's not enough to spur you to listen, she worked with Imogen Heap). This song - "Escape Artist" - is one of my favorites off the album.

3 - Boy & Bear - Moonfire

An Australian newcomer for me. I got this recommendation while on tour. Basically, this is what I wanted Fleet Foxes' latest album to sound like. "Feeding Line" is the catchiest single off it, but my actual favorite is "Lordy May."

4 - Florence & the Machine - Ceremonials

More disclosure: I really liked Florence & the Machine's last album. A lot. It's one of those albums that is grand for putting on and then cleaning your entire house (which I'm not sure was my editor's intention when he sent it to me). I didn't have my breath held for this album, but . . . wow. Great from beginning to end. My favorite track off the album is "What the Water Gave Me" but if you are a fan of Maxfield Parrish or the 1920s, check out her fantastic video for "Shake it Out."

5 - Ramona Falls - Intuit
I'm sneaking this one on there, because it wasn't released in 2011 — that's just when I discovered it. I'm not sure if I would've been sucked in without their weird and distressing music video for "I Say Fever," but I did, and the rest is iPod history. Ah! Listening to it makes me think of MagicalNovel!

And here are my top 10 favorite singles.
1 - Coldplay - “Major Minus”
Didn't love the album, but love a few of the tracks.
I like it because: it moves.

2 - Gotye - “Someone That I Used to Know”
Another Australian recommended to me by a book blogger.
I like it because: it reminds me nostalgically of the Australian rock from the 80s/90s.

3 - Switchfoot - “The War Inside”
True confession: Switchfoot is the very lightest of the hard stuff in my album. Much of my musical taste runs to the "my mother would not bear it" variety. But it's got to be catchy.
I like it because: it saved my bacon on MagicalNovel. Also, it makes me want to jump on cars.

4 - Adele - “Rolling in the Deep”
More true confessions: Adele is not normally my kind of music. But I saw the video for this in France (wow, I sound worldly!) and the tune is just . . . infectious. I like every version of it.
I like it because: It sounds like anticipation.

5 - Imogen Heap - “Lifeline”
Imogen Heap is doing a cool thing where she releases singles every few weeks instead of releasing an entire album. I highly encourage you to check out her website if you like her style. So far, this is my favorite of her new tracks.

6 - City & Colour - “Little Hell”
Just because I'm not working on the Shiver trilogy any more doesn't mean I have lost my insatiable desire for bittersweet/ miserably sad musical tracks.
I like it because: it is bittersweet/ miserably sad.

7 - The Civil Wars - “Barton Hollow”
A recommendation from my friend Natalie, one of those people who says "I have a song for you" and I rush to buy it without thinking, because our tastes are so similar.
I like it because: it sounds like my '73 Camaro. Or kudzu.

8 - Foster the People - “Pumped Up Kicks”
This song has gotten so much radio play, I'm not certain it needs me to say anything. But in case you haven't heard this, here it is. Catchy and summery and as an artist, I appreciate that it's about something difficult that the band was trying to process.
I like it because: It's summer.

9/10 - Lost Lander - “Cold Feet” & “Afraid of Summer”
This band gets bonus points because they are so new that you get to be the cool person for knowing they exist. At least for a few months. If you love The Shins, I reckon you'll love them too.
I like it because: This is the radio sounds when it plays in my dreams.

The Only Thing I Am Going to Say About Bloggers in 2012

2012-01-17T07:19:00.000-08:00

So, some of you might have noticed there is Anger in the Blogosphere lately over author-blogger interactions. If you don't know about this, get a cheese danish, skip this post, enjoy your blissful ignorance. I heartily wish I could join you. If you do know about this, you probably already have firm opinions. Basically what it comes down to is that authors are screaming at bloggers/ Goodreads users for negative "reviews" (more on the quotation marks in a bit), and bloggers are screaming at authors for being unable to take criticism and acting unprofessionally. There are subplots to this rabbit hole, but that's a good start. I wasn't going to say anything about this, but then the Guardian did a fairly ridiculous article about the contentious relationship between the YA blog world and authors. When mainstream media is talking about it, it becomes my business.

OK, I want to talk a bit about reviews. This may seem a bit rudimentary, but stick with me. A review is an unbiased, careful look at a book — basically it is a little academic paper. It involves an itty-bitty thesis on your opinion of the book, surrounded by tiny supporting sentences describing the strengths and weaknesses of said book. Every month, dozens upon dozens of these reviews come out in professional journals. Because they're fair and thorough, they're prized and respected in the publishing world. Authors celebrate positive pro reviews. They sigh and learn from negative pro reviews. Publishing houses bend over backward to send review copies to these journals in time for a timely review, because good reviews can make or break a book's success with libraries and booksellers.

And these reviews are hard to write. I recently reviewed a novel that I'm not going to tell you about for a journal I'm not going to reveal (it's not out yet) and I have to tell you, it was hard work (unlike my quick and flippant book recommendations I post here on the blog). My opinion was important, yes, but even more important was getting the essence of the book across in a few short paragraphs. The better I define the strengths and weaknesses, the more useful that review is really going to be to a reader. In the end, my opinion is nearly secondary — I should've done my job well enough that the reader can decide for themselves if the book is for them or not. Because a review isn't for me. It's for other people.

So, that is a review. Let's talk about the negative "reviews" that authors have been lashing out at. They often involve animated gifs, swearing, and snark. They're often quite funny. But here's the thing, though. When a blogger writes a biased, hilarious, snarky rundown of a book they despised, he/ she is not writing a review. They are writing a post about a book. I'm not saying that bloggers shouldn't write biased, hilarious, snarky rundowns of books. I'm saying that those rundowns are not reviews. Bloggers who regularly write them cannot expect to garner the same respect and treatment from authors that pro reviewers or non-pro reviewers do. They can't expect authors to read their posts and learn something from them. And they cannot expect authors to not take it personally. They've made it personal.

How personal? I’ve gotten "reviews" that question my parenting prowess, my sexual frequency, my literacy, my intelligence, my relationship with wolves (take from that what you will, they did), my loveless marriage, my personal appearance, and, my absolute favorite, how I have chosen to write the current book the way I did in order to cash in on trends or because my publisher told me to add in something commercially useful (love triangle, sex, no sex, sequel, no sequel, longer, shorter, faster, slower . . . )

Folks, that's just being a jerk. Doing it to be funny, but still, it's unprofessional and it is not a review. And everyone knows the difference between a negative, but even-handed review and a jerk-fest. Because not only bloggers can be jerks. When a professional outlet puts out an unprofessional review, there's uproar all over the internet, because the difference between a review and a scathing editorial whinge about a book is, when push comes to shove, obvious.

Ultimately, the reason why I find the Guardian article to be incorrect is because YA authors don't have a problem with online book reviewers. There is rarely any drama over the dozens of bloggers who write hundreds of great reviews every month, both positive and negative.

I vote we move away from the kerfuffles and back toward the books in 2012.

ETA: On the other side of this post on bloggers, I should also add: Authors, please don't be jerks to bloggers or authors or puppies. The end.

*FURTHER ETA: I'm happy to discuss this in comments, but please do read my replies to previous comments to see if I've already answered your question/ clarified. This applies to most every question about whether this post is about blog reviews being inferior to pro (paid) reviews (it's not), whether it's about me believing negative reviews are bad (it's not), whether it's about me thinking book reviews shouldn't have an opinion in them (it's not), whether it's about me questioning the validity of anything that cannot be called a review in the strictest sense (it's not). I'm not impressed by folks turning this post into me being negative about the blogosphere. Like I said, I'm happy to discuss, but please read the post in the spirit it was intended and then read the comments. Thanks.

**FURTHER FURTHER ETA: I need to say that this post is NOT a direct response to that Guardian article — it's been pointed out in the comments that that casts the post in a different light. It was merely a catalyst for me to jot my thoughts down about it. I in NO WAY want to encourage any author to engage with any sort of negative reader response, be it review in a journal, review on a blog, scrawled Sharpie on a public bathroom wall. I will be the first to say that, as a newb writer, I replied to a negative review once, and I have regretted it ever since. NOTHING GOOD CAN COME OF IT.

Five Things About THE LOCK ARTIST

2012-01-14T07:57:00.000-08:00

Wow, am I ever on a reading roll. Considering I normally adore fewer than ten novels in a year (about one in six or seven of the books that I read), it seems impossible that I should find another novel I adore so soon after reading Where Things Come Back. But I adored The Lock Artist. Those of you who read my review of Where Things Come Back will remember that I was longing for a book about guns and helicopters and magic, but found Things instead. Turns out that The Lock Artist was the book I was looking for then. Well, if you substitute “safes” for “magic.”

Basically, it’s about a teen with a dangerous talent: picking locks and cracking safes. He gets tangled up with some dangerous people and dangerous things happen. Did you catch that? It is danger x 3.

Here, without further ado, are five more things about the book.

1. Even though it is a thriller/ mystery/ action-adventure, it’s very character-driven. Our main character (the thrillingly named “Mike”) has been silent since the age of eight, when Something Terrible Happened to Him. And by silent, I mean Quiet As The Dead And Not Like a Zombie Novel But Like a Novel Where the Dead Really Don’t Make Noise Because They Actually Are Dead. And by Something Terrible, I mean Something I Thought I Had Guessed Because I Have Read A Million Books But Actually No It Was Not That It Was Worse. Mike doesn’t speak. At all. It’s remarkable to watch how Hamilton manages this narrator who can only tell stories in his head.

2. The pacing. There is something magical going on with the pacing in this novel, and I need to go back and take it apart slowly and methodically to figure out exactly how Hamilton did it. It’s a page turner, but . . . not like that. Ordinarily I’m quiet bored by action sequences. Right, gun, sure, kick, yep, punch, okay, blood . . . are we done here? I want to get back to the plot, and action scenes are often like sex scenes — they are just hanging there, an exclamation point on the end of a sentence that we’ve already read. But, somehow, not with this novel. I HAD to keep turning the pages, yes, but not because of the action. It was because every page left me with a question, and I had to turn the page if I ever wanted to find out the answer. It meant that instead of my usual racing through an action novel, flipping pages faster and faster, I was reading with the same care and urgency at the end as I was at the beginning. I don’t know how to describe it any better than that.

2(b). The prose. This really is sort of in line with the pacing. When I first began reading the novel, I thought, man, this prose is so — easy. It just says what it says. Well, okay, whatever. I’ll just read a few more pages. And then, the next thing I knew, four hours had gone by and I’d finished the novel and I was hugging my Nook to my chest. The prose became utterly invisible. Like a very good thief, it got in, did its job, and got out, without leaving any trace of itself. I can appreciate just how hard it is to write a book that reads so easily. Well done, Hamilton.

3. Girl. You know these things always have a token girl. The one that makes the hero look noble and powerful and hetero. Well, this book also has a girl, but she is smart and unique and felt like a person. There was no thumping of chests and conquests. There was just a really wonderful and slightly uncomfortable teen romance. With comic book, menial labor, and lock picking overtones.

4. The annoying thing about thrillers is that they so rarely pay off. They’re, well, thrilling, and then you get to the end and go, yup. Well, that happened. Next? Possibly the best thing about this book is that the second half of it is as strong as the first, if not stronger, and there is one of the most psychologically horrific scenes that I’ve read in awhile in the second half. It might have something to do with the Terrible Thing That Happened to Mike. Hamilton proceeds briskly from this Terrible Scene into the denouement, which is tense and satisfying and exactly the way I wanted the book to end. That pretty much makes this book the perfect thriller in my eyes.

5. I am not the only person who has adored this book. It is an Edgar winner (that’s a prestigious award for mystery, for you muggles out there) and it’s also an Alex Award winner, which is how I found it. The ALA Alex Award recognize adult books with high appeal to teen readers, and I tend to love their choices. If you compare the list of Alex winners over the years with my five-star-books on Goodreads, you’ll see considerable overlap. Because it’s an adult book, not a YA, I should mention that there are f-bombs and violence and all that jazz. More Guy Ritchie than Tarantino, though, for the most part.

I have now managed to write a novel about this novel. If you’re looking for a book about guns and helicopters and safes, go pick it up. Or even if you’re looking for a book about guns and helicopters and magic. Because it’ll still make you happy.

Five Things About WHERE THINGS COME BACK

2012-01-09T20:06:00.000-08:00

1. So. Where Things Come Back by John Corey Whaley takes place in Lily, Arkansas, but it could take place in Nowhere, Virginia, as well, a place I am well acquainted with. It takes place in a small town the same way that my life took place in a small town — not in a surface way, not in a Hollywood way, but in a way that touches every bit of your life. Not good or bad, really, just . . . grit and dust and gross gas stations and lots of church. I appreciate that it feels effortlessly real, not like Whaley is trying to convince me that it’s real. It just is what it is.

2. This book is about a guy sighting an extinct species of woodpecker in Lily, Arkansas. Actually, it’s not. That is there, but it’s subtext and it’s delightful. The reappearance of the Lazarus woodpecker stands for everything that Lily, Arkansas needs and everything that Lily, Arkansas wants. Well done, Book.

3. This book is actually about Cullen Witter and the day his brother Gabriel goes missing. I know what you’re thinking, because I was thinking it too. Whatever. I’m not normally a terrible person — okay, that’s a lie, I am a terrible, jaded person — but I really didn’t care about Gabriel’s fate when I opened this book. I was not really in the mood to read a quiet book about a boy coping with his brother’s disappearance. In fact, before picking it up, I informed one of my friends that all I wanted to do was read a book about helicopters, guns, and magic and I didn’t have a book that fit that description in my house, so I guessed I’d just read this one. This book had such an uphill climb in winning my affection. Even when it made me laugh in the first two chapters, I resented it. “How dare you make me laugh, quiet book? Do you have any helicopters? Any guns? Any magic? No? THAT’S WHAT I THOUGHT. Shut up!” The book did not shut up. And it turned out, I didn’t need any helicopters or guns or even any magic.

4. There are weird chapters from other people’s points of view. Again, I began my dialogue with the book. “Book, why are you telling me these things? Aren’t we supposed to be in Arkansas right now? Shouldn’t we be going home now?” I am here to promise you that those chapters not only eventually make sense, but also dovetail so delightfully with the main text that I was left saying only “well played, Book. Well played.”

5. It doesn’t really matter what this book is about. It’s a good book about a good kid and it’s a good story told remarkably well. In the last third, I thought there was no way that Whaley could really finish this in some way that I’d both believe and like, and . . . he did. So. Well played, Book. Well played.

From Rough to Final: A Dissection of Revision

2012-01-08T10:25:00.000-08:00

When I solicited readers' favorite blog posts for my last book contest, I didn't expect that so many readers would choose the post where I dissected my writing to show what I was doing. I promised that I would do a full chapter at one point, knowing it would take A Very Long Time to do. Well, it did take a very long time, and I'm not sure it will be helpful, but here it is. I tried to pick a chapter that showed a pretty typical amount of editing. And I tried to pick a chapter that wasn't too very spoilery. And I tried to pick a chapter that stood by itself so that people who hadn't read the book yet would have some clue of what I was trying to accomplish.

What I'm going to do is show you, first, the very first draft of Chapter 15 of The Scorpio Races. I've notated it with what I was thinking/ doing when I wrote each paragraph. If you click on the images, you'll be able to see them bigger. Then I'm going to post the final Chapter 15 of The Scorpio Races with notations of why I changed things.

I should hurry to say that this chapter is pretty typical of how I wrote this book, but your results may vary. I do a lot of my plotting and brainstorming in my head before I ever sit down to the computer, so, unlike some of my writer friends, you don't see my thought process evolving on the paper as much as you might suspect.

With that in mind and the apology that this blog post will be very very long, here is the rough draft.

THE ROUGH DRAFT

1. The first line, to me, is about the purpose of the scene; the mood I’m trying to set; the “mission statement” for the chapter. Edges — the first and last sentences of chapters, paragraphs, novels — are incredibly important for the work they do in the reader’s subconscious.
2. This paragraph is to set the scene. I want the reader to be able to “see” in their mind’s eye where the action is taking place for the rest of the scene. If I hold off on this information until later, the reader might set up a different image in their head and be startled when I tell them MY version of the location.
3. This paragraph looks like it’s about setting, and it is, but it’s also about Sean and what he thinks of the other people on the beach. The details he chooses to highlight emphasize how he finds them incompetent. Word choice: Privett is “beating,” not “disciplining.” Hale is selling charms, but Sean’s contempt of them is “that will not save you.” And Falk is “flapping,” barely more than an inanimate object. Sean is all about control, and everything in this paragraph shows how he views those who don’t have it.
4. For pacing, and emphasis.
5. This is about Puck, but it’s also about Sean. I wanted the reader to see what he admires in people. After his indifference to the people in the second paragraph, we now see what catches his attention.
6. Pacing, and emphasis.
7. This is me conveying information about the subtle magic system and how it is that Sean handles the dangerous water horses. I want the reader to know that Sean’s skill is not by accident; he knows what he’s doing.
8. More of Sean’s prejudice.
9. “My beach.” By now, I want the reader to believe Sean when he claims ownership of the beach. Or if they don’t, I definitely want them to believe by the end of the chapter. This is me, too, referring to the way that he owns his water horse Corr — not in a fiscal sense, but in all the other ways that are important.
10. With so much going on, and so many characters, it’s easy to lose sight of the main players. Like a painting with a really busy background. This is me restating the piebald mare so that readers won’t forget about her.
11. Originally written so that all of the one liners were Sean’s careful control slipping.
12. I try, when I’m describing things, to make the reader FEEL what I’m feeling in the scene, rather than telling them out right. I want the reader to shiver without knowing exactly why. So instead of merely saying the wind is strong, I put myself in the moment (this is where hands-on research is so important) and remember everything that I felt. It is often the tiny details, like salt in your mouth, that will transport the reader, rather than the obvious things. Also, in this case, the things that he likens the wind to are things that DO happen on this beach (screams, drowning), so it serves as foreshadowing and making the island a character.
13. Pacing, emphasis, Sean’s lack of control.
14. Connecting Sean with the horses
15. A “murder” is the term for a flock of crows, but I liked it for the group of fractious horses. (See #12)
16. One of the things that I’m always harping on with drafts is that they need to be specific. Make it a book that can’t take place anywhere else, make so that it couldn’t happen to any other people, make it so that the plot couldn’t be told by anyone else. With this book, the specifics tend to get very horsey. I grew up with horses and rode them jumper/ dressage all through college, and one of the challenges was to convey that information and make the book feel SPECIFIC without losing non-horsey readers.
17. More of Sean’s prejudice. Although methinks he doth protest too much.

18. Sean’s connection with the horses; his respect but lack of fear for them.
19. Sean’s connection with the island (notice the echo with the paragraph before).
20. One of my favorite lines. One of those that I knew I’d do absolutely terrible things in the course of revision to preserve it if I had to.
21. More horsey information to make it specific, and also more of Sean’s attention on Puck. I need the reader to believe that he is intrigued by her despite his disinterest in most people that can be classified as, well, humans.
22. With a taciturn character, I like to have another character make an observation about his/ her behavior that they wouldn’t notice of themselves. In this case, Sean is totally checking Puck out.
23. More subtle magic. What works/ what doesn’t. Emphasize the piebald again.
24. Thank YOU, Gorry, for getting that information to Sean in a non-info-dumpy way.
25. Remind the reader of the stakes.
26. Although the piebald may be beautiful, Sean will never see it. He sees only pain and death when he sees her, and the descriptions show that.
27. Earlier, Sean had warned buyers off the piebald. This line serves as a follow-up to prove that Sean’s opinion is taken seriously on HIS beach.
28. Building foreboding and urgency — the reader needs to start feeling a creep on their skin. Something is about to happen here.
29. Stakes, again, and a promise of what will happen in the climax.
30. This is worldbuilding, actually, that Sean refers to Blackwell by first and last name. It’s a part of the way Thisby speaks —who your parents are and their parents were is just as important as who YOU are.
31. Admiration from Sean and a hint to the reader: this person might be a player, later.
32. Gorry’s off-handed joke shows how everyday the danger is on the beach; he’s inured.
33. When writing action in first person, it always has to be seen through the “camera” of your narrator’s eyes.
34. Further reinforcement of Sean’s position on the beach. If you don’t believe that he’s earned the right to call it “his” beach by now, I’m in trouble as an author.
35. Pacing, stakes, emphasis.

36. When I get right into an action bit, the pretty language and description disappears. I need to keep the reader reading at the same speed as the action, which is fast. Sean doesn’t have time to notice much, and neither does the reader. Anything he does notice needs to be tied tightly to his personality.
37. Such as this. Sean loves the water horses, even at their most dangerous. Even as he’s trying to kill this girl, Sean sees him as beautiful.
38. The magic we mentioned early, slowly coming into shape. There’s no reason to info-dump.
39. Specifics, specifics. How is a water horse dying from any other horse dying? What are the little details that would stand out in the heat of the moment?
40. So often during a frenzied moment, I will notice one strange, unrelated thing, and that will become my memory for that scene forever after. I try to make the action FEEL as much like a real action scene as possible.
41. This sentence is from the original short story that I wrote about Sean and the water horses.
42. Pacing, pacing. Coming back up for air, I’m trying to recall for the reader that sense of flashing images as the world slows back down again.
43. Edges. The whole chapter was about a girl on the beach, and this book ends it.
44. Just in case you were wondering what my thrilling outlining process looked like while I was writing a rough draft.

THE FINAL DRAFT

1. Originally, this sentence was merely “It was the second day of training, and the first day it wasn’t a game.” Edited to expand upon this and give readers a better sense of what that first week of training entailed.
2. This was originally on a line by itself, but ultimately, the one-liner asides detracted from the pacing and made the scene a little unwieldy. I could get Sean’s unease across without resorting to gimmickry.

3. Sentence added to tie into the action of a previous chapter and make the scenes flow together better.
4. Edited to put the cloth on one of the mares instead of Corr, because as I’ve written along, I realize I need for Corr to react poorly to the magic and tricks of the trade. Added line about weighting the mare to the ground to foreshadow a later scene Sean has with her.
5. Edited to put the solo line in with the rest of the paragraph for pacing.
6. Broke this paragraph into two to allow the reader to read it faster, and also to put the focus of the subject from Sean’s wariness to the mare’s fear. Deleted the last sentence in the paragraph because it’s redundant.
7. Clarifying and setting Sean’s purpose for being on the beach.
8. Tidying and compressing the relationships between the horses, Sean, and Puck into one tiny sentence, isolated to draw the reader’s attention to it.
9. Streamlining these two awkward paragraphs — mostly you’ll notice it’s the edges I’m attacking. Changed “each uisce,” the traditional Scottish name for water horses, to “capall uisce,” which is still unpronouncable but slightly more phonetic, and also Irish instead of Scottish.

10. Added sentence for clarity and flow, again, by reading aloud. Deleted that one standalone sentence of Sean’s thoughts, because it was unnecessary.
11. Needed some more mood and setting in here. Removed Sean’s redundant thought at the end of this paragraph.
12. Put this on its own line for pacing, better readability.
13. Tightened this paragraph to say the same thing, but better.
14. Removed redundant sentence at end of paragraph.
15. Put in contractions. Sean was starting to sound like a geezer.

16. Specifics, specifics. Changed the commotion to a very specific commotion, an image the reader can really see.
17. Changed to be truer.
18. Change it to sound better read out loud.
19. Edited to streamline.
20. Changed “sand” to “jelly” for a more specific image.
21. Edit to tie back in to earlier action. Add description of Puck so that we know Sean still, subtly, sees something to admire in her.
22. To make it more specific, less cliche.
______________________

Man, I hope this is at all helpful, because this is the world's longest blog post. If you have questions, post 'em in the comments, and I'll edit the post to reflect the answers.

Giant Stack o' Books Winner!

2012-01-08T07:35:00.000-08:00

The random contestinator has spoken and the winner of the giant stack of books is Caitlin (http://upbeatandwhatnot.blogspot.com). A huge thanks to everyone for posting about what their favorite blog posts were!

Interview with THE SCORPIO RACES Audiobook Narrators

2012-01-05T04:51:00.000-08:00

I'm revoltingly pleased to say that the two narrators for the audiobook edition of THE SCORPIO RACES have agreed, very kindly, to do an interview. One of the things that I love about the folks who do my audiobook is that they encourage a large amount of author participation in the final project. So, in this case, the audiobook for SCORPIO features my music and an interview with me.

Moreover, after the first round of audio auditions, I got to choose the narrators for Puck and Sean. I thought Sean, understated and repressed, would be the most difficult to cast, but out of the pool of voice talent, Steve West's voice jumped out immediately. I wanted it to be even, restrained and mature, something the reader could imagine calming water horses and embodying the island, and Steve's narration pulled all that off. Puck turned out to be more difficult. She's effusive but not bubbly, childlike but not childish, humorous but with great depth of feeling. It took three times as long to find Fiona Hardingham — someone who fit that bill and sounded good paired with Steve West's voice. Because most of all, I wanted the narrators to eventually become invisible, for the reader to forget they were listening and just be in the story.

So. Here they are to answer a few questions about audiobook narration, and at the end I've posted the sampler (that some of you have heard before) I put together so you can hear what their voices sound like in action.

__________

MAGGIE: First of all, Steve, thank you for agreeing to answer a few questions for the blog. Before I do an interview, I always like to do a bit of research online about my subject. Imagine my excitement when I googled your name and discovered that there is a Steve West who is a world champion darts player. Not only is he a world champion darts player, but apparently he wins a lot. My first question was going to be: are you him — but then I saw a photo and you are very, very clearly not him. So my new question is do you at least play darts? if you don’t play darts, what do you do to kick back when you’re not voice acting?

STEVE: Did you also know there is a Steve West Reno radio vet? Yes, that was the first choice I got years ago when I tried stevewest.com.

I do not play darts often! But I did have a game last Feb in NYC and discovered I was not half bad at it after all these years (we played as kids).

As for 'kick back time' these days, well, I keep it quite simple. I guess half the reason I moved to LA was for the sunshine and outdoor lifestyle, so often when I'm not working, I enjoy the weather, being outdoors, having bbqs and sitting on my porch. I have a great view all the way to downtown LA so I have a sofa outside on the deck and love it — sitting there with a cup of tea (my Brit side coming through) and afternoon naps are the best! Santa Barbara is also a favourite of mine for an easy getaway visit as well as San Diego. And of course in contrast I also love my trips back to London for some time with the family, friends and a bit of city life.

MAGGIE: I’m now watching some commercials you did. Some of them are in German. Some of them are not. I particularly am enjoying this one involving you holding a drill in a Mischievous Way. As someone who does loads of acting — voice, film, commercial — is there one you find the most rewarding?

STEVE: Hmmm. I don't know, each has it's own particular stress, strain and joy. Movies and commercials and TV you can hang around a-lot. VO can be intense — especially narrating in the booth for hours. Of course some jobs we do for the love and some to pay the bills!
However I do love those actors that can do a play, then a movie, then a radio play, then narrate something, then back to the theatre and continue onto whatever else comes up. So, all in all I think I'm very much a variety is the spice of life type person. Nowadays the most important thing for me is doing things that interest me and give me a sense of accomplishment when all is said and done, which I have to say is what I love about audiobooks. When you reach that final page there's a real sense of having breathed life into something, and ultimately, bringing things to life is what being an actor is all about.

MAGGIE: I can’t help but notice a sense of humor in a lot of your projects. There are parts of The Scorpio Races, in fact, that you’ve rendered laugh-out-loud funny to me (they may or may not involve George Holly). Do you hunt for ways to incorporate humor, or is something that you have to tamp down?

STEVE: It is funny you should say that because I've often been perceived as the serious type, work wise anyway. Therefore I do love to get a chance to play around with things. Whether I actively hunt out the comedy I'm not sure but I'd definitely say if I perceive it on the page I can't resist bringing it out and that can be especially enjoyable in audiobooks where you get free rein to create a character's voice and delivery and timing from scratch.

MAGGIE: You know I have to ask: were there any parts of The Scorpio Races that you found more challenging or interesting than others? (this is where I recommend that if the answer is “no,” you make something up. I will never know.)

STEVE: The biggest challenge in Scorpio was having to consider another actor (and a female one at that)[Fiona Hardingham] and the characters she had created when telling parts of the story that involved those same characters but told from my side of the book. It was actually the first time I'd ever had to do that. Previously all the other books I've done have been solo works or else the little bits read by other people had no big impact on what I was doing. It was quite a challenge at first to listen to Fiona (she came in and recorded before me) and then incorporate what she had done - accent wise, tone, feel etc. into what I then had to do and especially as Fiona's voice is fairly high and mine pretty low! The main concern was that the listener would still understand who these characters were, whether it was I or Fiona performing them. Hopefully I got it right!

MAGGIE: And finally, please, tell me, because I can’t ever seem to pull it off. Do professional voice actors not make distracting spit noises when they narrate? Is it practice? Is it genetics? Is it editing? Because I’ve had to read several times now, and every time, it sounds as if I have just eaten a pudding cup. Tricks?

STEVE: It is part genetics, part behaviour and part editing. Some people just are noisier than others - I've heard this from editors! But these pointers should help, whether you are one of the noisier bunch or the not so noisy bunch!
1) Don't smoke (that really doesn't help)
2) take sips of water whenever you feel you might be getting a bit dry
3) use a lip balm
4) warm your mouth up before doing a read so you can enunciate easily (I use my old drama school speech class exercises).
And some people like hot lemon or certain other hot drinks and sweets that clear your airways etc. I like my English breakfast tea too much for that. And finally in the end, find a good editor — you'll be amazed what they can pull off when they put on those headphones and go to town.

__________

MAGGIE: I am revoltingly pleased to have the talented and hilarious Fiona Hardingham on the blog to answer a few questions about herself and being the voice of Puck for The Scorpio Races. Thanks, Fiona, for taking the time!

So ordinarily I google my interviewees before I write the questions so that my questions look well-informed and clever, but my days of googling you are long past. We’ve actually met, haven’t we, in Portland, on a rainy day, over giant mugs of coffee. I did pre-coffee googling then and discovered that you are not only a voice actress, but also a comedian. Comedienne? I am particularly a fan of your Russian accent. http://vimeo.com/27021089.

Talk to me. First question: your work or someone else’s? Writing or acting?

FIONA: Both. Not one or the other. Acting and writing feed my passion equally. I feel honored when I get to perform work by a talented writer. When it's my own writing and I'm either seeing it come to fruition through someone else or performing it myself for example in my one woman comedy show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival it's a totally different feeling of course. Writing and performing an hour long show with just you on a stage and hundreds of people watching certainly adds an extra layer of pressure. One that I certainly do not shy away from. I am far more critical of my own writing/performing than of other artists' work. But there is something about writing jokes that I adore. That moment when the audience responds. The good, the bad, and the down right silent. It's fantastic when you get it right and I happily fight for that all the time when writing/performing comedy. But the tough times are fantastic learning curves.

MAGGIE: I know you liked The Scorpio Races (thanks for that!) - did you have a favorite part? Was there a part that was more challenging to read?

FIONA: My favorite part was from the beginning to the end. I simply adored the book. I am very proud to have voiced the role of Puck. Steve West did a stellar job playing Sean. The parts that were the most "challenging" were the emotional bits. I tend to get choked up pretty easily. My imagination gets ahead of itself. Even when I'm in a booth speaking into a microphone. I really get immersed in the story, for example when Gabe said he was leaving, as Puck I really felt hurt. If it I were reading the final chapter as Puck it may have taken a few takes.

MAGGIE :Describe a day in the life of a Fiona. What is it that Fiona Hardingham does with herself when she’s not doing strange voices into a microphone?

FIONA: To be honest, I am always doing strange voices whether there is a microphone or not. As well as a Voice Over Artist I am a professional Actress and Film Producer. When I am not on set or in the booth I am running around Los Angeles for Commercial, Film and Television auditions. As a Film Producer I am on my phone and in front of my computer, in constant contact with Writers, Directors, and other Producers. There is always something to do, something to read, and someone to talk to. But after all the work is put in nothing compares to the sense of accomplishment and achievement in a completed film. I love it.

MAGGIE: And I asked Steve, but I’ll ask you again. Every time I do any sort of voice work at all, I become aware that I have more spit than anyone in the human race. I’m a sort of human St. Bernard, with saliva dripping from my maw. I can tell it’s there, because I can hear it in the microphone. Is it an actor thing that professional voice actors don’t make these sounds? Genetic? Practice? Editing?

FIONA: Much like any of the arts, voice acting is a skill in which you train your instrument (in this case the voice/mouth) over time to behave as you need it to in your work. However, all voice artists make unwanted sounds at times, and that's what editing is for. Our wonderful editing team have the joy of getting rid of the odd gurgle or saliva overload. I wish me telling a story poured out of my mouth like honey but, it does not. You learn techniques that help your voice and decrease the chances of making unwanted sounds. For me, herbal tea does the trick. Certain foods I would avoid as well. Granola bars full of nuts and gooey, sticky oats really don't work in the mouth when you are trying to read a story . . . let alone a story that's being recorded. Believe me, I tried.

__________

In Which Maggie Tackles Questions Asked a Lot in December

2012-01-03T06:51:00.000-08:00

I thought in this segment of Maggie-Does-Blogging, I might tackle some questions I've gotten asked a lot in the last month or so.

Will The Scorpio Races have a sequel?
No. That’s the short answer. The long answer is maybe when I’m 60 and feeling very nostalgic, I will write something called RETURN TO THISBY that won’t be as good as the original, but will please both me and lovers of Scorpio. But like I said. It’ll be in 30 years. I wouldn’t hold my breath.

I would like to talk to you about the ending of FOREVER. Will you?
No, but I will tell you that I did talk to readers about it in this chat hosted by Mundie Moms. I think it might answer your questions. http://mundiemoms.blogspot.com/2011/08/live-author-chat-with-maggie-stiefvater.html (Click on “replay” and it will show you the archived chat)

What is it with you and cliff-hanger endings?
Psh. Double psh. I have only written one cliffhanger ending in my life, and that is Linger’s. The endings to all of my other books are “open” endings, which means that not every eventuality is described in an epilogue, but the immediate conflict has been solved/ conclude. A cliff-hanger is where a new conflict is introduced right before the end. A NON ending is when the conflict the characters have been grappling the entire book is not resolved. One of these things I might possibly do again. The latter I would not dream of doing ever.

Open Ending Example: Beauty & the Beast. The immediate conflict is resolved. Do Beast and Belle get married? We don’t know. Do they have 8 children? We don’t know? Does Beast get stomach ulcers and become an accountant? WE DON’T KNOW.

Non Ending Example: End of the first Lord of the Rings movie. We begin by questing, and end by questing. Tune in next week for more!

Cliff-Hanger: The second Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Certain people who were supposed to be dead suddenly appear in the last scene of the movie, cut to credits, cue the screams from the audience.

Will you write another book in the Shiver series? Will you write a spin-off series?
Nope. That series is about hope and beginnings and the last thing I want to do is follow the remaining characters to the bitter end. Unlike The Scorpio Races, the nope will remain nope, even when I’m 60 and feeling nostalgic.

Will there be another book after LAMENT and BALLAD?
Yes. It’s called REQUIEM, it’s the last book in that series, and I’m working on it right now. Currently, the first two words of the rough draft are “Luke Dillon.”

Did you see that your book(s) was(were) in People Magazine/ New York Times/ Salon/ NPR/ Seventeen Magazine/ Los Angeles Times/ that new Stephen King miniseries with Pierce Brosnan/ on adverts in the London tube?
OMG yes. YES, I did.

When will you release another book?
I just finished editing MagicalNovel, which is secret and I can’t tell you anything about RIGHT NOW. Well, I can tell you it was a very hard book to write for reasons I can’t tell you about yet, and that it took 9 months to write a rough draft, which is crazy for me. But I will be telling you something about it, including its real title, in a few months, and it will be on shelves in the second half of 2012. It involves teens. That’s all I can say right now.

I also have a weird short story anthology called STORYBOOK that I did with my critique partners, Brenna Yovanoff & Tessa Gratton. I say weird because some of them are stories you can already find online at www.merryfates.com and weird because most of the anthology is actually us talking about our critique partner relationship and what we were thinking and learning as we wrote about each of the stories in the book. That’s coming out mid 2012, I think.

Will Shiver be a movie? What’s going on with the movie? Can I be in the movie!? Don’t make the movie! Do make the movie! Please can Chase Crawford play Cole/ Sam/ Beck/ Grace?
I get asked about the movie. A lot. A lot a lot. Its film rights were optioned shortly after it came out by Warner Brothers/ Unique Features. Optioning means that they’re looking at assembling all of the movie parts, but it’s all very tenuous and at any time it can perish. No, it does not have a release date (everything you see online to the contrary is lies and damn lies). No, it does not have a trailer (although some fans have very fine editing skills on YouTube). No, they are not casting. And no, I have no say in any of the previously mentioned things, so all of the headshots I keep getting sent? Deleted. I can’t do anything with them. I get asked a lot if there are new developments. Trust me, if there were new developments, I’d be howling them from the rooftops. And by rooftops, I mean Twitter.

Will The Scorpio Races be a movie?
Scorpio just got optioned by Warner Bros/ KatzSmith Productions and I had a great and optimistic phone call with the producers. Remember what I said about optioning above, though. It’s early stages. And even with full speed ahead, it would be YEARS before the movie comes out. Did you guys see Hugo last month? Yeah, the book it was based on came out in 2007. Twilight the book was published in 2005. Twilight the movie appeared in 2008. Books-to-movies take a long time. I swear, I promise, I declare that if I get any new news, I will shout it.

I made your November Cakes recipe. Do you want to see them?
YES. Post them on Twitter or Facebook, pretty please.

Can I use your lyrics/ words/ poems with my own music?
You can sing them all you like so long as you don’t try to sell them or mass-produce them (I realize this removes most of the fun from it). The rights to the lyrics belong to me and to Scholastic and the only versions of Summer Girl, etc., that are out there on iTunes have been approved by both of us. So, singing them in the shower = good. Singing them at your local gig = bad.

Did you send out your queries letters in bulk or one at a time to agents?
In tiny batches. Here is my blog post about queries: http://m-stiefvater.livejournal.com/147714.html. All of my writing posts are tagged with "how I write."

Are you Team Peeta or Team Gale?
In matters of Team Dude A versus Team Dude B, I’m usually Team Sanity. That said, I think Peeta is a better guy for Katniss, because Katniss is an ass and pairing her with another ass seems ill-advised. I say this with all fondness, as I adored Hunger Games.

My Favorite Reads of 2011

2012-01-01T05:54:00.000-08:00

Tada! Happy New Year! As always, I'm going to start the year with a list of my favorite books of 2011. Shelfari informs me that I read 59 books in 2011. At one point I thought I was going to climb back up to my old reading levels, but then I started reading loads of nonfiction for MagicalNovel research. I'm a little sad to have only read 8 five star books this year, but part of this is because a) I'm in the middle of reading two books I think WOULD have made this list if I'd finished them already and b) I am getting pickier and more crotchety in my old age. Looking for patterns in them, I can see that only one lacks a speculative element, three are set in the past, three have a pretty extensive kissy plot, and two of them I read with their Australian covers. Nearly all of them are books to savor, not books to flip the pages faster and faster. Make of that what you will. Without further ado, however, here are the books I adored and links to my reviews of them.

1) Ship Breaker, by Paolo Bacigalupi. Gritty, coastal novel set in a grim future where our protagonist scavenges broken ships for the useful bits still left on them. My review says: "Just a neat and satisfying package, all in one. Incredibly well written. Do yourself a favor and read it . . . slowly. This isn’t a book to be eaten in a night, though it could be done."

2) Between Shades of Gray, by Ruta Sepetys. A fairly dire but well-written YA historical about Lithuanians relocated to Siberian labor camps during World War II. I said: "It is a side of World War II that you might not have seen before. I certainly hadn’t heard these stories of displaced Europeans, and I have to say, having been to Lithuania on tour last year, it made so much of what they said have deeper meaning. I found their fierce national pride lovely and charming when I was there; after this novel, it seems incredibly brave and honorable."

3) The Big Bad Wolf & Me, by Delphine Perret. I know, it has pictures. But they are delightful, and I have Thing 1 and Thing 2 to think about. This book is full of sly humor and I laughed as much as they did.

4) Flyaway, by Lucy Christopher. A sweet middle grade novel with some faint magical realism. A girl finds a wounded swan while her beloved father is in the hospital. I said in my review: "It is precisely what it promises you. Sometimes I want to be shocked, yes, and sometimes I want twists, and sometimes I want to read about a very unexpected body in a closet. But this book promises that it is a certain sort of book on the first page, and then it gives you exactly that. Soft and sweet."

5) Warm Bodies, by Isaac Marion. Oh, how I adored this book. I found it while in a reading slump and it basically cured me for most of the year. It's a zombie book — but not like you think it is. I said: "You’ve been looking for a book where you finish it with a smile on your face, haven’t you? I know it. Well, this is it."

6) The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern. Everyone in the world has read this novel about a mysterious circus that pitches its tents in the middle of the night and runs on possibly real magic, but for those who haven't, I recommend it. This is one of those books to read over a few days, not a few hours. I said: "This is not a thriller. This is a not an action-packed adventure. It’s not even a simmering revenge or bubbling rivalry novel. It is a novel about a thing, with love in it, and it spans over a decade. If you have a problem with that idea, it’s best you walk away now. But if you like Ann Patchett or Audrey Niffeneggar novels, or if you really thought JONATHAN STRANGE & MR. NORRELL was the bee’s knees, well. WELL. You have just found your next read. Enjoy. I did."

7) Anansi Boys, by Neil Gaiman. I loved this book about brothers behaving badly and magic an unreasonable amount. It is a standalone companion to Gaiman's American Gods, and I preferred it. My review, however, was terrible. An excerpt: "This book is good.
This book is fast.
This book is fun.
This book is what it says it is.
Which is fun.
This book is a good, fast, fun read."

8) The Monstrumologist, by Rick Yancey. I was incredibly taken by this historical fantasy about the boy assistant to a monstrumologist — a scientist of the occult who is rather like an aging and unreformed Wizard Howl. My review said: "he beginning. Also, the middle. Also, the end. There is a character twist two thirds of the way through the book that I just did not see and I literally gasped on a plane. Then I was so delighted that a book had made me gasp on a plane that I punched Lover in the shoulder and made wild hand gestures."

Near misses on the Maggie-Five-Star-Train:
Heart-Shaped Box, by Joe Hill
War Horse, by Michael Morpurgo
In the Country of the Young, by Lisa Carey
An Aran Keening, by Andrew McNeillie

End of Year Book Cleaning Giveaway

2011-12-31T11:08:00.000-08:00

I believe it is time for a book giveaway, because these two things are true:

1) it is the end of the year. Ends of the year should result in tidy offices, in a perfect world. This is not a perfect world, but I'm doing my best to make it that way, one tidy office at a time.
2) I have bought a house. I think. I mean, we haven't closed yet, and I'm new to this grown-up thing. But I think I have bought a house. I don't want to move anything I don't really want to move.

So I have this.

They are all duplicates or books I won't reread or ARCs when I have finished copies, etc. etc. Also there is a copy of Linger because I have a lot of them. I would like very much to give these two stacks to a blog reader. Because I'm sure that you're also very busy this time of year, cleaning out your office and living room and basement to make this world a perfect place, my giveaway is not going to be complicated. The way to enter is to pick your favorite post from my blog, talk about it in brief or at length on your blog, facebook, twitter, tumblr, etc., and then post a link back to where you talked about it in the GIANT CONTEST TABULATING MACHINE WEBSITINATOR.

Which is here.

If you don't have a favorite blog post, you aren't eligible. >:D It's going to run for a week, until January 7th, and unfortunately, because of the size of the stack, you can only win if you have a U.S. mailing address. Which means if you have a friend in the U.S. who will accept a large package of fiction, you're still eligible even if you live on Alpha Centauri.

Um, what else? You can only enter once. You can post it on anything vaguely blog like, facebook like, etc., so long as you own the content (so, not a public messageboard). Use your common sense.

I'm going to close this blog post to comments to avoid confusion — I get a lot of confused entries posted to the blog otherwise. It has to be posted in the GIANT CONTEST TABULATING MACHINE WEBSITINATOR or it doesn't count.

As far as finding your favorite blog post, may I direct your attention to the tags on the right side of the blog, which all the major subjects conveniently and slightly obsessively categorized (just like my bookshelves!)

A Not Illustrated Guide to UK Touring, Days 7-13

2011-12-30T09:38:00.000-08:00

My. My. My. The holidays are finally over. I know you're thinking: oh ho, no they aren't, Maggie Stiefvater, there's still New Year's. But as I neither drink nor enjoy sleep deprivation, I can assure you that the end of the year will find me watching reruns of either Scrubs or the Big Bang Theory and then going to bed at an hour reasonable to humans. I have other vices, and they are not contained to any one particular day of the year.

Anyway, I am now going to wrap up my UK touring posts. I've been putting this one off as it requires a bit of assembly of the not-illustrated variety. See, after an assortment of school visits and travel in the middle of my UK tour, we finished with a rather impressive pair of events. One in Liverpool (which looks like Liverpool, if you've ever wondered) and one in London, with the assistance of Jonas & Plunkett. Blog readers will recall that Jonas & Plunkett are one of the bands I adore and also that they did a cover of Sam's "Summer Girl" from Shiver. I was revoltingly pleased when they agreed to play both "Summer Girl" and my personal favorite, "Spaceship," for the London event. In all honesty, I do have to admit that Adrian Plunkett did ask me to sing along with them. And I did write harmonies in my hotel room. But in the end, I did what happens whenever anyone asks me to sing in public. Here are the videos for those who couldn't be there (thank you, lovely reader, for video'ing these two songs)!

Sorry, Plunkett. I did actually think I would overcome my dislike of singing in public, but it turns out I'm still more comfortable playing my bagpipes for the entire planet than crooning for a roomful of readers. Rematch? With a harp or piano next time? (Also, for those of you who haven't heard the rest of their incredible music, it's all available on iTunes and you can listen to the studio version of Summer Girl here).

After these final events, the most perfect any author could ask for, I had a few days off to pursue research for MagicalNovel. I met up with my great (and musical) friend Erin Hill and she, my mother, my sister and I

got lost on the moor (for an hour)

went to Wistman's Wood (which looked like a lost 80s fantasy movie set)

Found wild ponies! (or maybe they found us)

climbed Glastonbury Tor (crawled Glastonbury Tor)

Saw the whole world (or at least the pretty parts)

Found this crazy Bough House made by a guy in Dartmoor and had it shipped home for Things 1 & 2 for Christmas.

(no, seriously, is it not the coolest thing ever? that came in a crate bigger than my car?)

And thus ended my touring for the year. A perfect ending, and as always, I can't wait to go back to the UK. Thank you to all of my readers for reading my books all over the world!

Happy Holidays from YA Writers!

2011-12-22T06:26:00.000-08:00

See if you can spot me in this video. Who knew YA authors had such . . . range?

(thanks to the delightful but possibly clinically insane Saundra Mitchell for organizing this.)

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

2011-12-13T19:24:00.000-08:00

I'm just in the middle of reading Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay and chapter 8 is the most perfectly constructed chapter I have read in approximately 1,000 years.

My Name is Maggie, I'm a Perfectionist, and I Never Stop Editing

2011-12-13T06:15:00.000-08:00

And I think this is okay.

I know a lot of writing advice out there encourages you to kill your inner editor and let your work run free and to release mental possession of your draft. I know this advice is trying to battle the scores of writers out there who cling to their drafts, picking over them instead of working up the courage to send them out to critique partners, agents, and mothers. But I'm not sure I really like this condemnation of continual editing as a universal truth. For a beginning writer? Yes, I think there's some sense to it. You have to learn how to tell when a first draft is done. You have to learn how to give it away. But once you've finished a novel or two, I don't see why writers should be encouraged to think perfectionism is a dirty word. For me, "done" is such an intuitive thing. I can tell when my novels are done when they stop needling at me. When I stop thinking of things to do to them. When the characters are no longer acting out scenes in my dreams. It can't be about the fear that I haven't covered everything. It has to be that feeling that the movie in my head has reached the last reel. Until that happens, I edit and re-read and tweak and move one word three sentences down the page. Though a reader might not notice that you changed "cold" to "icy" on page 47, a word by word attack on a draft can change the subconscious effect of it on a reader.

So yes, I am an unrepentant fastidious editor.

I think this pretty much goes for every element of my life. So it should surprise no one when I say that I edited the recipe for November Cakes. A few months I posted about how I was delighted to have invented a food for THE SCORPIO RACES, and then I added a recipe. Well, it was still niggling at me. They were fine, but FINE IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH. I spent several months turning over possible solutions to my perceived unhappiness with my first November Cakes recipes, and then . . . I edited it.

Yesterday I tried out my fix. Of course it was hugely better. The cakey bit was fluffier, richer, more nuanced. The glaze was gooier and clung to the crevices of the cakes better. The entire consistency was improved. Now you bite through a caramel-honey glaze with a bit of resistance and into a fluffy, sweet dough beneath. That was what I was trying to do before.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that you shouldn't kill your inner editor. Just set up boundaries for her. Also, use this recipe and not the other.

*click for a bigger version

and, right out of the oven, while the glaze is still melty:

Audiobook Winners!

2011-12-08T10:44:00.000-08:00

Because I lack the ability to choose only one winner, and because I have my blog split over both Livejournal and Blogger, I picked two random winners:

Colleen from Blogger

and

Oh she speaks from LJ.

Both of you please shoot me an e-mail with your mailing addresses.

Thank you everyone for giving it a listen and also for giving me your thoughts on the narrators and on audiobooks!

The Scorpio Races Audiobook Sampler

2011-12-07T10:20:00.000-08:00

I am deeply in love with the audiobook version of The Scorpio Races. I am a little biased, since I got to pick the audiobook narrators (Steve West & Fiona Hardingham) for Sean & Puck, but still, I think it even the unbiased would find it CLEARLY WONDERFUL. However, it's hard to explain this to people without examples.

Well. Here is are examples.

CLEARLY WONDERFUL, yes? What do you think? I'm especially interested to hear from the folks that are non-habitual audiobook listeners. Does this tantalize you, or does it leave you wishing for the printed page?

I just started reading THE GIRL WHO CIRCUMNAVIGATED FAIRYLAND IN A SHIP OF HER OWN MAKING and for perhaps the fifth or sixth time in my life, I have found myself wishing that I had it in audiobook format, because it seems like a sort of story I'd like told to me. Just the way the words look on the paper look like they'd be be better out loud. And I wonder about SCORPIO's translation from print to audio, because I frequently read sections out loud while writing in order to make sure I had them the way I liked them. So I wonder if/ how that affects the reader/ listener experience. Personally, I have a hard time listening to actiony books in audio, because I'm a much faster reader than I am listener, and when someone's going to die, darn it, I want to find out how much blood there's going to be. STAT. But when the prose is nice or when it is a fairytale sort of story, I think I'm getting won over to audio.

Thoughts?

I reckon, since I have an extra copy of the audiobook in my office, that I'll randomly pick one of the blog commenters to bestow a copy of THE SCORPIO RACES audiobook on. (I officially just rewrote that sentence three times, with three different verbs, in an attempt to not finish it on a preposition). I'll pick one this time tomorrow (the 8th).

(for those wondering you can find the audiobook here. and here. and here. and here.)

Five Things About THE NIGHT CIRCUS

2011-12-05T17:51:00.000-08:00

Ordinarily when I do my recommendations, I do a “five reasons to read _____,” but I think opinions will be so divided on THE NIGHT CIRCUS that I think “things about” will be more useful.

1. This novel is not what it says it is. Well, back page copy is always a weird thing anyway, as it’s not written by the author. And a weirder thing because it is essentially a glamour shot of the novel. It is not a lie. But it isn’t really what the novel looks like when it’s wandering around in its bathrobe getting coffee and trying to figure out if that smell is coming from the kitchen sink disposal or under the table. The resemblance is always a bit sketchy. THE NIGHT CIRCUS’ resemblance to its cover copy is sketchier than most.

2. This novel is about a thing. It has people in it, too, but it is mostly about a thing, the eponymous circus. It’s told in third person omniscient, which means it sounds like God is narrating the thing, if God decided he really loved black and white tents and fancy umbrellas. The voice that narrates this book is interested in humans, too, but mostly about how humans make the circus and the circus’ magic interesting.

3. This is not a romance. There is a love story in it, which is good, because love makes the world go round, but it is not a romance. If you go in imagining to be swept off your feet from page one, you can keep on imagining. The novel starts before our lovebirds have hit puberty, so you’re going to have to imagine for quite awhile.

4. The circus is not really a circus. This is fine by me, because I actually don’t care for circuses. They smell, the animals always have that look of dubious maltreatment, no, I don’t want to win a prize by shooting that thing off that other thing over there, and also, clowns look a little grubby to me. No, the Night Circus is a circus in the respect that there are tents, and there are performers, and some of them are acrobats. Mostly it is a place where pretty, pretty magic is passed off as illusion so that us muggles won’t be scared by it. I’d go to that circus.

5. This is not a thriller. This is a not an action-packed adventure. It’s not even a simmering revenge or bubbling rivalry novel. It is a novel about a thing, with love in it, and it spans over a decade. If you have a problem with that idea, it’s best you walk away now. But if you like Ann Patchett or Audrey Niffeneggar novels, or if you really thought JONATHAN STRANGE & MR. NORRELL was the bee’s knees, well. WELL. You have just found your next read. Enjoy. I did.

A Proper Education

2011-12-03T08:25:00.000-08:00

Today, I’m going to answer a question I get asked a lot. Well, I’m going to combine a few variations of it into one blog post. This is the question(s):

1 - “Did you go to school for Creative Writing?”
2 - “Do you have to have a degree in writing to get published?”
3 - “Have you taken classes in writing?”
4 - “Will you be my mentor?”

First, the short versions.

1 - No. I was a history major.
2 - No. It’s one way to get published, but not the only way. Not even the most common way.
3 - No. Well, not technically. More on that in a bit.
4 - No. But thanks for asking. I barely have enough time to make breakfast in the morning, but maybe this blog will count for something?

Now, the long version. No, I did not get a creative writing degree. I did try, once, to take a creative writing class at my college, but they told me my writing wasn’t promising enough and turned me away. I wasn’t crushed. I was a writer and I was going to learn how to write no matter what.

Yesterday, I was having my blood drawn for a physical, and the lady drawing my blood asked me about how I became a writer (because everyone enjoys a little career chit-chat as their life blood swirls into a collection of tubes). Did I go to school for it? Did I take classes? How did I know about the business? Was it anything like the X-Factor? As I tried to explain my process, she grew more convinced it was a happy accident and I realized that it sounded an awful lot like I just decided to become a writer and then got magically published in a cosmic lottery.

This, of course, does not happen.

And I think what I should have told her is this: You don’t need a creative writing degree, but you do need a writing education.

These are not necessarily the same thing.

Warning: For a brief moment, I’m going to get on a soap box. I don’t usually do that on the blog, especially when it’s anything that can be construed as even vaguely political. I don’t like pretending I know any better than anyone else how to solve the world’s problems. I’m just a girl who eats cookies for breakfast and thinks a ’73 Camaro is a perfectly reasonable business vehicle. However, when it comes to this topic, I think I’m qualified to talk about it.

The thing modern education has gotten really wrong is this: ignoring the fact that there are 4,000 ways to competency. 100,000 ways to competency. One million ways to competency. One of the dumbest things ever decided was that a piece of paper with a college name on it made one person’s skill set better than someone else’s.

That piece of paper often means something. But the lack of it often doesn’t.

It’s convenient to put your average muggle through four years of college and expect that they’ll come out the other side equally educated in a specific field, ready to join the workforce. But if you take 50 teens who all want to be history majors, for instance, and put them through four years of college, at the end, you will not have fifty equally-educated graduates. Because some of them will be slackers. Some of them will be naturally talented teachers, but terrible at remembering dates. Some of them will excel at research, but only about 14th century Scotland. Some of them will be great public speakers, but terrible writers. Some of them will be have spent their childhood learning everything that college was going to teach them and will emerge no more clever or skilled than they were at the beginning.

And some people will skip college and go on to be more successful than any of those grads.

How? How!? My sister read and chatted with me about OUTLIERS: The Story of Success, by Malcolm Gladwell. In it, he talks about the 10,000 hour rule — he postulates that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert in any field. I think this is key. You need to learn everything you can about not only writing, but reading, and everything you can find out about the industry and business. I would say that 10,000 hours of writing sounds about right. But I think that there are lots of ways to accomplish those hours. You can self teach. You can apprentice. You can take classes. You can workshop. You can get a writing critique partner. You can steal someone else’s brain. The only thing that is standard-issue about a writing education is that it must happen in order to be successful. If you want a piece of paper saying you did it, that’s your business, but no one else’s.

Here is my education. I found it this week while I was looking for my social security card. It was a folder of some of my writing from before the age of 17: each of those pieces of paper represents a novel I wrote back then. I spent several hours every
evening writing, and when I wasn’t writing, I was reading, and when I wasn’t reading, I was living — riding horses, showing dogs, having a band, making trouble. You have to have something to write about, after all.

I reckon before I post this, I should emphasize that I have nothing against degrees in Creative Writing. If you think you need one to keep you motivated or to structure your education, go for it. But it’s not the way I learn. And I’d wager in some cases it can do more harm to an introverted creative person’s psyche than good. But the most important thing is: they’re pretty much invisible when it comes to getting your book published. Your education, however you manage it, is the process: the book is the result. Agents, editors, readers: they don’t care how you got there, just that you did.

An Illustrated Guide to UK Touring, Days 4-6

2011-11-29T06:27:00.000-08:00

Earlier in the month, I posted about my first three days of touring (see here). Now I shall continue the story with the next three days, also known as: IN WHICH EVERYTHING IS ABOUT IRELAND, EVER.

See, on day 4, I once again took another train to Newcastle, where I had a school visit. I'd never been to Newcastle, and I was struck by two things: first of all, that their city center was beautiful, and secondly, when Newcastle school children say vowels out loud, they all sound like 'a' to my American ears. It resulted in the following conversations:

TEEN: Would you sign this post card?
ME: Sure. What's your name?
TEEN: Ashleigh.
ME: Spell it, please.
TEEN: A - S - H - L - A - A- A- THAT'S NOT HOW YOU SPELL MY NAME!
ME: Uh, write it, please.

Sorry, Newcastlians. I got the hang of it by the end, but I was pretty lame at the beginning.

Anyway, from Newcastle I flew to Belfast, Northern Ireland, for a librarian conference. By the time my Scholastic colleague, Hannah, and I, arrived at the Belfast airport, it was pitch black and sort of raining, but I had to be dragged off the tarmac in a state of shock. It's not that the Belfast Airport looks much different than other airports, it's just — when I was sixteen, there were two things I wanted more than anything. I wanted to be an author, as a career. I wanted to go to Belfast.

Standing there on that tarmac by the plane that had just brought me from Newcastle, I wished so much that I could tell 16-year-old Maggie that right before her 30th birthday, she'd be in Belfast because of her best-selling books. It would've meant a lot to her.

Maybe I did, and that's why I kept writing. Time travel is funny that way.

Anyway, so once I got over my shock and awe, we caught a cab from the airport. Our driver and I got to talking about life and Irish music and bagpipes, as you do, and then, this happened:

DRIVER: So I don't know if you ladies are in for the hunting, but it's lovely up here. I just got two pheasants today.
ME: Oh. Nice?
DRIVER: Yeah! I have them in the trunk now.
ME: the. . . trunk! Now? On . . . ice?
DRIVER: *ignores suggestion of ice*
ME: They're just laying there!?

Yes. They were just laying there. The driver then explained to me that if he prepared the pheasants now, they would be "gamey." So his solution was to take them home (in the trunk of the car. Where they'd been all day.) and "hang them in the garage or someplace where people don't go often" until they stopped being so "gamey."

ME: How long will that be?
DRIVER: I dunno. Two weeks?
ME: on . . . ice?
DRIVER: *ignores suggestion of ice*
HANNAH: What about maggots?
DRIVER: You obviously work around the maggots.

At this point I decided that everything the man said was untrue and that we were being driven around by a crazy person. I didn't mind too much, because I was in Belfast, and also because I suspected if push came to shove, I was wearing better kicking shoes than Hannah and therefore she would be the first he stuffed into the trunk with the pheasants if the conversation went that way.

So the next day dawned misty and bleak, which was pretty much what I expected. We hitched a ride in a car without a parking brake to the school where the library conference was taking place, and then I proceeded to open up the conference with a talk about The Scorpio Races. I'll confess that I felt a little nervous about this. Not the talking itself, but the fact that I was now talking about my novel about Irish water horses while in Ireland. Despite the fact that my childhood looked like this:

(halloween. I am dressed as a maid. I'm sure it was meant to be deeply ironic)

(continued bad hair, me with harp)

(me with my band)

(I am both a wedding musician and a bridesmaid in this one)

. . . I still feel a little like a cuckoo when it comes to Irish music. Yes, we grew up playing and listening to Irish music, but it's not as if either Stiefvater or Hummel (my maiden name) are the most Irish of names out there. My family just loved the music and history and culture, and 29 years of describing why it was that I was not very Irish at all and yet played Irish music had made me defensive. Basically, I was waiting for the Northern Irish librarians to first shout PRETENDER! at me and then elaborate with a condemnation of how I had stomped in, all loud and American, and co-opted their mythology. But they didn't. They were brilliant. They told me my parents had raised me right and then they told me they'd read the book and loved it.

Phew.

Then, no rest for the wicked, so we were off in a car to Dublin in the Republic of Ireland (the lower 26 counties that are not part of the UK) for a bookstore event there. It rained and then was sunny and then was rainy and then sunny again, and by the time we got to Dublin, it was gorgeous.

I'm afraid that I had another wide-eyed staring uselessly moment when I discovered that I was looking at the General Post Office in Dublin. One of my senior theses was on the 1916 Irish uprising, and that was where it all started. I'd looked at so many pictures of it in my life, but there. it. was.

I was dragged gently to my bookstore event, then, where I struck up a conversation with the bookstore lads (one of whom I'd met before. one of whom I hadn't). The following conversation happened:

BOOK GUY: . . . and, like a pheasant —
ME: WAIT! WAIT. Talk to me about pheasants. Let's say you shot one. Then what?
BOOK GUY: Well, it's rather gamey at first.
ME: So I've heard.
BOOK GUY: So what you want to do is hang it up in your garage —
ME: No! NO. YOU'VE TALKED TO BELFAST DRIVER GUY, HAVEN'T YOU?
BOOK GUY: *pleasantly bewildered*
ME: Just because you don't believe in the principle of decay does not make it go away!
BOOK GUY: I'm telling you, it is totally edible.

At this point, I have decided that either all men in Ireland are out to have a laugh on my behalf, or possibly, decomposition doesn't happen in Ireland. I have now fixed an image in my head of the average Irish garage.

BOOK GUY: How do you make pheasants in the U.S.?
ME: We don't.

But apparently, we do. And apparently, we hang them up in our garages. (no, really.)

Anyway, after a delightful event in Dublin, we immediately got back on a plane that night to head back to London (I did say no rest for the wicked, didn't I?). The following morning we headed to the studio to do over a dozen radio interviews back to back.

No. rest. for. the. wicked.

It turned out that our friendly coordinator for all of these interviews was, in fact, Irish himself. We had the following conversation:

IRISH RADIO GUY: Where are you from in the States?
ME: Virginia.
IRG: No kidding! My father is a carpenter and he worked in Virginia for a few weeks. On a pub, actually, in Richmond, that was done with all Irish labor. About 10, 15 years ago.
ME: . . . Richmond? My band played for the opening of an Irish pub in Richmond. What was the name of it? Was it Siné?
IRG: I'll call my dad right now!
ME: *does radio interview*
IRG: THAT WAS THE PUB. He said there was a piper — OH THAT WAS YOU.

In which everything is about Ireland, ever.

I will post about other days on tour in a few days!

I'm Trying to Work. But This Keeps Happening.

2011-11-23T07:26:00.000-08:00

I Just Started WinterNovel

2011-11-23T06:37:00.000-08:00

Which is a project that I'm cheating on my other projects with. It's going well, as most things that have been bottled up for a long time do. I reckon I might as well share the first two words of WinterNovel here.

They are "Luke" and "Dillon."

That's all.

Hope you have a delightful Thanksgiving.

An Illustrated Guide to UK Touring, Days 1-3

2011-11-18T09:46:00.000-08:00

I realize I have been utterly impossible to reach online for the past few weeks, and this is because my UK tour conspired against me and the internet. Sometimes it was bad timing, sometimes it was lack of availability, sometimes the UK internet just didn't like my face. It's all water under the bridge, now, though, and I'm back home just in time to be 30. Yesterday I wasn't 30. But today I am.

As a present to myself, I re-alphabetized all my shelves. (Also, Lover took me to see Russell Brand last night, and I made cinnamon bread for myself, and I turned in my manuscript for MagicalNovel, and I bought three Madeleine L'Engle novels in hardcover because they would be prettier that way).

It is nice to be home.

This particular trip I brought my sister and mother along with, and they frolicked in London while I toured. Despite my rowdy and (to my way of thinking) exceedingly interesting travel stories at the dinner table, they still seemed surprised by what touring actually entailed, so I am going to try to describe the intricacies of touring in a short series of illustrated blog posts over the next week or so. That's the plan. Unless my shelves or cookie dough distract me before then. All right, without further ado.

The first step on my UK tour was getting there. This was a bit untidier than usual, as I had to fly to Long Island for an event first (where I procured a recipe for vegan chocolate chip cookies — I am not vegan but you never know when you will need vegan chocolate chip cookies) and then set off the next morning across the Atlantic. The flight is seven hours, but the deadline for MagicalNovel loomed large, and so I made myself busy.

People watch me when I work on planes. Generally, I can ignore this until they laugh at my jokes as I type them. Then I stare meanly at them or type something about the person in the next seat of the plane meeting an untimely death. You see here in this illustration that I am filled with the joy of creating. This is because MagicalNovel is a very difficult novel to write, because all of the characters are complicated people who hate me and want me to be unhappy as I try to write them well.

The next step in touring overseas is to get to your hotel and try to overcome jet lag as best you can. Every time I fly overseas, I think I might be getting better at dealing with jet lag, but I think you get better at dealing with jet lag the same way you get better at dealing with open chest wounds. Here's my program of relief:

Very soon after arriving in the UK, we had our first public event. And by public event, I mean anything on my schedule that requires me putting on pants and leaving the hotel room. Ordinarily, I view the first of my public appearances with distaste and horror, preferring instead to stay in my bed, but this time, it was a lunch that Scholastic UK had arranged for me and Jonas & Plunkett. You remember those guys, the ones that did the cover of "Summer Girl"? Anyway, both Jonas and (Adrian) Plunkett were delightful. We had lunch at a posh place called The Ivy, which is supposed to be good for spotting stars. Everyone else looked for stars. I looked for another cup of tea, and also I looked at my roast beef right before I swallowed it. Functional Jet Lagged Maggie is Practical.

At one point in the meal, I noticed that there was an item on the dessert menu called "Knickerbocker Glory." There was no explanation, as if assuming that all diners would know what exactly a Knickerbocker Glory was. I didn't know. My mother and sister didn't know. I asked Jonas and Adrian if they knew, but it was hard to tell whether they did or not, as Jonas grew very excited at this point and ordered one.

When it arrived, it was larger than life. This drawing is true to scale*.

*that is a lie**
**Adrian's head is not really that large in comparison to his body***
***but the ice cream really was that big****
****mostly

I cannot tell you how much I think Jonas & Plunkett and the Knickerbocker Glory should be the first in a series of children's books.

There were no more fun and games to be had after the Jonas & Plunkett lunch. I had an interview in my hotel and then, it was time to head to Swindon for a day of school visits. Not only did this mean I had to put on pants, but I also had to take a several hour train ride from London. This did not displease me, however. Not only are the trains in the UK marvelous things, but this also provided another opportunity for me to attack MagicalNovel before my deadline.

You see the thrill in my expression. I knocked out several thousand words before it was time for the school visit. UK school visits, like all school visits, can be somewhat daunting. Generally there are two brands of American school children: "loud" and "emo." That is mostly the same in the UK, except it breaks down more tidily into "cheeky" and "sullen."

My job as an author is to make them forget their labels and laugh their heads off. I take this job very seriously. Because otherwise, what I end up with is a very long hour and a lot of pre-teens or teens who would rather be off drinking tea or listening to Jonas & Plunkett.

Perhaps I am projecting.

Unfortunately, while I was at Swindon, I contracted some sort of dreadful illness that woke me up in the night with lots of snot and . . . well, that's all. I really think lots of snot on its own counts as a dire condition, especially when you're expected to appear in public every day for the next ten days. The problem with me and cold medications is that I'm allergic to most preservatives and intolerant of the rest, and so I can take cold meds, but it makes my hair fall out. I was very sad to have to take cold meds for the Swindon Flu (that is what I am calling my ailment. Don't try to correct me). It did make me much more presentable in public (although there is video evidence on Youtube of me wiping my nose constantly through the Jonas & Plunkett songs at my London event later in the week) but I was sad about the hairs.

Also, it's always a tricky thing buying medications overseas. The packaging never quite seems the same as back home . . .

That brings me to the end of days 1-3 of my tour. When I write it down that way, it doesn't seem to explain why I was never in my hotel room or relaxing. Possibly I will blame Swindon. I'm blaming them for everything else.*****

*****sorry, Swindon. Your teens were actually quite pleasant. Distinctly more on the cheeky side.

Dissecting Pages for Mood

2011-11-03T06:45:00.000-07:00

I'm madly getting ready for my Long Island event tomorrow and my UK tour right after that, but I got an e-mail last night that made me want to do a quick blog post. It was a really lovely e-mail and also had a really good question in it, which is this:

"Although I am going to desperately try to stop this from sounding like a tedious English essay in the hopes that you don't get so bored that you stop reading half way through, I just have to say that I find your use of metaphorical language and your character development beautiful. It seems to flow so naturally through the books and as someone who finds writing the most entertaining and frustrating hobby, I am not ashamed to say I am more than marginally jealous.

If, by some strange miracle Maggie (or anyone affiliated to her/you for that matter) could answer my question as to whether this is just something that comes naturally or had to be worked on?"

First of all, if I could please convince anyone affiliated with me to go through my e-mails, they'd get answered a lot faster. I have over 1,400 legitimate non-spam e-mails sitting in my inbox right now. If I had a trusty manservant or homicidal robot or trained penguin or something . . .

I digress.

I really like this question because metaphor and character development is something I work at, a lot, and also because, for me, it is in fact the most important thing for me to work at. Other writers might have different priorities, but for me, the chief goal of my novels is not plot or premise or pacing, but to evoke a certain feeling. I will sacrifice most anything in order to change someone's mood in a certain way. I can't do that without careful navigation of metaphor and character development.

Here's the thing: when you're toying with people's emotions, they can't notice that you're doing it, or the effect is ruined. You have to be a sneaky puppet master, working in between the lines, never telling the reader how they are supposed to feel but nonetheless getting them there in the end. It's really hard for me to describe how I think about this, but maybe if I take apart two pages of The Scorpio Races, I can show you. And maybe you can ask questions in the comments if you have any? I'll be traveling but I'm trying to catch up.

Okay, so here are the pages just as they are, from the middle of the book, shortly after Puck (Kate) and Sean meet. If you click on it, it'll open in a bigger window.

Okay, and here is the marked up version. Yellow lines are everything I put in for character development. Blue lines are setting — in this case, Thomas Gratton is part of the setting, establishing the mood and the backdrop for this Sean/ Puck interaction. The red lines are mood and pacing sections that are not . . . I don't want to say strictly necessary, because obviously I think they are or they wouldn't be in there. They aren't necessary for a factual retelling of these events, how's that? Because when it comes down to it, this is what happens in these pages: Sean gets into the truck with Puck, the dog goes in the back, and Sean and Puck sit in awkward silence. There's all that happens in the plot. (That's also what the un-underlined lines accomplish in this scene.) But does that do anything towards toying with reader emotions? No! I say, double NO!

Again, click to make it larger.

For me, writing is reverse engineering. It's why I listen to music while I'm writing; because I have to have the mood for the scene and the book set firmly in my head before I begin. Then it becomes a problem-solving session of finding out what, exactly, I have to do to make that mood happen. It's like those writing exercises where you have to describe someone as tall without ever saying the word "tall." Found knowledge is always more valuable than given knowledge; the reader needs to draw their own conclusions.

So remember, it's not that the parking lot is lonely. It's that it's empty, and there's one seagull picking at an abandoned bag of cold French Fries next to an old Escort with a dent in the door and a dirty, crumpled battle of the bands poster.

Wow, that sounds like a destination.

I . . . should pack.

UK & Ireland Tour!

2011-11-01T07:40:00.000-07:00

Finally, finally, I have the dates for my public appearances in the UK and Ireland. Even though I'll be there for quite a stretch (5-16th), there's only three events open to the public. Everything else is conferences and school visits, etc. I'm sorry we couldn't fit more in, but trust me when I tell you that only one evening on my schedule is designated "free evening after 5 p.m."* I wish that I could've made it further north and also further afield in Ireland, but it's not me mapping the tours.** Next time?**

*I am doing my best to explain all of this so I will get fewer "WHY DO YOU HATE MANCHESTER?" "WHY DO YOU HATE GLASGOW?" "WHY DO AUTHORS NEVER COME TO _______" comments.

**The publisher is sensibly aware that if the tour was left up to me, I'd end up with events in tiny towns in Yorkshire, Snowdonia, Stirling, and possibly Donegal. These are not, you may be surprised to know, look anything like dense population centers.

***There will be a next time. Next year. I'm sure.

So there are three. And the big thing I have to announce is that at the London event, Jonas & Plunkett will be performing. You remember Jonas & Plunkett:

Yes. Yes, indeed. I am Pleased.

Without further ado:

November 9: 6-8 p.m. Signing & Discussion, DUBLIN
Level 3 Unit 12-14 Dundrum Town Centre, Sandyford Road, Dundrum, Dublin 14
details here: http://www.dundrum.ie/events/a-new-chapter-for-easons/
https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=179577755459570

November 12, 1:30-3:30 PM: Signing & Discussion, LONDON
JONAS & PLUNKETT WILL BE PERFORMING AT THIS EVENT!!!!
Foyles, Charing Cross Road, London
details here: http://www.foyles.co.uk/Public/Events/Upcoming.aspx
https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=210350539035005

November 12, 7:30 PM: Signing & Discussion, LIVERPOOL
Public talk and signing from 7.30pm at a special venue in central Liverpool. More details to follow soon!
https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=250770611637428&context=create

As always, I'm happy to sign as many books as you bring as long as you buy at least one from the hosting store to help them cover the costs and trouble of having an author event. Thanks for that!

I'm really pleased that I'll be coming to the UK again — I love it, and I would happily spend months and months there. One day I will even come when it is warm.

Movies Make Me Burn Brownies

2011-10-27T18:11:00.000-07:00

Tonight while I was making brownies (these brownies, in fact), my agent called and told me that we had not one, but two offers on the film rights for THE SCORPIO RACES (which, as you'll recall, has only been on shelves for two seconds).

I burned the brownies.

I picked one of them and four seconds later, the news hit the Internet, because the Internet knows everything. This is what the Internet is saying:
Warner Bros. & KatzSmith Productions have optioned the film rights.

I have to confess, of all the books I've written, this is the one I wanted made into a movie in the worst possible way. As I wrote, every scene was translated into words from a visual movie scene in my head.

I made some more brownies to celebrate.

O.O

The Opposite of Cynical

2011-10-25T10:50:00.000-07:00

Okay, so - so - so. Every year that I publish a novel, I think that I'll be all cool and suave and cynical about it. Cover - done it! Advanced Review Copies - done it! See it on shelves - done it!

But it never seems to work out that way. Every year I get ulcertastic before the book comes out, and every year I have that glow of signing the first copy, and every year, my first professional review makes me bite my nails, hoping it's good.

And this year, for The Scorpio Races, unbelievably, I have five starred reviews. I am not only not inured to the excitement of starred reviews, but the news of getting the fifth star left me absolutely useless for the rest of the day. I mean, I thought this book was the best thing I'd ever written, but I never thought that I . . .

insert more ellipses here to stand for my blinky eyes.

★ “Masterful. Like nothing else out there now.”
-Kirkus, starred review

★ “a study of courage and loyalty tested . . . an utterly compelling read.”
-Publishers Weekly, starred review

★ “A book with cross-appeal to lovers of fantasy, horse stories, romance, and action-adventure, this seems to have a shot at being a YA blockbuster.”
-Booklist, starred review

★ “gets better and better…all the way, in fact, to best.”
-Horn Book, starred review'

I can't quote the last one yet, from School Library Journal, because the issue's not out yet, but . . . man. I have to say that the Horn Book one has a ring to it. I like saying it at the dinner table. In the car. While doing laundry.

Which I guess is the opposite of cynical.

My Annual Dear John Letter to NaNoWriMo

2011-10-25T09:52:00.000-07:00

Maggie in 2011 says: A lot of folks have been asking me about my thoughts on NaNoWriMo (not without reason, as I write novels quickly and once a year), and I thought the best thing was just to post my final NaNoWriMo post from last year. This is my Dear John letter to NaNoWriMo from last year, and the novel I'm referring to in it is THE SCORPIO RACES. I think it pretty much says what I need it to say.

Maggie in 2010 said:
__________________________

Dear NaNoWriMo,

We're through.

I know that you have enough people who love you and care for you that this break-up won't be difficult for you (Last collective word count of all NaNo'ers, everywhere, was 1,776,482,205 words), so really don't have a problem telling you exactly what I think of you.

You're a bad concept, NaNo. You suck.

No, no. Let me back up. I can be reasonable. Just because I'm feeling vehement and emotional about you ruining my life . . .doesn't mean I should be unfair.

You are not a bad concept. You're a bad concept for me, NaNo. This is why: you make me write crap, NaNo. You make me make bad novel decisions. You take away my ability to brainstorm between chapters. You make me rush through characterization. You make me pack filler in that will only get ripped out later, having taught me nothing about my novel. You make me into a bad writer.

You know what hurts me the most, NaNo? I want to write something meaningful. Something with subtext and theme. That's the reason I write, really. And you took that away from me. How could I possibly contemplate the greater picture when I was constantly chasing word count? What kind of conceptual boyfriend are you anyway? That you would make me write superficial tripe?

Oh, for weeks I believe your spiel: that it was okay that we were bad in the sack together now, that we'd get better with revising. But I see through your lies, baby. We will never get to sweet, sweet passionate love on the beach from where we are here. Basically, if we played the game your way, I'd end up rewriting every single word I wrote.

So this is me saying, I've been cheating on you. Since November 15th, I threw on the brakes, reread what I'd written, cut out huge parts, and started writing my novel the way I like to. And the difference is that now I have 23,000 words that I love. Instead of 50,000 words that I can't stand to read over.

But it took me a long time to get to that point, NaNo. Because you made me feel like I was turning my back on some great goal that I'd made. You hit me where it hurt, NaNo; you know that I don't like to give up a goal once I've made it. So here's where I say thanks. You taught me that not all goals are good goals. That some are picked up out of principle and aren't worth pursuing. You reminded me of what I used to always tell people in conjunction with my little goals speech: that you should choose your battles wisely.

And you aren't a good battle, NaNo. You're just a bad boyfriend and a lousy literary lay. I'm taking my Secret Novel and getting the hell out of this relationship before you can hurt us anymore! We'll be fine without you. Nay, better off without you! When you see me walking down the street with the hardcover edition of Secret Novel in 2012, looking fine, fine, fine with its deep theme and subtle characterization, I hope it makes you throw up a little in your mouth.

Oh, and happy Thanksgiving.

50,000 superficial words of love,

Maggie

___________________________________

Maggie from 2011 adds to this: I don't have a problem with other people doing NaNoWriMo. If that's what it takes to motivate you, go for it. If you work well that way, go for it (not that you were sitting around, waiting for my approval). But for my style of writing, for my creative process, it will literally never work. I cannot knowingly write crap. I just can't. I can and do write crap, but I can't realize that I'm doing it at the time.

I know that lots of people use NaNo for the community, and I get that, too, but for me . . . I'd rather build a writing community that I have year round, a community that I know better than just a forum cheering zone. It's why I encourage everyone to have beta readers and critique partners: people who become friends and reading buddies. That's the sort of community I crave, not one with a sort of expiration date. I kind of feel like NaNo offers everything a writer needs, but in a diet version. Just because you don't write full time doesn't mean you can't have a full time support system and deadlines that you set for yourself. Having only a little time to write doesn't mean you can't have the non-diet, full-fat, all the whipped cream and sprinkles too please writing accoutrements. I wrote my first published novel only on Wednesdays, from 6-8 p.m., because that was all the time I had. Deadlines are good. Community's good. But NaNo . . . one month . . .

The how the story is told is just as important as the story itself to me, which means . . . NaNo and me are never meant to be. You, however, are welcome to it.

Writing the Book I Always Meant To

2011-10-18T06:59:00.000-07:00

I realized that I spent so long being cleverly quiet about The Scorpio Races that I never did a post about why I wrote it. I think, since today is its release day, I shall, especially since the story of it ties into a piece of advice that I really like to give to writers just starting out (I should mention that it still feels really odd giving out writing advice, even though book #6 is coming out today. I wonder when that will internalize?)

The reason why I wrote The Scorpio Races is because of a piece of advice I was given or read or found when I was a teen. I wish I could remember where it came from, but it was this: write the book you've always wanted to read, but can't find on the shelf.

Well, the book I always wanted to read had water horses in it. It's a tiny corner of Scottish and Irish and Manx mythology: swift and beautiful horses that jump out of the ocean and attack people or cattle. The legend was more complicated than that, though — the horses had their own kind of magic. Some of them turned into young men and attempted to lure women into the ocean with them. Some of them appeared as cute little ponies and tried to lure children onto their back. My particular favorite part of this legend was the line that said that as more children climbed onto the pony, its back would lengthen to accommodate them. Later, the victims' lungs and livers would wash up on the shore.

I tried to write about them when I was in my teens. They weren't the focus of the novel, merely one of the many faerie creatures in it, and the novel failed disastrously. There are a lot of reasons why that book didn't work, but it can basically be boiled down to this: it wasn't Maggie enough yet. It was fun, but anybody could've written those versions of faeries.

Then, after I finished the mammoth draft of a faerie book that was eventually rewritten entirely under the guidance of Editor Yoda (becoming LAMENT), I started on a sort of standalone sequel to this giant novel. It was called THE HORSES OF ROAN and it was yet another attempt at writing about water horses. I was closer this time. I was chiseling away with my writing, becoming a writer that only I could be, instead of the writer I thought I ought to be, or the writer the manuals recommended. It really was closer. There are still parts of that book that I'll cannibalize for others.

Here's photographic proof of my obsession. Back then, as part of my quest to become a better artist, I was doing monthly artist studies, eventually creating a piece in the style of whoever I was studying. That month I was studying my long-dead artist boyfriend, John Singer Sargent. The subject I chose? Water horses. This painting, "The Horses of Roan," (which is giant — 40" wide) is still in my living room. It was closer to the Maggie-Idea of water horses than any of my novels had been, but I wasn't sure why.

`

THE HORSES OF ROAN was set in the marshes of Virginia and used the man-to-horse shape-shifting element and it was close, like I said, but still, someone else still could have written it.

Fast forward five books later. By now, I've been to the UK several times, enough times to know that a sizable piece of my soul is somehow lodged there in one of the rainier corners. I've also written the Shiver trilogy and watched more hours of carnivores pulling apart prey animals than I care to mention and I'm well aware that I have a fascination with the beauty and the horror of nature. And I'm also sort of kind of house-hunting, and I realize that my desire to get as far away into the country as possible is not one shared by absolutely everyone on the planet. I find myself explaining why I'd sacrifice convenience to live out in the middle of nowhere, and explaining my childhood growing up with cottonmouth snakes under the porch and no neighbors that I could see and grocery stores one hour away and sitting on the deck listening only to crickets, and further away, more crickets. And, finally, I have four siblings, two of them ten and twelve years my junior, and they're going through late teenhood, and all our conversations are at once familiar, funny, and aggravating.

And now I was ready to write the book that only I could write. Because if it was about these things that were eating at me, it would have emotional truth, and no matter how great your plot or your hook or your legend is, if you don't have the emotional hook, it's just not going to mean anything to anybody else. It might be fun. But it will also be forgettable.

So I wrote a book that was about siblings and how it looks when they are your best friends and entire social network and what happens when one leaves. And I wrote about Thisby, a tiny island in the middle of nowhere, a rocky little bit of a place that looked a lot like where my soul was lodged 3,000 miles away. I wrote about why some people left and why some people stayed, the hardship and the beauty of it. I wrote about deadly carnivores that weren't villains and humans who were.

Oh, and it had other Maggie things in it: I adore race movies and I'll watch absolutely any one of them that comes on. Days of Thunder, Herbie, The Black Stallion. I love reading about descriptions of food, so in that went. I love old magic that looks like superstition until suddenly, in the dark, it's real. I loved the horses that I had growing up and in college, though I remember just how much work they were too, in the frosty mornings when your fingers are too cold to work. And, of course, the ocean, too. As a child we used to vacation in North Carolina and I would sit for hours just watching the ocean, making up stories about horses springing from the foam, watching each wave curl in differently. I nearly drowned as a kid and so I both loved it and feared it. It's hard to forget that sensation of warring emotions, equally matched.

And of course, finally, in chapter 46 of The Scorpio Races, I wrote the scene I'd been imagining since I was my daughter's age: a herd of water horses tearing in from an angry sea. Chapter 46 isn't a very long one, and it wasn't late when I wrote it, but after I finished the last sentence of it, I closed my computer and had to stop writing for the night. It's a weird feeling to finally do something right after doing it wrong for so many years. I knew before that that The Scorpio Races was the best thing I'd written so far, but that was when I really realized I'd written the book I'd wanted to find on the shelf all those years ago.

I can't believe it's finally out.

In retrospect, this blog entry seems so maudlin and earnest. But I'm going to hit "post" now before I change my mind.

I Have No Words, So More Pictures

2011-10-17T07:27:00.000-07:00

asdfl;ajsdfl;kjasdf.

It's finally here. Well, I mean, tomorrow. But tomorrow is practically today, if you're using the Children-Friendly Method Of Counting Days Until Christmas, where you don't count the day you're currently living, nor Christmas itself.

Remember how I posted about November Cakes and how I had to touch everything in The Scorpio Races for it to be real? That includes the cliffs that the deadly horse race is run beneath. I visited . . . a lot of cliffs.

California!

Sussex!

Normandy!

Bempton!

Flamborough!
I realize I made some dubious wardrobe decisions on those trips. I don't want to hear about it.

Man, though, I'm excited for this book to be out. Aside from the launch party in D.C. this Thursday and the California dates I have this week (I'm not even going to bother getting off of West Coast time), I also have two online events for those who can't make it out to a bookstore. There is this one:

And also an online live chat with Mundie Moms. That one is on Thursday at 9 p.m. and the original announcement is here.

What else? I feel like I should just get everything out there all at once. I was hoping to have my UK tour schedule available today, but alas, that will have to come later. Oh, oh, I should mention that on the home page of the website, you can now download me reading the first and second chapters of the book, as well as the music from the trailer (I think I mentioned that last one earlier, but the second chapter is a new development).

Now I have to go and brush my hair, because I'm going to drive down to Richmond to sign and doodle in the pre-ordered copies of SCORPIO at Fountain Bookstore. If anyone is in the Richmond area and dying to see what I look like signing and doodling in a lot of books, I'll be getting there at around 3 p.m.ish.

That's it! I think I shall close in the same way I opened. alkd;flajsd;fljksld;fkjaslkdfj;alskjdflasjdf.

My Second Post About Food. This Time, Imaginary.

2011-10-15T10:37:00.000-07:00

Well, slightly imaginary.

Weirdly, it has now suddenly only days away until THE SCORPIO RACES comes out. I remember back when it was still SecretNovel. So. October 18th. (well, October 20th, if you're coming to the release party in D.C.). Rumor has it is has already appeared in some readers' hands.

I'm not thinking about that. I'm so very ulcer-free right now. I mean, I've already waxed poetic about how this is my favorite novel of everything that I've ever written. And I've already talked a little bit about how I spent an obsessive amount of time on the research for this novel. (CUE THE SLIDESHOW OF ENDLESS CLIFFS). But now it is time to share recipes.

I’ve always loved reading food descriptions in books, and one of my favorite agonizing pleasures was reading about foods that didn’t exist. I still remember the 42 century butter pies on a stick that Diana Wynne Jones wrote about in A Tale of Time City. Completely delicious sounding. Completely not real. I always wanted to be that author. The one that torments loads of readers by inventing food so delicious they can't resist it . . . and then laughing meanly when they realize it's not real.

And I had the perfect opening in THE SCORPIO RACES. It's set on a tiny, remote island with not much to do and the yearly Scorpio Races are a big deal, so to kick it all off they have a folk festival involving bonfires, superstitions, and beer. This, I thought, would be a great place to insert a fake seasonal food. At first, all I had was the name: November Cakes. Even I wasn't quite sure how these things would bake up until the main character's brother showed them to us:

Finn finds my left hand, opens my fingers, and puts a November cake in my palm. It oozes honey and butter, rivulets of the creamy frosting joining the honey in the pit of my hand. It begs to be licked.

Of course, as with all food descriptions in my novels, I quickly warmed to my mission and proceeded to fill the pages of the book with more things about "the moist crumb, the nectar that seeps from the base of it, the icing that soaks into the cake before you can lick it off." Oh, yes, now we were getting somewhere. My legacy as a fake food writer was beginning to look more promising.

There was only one problem. Something about this book demanded that I put my hands on everything in it I possibly could. I had to do an incredible amount of hands-on research for it, because I just couldn't stand to wing anything. And this exact same principle meant that I found myself in the kitchen spending hours trying to make November Cakes.

Basically, I've failed in my quest to invent a lovely fake food. Because I'm sad to report that November Cakes are no longer fake. Nothing can be fictional if there's a recipe:

ETA! USE THIS RECIPE! November Cakes, II.

*dedicated blog/ twitter/ facebook followers might remember when I was asking about Golden Syrup. This was the recipe I was thinking of. You can use it instead of honey.
** click to make the image better. I mean, bigger.

Three more days . . .

In Which Maggie Posts About Food. Twice.

2011-10-15T09:06:00.000-07:00

Because I know you guys are just tired of seeing gorgeous photos of the gorgeous places I've been touring, I decided that I would instead do a food blog for last week's tour of Portland and Seattle. This proved more difficult than I imagined, however, because it turns out that a) being allergic to preservatives means I don't eat very much, and b) there is nothing intuitive about taking photos of your food. It means that I ate three meals without remembering to take photos first. But, sans one plate of salmon & ravioli, one pair of Chipotle soft tacos, and three cups of tea, this is everything Maggie Stiefvater ate from October 8-14th. My next post will also be about food, but also about books.

Thanks to everyone in the funky, bearded, plaided Pacific Northwest for welcoming me. What a great corner of the world!

I would do this again for my next tour stop (California, next week), but I can tell you already, it will be all tea and avocados.

Some of that was more delicious than it looked. And some of it was less delicious than it looks.

C'est la vie?

In Which Fake Band Names Turn Out to Be Real

2011-10-11T20:04:00.000-07:00

So, this fake band name turned out to be harder than I thought. First of all, I had a short list of favorites, and I kept googling them (because if they turned out to be real band names, they obviously couldn't win, whether or not the original titler was aware that their fake band name was a real band name) . . . and this kept happening. So if you are not a winner and you think your band name was awesome and should've won, google it. It might truly be awesome and my favorite ever . . . and a real band.

Also, there were an unfair number of unicorn band names representing. Apparently the cultural unconscious was feeling very unicorny at the time of this blog posting.

Some were hilarious and indecent. So, no.

Some were hilarious and completely nonsensical. So, no.

Some of them sounded suspiciously like they could've belonged to local Celtic bands that played the same bars mine did in college (it takes talent to invoke that much leg hair in a band name).

In the end, it came down to two:

Elizabeth Bennet's Petticoats, and Charlotte's Temper. In an ideal world, I'll confess I would've preferred Elizabeth Bennet and the Petticoats, but that small issue was not enough to edge it out of first place. Ultimately I think I would buy Charlotte's Temper's album and go see Elizabeth Bennet's Petticoats live.

Elizabeth, you get the signed copy of Scorpio. Email me!

But Charlotte, you get a signed copy of one of my other books (I haven't decided yet which to inflict upon you), so you e-mail me too.

My email is Stiefvater Reader Mail at gmail dot com. No spaces and make the dot a proper dot and all that.

Plaid, Free Songs, Free Books

2011-10-10T06:06:00.000-07:00

1. I kept intending to write a proper review/ recommendation of ANANSI BOYS, which I read while I was in Australia, but for some reason, every time I sat down to write it, all that came out were words in one syllables, which makes for a lousy book review. Sample copy of my early blog posts about ANANSI BOYS:

This book is good.
This book is fast.
This book is fun.
This book is what it says it is.
Which is fun.
This book is a good, fast, fun read.

I'm just not sure it's going to get any better than that. I liked this book better than its predecessor, AMERICAN GODS, and you don't need to have read that one in order for this one to make any sense. The only other thing I can say is that I immediately went out and bought another copy to give away to a friend, so that should stand for something, surely.

2. I'm on tour in the Pacific Northwest this week. Portland = funky and awesome. Also, very plaid. As one native noted, "some people are wearing plaid to be ironic, and some people are wearing it because their blood is plaid." I would like to point out that IRONIC PLAID is the best Celtic band name ever. Feel free to use it.

3. Since it is only eight days away from the release of THE SCORPIO RACES, I've updated my website with a bunch of things that some readers have been asking for — like a place to download the music from the Scorpio book trailer for free, a slideshow of my research for the novel, and me reading the first two chapters. I did just find out that we got a fourth starred review for it from Horn Book, and proved to myself that I am still a book geek by galloping around the house when I heard the news.

4. If you are in the Seattle area, here are my events, including my event tonight. I will be wearing stripes to everything. All I have packed are stripes. Well, I guess if I merely wearing my jeans and striped socks, you won't be able to tell. Another great band name? INVISIBLE STRIPES.

5. I reckon I should give away a copy of THE SCORPIO RACES today. If you post a great fake band name (just one, please, so choose carefully) here in the comments today, I'll pick one person to get a copy of THE SCORPIO RACES, which I'll mail when I get back into town on the 14th. I reckon that's all the rules I need. International's okay, only one band name, only until today at midnight EST. (My computer is still on EST even if I am not)(Well, I definitely am still on EST. I merely am located in PST).

In Which MagicalNovel Disappears Like Cookie Dough

2011-10-05T08:27:00.000-07:00

Today, I realized I had to delete 39,911 words from MagicalNovel. Well, I actually realized it sometime last week, but I've only just now worked up the nerve to do it.

This calls for cookie dough.

A lot of that is gone right now.

Just like my novel.

Werewolf Nookie & Homicidal Faeries in Several Languages

2011-10-03T13:07:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite pastimes while traveling overseas is browsing in bookstores, because I love seeing the different covers that different countries put on novels I've read. My reactions tend to go one of two ways: OH. MY. WHY? or WHY DON'T WE GET THAT COVER?

It's been a very very long time since I've posted the covers of my latest foreign editions, but here they are. Do they inspire OH. MY. WHY? or WHY DON'T WE GET THAT COVER?

Bulgarian Edition of FOREVER	Italian Edition of FOREVER
French Edition of FOREVER	Spanish Edition of FOREVER
Chinese edition of Linger	German edition of Linger

Russian edition of Linger

Polish edition of Linger

Italian edition of Ballad

Mexican edition of Ballad

Polish edition of Lament

Spanish book club edition of Shiver

Swedish Paperback edition of Shiver

Serbian edition of Linger

THE SCORPIO RACES: events, art, etc.

2011-09-28T05:44:00.000-07:00

Unbelievably, it is less than three weeks until The Scorpio Races comes out, which I guess is what happens when you have two novels come out in the same year. But that means it's time for me to announce a few events for it, including the launch event.

I'm really pleased to be doing my first event at Politics & Prose in Washington, D.C., for the launch party. I'll be raffling off one of my paintings to the folks who buy a book from the store. This one:

It's 36 x 12" in real life. And features Horse! Racing! Action! Also, everyone who comes to the launch event can pick out an acetate frame from the Scorpio trailer. This one:

I know I'm not touring all over the world this fall (although it certainly feels like it) and not everyone will be able to get to one of the events, so I wanted to point out that The Fountain Bookstore can ship signed copies all over the world, and if you pre-order the book from them, I'll doodle in it as well. MOREOVER, I'll be giving away another one of my paintings to one of the people who pre-orders a copy of The Scorpio Races from Fountain Bookstore. So not quite the same as making the launch event, but not a kick in the eye, either. This painting:

Which is 11 x 14" in real life. And does not involve Horse! Racing! Action. But does involve Pony! Snaffle! Bit! Action! Which is nearly as exciting. And like I said, this'll go to one person who pre-orders from Fountain Bookstore (yes, international orders are eligible too).

The final thing I have to say about the events is that I'm doing a few in the Pacific Northwest right before Scorpio comes out, and they won't have copies of the book until the 18th. I feel silly not being able to sign Scorpio for folks so close to the release date, so I'm going to bring Special! Bookplates! to the events and sign and doodle on them for the folks who pre-order their copies from the stores where I do the events. Does that sound like a plan?

And very, very soon I'll be announcing my UK events. I still don't know where I'll be in the UK, but I know I'll be there from November 5-15th. And that will wrap up my events until late next spring.

Without further ado, here are the events. And also the song that I listened to about 1,000 times while writing The Scorpio Races. Well, not 1,000. iTunes says I listened to it 317 times.

October 9th:
Portland, OR
Wordstock Festival
http://schedule.wordstockfestival.com/?s=maggie+stiefvater

October 10, 7 p.m.: Signing & Discussion
West Sound Reads Event
North Kitsap High School Auditorium/theater, 1780 Northeast Hostmark Street, Poulsbo, WA
Please call Liberty Bay Books with questions 360-779-5909
details here: https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=124165544347783

October 11, 5:30 p.m.: Signing & Discussion
Third Place Books, 17171 Bothell Way NE, Lake Forest Park, WA 98155
https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=294067323942824

October 12, 1:00 p.m.: Drop-by Signing (no discussion)
Elliott Bay Book Company, 1521 Tenth Avenue, Seattle WA 98122
https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=257009807674473

October 13, 4-5 p.m.: Drop-by Signing (no discussion)
A Children’s Place, 4807 NE Fremont St , Portland, OR 97213
https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=218487078212321

October 20, 4:30-6:30 p.m.: THE SCORPIO RACES release event
Politics and Prose, 5015 Connecticut Ave NW, Washington, District Of Columbia
https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=159162210826048

October 21, 7:00 p.m.: Signing & Discussion (ticket required)
Once Upon a Time Bookstore, 2207 Honolulu Ave, Montrose, California
Details here: http://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event/maggie-stiefvater-returns-oct-21-7-pm
https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=292242574125620

October 22, 5:30 p.m.: Signing & Discussion
Children's Book World, Los Angelos, CA
https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=223212767735177

October 23, 4:00-5:30 p.m. This is Teen Signing & Discussion with Jeff Hirsch, Maggie Stiefvater, & Cecil Castellucci
Mysterious Gallery, 2810 Artesia Blvd., Redondo Beach, California
https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=196794367058618

November 4, 7:00 p.m: Author Signing/ Discussion/ Q & A
Sachem Public Library, 150 Holbrook Road, Holbrook, NY
Phone: 631-588-5024/ Website: www.sachemlibrary.org
https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=124768750951073

In Which Maggie Returns Homes (For a Little While)

2011-09-27T05:22:00.000-07:00

I have technically been home from my 32 day overseas tour since Sunday night, but it feels like less. I have only had time, so far, to make one batch of cookies, drive my car for 14 minutes, and realize that I had acquired several thousand e-mails while I was gone. In between these things, I was trying to think of how to possibly summarize my tour in a way that would be interesting to blog readers and not be a book in itself. I'm afraid I'm going to my three fall back methods of compressing information: a photo. A bulleted list. A video.

This is a photo of me at Linderhof, a palace in Germany so gorgeous that it renders everything in its way gorgeous as well.

This is a bulleted list of things that happened in each country.

Australia:
- I saw a kangaroo. It looked pissy. And a little manky.
- I met several thousand Australian schoolchildren.
- I bought 12 books. I thought they would fit in my luggage. They did not.
- I climbed Hanging Rock, and found out that it was supposed to be creepy. It was not.
- I hiked 4.5 hours in the Blue Mountains. I thought I was in shape. I was not.

Germany:
- I saw the Alps. My Virginia mountains would fit neatly inside them and the Alps would still be hungry.
- I learned German readers had made Linger (Ruht Das Licht) #13 on the overall bestseller list in Germany. Yikes.
- I met people without nicknames and gave them some, because everyone needs one.
- I met up with colleagues I'd met before: Dominic "The Magician" and Margarete "Irish" Schwartkopf and "the Js," Judith & Jeanette.
- I did events with people I'd not met before: Max "The Chainsaw" Felder, the voice of the Sam on the German audiobook.
- I learned that my college German had not prepared me to order at the grocery store meat counter.
- I hung out on a Bavarian farm. Thing 1 got licked by a cow. I did not.
- I went to Oktoberfest. Some people wore lederhosen and dirndls. I did not.
- On the way to an event, someone in our car threw up six times. I did not.

France:
- I bought some Paris fashion. By which I mean a plaid shirt.
- I learned I am bad at French vowels. However, I can say "C'est bon!" and "C'est mauvais!"
- I was filmed twice. I was afraid I'd have to have make-up done. I did not.
- I saw the Notre Dame. I thought I was too jaded to be impressed. I totally wasn't.
- I hoped to get the change to go to the Louvre to see some more works of my dead artistic boyfriend, John Singer Sargent. I did not.

And here is the video — three countries in five minutes. I am very, very pleased to be able to feature a song from a band that I love, Menomena. They've kindly given me permission to use "Intil." Let me know what you guys think of the song (and if you love it, it's on iTunes and on Barsuk) and if you DO love it, please do hit their Twitter or Facebook and make noise about where you found out about them. And again a huge, huge thanks to readers for reading my books all over the world and making me feel welcome wherever I go.

Three Words: Maggie. GERMANY. Monday.

2011-09-12T08:46:00.001-07:00

Is it Monday? I . . . think it is Monday. Well, not in Australia. I think it's Tuesday there. On Sunday, after spending three delightful but action-packed weeks in Australia on tour, I jumped on a plane so that I could get to Germany for my events there. Only, Germany is a far way away from Australia, turns out. So first I flew 8 hours to Singapore and waited 3 hours and then flew 14 hours to London and then waited 3 hours and then flew two hours to Munich, which is where I am now.

And I have to say, it was a weird sort of day. Usually I am the sort of person who just takes things in stride, but every so often, I'm struck by the way that my books have changed my life. Today was one of those days. I was sitting in the plane on the runway in London, looking at the bus that had just brought me to it, and I thought I am on a world tour. Again. I am sitting in a very nice seat on a plane in LONDON eating a hard-boiled egg and editing my next novel on my way to GERMANY and I was just in SINGAPORE for three hours for crying out loud and it's all because of my books.

And because I was sleep-deprived or maybe because I had been away from home for three weeks or possibly because I'd just watched X-Men: First Class or maybe, just maybe, because I'd been living on hard-boiled eggs and tea for the last 28 hours, it seemed like a strange and marvelous and surreal thing.

Anyway, now I am in Germany, trying to figure out what time my body clock thinks it is (my bedside radio says it's 5:26 p.m. My computer says it's 11:26 a.m. My watch says it is 1:26 p.m. It is all of those times, somewhere in the world). And this is the view from my hotel window.

And it's pretty much impossible to really take in, even standing on my balcony looking at it. These mountains look like they ate my Virginian mountains for breakfast. My German publishers have incredibly kindly arranged for a lot of sight-seeing and down time as I'm about ready to drop at the moment, and I'm very grateful. If you're interested in seeing me in Ingolstadt, Freising, Hamburg, or Bamberg, the details are here.

So I am going to go sit on my balcony and smile at the world and possibly re-read ANANSI BOYS by Neil Gaiman which I just read this week and I love dearly (blog post to come on that).

And thank you, readers, for making my life a weird and wonderful and surreal one.

In Which Maggie Hikes for Four Hours

2011-09-04T02:33:00.001-07:00

As of today, I've been on tour in Australia for 10 days. Today, I finally had a day off.

And that's what happened.

If you're thinking: that is so stunning I can't breathe oh my gosh is that a flock of cockatoos below me and oh wow the sound of the waterfall behind me is so loud!

that is precisely what I was thinking.

(also, I'll be doing school visits all day tomorrow, but if you're in Sydney and want to come to my bookstore event, it's at 6 p.m., details here).

How To Turn a Novel Into a Textbook

2011-08-31T17:39:00.001-07:00

I'm here on tour in Australia, which is amazing (and if you're Australian and would like to come see me, here's my date for Perth tonight, and my other dates for Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane), though I'm spending more time talking to Australian classrooms than seeing Australian landscape. Later, when I find my card reader, I'll share pictures (of landscape, not classrooms).

Earlier in the week, I was at the Melbourne Writers Festival, and one of the girls in line asked me how I made my novels longer, as in, not just thirty pages longer. I told her it was about description and also about engaging the five senses, but the more I thought about it, the more I considered how that was not what my failing was when I was first beginning. Like a lot of beginning writers, my first manuscripts were short, short, short, and I couldn't understand what they were lacking.

So I did tell the reader that I recommended looking at published novels and deconstructing the pages to learn how to pace her novel, but I wish I would've been able to show her what I meant. One of the finest tools in any writer's arsenal, I think, is the ability to turn a novel into a textbook. For copyright reasons, I'm going to use my own books to demonstrate how I would do it, but obviously, I recommend doing it with whichever books that you love.

Okay. Here's a page from FOREVER. The first page, actually.

You can learn a lot of things from a great first page (also from a bad first page. Not so much from anything in between). Want to know what works as a compelling beginning? Ask a reader you know well: you. When I'm stumped at starting a new project, I still go to my bookshelf and pull off a big stack of old favorites. I sit on the floor or my office and all I read is the first page. You can do the same thing.

Well, please don't do it in my office.

Ask yourself:

What do these first pages have in common?
What is hooking me into the story?
Who is introduced? The main character? a side character? setting?
Is there dialogue?
Is there action?
How does it look on the page? Long paragraphs? Short sentences?
Again: how do these work together to hook me?

I used to believe that a great way to start a story was with some cracking dialogue and some fast paced action, but often, that's totally meaningless to a reader who doesn't care whether or not this unfamiliar character lives or dies. Instead, the hook can be a quite subtle thing. Really, the hook is just an unspoken question that the reader pursues to the next page.

Is there a question on the first page?

There's one other very important aspect of a first page, and it's the first line. A great first line can hook a reader, set mood, introduce character, and start the conflict rolling all in one. Not all first lines do this. And they don't have to. But they should set the tone. So, final question for the first page:

How does the first line relate to the rest of the book?

Here are my first lines:

LAMENT: "You'll be fine once you throw up," Mom said.
BALLAD: I was used to being the hunter.
SHIVER: I remember lying in the snow, a small red spot of warm going cold, surrounded by wolves.
LINGER: This is the story of a boy who once was a wolf, and a girl who was becoming one.
FOREVER: I can be so, so quiet.
THE SCORPIO RACES: It is the first day of November and so, today, someone will die.

So, having exhausted everything that a first page can give us, another really, really useful thing to look at is how other authors shape dialogue and description. For that, you usually need to go beyond the first page. Sometimes, when I'm stuck on a very particular problem, I will find a novel that I remember solving the problem well — pacing an action scene that takes place in a short time, for instance — and reread the passage to try to see what techniques helped.

Here's a page from LINGER.

I will confess, that in my beginning writerly years, this page would have read like this:

"I never pegged you for a fan of the obvious, Sam," Isabel said.
"I'm not," I said. "Or I would've said, Hey, shouldn't you be in school?"
"Touche," Isabel replied.
"I've been seeing wolves near my house," Isabel said.
"How close to your house?"
She shrugged. "From the third floor, I can see them in the woods. Clearly they have no sense of self preservation, or they'd avoid my father. Who is not a fan."

In its entirety. It would not have occured to me that anything was missing. I would have merely gotten to the end of an 11,000 word draft and thought: HOW IS THIS NOT AS LONG AS A NOVEL!? IT HAS A BEGINNING, MIDDLE AND END!

It wasn't until I took apart my favorite novels that I started to understand how to manipulate pacing. The thing is, there is nothing wrong with that stripped down 7-8 line page. It's just that it's missing so many opportunities to play with mood, character, setting. It's nothing but plot sitting there like that, and while plot is a crucial enough thing, it's not what keeps a reader reading. People keep the reader reading.

These are the questions I would ask myself looking at a page like this:

How varied are the dialogue tags? ("said," "replied," "shouted")
How is the writer showing a pause in dialog? By saying "she paused" or by inserting a non-dialogue paragraph?
How is setting worked in?
Is there subtext going on? Are the characters thinking something different than what they're saying?
Can I imagine myself there? Why?
If I remove a sentence, how does it change my perception?
If I remove a paragraph, how does it change my perception?

So that's how I would pull a book apart, in a nutshell. If I had a bit more space, I'd actually pull apart a scene line by line here on the blog, but this post is already epic. Let me know if you guys want something like that.

I'm off to breakfast.

Even the crows have accents here.

On Writing

2011-08-25T05:07:00.000-07:00

On Twitter and Facebook, I promised to answer a writing question before I left for Australia today, and asked what that question should be. So many of the questions that came in were ones that I'd already tackled that I realized what I needed to do was not answer another question, but organize the stuff I'd already blogged about. When I started to organize the blog posts, I realized . . . I talk about writing a lot.

WRITING

How to Write a Novel

Seven Steps to Starting a Novel

Novels, on Starting Them

How I Prep for Writing a Novel

How Many Words/ Pages Should my Book Be? also Making your book longer than 30 pages

Staying Focused on One Project

Rough drafting

Writer's Block

On treating readers badly

CHARACTERS

Knowing Your Characters

Purposeful Characterization

Why Normal People Can't Be Characters

On Stylizing Characters

On Harming Characters

AFTER THE NOVEL: REVISING

Revision, Part 1

Revision, Part 2

Revision, Part 3

Questions on Revision

Revising for Mood

Death to Line Editing

Finding a critique partner

AFTER THE NOVEL: QUERYING

Courageous Querying

10 Rules for Query Letters

INSPIRATION

Being a writer, but also being something else

Books that feed me

Reading as inspiration

On Writerly Confidence:

On Writerly Angst

More on being a writer

MISCELLANEOUS

Writing for your audience

My early terrible writing

Miscellaneous Writing Questions

In Which Onions Inform My Fashion Sense

2011-08-24T07:30:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow, I leave for a month of touring in Australia, Germany, and France, and as I pack, I discover that I am flummoxed.

This is because, due to an accident of geography, Australia is on the other side of the planet, which means they are opposite to us in many ways. When it is day here, it is night in Australia. When our water goes clock-wise down the drain, theirs goes counter-clockwise. When we are watching re-runs, they are watching pilots. When it is summer here, it is winter there.

That is problematic because my tour packing usually involves me stuffing my 17 black tank tops into a duffle bag and calling it a day. It means that it’s virtually impossible to tell the difference between photos from most of my tour events. The internet is populated by identical photos of me in black tank tops.

The Australians have informed me, however, that if I wear tank tops to Australia, I will be cold. Remember, the Australians are playing Opposite Day with us, which means that since I’m happy wearing tank tops here in Virginia, I will be sad wearing them in Australia. This leaves me with a packing conundrum. I have to think of something else to wear.

Luckily, this is not the first time I’ve had to apply my brain to tour wardrobe malfunctions. I think it’s time to explain this particular photo.

That is Kansas City. On tour. You’ll notice that that is me wearing, like, the opposite of a black tank top.

The reason I happened to have that dress packed on my road-trip driving tour happened about four days before my tour began. I was having a perfectly lovely morning and then Something Terrible happened. Namely, I began to put on my jeans (I was putting on jeans because it was a day that ended with ‘y’) and I realized that I was . . . not comfortable.

Further exploration revealed an ABUE (Angry Bump of Unknown Etiology) near my waist band which Google informed me was an ingrown hair. For those of you who, like me, had never had an ingrown hair, allow me to explain: it is when the natural order of the world is reversed and a hair grows in instead of out. It is much like opposite day and Australia in that respect, but more painful.

Aside from being ugly and painful, it was also humiliating. There is nothing sympathetic about an ingrown hair. Like pimples, they are a trial that must be borne alone, only appearing in public to be mocked on Family Guy.

Google told me not to worry. It would be gone in ten days, six days after my tour began.

But I could not wear my jeans.

I do not think the internet can adequately convey the fear and horror that washed through me as I realized that my tour wardrobe had been stolen from me in the blink of an eye. In the twitch of a hair. If you took all of the capital As I have ever typed in the history of this blog and add them to all of the lower case hs I ever typed into the Wolves of Mercy Falls, and you put them together, that would begin to create the sound that defined my agony.

Hurriedly, I consulted Google again. Surely there was a way to wish this abomination away sooner. Google offered a lot of remedies, but some of them sounded like beginning of stories my E.R. doctor father liked to tell at dinner, and some of them sounded a lot like magic. But I was desperate.

Which was how I ended up spending a day with half an onion strapped to my thigh.

After about ten hours of smelling like cheap salsa, I decided to get onto G-chat and ask my Oracle for advice. My Oracle = Jackson Pearce. She has never steered me wrong, except for when she has. On g-chat we discussed potential solutions. Some of them involved tweezers. Some of them involved baths and ice cream. For some reason, a lot of Jackson’s suggestions involve baths and ice cream.The following conversation happened:

me: Should I buy a dress for tour?
Jackson: If you buy a dress it'll be made of iron grommets and heavy weight burlap

Jackson has this theory that I will only wear clothing that is heavier than my body, or that looks like heavy machinery. The theory is not entirely unsound.

I am not a dress person.

But it wasn’t as if I could wear this onion on tour. Aside from imparting a less than beautiful silhouette, it smelled like rush hour at Chipotle. So I bought a dress. It was a beautiful dress, much to Jackson’s shock.

Jackson: oh look at that!
That dress is delightful.
me: HA! double HA, pearce!
You thought it would have rivets!
... I couldn't find rivets.
Jackson: Who are you
stranger with Maggie's google name
me: I bargained with myself.
If I wear pretty things, I can wear giant hardware on my arms.

The dress was crochet, which means “see through” in layman’s terms, so, feeling clever, I bought the slip the site recommended. Both arrived. I tried it on. It looked like a million bucks. I looked like a million bucks. It was no jeans and tank top, but still, I was pleased. I emerged from my room, triumphant, to show Lover.

Lover: Uh, Maggie?

Because, this.

I'm not certain who designed this particular dress/ slip pairing, but they clearly had never aligned the two aspects to realize that crochet + crochet = still see through.

By now I was in proper form, frothing at the mouth, days before my tour, moving slowly as not to dislodge the ever-present onion. With the firm eyebrows and twisted mouth I'd learned from Bruce Willis in nearly all of his movies, I went from place to place until I tracked down a pair of bloomers to cover up my lady-parts.

In the interim, my in-grown hair went away.

Still, full of the principle of the thing, I brought the Onion Dress with me on tour, a sort of gruesome trophy. Twitter convinced me to wear it to the event in Kansas City. Photo, explained.

So, you see, I really have the experience to pack for this Australian trip now. I have loads of options. I even have a dress. And bloomers.

But I already miss my tank tops.

SCORPIO WINNERS!

2011-08-21T13:39:00.000-07:00

Okay, we have three winners for the Scorpio Races contest! We had over 800, which is pretty . . . amazing. Thank you guys, as always, for sharing your blog space with my trailers.

These three folks should e-mail me with their mailing addresses at
StiefvaterReaderMail

which is a gmail thing. If any of you guys have problems deciphering my anti-spam language there, leave a comment.

Amanda Machonis
Jackie Woodburn
Jennica Cooper

PLEASE e-mail me by Tuesday at noon, or I'll pick a new winner.

Everyone else, thank you so much for entering. Fountain Bookstore as always is shipping out signed, doodled copies if you pre-order from them, and also, if you come to the launch party event in Washington D.C. on October 20th, not only could I be persuaded to doodle if you asked, but you'll also have a shot at winning the painting above (which doesn't have the title of the book on it in real life).

Thanks again!!

Last Minute Reminder for the SCORPIO RACES contest

2011-08-21T07:37:00.000-07:00

Oh! Oh! I totally forgot to post a reminder because writing MagicalNovel is eating my brain.

There are just a few more hours to enter the contest to win a signed, doodled in advanced review copy of THE SCORPIO RACES.

Basically the contest just involves posting the trailer on your blog/ facebook/ twitter. And the details are here.

Five Things on A Friday

2011-08-19T19:31:00.000-07:00

1. Suburbia is making me lose my sense of humor.

2. THE SCORPIO RACES just got its third starred review, which is crazy and wonderful. I feel like I should be more crass about this by now, but the fact is . . . I love THE SCORPIO RACES more than anything I've written so far, and I haven't felt a personal buzz about a book like this since SHIVER. And THE SCORPIO RACES is such a MAGGIE book, I just didn't know how people would take it. Well, this is how:

“Masterful. Like nothing else out there now.”
-Kirkus, starred review

“a study of courage and loyalty tested . . . an utterly compelling read.”
-Publishers Weekly, starred review

“A book with cross-appeal to lovers of fantasy, horse stories, romance, and action-adventure, this has a shot at being the next YA blockbuster.”
-Booklist, starred review

Man, I'm just going to say "Masterful" over and over again. At the dinner table. Lover's going to be so happy about this, I'm sure.

3. Pretty much everyone who reads this blog probably knows I have a monthly short story blog, the Merry Sisters of Fate, with my two critique partners, Tessa Gratton & Brenna Yovanoff. Well, because of the annoying things going on with Livejournal, we moved it over to Wordpress, though the address stayed the same. We all did a short story based upon a common prompt this week — one of my favorite paintings ever. It has the angst BUILT RIGHT INTO IT.

4. Has anybody seen Cowboys vs. Aliens? Is it any good? I want it to be good, but I'm filled with fear.

5. Does anybody know where I could find a good children's map or guide to Germany? You know, like THIS except 100% mehr Deutsch. Thing 1 & Thing 2 love that book, and it'd be cool to give them something similar for our trip to Germany.

Pictoral Examples of Productivity

2011-08-18T08:49:00.000-07:00

Today, instead of blogging or giving an excuse as to why I'm not blogging, I will merely show you why I'm not blogging. A picture is worth a thousand words, and I figure a thousand words is a long enough excuse.

decoded:

(click for larger image)

If you want some of those SCORPIO RACES review copies shown in the picture, remember there's an easy contest going on now.

And I will be back later this week, because I do have a blog post about dresses and onions I want to write. But I need time for that one, and time is the one thing not found in that office of mine.

A Hero In Your Own Life

2011-08-15T07:24:00.000-07:00

I’ve been meaning to post about the themes I hoped to get across in the Shiver series. I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I thought about it the other day, in this spoilery chat about FOREVER, when I was asked some variation of what I hoped readers would take away from the trilogy. And yesterday, when I was reading about the London looting. And last night, I was doing an interview with an Australian newspaper in preparation for my tour there.

So here it is. What I want readers to take away from the Wolves of Mercy Falls: that you should be the hero of your own life. It’s a conscious choice, a way of looking at the world. I thought about this concept a lot when I was a teen, especially at the time mentioned in this blog post.

When I say “be the hero of your own life,” I suppose I really mean three things.

First, a certain self-awareness. To see whether you’re the hero of your own life demands that you step outside of your body and say, all right. This is how people see me. This is how I see me. This is the greater arc of my life and these are the demons I’ve struggled with and right there, those are my strengths and my weaknesses. This is the general shape of things, and here I am in the middle of it. From outside your own life, detached and objective, you have to decide: If they wrote a book of your life, made a movie of it, would you be a hero? Would you be a villain? Or, worst of all, would you be a side character?

Because the second thing about being a hero in your own life is that heroes act. They might begin their book reacting — actually, they often begin the books shy, afraid, damaged, or otherwise incapable of changing things for themselves or other people — but by the end of the book, they’ve learned how to be powerful in their own skin. How to be able to act to change their own circumstances. So many people wait for other people to change their world for them, and often, that change never happens. If you’re a hero, you must act. Side characters are often moved by events or by the actions of the hero or the villain, so the direction of their lives is dictated by other people. Heroes move their worlds for themselves.

Actually, so do villains. Which is why, to me, the last thing about being a hero is about principle and values. When you step outside your own body and look at yourself as the narrator of your own life, are you proud of what you see? Even if you’re the underdog, are you someone you like? A hero is someone who’s noble and honorable, even in the worst of circumstances. It’s someone who is heroic even when no one else is around to see them. It’s someone who does the right thing, even if the right thing is the laundry. It’s someone who tries hard and learns to be a strong, unique individual, either because of their past . . . or despite their past.

There are a lot of different sorts of bravery.

So that’s what I hope readers get out of the trilogy, watching four teens struggle, wander, and finally charge into their lives in FOREVER, finally powerful in their own bodies and in their own worlds. I reckon that’s a lot to ask of a single series and I’m not sure it will come across, but what can I say? Sometimes this particular hero is a little grandiose.

Playlist for FOREVER

2011-08-13T15:58:00.000-07:00

I've been asked a gagillion times in the past year to share my playlist for FOREVER, and I finally, finally have done it. Part of the problem was the length of it — I have to listen to music while I write, and usually the list is quite short, but with FOREVER, I had to narrow it down from 193 songs.

Here it is. As always, if you love a song, please buy a legal copy of it and support the artist.

The Forever playlist

"Comes and Goes (In Waves)"—Greg Laswell
"No One's Gonna Love You"—Band of Horses
"Green Hills Race for California"—Emerson Hart
"Canvas"—Imogen Heap
"Samson"—Regina Spektor
"The Dragon"—The Guggenheim Grotto
"New Slang"—The Shins
"Tiger Mountain Peasant Song"—Fleet Foxes
"First Floor People"—Barcelona
"Librarian"—My Morning Jacket
"Sort Of"—Ingrid Michaelson
"Never Bloom Again"—The Perishers
"Powerlines"—Western States Motel
"33"—Great Northern
"Miner's Lamp"—Steve Reynolds
"Kings Horses"—JET
"Honey Honey"—Feist
"Winter Song"—Sara Barilles & Ingrid Michaelson
"Lille"—Lisa Hannigan
"I and Love and You"—The Avett Brothers

And here's the lot of it sorted into a playlist on iTunes.

Not everything was available on Playlist.com for sampling, but here's most of it.

I also have a rather disorganized and louder collection of music that I used to write Cole's scenes, but I'm not certain that will be as universally liked . . .

ETA: okaaaay, but don't say I didn't warn you. Here's the Cole/ Isabel playlist (and here it is on iTunes).

THE SCORPIO RACES: trailer and advanced review copy contest!

2011-08-11T08:19:00.000-07:00

It's been hard to know when to start talking about THE SCORPIO RACES. I had to keep it very quiet while I was writing it, and then FOREVER murmuring began and then I was on tour, and so it never seemed to be the right moment.

Well. Now it is a moment for THE SCORPIO RACES.

The book started as a short story written for a tiny anthology I did with the Merry Sisters of Fate, back when we began. It's based on a legend I've always loved (Irish water horses) and deals with two character types I adore. A fierce girl with loads of brothers (I have lots of brothers myself) and a Mr. Darcy sort of love interest (my first Mac was named Mr. Darcy. You know, difficult to get to know but worth it in the end. GET IT?). It's about a deadly horse race run at the base of chalk cliffs, and it is all about siblings, repressed love, and revenge. I spent months researching cliffs and islands and Irish horse racing and buns made with lots of honey to write this novel, and it's basically the most me novel that I've ever written. You can find a full description here.

My sister and I went into the studio earlier this year to record the music for the trailer and had more fun than humans should have. The track involved stomping, clapping, an instrument called the "Vibra-tone," and smacking drum sticks and mallets on lots of things that weren't supposed to be smacked. And then the trailer involved acrylic paint, a lot of transparency paper, a lot of tracing paper, and a brush too manky to be very useful (while I was on tour, all my good brushes moved away).

So here it is. The trailer.

As usual, I'm running the trailer contest for a chance to get one of three advanced review copies of THE SCORPIO RACES. They'll be doodled in and personalized. I cannot send the advanced review copies overseas, but I'm not going to disqualify international entries. If the winner lives overseas but can provide me with a U.S. address, I'll send the ARC to them. If the winner lives overseas but don't have a U.S. address, I will send something else Cool to them and award the ARC to another U.S. address.

The way to enter is easy -- just embed the trailer on your blog or post it on your Facebook or Twitter (you may say whatever you like about the trailer)(you can also post a link to where you can pre-order a signed, doodled in copy of THE SCORPIO RACES, but it's not required: http://www.fountainbookstore.com/autograph-maggie. I'd merely love you forever).

Then let me know where you posted it, along with your contact details

HERE ON THE CONTEST PAGE <------ click! click! click!

You can tell it's the place to enter the contest because I made it giant and bold. COMMENTS ON THIS BLOG ARE NOT ENTRIES!! You can tell that's true as well, because it's also in bold.

It's one entry per place that you post it: if you post it on your blog, facebook, and twitter, that is three entries. These contests tend to get huge and unwieldy, so please use common sense when deciding what constitutes an entry. Posted on your Wordpress blog? Yes. Posted on your mom's gallbladder support forum? No.

The contest runs from now until August 21st. I'll notify the winners, but please do check back on the blog to see if you've won. I will be ruthless about re-awarding the prizes if I don't get an email from the winners within 2 days, because I'm taking off for AUSTRALIAN TOUR on the 25th and I want to have these all mailed out before I'm away from my desk for a month.

I always seem to forget some part of contest posts, but I think I got the important bits. I should mention that there is another contest running for an ARC over at Merry Sisters of Fate, and it ends tomorrow night. That's here.

I believe I am now done talking about THE SCORPIO RACES for now.

ETA: I knew I would forget something. Here is the code for embedding the video on your blog (on Facebook, just post the link and it should appear properly). You'd post this code into the html view when you compose your blog post:

<iframe width="560" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/tojCn2Y41ig" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Ten Questions with Two Audiobook Narrators

2011-08-09T05:09:00.000-07:00

One of the most fascinating parts for me as an author has been the non-printed word ramifications of my novels — the music, the art, the fans sending me plays they've done of Shiver (true story). Audiobooks fall squarely in that category in my mind. Scholastic Audio does all of my audiobooks at this point, and starting with LINGER, they began to use my music in the audiobooks and ask me for input on the voice actors. By FOREVER, when they needed another voice actor to read Shelby's prologue, they asked if I wanted to be that voice.

Cool, yes?

I will answer for you. YES. Those of you who have listened to the audiobooks to this point know that Cole's voice is gritty and wonderful, Sam really sings the songs, Grace becomes wryly funny, and Isabel becomes the most sarcastic person alive. A few months ago, I was lucky enough to score interviews with two of the voice narrators, and here they are.

DAN BITTNER, ON BEING COLE.

MAGGIE: So the first thing I noticed when listening to the audio book was how well you really brought the somewhat tumultuous character of Cole to life. Talk to me about traditional acting versus voice acting. Do you have to get into character when you narrate in the same way you would with traditional acting? Do you have rituals, like standing on tables, speaking in tongues, or break dancing? Did you ever consider other “personas” for Cole?

DAN: The great thing about doing audiobooks is being able to play a larger spectrum of characters you normally wouldn't be right for. When I go in for TV/Film and Theater, I fit into a much smaller world. When my agent sends me breakdowns for roles it's a pretty sure thing I will find white, preppy, all American, fresh faced, quirky in there somewhere. Cole is the guy I would love to read for, but I'm the farthest thing from him. People give me their babies on the street, I'm not exactly a rough around the edges type, like Cole. I don't have any rituals except for making sure I warm up my voice beforehand. Reading a book in that lower register for so long can be rough, I go through a pitcher of water an hour. Going back to Cole and his persona, I knew exactly how I wanted him to sound when I read the description and a bit of the text.

MAGGIE: As I googled you in an attempt to ask intelligent questions, I noticed that there are only two other Dan Bittners of note. One who repairs appliances in Ohio, and one with a trucking company in New Jersey. Do you repair appliances or haul things in your spare time? And if not, what do you do when you’re not being Cole?

DAN: When I was growing up there used to be a Bittner that was a plumber in my hometown. It seems all the other Bittners out there are tradesmen. What a disappointment I must be for them. If I'm not acting, I'm usually just watching TV or playing video games (I'm starting to think this interview was a bad idea, I'm just going to crush the mental image of who people thought I was). I love food too, I live in Brooklyn with some of the best food around. Meeting friends for dinner over drinks would be ideal for me.

MAGGIE: So I headed into the studio to record my two pages of narration for FOREVER, and it took me about a half hour (fifteen minutes of that were because I apparently cannot pronounce ‘incisor.’). That’s longer than the full-length version of In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida by Iron Butterfly, which is saying something. How long did it take you to record LINGER and FOREVER?

DAN: It's so hard, right?!? I neeeeever would have thought I would be recording audio books. I can hardly read! I've gotten a lot better, but it's still a marathon of a process. I can relate to your "incisor" problem, sometimes these words come out that you have said a million times, but for some reason they are like a foreign language. I recently had to say "crimson" for another book and I could not for the life of me pronounce it without an "m" on the end. It took at least 12 times to get it right. The trick is getting in that zone of storytelling and not thinking about how you are sounding, or if you are messing up. As soon as you start commenting on what you are doing, you're done for. It usually takes about twice the time of the finished product. So if you listen to Linger and it's 5 hours, it takes about 10 hours to record.

MAGGIE: I think it’s safe to share your fan nick-name with you: in the trenches, your voice is referred to as “Sex-on-a-stick.” This may or may not have begun with me but it certainly hasn’t ended with me. Comment. Show your work.

DAN: I've deleted my current resume and all I have on there is your quote, "Dan Bittner is sex-on-a-stick". I can see the t-shirt now...

MAGGIE: What’s next for Dan “Sex-on-a-Stick” Bittner?

DAN: I was very happy to come back to read Forever. Besides reading other audiobooks, I did a small stint on the upcoming Men in Black movie as well as an indie film called Grand Street. Next up is an episode of Bored to Death, a show that is a personal favorite of mine that I am very excited to be a part of. It will be the second episode of the upcoming season. Other than that, I'm just waiting for it to stop being cold so I can go outside.

Listen to Dan being Cole in FOREVER:

Dan Bittner Sample by historyschild

PIERCE CRAVENS ON BEING SAM.

MAGGIE: First of all, I would like to apologize for forcing you to sing Sam’s song on the audiobooks of Linger and Forever. If it makes you feel any better, Scholastic Audio made me sing them very early in the morning, before caffeine, and I do not sing. Was this a first for you?

PIERCE: When I heard you sing, "Man, this is high for eight in the morning," I couldn't stop cracking up. It's the first time that I have ever sung for an audiobook, but I have been singing ever since I was a baby angel in a Christmas show at the Dallas Children's Theater. After that, it was straight to Broadway, but I stopped at Go first to collect $200.00.

MAGGIE: When I go into the studio for my music, it takes approximately four hours to record a two minute track. By my admittedly poor math reckoning (I was a history major. Dead white men, not math, were the priority), that’s 2 minutes for every finished second of music. I think the Linger audiobook is around 11 hours. Please tell me you weren’t in the studio being Sam for 1,320 hours. (This math may be wrong. I will now take any questions you have on dead kings in the Anglo-Saxon period.)

PIERCE: And I was an International Relations major, so I'm no help either. On Forever and Linger, I spent approximately 2 to 3 days in the studio working on the book. If I make a mistake, I simply started the sentences over, while the studio is still recording. After I finish reading, the editor and director listen back through the recording and take out all of the mistakes. Now to the dead kings: Was Alfred the Great really that great, or what he more Alfred the Pretty Good?

MAGGIE: Actually, he was Alfred the Pretty Damn Spiffy. How do you prepare for your studio work? Do you read the entire work first? Does it matter if you hate it? (If you hate my books, I don’t want to know.)

PIERCE: I read through the entire book to get a feel for the character and story. Then I read back through Sam's chapters and made notes. One of the things that I love about your writing is that it is highly poetic and descriptive -- with that comes beautifully packed, lengthy sentences. As a reader, I have to be cognisant of where I need to take a breath so that I can make it to period without running out of air.

MAGGIE: I did attempt to google you to ask intelligent questions, but all I came up with was your date of birth. I see that you are a young punk with roughly one million voice and traditional acting credits to your name (including the noble “Slimer #2” on Nickelodeon, back in the day). When did you first get into voice talent stuff, and how’s it different from traditional acting?

PIERCE: Slimer #2 was the role of a lifetime and I think I got snubbed by the Daytime Emmys. I got into doing voiceovers when I was an even younger punk. I started doing voiceover commericals for radio and TV and then started to do some cartoon voices for Disney, the Cartoon Network, and more audiobooks for Scholastic (pick up a copy of one of Froggy's adventures, if you don't already have one). One of the challenges with voiceovers is that your voice is all you have. Whereas, with traditional acting, you can communicate the character to the audience visually and auditorily.

MAGGIE: When you are not being Sam or Slimer #2, how do you spend your time?

PIERCE: I'm passionate about theater and film production and I am always on the look for new works to produce. I also love playing squash (the sport, not the vegetable). I live in New York City and like to check out all of the new events and restaurants that are constantly popping up. One of my favorite places in the city is the Natural History Museum and the Planetarium. Oh, and Go Yankees!

Listen to Pierce being Sam in FOREVER:
Pierce Craven Sample by MaggieStiefvater

Huge thanks to both of these narrators for going under the knife for the blog.

And of course you can find the audiobook online from major retailers, order it signed from my local indie, or download it from Audible.

French, German, and Australian Tour Events

2011-08-08T08:42:00.000-07:00

Here's the final list of these tour events* this year**:

*PLEASE double check with the venue to confirm all times before traveling long distances! Also, I'm happy to sign as many books as you bring, venue permitting, but I do ask that if there are books for sale there, you buy one from the hosting store as well to reimburse them for having an author event there. Thanks!

**I'm also going to be in the UK for a 10 day tour in November, but I don't have details yet. I will also have West Coast dates in October (Portland and California), so I'll post those details when I get them too.

August 29
Melbourne Writer's Festival
details here.
"Why I Read" - 10:00-10:45 a.m.

"Meet the Author" - 12:30-1:15 p.m.

August 30
Melbourne Writer's Festival
details here.
"Meet the Author" - 10:00-10:45 a.m..

September 1
Discussion & Signing
Dymocks, Melville
6:30 PM
Details here

September 2
Discussion & Signing
Dymocks, Melbourne
234 Collins Street
5:30 PM
Details here

September 3
10.30 am – 11.30 am
Readings Bookshop
701 Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn
Tel: 03 9819 1917

September 5
Discussion & Signing
Books Kinokuniya
Level 2: The Galleries
500 George Street
Sydney
6:00 PM

September 7
Brisbane Writers Festival
Breezeway, Mairwar – State Library of Qld
9.45 am – 10.30 am
Session: Wild Words panel
Panel with Margo Lanagan, Peter Stanley and Maggie
Details here

12.30 pm – 1.15pm
Breezeway, Mairwar – State Library of Qld
Grades 8 - 10 (400 kids)
Session: Meet Maggie Stiefvater

September 8
Brisbane Writers Festival
Breezeway, Mairwar – State Library of Qld
9.30 am – 10.30 am
Session: Meet Maggie Stiefvater

September 9
Brisbane Writers Festival
The Edge – State Library of Qld
9.45 am to 10.30 am
Session: Stories that move: book trailers

Panel with Tristan Bancks and Maggie
12.30pm to 2.15 pm
The Edge – State Library of Qld
Wordshop: Creating Characters workshop

September 10
Brisbane Writers Festival
Workshop: Writing for Young Adults
10am to 12 noon

German details here.

14. September: Hamburg
16.00 Uhr: Harbour Front Festival, Christianskirche, Klopstockplatz 2

15. September: Bamberg
20.00 Uhr: Hübscher Buch und Medienhaus, Grüner Markt 16
VVK in der Buchhandlung Tel: 0951/9822522

16. September: Freising
15.00 Uhr: Kino Camera, Obere Hauptstraße 54
VVK: Bücher Pustet, Obere Hauptstraße 45, Tel: 08161/537730

16. September: Ingolstadt
19.30 Uhr: Thalia Buchhandlung in den City Arcaden, Ludwigstraße 25
VVK in der Buchhandlung, Tel.: 0841/9938770

23 September: Paris
Event with Cate Tiernan
VIRGIN GRAND BOULEVARDS
6:30-8:00 p.m.

24 September: Bordeaux
Event with Cate Tiernan
LIBRAIRIE MOLLAT
4:00-6:00 p.m.

So Now We Come to the End (Well, Sort of)

2011-08-08T07:47:00.000-07:00

And by "end," I mean the end of the FOREVER U.S. tour. And by "sort of," I mean that I'm heading off for my Australian, German, and French tour dates in two and a half weeks (details on that here) so that means I'm practically still on tour.

But still, it's end of the road trip part of the tour, and I first of all have to say a huge thanks to you guys. 75% of every audience was people I knew from my blog or Twitter or Facebook, and it was fantastic to be able to meet people have been with me for this entire crazy journey.

I know there were still a lot of blog readers who didn't get to see me at one of my tour stops, and I wanted to do something for folks who couldn't make it to an event. I have some leftover Fun Things from the tour. Namely, these things:

My cool keychains! Made of genuine pleather! If you want one, just take a picture of yourself holding one of my books and send it to me along with a self addressed, stamped envelope, and I'll mail a keychain back to you. I get a smiling face, you get a keychain. Send all those here: P. O. Box 1448, King George, VA 22485. I'll keep sending them out until they're all gone.

Speaking of things that were sent in the mail, I did come home to this in my mail box.

ARE YOU SURE IT'S REALLY MY CAR?

I suppose it is. FINE. But I'll have you know, I never speed.

Well.

It's finally starting to sink in that FOREVER is the end of the trilogy and the U.S. tour is all done: 17 tour stops, 2 co-pilots, 238 gallons of gas, 4,000 miles, and one air conditioning condensing coil later. Here's the last video of the tour, with music courtesy of Brad Sucks (huge thanks to Brad -- if you love the song, please find it on iTunes or wherever you buy music!)

And if you missed the other tour videos, here are the links.

1. The Ringing Rocks of Pennsylvania

2. Into Every Life, a Little Construction Must Fall

3. A Day in the Life

4. Caves, Geodes, and Other Nifty Things

5. Look at that Animal!

6. Hotels with Lifeboats and Beds with Ladders

7. Nordic Style!

8. Maggie and Tessa at Wild Rumpus

9. Lions, Tigers, and . . . Binturongs?

Now, just to finish that novel and THE SCORPIO RACES book trailer before I leave for Australia.

Lions and Tigers and Binturongs, Oh My!

2011-08-05T07:38:00.000-07:00

On the 2nd, I had the very fortunate opportunity to tour the Conservators Center outside of Raleigh, NC, before my event at Quail Ridge Books. Those of you who know me at all know that there's nothing I like better than poking fingers at animals, and rumor had it they had wolves and lions and lemurs, most of them rehabilitated from closed zoos, failed exotic pet owners, and road accidents. A huge thanks to Tom and Bonnie for making this happen, and also to Mindy and Kim for sharing their time and expertise with us.

One of the animals Mindy was proudest of was the binturong. I'd never heard of them, which amazed me because of the sheer number of hours I logged in front of National Geographic as a child. But Mindy explained to me that they were crucial for the existence of the rainforest. Here is some Binturong arithmetic.

The binturong eats the strangler fig, poops it out minus the seed casing, and up grows a rainforest. No bintorong equals no poop equals no strangler fig equals only Wal-Marts.

What a useful animal!

You can see more useful animals (and also hear one of the more impressive auditory events in my life) in the video.

And the Conservators Center is open for tours and runs on donations, so please consider one or the other! I would love to take Thing 1 & 2 back there.

Why Are There So Many Chickens On This Tour?

2011-07-30T09:08:00.000-07:00

In which we have an event at Wild Rumpus in Minneapolis, MN.

And if you're in the Nashville area, I have an event at the Nashville Public Library on Sunday at 3 p.m.: details here.

Here are 10 Things I Did on My Summer Vacation

2011-07-29T08:54:00.000-07:00

And by summer vacation, I mean, last five days.

1. Had two events in Minnesota, one in Miami, one in Kansas City, and one in St. Louis, all populated by fantastic people who knew who I was.

2. Embraced Lover for the first time in 15 days, as he flew in to Minneapolis to take over co-pilot duties from Tessa.

3. Tried to fit Tessa, Natalie, Lover, and I and Tessa, Natalie, Lover, and my luggage into Loki for the drive through Iowa.

4. Rented a car.

5. Finally bought a GPS.

6. Ignored the GPS.

7. Simmered when, 50 miles outside St. Louis, the air conditioning on Loki suddenly stopped working.

8. Discovered a giant hole in Loki’s air conditioning condenser.

9. While still in St. Louis, found a place with a part to fix Loki’s air conditioning.

10. In Nashville, my next tour stop. Six hours away.

It’s going to be a long drive.

While I sweat, you can watch a video of Tessa and I in Wisconsin, trying to determine where all these Vikings came from.

Hotels with Lifeboats and Beds with Ladders

2011-07-27T13:14:00.001-07:00

While in St. Paul, MN, on the FOREVER tour, Tessa and I picked up Natalie Parker and my husband Ed and then we slept on a boat. Evidence:

Also, I'll be at Rainy Day Books in Kansas City tonight, and at the St. Louis Public Library tomorrow. Remember to say hi and tell me you're a blog reader if you are!

Wythe, Corn, and Goats

2011-07-24T19:29:00.000-07:00

So it is day 13 of my 3,700 mile road trip book tour for FOREVER, and we have been from Virginia to Philly to Syracuse to Canada to Michigan to Chicago to Wisconsin and now we're in Minnesota on a boat.

Wisconsin was gorgeous.

Driving through Pennsylvania earlier had put us in mind of the painters Wythe:

And Wisconsin inspired us.

Also, have some goat milking. We stayed at the Rainbow Ridge Farms, where Donna, Cindy, and Maria were very happy to teach us how to milk a goat. A huge thanks to them and if you ever have the opportunity to stay with them, TAKE IT.

Caves, Geodes, and Hitting things with Hammers: Day 10 (?)

2011-07-22T09:50:00.000-07:00

Today we're driving to Minneapolis, where I'll fly briefly to Miami tomorrow for a This is Teen! event with Meg Cabot and Libba Bray. Details on that here!

And I'm editing a video involving vikings and goats now.

A Day In the Life of A Touring Author

2011-07-20T08:05:00.000-07:00

Tonight we're on to Madison, WI's event, but while we spend the next few hours driving there, you can watch the trials and tribulations from our drive and event in Naperville yesterday.

Also . . . I just found out that UK readers have made FOREVER #1 in the UK.

WOW.

THANK YOU GUYS, SO MUCH!!!!!

I'm sure there would be more exclamation points if I could BELIEVE IT.

Day 5-7 of FOREVER Tour: Three Impressive Canadian Things

2011-07-18T20:16:00.000-07:00

So it is day seven of the FOREVER road trip tour (in case you're just tuning in, it is my 3,700 mile road trip book tour for FOREVER, and the places are here) and my co pilot (Tessa Gratton) and I have just gotten done with the Canadian leg of our journey. It began in Toronto and headed through Oshawa and London, with insanely huge and wonderful crowds at all of them.

So, there was a lot of the Canadian trip that was impressive to me (things like our hotel room having two bathrooms, Scholastic Canada being incredible, and Canadian fuel being more expensive than All The Things), but three things really stood out to me. First of all, they let me sign not only books, but walls:

That is the wall at Mabel's Fables. It was delightfully satisfying.

The second impressive thing is that they have strange road signs. Some of them are merely unusually regal.

Some, however, stood for things that Americans don't seem to encounter.

This sign means: TRUCKS WITH FAILED BRAKES AHEAD.

There were these signs everywhere. DANGER DUE TO OVERHEAD WIRES is what they say, but they didn't advise what I was supposed to do with this knowledge. Was this a recommendation to dodge or a warning to not fly my car in this area? Are many Canadians felled by high wires on the highway?

This sign helpfully pointed out where we could locate "overhead."

Do you see the pictogram on the far right? That means ALIEN ABDUCTION ZONE AHEAD.

DO NOT CROSS THE FILM STRIP.

QUILTING AREA AHEAD.

THIS SIGN IS NEW.

I . . . don't know.

Even the road cones were different in Canada. This cone represents how Tessa and I felt before we hit the traffic outside Toronto.

And this one represents how we felt after.

So, the final thing that impressed me about Canada?

They let me park on the sidewalk.

Best country ever.

Tomorrow? Onto Chicago for an event tomorrow evening.

FOREVER TOUR: Into Every Life, a Little Construction Must Fall

2011-07-17T05:11:00.000-07:00

Just in case you were wondering just what it was like to be in the Camaro during the FOREVER road trip tour.

ETA: Today is my last Canadian event, the final one to enter the raffle for the last Sharpie guitar:

The last event is at 2:00 p.m. in London, Ontario. Details here.

Day Three of the FOREVER tour: The Hammer & Tire Iron Edition

2011-07-16T06:03:00.000-07:00

On Day Three, after a lovely event in Philly, Tessa and I made our way from our delightful haunted bed and breakfast (SEE OUR GHOST FOOTAGE HERE!) to the Ringing Rocks of Pennsylvania.

Then it was onward to Syracuse. Oh and that is a video all to itself.

Forever Tour, Day One, in Photos

2011-07-12T20:19:00.000-07:00

So I have crashed for the evening after an incredible, incredible launch party in Tyson's Corner and I'm sort of so tired that Tessa (Gratton) and I just spent 40 minutes staring at the room service card trying to decide how to order eggs and a pot of tea in the morning, but the day was too cool not to share. But I have no more words, so photos will have to do.

Old Loki and BlueLoki. Old Loki is getting ready to be sold and BlueLoki is getting ready to be packed.

These things must all go into the car. Including that girl and that hammer.

People at the launch! They were fantastic (well, some of them were you reading this. you were fantastic).

More peoples at the event.

I gave away the Sharpie guitar to a lucky raffle winner!!

I am not good at looking professional when Tessa photographs me!

We gave away a lot of swag!

Sulaiman Azimi sang his version of "Summer Girl" for the crowd.

More to come, as always, including video hijinks. Tomorrow is Philly. Goal: Stop having traumatic flashbacks to Ferris Bueller's Day Off every time we have to valet park BlueLoki.

Thanks, guys, for making the launch such a memorable experience . . . what an amazing, amazing few years this has been.

Square Peg. Camaro-Shaped Hole.

2011-07-11T03:44:00.000-07:00

I am packing for my tour tomorrow (all dates and locations HERE) and I am beginning to think I might have some problems.

It began on Friday, when this arrived from my crazy and wonderful Scholastic publicist:

And then the DHL man came and brought:

900 key chains

About the same number of This is Teen flash drives

And then the UPS man came later that day and brought yet more boxes which contained:

Tons of THE SCORPIO RACES post cards (which I'll be using a few of for Postcard to a Stranger on tour)

Some This is Teen post cards

Some stickers

Which wouldn't be a problem except I'm already bringing

a bunch of Linger tank tops to give away at the launch party in Tyson's Corner tomorrow.

A bunch of wolf cut outs from the FOREVER trailer to give away at the launch party.

Two Sharpie-d on guitars to give away, one at the launch party in Tyson's Corner, and one in Canada (for Canadians hoping to win the Sharpie guitar, you can enter to win it at all THREE Canadian locations, and they'll contact the winner after the events to give you the guitar)(seems fair, right?)

Also, I am going to pick up this from the airport in a few hours, and it has to fit in too.

That's Tessa Gratton, my co-pilot for the first half of the trip.

So, minus Tessa, two boxes of foreign editions of Shiver for giveaway, my 17 black tank tops and 6 pairs of jeans that is my wardrobe, and all of my camera equipment for the videos of alpacas and ringing rocks and hilarity I will be making, this is kind of what the pile looks like.

Well, not the dog. But everything else.

And it must fit into here.

Well, more precisely, here.

Oh, I can so make that work.

What to Expect When You're Expecting a Book Signing

2011-07-07T09:51:00.000-07:00

It is only a few days before I head out on my Epic Road Trip FOREVER Tour, and I've been getting a lot of questions on Facebook and Twitter about what to expect at a book store event, how many books I'll be signing, etc., etc. So I have decided to do a blog post about what you can expect at one of my events. I expect there will be some variation at each store, but it'll look enough like this to be recognizable.

So, let us say that I am you. You will double check to make sure the event is when you think it is. Sometimes this means calling the store; sometimes this means checking their website. Note I said their website, not Maggie's. Because the store is the final answer on all event times and sometimes Maggie posts these things to her site very late and she is also slightly dyslexic.

Anyway, so you check the event and you arrive at the store a little early to get parking. No matter how early you are, someone will be earlier. There will be chairs in the event area and this early person will be sitting in one of them with lots of books and you will be friends. Look, there she is, your new friend.

You'll have a bit of time, so now would be a good time to buy at least one book from the store. The bookstores don't get paid anything to host author events and they are a lot of trouble, so I ask (nicely, now) that you pay them back for this by buying at least one book there. I'd prefer it was one of mine but if you have all of mine already, you can buy someone else's instead (some stores won't let you do this, but most do).

Sometime before the event, my best friend Tessa Gratton and I will pull up in this.

I mean, hopefully. It's possible it will have broken down and we won't appear until much later. Or it's possible we will show up in a tow truck or in a rented Honda Accord. But the plan is to show up in (Blue)Loki.

You will be able to recognize us when we come into the store because we will have bad, frizzy hair from having the windows down. Also, Tessa might be looking angrily at me because she didn't reckon on how loud Loki is as a form of transportation. Also she might be tired at eating at Chipotle, which is the only national chain without preservatives, which I'm allergic to. Also she might be tired of my taste in music, because most people can only listen to Que Onda Guero so many times through without puking. But I am not one of those people.

After the bookstore introduces me and everyone takes a seat, I will proceed to do this for about 15 minutes.

Then I'll open the floor for questions. I love this part the best. I tend to get side-tracked, easily, however, and may end up just telling stories about Bulgaria unless you are very stern with me.

I may or may not give away fun prizes at this point. If you're at one of the stores where we're giving away a guitar, this will be the point that that happens. This also may be the point where, if you are at the launch party, Sulaiman Azimi begins singing "Summer Girl."

Then the bookstore will assemble everyone into a line. It may be quite long, and I'm sorry for that. I suggest you make more friends with the people to your front and rear.

People have asked about multiple books and yes, I'm okay with multiple books. I will sign the faerie books and ARCs and Nooks. But not body parts. Also, I will not sign other authors' books. Also, I will only sign clean clothing. People ask about wolf doodles, and I like doing them, but I can only do them if there's not a huge long line.

When you get to the front of the line and I'm smiling up at you with hope and anticipation, there tends to be an awkward pause where both of us forget how to speak. I always like to hear about which book is your favorite or which part you liked or didn't like, and if you have a question you didn't want to shout out, this is a good place to ask it. And if you could tell me who you want me to sign the book too, that helps too (often bookstores will have you jot your name down on a post-it note so I don't have to ask how to spell it). Also if you want to give me a mix CD, I love mix CDs.

And then, yes, you can do this!

I will ask that if you do want a photo with me, please turn the flash off. I don't mean to sound high maintenance, it's just that they've started triggering migraines after an hour of them or so. Those make me lay on my face, and I don't like laying on my face.

Anyway, that is it! Ultimately, you'll end up with a signed book, several new friends, and hopefully a few hours of laughing. I'm revoltingly excited to get started.

Things I Am Not Good At

2011-07-05T19:13:00.000-07:00

I just looked down and realized that my workspace is very messy.

and though I must have been the one to perpetrate such madness on my desk, I don't understand how or why it happened. Like, why do I have more than one pen lying within my reach? Why do I need two Sharpies out of the pen can? Why is there an American Flag blanketing that Camaro? Also, are those my parking receipts I was looking for?

And yes, I did have to blur out MagicalNovel on the screen because it was TOTALLY LEGIBLE.

3 Book Recommendations: THE GOOD, THE BAD, & THE UGLY

2011-07-04T09:31:00.000-07:00

I hope everyone’s having a fantastic 4th. I’m about to head off to do the usual (grilling things, blowing things up, being American) but before I do, I wanted to post about three books that thrilled and delighted me while I was traveling in the last month. I would like to call them the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

FLYAWAY, by Lucy Christopher
This one counts as the Good in my trio. It’s by the same author who wrote STOLEN (which you’ll recall that I adored). FLYAWAY is actually her first novel, published second in the states, and it’s a middle grade novel. Basically, it’s about a girl who becomes determined to reunite a lost swan with its flock after the girl’s father has a heart attack. Anyway, here are five reasons to read it:

1. It’s soft and sweet. The image of a feather comes to mind, even though this book is about a girl coping with the idea that her father and her new friend might die.

2. The imagery is, as always in Christopher’s books, beautiful. The setting is always another character.

3. There is something about Christopher’s prose across both her novels that makes me trust her as an author. She’s in control of these stories, and if you’re feeling something, it’s because she meant you to. It means that she pretty much has a free pass with me at the moment. I will pick up anything she writes.

4. It’s got this slightest little hint of magical realism. I would’ve really loved this book as a ten year old.

5. It is precisely what it promises you. Sometimes I want to be shocked, yes, and sometimes I want twists, and sometimes I want to read about a very unexpected body in a closet. But this book promises that it is a certain sort of book on the first page, and then it gives you exactly that. Soft and sweet.

ETA: I read the UK edition, but FLYAWAY comes out in the U.S. this fall.

THE MONSTRUMOLOGIST, by Rick Yancey
This one counts as the Bad part of my trio, because it’s about a rather particular Monstrumologist and his apprentice chasing headless man-eating monsters across Victorian New England. Here are five reasons why you should read it:
1. These are proper monsters. They don’t want to make out with you or play you songs on their guitar while you snuggle on the sofa. They just want to eat you, except for when they want to insert their babies in your corpse so they have something to snack on as they incubate. Okay, it’s a little gross sometimes. I ought to say that up front.

2. The voice! The voice! Apart from the first and last chapters, which are introduced in modern times (and which I don’t care for), the entire novel is told from the point of view of Will Henry, the Monstrumologist’s pint sized apprentice. He is resolute but afraid, put upon but never whiny. I love the historical aspect. It’s all very gaslight and cobblestones and black cloaks and gasping behind hands.

3. The Monstromologist! He is so high-maintenance and flawed and persnickety. Basically, he is Howl from Howl’s Moving Castle, if Howl never met Sophie. Oh, my love is undying. “WILL HENRY, SNAP TO!”

4. I wish I could just make you read this book now.

5. The beginning. Also, the middle. Also, the end. There is a character twist two thirds of the way through the book that I just did not see and I literally gasped on a plane. Then I was so delighted that a book had made me gasp on a plane that I punched Lover in the shoulder and made wild hand gestures. This book is put together like a puzzle box, and I will be taking it apart again sometime soon.

BETWEEN SHADES OF GRAY, by Ruta Sepatys
And this one counts as the Ugly part of my trio. Because even though I found this novel exceptionally well-written, it was not a pleasure to read. It’s about Lithuanians displaced to Siberian work camps during World War II. It was pretty unflinchingly brutal, but here’s why I think you ought to read it:
1. It is a side of World War II that you might not have seen before. I certainly hadn’t heard these stories of displaced Europeans, and I have to say, having been to Lithuania on tour last year, it made so much of what they said have deeper meaning. I found their fierce national pride lovely and charming when I was there; after this novel, it seems incredibly brave and honorable.

2. Mom. The mother is really the heroine of this story (and that is my one nitpick about this novel: the narrator has no arc and no agency — all of the action is carried by her mother and her sort-of-boyfriend). She has such an incredible flame and kindness in her. One of my favorite book moms.

3. Shades of gray. The title promises and the novel delivers. Characters we think are horrid actually do incredibly kind things, and character we regard as friends do awful ones.

4. If you combine 2 and 3, you get my favorite part, which is that it makes you look at people an entirely new way. I love books that stretch my brain, and this one sat with me for hours and hours.

5. Wonderful sense of place, even when the place isn’t so wonderful. Like Lucy Christopher, I trust the author to take me someplace different, and I’ll be picking up whatever she writes next.

Signed and Doodled in FOREVERs.

2011-06-29T16:42:00.000-07:00

I cannot believe that it is less than two weeks until FOREVER comes out. CANNOT. BELIEVE.

I also cannot believe that it is less than two weeks until I trust my health and safety to my '73 Camaro as I set off on my 3,700 mile road trip book tour.

But believe it or not, it is happening.

So, I think this is getting to be the last time that I can say that if you are not near any one of these dots (each of which represent a future Maggie present in that place some time in 2011)

and you want to buy one of these

With a front page I have done THIS to

now is the time to order your copy of FOREVER from Fountain Bookstore, my favorite local independent bookstore.

Every pre-order from Fountain Bookstore will be signed in and doodled on (this goes for pre-orders of THE SCORPIO RACES, too, although that doesn't come out until November 18th). At the very latest, I will be signing and doodling the FOREVER shipment on the 11th of July (depending on when they get theirs in), which means that you will get your signed, doodled copy only a few days later than you could buy it ordinarily.

Why do I do this? Well, first of all, because I know I can't drive everywhere on my tour (because my car might die, for starters, and because I might die, for lasters) and I know that not everyone can drive 17 hours to the closest Maggie signing to get their book signed. And second of all, because it makes a big difference to an indie bookstore to have all these pre-orders go through their doors. And both of those things make me feel good.

So if you would like to pre-order, their website is here: http://www.fountainbookstore.com/autograph-maggie

And they will ship overseas, but you'll have to e-mail them for that, I believe.

ZOMG July. Is. This. Friday.

Shiver Audiobook Available for Free Download

2011-06-26T04:29:00.000-07:00

Audiosync has put up the Shiver Audiobook for free download (no strings attached) until June 29th. That's here.

It's no secret, of course, that the Linger audio is my favorite, partially because of the new voice talent for Cole, and I have interviews with both him and the voice for Sam in the Linger audiobook coming up next month. Which is in, like, four days.

Which means it's only two weeks until I drive cross country in the Shiver-mobile.

Eek.

In Which I Talk About Blood, Guts, the F-Bomb, & Your Mom

2011-06-22T06:56:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking a lot about writing for readers in the past week.

This is for a couple of reasons. First of all, because I was on the This is Teen tour with Meg Cabot & Libba Bray and we got a lot of audience questions that set my brain going. And secondly, because I’m working on MagicalNovel (no, I cannot tell you anything about it, but I reckon you expected that) where guiding reader expectations has been a preoccupation of mine. And thirdly, because I have a very little time to write MagicalNovel before I leave on my Giant Road Trip Driving Tour for FOREVER, and that always makes me philosophize instead of working.

Anyway, a bunch of times on tour, I got asked by readers or interviewers if I changed my writing for teens, or for my readers in general. And my first response was to get all prickly and snarl in a bristly voice, just what do you mean by that? and then growl I have my integrity! and ultimately explode I WRITE FOR ME.

Of course, that was before I realized I was lying.

I didn’t mean to lie, of course, it’s just that I was interpreting the question in a rather filthier way than it really needed to be. In my head, the question became about chasing trends and putting in kissy scenes because you thought it would make the book sell better and making certain you followed a certain commercial formula.

And yeah, changing your writing for a perceived audience can mean those things, but it doesn’t have to mean only those things. Because the fact is, I am very aware of my audience when I write, and the more I think about it, the more I think every aspiring writer needs to be. In fact, I think you HAVE to think about how readers are going to interpret your words if you want the story in your head to be the same one they experience.

This was a big issue for me in THE SCORPIO RACES — actually, in LINGER, as well. Both Cole St. Clair and Sean Kendrick are characters who don’t lend themselves to instant sympathy: Cole because he is a massively self-involved jerk, and Sean because he’s remote, keeping people at an arm’s length. As the plot moves along, I reveal why they are the way they are, and that there is more to them than the first impression. But the reader doesn’t know that. At any moment, they could pitch the novel aside, disinterested in reading about these unsympathetic characters. This is where I realize that I think about readers a LOT. Especially when I have unsympathetic or difficult characters, I obsess about how readers are going to see them. I have to give my readers something to hang their hat on, some promise that they will later like this character, or another plot element to identify with while I buy myself some time to make that hard character softer.

Actually, I was chatting with my friend Carrie about plotting once, and she had a great way of putting it. She said that she always felt that an author started with a certain number of gimmee points, and every time you did something to shake the reader’s confidence, like a convenient plot element, you lost some points. Once the gimmee points were all used up, the book was tossed against the wall.

I have an imaginary list in my head of things that use gimmee points. Every element that might make a reader stumble: A tragic ending. A hard to pronounce name for the narrator. A character with a really unsympathetic past. Elvis impersonators. Intimidating number of pages. A cowardly main character. Gore. Swearing. Politically charged elements. Killing the dog. Unusual sentence structure, unfamiliar mythology, loads of place names, high body count.

Do I think that all of these things are fine things to put in a novel? Yes. Do I think that the inclusion of any of them will make the novel less universally loved? Yes. Do I think if you put in all of them, it's virtually only going to be loved by you and your mom? Yes.

This is the part where I have to say that I write mainstream fiction, not literary. This entire blog post is less relevant if you’re writing literary, which is full of readerly stumbling blocks for important reasons. I think it’s crucial, though, that you know which one you’re writing. (Somewhere recently I talked about expectations, and how lots of people write books with limited commercial appeal and then wonder why they aren’t smash bestsellers.) If you’re trying to write a novel with a broad readership, you need to know how many gimmee points you’ve used up. You have to choose your battles wisely. If you really want the tragic end, do you really need to strangle that character with his own intestines in chapter four? Do you really need to name your main character Peliphenorious?

Some writers might disagree, but I have no problem with changing Peliphenoriuous’s name to Bob, if it’s all the same to me, if I know that readers will prefer reading about someone named Bob. I also have no problem curbing a shockingingly gory scene if I want to preserve the reader’s good graces for the gory scene that I really want later in the book. I really don't mind taking out all the f-bombs if I think it will make the readers that I otherwise think will like my novel stumble. It's usually not about changing elements entirely — it’s about changing the way you write about it, to make it less of a bitter pill for the reader. And my point of compromise will not be another writer's point of compromise. The readers I imagine in my head for my novels might not be the readers you imagine in your head. Not everyone, for instance, wants to write books your mom will like.

I do.

I do have a problem with changing major plot elements to what readers want, because I have gone on record multiple times saying that readers know what they want but not what they need. The story has to stay mine, at its heart.

In the end, it does come back down to how an outside viewer is perceiving your book, which is why critique partners are so important to me. I need to know if I’m playing the balancing act well, convincing a reader to follow a difficult character or managing a contentious story element. I don’t think of it as compromising my stories, though. In fact, I think considering my readers’ feelings is what lets me tackle hard elements in my novels. Knowing they’re going to be a hard sell gives me the foreknowledge to package them in the most universally appealing way possible.

What do you think about this, as a reader or as a writer? Do you have an element that will always push you away from a book? Do you want the reader to be part of the writerly equation?

Winners of the Wolves of Mercy Falls Art Contest

2011-06-21T11:30:00.000-07:00

I'm happy to be able to share with you the winners of the Wolves of Mercy Falls art contest. Thanks to EVERYBODY for entering and thanks to my secret family member and friend who judged. Thanks to everyone for giving me permission to share your art, too. Without further ado, the fifteen winners, in no particular order. (click to go to the artist's blog or site).

There were so many amazing things to choose from — songs written and dances choreographed and scenes acted out and passages illustrated and .. . . it was just awesome, guys. I know what it's like to be one of the entries not chosen in things like this, and I want to emphasize that I loved looking at all of them, and I'm really so glad I didn't have to choose between them. Keep arting.

The Golden Woods from Katherine Robson on Vimeo.

I think I feel a goal assessment post coming on, by the way, now that it's halfway through the year. Just warning you.

FOREVER Art Contest Winners!

2011-06-18T10:01:00.000-07:00

It is the 18th and I'm finally back from This is Teen (wrap up to come on that!) and so it is time to announce the winners of the FOREVER art contest. We had 72 entries, and I was very happy that I managed to recruit a family member and friend to judge this for me, because if it had been up to me, I would've never been able to pick. I looked at every one of them and was blown away by the creativity, the hours of labor, and the sheer affection for the novels that I saw. THANK YOU to everyone for sharing that with me. I wish I had ARCs to give to everyone.

Now, I know I said I was going to give away three ARCs but I scrounged around my house and found 15, so we are going to have 15 winners instead. If you're one of them, shoot me an e-mail with your mailing address so I can send you your copy of FOREVER! If you're interested in letting me feature your winning piece on the blog, let me know.

And now, in no particular order!

PipAnimation
Miss Page-Turner
tanianault
bamboozerz
Taylor Ackerman
Cristina Escalante
Chelsea Pro
Katherine (Dreamingofrain)
Cim (chaex1)
Bandana1
Greta is Erikasbuddy
Rina (icklefruit)
Kusanar
MaeganisaWizard
kyo31

PLEASE email me by the 24th, or I will have to award your ARC to another winner. Congrats to all and THANK YOU AGAIN!

Maggies are Not Good House Pets

2011-06-15T14:28:00.000-07:00

I have had 10 cups of tea. I have a This is Teen event in Chicago later this evening. I am not good at waiting in hotel rooms.