Stephanie Burgis - Magical Books for Ages Ten to Fifteen

Goodbyes and Kat Questions

February 24, 2012, 11.58 am

Whew. I just finished going through the American copyedits for Kat3 (Stolen Magic), emailed off all my changes to my American editor's assistant, then emailed off the copyedited manuscript to my UK editor (to be further copyedited and then published in just five and a half months as A Reckless Magick)...

...and, yeah. I'm feeling both happy and weirdly tearful about the whole thing. Happy - because reading closely through the manuscript reminded me of how much I love this book (it really is my personal favorite of the whole trilogy) - but tearful, too, because sending off the US copyedits was another way of saying goodbye to the characters.

And, well. Since my last blog entry, I've been really touched by the number of people who wrote to me through my website or commented elsewhere to ask why I'm not planning any more Kat books. I feel weird talking about this kind of thing in public, but enough people have now asked that I feel like I do have to answer. So:

I would love to write more Kat books. When I finished writing Book 1, I told Patrick that I could easily see writing at least ten Kat books! I love reading long, interconnected series like Elizabeth Peters's Amelia Peabody books and Lois McMaster Bujold's Miles Vorkosigan books, and I would loooove it if Kat could turn into a long series like those. More than that, I know there are an awful lot more adventures in store for her after the end of Book 3, and I'd love to tell those stories.

However. The reality of publishing and life is...I need to try to make a living, which means selling more books. But: my understanding is that my publishers won't be able to make any decisions about whether they want more Kat books until they see sales for multiple books in the series (possibly even for ALL the books in the series, I'm not sure). And since I finished writing Kat 3 in 2010, and the second book in the series still isn't out yet at this point in America...well, there's a lot of writing time in-between!

The honest truth is, if I didn't have to think about making a living, I might have spent the last year and a half writing Kat Book 4, purely for fun...but I do have to make a living, as an adult with a family and bills to pay, and the truth is, it might just be possible to sell another, completely different book well before my publishers are in any position to make up their minds about further Kat books.

(NONE of this entry is meant as a comment or complaint about my sales, btw - I still don't even know how sales are really going for Book 1 in America, much less for the whole series, and that's what decisions will be based on! I'm just trying to be practical about how I focus my work right now, in this period of uncertainty.)

So I've been writing - and while I took the time to say good-bye to Kat after I finished Kat 3, and there was some serious transition time in the middle, I'm finally writing whole-heartedly again, writing new characters and adventures I truly love. I've written before here about how much my new novel-in-progress scares me (in a good way) - and how deeply personal it is, how much I love it. I wouldn't abandon it right now even if I was offered a zillion dollars to write the next Kat book. (Well, OK, maybe if it was a zillion dollars? But not if it was only, oh, say a million or billion... ;p )

On the other hand...in a perfect dreamworld where everything went right, where the Kat books sold a zillion copies, I would finish my current book, my agent and editors would adore it and buy it - and then they'd ask for more Kat books, too. And I would love that.

So I'm not ruling out the possibility of more Kat books in the future - I'm just not counting on it.

But I really, really hope that anyone who likes or loves Kat will also like/love my other heroines just as much.

And whew. That turned out long. Sorry! But I hope this helped to clear up any confusion.

Now I'm going to drink some tea, eat a bowlful of granola in plain yogurt, and magically turn into Mom again, since MrD is home from school at any moment.

And on Monday I'll start working on my new novel again. I can't wait.

***

PS: And on a completely unrelated note, Patrick just wrote a really smart and useful blog entry for any writer who needs a website: Ten Things Every Author's Website Should Include. Do check it out!

Comments on this blog | View comments on LiveJournal | Link to this blog entry

Rambling about Writing and Series Books

September 24, 2010, 12.33 pm

There's a funny kind of push-and-pull going on in my head as I write any book. On the one hand, there's the part that measures wordcounts, thrills to achievement, and thinks, wow, I'm going to have a whole draft in just a few more months! That's awesome! Then there's the other part that thinks: But I looooove writing this novel! Why can't it just go on forever? Because the truth is, I am never more miserable and ill-at-ease than when I'm between novels.

I guess this is part of why I naturally gravitate toward writing series rather than standalone books. (Well, that and also the fact that series books are always, always my favorite books to read.)

As I write my dragon book, too, I'm reminded of what a great feeling it is to write Book One in a series. This is a difficult thing to talk about well, because I'm afraid of short-changing my other books.

The thing is, I absolutely loved writing Kat Books Two and Three (A Tangle of Magicks and A Reckless Magick). I wrote most of A Tangle of Magicks before I'd even sold the series or had any sales in sight - I wrote it knowing that it was a crazy thing to do, that the smart thing would be to write something totally different, which I could market even if A Most Improper Magick (Kat, Incorrigible) didn't sell. But I loved Kat and her sisters way too much to stop writing about them after just one book, especially when I knew how much fun their next adventures would be. Tangle and Reckless were both books of my heart every bits as much as AMIM was, in every way.

But, but, but...here's the other thing. Later books in a series are HARD. Hard in a way that Book One just never is. In Book One, you're leaping off a cliff. It's easy to fall. But in the next few books (especially when you have an overarching arc, like I do in the Kat books), you have to figure out how to land safely, without breaking any bones...and that's much more difficult. You have to follow all the rules that were set up in Book One, even when they bring difficulties with them that you never foresaw. You have to make each book work on its own even as it builds on every earlier book in the series.

It's difficult and fascinating and challenging work...and it is not-so-coincidental that every book in the Kat trilogy took me longer to write as I progressed. I finished the first draft of Book One in 4 months, Book Two in 8 months, and Book 3 in, er, um...I think it was 14 months? (That one had the added complication of having a new baby in the mix.)

With Book One, the opening that first occurred to me is the same one that's still in the final version, despite many layers of rewriting. For Book Two, I wrote three completely different openings before I found the one that worked. With Book Three, it took me five tries (of about 50 pages each!) before I got it right.

I loved writing those books, I put everything I had into them, and I really, really hope that each of them is better than the last (and so far, that is the feedback that I've gotten for them, thank God)...

...but I have to admit that, now that I'm writing my dragon book, I am really enjoying how much easier it is to be back in Book One mode again. It feels like flying...which, I guess, is only appropriate.

As readers, what are your favorite book series?

Here are some of mine: in kids' fiction, Hilary McKay's Casson Family series (which has a new book coming out next year, woooot!), Caroline Stevermer and Patricia Wrede's Sorcery and Cecilia series and also Caroline Stevermer's Magics series; in adult SF and fantasy, Lois McMaster Bujold's Chalion series (starting with The Curse of Chalion) and her Miles Vorkosigan series (especially Barrayar and A Civil Campaign); in adult romance fiction, Nora Roberts's Bride quartet, Julia Quinn's Bridgerton series (except for Book 1, which I threw against a wall), and Eloisa James's Duchesses series.

What about you guys?

Comments on this blog | View comments on LiveJournal | Link to this blog entry

Thanksgiving Giveaway

November 24, 2009, 7.26 pm

Whew! Our early, British Thanksgiving on Saturday was absolutely wonderful. Wonderful company, wonderful food (Patrick did all the cooking for our main meal, so I can say that without smugness! ;) ), and everyone seemed to really enjoy the pecan pie, which was the one dish I contributed.

And ohhh...can I just say how blissful it was to have an excuse to make pecan pie again, for the first time in years? Last year I was too exhausted, post-baby-birth, to cook anything at all, and in the two years beforehand, none of our Thanksgiving guests had liked nuts in any form, so I stopped making it. But pecan pie is my very favorite kind of pie in the world, and I was soooo happy to return to it this year!

And in the spirit of Thanksgiving, I thought I'd share some joy around. :)

I've got a whole page of favorite books on my website, and one of my favorites is also the best Thanksgiving-related book I know: Joan Bauer's Squashed. It's probably the funniest YA book I've ever read...and since I first discovered it when I was 13, and have re-read it at least once every couple years since then, I've read it a lot! But I still laugh out loud every single time.

Here's how I described it on my website:

Teenaged Ellie is determined to win the prize for growing giant pumpkins in her local fair AND win the heart of her true love, but she's got a whole array of dangers and enemies stacked against her. Luckily, she has her hilarious family (and one of the funniest dog characters I've ever read) on her side, and she has loads of pluck and determination. This is a comfort read for me - every time I re-read it, it makes me happy.

So this month I'll be giving away a Thanksgiving package that includes:

• One copy of Joan Bauer's Squashed;
• One notepad from the Jane Austen Centre in Bath, England, with a quote from Pride and Prejudice;
• Two A Most Improper Magick postcards; and
• One "Everything's Better with Highwaymen!" button.

Two runners-up will also get postcards and "Everything's Better with Highwaymen!" buttons. :) Here's how to win, in two steps:

1. First, let other people know about the competition. If you're on Twitter, you can tweet it like this:

RT @stephanieburgis : Win a Thanksgiving prize pack that includes Joan Bauer's SQUASHED! Find out how: http://tinyurl.com/y9pszde

If you're not on Twitter, just mention the competition on your blog, and make sure to include a link to the rules page on my website.

2. Send me a message through my website letting me know whether you've tweeted or blogged about the competition, AND giving me the names of all three of Kat's siblings (which you can find out on my Meet the Characters page).

This giveaway is open to anybody in the world, and it'll run through Monday, November 30th, at midnight UK time.

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!

Comments on this blog | View comments on LiveJournal | Link to this blog entry