Blog Entry: The good kind of tears, write-a-thon, and links
Entry posted on June 15, 2010, 5.39 pm
Categories:
A Most Improper Magick, Reading, Write-a-thon 2010, Writing
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.
I'm sorry to tease by saying this and then not actually showing you guys the cover, but I'm not allowed to share it publicly yet. I really hope I can SOON - but in the meantime, it just would have felt really wrong to write a journal entry today and not mention the new cover, because it made such a difference to my day (and week and month!). It's been many hours since I got that email, but I've still got the PDF of the cover open in another window on my computer, and I haven't gone more than half an hour between ogling sessions ever since I first opened it. ;)
There are some days when writing is easy, some when it's hard, some when it's angst-ridden, interfered with by panic about publishing issues or fear of what people will think of the book or, or, or [insert neurosis here!]...and then there are days like today, when I am just filled with awe that I have been so, so lucky.
(And I wish I could go back in time and show this cover to the self of 7 years ago, who was - at just about exactly this time of year - taking Nika on long walks in the woods and crying the terrible kind of wrenching tears as she walked, because she was so convinced that she would never, ever manage to sell a novel or even a short story, EVER. It really was worth all those years of crazy, stubborn persistence in the face of all the odds, to get here.)
In other news, the 2010 Clarion West write-a-thon is about to begin. I finished the first draft of A Most Improper Magick during the first write-a-thon, and the first draft of A Tangle of Magicks (Kat2) during the 2nd; then last year I set myself super-ambitious goals that turned out to be way too challenging for life with a young baby who would only nap on my lap. This year, I've tried to figure out goals that are both challenging AND honestly do-able. I'm hoping to finish the rewrite of Kat3 and write 40 pages of some other project/s, whether that means the dragon book or a new short story or something completely different.
My write-a-thon page is here. I'll be really grateful if any of you donate in support - going to the Clarion West workshop was the best decision I ever made for my writing career (not to mention my personal life, since I met Patrick there!), and I could never have afforded to attend if I hadn't been given scholarship money. The write-a-thon raises money to give scholarships - and thereby opportunity - to other new writers who couldn't afford the workshop otherwise.
But even if you don't donate, I'll just be really grateful for the moral support as I work toward my writing goals this summer.
And my very last link - today I interviewed Angie Frazier about her wonderful YA debut historical-adventure-fantasy novel, Everlasting (which Heidi Kling called "Part Titanic, Part Raiders of the Lost Ark with a spunky teenager heroine"). You can read the interview here!