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

Greetings from the Worst Blogger Ever. I'm sorry I've been such an absent blogger lately! First it was because I was taking a much-needed work break, and now it's because all I ever do is work. I have a new book and I'm so excited for the day when I'm finally allowed to tell you guys a bit about it. For the moment, I'm working hard at it, trying to get it finalized. It's a strange book, and I don't know what anyone's going to think. That's out of my control, so I'm not worrying about it too much for now. I'm mostly just immersing myself in the experience of creating it. Once I'm allowed to talk about it, I think I'll have a LOT to say here about the process of writing it.

Soon I hope to be able to tell you what it's called, the premise, when you might actually be able to see it, etc…

In the meantime, I'll probably keep popping in now and then with more randutiae! Today I really, really appreciate Anna March's article…

Lenny Kravitz's Dick Fell Out, and Women Everywhere Are Being Terrible about It. So. The gorgeous rocker and everyone's go-to Arena fashion designer had a wardrobe malfunction at a concert in Stockholm, and social media went wild, in a bad way. I appreciate this response, which is thoughtful about questions of consent, problematic double standards, and racism.Dear America: Here's Why Everyone Thinks You Have a Problem with Guns. From Business Insider. Charts, graphs, maps.I love these photos of endangered animals that lit up the Empire State Building in early August.And these nature/monument mash-up photos that are part of the National Park Service's current advertisement campaign.Seven Women Share the Pain and Joy of Pregnancy in Tender Photo Shoot. "With her 'Honest Body Project,' photographer Natalie McCain wants to help women of different shapes, sizes and backgrounds feel beautiful and empowered. "And finally, because, DRESSES, Vanity Fair's …

Ready?
David Levithan and Billy Merrell are putting together an expanded edition of The Full Spectrum and are looking for essays about lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, questioning and other queer identities by writers under 21.  If you have a story you want to tell, go to www.queerthology.com for details on submitting.  Deadline is August 1st! I loved this: photos of the onscreen and real-life wedding dresses of 13 movie stars, in Vogue. Emma Thompson, Grace Kelly, Julie Andrews, Keira Knightley, etc.  If you have 15 minutes to watch a video: Sydney Opera House / Living Mural. "A global animation project by Universal Everything, collaborating with over 20 different animation studios worldwide to create a living mural on one of the world’s most iconic buildings." In other words: lights and pictures specially designed to be projected onto the Sydney Opera House. Pretty cool.From the Huffington Post: "Laverne Cox's Reaction To Caitlyn Jenner Reveals The I…

The Supreme Court declares same-sex marriage legal in all 50 states. States cannot keep same-sex couples from marrying and must recognize these unions.

Dear world: THANK YOU FOR SOME WONDERFUL NEWS.

ETA: Check out the White House facebook page!!!

This was pretty challenging, especially because in order for everything to line up correctly, the more complicated planets had to end up on my dominant hand. Turns out it is really hard to paint a tiny Saturn with a nail polish brush and toothpicks, right-handed!

I tried to represent their relative sizes correctly, more or less. Well anyway, I did my best, given my limitations of tools and skill. :o) And yes, Pluto gets to be part of my solar system!

Click to embiggen.






Thanks, Kevin, for the pictures. Somehow we failed to take a close-up of my right hand, so here's a bad iPhone selfie, just to share details:

Sometime last fall, I discovered the strange and beautiful work of Pete at The Builder's Studio. Pete creates his work by hand out of wood. I got in touch and asked him if he would consider making me a lion robot.

This guy showed up on my doorstep a few weeks later.




 I wrote back to Pete.  I said something along the lines of, "Pete, given that this is the most wonderful thing I've ever seen, would you consider making me a unicorn robot?"

A lot of time passed. I had given Pete a specific window of time for the lion, but I decided not to do that for the unicorn. As the months went by, Pete emailed me now and then to let me know how it was going. He was having trouble with the mane, he couldn't get various parts quite how he liked them. I wasn't in any hurry. I foresaw no emergency need for a unicorn robot. I told him to take his time.

Boy am I glad I did, because look what just showed up on my doorstep.







I'm sharing these photos because I don't know wha…

Some industry news: my marvelous agent, Faye Bender, formerly of the Faye Bender Literary Agency, is forming a partnership with three other fabulous agents, Julie Barer, Brettne Bloom, and Elisabeth Weed, to form a new literary agency. They're called The Book Group. ((1) Isn't that a great name, and (2) how was that name not taken???) Together, these four women represent a broad diversity of literary interests, including fiction and non-fiction, literary and genre fiction, and middle grade, young adult, and adult literature. Check out some selected titles. And here are their submissions guidelines.

And, children's writer Rebecca Stead will be joining them as an agent! Faye and Rebecca are two of my favorite people so it's hard for me to be all objective and reporty about this. You will have to take my word for it that it's going to be GREAT. Aw, look at this picture of Faye and Rebecca. *melts*

Here's one of the press releases. And here is the agency's new …