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

Reminder that Marie Rutkoski (as of today, a NYT best-selling author! Yay! Congrats Marie!) and I are doing an event at Harvard Book Store, Friday April 8 at 7pm. Join us if you can!

And here's a treat for you: a cover of my favorite song from the musical Hamilton, called "Wait For It." In the musical, this song is performed by Aaron Burr (played by Leslie Odom, Jr. on Broadway). This outstanding cover is performed by the Musicality Vocal Ensemble at Curie High School on Chicago's southwest side. Thanks, Phil :o)

Okay, I should never have said that thing about how the next thing I blog is going to be the girl superhero post. All it's doing is preventing me from blogging anything at all. When in fact, I have some mighty complaints, like, for example, why in the name of all that is reasonable is the fabulous Jeremy Jordan not going to be starring in Finding Neverland now that it's moving to Broadway? Jeremy Jordan was SO SO SO SO wonderful as J.M. Barrie in that show. He has so much talent and charisma, his voice is beautiful, he is beautiful. AARGHHH! Thank goodness I had the chance to see him originating the role at the A.R.T. this summer/fall.


Also, big cats like boxes, too; baby elephants have, like, no control over their legs whatsoever; and there are some really great moments in this video of (domestic) cats freaking out. Oh my goodness, the kitten and the lizard.

Also, a conversation with a writer friend recently about the distinction between young adult and middle grade books led…

The new movie of the musical Les Miserables, coming out this winter, is live sung -- the actors are singing each take live, instead of miming to a recording. This video explains how and why, and I think it's pretty interesting. (H/t, B!)

Les Miserables opened in Boston on Tuesday night, and I was there. Holy cow. I knew I'd like it a lot, because, well, it's Les Mis; but I hadn't done my homework beforehand, and was therefore completely unprepared for this stellar, stunning cast. This production didn't start on Broadway; the tour is its only USA presence. Therefore, we had the likes of J. Mark McVey as Jean Valjean (he was AMAZING). Andrew Varela, Chasten Harmon, Jeremy Hays, Betsy Morgan, Julie Benko, Max Quinlan, Richard Vida, Shawna Hamic, the ensemble singing their hearts out, the beautiful design, the beautiful orchestra -- the performance was better than some of the best I've seen on Broadway. Here are photos of the national tour.

Thank you, you wonderful, dear people, for coming to my backyard.

I am reaching but I fall
and the stars are black and cold
as I stare into the void
of a world that cannot hold.
I'll escape now from that world,
from the world of Jean Valjean.
There is nowhere I can turn.
There is no way to go on --
I suppose I should warn y'all that this post contains spoilers to the plot of Les Misérables (though nothing you wouldn't be able to figure out by looking at the song list). So. Bear that in mind.

I currently have a favorite six seconds in Les Mis. It's in the song "Javert's Suicide," the version I've been listening to is the original London cast recording with Roger Allam playing Javert, and the six seconds is the final "on" in the lyrics above. Javert is singing a melody we've heard before. It's the same melody Valjean sang during his own identity crisis in "What Have I Done?" The lyrics are also parallel. But here, when Javert gets to the word "on," he sings this amazing, unexpected high no…

It's moving season here in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Today I watched neighbors lower furniture through the window of a third story apartment using a rope and pulley. This reminded me of seeing all the pulley hooks at the top of houses in Amsterdam when I was on tour last spring. Apparently, Amsterdam stairways are narrow!

Of course, it also reminded me of the babies and levers.

And it reminded me of high school physics, which was one of many bad experiences during a difficult stretch of time that I'm happy to have lived through, but that you couldn't pay me enough to live through again. Have I mentioned lately how much I despise adults who think that life is easy for the young?

I just watched (and enjoyed) Almost Famous, which brought me back to high school, too, and a music decision I had to make at one point: should I buy Tommy, performed by The Who, or Tommy, the Broadway cast recording? For those of you who love classic rock, I'm sure it's an obvious decision; …

Thursday randutiae!

First, the cover of Fire, French adult edition (published by Orbit France). -------->

Second, a new addition to the Gallery of My Favorite Objects. Here's a bunny I faced the other day:





















And here's his antelope (?) and canine (?) friends. I faced them, too.
















These fingers puppets were made by Donna Marbet, and I got them at the Cambridge Artists Cooperative in Harvard Square. The nails were painted by me. :o)

Moving on: for you poor, patient souls who are not Buffy fans and put up with me anyway, my title today is a line from a song in the Buffy musical episode. You can listen to it here. And here's my favorite song in the episode, just 'cuz, well, yeah, okay, I'm trying to convert you.

Next up, behind this link is an article by Paul Campos and Marilyn Wann about fat politics -- specifically about how, in their words, "it's simply wrong to judge people based on what they weigh." Read it, do! Hat-tip goes to Rebecca Rabinowitz, …

Well -- once she's dealt with the surprise and disappointment -- she hoards it, like a squirrel hoarding acorns for winter. In three weeks, you see, I fly to Italy and start my European tour, and I'm going to be gone for almost a month. I don't have a lot of weekends at home in my near future. And weekends at home are the absolute best for writing, because on the weekend, distracting businessy things stop, and it's easier for me to focus.

As I write this, the weekend is still happening, so I'm going to stop writing this now and get back to hoarding. I leave you with part of a lengthy text message exchange I had this weekend with my sister, secret codename: Cordelia, who is highly fond of a particular song from The Sound of Music:
Me: At trapeze class there's loud music. Yesterday, Sound of Music medley. Have had Climb Every Mountain in head ever since, except in yr voice instead of reverend mother's.

Cordelia: I hope you have it in your head every day of y…

Before I get to the alien question (and the dominoes) -- Cindy Pon, accomplished fantasy author and artist, just interviewed me for The Enchanted Inkpot. She does not pull punches with her questions; the interview is here.

******
And now:

The first piece of awesome, via my sister, codename: Apocalyptica the Flimflammer... I never thought I could get so stressed out about an armadillo and some dominoes.



Second, via Laura... maybe this is what publishers should do in lieu of book trailers!




Finally -- via a couple people, most recently my pal SMJ -- have you seen this yet? This happened at a train station in Antwerp and completely surprised all the travelers waiting for trains. (It was a promotion for a TV reality show in which contestants compete to win the role of Maria in a theatrical production of The Sound of Music.)



Sometimes it breaks my heart how much I love our planet.

Here's a moment from the first time Buffy's mother, Joyce, officially meets Buffy's vampire nemesis, Spike:

Joyce [pleasantly]: Have we met?
Spike: Um, you hit me with an axe one time.
[Joyce looks confused]
Spike: Remember? [helpfully brandishes imaginary axe] "Get the hell away from my daughter! Rawr!!!"

So, now and then I like to ask my readers to take a minute to introduce themselves. I expect I have a lot of regular readers who don't comment; I'm sure I have readers who're just passing through for the day; doubtless I have readers who got here by accident, having misspelled "Kristin Chenowith," and wish they'd never ended up here at all. :o)

Anyway, no pressure. But today I extend an invitation to all of you -- even the lurkers and the shy -- to tell me a little bit about yourself in a comment. You don't have to tell me your real name. But maybe you'd like to tell me where you are? What you do? What you feel like eating tod…

So, am I insane if after traveling from Vail to Denver to Seattle to Palo Alto to San Jose to Austin to Houston to Miami to Jacksonville all in one week and doing lots of events and not getting enough sleep, I'm ecstatic that today I'll be spending the day in a very small house with my sisters (secret codenames: Cordelia and Apocalyptica), my brother-in-law (scn: Joe), my newborn twin nieces (scn: Phoenix and Isis), my mother, my father, two cats, and one flying squirrel?

In other words, it is Monday; I am in Jacksonville; my parents are here from New Jersey; Apocalyptica is bringing her flying squirrel all the way from Massachusetts; and I remember my pride. And tonight everyone will (tentatively) be at my event! BEST DAY OF THE TOUR.

:o)

In other news: I love the way Jay Smooth thinks, and I love the way he talks. This time, his subject is Roman Polanski.

So, my sister (secret code name: Cordelia) and I have a lot of deep and meaningful discussions. Often, we find ourselves on the same side of the argument. For example, we've decided that given the choice of living with a whiner, a wino, or a rhino, we would both choose the rhino. And, the other night, while driving out of the parking lot of the dinner theater, we debated whether it would be worse for us to accidentally run over a patron or a matron. We agreed that while both would be dreadful, the matron would somehow be more dreadful.
Of course, we don't always agree. I asked Cordelia once which she would rather have, a car that doesn't stop or a car that doesn't go. She chose the car that doesn't stop, on the grounds that at least that car has one more good go left in it.
*. . . .*
More recently, we disagreed on who's better, the ballet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov or the Irish step dancer Michael Flatley. I chose Baryshnikov (even though I adore Irish step…

... for suddenly I can see the magic of BOOKS."
(from the musical She Loves Me)
My childhood library in northeast Pennsylvania has a copy of my book, thanks to my mother. So do/will a couple of other libraries important to us, thanks to Mom and Aunt Rose. This makes me oh-so-fuzzy-and-happy.

Then, last week, a friend in Massachusetts reported that she'd checked her own library catalog on a whim to see if they had Graceling yet. They did. Next, an email came from another friend with this subject line: F CAS. She had just cataloged my book. Heeee!
It took a little time for the light to shine through the mud, but eventually I had a stroke of not-being-as-stupid-as-I-usually-am and realized that if it was showing up at other libraries, my own library might have it. I checked -- several copies, and most of them were out. yAt! But even better, the copy at my local branch was NOT out!
This is the point in the story where I hightailed it outside and ran down the street like I was…

(Except that I know the reason for the empty space inside -- I need a snack. Crosby, Stills, & Nash, btw, in case you didn't go to a liberal arts school in New England and hear the song "Helplessly Hoping" sung a million time a cappella. ^_^)
So, I am in a bit of a waiting period. I await the FedEx man (or theWells Fargo wagon, if you happen to be a fan of the Music Man), who comes bearing Fire. It is time for my second revision.
*pauses to grasp stomach and command self not to cry*
I may never understand why Fire is such a hard book for me to face. The support of my editor, my publisher, my agent, and my readers who like it is enormously helpful, because it reminds me that even if the book sometimes makes me feel horrible, it isn't necessarily because it itself is horrible. !! Perhaps someday I'll be struck by some grand metaphorical explanation for my Fire despair -- "Ah, yes! The burnt carrot stew on page 125 is reminiscent of the time I watched…