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

A few weeks ago, I showed you all the book map that I built for my office wall. This tool has proven itself to be invaluable. I consult it constantly as I'm working. It's a stupendous structural aid as I reorder the events of this book and refocus the plot. I WANT TO MARRY IT.

However, as the sight of it recently made a writer friend depressed ("I could never do that," the friend said), I feel I should add that this is the first book I've ever been able to do it for. This book is short (for me) and relatively simple. Had I tried to stick a plot map on my wall for Bitterblue, it would've taken an enormous amount of time that would have been better spent writing, it would've been more confusing than helpful, plus, I wouldn't have had enough wall space.

Each book is different and requires its own unique tools.

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That being said, I've finally come to accept that one particular unenjoyable aspect of writing is going to be present with every single b…

Meet my old pal, Sylvestor, who is a cat-about-town in Seattle (and has excellent taste in fiction).
Here's something theologian and therapist Thomas Moore says in one of my very favorite books, Care of the Soul:

"The Greeks told the story of the minotaur, the bull-headed flesh-eating man who lived in the center of the labyrinth. He was a threatening beast, and yet his name was Asterion -- Star. I often think of this paradox as I sit with someone with tears in her eyes, searching for some way to deal with a death, a divorce, or a depression. It is a beast, this thing that stirs in the core of her being, but it is also the star of her innermost nature. We have to care for this suffering with extreme reverence so that, in our fear and anger at the beast, we do not overlook the star."
Here's something Tibetan Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön says (from her audiobook How to Meditate, paraphrased by me):
Approach your own frustrations in meditation -- such as your inability to …