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

I've been playing chess on my phone during work hours. Initially, I started to do this because the writing I'm doing is kicking my heart around the room and I can only bear to work on it in small doses; a game of chess every 90 minutes or so stabilizes me and brings me back to base one, so that I can work on another small section of the book. But now I'm also playing chess because it's become fun. I've named my computer opponent HAL, of course, and set him to his easiest setting. By now I've practiced enough that I beat him pretty quickly every time, but I'm not content to increase his difficulty until I get to the point where I can understand every move he's making, and see the game unfolding a few more steps ahead of what I'm currently seeing.

It's weirdly like writing a book. Even when things are going okay, I feel like I'm trying to catch up, straining to understand, trying to contain something that's out of my control.

I've rea…

This post contains spoilers for the Bourne movies, including the most recent.

So. I don't know what they're lacing these Bourne movies with, but (with the exception of that godawful, boring, too-long car chase in the second movie) I never want these movies to end. It turns out that the drug is not in fact Matt Damon, because The Bourne Legacy (out now), which doesn't even have Matt Damon in it, has the same effect on me. Aaron Cross, you are the genetically-modified assassin OF MY HEART. But why, why? WHY do I love these movies? They are chock-full of ideological problems. (In TBL, we get to see some kickass operatives who are people of color and even one who's a woman, and then, three minutes later, they're all dead. Producers, you have a captive audience. Make your main star in one of these movies someone who is not a white man.) Also, the plots are absurd. (Aaron Cross is a genetically modified/enhanced black-ops assassin for the US government, but he's run…

So, the other day in the grocery store, the two people in front of me were listing their celebrity crushes. Ewan McGregor; Kate Winslet; Colin Farrell; Colin Firth; John Stamos; Emily Mortimer; people I'd never heard of and therefore can't remember; the list went on and on. So I gave it some thought, and came to a conclusion about myself. Now, some of my friends are going to blow their drinks out of their noses when they read this, but nonetheless, here's the conclusion: I don't have celebrity crushes. (Just hold on, friends, because there's a second part to this, with which I will regain your trust:) I have character crushes. HUGE difference.

Take Jared Leto, for example. I don't really know much about Jared Leto, I'm pretty much indifferent to him, and in fact, I'd rather eat a moldy grape than watch Requiem for a Dream ever again.

But Jordan Catalano? I know and love Jordan Catalano -- I went to high school with Jordan Catalano -- maybe you d…