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

Today we moved me into my new office (yay!) and it feels so good. The coming week has a trip and my house move, so it'll be a few days before I'm in the office regularly, but I can tell I'm going to love it. I'll post pictures once it's in order. Send good thoughts to my enormous corn plant, which definitely experienced some trauma during the move today... I think the plant might hate Kevin now, actually, though he was only doing what had to be done (and what I couldn't do, because I can't lift the damn thing!). It didn't fit in the van and had to be propped weirdly sideways and wrapped up in garbage bags and hauled back and forth; it crashed to the ground more than once; we also repotted it today. But you're home now, plant! Live!

So, that's my new cover above. Here's the link again for anyone who'd like to read an excerpt. Pub date is September 19 :o).

And in the meantime, some really, really lovely news about the Graceling Realm book…

Here's how it looks outside the windows today…



I left the endless rain of Northern California and came home to the snow of Eastern Massachusetts :o). Weather is so good for writing. I wrote two and a half pages this morning while curled up in blankets and watching the snow fall. (I consider two pages to be a good day's work – though some days I only managed a few lines, and some days I manage 12 or 15 pages.)

As I prepare for the release of Jane, Unlimited next September, I continue to plod through my new novel, which is the eighth I've ever written. (Two unpublishable; Graceling; Fire; Bitterblue; Jane, Unlimited; a mystery/boarding school book currently in revisions; and this new one.) How does it feel to be writing my eighth novel? Pretty much exactly how it felt to write novels one through seven: pointless, hopeless, stupid, exhausting, a waste of time, torturously slow, and with an endpoint so far in the future that I'm sure I will basically feel like this for the…

It's hard to focus on a hard revision when my new home remains chaotic and I could be organizing, cleaning, and hanging up pictures, rather than fixing this book. The news, which is heartbreaking everywhere, every single day, also makes it difficult. But I am focusing and fixing the book, because it feels even more awful not to.


In the meantime, it isn't all chaos.






Further afield, yesterday in New Jersey, we got together with this distinguished gentleman…


...and totally learned to GOLF.

Sort of.

It was our first time. We started at the driving range, where my dad taught us the basics, demonstrated a few things, then made extremely kind and encouraging comments as it became clear that I CAN'T HIT GOLF BALLS. Oh my goodness. They're so small and far away!




Oh my goodness. When I actually managed to hit the ball, it would usually go in the right direction, and sometimes it would even have some lift and go a little bit far. But probably 75% of the time, I didn't eve…

So, the movers are coming tomorrow, and though I'm surrounded by exquisite disarray, I feel this is the moment to blog pictures (taken by Kevin) of a very special (perhaps even magical) hat. Because now is the time to celebrate beautiful things. :o)

My regular readers know that I knit. Well, my mother knits on the superwoman level.

She made me this hat.


Look at the hearts, the intricate designs that went into the making of this hat…

The adorable tassel.

Furthermore, it's some sort of special Scandinavian double hat, basically knitted as two continuous hats that you shove one inside the other, and actually quadrupled around the ears, not to mention that it is made of Icelandic wool, all of which means that I will never be cold again. But also, the first time I sat with the hat (which my mother had given me without comment), examining and appreciating it, I found myself wondering whether she had knitted any fancy designs into the inside hat.

So I pulled the inside part out…

…

Hi all! If you're looking for something fun to do in eastern Massachusetts this coming Friday evening, please join me and writers Nancy Werlin and Annie Hartnett for a Common Stories event Upstairs @ The General, taking place at 7:30pm at the General Store in the town of Harvard, Mass. Each of us will read and answer questions, and then we'll be available for book sales and signing. There's a $5 cover charge and food and wine will be available for purchase.

Here's a press release in the Harvard Press, and here's the Facebook page. The General Store is at 1 Still River Road, Harvard, Massachusetts 01451, p: (978) 430-0062.

I'm in the middle of a hectic revision (again) and am moving house next week, so I will endeavor to read from one of my actual books, rather than accidentally reading from my master packing list, or bursting into tears (for example). :o) Just kidding. I'll be in great shape, really. Come join us!

Getting rid of stuff is, of course, one of the great pleasures of a move. Just dropped off at the Used department of Harvard Book Store:


Copies of my books in lots of languages, including a few in English. They won't put everything on the shelves right away, so if you're curious if anything specific is available, ask at the desk, or email usedbooks@harvard.com.

Thanks to Steve, Emily, and Jenni for your help with my piles of books. Extra thanks to Steve for helping me lug them! Thanks also for the packing boxes :o)

In other news... I regularly play Scrabble on my phone, against the expert computer. Maybe I average one game a day (maybe more). When I first moved from playing the advanced computer to playing the expert computer (which is the highest setting), I probably got destroyed for the first ten or twelve games... but I learned from it. After that, I started to win. Now I win about half the time. But it has always been, and continues to be, a frequently ridiculous endeavor…