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

As a writer, I'm a trained expert at anticipating what readers desire. This is how I know you've all been anxiously waiting for me to post pictures from the dome in the Texas Capitol building rotunda.





Also, the ceilings at the Driskill Hotel.

I'm highly suspicious of the JetBlue flight status page that tells me I'm going to be flying to Boston tomorrow evening.

In the meantime, some notes from Austin.

I was intrigued by this enormous and peculiar magnifying glass in the author reception area of the Texas Capitol building.



So I took an experimental picture of Jasper Fforde through it.



Perhaps I'll never, ever post a picture on my blog of an author you can actually see.

Okay, fine.



Here's me, author Cinda Williams Chima, children's editor for Kirkus Reviews Vicky Smith, and author Jasper Fforde. Our fantasy panel was packed with people and frankly one of the most fun panels I've ever been on.

Speaking of fun, you need to look at the Halloween costumes picture book artist Tad Hills makes for his kids.

I mean that in the physical sense. Last time I was trying to leave Texas, I sprained my ankle. This time I'm trying to leave Texas and this mega-storm has pretty much canceled every flight to the East Coast until at least Tuesday.

I'm actually rather cheerful about it. I'm fortunate in that my only plans were to go home, then be at home, writing, having my normal life. Of course I have sympathy for everyone for whom this creates serious problems – it totally sucks (and seriously, why are flights canceled today to places where landfall isn't expected until tomorrow?). But I feel like I've been given this little gift of time, in a sunny place, with other stranded friends on hand, on some sort of plane (not the flying kind) outside my regular life.

One small thing was worrying me – I didn't bring my calendar to Austin, and without my calendar in front of me, I can never remember my plans or my to-do list. But my dear darling friend B just went to my house, unearth…

A quick note to any readers who were hoping to see me or get books signed by me at the Dear Teen Me panel this evening: a conflict has come up and I'm no longer going to be able to join the panel. (The panel will go on; go see all the other great authors!) I will be signing books at my other events – a signing this morning and my panel this afternoon with Cinda Williams Chima and Jasper Fforde – click on my Appearance Schedule to the left for more details.

David Levithan, Margo Rabb, Rebecca Stead, and me. Cucumber martini, Lobo Texas lager, pomegranate margarita, and straight vodka. I'll leave it to you to guess who drank what. (And just kidding about that vodka. That's a glass of water ^_^.) I wanted a picture of all the drinks, but David and Margo didn't want to be in the picture. This was their graceful solution.


We're all at the Texas Book Festival, by the way.

For those mornings when you wake up and find yourself wondering, Hmm, what strange thing happened to me overnight? Weirdness and worry, you are welcome in my day: come on in.

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door, laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

- Rumi

Many more behind this cut, but only click if you're okay with getting leafed out.  My favorite place to visit on a sunny day in October! Click on any pic to enbiggen.

Action Katsa ---->

I wish that instead of being a random person who just went for a run along the Charles River, I were a videographer who just went for a walk along the Charles River with all my equipment. There was, of course, all the usual activity: backed-up rush-hour traffic; heavy foot and bike commuter traffic on the paths; bikers, runners, and walkers exercising; people walking their dogs; people doing tai chi; people sitting on benches, smoking pot; confused tourists; hordes of geese pretty much parking themselves wherever they wanted and biting anyone who lacked the wisdom to give them a wide berth. And, it was raining slightly, so: PRETTY UMBRELLAS. But also, ALSO, it's The Head of the Charles this weekend (that's this big-ass rowing competition), so there were hundreds of boats and thousands of rowers traveling up and down the river, practicing, while their coaches yelled at them from speedboats. There were brawny people putting up tents, vendors driving their …

I like the funny political videos the folks at actually.org are creating. Rosie Perez sets Mitt straight on whether it's easier to get elected as a Latino; Sarah Silverman and Lizz Winstead agree with Mitt that people aren't people, corporations are people; and here's W. Kamau Bell, who hates science:



(Thanks, B.)

***

Sometimes, after doing a search for a particular song in my iTunes library, I take a look at the whole range of songs the search brought up and use that as my random morning playlist. For example, this morning, I'm listening to all the songs in my library that appeared when I searched for the word "heart." This includes "Sleight of Heart" by Aaron English (you should all be listening to the songs of Aaron English); "Heart of Gold" by Neil Young; "Empty Hearts" by Alison Krauss; "Learning to Fly" by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers; "Love Montage: I Saw Him Once/In My Life/A Heart Full of Love" fr…

JonArno Lawson doesn't see the world the way other people do, THANK GOODNESS. His most recent book release is Down in the Bottom of the Bottom of the Box, surreal poems decorated with the paper cuts of artist Alec Dempster.

The Human Being

Bombard its brain with cosmic rays.
redden its eyes with Mars --
set its tiny heart ablaze
upon a heap of stars.
Burning Hot Banana

I bought a burning hot banana from a bin in Indiana
with a burning hot and sticky splitting freckly yellow skin --
splotchy-rotten overripe -- thick enough to clog a pipe --
when I think of it today I sweat and sicken from within.
Some of these poems actually had me howling. There's one called "A Coarse and Common Carrot" and another called "The Alleycat Alley-Allocator Acting like an Alligator." Others just left me wondering, thinking, smiling, like the series about solar bears, lunar foxes and moonwolves. This book is gorgeously published by The Porcupine's Quill in Ontario and would mak…