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

I swear that one of these days I'm going to write a substantive post with, like, words and stuff. Until then… If my fairy godmother shows up one day, she had better be aware that I expect no less than this dress. Have you seen this dress? It's made of recycled and discarded Golden Books. Look at this dress. After you do that, look at more pictures of this dress, designed by Ryan Jude Novelline. WOW.

Thanks, Jess :o)

This 50-second video is charming.



I've had a chance to see an early copy of Mix It Up! (out in September), and I would go so far as to say it's my favorite Herve Tullet yet.

It's birthday month on the blog! I'm sending birthday wishes all over the place and keeping some for myself. Happy birthday, Leos! Please vote in my important birthday poll, everyone!


What would make the best birthday present?
As always, if you can't see the poll, go to my Blog Actual.

This SYTYCD Top 14 dance, choreographed by Travis Wall and performed by Jessica Richens and Casey Askew, is so lovely and sweet, but every time I watch it, I'm utterly puzzled by the last few seconds. I feel like something must've gone wrong there. Surely it's not supposed to look so much like he's suddenly trying to look up her dress? As always, sorry about the screaming. There was one season (5?) where the producers made the wonderful decision either to make the crowd shut up or to screen out the screams for the television viewing audience, and it was SO nice, but apparently someone has since decided that screeches add to our experience. Blech.



(BTW, if you want more Travis Wall, here's his routine choreographed for the top 7 guys.)

It can be a bit painful to watch a SYTYCD dance if you're familiar with the music, attached to it, and find it uncomfortable to hear it chopped up and reassembled. The song in this number, "Like Real People Do" by Hozie…

A friend who read my blog post yesterday sent me this lovely video of Peter Mulvey performing "Vlad the Astrophysicist". Melancholy, sweet, centering, and exactly what I needed. Thank you, Rosa.

There are stretches of time in my writing life when I wake up eager to work and have one productive day after another. Then there are stretches like this week, when I wake up feeling like it's intolerable to be on page 12 of a difficult 400-page revision, and am I really supposed to be in charge of making all these decisions? Is it really up to me and only me to decide what's best at every moment? To figure out the solution to a lot of complicated problems? By myself, in this room today for hours?

It becomes difficult to keep my focus small. Instead of the group of pages that are my small task for today, with a small list of objectives, I start thinking about all the changes the book needs as a whole, and I get overwhelmed. I start thinking about how many days this big revision is likely to take, while my editor and other people are waiting, and I get overwhelmed. My friends might find me to be a little bit glum, because during these times, I tend to see the world through revi…

As I'd hoped, a number of friends emailed me with suggestions of superhero role models for girls. So many, in fact, that I'm going to have to set aside some time to organize it all before I post it – but it will be forthcoming. Unfortunately, most of the suggestions were for teen readers and older, which leaves the youngest girls waiting, but it was encouraging. Many, many thanks to those of you who reached out :o)I'm listening to Peter Gabriel's more recent album Up – one of his darker albums. I love these lyrics, from "Darkness," which is a song that reminds me of early Peter Gabriel (the self-titled albums), mainly in the way he balances silence and sweetness with crashing noise – this sentence has gotten ridiculous, but here are the lyrics I love: "I have my fears / but they do not have me."I've gotten a few of my friends to start using Siri to dictate on their iPhones. (If you have an iPhone and there is a little microphone symbol on your k…