Kristin Cashore's Blog, page 72

In Which I ♥ My Field (and My Friends)

1. The following is an email exchange between Becca, Amanda, Jess, and me.

Me: Guys! I sprained my ass on the flying trapeze. Now I'm sitting on a cold compress.
Becca: I read "cold compress" as "golden compass" and was considerably puzzled.

Golden compass explanation.

2. The following is an email exchange between Mike and me.

Me: I love Peeta like crazy, but I have to be honest: I don't love his name. Especially since he's the baker's son.
Mike: I agree. It's a little like naming your kid...

In Which Music Soothes the Savage Beast

Bitterblue is eating me alive.

Sometimes, when you're being eaten alive, the most basic life questions become difficult to answer. What should I wear today? What do I feel like eating? If I threw my phone into the path of this steamroller, would that be such a terrible thing? Is it possible my upstairs neighbor is rehearsing for Stomp? Seriously? Please shut up? Isn't there something I'm meant to be mailing to someone? Where did I put that damn cactus? What kind of music would hel...

To Boldly Go Where No One Has Ever Gone Before

(This morning I tried to psych myself up for writing by telling myself that that's what I was doing.)

I've been thinking about some of the things that make revision tricky. A few days ago, I found myself unsure about how to attack the next plotty piece in my novel.... so, to work that out and get my momentum going again, I did what I always do, which is that I went back a few chapters to read and revise. This usually works for me. By the time I get to the end of what I've got, I know what co...

A Media Follow-up: Team Diana Comet, Katniss, and Pasha

My post last Thursday spurred some fun reactions from friends and family, so I thought I'd follow up.


1. Did you start The Name of the Rose (by Umberto Eco) next, like you thought you would?
No. I started Diana Comet and other Improbable Stories, by Sandra McDonald. I like it! It's a collection of interconnected fantastical short stories. Quirky and unpredictable, occasionally grim (war and battle, a warehouse fire, etc. well-written and vivid), with just enough similarities to the world we ...

A Media Inventory

First things first: on the right is the Graceling cover for the Portuguese language edition published by Alfaguara Infantil & Juvenil in Portugal (not to be confused with the Portuguese language edition that will be published by Rocco in Brazil). ---->

Okay, ready?

Book most recently read and enjoyed:
Kushiel's Dart , by Jacqueline Carey.

Book I'm currently reading (and enjoying):
The Magic Thief: Found , by Sarah Prineas.

Next book I'll read:
Well, these things are impossible to predict, but

Beauty for a Monday

Since this is a post about beauty, I wanted to use my most beautiful book cover as an icon. Not an easy choice, but I found myself returning to an old classic.

So, I've got two things to show you today. The first is from NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day; it's the photo from April 26, which I've had bookmarked for a month and half now, waiting until I had time to blog it.



This is a dust pillar of the Carina Nebula. Here's an excerpt from the NASA page: " Inside the head of this interstellar...

Squares and Triangles Agree: Circles Are Pointless. (Plus, a Bitterblue Update)

Gollancz YA cover for Fire ----->

So, the t-shirt on the left (by Pete Mitchell; buy it at Threadless) tickles me. Poor little pointless circle! But the t-shirt on the right (by Allan Faustino; buy it at Threadless) makes me sad.













Aw, Mr. Rhino! You're breaking my heart! Don't you see how beautiful you are? You're shaped for strength and power and momentum and agility, and if you slim down to the size of that unicorn, you'll be so weak! Health at Every Size! Anyway, unicorns aren't even real! ...

A Writer Is Always Writing... Except When She's on the Trapeze

Warning: trapezey photos ahead!

And an apology: this one got long!

But, first: Gollancz, my UK publisher, is releasing YA editions of my books under their new imprint, Gollancz YA. (Prior to this, my books were published in the U.K., Australia, and New Zealand for the adult market only.) And here's the Graceling cover ----> click to see it bigger --->

So. Back to business.

Here's the thing: sometimes I find it difficult to take breaks from my work. Writers, of course, are not just working when ...

Covers + Periodic Tables + Baseball = Randutiae

Hi everyone! I'm tripping over un-unpacked luggage and drowning in unanswered mail, but it was a super trip. And now I'm happy to be back to -- and overwhelmed by -- my normal writing schedule.

First, click on the photo to the right to see the large print U.K. cover of Graceling, just out from Clipper Large Print. Like it? I do.

Second, click on "play" below to watch Diana Comet present a periodic table of 75 Years of Fabulous Writers -- women who wrote and write in the fantasy/SF genre. I...

More Pieces

I'm always anxious to spell people's names correctly when I'm signing books, and in a foreign country where the names and pronunciations are unfamiliar, I really need to see names written in order to understand them. The two French phrases I used most often over the past few days -- even more frequently than Désolé, je ne parle pas français (Sorry, I don't speak French) -- were À quel nom? (To what name?) and Pouvez-vous l'écrire? (Can you write it?) And people did write their names for m...