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

Is it possible that Bologna was only a week ago?

The following photos were taken by Federico Borella, who kindly gave me permission to display them on my blog. Thank you, Federico! (And click the pictures to enbiggen.)

The sword-fighting took place in a courtyard adjacent to the Piazza Maggiore in Bologna's center.
















Sword-fighting experts showed off their stuff (and their snazzy Fire tunics).















Not only can they fight, they can teach! Federico (not the same Federico as the photographer) was awfully patient with me and my giggles. (And my bizarro foot placement? Doesn't it look like I should fall over?)















Next, the translator of my books, Claudia Resta, happened along.






















We had a score to settle. Claudia keeps changing my character names because they sound like swear words in Italian. And I keep writing really long books that she has to translate! Everyone knows that the best solution to any disagreement is a duel.















Do you notice, in the following photo, that two people look highly comp…

Is it in Dicey's Song that a teacher accuses a character (Dicey) of plagiarizing an essay, when really, Dicey was only influenced by something she'd been reading at the time? Or is it Julie in Up a Road Slowly, or some other book I read when I was young?

Anyway. Regardless. What I'm reading at any given time definitely has an influence on my writing. Long books especially, because I immerse myself in them for weeks of writing time. I read Sigrid Undset's enormous and gorgeous Kristin Lavransdatter while I was writing Fire, and caught myself calling Fire "Kristin" at one point in my writing -- which would have been super embarrassing had anyone found it, because, um, my name is Kristin. No doubt the reader would have assumed that I was identifying too closely with my characters, whereas, actually, I was so immersed in Kristin Lavransdatter's life that I was pulling her into my writing. This is probably the main reason I'll put down a badly-writte…