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

I tried to make a video about what it's like to be working on my upcoming books with my editor, Kathy Dawson. It's 40 seconds long. I think you'll like it.



(If you can't see the video, go to my Blog Actual.)

To make up for my recent lack of posting -- and to celebrate Bitterblue being named a New York Times Book Review Notable Children's Book of 2012 -- this post will be about something :).

Disclaimer: All the photos in this post are of my own work and are owned by me. If you use them for any purpose, please identify them and attribute them to me. Do not change them in any way or use them commercially.

What follows is essentially my tour presentation for Bitterblue... it is the story of how the book was written. Here goes.

As you probably know if you've spent much time on my blog, I write by hand.


Above is the first page of the first draft of Bitterblue. Note that the date is October 25, 2007. Also note -- if you've read Bitterblue -- that this is not how the final book begins. And also that not a whole lot from this page made it into the final draft. What you see above is fairly typical: I write, I scratch out a word here and there, I scratch out a line, I change things; th…

Over the weekend  I visited the NAIBA conference in Arlington, VA, to accept an award for Bitterblue along with Ian Schoenherr. Ian is the fellow responsible for the beautiful illustrations and decorations in Bitterblue: the chapter and part openings, the title page, the endpapers, the maps, the bridges, etc.

Ian and I had some trouble getting a nice picture together.



Matters improved when stupendous editor Kathy Dawson stepped in.


During my acceptance remarks, I told an anecdote about something that happened after Bitterblue was released, and I think I'll share it here. What happened is that Ian sent me my two favorite sketches from the process as a gift -- sketches of two fantastical bridges. And when they appeared on my doorstep, they had an effect on me that I doubt he anticipated... because here's the thing. There's a little bit of handwriting in Bitterblue.It's in the Appendix, in the "Who's Who" written by my crabby royal librarian, Death (rhymes …

Congratulations to Kathy Dawson, my darling editor, who will be starting her own imprint at Penguin in winter 2014. Kathy, I'm so happy for you, and so proud to be a part of this venture. You deserve it.

On the left is my stupendous agent, Faye Bender. On the right is my stupendous editor, Kathy Dawson. We are at the Penguin Young Readers Group cocktail party at the Top of the Standard, where the views are amazing. Hopefully I'll have time to put together a little post of New York views. It was a great party!

My editor has a particular Grace that I'm often aware of, but can never quite quantify. Here's an example of how it manifests: I send her an email about how I cannot possibly write the book, the book is too much of a mess for me to wrap my head around, the book is eating my brains, I cannot even bear to look at the book, the book is haunting me, the book is threatening me, I am a disgrace, my life as a writer is over, I'm going to take a boat to Antarctica and prostrate myself on a glacier and wait to die like that guy in "To Build a Fire," except not really like him, because at least he was trying to build a fire.

My editor will wait a few beats. Then, she'll send me a very calm email in which she will (1) not point out that I am being melodramatic and maudlin, (2) not tell me to get over myself, (3) not tell me to please stop sending her ridiculous emails because she is an extremely busy person and doesn't have time for this, and (4) gently suggest tha…