This Is My Secret: The Blog and Website of Writer Kristin Cashore

Re: Bitterblue travel: I'll be in Sweden (Stockholm and Kristianstad/Malmö), Spain (at least Madrid, not sure beyond that yet), France (Paris), and the Netherlands (at least Amsterdam) in September -- it's official, my transatlantic flights are booked -- and I'll post more details when I have them.

Re: blogginess: There are a few updates I need to post to this blog, including some sort of page of Bitterblue reviews... I'm afraid some aspects of the blog have dropped to a currently unreachable part of my priority list, so things aren't as tidy around here as I prefer them. I will get to it some day. In the meantime, what blogging time I have, I'm trying to focus on new posts. I have a couple planned. One is about Tim Riggins. :-)

Re: gorgeous clouds, check out this stupendous link to "60 insane cloud formations from around the world." Thanks B, via B! :)

And re: awesome music videos, I love this ASL interpretation of Gotye's "Somebody That I U…

… when you find yourself fascinated by random shapes in your hotel room. Lamps. Mirrors. The corner.


My editor encouraged me to take lots of pictures while I'm on tour, and post them on my blog. This may not be what she meant. Oh well. She knows I'm a little bit weird :-)

The tour is going really well. I don't say this enough: I've got the most wonderful readers. The people at my events in Cambridge, Rhinebeck, Villanova, Haverford, Bethesda, Naperville, and now here in the Minneapolis area have been so generous to me, and the questions have been SO SMART. I'm trying to keep track of some of my favorite questions, and I'll blog them, with answers, at some point.

At events, I'm too hectic to be taking pictures, plus, while on the road, I'm blogging from my phone, so I'm limited when it comes to what pictures I can easily blog/label/format. So I don't have event pictures to share (though I do have a few I'm working on setting up, and hope to …

Me at the local yummy vegetarian foodie place (Life Alive. Stupid name, delicious food. Also, no, I am not a vegetarian): I'd like the Romantic Wrap. Please add eggs and greens.
The guy: The Romantic Wrap, add eggs and beets?
Me: Eggs and greens.
The guy: I'm afraid we don't have any beans.
Me: GREENS!  I WANT GREENS!

***
My sister, codename: Apocalyptica the Flimflammer, on the phone in the wind: I just got to Harvard Square! I'm sorry I'm late! I'm on my way!
Me: Oh, don't worry, I'm just doing crap.
Apocalyptica: Crafts?
Me: Crap.
Apocalyptica: Crack?
Me: Crap! I'm doing crap! I'm paying bills and filing paperwork!
Apocalyptica: So you're not doing crack?

***
So, travel puts a lot into me, but it also takes a lot out of me, and lately I've been using what I've got for stuff other than blogging. My expectation is that this will result in you someday soon having more fiction by me to read. Fair deal?

On Wednesday I leave for Rome an…

When I'm really, really tired and trying to juggle too many balls (metaphorically), sometimes my short-term memory completely vanishes. For example, I'll be walking along the street, see the cash machine, and think to myself, "Maybe I should get some cash just in case I need it at the airport tomorrow. Should I? Shouldn't I? Yes, I should!", I'll think, proud of myself for making an important travel-related decision. Then I'll look around in confusion, wonder why I'm having a conversation with myself on the sidewalk, and walk home. Forgetting all about the cash. Or, something that just happened 15 minutes ago: I'll let myself into the lobby of my building, and then, as I'm walking the short distance to my door, put my keys away in my bag, proud of myself for this excellent example of multitasking. Finding myself at my door, I'll stare at the door in confusion, remember I need the key to get inside, then panic for a moment, because I can…

Hello everyone. This is your friendly author Kristin here. I wanted to let you all know that I have lost my mind. Here is an emoticon of me standing next to my disembodied head. I am thinking of using it as a soccer ball.

/|\
/\ O


Here is an emoticon of me bravely using my laser vision to vanquish a flying apple while balanced on a yoga ball. When you've lost your mind, you think it's normal to do things like this.

o~-~-~-~-~-~-~ß|O


Here is an emoticon of me on the flying trapeze. This is actually a sane thing I like to do from time to time, though my mother might argue otherwise.

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|o|
8
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Ah, those were carefree days. Not like now. Here is an emoticon of me dead from too much work, in profile.

O_____,


Wait, she stirs!

O\/___,


Again, she stirs!

O__\__,


Is there hope?

O_____,


No.

O_____,


There is no hope.

O_____,


Diagnosis: DEAD.

O_____,


So, this is what we've been reduced to on the blog. Here's the deal: I am not actually dead. However, I don't have a lot of time or energy right …

There are times when I wander around feeling like I have way too many things I want to blog... and then, the more I think about it, the more I realize I'm wrong about that, because all those shiny topics basically break down like this:
40% things that are too personal for blogging.40% things that would take up too much of my free time and sanity points (for example, a list of all the ways the Vatican blows my mind, seriously, WTF?).20% things that are boring as nails.As you can see, I've chosen the boring as nails category for this post.

(Incidentally, not all nails are boring. For example, mine. Also, come to think of it, Spike's.)



(You see what we've been reduced to here on the blog?)

Truth: I don't have anything to blog today, this week, or possibly this eon. Except for these two little things I want to share:

1. Above is the cover of the Complex Chinese character edition of Graceling, published in Taiwan by Gaea Books and scheduled for May. Click to see it bigg…

There are times when I wish I had a butler. If I had a butler, I wouldn't have to figure out how to pack for a month-long trip to Bologna, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Paris, Madrid, Barcelona, Lisbon, and Florida in suitcases small enough not to make me crazy on all those airplanes and trains, and, in fact, if I had a butler, he could come to the Boston airport the day I'm flying from Lisbon to Paris to Boston to Washington DC to Florida to take my professional Europe suitcase from me and hand me a freshly-packed suitcase for visiting babies in Florida.

I would like a butler named Grover. He could wear a cape and a helmet and be blue and fuzzy and cute and occasionally double as a waiter in a rather peculiar restaurant. Could we arrange for that, please?

I leave in a week and I'm going out of my mind and would like to warn y'all that things might be a little floopy on the blog for the foreseeable future. I plan to be blogging, but the blogging is apt to be a bit... indicativ…