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

Wednesday was one of those days where you wake up and it's so dark outside that you feel like there must've been some mix-up with the sun. And it never gets any brighter, and also your hands hurt, but you have to do a lot of computer work anyway, and because your hands hurt, you're clumsy, and because you're clumsy, you keep spilling crumbs and splattering liquids everywhere on account of a person must eat, and it sucks to have to clean everything all up, because your hands hurt.

I depend on my dictation software for my e-mail communications and the transcription of my work. I'm inexpressibly grateful for its existence. BUT that doesn't mean that it doesn't make me livid with anger, even bring me close to tears, from time to time. There are just some days where nothing works; no matter where you put the microphone, no matter how distinctly you speak, it won't get any of your words right, and nothing works, and you have to use your hands. On Wednesday, i…

If my initial reaction to the theory that our universe is just one in an infinite series of universes in the multiverse, each universe containing a slightly different version of me -- if my initial reaction to this theory is that I'm going to be the BEST one (of all the me's) and all the others me's can kiss my ass -- does that suggest that I have a competitive nature?

(Perhaps more importantly, do all the me's have this competitive nature? Because if so, I think I/we am/are in trouble...)

Speaking of alternate dimensions... against all expectations, I'm utterly charmed by ABC's new drama Once upon a Time. I'm three episodes in. The premise is that back in fairytale land, Snow White's evil queen cast a spell on all the characters, propelling them into a terrible alternate dimension -- our world. Now they all live in a small town in present-day Maine, and none of them can remember the truth of their pasts or their true identities. (Here's more about…

But I can share some awesomeness. First, want to see the views from an astronaut's camera?

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So, years ago, when I started an email correspondence with my lovely Australian publicist, we discovered that not only had he and I both studied at Sydney Uni at the same time, in the same program, possibly even taking the same lectures -- but I'd worked at the pub where he'd gone to drink beer! Isn't it funny that I had to come back home, finish college, go to grad school, write a book, and get an Australian deal for us to get to know each other?

I got to meet Brendan in person during the Sydney leg of my trip. We went back to our old stomping grounds for dinner -- the Nag's Head, in Glebe. It was so surreal. Every time I rounded a corner, memories came rushing back.

I can't remember if I made a point, before this Australia trip, of explaining here on the blog that when I was in college, I spent a year in Sydney. I think I may have failed to do that! I studied English at Sydney Uni, lived in Darlington, screwed up people's orders at the Nag's Head, got …

Jet lag is a funny thing. I think it goes beyond your body readjusting its sleep schedule; you can feel dizzy, and like you're floating, generally unattached to the earth. As if your body has landed but not all the parts are quite present yet. Last week, a writer friend from home arrived here in Melbourne and was having some jet lag issues, the same issues I'd had the week before when I'd arrived in Sydney, and she mentioned a book called Pattern Recognition, by William Gibson. The book is about a lot of things, but the thing she explained to me is that (please note, this is me paraphrasing something she paraphrased, so apologies if I get this wrong) the main character has a unique take on jet lag, something along the lines of, your soul can't travel as fast as your body, so it takes a little time for the soul to catch up and reunite itself with the rest of you. Or, if you've read Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, think of being stretched apart fr…

I continue to have the will to blog but not the time. Since I don't want to leave you all with nothing, here's some instant perspective:


Source: Hubblesite.org

Can you believe that beautiful thing exists in our world? (It's called the Sombrero Galaxy and you should really click on it to make it bigger.)

I always find it comforting to realize how tiny we are. Tiny doesn't mean unimportant; it only means tiny. I like to think of myself and everyone else as a tiny, important part of an enormous gargantuan world.

For a slideshow of some of the Hubble's best work, go here.

Since this is a post about beauty, I wanted to use my most beautiful book cover as an icon. Not an easy choice, but I found myself returning to an old classic.

So, I've got two things to show you today. The first is from NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day; it's the photo from April 26, which I've had bookmarked for a month and half now, waiting until I had time to blog it.



This is a dust pillar of the Carina Nebula. Here's an excerpt from the NASA page: " Inside the head of this interstellar monster is a star that is slowly destroying it. The monster, on the right, is actually an inanimate pillar of gas and dust that measures over a light year in length.... The pink dots around the image are newly formed stars that have already been freed from their birth monster."

Go to the page actual to read the rest; click the photo to see it bigger; or just look at it for a minute and, if you've read Fire, check out that monster on the right, an arrow in he…

The Spanish cover of Fire, published by Roca (click to enbiggen) ----->

I always feel just a little bit sad right before a big work trip. I think it's because of Bitterblue, or whatever my WIP is at the time. I just want to write her, and it's hard to imagine being able to write her during so much excitement. During my domestic tour last fall, I managed to cliff-hanger myself right before I left, by which I mean that I was able to time it so that I left just as I was getting to a big, exciting, fun-to-write scene. That made it a lot easier to get writing done while on tour, despite all the distraction -- and to get back into writing full-time once I got home. But I'm not sure I'm going to be able to do that this time. I seem to be bogged down in a muddy section. We'll see what happens.

I also get nervous before a trip like this, and so I do a little meditation and imagine myself floating above the earth, and then out into outer space, outside the solar syst…

So, I've decided I want to play the triangle in a production of Igor Stravinsky's Firebird. Somewhere on this big, round earth, there must be a symphony orchestra facing the tragic circumstance of having to cancel its upcoming performance of the Firebird for lack of a triangle player, mustn't there? I've looked at the score and I know I can do it! I'll go anywhere! (By the way, that video is of Stravinsky himself conducting in 1965, at the age of 82. Check out the cane. Can you guess how jealous I am of that triangle player?)

Here's a beautiful video of a rocket breaking the sound barrier amidst a layer of ice crystals. Hap-tip, JD, and, for the curious among you, more info can be found here.



JD, incidentally, happens to be one of the smarty-pants experts who answers my endless questions as I research various parts of my novels. JD used to be a physicist, and for Bitterblue, he helped me with light waves. Why? Because one of my characters -- let's ca…