Stephanie Burgis, Writer - Summary Blog Feed

And a very happy announcement!

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 12:55:54 -0700

Hey! Remember back in December when I was soooo nervously working on a (long) short story for a really, really cool-sounding YA anthology, biting my nails every day over whether I could really finish the story on time, and whether the editor would like it and want to buy it after all? Well, guess what? She did!...

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Crossed Fingers and a Request for Help

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:27:58 -0700

OK, all fingers and toes are crossed as I type this, because I'm so scared of jinxing myself, but...I really think life might be just about back to normal!..

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Limbo Week

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 12:17:27 -0700

This has been a week spent in limbo as I've waited for different things. Most importantly and urgently...

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Sick Days and Reading Distractions

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 11:14:36 -0700

Oof. Poor MrD has been sick again ever since Thursday, getting worse in the last couple of days, so we're all pretty tired over here...

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Finding Heroines

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 11:55:29 -0700

There are nonfiction books that I read and enjoy, then set aside. There are nonfiction books that I find helpful in research. And then there are the books that I come back to again and again, the ones that feel genuinely life-saving to me...

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Elsewhere On the Web...

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 11:51:00 -0700

I just posted a blog entry at the Smack Dab in the Middle MG fiction blog about first lines in novels - and, in particular, why Kat Book 2 has a completely different first lines in its US and UK editions! Here's a quick snippet...

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See You at Harry's

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 10:52:34 -0700

Here's something true about me as a reader: when I'm sick or sad or stressed, I want books that will make me feel better, books that will cheer me up and maybe even make me laugh. I avoid books that will upset me because, really, I have enough worries of my own to deal with.

Now, here's another truth...

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Dangerous Rewards

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 16:24:49 -0700

First of all: thankyouthankyouthankyou to everybody who sent me beautiful Renegade Magic icons! I plan to have fun with every single one of them. :) You guys rock!

This morning, I finally, finally managed to catch up with all the freelance work I'd fallen behind on during MrD's sickdays last week. Whew! Luckily, I had the perfect (and most dangerous, for a book-addict like me) reward directly afterwards...a library book sale!...

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Renegade Excitement and Links I've Loved

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 14:15:28 -0700

OK, I just have to get this out of the way first. Look at that icon! It's the Minerva eye from the cover of Renegade Magic...which will be coming out in America in less than three months! That just hit me like a thunderclap the other day. I'd been calmly going along thinking, oh, it'll be out in about 4 months or so...and then I realized: Wait. It's January now. That means...
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2012 Playlist

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 13:32:45 -0700
Happy 2012, everybody! One of my favorite things in the past week has been discovering so much new music...
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Holidays, Gloating and More

Stephanie Burgis — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 14:30:14 -0700
Happy New Year's Eve, everyone! I've taken an internet half-break over the holidays - I've been on twitter a fair amount and facebook a little bit, but I haven't been writing long updates anywhere. It's been a really good holiday season, though, full of visiting family members, lots and lots of playtime with MrD, and ohhhh, so much good food!...
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Holiday Gifts - Including a Kat Short Story!

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 12:52:04 -0700
MrD was feeling so much better that I got a real writing session this morning for the first time in a week, which felt like an amazing gift. I wrote 2100 words of my WIP, and while I was writing, I got two wonderful holiday gifts in the mail from my two publishers...
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Holidays, Knitting, and Emotional Challenges

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 13:00:28 -0700
We're all officially in holiday mode over here, since MrD's school term ended last week. Of course, when you're self-employed, "holiday" is a flexible term, sometimes even too flexible...but I'm making a really concerted effort to make the holiday my focus in these two weeks, even if I am also desperately scrambling to get some writing work done in my off-moments...
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Gifts

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 17:19:54 -0700
I just posted a new blog entry over at the SmackDab group blog (of MG writers), talking about my biggest gift this year - which was given by an awful lot of people here at livejournal. You can read the entry here.
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Different Kinds of Countdowns

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 19:24:24 -0700
I've always loved the holiday season, but as a mom, I've got a whole new countdown going. I'm not just counting down the twelve days to Christmas anymore, I'm counting down the three days until...
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Resting Friday

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 13:08:19 -0700
It's a quiet day over here, since...
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Booksigning, Practicalities, and Music

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 14:28:21 -0700
Because I am good at rambling about books I love and bad about remembering practical things, I forgot to mention here until today: I'm doing a signing! At the Abergavenny Waterstones! This Saturday, from 12 to 2pm! There will also be mince pies and carol-singing going on in the shop - but not by me, you will be relieved to hear. ;) ...
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Impractical Stories and a Mary Stewart Immersion

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 15:34:40 -0700
It's been a quiet week over here, so the biggest excitement (well, apart from the arrival of the yearly advent calendar - but as a parent, that's more of a vicarious excitement nowadays) has been: I turned in my first big freelance project! Yay! I also wrote a new short story, which was totally impractical....
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Why I Write Fantasy (An Appreciation)

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 17:34:15 -0700
I think I was 14 when my dad passed me his copy of War For the Oaks, by Emma Bull. At the time, I was planning to be a historical romance writer. I'd just finished my first "novel" (OK, it was 56 pages single-spaced, but still), a Regency-era Gothic novel of great drama, romance and suspense called The Mystery of Castle Clew. I was all set to write the next one. Then...
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Amended Thanksgiving

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 15:50:52 -0700
This year, Thanksgiving is a little different than usual for us...
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Big Day Out and Writing Reminders

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 15:53:50 -0700
Patrick grew up in Bristol, a city we both adore - and a city located very close to our little Welsh town - but by this weekend, it had been over 2 years since we'd last visited (apart from the national-chain hotel where BristolCon is held, which doesn't totally count). Yesterday, though, we thought: why not? So we got in the car with MrD and drove the hour-and-a-bit to get there...and oh, wow. I'd forgotten how much I love Bristol! The gorgeous docks! The boats! The 18th-century architecture! The OMG-amazing science fiction bookshop (a branch of Forbidden Planet)! And this time...
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A Thursday List

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 15:24:31 -0700

Today, I am going to list some of the things that brought me joy in the last few days.

1. A picnic...
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Forgotten Resolutions

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 11:57:29 -0700
Something startling happened the other day. While I was dealing with the usual assortment of spam comments to be deleted, one of them led me back to a blog entry I'd written last New Year's Eve, setting out my one and only resolution for this year...and wow. Oops...
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Surprises and Internet Pondering

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 12:09:08 -0700
There's almost nothing as lovely as a surprise from a friend. This morning as I was working on my freelance project...
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Quiet Tuesday

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 15:28:05 -0700
It's a gray, chilly day that feels like winter, but I'm tucked up comfortably on the couch with a warm, soft satin blanket around me. (In our household, this is known as "The New Blanket" and probably always will be. We got it a year ago.) I'm thinking about making a latte, but I'd have to stand up for that, and it's so cozy here...
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Castle Photos

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 20:20:44 -0600
I had to get out of the house, had to go somewhere that would bring me peace and beauty. So MrD and I went to our local castle, because we both love it....
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A Quick Note

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 10:28:43 -0600
Someone in my family whom I loved very much passed away this weekend. I don't feel comfortable talking about that publicly in any more detail right now, especially because our extended family is so scattered geographically that I don't know if everyone in it is aware of what's happened yet...but I wanted to just post this quick explanation for why I'm probably going to go mostly offline for a week or so. I'm still working on my big freelance project, which has a tight deadline, and I'm still available by email, but I will probably be an even slower email correspondent for a little while to come...
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Looking Forward

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 15:24:09 -0600

This has been a tough year financially, which means that I've gotten into a nasty habit of focusing only on finances when I think about the future. Ever since January, my first question, whenever I've thought a month or two into the future, has been: But where will the money come from?

Yes, this is the glamorous freelance lifestyle. Sigh.

But!...
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Bristolcon Love (or, Talk Till You Drop!)

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 09:58:26 -0600
So, Bristolcon was Saturday...and ever since then I've been missing it! It was a really wonderful day, from the moment Tricia Sullivan picked me and Patrick up in her car (thank you sooooo much for that, Trish!), all through the lovely ride full of conversation and day full of events and readings and mostly just so much lovely talking with other writers and SF/fantasy readers....
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Rest and Joy

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 12:51:10 -0600
Today is a rest day in preparation for Bristolcon tomorrow - woooooot! If anyone is in the Bristol area, I would LOVE to see you there - I'll be interviewing my friend Justina Robson from 1-1:50 and doing a reading of my own from 3:50-4pm, as well as generally hanging around the hotel in the late morning and mid-afternoon. I'll also be giving away some of the advanced, uncorrected British ARCs of Kat Book 2, A Tangle of Magicks...
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Things I Love This Week

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 13:11:48 -0600
This has been a difficult week, as I've been worrying about things going on far away, but here are some of the things that I've loved...
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Nightmares, Inspiration, Austen and a Giveaway

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 09:34:53 -0600
The last two nights have featured some really terrible nightmares, which have meant not much sleep at all, so this morning, I'm lying on a couch moaning softly to myself....but luckily, you can find me being a bit more articulate at different places on the web...
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Lovely News and Links

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 12:07:35 -0600
First of all, my very best news, which I just got this morning: the Kat short story that I talked about in my last entry has been accepted by the Very Cool Magazine I referred to - so in other words, it'll be published in Puffin Post in November! I am really happy about this. :)...
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Crawling Out of My Cave

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 11:28:12 -0600
The last few weeks have been so physically and mentally exhausting, for various reasons, that I feel like I'm only now just starting to crawl out of the deep dark cave I had metaphorically retreated into...
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Hades, Happiness and More

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 18:43:51 -0600
Whew. The past few days, ever since stomach flu came to visit, have felt like a spell in Hades (where, instead of endlessly pushing some great weight up a hill, our personal form of classical punishment has involved endless rounds of cleaning)...but today MrD is finally starting to feel better (knock on wood!), which means that light is starting to break through for our whole family. (Just pleasepleaseplease don't let Patrick and me get the stomach flu next! At least not both at the same time... *frantically knocking on wood*)...
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Photographic Evidence of my New Obsession

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 15:29:49 -0600
In Real Life news, today has been given over to poor MrD's stomach flu...so as a kind of therapy for myself, I am going to share photos of my new obsession. I really need that therapy today!
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Recovery and Highlights

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 13:55:16 -0600
For the past week, pretty much all of my energy has gone into parenting, as we had (good) Big Events going on around here. A party! Party preparation (i.e., massive shopping trips and cleaning frenzies)! Museum trips! And more! It was all genuinely great and definitely the right stuff to prioritize...but it ate up a LOT of energy, as you can probably guess by the fact that this is my first blog post in over a week...
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Two Thanks and a Giveaway

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 14:46:34 -0600

Thank you guys so much for the graphic novel recommendations! I am taking note of all of them (you can see the growing list in the comments to yesterday's entry), and I can't wait to try them all out.

I have something else I want to post a public thank-you for as well...
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Reading Roundups: The YA Edition

Stephanie Burgis — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 13:28:41 -0600
I just posted a new entry over at my adult romance book-blog (Reading Roundup: Smart, Non-Beautiful Women for the Win!), reviewing the two romances I enjoyed most this week, and I wanted to post here about the other book that really blew me away: Laura Lee Gulledge's Page by Paige...
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Friday Five (a.k.a. Pinterest Mining)

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 16:58:33 -0600
Five links that make me happy today, from around the internet...oh, who am I kidding? These are ALL from Pinterest, because yes, I am still addicted. ;)...
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Ten Things I Love

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 16:41:55 -0600
I feel like I've been doing a lot of complaining here recently, which is SO not the ambience I want for this space...so it was perfect timing to discover a new meme going around the blogosphere, "Ten Things I Love". Here are mine, today...
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Hard News and Good News

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 12:45:36 -0600
First, the hard news. For anyone who was planning to come see me in the Jane Austen panel at the Bath Children's Literary Festival next week...
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Wet Romps and Unexpected Mishaps

Stephanie Burgis — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 12:29:19 -0600
Whew. It's been a rough weekend, but things are finally looking up. Most importantly, MrD is feeling better, which makes everything better....
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Interviews, Secrets, and the Best-Laid Plans

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 15:10:48 -0600
I can't count how many times I've raved about Sheela Chari's novel Vanished - I read it earlier this year and absolutely fell in love. In fact, I loved it SO much that I wrote fanmail to Sheela about it, and we've become friends since then - so between being her fan and being her friend, I'm doubly thrilled to have gotten the chance to interview her for the Smack Dab in the Middle Blog. Among other questions, I asked her about the issues involved in writing a heroine who shared the same name as her niece...
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Different Kinds of Giveaways and: Looking for UK Teachers and Librarians!

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 10:07:32 -0600
First: no matter where in the world you are, you can win not only a copy of Kat, Incorrigible but ALSO a copy of Sheela Chari's wonderful novel Vanished (one of my very favorite MG novels) at the bottom of this interview I did with Sarvenaz Tash (whose own upcoming MG book looks really fun). I'm really happy about this joint giveaway!...
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Inspirations, Commitment and Perfect Serendipity

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 16:31:14 -0600
This has been a week - almost two weeks, now, actually - of great, great tiredness for everyone in our house. But here are some of the things that are getting me through...
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Castles and Do-able Fantasies

Stephanie Burgis — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 13:38:53 -0600
Before we moved to our town in Wales, we visited it lots of times - and every single time, I insisted on visiting the local castle. I mean, just think about it: the local castle! How incredible is that, as a phrase to toss into a sentence? Best of all, it's less than 5 minutes' walk from downtown! ...
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Peeking at Curses, Freedom, Unnaturalists, and Wickedness

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 14:46:32 -0600
Here is the very, very best part of being professionally involved in the publishing business: getting to read some of your favorite authors' books before they're published. How incredible is that? If I could tell my ten-year-old self that that would someday happen...well, I don't think I would have believed it...
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Zombies, Giveaways, and Aspirations

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 16:51:39 -0600
Thanks for all the help on my book-buying indecision! That problem was solved beautifully, through the creative strategizing of various friends - I feel VERY lucky! - but sadly, I'm still feeling seriously zombie-like right now, because I've had far too many nights in a row without much sleep - the price of toddler-parenthood. Just imagine me lying here on the couch moaning "Energy..." in the same way any other zombie might moan: "Brainsss...."!...
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The Agony of Choice!

Stephanie Burgis — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 14:34:09 -0600
Here's the funny thing about choice (or the lack of it). For the past two months, we've been so broke that I've had to tell myself that I'm not allowed to buy ANY books at ALL. Oh, the burn! Oh, the pain, for a book-addict like me! But now, to celebrate my upcoming freelance assignment (although, admittedly, that money won't be coming for a while), I've decided that I can spent up to £13 on books...
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Happy Friday

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 21:27:40 -0600
Yay! Today is a happy Friday. In the last few days, I...
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Adding in More Fun

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 13:36:46 -0600
As part of the same epiphany which started me knitting again, I've decided that the only way to cope with stress and exhaustion...is to do more stuff. Er. No really, that makes sense in my head...
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Marshmallow Sweetness, Good Books, and Strong Memories

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 19:13:11 -0600
Here are the two things that have saved my sanity in the last few days, despite lack of sleep and various other frustrations...
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Lovely Discoveries and Re-Discoveries

Stephanie Burgis — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 16:48:02 -0600
There's been a fair amount of stress in the last few weeks, as I've dealt with my CFS crash, taxes, a creative revision that scares me, and the endless search for more freelance work, all at once. But this week has been ten times better than last week, not just because the CFS is easing off a bit, but because I've been actively using my rest times to do (low-impact) things that make me happy, like reading, rather than just aimlessly surfing the internet. Funny how hard it can be to remember to do that, especially when I'm already feeling stressed, tired, or worried...
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Yearly Horror and Cupcake Comfort

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 17:24:19 -0600

This afternoon I began the Yearly Horror, i.e. sorting out all of my taxable receipts for the last year. This doesn't really sound that bad, does it? After all, all I have to do is keep all those receipts filed neatly throughout the year and then...

...yeah. Oops...
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A Monday Gift: Iota Draconis

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 16:06:33 -0600
Remember how I talked about Welsh Augusts being misty and cold? Apparently, the weather gods over here took that as a challenge. It's been gorgeous, hot and sunny in the past few days, and while I'm shocked, I'm very, very pleased by the unexpected gift. So, it felt like just the right time to give something away in return...
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Friday Links

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 11:21:27 -0600
It's a Welsh August over here...which means that today is cool and cloudy, just warm enough to crack open a few windows. This has been a quiet week for me - the CFS demanding its due after so much travel lately - but luckily, when I haven't been working on the freelance project or looking after MrD, there's been lots of interesting stuff to see online...
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Blogging Away...

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 11:34:35 -0600
Today's blog entry is over at the Smack Dab in the Middle MG Author Blog. This month's theme was "obstacles", and each of us was asked to write about a hard part of the writing career. My entry is called "A Control Freak's Lament", and it's about the problem of being a control freak in a career that gleefully yanks away all pretense of personal control. Here's a snippet...
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Cupcakes, Coffee, Videos, and Rest

Stephanie Burgis — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 16:05:39 -0600
Thanks so much to everyone who sent good vibes yesterday! No news yet on the bigger life-/career-wishlist items, but the launch party was full of chocolate-and-cherry goodness and truly delicious lime-and-coconut cupcakes. (I have fallen deeply, deeply in love with the baked goods made by the Cwtch* Café in Abergavenny. Sooooo yummy!)...
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An Official Request for Good Vibes

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 13:40:38 -0600
Tonight is the launch party for A Tangle of Magicks, so needless to say, I slept 12 hours last night, woke up, began my three-hour-long make-up regimen... ...ahahaha. Not quite!
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Comforting Things on a Wednesday

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 14:15:31 -0600
As everyone who's seen the news lately knows, it's been a really worrying and sad few days in the UK. In my tiny, peaceful Welsh town, I'm too far from the riots to be able to give any intelligent commentary on them, but like everyone else, I have spent a lot of the last few days feeling unhappy, worried and tense as they've taken place in cities that I love, and where many of my friends live. I'm horrified, sad and deeply concerned for everyone involved...
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And Another Quick Roundup!

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 14:41:51 -0600
The blog tour for Tangle continued through the weekend, even while I was on the train or drinking hot chocolate in the Pump Room, so here are some links...
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Weekend Happiness Photo Recap

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 12:20:28 -0600
There are days that are good days...and there are days that feel like perfect gifts that you want to wrap up and remember forever. Saturday was one of those...
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Bath, Surprises, and Signing

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 11:37:51 -0600
Today I'm guest-blogging at YA-FOREVER about my crush on the city of Bath. Here's a quick snippet...
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Lovely Discoveries and Free Stuff

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 11:31:42 -0600

I've always thought wolves were beautiful and fascinating - I wrote story after story involving wolves when I was a teen - but it wasn't until I read Farley Mowat's Never Cry Wolf, twelve years ago, that I really fell in love, for good. I've been enthralled by wolves ever since, to one degree or another, and since one of the (several) WIPs I've been playing with happens to involve werewolves, I've been thinking about them a lot lately.

So you can imagine just how excited I was to discover...
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Blogging Away

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 10:42:03 -0600
Today I'm guest-blogging over at Fluttering Butterflies (a UK book-blog that I read regularly and always enjoy), talking about my favorite kind of heroine. Here's a snippet from the beginning...
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Tangle Tour Photos

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 15:09:02 -0600
Last year, when A Most Improper Magick came out, I took photos of AMIM's celebratory café trip. A Tangle of Magicks, though, is Book 2, so I thought it deserved an even better celebration...
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...And the Messier Aspects of Historical Research

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 09:36:21 -0600
I've been reading and enjoying the UK teen book blog Chicklish pretty much since it was founded, which made it really, really fun to be asked to do a guest blog for them for Tangle's launch day. I wrote about the messier aspects of historical research (with photographic evidence!)...
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Tangle Happiness and Giveaway

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 09:13:18 -0600
When I first started writing Kat Book 2, on August 16, 2007, I hadn't sold the first Kat book. Heck, I hadn't even finished revising it! I had no prospect of an agent, much less a publisher. I knew - I knew! - it was dumb to start another book in the series at that point. I knew that the smart thing, the good career decision, would be to write something completely different in case the first book didn't sell...
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My Favorite Things - Fifteen Years Later

Stephanie Burgis — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 12:15:10 -0600
I've been listening all morning to John Coltrane's version of "My Favorite Things", after reading this beautiful blog entry about the song and how, for one woman (a Twitter friend of mine), it symbolizes her relationship with her late father. It's a really lovely entry and it made me listen to the song again, for the first time in fifteen years...
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And a Quick Roundup...

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 13:18:04 -0600
...Because I have been crying, off and on, ever since I came across photos from the terrible famine in East Africa half an hour ago, and I have to feel that I'm doing something, no matter how small, to help. Here are the reputable organizations I know of that you can donate to (and I just have) to help...
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Friday Gift: Duelling Magicks

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 10:56:23 -0600

Hooray! A Tangle of Magicks is listed as in-stock in all the UK online bookstores, I'm hopefully expecting it to be in physical bookstores by Monday (its official pub date)...

...and as a very small thank-you to everyone who's read Kat Book 1 (whether they read it as Kat, Incorrigible or A Most Improper Magick), I've posted a free copy of my Kat short story on my website.
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Soul-Sucking Horrors and Blueberry Goodness

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 14:08:35 -0600
Oof. Well, I hadn't meant to wait quite this long before I went back to blogging regularly, but I kept waiting for LiveJournal to become reliable again first. Oops. Sadly, that strategy hasn't really worked out very well...
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This Weekend

Stephanie Burgis — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 13:04:44 -0600
It's a little hard to know how to post right now. On Friday, I went to Waverton for the Good Read Award and had one of the best days EVER. It was full of joy, I took lots of pictures, I wanted to just burble and burble over here about it all...and then I got home and turned on the news...
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Couch Moments and Joy

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 15:19:58 -0600

This morning I finished editing the last 90 pages of Kat3 (whew!), answered one set of interview questions, and finished off my morning by calling the electrician and wrapping a gift for a toddler birthday party. Whew! I am Superwoman, hear me roar!

...or, er, not, because...
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Drama, Travel, and Reassurances

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 12:42:09 -0600
Whew. It's been a tough last week, to say the least...and it was made extra-dramatic yesterday when Maya had an Awfully Big Adventure...
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Yes!

Stephanie Burgis — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 19:34:41 -0600
Today's entry is over at the Smack Dab in the Middle MG author blog, where the July theme asked us to write about our yes! moments as writers. Here's a snippet from what I wrote...
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Guest Post: Tricia Sullivan on Juggling

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 11:39:46 -0600

Oof. I was up all night with poor MrD, who's really sick with a nasty childhood illness - and the fact that this coincides with my Kat 3 edits is pretty much par for the parenting course, as I've discovered over the past few years - so it was absolutely the perfect day for this particular guest post to arrive.

I raved here about Tricia Sullivan's novel Lightborn when it first came out last year, talking about how it has "all the intense speculation of the best science fiction, but also...the sheer, heart-thumping excitement of a really great zombie thriller". You can read my full review of it here - and since it was shortlisted for a Clarke Award (the top award in British science fiction), an awful lot of other people appear to have agreed with me about it! As well as being an award-winning science fiction author, though, Trish is also a parent, and someone I've frequently gone to for personal advice in my own parenting journey. So when I asked Trish to do a guest post here, rather than asking her to write about Lightborn in particular, I asked her if she could talk instead about an issue that's really crucial to me, personally, as I settle into being a professional writer and a parent: juggling...
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Ups and Downs and Awesome Events

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 17:13:27 -0600
There have been a lot of ups and downs in the last several days. I went to a family birthday in a gorgeous part of Wales, and had a wonderful time. Woot! ...Then...
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Wonderful Visit, Horrible Histories

Stephanie Burgis — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 19:04:56 -0600
My brother Ben is in town this weekend, meeting MrD for the very first time, sending Maya wild with joy through lots of extra petting and walks, and making me awfully happy, too. It had been way, way too long since I'd gotten to hang out with him. (Are you still allowed to refer to someone as your "little" brother when they're eight inches taller than you? As an oldest sibling, I say YES! Kat, though, would probably say no, so hmm...)...
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Personal Humiliation and Shout-Outs

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 12:49:31 -0600
One of the things Patrick and I figured out several years ago is that we're both really, really bad at talking about our own work in any promotional - or even halfway positive - way. My own most humiliating attempt came several years ago, at the Glasgow WorldCon. A wonderful writer who'd critiqued my adult historical fantasy novel Masks and Shadows (which had, at that point, just gone out on submission to publishers through my then-agent) introduced me to the artist Alan Lee...
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Finding Inspiration

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 12:24:35 -0600
Last week Patrick and I spent a lot of time talking about inspiration - specifically, trying to pin down the kinds of places that inspire each of us and make us feel creative, even bursting with creativity. For me, art museums often work. When I was working in central Leeds, I used to sometimes use my lunch breaks to walk over the (free!) Leeds City Art Gallery and spend an hour wandering around the 19th-century art section, or visiting exhibits like the Leonardo da Vinci sketches that blew me away...
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The Best Kind of Surprise

Stephanie Burgis — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 19:16:13 -0600
Well. So. Remember how I was complaining earlier this week about feeling in limbo, in many ways? Well, I'm still waiting on all the expected types of news that I was waiting for before, but...
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Website News, Free Reads, and Writing Rewards

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 13:06:51 -0600
Hooray! I put up the new section of my website just in time after all. Kat Book Two, A Tangle of Magicks (a.k.a. Renegade Magic), is going to be published in the UK one month from today, on August 1st, and now you can check out a whole section of my website devoted to Kat 2, including the full first chapter, free to read online...
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Limbo and a Video

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 11:54:08 -0600
Huh. After two-and-a-half days of mysterious non-connection, our internet just-as-mysteriously reappeared yesterday at noon. Why did it go away in the first place? Who knows? Why did it come back again? I have no idea! The scheduled engineer isn't even due to arrive to fix it until this morning. I'm still waiting for him now, in hopes that he can find some explanation for the mysteries. But it was honestly a bit pathetic just HOW excited Patrick and I both were yesterday when the internet turned itself on again out of nowhere. We are not people who live happily without that internet connection, anymore...
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London Delights of All Sorts

Stephanie Burgis — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 12:08:27 -0600
Whew - despite all my moaning and cursing on Tuesday and even on Wednesday, I was all better by Thursday morning, so I set off for London at noon. Honestly, in the beginning the whole trip felt cursed: first I got sick beforehand, then I broke my glasses the night before I left, then one of my dress shoes went missing just half an hour before my first train left (in the end I had to give up and settle for casual sandals instead), and then an hour into the second leg of my journey, my train was delayed. And delayed. And delayed! I was scheduled to leave my hotel, after an hour and a half of hanging out there, at 5:30pm. Instead, I leapt out of my first cab from the train station onto the hotel steps at five thirty exactly. My lovely UK editor held our next cab for me while I raced up the three flights of steps to fling on my evening clothes in my hotel room, with no time for applying makeup. Then I lunged back down the stairs, fell into the second cab next to my editor...
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The Perils of Professionalism

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 05:11:49 -0600
So, I'm scheduled to go to London tomorrow for my author panel at the Free Word Centre, followed by drinks and book-signing and ending in a dinner out with my fabulous UK editor. I bought the outfit for my trip on Saturday, and yesterday, following a carefully-laid-out plan, I went into town to get my hair cut for the trip. I didn't want to look shaggy and unprofessional! Well...
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Father's Day - an Appreciation

Stephanie Burgis — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 17:01:13 -0600
I remember when I was a kid, and Father's Day came around, I'd look at the tables of gifts on display in the local department stores, and I would be utterly baffled. Were fathers really expected to all like golf and football? Where were the gifts for dads like mine, who loved science fiction and classical music and Jane Austen?...
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Friday Decadence, Rambling and Write-a-Thon

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 14:52:23 -0600
Today is a decadent day. I'm listening to opera on the laptop and...drumroll...I just finished writing my Kat short story. SO MUCH FUN! I mean..ahem...obviously, it was good to finish a story I'd promised for an auction. Yes.
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Today's entry...

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 14:02:09 -0600
...is over at the Smack Dab in the Middle group blog, where I'm posting about my terribly unromantic but practical approach to creating a writing space no matter what your physical environment might be. Here's a quick snippet...
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Random Tuesday

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 15:42:03 -0600
1. After my language-of-fans and highwayman song discoveries, I spent all weekend mainlining Horrible Histories episodes on the BBC iPlayer and on YouTube. I'm now debating whether to buy ALL the Horrible Histories DVDs now with the last of my birthday gift certificate money. I so, so wish that show had been around when I was ten years old! But I am still loving it even at 34...
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Highwayman LOVE

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 16:38:24 -0600
After this, I swear I will stop writing blog entries today...but in Kat's honor, I could not possibly refrain from sharing just one more fabulous Horrible Histories piece, Dick Turpin's Highwayman Song...
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Wildly exaggerated rewards, lovely metaphors, and a fun video

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 12:50:29 -0600
WHEW. I just finished the first draft of a proposal for my WIP. (Which will definitely not be the last draft...or even the second-to-last one. Sigh. Proposals are HARD!) Just as I was starting to feel disgruntled - where was the celebratory champagne for my superheroic efforts? where was the chocolate? where were the wildly cheering crowds??? - the doorbell rang. A delivery man stood outside carrying a large package from Simon & Schuster...
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Invitations, Nerves, and a Video

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 14:57:36 -0600
Before anything else, I keep meaning to announce: I'm going to London! OK, yes, I think I did mention that before, but I finally have some details to share along with an official invitation.
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Town of Books and Book-Buying

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 12:53:36 -0600
I love, love, love Hay-on-Wye (a.k.a., The Town of Books). This is not a surprise to anybody. This Saturday, though, was the first time I'd ever been there during festival season. There were two festivals going on at once: the book festival, and the philosophy & music festival. Since my friend Justina was appearing at the philosophy & music festival, we had the perfect excuse to visit Hay - and I finally got to hang out with her in person for the first time since moving down to Wales almost two years ago...
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Friday Joy

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 20:10:51 -0600
Because it's a beautiful, hot, sunshine-y day, and because I've spent far too much time lately focusing on annoying or stressful issues that just don't matter in the long run...here is a list of some of the things, large and small, that are bringing me joy right now in my life...
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Highlights and Lowlights

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 12:15:57 -0600
Agh. This past week and a half has included an emergency plumber, an emergency electrician, and the news today that both my AND Patrick's laptops both have to stay in Cardiff for two days...until the day that we were supposed to go meet friends in Hay-on-Wye. In other words...
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The Problem of Subjectivity

Stephanie Burgis — Sun, 29 May 2011 12:28:22 -0600
Sometimes it's really useful, as an author, to be reminded of just how subjective entertainment really is. Last night, Patrick and I watched the latest Doctor Who episode. (No serious spoilers, I promise!) ...
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Internet Joy

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 27 May 2011 10:15:18 -0600

There are many things I regret about the way I spent my undergraduate years of college. Why did I let myself be influenced by college friends who looked down on f/sf and romance? Why did I spend so much of my time pretending not to like the books/music/plays I really liked, just so that I could fit in with people I thought were smarter than me? Why, oh why, did I watch SO MANY endless existentialist French films while dying inside?

Now I know the answer...
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Rattle. Rattle. Rattle.

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 24 May 2011 20:08:08 -0600
My laptop is rattling loudly at me as I type. This is not, to say the least, reassuring. Sadly, I can't even blame anyone but myself. Last week, when MrD woke me up, we settled down together at the top of the stairs to head down toddler-style, on our bottoms. I was juggling my computer, a book, the Kindle, and - a moment later - MrD, who decided to sit on my lap. That was not a problem...but what was a problem was that as I shifted everything I was carrying to my right arm, the laptop made a sudden dash for freedom...
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The Best Kind of Research

Stephanie Burgis — Sat, 21 May 2011 10:32:21 -0600
Here's one of the things I love about being a writer: part of my Serious, Important Research for my current WIP involves re-reading Anne of Green Gables. Oh, and re-watching the 80s miniseries (the Megan Follows version, which my best friend and I were both OBSESSED with as kids!), too...
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Secret Writing and Unexpected Gifts

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 18 May 2011 12:55:34 -0600
It's been hard to find time to blog in the last few days for the best of all possible reasons: because I've spent almost all of my non-child-caring energy on novel-writing with the kind of joyous abandon and obsession that I always yearn for but don't always experience. I've fallen (even more) behind on emails, and I haven't posted here as regularly as I'd like to...
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Today's entry...

Stephanie Burgis — Sun, 15 May 2011 12:53:53 -0600

...is over at the group blog Smack Dab in the Middle: Choosing Favorites...
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Ohhhh - deep book love

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 13 May 2011 13:56:50 -0600
I just finished reading Susanna Kearsley's The Rose Garden, and ohhhhh. I haven't fallen so deep into a book for years. Last night, it kept me awake - not just because I stayed up far too late reading it, but because even after we turned off the lights, I couldn't stop thinking about it, actually physically tingling with the intensity of my urge to sneak out of bed and keep on reading. Even after I fell asleep, I dreamed about it all night long...
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Love and Not-Love

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 12 May 2011 12:04:25 -0600
Today, the ME/CFS has clamped down and is demanding payment for all the cool stuff I did in the last few days. Sigh. Thank goodness for excellent hot chocolate (courtesy of Patrick), and interesting internet links. Here's a roundup of stuff I've loved and really NOT-loved in the last few days...
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Radical Adventures

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 10 May 2011 18:16:57 -0600
Today I did something radical and almost unheard-of: I went to town BY MYSELF. And not to do gift-shopping or errands, either! This might not sound all that radical to people who aren't toddler-parents, but for me? It was HUGE...
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U.S. Mother's Day

Stephanie Burgis — Sun, 08 May 2011 11:36:03 -0600
Happy U.S. (and Canadian?) Mother's Day! We're not celebrating it over here because we already celebrated British Mother's Day last month (alas, I've given up my original grandiose plans to force Patrick and MrD to celebrate BOTH times in honor of my dual citizenship! ;) ), but of course I have an American mother I love very much, so I'm very aware of today anyway...
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The Night Bookmobile

Stephanie Burgis — Sat, 07 May 2011 11:37:49 -0600
Have you ever read a book that haunted you? Yesterday I read Audrey Niffenegger's The Night Bookmobile, and now I can't get it out of my head. It's the story (told in a very short graphic novel) of a woman who's walking through the dark streets of her city one night and stumbles upon a magical bookmobile, which holds all the books she's ever read in her life. Of course, as she's an obsessive book-lover (like me), it's the most amazing place she's ever discovered...but it closes at dawn and drives away, and the rest of her life turns into a quest to find that bookmobile again, no matter what she has to sacrifice along the way...
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Banana Rewards and Nervous Anticipation

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 05 May 2011 15:47:04 -0600
Today I drafted a 2,000-word novel proposal (my absolute least favorite kind of writing project - as someone who makes up plots as I go along, writing an outline for a book I haven't yet written is not easy!), cooked lunch for MrD, baked banana muffins with him afterward, washed up, hung out laundry, and, in about half an hour, I will have voted, too. Yea, I am a superheroine! Or, er, maybe not. But I do have delicious banana muffins as a reward, anyway...
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Twitter and Author Awe

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 03 May 2011 13:55:55 -0600
I love the unexpected bonuses of life with twitter. A few weeks ago, Kat Richardson and I chatted there about how much we both love Amanda Quick's adult romances - how deeply comforting they are for both of us. (They really are comfort reads of the highest degree - even when I spent a couple of very silly years in college officially Not Reading Romance Novels, whenever I got sick, I ALWAYS dragged out my secret stash of Amanda Quick novels, because they just simply made me feel better, every single time.) It was fun getting to chat about it on twitter, and I was jealous (in a friendly way) of Kat because she got to go to an Amanda Quick signing in Seattle...
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A Quick Sneak Peek

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 02 May 2011 14:51:46 -0600
Thank goodness for surprise writing sessions. Today we didn't have any childcare lined up, so I wasn't expecting to manage any writing at all...but Patrick swept in like a superhero and took MrD to the toy fair in town for a fabulous day out. Woooot! So, I just finished Chapter Four of my Pine Magic WIP, I'm feeling celebratory, aaaaaand, since it's now less than 3 months till A Tangle of Magicks comes out in the UK...
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Surprises of Various Sorts

Stephanie Burgis — Sun, 01 May 2011 19:26:02 -0600
Whew. Well, that didn't go quite as planned...
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Thanks and News of Various Sorts

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 08:52:14 -0600
Thank you so much for all the amazing responses to my last entry, guys. It was a really scary entry to write and even scarier to post...but I was blown away by the response I got, and so, so moved by the stories and support that were shared. And I am particularly grateful that even when people disagreed with each other, they managed to stay civil and respectful in their disagreement, keeping this blog a safe space. Thank you!!!...
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Hard Truths

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 11:07:12 -0600
There's a blog entry I've been wanting - or, really, needing - to write for a while, but I've been resisting it. The problem is, this blog is my safe space, the place I come to hang out with my friends and be the person I identify as, the one who's all about books and magic and highwaymen and romance. It's not about the body I've been stuck in ever since I got CFS, the one that sometimes won't even stand up or walk, so I have to crawl to get from room to room....
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Flexible Holidays and Castle Addiction

Stephanie Burgis — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 16:22:34 -0600
It's funny just how different some things are in America and Britain. Patrick and I both grew up celebrating Easter in English-speaking countries, but it turns out that our celebrations were totally different. He grew up trading chocolate Easter eggs with family members; I grew up hunting for Easter baskets that had been hidden for me by the Easter Bunny, with colored hard-boiled eggs (which I'd helped to dye the day before), small gifts, and chocolate bunnies all tucked inside, along with bright green Easter grass...
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Random Friday (with a video)

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 17:01:07 -0600
First off, three points of business...
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Kat 2 Cover Joy

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 15:53:47 -0600
Woooooot!!!! I have just gotten the official go-ahead, so.... drumroll: here are the two different covers for the UK and US editions of Kat Book 2!...
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Happy Writer, Happy Everything

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 14:27:54 -0600
Whew. These past few days have been SO much better, as the CFS eased its grip and I got back into a happy flow of writing. I've finally decided which novel WIP to focus on, and it's not the sensible and logical one but instead the one that makes a bubble of excitement form inside my chest every time I think about it...which I hope is a good sign! ...
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Today's entry...

Stephanie Burgis — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 13:30:27 -0600
...is actually over at the Smack Dab in the Middle blog, a group blog (for MG authors) where I'll be posting once a month from now on. This month, we were supposed to talk about why we write middlegrade fiction, and after brainstorming a few of the standard, professional answers...well, what actually came out was a really personal entry, which felt great to write but scary to post. It's called "Writing for the Twelve-Year-Old Me", and it begins...
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Chime

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 16:10:39 -0600
Have you ever felt so intensely excited about a book that you couldn't actually bring yourself to read it? I know it sounds dumb (or maybe even crazy!), but that's how I've felt for the past couple of days, ever since a jaw-droppingly beautiful hardcover copy of Franny Billingsley's Chime arrived at our house (courtesy of the lovely Luisa Plaja). The thing is, Chime isn't just an intriguing-looking book - it's the new Franny Billingsley book, and I have been waiting for SO MANY YEARS for a new Franny Billingsley book!...
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Guest Post: Say it with Flowers

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 11:56:20 -0600
Thank goodness for friends! This week I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed as I dig my way out of my CFS crash, work on my two WIPs at once, try to figure out various admin things, etc., etc...my energy levels are a bit low, to say the least! Luckily, though, Amy Brecount White, author of the lovely YA fantasy novel Forget-Her Nots (read the first five chapters here!), stepped in to help me out with a guest post...
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Links Round-Up (With a Video)

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 11:31:41 -0600
And a quick links round-up, since they've been piling up lately in the open tabs on my browser...
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Cool News, Chocolate Cake, and the Problem of Art

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 11:06:11 -0600
Yesterday was a bit of a wash-out because of the ME/CFS, which took its toll for my fun weekend of booksigning & intense socializing...but it would be really hard to find any better way to wake up than I did this morning. I got up, played with MrD, looked online...and discovered that I'm on the 2011 British Fantasy Awards longlist twice, once for A Most Improper Magick, a.k.a. Kat, Incorrigible (in the Best Novel category) and once for "Undead Philosophy 101" (in the Best Short Fiction category)...
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Thursday Relief

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 16:53:29 -0600
Whew. I finally, finally sent off my UK copyedits for Kat 2 (UK title, A Tangle of Magicks) this morning at 11:30 am. Ohhhh, the relief! My whole family is much happier now...and I can't wait to do some fresh, first-draft writing tomorrow morning. Bliss!...
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Kat's North American Book Birthday (and a Giveaway!)

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 10:04:33 -0600
On April 17, 2006, I was chopping onions in my kitchen when I heard a girl's voice whisper in my ear: "I was twelve years of age when I chopped off my hair, dressed in boys' clothes, and set off to save my family from impending ruin. I made it almost to the end of my own front garden..."...
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Bad Day, Fun Trailer, Wonderful Brothers

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 14:38:16 -0600
So, this weekend...
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Happiness and a Story

Stephanie Burgis — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 19:57:46 -0600

Thanks, everybody, for all the sympathy and support yesterday when I was in mid-panic! It really, really helped. I sent off the edits exactly on time...here's hoping I can repeat the process (minus the panic) this coming week for the UK edition!

But I had the best reward ever for my effort yesterday..
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A Brief Wail

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 12:41:30 -0600
Last night, as our cordless phone rang somewhere on the bed, surrounded by blankets, I climbed around searching...and heard a horrible crunch under my knee. I looked down...and saw it was my Kindle...
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21st-Century Author Joy

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 10:32:00 -0600
So, yesterday was a big day in a way for me that Jane Austen probably never got to experience: it was the day Kat, Incorrigible was officially listed as "in-stock" at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble. Better yet, lots of friends and family let me know that their copies had already been shipped! Aaaaahhhh, it's really out there!...
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Six Things for a Tuesday

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 16:19:49 -0600
1. Right now Patrick and MrD are in town together without me, doing manly things like...
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Lightbulbs and Anne Stuart Attitude

Stephanie Burgis — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 20:28:06 -0600
This afternoon, I really needed to take a break. So I turned on a podcast, closed my eyes, lay down on my bed...and ended up hearing something that I've been thinking about ever since....
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Consolations of One Sort or Another

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 13:37:16 -0600

Aiyee. MrD's illness is back with a vengeance, I was up with him for much of last night while he fought a high fever, and he's off at the doctor's office with Patrick now...

...so in other words, I REALLY needed something to make me laugh today, and thanks to the internet, I found it...
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Baking dilemmas and Kat immersion

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 19:33:49 -0600

This weekend I got a phone call, out of the blue, from the events coordinator at my fabulous local Waterstones. (Yes, they really are fabulous, and I would say so even if I didn't have a book that they've kept on prominent display for the past six months. That is just ONE facet of how fabulous they are!)

"Hi, Stephanie," Peter said. "Would you like to come in and do a signing on Saturday, April 9th?"...
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The Good Bits, and a Question

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 19:05:40 -0600

OK, I'm not going to whine (much) about the fact this is Day 9 of toddler sickness. (Sadly, I spoke too soon on Thursday - but antibiotics have now been applied, so...knock on wood!) Or about how tired I am. (Ohhhh, am I tired!)

Instead, I'm going to talk about a couple of the good bits that have carried me through and made me feel better about everything...
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Starting to Turn Around

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 15:52:20 -0600
Aiyee, this has been a week I wouldn’t want to repeat...
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The Other Side of Writing

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 11:33:14 -0600
When you're a writer (PLEASE tell me that other writers do this too, and it's not just me????) there's a funny kind of push-pull reaction to reading about other people's new books. Sometimes, of course, it's simple, because they're books that sound fabulous but also sound like something you could never have written yourself. Those are the easy ones, and your (my) first and only reaction is: Ooh, I want to read that! But sometimes...
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Also...

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 16:19:29 -0600
...One of my favorite book bloggers, Steph Su, posted an interview with me on her blog today, along with a giveaway of a Kat, Incorrigible ARC! Here's a snippet from the interview...
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Multi-Tasking and Authors for Japan

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 15:19:56 -0600
Today poor MrD is still sick, and he (and I) woke up at about 5am. Sigh. Still, I was determined to have a productive Monday anyway. After all, why not get some work done while he slept on my lap? Well, maybe because my brain is in a state of zombie sludge today. After I'd sent off a freelance query with a glaring typo and posted the wrong info for an auction in my twitter account, I decided that perhaps the better part of valor, today, might be simple surrender. There will be no productivity in this house for at least another 24 hours.
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Nostalgia and Apps

Stephanie Burgis — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 11:30:17 -0600
Well, bah. The real downside of family visits, of course, is that they have to end. Patrick drove my family to the train station this morning, and ever since, I've been listening to the Chava Albertstein CD they brought me and feeling very nostalgic...
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The Arrival of 50 Seconds North

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 21:36:20 -0700
Woot! This is just a quick pointer to Patrick's big announcement - after years of developing websites as his dayjob at the University of Leeds, not to mention the websites he developed privately for each of us and for the December Lights Project, he's finally branched out and started his own freelance web design business, 50 Seconds North...
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The Great Unboxing

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 16:24:50 -0700
Today, a box arrived from Simon & Schuster in America. I acted cool in front of the delivery man. (Well...kind of cool. Maybe. Not too embarrassing, I hope.) Then I closed the door and screamed with excitement - and then horror, as I realized: I would have to WAIT to open it, because Patrick was out at the supermarket! I called him on his cellphone approximately 10,000,000,000 times before I finally got through. He was already in our drive by then...
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Delicious Surprises

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 11:54:37 -0700
I've been bursting to share this news for ages, and now I finally can. A few months ago, I got an email from a Clarion West classmate, Emily Mah, another writer who now lives in the UK (in London) and has become a professional jeweler. I've been a fan of her jewelry ever since she first opened her etsy shop...so I was totally thrilled when I read her email offering to make some Kat-related jewelry to use as giveaway swag! ...
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Mailboxes, Heroines, and Kat ARCs

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 13:05:42 -0700
Yesterday we went to Hay-on-Wye, Town of Books, with my family guests. We wandered around used bookstores galore, bought far too many books (but how could we help it? My favorite bookstore there was selling every book in stock for £2 or less!), snapped up some great research books (no, really)...and came home to a set of incredible emails....
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Day of Awesome

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 13:35:37 -0700
There have been some hard personal moments behind-the-scenes here this week related to health, as a couple of you guys know. But today? Today is a day of Awesome. Because...
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The Fair Folk Problem

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 13:44:47 -0700
There are times when it's dangerous to be a fantasy author...
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Parenting, Dreaming, Seals, and Screwball Comedy

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 16:33:40 -0700

OK, I just have to get this out of the way first: I LOVE being a mom. You guys know that, right? I adore MrD wholeheartedly, and I wouldn't give up parenting for anything. Seriously, it's kind of scary what happens when you have a child. You find yourself willing to do ANYTHING for them, to the point where - honest to God - I found myself thinking earlier today, as I looked at MrD:

I would fight to my last breath for you.

Yes, it really does get that melodramatic in my head, from time to time.

BUT...
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Infusions of Happiness for a Tired Friday

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 11:43:50 -0700

Thank you guys so much for all the good wishes after my last post! MrD is feeling much, much better, thank goodness. Toddlers are amazingly resilient. By yesterday, he was running around like a 2-year-old ball of energy again...while Patrick and I were feeling totally flattened. Funny how that works.

There are times when desperate measures have to be taken, though...
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Unexpected Standstills and Drumming

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 15:11:53 -0700

This was going to be a productive day. Seriously, it was. I had it all planned out: I'd spend the morning writing my fun new project (still too tentative and fragile to talk about in detail), then I'd write up some guest blogs that are due, write a meaningful blog entry here, and spend the afternoon speeding through Kat Book 2 copyedits (for the American, Renegade Magic edition). I was all set...

...until this morning, when MrD turned out to be really, really sick.
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Birthdays and Stories

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 12:41:08 -0700

So, after much scheming and tossing around of options and desperate googling (just in case I had somehow MISSED the opening of a fabulous new Indian or Thai restaurant in town), I finally came to the last-ditch conclusion...that if I wanted a nice meal for Patrick's birthday, I would have to do some cooking myself.

Oops. I always hate that news...
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Party Challenges and Good News

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 14:17:57 -0700
I love living in our small town. I really do. But every so often...say, hypothetically, when I want to organize a massive birthday extravaganza for my husband...
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Catching Up with Competitions and Good Books

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 16:04:32 -0700

Whew! We just had a conversation with our landlord and confirmed that we can stay in our current house for the foreseeable future. Hooray for being settled in one place! And now it really is time for us to finally learn Welsh, if only to keep up with MrD.

The last month or so has been a bit of a whirlwind - first the Big Push to finish the first draft of the dragon novel, and then racing around to take care of all the Serious Business-y errands that I'd been putting off until then. So I only just realized that I've forgotten to talk here about some Kat giveaways that are going right now. (I always remember to tweet about them, but I know not everyone is as addicted to Twitter as I am.)
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Killer Robot Valentines, and Jane Austen's Lessons on Love

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 11:53:22 -0700

Last night after MrD went to bed, Patrick said, "What do you want to do for the rest of Valentine's Day?"

I knew exactly what I wanted. "Can we watch another episode of Battlestar Galactica?" (Yes, I have FINALLY discovered this show, only several years later than the rest of the world...and now I am addicted. Patrick has already watched it, but he's kindly re-watching the whole series with me now.)...
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Unexpected Discoveries

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 16:09:59 -0700
I really wasn't looking forward to yesterday morning. In fact, I was dreading it. I had to take the train to Newport (Wales) to have an identity interview for my first UK passport, and the whole thing just sounded incredibly dreary. I was exhausted, still struggling with the death cold, Mr.D had woken me twice in the night because of his own death cold, and I HATE the Newport train station. I mean, I hate it with a fiery passion...
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Photos That Make Me Happy

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 17:30:32 -0700
Alas, our family has been attacked by another Death Cold, so I don't have much activity to report apart from a LOT of sniffling, coughing and croaking and far, far too much TV-watching...*
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Puppy Panic and Distractions

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 11:14:42 -0700
Poor Maya. Wind buffeted our house last night, making our neighbor's security lights flicker wildly on and off, and our thunderstorm-phobic dog flew into a total panic. She ended up closed inside our study all by herself with the lights on and a fan blowing inside the room just to try to offset the sound of the noisy gales of wind that were blowing against the outer walls and windows. When I came in to let her out this morning, I had to persuade her out from underneath the desk, where she'd hidden all through the night....
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And the Tough Parts

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 16:35:12 -0700

This weekend I had to make a really tough decision, one I desperately didn't want to make. I try so hard not to let the fact I have ME/CFS define my life. I try so hard to work around it when it comes to big, important things.

But sometimes I just can't...
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Why Persistence Really Matters

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 12:05:23 -0700
I had a moment of curiosity this morning about just how long I had been blogging, so I went back to the archives of my old Journalscape blog, opened up the very first entry...and wow. It really has been a long time...
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Tired Sunday, Library Angels, and the Elevensies Book Feast

Stephanie Burgis — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 12:30:30 -0700

Whew. I'm feeling really flattened today, which is not a huge surprise after all the stuff I've done this past week (which is a lot by CFS standards, anyway), and with a cold on top of it. Whine!

But...
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Bright Lights, Big City

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 10:07:57 -0700
It's a funny thing, having moved to a small town after years of living in fairly big ones (Pittsburgh, Vienna, Leeds...). Most of the time, I assume it hasn't made any difference to me. Then there are days like yesterday. Yesterday, I had to take the train to Cardiff to run an errand. I got off the train, I walked five minutes into the city center...and Oh my God. There were so many shops!
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Competitions and Dragon Joy

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 11:33:12 -0700
Well. I have to admit, Patrick did win the shiny £1. He finished his novel first...
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Oops

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 15:03:36 -0700
Today, I was going to be productive. Today, I was going to Get Things Done!...
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Interruptions of One Sort or Another

Stephanie Burgis — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 12:37:33 -0700
It's always frustrating to have to end a writing session that's going really well - and especially frustrating when that means leaving it on a cliffhanger! - just for practical, external reasons. (In this case, Maya needed a walk...and it really wouldn't have been fair not to give her one just because I was having too much fun playing with my novel!) But on the bright side, at least that gives me two more days (till Monday's writing session) to figure out exactly what happens after the cliffhanger...
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Celebrations and Competitions

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 20:26:18 -0700
Thanks so much to everyone who sent me comments, tweets and emails about Monday's good news! It feels wonderful to be longlisted, but it feels even more wonderful to get to celebrate it with friends...
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Happiness

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 11:32:06 -0700
I woke up this morning to find the sun shining in a bright blue sky for the first time in days. (Remember, I live in Wales, described by Jasper Fforde as "not always raining!") The clock read 8:09 a.m., which counts as a luxuriant sleep-in by toddler-parent standards, and a great email popped into my inbox about an hour later, letting me know about some nice recognition for Kat. So in other words, it's been a really, really good day. :)...
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Stress, Organization, and Lists I Can Live With

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 16:51:38 -0700
I don't know about you guys, but the two ordinary-life issues that make me craziest with stress are money and travel plans. (I actually like being different places - it's the organization of my travel that makes me buzz with unhappy tension, because I know I am BAD at organizing things and prone to forgetting important details, and in travel planning, details are IMPORTANT. Wah!)
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Obsession and a Snippet

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 12:47:03 -0700
Here's the thing about being so close to the end of my dragon novel: I don't want to do ANYTHING but write...
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Relief, Short Story Coolness, and How to Guilt-Trip a Novel

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 16:50:05 -0700
Thank you guys so much for all the reassuring, supportive comments on my last entry! Patrick and I felt very wobbly as the first day of preschool approached, but everything went really well. WHEW. I expect there will be ups and downs as we all settle into the new routine, but I'm feeling hugely relieved right now....
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Fretting, Reading, Raving, Writing

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 13:54:38 -0700
Could everyone who remembers liking preschool - or whose children genuinely like preschool - raise their hand? It would really help to see that right now, as the big day approaches for our family. (The funny thing is, I actually LOVED preschool and have wonderful memories from those years. But somehow they seem really hazy and hard to remember now, as I prepare to let my own little boy start school for the very first time...)
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New Year's Delight

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 12:10:01 -0700

Happy New Year, everybody!

This year for Christmas, I wrote my brother Dave a flash-fic based on the starting phrase "The Turkish Gambit". It turned out to be the first fan-fic I've ever written - and it was so much fun to do...
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New Year

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 14:15:14 -0700

I woke up this morning and remembered that it was New Year's Eve. Filled with optimistic energy, I thought: You know what I should do? I should pull out that notebook I got for Christmas and make a list of all the good things I did accomplish this year, to remind myself that actually, there have been a lot, no matter how self-critical I get.

Then...
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The Books I Gave

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 15:46:06 -0700
We spent yesterday having a belated but very wonderful Christmas celebration with family members we hadn't seen on Christmas Day...which made me realize that I'd left out an important section in Monday's Christmas book list: the books I got for other people!
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The Obligatory Post-Christmas Gloat

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 09:15:09 -0700
OK, I am just mature enough not to list all my (so awesome!) presents here. But I am going to list the new books I got, because I am overflowing with GLOAT and need to let it out somehow. (I have been carrying my stack of books all around the house with me every time I move from upstairs to downstairs and vice versa. Sadly, I am not joking. I really am that excited about them.)
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What We Spent This Morning Doing

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 11:45:56 -0700

...And also...

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Dragons, Parenting Paradoxes, and Lost Souls

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 14:18:10 -0700
It's a beautiful, snowy day. I had my first writing session in several days, and I've passed 50,000 words on the dragon novel, hooray! It was so great to finally get back to that after two weeks off. MrD is out having fun with a relative who adores him, I have yummy homemade broccoli-stilton soup to eat..
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Sparkles, Flash-Fic, and Photos

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 14:25:18 -0700
Like the Cullen family, Patrick, MrD and I all sparkle in the sunlight now. However, our family is even cooler than the Cullens, because our sparkle comes from the edible gold dust we sprinkled over our Christmas cookies last night and this morning, rather than from vampiric blood intake. Much, much yummier in concept!
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A Sense of Imminent Doom, Tempered by Cupcakes

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 11:45:18 -0700
It's bad enough to be woken at 6:30 by your cellphone beeping at you. But when it's announcing a text message that tells you there will be no childcare (and therefore no writing session!) this morning, that's even worse. And when you then call up a friend to set up a playdate for you and your kids, only to discover that their family is also sick with the same stomach flu that your son's childminder currently has...and of course your son has spent time with both families in the last few days...
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Guilty winter joys

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 18:18:27 -0700
Sometimes I feel really frustrated that I'm not better at being a grown-up. You know what I mean...being good at all the grown-up jobs that any responsible human adult surely ought to be able to manage, like getting important practicalities sorted on time, remembering what day the trash gets picked up, etc., etc...
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Relief and Monstrous Love

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 17:18:53 -0700
There are so many things I've been wanting to blog about, but I just sent off my rewrites for Kat Book 2, A Tangle of Magicks, to my UK editor, after a crazy-intensive week of staring at 18th-century maps and early 19th-century Bath tour guides, desperately trying to work out how exactly the King's and Queen's Baths must have been laid out in 1803, and how exactly to make that fit with the choreography of my book...
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Cheering up on a Monday

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 11:49:47 -0700
I am such a Christmas tree addict. Now that the lights and the ornaments have been hung on our gorgeously big, fat tree, I would spend my entire life in our living room if I could, with those bright, colorful lights shining 24 hours a day. My feet dragged pathetically as I left the room for the last time last night, blowing imaginary kisses to the tree and silently promising to come back and turn its lights on again as soon as possible...
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Better Late than Never

Stephanie Burgis — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 21:03:13 -0700
I just finished watching the Season 4 Doctor Who episode "Midnight" for the first time. EEK! It was far, far creepier than most of their monster episodes, because it wasn't the monster who was the real danger, here - it was the ordinary, perfectly decent human beings who became terrifying as they reacted all-too-believably to danger. I'm about two years too late in discovering this, but I really want to nominate it for a Nebula or a Hugo or a....well, basically I loved it and just needed to burble a bit here. :)...
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Sparkly Cupcake Distractions and a Slipper

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 21:56:23 -0700
Today I went into town with the best of intentions. I had uploaded Kat Book 2 (known in the UK as A Tangle of Magicks and in the US as...TBA as soon as I know it!) onto the Kindle. I was going to re-read through it, on the way to doing Serious, Important Rewriting Work. (I'd spent the morning re-reading issues of the New Bath Guide from 1798, 1799, and so forth, in preparation, as well as staring hopefully at the EXTREMELY BLURRY map I found a few weeks ago showing the layout of the Bath baths in the 1780s.)...
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Undead Philosophy and December Lights

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 12:56:04 -0700
Whenever we have time, my brothers and I write short stories for each other as our Christmas presents. We give each other a sparking theme or preferred genre, and then at Christmas a story arrives in our inbox or mailbox. Yay! It's my favorite kind of present....
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Cooking Discoveries, Winter Warmth, and the Queen of the Kitchen

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 14:14:09 -0700
Christmas music is playing on my laptop, the gas fire is sparkling away in the center of our living room, two(!) bowls of homemade broccoli-stilton soup are sitting in my belly, and I am full of winter warmth. It's hard for life to get better than this...
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December Lights

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 15:08:20 -0700
I am terrible at keeping exciting secrets. I mean, REALLY terrible (which is a problem during the Christmas season!). So it's taken definite strength of mind to keep this secret for the last week and a half...
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Surprises of all Sorts

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 22:08:35 -0700
There are times when it makes no sense to take on a new project on the side, when you're already feeling tired and stressed. And yet...
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ARCs, Self-Doubt, and Solutions

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 16:29:41 -0700
I keep forgetting to tell you guys: there's a signed ARC of Kat, Incorrigible up for grabs at the Bridget Kicks Cancer auction. There are also a bunch of other great items - not just ARCs, books, and manuscript critiques, but also jewelry, B&B getaways, and more - and it's all going toward a great cause. The auction runs until December 4th...
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The perils of early shopping

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 12:31:44 -0700
I am not (you guys will be shocked, shocked! to hear) someone who buys Christmas presents far in advance. It's only since I moved to the UK that I started to even try to send Christmas cards...and in at least 5 of the last 8 years, I've bought cards but then left it way too late to send them, so I've ended up with a stack of half-written cards - or cards that are written but left sitting next to unaddressed envelopes - until I finally, shamefully, toss them into our recycling bin...
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Thanksgiving early

Stephanie Burgis — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 10:31:55 -0700
At 9:23 a.m. this morning, I ate my first slice of leftover Thanksgiving pecan pie, along with a cup of Earl Grey tea...
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Embarrassing moments, trivia triumphs, and review relief

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 16:47:31 -0700
Okay, this is evidence of just HOW extreme my latest cold has become: when a local business returned my phone call yesterday, they said...
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Reading Love (And a Confession)

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 14:57:51 -0700
I have to say a big, big thank you to you guys right now. A while back, I asked for book recommendations and several people recommended Karen Cushman's Catherine, Called Birdy. One recommendation I might have noticed but then forgotten about...but several people all telling me at once to read it? I immediately put it on my wishlist, and bought it earlier this month.
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Comfort and cheer

Stephanie Burgis — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 16:00:48 -0700
Today we all woke up to find MrD miserably sick, so in other words, not much is happening here...but comfort and cheer are All-Important...
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Superheroism and venting

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 15:48:08 -0700
Today I was a super-heroine. Yes, it's true. I used superhuman powers of the will and did NOT buy myself any new books, even though MrD and I went to Waterstones. (Of course, I did buy him a new book - Oliver Jeffers's Up and Down, which we both greeted with cries of delight, because a new picture book by Oliver Jeffers is cause for HUGE celebration! - but hey, that's not quite the same.)...
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Today's entry...

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 14:33:34 -0700
...is over at Alma Alexander's Rebirth of a Novel site, where I'm talking about the first novel I ever wrote. I was fourteen when I wrote it, and it was...well, you can read about it there!...
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The problem with being a genre fan

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 11:44:02 -0700
Every so often, there's a definite disadvantage to being an sf/fantasy fan who's also seen or read a lot of horror...
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Friday Mix

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 12:46:49 -0600
Oh ack, ack, ack. Poor Patrick has just come down with a nasty bug...and not only do I feel really bad for him (yes, honestly, that was my first reaction even before I moved on to more selfish concerns), but I'm now desperately praying NOT to catch the bug in time for BristolCon tomorrow. Oh, how I hate the germs of autumn, especially now that we have a toddler to bring home all the newest ones from playgroup!...
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Fifteen authors, and cons, good and ugly

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 15:33:18 -0600
I'm stealing this meme from Facebook...
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Lovelovelove

Stephanie Burgis — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 19:05:26 -0600
When it comes to TV, I'm a very bad audience member. We don't have an actual television set, but we do have the BBC iPlayer and the ITV-player available online, and we have lots of great DVDs...but in a normal week, I might well not watch any TV at all, and it would be really unusual for me to watch more than two episodes of anything in a full week...
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Unexpected addictions and fantasy shopping

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 15:09:32 -0600
Well, I guess it's finally happened. Over the last month, every time anyone asked me about our Kindle, I'd say, "Oh, it's great for reading manuscripts - I'm really glad I got it - but, y'know, otherwise I wouldn't bother." And I'd believe it as I said it, too. Until...
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The Big Read and New Reads

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 12:26:31 -0600
Thanks so much to everybody who made recommendations for my world-building book list! I handed it out at the end of my workshop yesterday and felt really good about it. Not surprisingly, the kids at the workshop were brilliant - I really loved the writing exercises they read out loud, and the amount of creativity racing around the room was amazing...
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World-building, radio panic, and a cry for help

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 14:35:03 -0600
Tomorrow's the day I lead a world-building workshop for kids in Newport, so of course I spent this morning (after sneaking an hour of work on my novel, because I am addicted and Can Not Stay Away) officially preparing for it. And I realized that I have a big and surprising problem...
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Bad movies, ebooks, events, and temptation

Stephanie Burgis — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 14:40:00 -0600

Right now Patrick is sitting next to me, wearing headphones and watching an episode from a fantasy TV show (which I will not name, for reasons of kindness). He's having a very good time and laughing a lot - but possibly not for any reasons that the show-runners would approve, since he also keeps saying things like, "God, this is terrible! These are the worst special effects ever!"

It probably says something weird about me that I'm deeply tempted to...
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Unexpected Inspiration

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 15:53:09 -0600
This morning, at 7:48 a.m., my cellphone beeped to announce a text. I saw that it was from MrD's childminder and thought: Uh-oh. It turned out she'd woken up sick, so of course she couldn't look after MrD this morning after all. I spent the next half hour silently bewailing the fact that Patrick and I had lost the big three-hour writing session we'd had planned for today. Wah! Change of schedule. Wah! Loss of progress in my lovely book. Wahhh - oh, wait....
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Playtime, libraries, writing, and changes

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 14:26:27 -0600
Thank goodness I am not MrD’s only parent. Do you guys remember the children’s play center I took him to last month, the one that made me melt down with trauma because it involved swinging rope bridges, my personal nightmare? Well, we went back this Monday...but this time, we took Patrick with us....
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Breaking habits

Stephanie Burgis — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 16:00:08 -0600
I always like living in Wales. For one thing, our little valley town is the most beautiful place I've ever lived. From every window in our house, we can see gorgeous, looming hills and mountains. And on the more practical side, not only do we get free medical treatment through the NHS, like all other British citizens, but because we live in Wales, we get free prescriptions, too. Wow. All in all, Wales is a really good place to live and raise a family...
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Today's post...

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 15:06:33 -0600
is actually over at the Elevensies: an exposé with incriminating pictures. Come check out A Day in my Writing Life...or in other words, how being a writer turned out not to look quite like I used to expect!
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Sigh

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 15:44:09 -0600
Yesterday was a gorgeous fall day. Blue sky, a cool breeze, bright sunshine and leaves flaming gold on the trees...well, obviously there was only one way to spend the day...
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Total Awesomeness

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 20:25:46 -0600

Today I had my first-ever school visit as an author. I thought it would probably be okay, because I have taught before.

I had no idea it would be Awesome...
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The relief of being a dog person

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 11:37:39 -0600
There are two different and very distinct groups of women who go to my local park every day. There are the moms, who bring their children to play in the playground, and the dog people, who bring their dogs to run around off-leash....
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Crises, a sense of impending doom, and Bayou Moon consolation

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 15:21:32 -0600
Tomorrow, we'll be holding MrD's birthday party in our house. I wasn't thrown by the weather forecast of rain - hey, it's Wales, I expected as much. (We do live in the country proudly described, in fake tourist ads in Jasper Fforde's books, as: Wales - not *always* raining!) But when the drip, drip, drip of rain against the roof and windows was supplemented late last night by another drip-drip-drip inside the house...
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Today's entry...

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 15:49:27 -0600
is over at 's blog, where I'm posting about what it's like to be an American living in the UK and writing books with a British setting. Here's an excerpt...
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Trains, Bath, and Jane Austen tea

Stephanie Burgis — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 20:02:38 -0600
So, yesterday I took the train to Bath. Woooot!!!! (We'd originally planned to spend the whole weekend there, but irritating practicalities got in the way.) Anyone who follows me on twitter probably saw how ridiculously excited I was by the end of Friday night, as I searched out all the zillion things I wanted to do while I was there on Saturday....
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Rambling about Writing and Series Books

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 12:33:11 -0600
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...
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Agency Winner, Lightborn and Kindle

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 14:47:24 -0600
First of all, the winner of Ying's fabulous Agency pack is...
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Pajama Days and Fantasy Lists

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 12:15:38 -0600
Via India Knight's Posterous, a poster that made me very happy today...
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A Magickal Agency Interview...with Prizes!

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 16:07:50 -0600

You guys have heard me rave many times about how much I adore Y.S. Lee's The Agency series, which started with A Spy in the House and continued with The Body at the Tower. I love, love, love this series, as you know. (Victorian girl spies! Mystery! Romance! How could I not?)

Since Ying and I have become friends and our books have come out at roughly the same time in the UK, we decided we'd do an interview/giveaway with a slight difference...
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Today I have landed...

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 11:30:08 -0600
...at Bookbabblers, where I'm talking about my favorite literary heroines and what they taught me about strength, feminism and romance...
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Shameless Bragging

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 14:39:17 -0600
I grew up in the Midwest, where one of the most important cultural rules is: DO NOT BRAG. When people say good things about themselves, you eye them warily and with deep distrust. When people say good things about you, you hem and haw and say, "Oh, well, it was nothing, really..." Because that is what good Midwesterners do. (It's one of the reasons I adjusted well to moving to the UK, where Midwestern modesty is taken to even greater extremes.)...
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Friday Five

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 17:06:25 -0600
1. This week I managed to wait all the way until Thursday before I broke down and went back to Caffé Nero for my favorite addiction. I feel that I deserve a medal. Perhaps one in the shape of a Hot Chocolate Milano...although that might have the wrong effect on my willpower if I looked at it too much!...
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Literary families

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 20:49:47 -0600
Today I re-read one of my favorite contemporary fantasy novels for adults, Ilona Andrews's On the Edge. It's a great fantasy adventure, it's also a wonderful romance...but what struck me this time, in combination with that mental list I made last week of the comfort books I'd want to carry with me everywhere, is that it's also a fabulous book about family...
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The Great YA Bake Sale of 2010

Stephanie Burgis — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 13:57:45 -0600
It’s here, it’s here - The Great YA Bake Sale of 2010...
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Reading hiccups and a giveaway

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 11:31:40 -0600

First, the important news for UK readers: if you live in the UK, check out this giveaway at the BookBabblers! From now until 8pm Monday, 6th September, you can win a copy of A Most Improper Magick just by commenting on the post.

And speaking of books...
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Aww and Yum...

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 19:15:01 -0600
This article made me come very close to tearing up - especially the photos near the bottom of the page. A 100-year-old male tortoise in Kenya has adopted an orphaned baby hippo, and the pictures are incredible. This one was my favorite - but really, if you love animals, click through to see the whole series. It's worth it...
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Links and Kindles and Comfort Books

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 12:10:40 -0600
I have so many links to pass on, I'm going to list them first, before I can forget...
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Chocolate ecstasy

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 13:34:51 -0600
Here's the problem with not having enough time to blog regularly this week: I have SO MANY things I want to talk about, and not nearly enough space in one entry for all of them! Luckily, after this morning's trip into town, my top priority is obvious...
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Because I have the best friends in the world...

Stephanie Burgis — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 13:02:30 -0600
...This arrived in the mail this week:...
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The scary side of parenting

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 12:02:04 -0600
Wow. There is NOTHING like taking your child to a big, crowded children's play house to bring back all your own childhood insecurities and fears - amplified by a thousandfold as you watch the usual bad stuff happen to your own child...
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Today I am actually...

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 21:37:25 -0600
...at the blog of the fabulous Heather Vogel Frederick (author of Spy Mice, The Mother Daughter Book Club, and many more. Heather interviewed me as part of her "Pie of the Month" club, and I ended up sharing not only my Thanksgiving recipe for pecan pie (yum!), but also my number one most embarrassing moment as a writer...
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Pre-Writing, Music, and Weekend

Stephanie Burgis — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 15:40:59 -0600
It's definitely THAT time of year again: the novel-wrestling time, when I've already written the fun, easy opening of my novel and it's time to do the hard work of figuring out how the main story of the book is really going to work. Which direction to go, which points to head for, what it's Really All About...
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Post-Party Giddiness

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 20:37:22 -0600
Last night was my UK launch party for A Most Improper Magick. I had been soooooo incredibly nervous about this. In fact, I came very close to not having a launch party at all, because I was too nervous about the whole idea. (How does anyone even organize a launch party? What if the bookstore didn't want to have me and I felt stupid for even asking about it? What if - ?) ...
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Hair, life, links

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 19:12:13 -0600
Here's the great thing about having actual public events lined up: they're the perfect motivation to keep myself from falling into the soooooo tempting stay-at-home-mom-writer pit where I NEVER get my hair cut (or worn-out clothes replaced) because it never seems worth finding the time. Today, shockingly....
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Weekend, dragons, and jacket photos

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 22:44:30 -0600
Thanks so much for all the anniversary wishes! They meant a lot to me and to Patrick....
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Anniversary and romance

Stephanie Burgis — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 10:56:50 -0600
Six years ago, on August 7th 2004, Patrick and I got married..
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Publishing, Writing, Treats

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 17:13:03 -0600
It's been five days since A Most Improper Magick officially came out, and I've finally stopped running to my bookshelf every day to prove to myself that it really was published. It's gone in and out of stock at Amazon.co.uk (and stayed steadily in stock at the Book Depository); it's finally started to hit the shelves of a first few branches of Waterstones in the Midlands, although it'll probably be another week or so before it's unpacked at all the different Waterstones branches around the country...
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Bravery and cookies

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 21:56:19 -0600
Today I was brave. It wasn't in the way that a heroine in a book would be brave, but for me, in my life, this was a huge act of bravery...
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Prize pack winners, room stickers, and BODY

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 22:04:42 -0600
Woot! A few hours later than planned - due to unavoidable childcare issues - here are the winners of the Publication Day Prize Packs...
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Today's entry...

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 10:56:20 -0600
...is over at Playing by the Book, my favorite parenting blog, where Zoe Toft blogs about the great books she and her kids have read together and comes up with (often awe-inspiring!) activities and crafts for her kids to accompany the books....
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Publication Day Party!

Stephanie Burgis — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 14:15:15 -0600
OK, so I know that Publication Day is just a day. Heck, it's a Sunday. A Most Improper Magick won't actually be on store shelves for at least a few more days (although at least my lovely local Waterstones already has big pictures of it all around the store, because they are AWESOME)...
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Best Mail Day Ever

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 15:25:37 -0600
Yesterday, my wonderful UK editor, Emma, told me that my author copies would arrive today. Needless to say, I was completely calm and blasé. I went about my business exactly as usual...
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Today I have landed...

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 13:06:36 -0600
...on the Un:Bound blog, where I contributed a post to their "Writers Reading" series, talking about my lifelong obsession/addiction/whatever you choose to call it. ;)...
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Because life is not all about the crazy

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 16:13:35 -0600

Today I am not going to post about the crazy. (Or at least I'm going to try not to. Sometimes it leaks through.) Today I am going to post about something that made me really happy:

Sherlock: A Study in Pink...
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Full-on Crazy

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 19:21:33 -0600
Here's the thing about having a lot of author friends, people whose novels were published long before mine...
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Chocolate, magic, and a sparkly tiara

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 11:15:24 -0600

Today I am running back and forth around the web! Darren interviewed me at Bart's Bookshelf, "being an interview featuring chocolate, magic, and a sparkly tiara!"

At the end of the interview, there's another chance to win a British ARC - and again, this giveaway is open internationally...
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Today's entry...

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 10:08:20 -0600
...is over at "I was a teenage book geek", where I'm blogging about one of the books that changed my life forever...
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Random Sunday Questions and Luxuries

Stephanie Burgis — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 15:36:47 -0600
As I type this entry, I'm listening to my Celtic Music from Wales CD, which I really like*, and I'm thinking again about how I really need to learn Welsh soon. It's easy to get by without knowing any Welsh, especially in our area of Wales (only an hour from the English border), but it feels silly not to learn it, and even a bit disrespectful. Unfortunately, the classes offered locally won't work for me for various practical reasons...
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Voting against perfectionism

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 16:32:29 -0600
Whew. With nine days to go until A Most Improper Magick releases in the UK*, I feel like I'm standing in the middle of a whirl of to-do lists, all of them AMIM-related...but the single most important thing that's happened for me this week is that - incredibly - I actually hit THE END on my rewrite of Kat3! I still haven't sent it to my editor because I need to do a very quick last read-through for historical fact-checking and to make sure I haven't introduced any inconsistencies...but this still feels absolutely huge to me....
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American announcements and a giveaway!

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 13:51:13 -0600
Woooot! I can finally share my new American title and cover for Kat book 1 (known in the UK as A Most Improper Magick). Here's the front cover, illustrated by the amazing French artist Annette Marnat...
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The return of a lost love

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 21:59:33 -0600
Today was a red-letter day. Not because I had a great revision session (although I did! 4 chapters revised, woooooooot!); not even because our bathrooms are now astonishingly, sparklingly clean (for which, alas, I can take no credit). It was because...
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Magick winner, house panic, and new challenges

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 13:04:06 -0600
Random.org has spoken once more, and is the winner of a British ARC of A Most Improper Magick! Congratulations! If you send me your mailing address, I'll put your ARC in the mail ASAP....
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Heroine win and a day of decadence

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 17:58:34 -0600
Random.org has made its selection, and Carol N Wong is the winner of Erin's The Heroine's Bookshelf! Congratulations, Erin! Just send Erin a message with your mailing address, and the ARC will be shipped to you...
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Life shifts, music and chocolate chip cookies

Stephanie Burgis — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 17:21:50 -0600
Today I am thinking about two things: music and chocolate-chip cookies. And how I can get more of both! ;)...
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And another giveaway!

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 15:57:26 -0600
I am selfishly thrilled to be hosting Erin's giveaway - I've really, really loved reading the lists of people's favorite literary heroines, not least because it's given me so many new books to look for! My library reserve list has grown exponentially...
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Heroines and a Giveaway

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 15:09:58 -0600
I really, really love strong heroines in books. Sometimes they're physically strong - I just finished reading Alyxandra Harvey's Blood Feud and adored the fact that the heroine, who started out as a delicate 18th-century debutante, has turned into a strong, mature woman who is far better at fighting than the book's 21st-century vampire hero (who is mostly described as "pretty", has a penchant for lace cuffs on his pirate shirts, and absolutely adores the fact that the heroine is so tough)...
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Launch parties and giddiness

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 13:49:51 -0600
Today I am thinking grateful thoughts about why I really, really LOVE my publishers...
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Today you can find me

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 12:54:29 -0600
...guest-blogging on Lindsey Leavitt's blog as part of her Impact Initiative, writing about my wonderful first dog, Nika, and the random act of kindness that brought us together. I hope you enjoy the entry, and please do leave a comment over there if anything occurs to you!
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Giveaway winner and chocolate problems

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 16:33:50 -0600

It's Thursday, July 1st, one month before A Most Improper Magick is released in the UK - and according to Random.org, Tim (tjinkerson) is the winner of a signed cover proof!

Tim, please send me a message with your mailing address, and I'll put your signed proof in the mail ASAP.

And now that the business segment of this entry is taken care of...we need to talk about a problem. A serious problem...
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Books, Owls, and Shopping Glee

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 17:12:40 -0600
Today has been a happy day. Why? Because it's the last day of the month...which means it's the day I let myself order a bundle of books online. Wooooot! Soon, Holly Black's White Cat and Alyxandra Harvey's Blood Feud will be mine, along with a couple of adult romances and the latest (Billie Piper) version of Mansfield Park...
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Pride, pics, and a giveaway

Stephanie Burgis — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 16:15:58 -0600
First, a piece of news that made me really happy. Remember how I said, a month or so ago, that my brother Ben's short story "Dark Coffee, Bright Light and the Paradoxes of Omnipotence" had been named as a notable story of the year by the StorySouth award? Well, now it's going to be republished in an anthology of the best Jewish SF/fantasy stories of the past decade...
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Mad, Bad, and...well, possibly just bad after all

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 18:06:18 -0600
Today at the library I did something rash. I was looking at the DVD rack, and I saw it: a really, really trashy-looking TV miniseries. But it is SO my kind of trashy miniseries. The cover trumpeted...
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Blue Joe

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 15:30:02 -0600
When my maternal grandfather died, a few years ago, one of the ways I coped with grief was to write a story. It's a fantasy, like all my stories, and it's completely fictional - but I wrote it in memory of him and the strong bond he had with all his brothers, the first generation of their family to grow up in Youngstown, Ohio instead of in Croatia. Over the years, they found lots of different ways to make a living together, from forming a family band to owning a Burger King to running a nightclub (and playing the music for it themselves). They were a team in every possible way...
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Father's Day - a celebration and rant

Stephanie Burgis — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 11:33:49 -0600
Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there!...
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Cover reveal and ARC winner

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 17:10:49 -0600
Wooooooooooooooooooot!!!!!

I just got the OK from my UK editor to share my British cover with you guys! Here it is...
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The good kind of tears, write-a-thon, and links

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 17:39:17 -0600
This morning I cried for the best possible reason. My UK editor emailed me the brand-new, completely re-vamped British cover for A Most Improper Magick - and it is *perfect*. Not just a great cover, but EXACTLY the perfect cover for the book I wrote and dreamed about for so long. When I saw it, I started to cry because it was so amazing that my book had been so perfectly understood....
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Excuses, favorites, and an ARC giveaway

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 17:05:11 -0600
Sorry for the radio silence, guys! Things are a bit tough here at the moment in terms of health and energy. Because of my CFS, our usual state of play is for Patrick to do all the housework, dog-care, and at least half the childcare, which leaves me with enough energy to do half the childcare, write fiction, write lots of emails and a couple of journal entries every week, and even do wild and crazy things like going downtown once or twice a week....
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Girls Behaving Badly - a Guest Blog by Saundra Mitchell

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 09:30:54 -0600
Note from Steph: I've been a fan of Saundra's blog for a long time, and I really admire the work she's done helping teens to make their own films as part of Fresh Films and Fresh Writing. Her YA novel, Shadowed Summer (which was nominated for an Edgar Award), is a delicious ghost story set in a small Southern town. It's coming out in paperback on June 8th, and I'm thrilled to be a part of her 30 Days of Summer celebration by hosting her here....
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Good shows, good books, a rant and belated birthday wishes

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 13:04:15 -0600
If only birthdays could last forever! Sadly, the last of the birthday cake ran out two days ago, and life went back to normal...or rather, an awful lot busier than normal, since Patrick hasn't been feeling well, so I've been doing a lot more housework and childcare than usual. I'm seizing this opportunity to blog, though, while Patrick and Maya and MrD are out on a trip to the local park. (I love living just a block away from the park!)...
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Birthday gifts and happiness

Stephanie Burgis — Sat, 29 May 2010 16:05:53 -0600
Yesterday was my birthday, and it was fabulous. Patrick and I had a joint writing session (my favorite kind, which we hardly ever get nowadays) in my favorite café. We ate lunch out in a local pub, and although the food itself wasn't great, it was wonderful to be sharing a meal out on our own. We had a looooooong, luxurious wander through our local Waterstones, with no time pressure at all (the ultimate luxury)...and when MrD came home, we all ate the most delicious chocolate cake ever, which Patrick and MrD had baked together the day before....
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Sunburned and nervous

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 24 May 2010 18:35:31 -0600
Alas, the sun I love doesn't necessarily love me. Yesterday I spent a wonderful day out on the patio, hanging out with a good friend (who also, in a HUGE stroke of luck for me, happens to be my sister-in-law) and talking about all sorts of things...and by mid-afternoon my shoulders, arms, legs, and even feet were lobster-red...
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Redefining Summer, and a Virtual Patio Party

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 21 May 2010 20:29:23 -0600
Patrick and I have been a couple for almost nine years, now, and we've lived together for over eight years. This is the first summer we have ever had a back yard of our own, though, and ohhhh...the difference that that makes!...
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Time Out, and Comforting Distractions

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 19 May 2010 14:56:26 -0600
Oof. I feel like I'm just now starting to re-emerge, blinking, into the normal world after dropping into a black hole for the last week. (MrD got sick last Thursday - he's finally showing signs of real improvement now.) When MrD is sick - especially really, truly, scarily sick - it feels like the world compresses around me and becomes a completely different place, with muted colors and drastically different priorities than my normal life. Now I'm back, and trying to remember what I was doing and caring about a week ago....
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Sick Days and Heroes

Stephanie Burgis — Sat, 15 May 2010 11:22:42 -0600

I had a plan for the last few days. I was going to finish my final-final-FINAL British line edits for A Most Improper Magick and then do a bunch of rewriting on Thursday; I was going to travel to London and back on Friday; and then I was going to settle in for an intense weekend of rewriting, starting today.

Unfortunately...
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Changes (some unexpected, some secret), an auction, and a good book

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 11 May 2010 15:51:02 -0600
Ah, how quickly life changes. Last Sunday morning? This was me: OMG! I only got woken twice! I'm in Heaven!...
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Mother's Day (again!)

Stephanie Burgis — Sun, 09 May 2010 09:18:50 -0600

I loooooove being a US/UK citizen and getting to celebrate 2 different Mother's Days!

On UK Mother's Day, I talked about me and my experience of being a mother....
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Better Days

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 06 May 2010 11:53:32 -0600
I'm feeling so much better today than I have in ages. I found myself humming with contentment as I made breakfast this morning, and I was so surprised that I stopped and wondered: what's causing this amazing mood? And then I remembered: MrD slept through the night last night, for the first time EVER!!!!...
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Good news, bad news, and touchstones

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 04 May 2010 15:49:51 -0600
Whew. I finished reading through (and taking notes on) Kat3 today...and I really, honestly loved the last 100 pages. Which was a HUGE relief, as I'd been fretting over a bunch of things beforehand. Loving the ending, though, and having faith in that last third of the book, makes the first two-thirds feel so much more fix-able, and gives me a direction to work towards....
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Unqualified Goodness

Stephanie Burgis — Sun, 02 May 2010 21:43:40 -0600
I really love this blog entry by the very awesome Karen Healey, where she orders women to stop qualifying their achievements and start taking pride in them. (And I'd personally extend that order to the men I know, as well.)...
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Friday Five

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 21:45:28 -0600
1. This afternoon as I was pushing MrD's pram back up the hill from the playground to the house, I had to stop walking for a moment because I was just floored by the beauty ahead of me and all around me - mist-swirled mountains rising up before me, flowering apple trees and rich magnolias in the yards nearby, and lush greenness everywhere I looked. It was so beautiful, it didn't feel real. It was magic...
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It's never too early to embarrass your children

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 22:20:03 -0600
99% of the time, I'm happy with the fact that I'm essentially an urban person. I was born in Lansing, Michigan (aka the automobile capital of the world!), and grew up in East Lansing, which is a great college town. Most of the time, I'm happy to have grown up somewhere where I could walk to a library every day, and to coffeeshops and bookstores too, when I was older. (Not coincidentally, these elements have become my top priorities for anywhere I live as an adult.) As a teenager, I felt incredibly sophisticated as I sat in one of the many local cafés, drinking gourmet drinks with exotic syrups...
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The Scary Stuff

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 14:09:16 -0600
Here's the weird truth about fulfilling my dream for the past 25 years and selling my first books - oh, and finishing the trilogy, too, and being about to see the first book come out in bookstores where I live. (97 more days till the UK pub date, according to my daily Waterstones.com update!)...
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Worrying and advising

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 22:30:27 -0600
I don't often look at Google Analytics nowadays - that was a habit I only really found enticing before I sold my books, back when I was desperately hoping to spot a publisher reading through my website and being magically persuaded to throw money at me and buy all my books foreverandeverohpleasepleaseplease! - but when I do look at Google Analytics, I sometimes worry. Here are a couple of the phrases that people have used to find my website lately...
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Life Without Balance

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 17:06:45 -0600
Have you ever been forced to realize that there's a whole area of life skills that you are just NOT good at? For me, it's always been anything domestic or practical. I'm good at writing, music, and academia; I'm terrible at cooking, sewing, and all forms of practical organization....
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Unexpected Thursday

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 20:44:40 -0600

Today I woke up feeling human for the first time in days. The Death Cold had finally loosened its slimy grip, and WOW. I was a new person! I took a deep breath without coughing, felt like dancing instead of slumping, and actually found myself seized with the rare urge to GET THINGS DONE!

Well. That didn't work out quite as well as I'd hoped....
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Friends, Moondust, and Short Stories

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 16:02:02 -0600
Oof. MrD has been sick again this past week - a throat infection that started about three days after the chest infection went away, and which requires a whole new round of disgusting antibiotics to be forced down him four times a day - so we’ve all been pretty exhausted. Then, yesterday...
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Moving daze, publishing news

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 14:18:30 -0600
Whew. It's been two days since the movers arrived to move all our stuff from one house to another (five blocks away), and it's all felt pretty crazy. One of the weirdest moments came on Wednesday morning when I was on the phone with our rental insurance company, changing our address, and they started asking me questions about the new house. I had to answer every question with, "Um...let me ask my husband!" because the truth was? I had still never seen even the outside of our new house! ...
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Finding our Tribes

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 12:15:22 -0600
Whew! So we got back from Eastercon last night...and we'll be moving house tomorrow. Eep! I am very glad we decided to move after Eastercon instead of before...but all the same, the move is feeling pretty intimidating right now. Last night I was lying in bed reminding myself that for better or worse, at least it will be over soon. *Gulp.*...
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Cons, Panic, and Excitement

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 21:06:47 -0600
The last time we went to an Eastercon in London was two years ago. I had just outgrown all of my old jeans and tops, and I had to do a mad shopping rush just beforehand to get new outfits that fit without actually broadcasting the fact that I was pregnant. (I was only two months pregnant at that point and not ready to go public yet.) One of my best friends had brought her 18-month-old along to the con, and I spent a lot of time cuddling him and daydreaming about what my own baby might be like...
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Book Moods and Stuffed Dinosaurs

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 16:02:19 -0600
Whew. I sent off my UK copyedits for A Most Improper Magick yesterday morning, which meant...drum-roll...it was time to go back to my dragon novel! Or, well, not quite...because poor MrD was still sick, AND we had a (very cool, beloved, and exciting) houseguest arriving that night, so yesterday was be a mix of doctor's appointments, housecleaning, and cuddling/nose-wiping...
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Night Gardens, Copyedits, and Eastercon

Stephanie Burgis — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 22:31:19 -0600
Whew. I've been working on my UK copyedits this weekend (part-Anglicization, part-last-minute line edits), and MrD is sick, so all in all, my head is in a state of total mush right now. And of course it didn't help that I ended up watching In the Night Garden with MrD tonight for comfort when he was feeling feverish and sad...I actually like In the Night Garden (MrD's favorite TV show), but there is definitely a surreal quality to it. Also, every time I watch an episode, I end up with all the theme tunes echoing in my head, and not much else left in there...
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Good friends and good books

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 21:46:53 -0600
This morning was a GREAT morning, because drove down to visit! As well as being an awesome writer, Tricia is also an American living in the UK, which is how we first connected (as well as by having a wonderful mutual friend, , and - more recently - having become agency-mates). We've done lots of emailing and some skyping since we first met online, but it was so fabulous to finally get to hang out in person....
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Happy Saturday

Stephanie Burgis — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 23:25:59 -0600
WHEW. We've been approved for the new house! There are still lots of reasons to cross our fingers (for instance, we hope to be able to move in April 1st but have been told that the house might not be ready yet on that date - and our current tenancy expires March 27th!), but right now I'm just massively relieved to have that next stage figured out. And if we end up having to put all our stuff into storage and go hang out in a holiday cottage somewhere in the Welsh mountains for a week or two...well, darn, is all I can say. ;p ...
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Craziness, Chocolate, and a free Kat Sample

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 21:54:27 -0600
Sigh. Still no news from either our future estate agents (to let us know whether we've been approved for the new house, and exactly what date in April we can move in) or our current landlord (to let us know whether we can stay until then, even though our contract runs out next Sunday)....
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Chaos and news

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 12:13:30 -0600
Whew! Lots of chaos going on around here, but I'm finally getting a chance to sit down and write it out...
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UK Mother's Day and parenting surprises

Stephanie Burgis — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 13:13:44 -0600
Happy British Mother's Day! As a dual citizen, I just looove the fact that UK Mother's Day and US Mother's Day are on different days. As I am BOTH a British and an American mother...well, poor MrD, is all I can say. ;) Luckily for him, at least I only expect a present on one of those days, because I'm not completely unreasonable...but both days are great excuses for celebratory meals out or vegan brownies!...
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Bad Week, Cheer-Ups

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 11:15:55 -0700
I try to keep this journal upbeat, but the truth is, this has been a very bad week, mostly for health reasons. The CFS has been a real pain all week, and I'm not even sure why. (This is one of the frustrating things with CFS - you learn how to manage it, how to carefully balance activity and rest, and then, suddenly and unexpectedly, it goes haywire anyway. What a cheat!)...
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Muppet love

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 20:14:26 -0700
Today my brain feels very fluffy indeed, which is why I'm not replying to emails or even writing fiction. But as always, the Muppets have the perfect solution...
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I R Serious Writer (TM), and a gruesome TV side-effect

Stephanie Burgis — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 16:47:13 -0700

OK, there are some days, ever since I signed my first book contracts, when I can actually pretend to myself that I am a Serious Professional Writer...and then there are days when I just can't.

Here is the most recent evidence, from my Friday night of prewriting play for the Austen-y dragon novel...
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Wistful Friday and Library Love

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 14:51:12 -0700
Today I'm feeling a little wistful but also very lucky. Patrick's gone up to London for a quick business day-trip, and I'm missing him a lot (as is MrD, who insisted on a long phone call - luckily, Patrick is a good dad and doesn't mind supplying ALL the conversation while his phone partner just breathes heavily in a stalker-like manner ;p )....
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Inspiration and dragons

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 23:25:35 -0700
So, life goes on, and now that I've finished Kat3 and I've signed the contracts for the UK sale...well, it's time to start writing the next novel...
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My big news - and ARC giveaway!

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 16:17:18 -0700
I am unbelievably excited to finally announce...
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Home again

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 15:17:45 -0700
Whew! We got back home from London yesterday...and the whole trip was amazing. I’ve only been to London a few times (usually for only a few hours at a time), and I always forget, in-between visits, how amazing that city really is...
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Bookish bliss and hair disasters

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 15:18:10 -0700
Here’s one of the best things about being married to another obsessive reader/writer: getting to share his favorite treats! Patrick’s birthday was this weekend, and as part of his birthday gift, he and I went back to Hay-on-Wye (“Town of Books”) for a decadent day of eating (there’s a great restaurant there with tons of delicious vegan options) and, most of all, bookstore-hopping...
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5 Things on a Thursday

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 14:29:46 -0700
1. I finished a new short story today. Yay! This is the first short story I've written in over a year. (Actually, I had the original idea and wrote the first page almost exactly a year ago, but I wasn't ready - either practically, in terms of time management, or emotionally, in terms of the story's issues - to sit down and write the rest of the story until now.) It's one of the few short stories I've written in direct emotional response to a loss, so I can't say that it was exactly fun to write, but it was really emotionally satisfying - and what was genuinely fun was getting to start a project and finish it within less than a week. Short stories: the yummy snacks of a writer's life!...
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Book News

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 22:50:51 -0700
So, some of you may have noticed this already, but I can now officially announce that the publication date for A Most Improper Magick has changed. It's now going to be published on June 15th instead of April 20th. Of course I hate having to wait any longer - I want my author copies in my hands and on my bookshelf, now, now, now! - but I love that my publisher really cares about its success and is determined to bring it out at just the right time. Apparently, June is a really good month for my kind of book, so...despite the fact that it's forcing me to (finally) learn the art of patience, this still counts as genuinely good news...
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Monday comfort list

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 23:20:37 -0700
Tonight I'm having a hard night, beating myself up over a lot of things that are out of my control. Things I want to do with MrD but just can't because of my health; things I want to do for our family that I can't manage either, right now...no fun at all to confront these issues...
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Joyful burbling

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 20:36:04 -0700

OK, you guys are going to have to forgive me if I sound a little giddy...because:

Today I finished writing Kat Book 3!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!...
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ARC giveaway and Sick Soup

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 14:50:54 -0700
First of all, some excellent news: this month's giveaway of A Most Improper Magick is being held by The Story Siren, a fabulous book blogger. You can enter to win an Advance Readers' Copy of the book any time until next Friday, February 19th. Good luck!...
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Life Interruptions and a Call for Help

Stephanie Burgis — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 17:45:55 -0700
Poor MrD has been sick the last few days (nothing dangerous, just the usual kind of baby virus), so life has pretty much ground to a halt...between sheer exhaustion on all our parts, a cranky, sad toddler who needs full-on cuddles and attention, and the usual round of paranoid (and mostly unfounded) parent fears, I've been feeling lucky to manage 600 words a day. So in other words, Kat3 is Still Not Done (I feel like Aragorn: Still not King!)...which is kind of frustrating but also kind of a relief...
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Sleepy brain, speedy book, scandalous shopping temptations

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 23:17:01 -0700
OK, I sat down at my computer tonight, called up livejournal onto my screen...and thought, I'm too tired to write an entry tonight. The only problem is, that's what I thought last night...and the night before...and if there's one thing parenthood has taught me, it's how to write even when you're so exhausted, the world is starting to go blurry around you....
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Serendipity, Turtle Steps, and Modified Success

Stephanie Burgis — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 16:30:08 -0700
Serendipity can be a funny thing. This week I've been re-reading Martha Beck's (wonderful) life/career guidance book, Finding Your Own North Star, for the umpteenth time, and this time, like every other time I've read it, I've come across various bits that are newly helpful for this particular point in my life. But it's never happened with quite such spookily perfect timing, before...
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Writing caves, glamor, and Regency-era TV fun

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 16:05:52 -0700
Wahhh, our friends are gone...which means it's time to go back into the writing cave! And as we all know, the most vital supplies for trekking through unlit and dangerous writing caves are dark chocolate and Earl Grey tea. (Unless, like Patrick, you prefer Sencha green tea, or, like the pre-baby me, you get to enjoy the intense and decadent luxury of drinking coffee...oops. I may have started drooling on the keyboard there. Sorry about that!) (One more year till I can go back to drinking coffee. Only one more year to go...)...
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Tea, Werewolves, and Social Whirls

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 19:12:11 -0700

I am LOVING all the food requests at the online ARC tea party. OK, it's become obvious that I have TOTALLY different taste in desserts than many people - but that's fun, too! And mostly, I just love that so many people are playing along. :)

(And FWIW, I personally believe that traditional cream teas are the most blissful culinary experience EVER. I grew up reading Elizabeth Peters/Barbara Michaels novels where American heroines go to England and get teased by the hero for going SO INSANE over the cream teas...and guess what? They were totally right.) (In both respects, actually. Unlike me, Patrick is not a cream tea fan, possibly because cream is not vegan.)...
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ARC ahoy!

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 16:51:12 -0700

I promised back in December that I would give away one ARC a month through April - and even in the midst of writing madness, I have not forgotten. But this time, you'll have to go on a visit with Kat to find it. She's been invited to take tea with 's Bertie and the fairies!

Join the teaparty and enter to win an ARC of A Most Improper Magick!

I love that Lisa let me write fanfic for her characters and world. And can I say...
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Writing, critiquing, and jewelry-shopping

Stephanie Burgis — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 16:45:52 -0700
Oops. I knew I hadn't been posting as much as usual, but then I actually looked back at my last post and...I hadn't realized I'd let that much time slide by. Sorry! I am still here, I've just been in mad, final-push mode on Kat3. I'm at about 64,000 words right now, which would mean I was nearly done if I was still aiming for 70,000 words, total...but there is NO WAY I'll be done at 70,000 with this one. That's the downside of writing the most complex book in the series, with the biggest number of characters and subplots - it does take longer to wrap up! (Just in case my editor reads this: but not too much longer, honest! I promise not to turn in anything that makes the desk shake beneath its weight. ;)) On the upside, though, I am really, really enjoying it, and I hope - knock on wood for me, please! - I really, really hope that other people will enjoy it too...
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Poe's birthday, and my first sale

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 19:15:40 -0700
It's Edgar Allan Poe's birthday today. Hooray! I loooooved Edgar Allan Poe's stories when I was a kid. I can still remember turning off the light in my bedroom, closing the curtains and curling up in the dark with a flashlight to re-read "The Tell-Tale Heart" in the perfect ambience and be deliciously creeped out. I've always been a wimp with a weak stomach for horror (and oh, the embarrassment that caused over the years - I VIVIDLY remember the shame of having to walk out of my class's viewing of "Poltergeist" in 8th grade!) - but Poe always worked for me beautifully....
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Austen films and other weaknesses

Stephanie Burgis — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 15:12:45 -0700
So, I watched the 2007 version of "Mansfield Park" (the one with Billie Piper) last night. I didn't have high expectations (the reviews had been pretty bad), which meant that actually, I was nicely surprised. It was fun, and it was surprisingly romantic. I really enjoyed the ending. Of course, I pretty much enjoy ALL Austen adaptations no matter how bad they are (except for the recent BBC "Sense & Sensibility", which I hated SO MUCH I would have thrown things at the screen and turned it off if I hadn't been a guest in the house where it was being watched)...
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Giving thanks

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 16:50:28 -0700
Today I did something that was new for me. I sat down and wrote an email to an incredibly successful author I've never met, thanking her for the books she's written, and telling her what a difference they've made in my life...
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Happy Thursday

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 16:58:49 -0700

It's been a bad last few days for many reasons, foremost among them that MrD has been sick. Nothing dangerous or unusual - just a normal combination of winter illnesses for toddlers - but as I'm rapidly learning, any time my baby is sick, life pretty much grinds to a halt until it's over. I didn't quite give up writing in the past few days, but my wordcount shrank very, very low, and for once, I couldn't make myself regret it. When my baby's sick, looking after him - and decompressing while he sleeps - really does cancel out all my other priorities.

But! Today the whole world is shiny and happy because he's feeling better. Yayyyyy! Everything feels happier and lighter now, and all my goals suddenly sound so much more do-able. So I thought I'd list some of the things that are making me particularly happy today...

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TV redemption, writing inspiration, and a touch of madness

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 15:01:02 -0700

OK, I admit it. As much as I truly disliked the Dr Who Christmas special, which was Part I of the season finale, and as much as I wondered if I should even bother to watch Part II after such a disappointing Part I...well, by the end of Part II, I was in tears. It totally blew me away.

I am so, so sad that David Tennant (my favorite Doctor ever) has left the show...which makes it all the more impressive that...
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Sleet, Shame, and Resolution Difficulties

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 12:20:14 -0700

Oddly, I am much less excited by the post-Christmas sleet than I was by all that lovely white Christmas snow. Sigh. I'm trying not to take it as a sign...

Apart from the sleet, though, everything is going really well. Or, at least... Ahem. Everything has been going well apart from The Horrible And Humiliating Pie Incident, but I don't think I'm quite ready to write about that in any detail yet. Let's just say...
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TV disappointment, present gloating, and free Christmas gifts

Stephanie Burgis — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 18:24:31 -0700
Aaaand life slowly goes back to normal. It was a really lovely Christmas, with lots of great presents, even better company, and yummy food. The one disappointment was - without giving any spoilers - how disappointed I was by the Dr. Who Christmas special. The Christmas specials have never been as good as the regular show, but I thought this one was actually depressingly bad. On the other hand, Patrick didn't dislike it as much as I did, so who knows? It's a subjective thing...
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Christmas Eve

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 15:56:54 -0700
Right now Christmas Eve on Sesame Street is playing in the background (on YouTube!), and poor Cookie Monster keeps accidentally losing the plot of all his letters to Santa. Meanwhile, Patrick is taking down the baby gate that we've used to protect our Christmas tree from eager toddler fingers this past week. All of MrD's presents are wrapped, along with most of the presents for other relatives, but Patrick and I are waiting until tonight to wrap each other's presents, because that's part of the fun...
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Competition Winners, Good Books, and Good News

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 12:37:41 -0700
Thanks so much to everyone who entered my ARC giveaway! There were 126 entries, and I really wish I could give an ARC to every single person who entered. Since I couldn't, I used an online random number generator to pick the winner and the two runners up, and this is what it chose...
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Werewolves and Copyedits and Guest Posts, oh my!

Stephanie Burgis — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 12:01:43 -0700
This week I had two pieces of writing news that made me very happy...
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Christmas Joy and Mysterious Packages

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 16:03:12 -0700

The other day, I read a blog entry that made me laugh and nod in recognition...
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Computer Woes and ARC Giveaway

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 12:18:25 -0700

Alas, there was no Christmas miracle at the Apple store on Saturday afternoon. Kind of the opposite, actually...

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Catastrophes and Agent Appreciation

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 12:10:25 -0700

Yesterday something terrible happened. I mean, REALLY terrible (at least if you're a writer and you need this one single piece of equipment for everything you do, and you love it, and, and...okay, I'll finish my story first before I descend into panicky babbling). All of a sudden, my laptop crashed. I shrugged, restarted it...

...and a gray screen popped up with the picture of a folder with a bouncing question mark inside. In other words: it couldn't find my hard drive. And it hasn't been able to ever since...
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Books, books, books!

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 20:16:43 -0700
I loved reading Jenn Reese's roundup of her favorite MG books from 2009, and since I am (of course!) mostly buying books as Christmas presents, I thought many of you guys might be, too. So I figured I'd share the list of my top favorite YA and MG books that I read in 2009....
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The trouble with Christmas

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 17:25:53 -0700

I love Christmas. Really, everybody who knows me knows that. I love picking out presents. I love listening (obsessively) to Christmas music, decorating the tree, lighting advent candles, indulging in long, drawn-out fantasies about how the presents will look under the tree on Christmas morning...

Well, maybe you're starting to see the problem...
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Back in the groove

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 17:31:47 -0700
Can I say just how happy I am to finally get back into my writing groove, after having involuntary time off? SO happy! I would do a dance of joy right now, if it weren't for the fact that it would frighten the neighbors. (I'm sitting in front of an open window, and we don't have any lace curtains. They already have more than enough to deal with, believe me. Between an active toddler and an active dog...let's just say they see a LOT of clutter through our windows.)
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Thanksgiving Winners and Christmas Glee

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 13:44:36 -0700
My Thanksgiving Giveaway ended last night, and the winner of the prize pack is...
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A startling discovery and a final reminder

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 13:06:17 -0700

Yesterday, I discovered somewhere very, very dangerous. It's a town called Hay-on-Wye, and the entrance sign welcomed us to: "The Town of Books"

YES. I always knew it had to exist somewhere, and now I've finally found it: The Town of Books!
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Bad ideas for mothers

Stephanie Burgis — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 12:11:33 -0700
I am SO not allowed to watch nature documentaries anymore...
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Today's journal entry

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 16:06:40 -0700

...is actually over at SFNovelists.com: A Literary Thanksgiving.

Today I'm talking about the writers who make me want to write. If you have time, I hope you'll stop by (and comment with a few of your own favorites)!
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Traumatic shots and comfort reads

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 14:49:08 -0700

Oh dear.

29 years ago, when I was 3-1/2 years old, my little brother got his MMR vaccination shots...and I went into flailing hysterics on the floor of the doctor's office, so horrified and upset on my little brother's behalf (because I KNEW how much those needles hurt!) that I just couldn't cope.

So you can imagine how I felt this morning...
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Thanksgiving Giveaway

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 19:26:01 -0700
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.... Happy Monday, everybody!
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Almost-Thanksgiving

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:09:35 -0700

When you move to a foreign country, it's a real challenge to figure out which of your own traditions to keep, which to amend, and which to give up. Since I moved to the UK seven years ago, I've comfortably given up celebrating the Fourth of July. (Honestly, how would I celebrate it on my own anyway? Poor Maya is deathly afraid of fireworks, so we couldn't exactly hold a display in our back yard...)

But there's one American-only holiday that I just couldn't give up...
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Because I am a big geek

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 22:41:08 -0700
When my editor sent me a proof jacket for A Most Improper Magick - that's a full test version of the paper outer cover that will wrap around the book itself - first I screamed out loud, and then...why, yes, then the cameras came out! I couldn't resist...
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16 months of short stories

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 22:38:53 -0700

SFWA has just opened its Nebula nomination period, and in response, a bunch of writers I know have been posting lists of their Nebula-eligible short stories.

I feel totally, totally conflicted about this. On the one hand, it makes a lot of sense. On the other hand, the idea of doing it myself makes me feel very weird, insecure, and uncomfortable. However, I've made a recent resolution to start acting genuinely proud of the work I do, rather than talking it down out of some weird version of Midwestern politeness, so...
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Forests and Books

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 12:31:41 -0700
I have the coolest husband in the world. Yesterday, Patrick gathered up me and Maya and MrD and drove out of town. He didn't tell me where we were going. We talked happily in the car - I always love going out for day trips, and I was even happier because this one had the buzz of real adventure. And when I'm a passenger, I specifically love car trips into the unknown...
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Castles and Farewells

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 22:14:00 -0700
There are a whole bunch of things I've been planning to write about here, but...well, it's 10pm, I'm awfully tired, and I'm already missing my brother Dave, who left this afternoon after a wonderful six-week visit. He helped us move house, he made both me and MrD fabulous omelettes, he watched "The Muppet Movie" with me and cooked so inventively that he actually persuaded me to like eggplant for the first time in my life...
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Technical Question

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 23:06:34 -0700
Can anyone recommend a good e-reader for reading documents (either MS Word docs or PDFs)? In the old days, I used to be perfectly happy reading long documents on my computer screen, but for the last several months...
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True Names

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:42:27 -0700

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A shockingly unusual circumstance

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 21:53:58 -0700

Tonight I did something bizarre and shockingly unprecedented: I sat down with Patrick, and we watched a TV show. WHOA. It's been...
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Treats?

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:41:00 -0700

This last week has been full of lots of good things, but it's been an awfully tired week for me, as I've been slammed with post-move exhaustion at the same time as a new phase of teething has hit poor MrD. So even though lots of good things have been going on, I've been feeling kind of bleagh.

Being me, of course, my natural solution to any dilemma, no matter how large or small, is: read a book! ;) Luckily, this time my favorite strategy has actually been working...
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Halloween, disillusionment, and good recipes

Stephanie Burgis — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 14:22:15 -0600

Happy Halloween, everybody! For the first time in years, it actually feels like a real Halloween to me, because we're finally living in a neighborhood with lots of kids who trick or treat....
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Today's blog entry

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 18:41:52 -0600
...is actually over at SFnovelists.com. It's called "The Scary Bits", and I hope you'll check it out. Please do comment if anything strikes you!
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Writing tips for teens

Stephanie Burgis — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 18:25:20 -0600

Whew. We've been settled in our new house for a few days now, and it's finally starting to feel like home. Our neighbors have been really friendly - there's a lovely feeling to the community around here - and today is the first day I haven't been to my favorite coffee shop. (I needed to take a day off to protect myself from their gorgeous vegan brownies. CANNOT RESIST!!!!)

So...
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Competition winners

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 18:39:19 -0600
My Regency Prize Pack competition ended last night at midnight, UK time. Thanks so much to everybody who entered! It was so much fun seeing Kat's book trailer in all those different places. The two runners-up...
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Moving, friends, and little magics

Stephanie Burgis — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 12:29:30 -0600
Thanks so much to everybody who commented on my last blog entry! Getting ready to move continues to be stressful, but the wonderful thing about having hired professional movers is that we know - whether we're ready or not - we WILL be out of the house by the end of tomorrow. We have no choice! And that is actually a big relief.

In the last few days...
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A long whine and a brief Hollywood touch

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:39:52 -0600
OK, it was bad this morning when Yahoo! mail ate an email I'd just finished writing to a good friend (after having written over the course of two days, because I have so little time to write email right now). But when I actually burst into tears at the loss...well, yeah. That was a pretty clear sign, even to me, that I'm feeling a wee bit high-strung at the moment...
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Lightening the load

Stephanie Burgis — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 21:37:21 -0600
Here's the thing about moving house. It's AWFUL! It takes SO MUCH effort, and SO MUCH time, and we're having to spend SO LONG sorting through old clothes and books, you wouldn't believe it.... ...and of course, that's actually a really good thing....
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Bullet Points Galore

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 21:45:46 -0600
I've been saving up points for a blog entry for SO long now, I think bullet points are the only way to handle it! Otherwise I might just explode trying to link them all neatly together....
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Book Trailer - And a Regency Competition

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 18:02:10 -0600
Woohoo! I can finally share my first book trailer* for A Most Improper Magick...
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And

Stephanie Burgis — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 18:43:36 -0600
It's probably good timing (because nothing makes me feel better and steadier than talking about great books!) that my last BLOGFEST entry just went up. In this entry, I'm talking about my own favorite authors and books and asking any readers to chime in: if you could combine two different genres into one book, which two would they be? Join me over at BLOGFEST!
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Feeling a bit unsteady

Stephanie Burgis — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 18:34:07 -0600

Whew. Well, we're back in Leeds, after a week in Wales. We celebrated MrD's birthday, got the keys to our new house, paid for a DEEP clean of the carpets (which actually changed color when they were cleaned!), and best of all, I mostly got over my horrible cold. So I am feeling much less sorry for myself and and am much better company now, I hope. :)

We've got two weeks left in Leeds before we finally do our move, and I'm experiencing really mixed feelings....
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Tenners Tell All

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 20:42:22 -0600
And for more of an actual blog entry with less squeeing... ;p This week it was my turn to lead a Tenner Tell-All session based on a discussion question, and this week's question was: "Where were you when you got The Call? And what was it like?" You can read my answer over here (which involves hot chocolate and hysterical giggling, naturally! ;p ), and check back on the comments throughout the day to read answers from all the other awesome Tenners!
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Kat Cover!

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 20:34:36 -0600

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Today's blog entry

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 15:34:13 -0600
...is over at Blogfest, where today's question from a teen reader is: “When you’re writing a book and making up characters, do you feel like you become that character, as well as that character becomes a part of you?” Here's how I answered...
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Colds, keys, and family

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 17:12:46 -0600
...In less disgusting news, today's Blogfest question asked us whether we've stuck with certain themes in all our books. My entry talks about how, one way or another, almost everything I write comes down to families in the end (and why that's true). I hope you like it!
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This weekend's blog entry

Stephanie Burgis — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 12:33:01 -0600
...is actually at SFNovelists: One year later. In which I talk about how radically, astonishingly different life is now than it was one year ago... ;)
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Black Holes, Re-starts, and the Writing Life

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 16:23:17 -0600

Aiyee. What is it about Mothercare? At 11a.m., we decided to drive out there to buy a new car seat for MrD. I figured we'd be back by noon. Instead, we staggered back into the house after 2:00, weighed down by boxes and boxes and bags and bags of stuff, all of which somehow turned out to be vitally important.

Of course one plausible interpretation is: we're just total suckers when it comes to baby supplies. But even so, how could it all possibly take so LONG? Mothercare really is a black hole - time works differently there...

In better news, I've started Chapter Eight of Kat3 again, and it's going much, much better this time...
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Autumn, Embarrassment, and Chapter One

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 13:18:12 -0600

Autumn has definitely arrived in northern England. The leaves are starting to change, the sky is pale gray, the air is full of chilly mist, and we had to turn on the heating in the house a few days ago.

But hey! We just got good news yesterday...
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Blogfest begins!

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 16:54:48 -0600

Hooray! Simon & Schuster's YA BLOGFEST has started, and when I looked through the full list of participating authors today, I felt...well, to be honest, I felt completely intimidated. Holly Black, Scott Westerfeld, L.J Smith, Sarah Rees Brennan, Sarah Beth Durst, Cynthia Kadohata, Becca Fitzpatrick...! The list goes on and on, full of really stunning authors.

And, um, me. Eek...

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New website!

Stephanie Burgis — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 16:12:14 -0600

Whew! After months of preparation and planning, today my brand-new author website is finally online! Patrick designed and built the website for me (it is sooooo convenient to be married to a web developer!), I wrote the text, we came up with photos together...and I can't believe it's finally up!

I liked my old website, but I LOVE this one, which is much bigger and also more Kat-centered, with tons of behind-the-scenes info, Regency trivia, and more. There's going to be even more stuff on it soon - my plan is to update it regularly and gradually add videos, excerpts from the book (once my publisher OKs them! :) ), quizzes, competitions, etc...
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Friends, writing, and photos

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 17:52:01 -0600

Sigh. I love having guests, but it always feels so sad when they have to leave!

We had a great time with Tiffany Trent, who came on Saturday and stayed until this morning. We talked writing, books, pirate girls and perfect SF convention T-shirts...we went out to Bolton Abbey to show Tiffany what my imagined "Grantham Abbey" in A Most Improper Magick was based on (and ohhhh, that was a poignant trip, since it may well have been my Very Last Trip to Bolton Abbey, if we really do move to Wales in a few weeks)...and in a brilliant move, Patrick and I used the excuse of a houseguest to justify getting lots and lots of wonderful Indian curries from our favorite restaurants. Yum!!!
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Jumping Off Swings

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 21:51:28 -0600

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Excellent Distractions and ARC Panic

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 21:01:50 -0600

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ARC joy!

Stephanie Burgis — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 15:38:27 -0600

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The Paradox of Baby Time, and a Book Problem

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 17:10:36 -0600

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Whew!

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 17:53:09 -0600

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Offerings!

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 17:37:19 -0600

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The only downside of having a dog...

Stephanie Burgis — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 16:39:35 -0600

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Who Am I This Time?

Stephanie Burgis — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 18:51:50 -0600

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Zombie Daze

Stephanie Burgis — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 12:19:00 -0600

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And some Strange Horizons love

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 23:27:12 -0600

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Thai Food & TV Rationalizations

Stephanie Burgis — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 16:05:05 -0600

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Anniversary secrets revealed

Stephanie Burgis — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 14:25:38 -0600

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