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

A few links for your Monday...

Jon Almeda at Almeda Pottery makes the teeniest, tiniest stuff on his teeny potter's wheel. Here's his Instagram. Ack! So beautiful. (Thanks Alison!) ETA: Here's a gorgeous collection of pictures at Bored Panda.

In a similar vein, Althea Crome at Bugknits knits with needles sometimes practically as thin as a human hair. Her miniature knitting galleries are so much fun to peruse. Teeny, tiny knitting art! (Again, h/t Alison! ^_^)

The theme of the 2016 Met Gala was Manus x Machina and the clothing choices were appropriate. For example, Karolina Kurkova wore a "cognitive dress" with LED lights, the colors of which changed in real-time depending on the moods of users commenting on the gala via Twitter. Here are a whole lot of pictures (collected at the Huffington Post) of people dressed up for the gala.

I really liked reading Andi Zeisler's opinion piece in the Washington Post, "You can wear high heels and be a feminist. But pl…

On Tuesday I went for another lovely walk in another lovely snowstorm. Everyone seemed good-humored about having to balance on snowbanks. At one point, there was a man some distance ahead of me who was walking toward me and yelling that he wanted a bear. I wasn't sure what to make of this, but decided to cross to the other side of the street. Just in case he mistook me for a bear.

I also saw a man in a business suit carrying a 2 x 4. He wasn't yelling anything, just smiling pleasantly and swinging his 2 x 4 in a jolly manner.

Later, I sat in my front room writing, watching the snow get wetter and wetter. For a few minutes there, right before it turned to rain, the snowflakes were as big as cream puffs!

The longer I go not owning a car, the happier I am not to own a car. Those of you who've been around my blog for a while might remember how heart-rending it was way back when I lost my car. Preview: IT WAS HEART-RENDING WHEN I LOST MY CAR. But then I moved to a land where a per…

So, if you've been reading my blog for a while, you may know that I'm somewhat attached to my car. And why wouldn't I be? Everyone knows that the perfect car is a car in which the brake lights never, ever turn off so you have to pull out a fuse every time you park, or else when you get back with your groceries or your library books, your battery will be dead. And then you have to stick the fuse back in and drive home with your brake lights on the entire time even when moving at full speed. EVERYONE KNOWS THIS IS THE SIGN OF A PERFECT CAR.

However... *sniff*....

However.... (*SNIFF*).... I am moving from Florida to Massachusetts, and I don't need a car in Massachusetts, plus I don't think my car would make it all the way to Massachusetts but don't tell my car I said that.

Today, I'm donating my car to NPR. NPR will cannibalize my car for parts, because that's what people do when someone donates something that doesn't work unless you know the comp…

Sigh...
SIGH.....
So, my car just returned from the shop. "It's a '97 Ford Escort with 175,000 miles on it," my mechanic kept saying. "It needs a new transmission. Your clutch is slipping. You need new rear brakes. You have a leak in the [insert car part I can't remember]. Is this a northern car? Because it's all rusted out underneath. And did I mention that it's a '97 Ford Escort with 175,000 miles on it?"
Yes. Yes, you did. So? SO?? WHAT'S YOUR POINT??!?! WHERE'S THE LOVE? I LOVE MY CAR!!!!!
Here's the prognosis: Either I accept that my car is dying and allow it to die a natural death; or, I spend $3500 over the next year or so to rehabilitate the car. I am, of course, choosing the first option, because I am not insane. But I do so with a heavy heart.
As Robert Frost once (sort of) wrote:
Nature's first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf's a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to lea…

If you drive stick, then you know that a long, steep incline to a bridge, in bumper-to-bumper traffic, with a clutch you really should have replaced 500 miles ago, is not the best place for your shifter to decide it will no longer shift into any gear. However, if this ever happens to you, KEEP YOUR HEAD. Remember that if you turn the car off, you can shift it into gear. And drive all the way to your book signing in, like, first or second gear. :)
Actually, my shifter started working again after about 100 yards. I'm used to this problem. It's one of my car's particular charms.
Others in my neighborhood were faring better with their vehicles this weekend. The Blue Angels, in particular, were in town. There's a naval air station here, so we get the occasional helicopter or fighter plane zooming across the sky, but the Blue Angels, of course, are something else altogether: They are artists. With the most expensive art supplies ever. (Ha! And people say our gover…

First, a thank you to every single person who's emailed me. I read every email and I love every email. I wish I could respond to every email!
This post will be my first attempt to answer a few of the questions I've received.

FAQ disclaimer: I enjoy receiving questions about subtext, so I'm not saying don't send me questions about subtext. But just know this: I won't answer them. :o) The book serves as its own explanation; you come up with your own interpretations. Make sense?
Spoiler status: The following FAQs are, by most standards, spoiler-free for people who have not yet read Graceling. However, if you are psychotic about spoilers (like me) and haven't read Graceling, only read questions 1, 2, and 6.

1. I've always thought of fantasies as world-building books where the authors create the characters after building the world. But that doesn't feel like the case in Graceling, because the characters seem so real. Which came first: the characters or …