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

... I am reading, and loving, Shannon Hale's Book of a Thousand Days . Happy new year from Florida.

What the Body Knows All night he waits for us and the drawing back of the black-out curtains to fill him with sunlight and hope. Daily, we bear a copper bowl brimful with hot water, finest triple-milled soap, sponge and a thick white towel. Hands heavy with oils we massage his back in a rhythm constant as tides, count the abacus beads of his spine and circle his calves with wobbly O's, then pull his perfect toes until his breath matches the hushed escalation of eucalyptus leaves outside. The night he dies, we lay hands on his body, such a small boat, clasping it firmly to the shore of the living so that his spirit can rise freely, even now loved. - Madelyn Garner (From my 2012 datebook .)

Bitterblue is one of Kirkus Reviews' Best Books of 2012 . I am overwhelmed with blessings. So, yesterday, while I was doing some financial organizing, I stumbled across two poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay. Possibly this highlights the key problem I have with my financial organizing, but anyway :). I just had to share them. The first is about death. The second is about love. Dirge Without Music I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground. So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind: Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned. Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you. Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust. A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew, A formula, a phrase remains, --- but the best is lost. The answers quick & keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love, They are gone. They have gone to feed the roses

...and after that, Brattle Square Florist in Harvard Square glows with color. Happy sigh... In another part of Harvard Square... I see that Bitterblue is among the Holiday Hundred at Harvard Book Store , which means it's 20% off. I mention this because this is my local indie and the way to get books signed/personalized by me (before you finish your online order, a comments box will appear; p lease specify in the comments box that you'd like the book signed, and to whom you'd like it personalized, if anyone) -- BUT, fair warning: if you are thinking of my signed books as Christmas presents, please order before December 17, because I won't be around after that to sign them. I can't sign books from out of state. I tried once. My arm wasn't long enough. Happy light and dark, everyone.

To make up for my recent lack of posting -- and to celebrate Bitterblue being named a New York Times Book Review Notable Children's Book of 2012 -- this post will be about something :). Disclaimer: All the photos in this post are of my own work and are owned by me. If you use them for any purpose, please identify them and attribute them to me. Do not change them in any way or use them commercially. What follows is essentially my tour presentation for Bitterblue ... it is the story of how the book was written. Here goes. As you probably know if you've spent much time on my blog, I write by hand. Click any photo in this post to ginormify. Above is the first page of the first draft of Bitterblue . Note that the date is October 25, 2007. Also note -- if you've read Bitterblue -- that this is not how the final book begins. And also that not a whole lot from this page made it into the final draft. What you see above is fairly typical: I write, I scratch out a word