Eilis O'Neal's Blog, page 6

Upcoming Events

Fall is nearly here, and I’m excited about it because I’ll be attending several fun events over the next month or so. Here’s a quick list. If you’re in the area of any of these events, I’d love for you to drop by to participate or just to chat!

FenCon: Dallas, TX. September  23rd-25th.

My schedule:

Friday 3:00 – 4:00 p.m.: Villains: A love/hate relationship  

All drama needs conflict and who better to deliver conflict than a good villain. Sometimes we even find ourselves rooting for the villain in the end. What makes us cheer some and hiss at others?

Saturday: 11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.: Autographs

Saturday: 2:00 – 3:00 p.m.: From Idea to Outline  

Sometimes a story idea is just a character, a setting or a "what if" situation. The authors on this panel will describe their process of getting from initial idea to enough of an outline to get started with.

Saturday 3:00 – 3:30 p.m.: Reading


Virtual Author Visit at the Houston Public Library: October 12th at 4:00 p.m.

I’ll be visiting with readers via webcast as part of the Houston Public Library’s Teen Read Week Virtual Events.


Nimrod's Conference for Readers and Writers: Tulsa, OK. October 22nd.

I’ll be helping run this all-day writing workshop, and also will be moderating a panel entitled “Q&A: Editing and Publishing: Why? How? What? When?”

The workshop features classes on writing poetry, fiction, historical fiction, YA fantasy, and memoir, as well as classes on finding an agent and starting a high school literary magazine. You can also sign up to have a one-on-one editing session with one of Nimrod Journal’s editors. I’m really excited about Patricia C. Wrede’s class, “The Magic of the Past: YA Fantasy,” which will focus on rooting your fantasty in history.

Ireland Part 3: Hawks!

The saga of Ireland continues! For the beginning of the trip, look here and here.

Day Nine: Drove to Galway with some great stops along the way. First stop: the Cliffs of Moher. Or, as I found out to my delight, the Cliffs of Insanity from The Princess Bride, which of course led to way too many utterances of “Inconceivable!” while there.  The Cliffs were amazing, though very crowded and somewhat remote-feeling, since you have to stay so far back from them and the barriers are so high.


Cliff of Insanity Moher

After that, we drove to the Burren, which is one of the most unique Irish ecosystems. The land is covered in cracked and fissured rocks, with Arctic, Mediterranean and alpine plants all growing side by side. It feels like an alien world—all I needed was a space helmet. The Burren isn’t as dramatic as the Cliffs are, but I actually liked it more, because it’s so strange and because you can actually get out and walk on it. Could have spent so much more time there—will have to go back someday with more time.


The Burren


So cool!

Day Ten: One word: falcons! This was the day I’d been looking forward to the most on our trip, the day Matt and I got to learn to fly hawks at the Irish School of Falconry. The school is located at Ashford Castle, which is really neat on the outside, but, sadly a much-too-expensive-for-us hotel on the inside.  After looking around a bit, we went across the grounds to the school to meet our guide.  And you’ll excuse me if I go a bit long here, because it was Just. So. Cool.

First we got to look at the different birds they have there. They keep hawks for the visitors to fly, because Harris hawks hunt in groups, and so they don’t mind being flown by strangers. They also have a beautiful peregrine falcon, and a lovely, ginourmous eagle owl.


Harris hawk


Peregrine Falcon


Dingle, the Eagle Owl. Love his eyes!

Then we went to the room where they weigh the birds each day. Apparently each bird has an optimal flying weight, and being under or over a quarter of an ounce can make the difference between the bird flying well, being completely lazy, or manically flying at you for food. Then back out into the yard to get our gloves on and our birds!

We flew two females: Rua and Cara. They were some of the bigger hawks at the school, but still so light, only about 2 pounds. Our guide tied them on to our gloves for the walk out to the grounds, and it was a good thing, too. As we were leaving the school, some people on horseback started down the road toward us. Apparently Harris hawks have a deep fear of horses and dogs (due to the coyote being their natural predator), and will flip out if they see either. So we had to duck behind a building to hide until they went by.  Of course, as the guide is telling us about this fear, Matt goes, “How do they feel about donkeys?” because there’s this little gray donkey face peering at us from a window in the building we’re hiding behind. At that exact moment, the birds saw the donkey and started flapping and trying to fly off. So we had to run from the donkey; luckily the horses had gone away by that time.

And, finally, it was time to learn to fly them. We learned to send them off by holding out our arms and stepping forward. And then learned to call them back by standing sideways and holding out the arm the back of the hand toward them and a bit of raw meat clenched in the glove. Also learned that our guide had to give us the food in secret, or the birds would come back before being called—a no-no. Also a no-no to let them have the food until both birds had come back, which meant sometimes you had a bird pecking at the glove for a minute or two if the other was being lazy. It was absolutely wonderful, even if Cara was feeling a bit lazy that day and sometimes took a while to come back. I had been a tad worried having a bird with a huge sharp beak and talons on my arm, but once we had them I never felt nervous at all. Being able to see them up close—the way the feathers layer over one another and the color of their eyes and the bright yellow of their feet—was amazing, utterly amazing. We walked all over the castle grounds to fly them, though we had to leave the wooded area pretty quickly when Rua thought she saw an actual animal and wouldn’t come back for a while. The way we got her back was to go over and pretend to try to flush the animal out for her—that way she felt like we were equal hunting partners and that we’d done out best to look for it.


With Rua and Cara.

Finally, our hour was up, and we went back to the school, where there was one more bit of awesome for us to see. Baby Harris hawks! They had four of them that had just arrived to be raised, and we got to see and touch them. So ugly-cute, and with the biggest feet!


Baby Harris hawks


Check out those feet!

In short, this was my favorite thing in Ireland. I felt like a princess in a fairy tale, wandering around outside her castle with her hawk on her arm. And, luckily, Matt actually managed to get some videos of the hawks landing on our arms. He did an especially good job considering that he couldn’t look through the eyepiece at the time, and was just holding the camera out and guessing as to where he should point it. (The one video that is sideways will right itself toward the end).

Interviews, honors and voting, oh my!

Bit of a catch-up blog today.

Two bits of nice news: The False Princess has been honored by the American Booksellers Association twice this week. I'm very excited to report that TFP is one of the ABC New Voices for 2011. This is a list of 10 middle grade and 10 YA titles by debut authors, and I'm really thrilled to be on it. TFP also made it onto the 2011 ABC Best Books for Children list, along with some other fabulous Egmont titles. 

Three new interviews up recently:

The first is on Figment with questions about how I found time to write in high school, what literary character I'd like to be named after, and whether or not I dress up as a princess at Ren Faires.

The second is up at Bee's Knees Reviews. Where the name Eilis came from, which fairy tale retellings I like best, and my advice for aspiring writers.

And I may have posted this interview before, but just in case, here it is again. All fairy tales, all the time at TinasBookReviews.

And, finally, I will shamelessly remind everyone that there's still time to vote for YALSA's Teen's Top 10 Award. Lots of great books to choose from, so you don't have to vote for The False Princess. (Though I'd sure love it if you did!)

That's all for today, folks. Next up--I swear--videos and pics from flying hawks in Ireland.

NPR's (and my!) List of Top Fantasy and SF Novels

About a week and a half ago, NPR released a list of the “Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy Books.” It was a list nominated by regular folks and then voted on by regular folks: about 5,000 in the former category and 60,000 in the latter. (Naturally, I told myself I was going to both nominate some titles and vote, and then forgot to do either.)


Of course, anytime you say that a list is the supposed to represent the best of anything, all you're really going to do is make people mad. Because unless it's a list of your own personal favorites, the list going to shirk a book or movie that you love, and probably some you dislike or only tolerate are going to be ranked higher than you think they ought to be. So reading these sorts of lists is generally just a lead up to a befuddled or, in some cases, irritated, “I can't believe they like that!”  That said, I think we all kind of love these lists. They give you a way to measure your own list of favorites against someone (or many someones) else's. And sometimes they make you remember that you really need to pick up a certain book and see what all the fuss is about. So it's a mixed bag.


In any case, I had several thoughts when I first read the NPR list. The first was a general sense of disgruntlement that they had seen fit to ban all YA titles from the list. Now, I think NPR had good intentions with this, especially since they've said they'll do a YA list next summer. And I know that there are big differences between YA and adult books, etc., etc. But it does call to mind the ghettoization of YA that I think is still going on to some extent in reading audiences, even after things like Harry Potter. The idea that if something is written for young people, it can't be as good as what's written for adults, and that adults who enjoy YA as much—or more—than adult fiction are somehow reading down. (And it's really weird when you think about the fact that SF and fantasy themselves are so often looked down on by “mainsteam” readers.) Plus, it just irritates me because so many of the fantasy books that I love best are YA. And just the fact that they're YA doesn't take away from their overall fantasy-ness. So, points off for that.


My second thought: Where are all the chicks? Oh, there's one. At spot #20. Seriously, I was kind of flabbergasted that it took until place 20 to get a female writer on the list. And that, out of 100 places, only 15 by my count were taken by female authors. Now, I'm sure reasons could be pointed to for this, including but not limited to the fact that a lot of the books were written quite a while back, when not as many women were publishing, especially in the SF field, etc. But it made me feel sad, especially when someone as totally awesome and important to American fantasy as Patricia McKillip doesn't make the list at all.


Other, more random thoughts.
--The Princess Bride is #11? Seriously folks? I mean, I love me some Princess Bride—have read it half a dozen times—but I'm just not sure it's #11.
--Was surprised/not surprised to see unfinished series like The Song of Ice and Fire, The Wheel of Time, and The Kingkiller Chronicles so high on the list. Surprised because what if something goes terribly, terribly wrong in them and they all end of stinking by the last book, and not surprised because, given their unfinished nature, they're very, very popular right now and thus bound to get a lot of attention. (Of course, I would also rank Firefly on my Top sci-fi shows, just based on the little we got of it, so maybe I oughtn't be surprised.)
--Happinesses to see Robin Hobb, Jacqueline Carey, and Mary Stewart getting some kudos.
--I apparently need to read a lot more Golden Age SF. Or any, really.
--The Once and Future King should be higher than #47. Period.
--Major ditto to The Last Unicorn at #55.
--Perplexed by Robin McKinlety's Sunshine being on the list, albeit at #92. I mean, isn't it YA? (Though so many of her books straddle that line—I've found them all over the bookstores.) Don't get me wrong, I love Sunshine and was happy to see it. I just didn't realize so many other people like it that much.


So, those were my gut reactions to the list. But it also got me thinking about my own “Top SF and Fantasy” list. So I thought I'd share my top 25 and some very vague thoughts about what it says about me. I'm going to do two lists, one with YA included and one without, just to see the differences. I'm not ranking the books in order, though, because that would take too much time and induce too much angst in me. Like the NPR list, I'm lumping series together. So . . . .


Eilis' Top Science Fiction and Fantasy Books (YA included)


The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle
Tamsin by Peter S. Beagle
The Black Jewels trilogy by Anne Bishop
The Kushiel trilogy by Jacqueline Carey
The Dark Is Rising series by Susan Cooper
The Young Wizards series by Diane Duane (first three books particularly)
The Middle Kingdoms series by Diane Duane
The Neverending Story by Michael Ende
Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin
The Assassin's Apprentice trilogy by Robin Hobb
The Chronicles of the Deryni by Katherine Kurtz
A Wrinkle in Time quintet by Madeleine L'Engle
The Riddle-Master of Hed trilogy by Patricia A. McKillip
The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley
Beauty by Robin McKinley
Deerskin by Robin McKinley
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
The Song of the Lioness quartet by Tamora Pierce
His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman
The Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling
The Samaria series by Sharon Shinn
Summers at Castle Auburn by Sharon Shinn
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Once and Future King by T. H. White
Mairelon the Magicians by Patricia C. Wrede


Thoughts? I was complaining about the lack of girls on NPR's list, but perhaps someone ought to complain about the lack of boys on mine. Only 7. Though I am actually a bit surprised that only 11 of my top favorites are YA. I thought it would be more than half. And perhaps I should retitle this my "Top Fantasy Books with a Token SF Book Thrown In," because only the Samaria books are actually SF. Maybe Time Traveler's Wife, but it's hard to say. Also, apparently I really, really get into series.


And now, in the spirit of science, what happens when I eliminate YA books? We get this (new books in bold):



Watership Down by Richard Adams
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle

The Magicians and Mrs. Quent series by Galen Beckett
The Black Jewels trilogy by Anne Bishop
The Kushiel trilogy by Jacqueline Carey
The Middle Kingdoms series by Diane Duane

The Bone Doll's Twin trilogy by Lynn Flewelling
The Princess Bride by William Goldman
Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin
The Assassin's Apprentice trilogy by Robin Hobb

A Fistful of Sky by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
The Wild Swans by Peg Kerr
The Chronicles of the Deryni by Katherine Kurtz

Foxmask by Juliet Marillier
The Riddle-Master of Hed trilogy by Patricia A. McKillip

Alphabet of Thorn by Patricia A. McKillip
Deerskin by Robin McKinley
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
The Samaria series by Sharon Shinn
Summers at Castle Auburn by Sharon Shinn

Jenna Starborn by Sharon Shinn
The Crystal Cave trilogy by Mary Stewart
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Once and Future King by T. H. White

The Raven Ring by Patricia C. Wrede


So how does the list change? I pick up new authors, but overall the stats on it don't change that much. Still just 7 men. And still not much SF—only 2 more titles. Though I did put in a series of my own that isn't finished—The Magicians and Mrs. Quent. Still, looking at the list, while I do love the books I substituted here, I would still say that the YA titles from the first list qualify much more heavily as my favorite fantasy and SF books.


One of the other things I started thinking about while putting together these lists is that so many of these books were read the first time when I was still a teenager. 14 of the books on the YA-inclusive list were read before I was twenty and books that I re-read over and over. And this is surely one of the reasons they're on the lists. It's one of the reasons I write for teens after all; the idea that what you read as a teenager can have a serious, long-term affect on how you see yourself and the world. A lot of the books on this list changed me, more than many books I've read as an adult did. Was there a similar phenomenon on the NPR list, especially since YA as a genre didn't really exist until recently, and if you wanted to read science fiction and fantasy you read a lot of books intended for adults, because that's all there was?


The other thing I noticed is that, on the YA list, some books made it on the list because of the huge impact they had on me as a teen, rather than how I feel about them now. It's not that I don't still love them, but I don't love them as much as I used to. But I felt like they needed to be on the list, because of what they did for me as a kid.


And that leads me wonder about some of the books that I've read recently and really liked, but which got left off the list. For instance, I seriously considered adding The Hunger Games books to the list, but I hesitated at the last minute. Because I don't know how they will hold up in the long run in my life. I think I'll keep going back to them, but I'm not quite sure, so I left them off the list.


Eh, this has gotten pretty long, so I'll sign off now. But I had a lot of fun wandering around my house and weighing my books, trying to decide which were my all-time favorites. It made me remember how I felt when I first read them—some I even got to remember hearing my mom read out lot to me. (She read books that were “older” than my reading level to me up until middle school.)


So what's on your list?

Time to Vote: YALSA's Teens' Top Ten

YALSA has opened the voting for the 2011 Teens' Top Ten, and I'm really excited that The False Princess is on the list of nominations. So if you're a teenager and love Sinda and Kiernan, vote for them! The voting will go on until September 15th, and the top ten books will be announced during ALA's Teen Read Week, October 16th-22nd.

Seriously, I'm so proud to be on the list with so many other great books that I've enjoyed this year. And I can't wait to read the books that have slipped by me. Even if you're too old to vote or don't have the inclination to, check out the list. These are definitely books you don't want to miss.

PS--Here's a new interview with an emphasis on fairy tales that I neglected to post last week.

Goodbye, Atlantis

On Saturday, I wrapped up my first-ever tabletop role-playing game. The game lasted from October 2009 until August 2011, and over the course of nearly two years became a lot more than just three hours a week sitting around a table, rolling dice with my husband and four friends. Some of the folks in our group have been gaming for 30 years, and they assured me that this game was special. Not just became we ended up with tintype character portraits, 13 parody songs, a 3D dice cake to celebrate our first year, and about a hundred pages of game notes, but because it just somehow clicked in a strange and awesome way. (For more info on the game, you can look here and here.)  Yet we've all known that the game would be coming to a close for a while now, and that gave me a good bit of time to think on how I feel about that happening. And now that it's over, I've gotten really reflecty. Because, like I said, it was more than just a game, and, as a totally new gamer, my journey through it was a long one.

When we first started, I couldn't talk. Really, during the first few games Amice, my British librarian and sometimes evil sorceress, was as quiet as the proverbial church mouse. Actually, they might be noisier. I felt completely out of my depth, was convinced I would do or say something wrong or stupid, and even though I wanted, desperately, to be doing something, I stayed pretty petrified for a while, and so Amice stayed a bit in the background.

That started to change around the time I killed the chimera, and then again when I made a deal with the evil hydra goddess to get us out of a ghuul city alive. Slowly, without even realizing it at times, I was starting to think like Amice, to feel what she was feeling, rather than just telling myself what she ought to be doing. I also started caring about the rest of the party, almost against my will, because at first I had thought Amice was more aloof than that. But no, she was really, really happy to have friends, and so it became important to me as the player, too. She was becoming a person to me, as much as any character I've ever written, but with a difference. While the characters I write sometimes surprise me (and befuddled and annoy me and make me happy),  Amice was evolving in a way that had much more discovery than planning to it.

And, slowly, I started to get some new anxieties surrounding the game. But instead of being about whether or not I was doing it right or looking foolish, this was angstiness if we couldn't meet to game for a week, because I needed to know what was going to happen, needed to be with those people again. This was worry about how we would solve a certain problem, or whether or not Amice's friends would still like her after she turned accidentally-evil and then back. This was nerves about planning which spells to use in an upcoming battle, or how to make sure that everyone stayed alive during it. And regardless of how many nails I chewed through or how my stomach twisted up in the days before a game, I relished these worries, because they were part of what made it fun, made it real. And in a way I was proud of them, because to me my nerves were proof that I had transformed into an actual gamer.

But, like all things, Atlantis couldn't last forever. A few months ago it became clear that we were working our way to the final confrontation, and I had to start coming to grips with the fact that I was going to have to leave my first character behind, along with all her friends and the places she'd come to love—even her boyfriend. That worried me too, the way that worrying that real friends will move away worries you.

And now, finally, it's happened. In some ways, I'm ready. I feel like Amice had a great character arc, that she ended up in a good place, and that her friends did too. And, of course, we saved the world (more than a few times). I'm excited to try to make a new character, someone who I'm hoping will start out much more defined and sharply focused than Amice, who got a lot of her character traits because I was so nervous and had absolutely no idea of how to create an RPG character. I'm excited to see what the characters my group will come up with, and to have a new setting for us all to explore. But I also spent Sunday feeling like I was mildly sick. I felt tired and unaccountably sad. Or accountably sad, really, because it didn't take long for me to realize what was wrong.

In a lot of very real ways, I feel as though a group of my friends have moved away, and to somewhere that doesn't have phones or email or ever letters. That people I see every week aren't there anymore—and worse, that part of me isn't there anymore either. Really, I'm not trying to be melodramatic here. I'm in mourning for imaginary people, because somehow, over the course of two years, they became real people to me. Silly, brave, annoying, lovable, flawed, fun people, and I'm going to miss them. Strago, who never really liked Amice but always had her back when it really counted. Victoria, righteous and indignant and ever so sure of herself, who was Amice's first friend. Mr. Smeaton, who Amice wanted to strangle half the time but whose sense of duty and determination she really admired, and who turned out to have been secretly in love with her all along, something she didn't find out until the last moments of the final battle. Tom Gentry, who always believed in her and made sure that she knew it. And my Amice, always so eager to learn a new spell, caught somewhere between good and evil, wanting so much for all of her friends to end up happy.

When I started this, I didn't think it would end like this. I thought it would be a fun distraction each week—and for a while I worried that I'd never even get to the “fun” part. And though it is fun and is a distraction when I need it most, it's also more. It's something that has always been one of the most important things in my life: storytelling. But a special kind of storytelling, one even—in some ways—more visceral than writing a book. Because with a book, I control everything. It's all mine, down to the color of the curtains. With this, I'm in the story, living it. And while that's what I want to be doing with every book I write or read, it doesn't quite translate into other mediums because I either control everything (with my books) or nothing (with the books I read). With this, I was part of the story, controlling just one person. Like real life, only with spells and monsters and flying airships. Life like I wish it could be.

Tomorrow we'll meet up to work out our new world and our new people. There's talk of a post-apocalyptic world, which could be really different and fun. And I do have someone talking to me in my head, someone I'd like to know more about. I'm excited about it—a bit nervous, like I'm getting ready to go on a first date—but excited.

But you know what they say. You never quite get over your first love. And for that, I guess I'll always have Atlantis.

Fen Con

It's official! I'll be at FenCon VII this year! FenCon will be in Dallas on Sept 23-25th, and I'm super excited to be one of the guests, especially since it will be my first con as a guest author. Also very happy because one of my favorite authors, Gail Carriger, is the Guest of Honor. Gail is the author of the Parasol Protectorate books, which start with Soulless. (Hilarious books with vampire, werewolves, teapots and, of course, parasols. If you haven't read them, you ought to.) I met her briefly at ALA, and I can't wait to get to hear more from her. Also excited because I'll get to wear my steampunk sorceress outfit at least once. Of course, there's that's also scary considering that I got part of it at FenCon last year, and there may be more tempting top hats there this year . . .

Not sure what my schedule will be yet, but I'll post it as soon as I do. I any case, I hope to see you there!

Ireland: Part Two

After a bit of delay, I present you with the continued story of Ireland. You can find the first section of the trip here.

Day Six: Went on a lovely hike, Knockmorough Woods at Lough Hyne. Between the moss and the ferns and the trees and the moss, I felt like I had been doused in green. They were very much the woods that live in my imagination, all twisted trees and secret hollows. Avoided the overly-aggressive swans living in the lake.


Want for my backyard!!

Day Seven: Day seven was all about Killarney National Park. Went to Muckross House, which is one of the best examples of the Victorian stately home in Ireland. Learned that they once prepared for three years for Queen Victoria’s visit—had curtains and china made in Italy, installed a special escape stair because of her fear of fire, had other furniture made especially for her. All for a two-day stay on her part. Then hiked to Torc waterfall and around one of the Killarney lakes. Also got to go to a 3,000-year-old stone circle in Kenmare, which was pretty awe-inspiring.


Muckross House



Torc Waterfall


This is how thick the moss is. My fingers are just now brushing the rock this moss is covering.

Day Eight: Drove about half of the Ring of Kerry. Loved seeing Staigue fort-- an ancient stone ring fort built about 1,700 years ago--and was also very happy to survive the narrow, twisting, hedge-lined-so-that-you-can't-see-around-the-corners road that took us to it. Was completely blown away by the huge chariot built for Daniel O’Connell, which we saw at his home at Derrynane House. Daniel was a political leader in the 19th century who campaigned for Catholic rights in Ireland, and when he was released from prison, the Irish people commissioned the most impressive conveyance I’ve ever seen. Managed to mainly avoid the python of tour buses around the Ring.


Ring Fort



Why do I have a car when I could have this? Note the information board for scale.

Day Nine: Some sadness today. We were supposed to go to Skellig Michael, an island off the coast of western Ireland with one of the most unique monasteries in Ireland on it. But the seas were too rough, so the boat trip was canceled. Moved on to Dingle instead, stopping at two more ring forts on the way. It still kills me that they’re located in essentially someone’s back yard—or sheep pasture. Tried to pet some sheep, but they eluded me. The ring forts are awesome because they're so intact--apparently once they fell out of use, local people began to believe they were fairy forts, and left them completely alone for centuries.  Also went to some awesome pubs that night in Dingle and got to listen to traditional Irish music like it’s supposed to be heard.


A more complete ring fort.




Inside the ring fort, which still had remnants of a building inside.


Day Ten: Drove the Dingle Peninsula ring today. I understand that the views are spectacular, but can’t actually confirm that, as the fog was horrible that day. Really, it felt like the Nothing from The Never Ending Story was coming to get us. Enjoyed seeing some new sorts of buildings: the beehive huts and the Gallarus Oratory, which is a chapel that looks like a giant upside-down boat. Went to a folk music concert in a tiny church that night and gnashed my teeth in envy, because it seems like anyone who can play one instrument in Ireland can play five of them. Heard the harp, fiddle, hornpipe, Irish pipes (which are much more awesome than the Scottish pipe, according to the player), guitar, penny whistle . . .So awesome.


The Nothing will consume you.


Beehive hut. Again, essentially in someone's backyard. Why don't I have things like that in MY backyard?



Gallarus Oratory. Imagine 15 probably unwashed monks crammed in there to celebrate Mass.

About halfway through the trip now, so more soon!

Deleted Scene

So I was going to continue my post about Ireland, but, honestly, I'm just too exhausted. Which is I guess what happens when 14 out of the last 17 days have been over 100 degrees. And it doesn't help when, on the 17th day, your husband calls you at work at noon with the dreaded words, "I'm in the bank parking lot and the car's broken down." But I digress.

In any case, I don't have the energy for selecting Ireland pics, but I do have the energy to post a deleted scene from The False Princess. Please excuse any typos you find; I've tried to clean those up without changing anything else, but I may have missed some. There are some spoilers here, so if you haven't read the book, come back when you have! For those that have read it, this was written to be the opening of chapter 12. Some thoughts on why it isn't after the scene.

(Last line of the previous chapter is still: "Isidros," I said. "We're going to Isidros.")

It wasn’t as easy as that, though. By the time I awoke the next morning, Philantha had embarked on a series of experiments that would require ten days of precise and tedious attention. We huddled in her workshop from dawn until dusk, measuring, pouring, and stirring tonics, and then scratching down variations on scraps of parchment. I felt less scribe than scullery maid, even though I knew that wasn’t a fair comparison. I was learning, after all, and Philantha made sure to work in a few lessons during the time that the potions needed to simply sit and settle or to boil over the hearth.

And I did my best to skew those lessons in the direction I wanted. Philantha took no notice of my sudden interest in spells of hiding, but showed me varyious ways to conceal my things, my companions, and myself without comment. I spent my evenings in the library, studying spells of defense, and even some meant as attacks. I dared not ask Philantha to show me these, but practiced them in the garden as best I could, after everyone else had gone to sleep.

Kiernan sent notes most days, something that earned me knowing smiles from the maids when they delivered them. I didn’t tell them that the letters weren’t love notes, but reports. Orianne appeared to have no memory of that night, he wrote, or if she did she hid it very well. According to her, she felt poorly that evening and retired early. A long night’s rest must have done her good, because she felt utterly refreshed in the morning. I hadn’t doubted that she knew nothing of the spell, but it pleased me to have it confirmed. Kiernan had also investigated the cost and time our “trip” would take, though he said he would rather tell me of the details in person. We knew better than to write our plans down for anyone to see.

Finally, on the tenth day, Philantha poured a draught of amber liquid into a cup, tipped it over one of the potted plants in the study, and stood back.

“Did it work?” I asked, pushing a limp strand of hair off my forehead. The fire, built up high so that we could boil the various versions of the potion, made the study swelter.

Just then, however, the plant gave a tremendous shudder and grew two inches, its leaves ballooning over the sides of the pot and its stem bending under its sudden new weight. Philantha smiled.

The smile faded, though, when the plant shuddered again and suddenly drooped, looking like it had been left out in the heat without water for days. Several of its leaves fell off, and the others took on a yellowish cast.

“Ah, well, back to the pots,” Philantha said. My face must have shown my dismay, because she laughed and said, “Not today. We’re out of three ingredients. We can order them, but at least one won’t arrive until autumn. Very rare plant, only blooms in the latest summer, you see. And I have to say that I, and I expect you, though I can’t speak for you, of course, am utterly sick of looking at that amber color. We’ll try again this winter.”

She rubbed her neck with one thin hand, then cocked her head at me. “You look, if you don’t mind me saying so, very . . . tired. Why don’t you take a few days for yourself, Sinda?”

It was the opening I had been waiting for, but I only twisted my hands together, eyes on the ground. My tongue felt thick, and I knew that my cheeks would be pink. “I, well, actually,” I stuttered, finally managing to look up at Philantha. She gazed at me, eyes narrowed and brow furrowed in what looked like confusion at my sudden awkwardness. “My aunt . . . in Treb . . . She’s, um, ill. There was a letter, two days ago. I can show it to you, if you want. But I thought I should go to her . . . make sure she’s going to be all right.”

I trailed off, sure that Philantha could see through my ruse. I had never been a good liar; it had always been Kiernan who talked out way out of scrapes in the castle. I tended to go red, trip over my own tongue and mutter unconvincingly. And this was the only lie I could think of that might allow me to leave Vivaskari for days and go, not to Treb, but to Isidros. There was even a letter, supposedly from Aunt Varil, that Kiernan had commissioned from a local scribe and sent to me. It didn’t make me feel any better. 

To my surprise, though, Philantha only nodded. “Of course, of course. I have a good general tonic—you can take some to her.” She paused, then said, “Tell her how well you’re coming along, with your magic. Tell her I’ve been very proud of you, these last few days.”

I blushed even redder, ducked my head, murmuring words of thanks, and fled from the study. Up in my room, I scribbled a hasty note, then dashed downstairs, where I bribed Tarion with a copper coin into taking it to the palace. It would have been quicker to send a message light, but I was wary of using magic that might be detected by the sight-shielded person. After watching Tarion off, I hurried back upstairs to pack my bag, ignoring the lightning racing through my limbs and the growing thudding of my heart.

And just like that, I was going to Isidros.

 There are things I still like about this scene. I like the interaction between Philantha and Sinda, because Philantha always makes me giggle. I like the idea of the maids thinking that Kiernan is sending Sinda love notes, and kind of wish I'd remembered to work that in somewhere else.

But the reason that I didn't keep it in the final book is that is slows things down. A lot. There are only a few pieces of critical information here, information that I worked into a few lines in the chapter as it actually appears and into the previous one. You need to know that Kiernan has asked Orianne about the night before and that she remembers nothing. You need to know the excuse for her journey that Sinda has used on Philantha, so you don't wonder about how she got to leave home for twelve days. (BTW, I like Philantha's response in the finished book so much more than this version.)  And pretty much, that's it. What was fourteen paragraphs gets boiled down to about seven sentences, and we get to move onto more interesting things. And I worked the part about Philantha being proud of Sinda, which you don't need to know but I want you to know,  in later, in chapter 15, and with an concrete story from Philantha's past, which makes it much more interesting.
 

ALA: Day Two

Continued report from ALA:

Sunday:Was awoken very rudely by the hotel phone’s wake-up call. Rudely because I had set it for 6:50 and it went off at 6:20, when I know that I set it right. Felt a bit grumbly as I got up, but got over it quickly because I had my first official ALA Author Thing that morning: breakfast with several librarians from around the country, fellow Egmont authors Mette Ivie Harrison and Jennifer Lynn Barnes, and Egmontians Regina Griffin and Katie Halata. This was the first time I’ve met with librarians who aren’t local to my area, so it was absolutely great to hear from them that their teens are enjoying The False Princess. And I loved getting to know Mette, who I hadn’t met before. Was also astounded to hear that one of the librarians lives in a house built out of tires and bottles, and that it keeps cool and warm during the right season in Colorado without the help of any artificial cooling or heating. It was really fascinating, and she even had a picture on her iPad. Was also happy to learn that I’m not the only author who has trouble outlining! In short, it was a great breakfast, just really nice to be able to chat about book and non-book related things with people who love stories as much as I do.Went back to the convention center after that. Picked up some more ARCs.  I knew that Penguin was going to be giving away a limited number of ARCs of Ally Condie’s Crossed that morning. I have a friend who really, really liked Matched (not that I didn’t like it, but she LIKED it), so I decided to get in line for that. Apparently the hour wait was worth it, because I was number 6 in a line that stretched farther back down the hall than I could see. Felt gleefully awesome as I walked away with a copy.And still had time to make it to Gail Carriger’s signing. Got Blameless signed, and talked with Gail for a bit. She was really, really nice and we’ll both be at FenCon in Dallas in September, so I’m hoping to get to talk to her more there. Naturally, she was wearing another great hat. Got lunch, and learned that, even in a city of great food like New Orleans, convention food sucks. Didn’t want to venture out to find better food, though, because at 1:00 it was time . . . . . . for my signing! Again, this was the first signing I’ve done outside of my local area, and it was so fun. The people who came by were a nice mix of folks who had read the book and liked it and people who hadn’t but wanted to. I even signed someone’s Kindle cover and a t-shirt, both firsts for me. Also really pleased that two editors from School Library Journal dropped by to say congrats on the starred review. And in between signing, I got to talk more to Katie and Mette, who dropped by. Again, had a total blast and felt very Officially Authorish.Was starting to droop a little after the signing, and was sad to realize that I had accidentally left the two books that I wanted Maggie Stiefvater to sign back at the hotel. But the heat and humidity plus my tiredness were enough to keep me from running back for them, so I popped into a session on teens and electronic readers. Learned about cell phone books in Japan, something I’d never even heard of.And then it was time to go to the airport. Getting home was pretty uneventful, though I did nearly commit murder on the plane, which was already running late enough that I was going to have to run to my connection, when multiple sets of people kept holding things up trying to swap seats. As in, they were still trying when the plane started backing out of the gate and the attendants had to get on the PA to tell them to sit down. But I did make my connection, so it ended up okay.So that was my first big conference as a writer. And all I have to say is that, having experienced the fun of one, my next question is “Please sir, can I have some more?”