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 I’ve recently been watching a lot of old Spencer Tracy/Katharine Hepburn films. I adore Katharine Hepburn films, with or without her real-life love, Tracy. The African Queen, Phiadelphia, The Lion in Winter — Hepburn is a presence — regal, clever, riveting. (In fact, I think the only film of hers I don’t like is Bringing Up Baby, in which she plays a ditz, albeit a secretly clever one.) And in her romances with Tracy, I have noticed a common theme: Tracy’s character is usually quite explicitly attracted to her character because of her intelligence. In Woman of the Year, he does not want her to be a housewife — he wants her to be her high-powered, world-changing self, just with a little more consideration for him and their life together. In Desk Set, there’s that marvelous scene on the roof where you can actually see Tracy’s computer programmer falling head over heels for Hepburn’s research librarian as she nails every trick question he asks her.
It’s rare to see this trope in romantic films, but I love it. This probably comes as no surprise to anyone who knows me or has read my books. I tend to write characters whose intelligence is very important to them, and who would rather be valued for their brains than anything else. Nothing makes Amy more angry than to be called stupid. Nothing makes Astrid more frustrated than to be told that knowledge and intelligence won’t help her. And when these girls find love, part of the way they can tell is that the person who loves them is really attracted to their smarts.
I was struck by this, watching a Hepburn/Tracy the other day, that it’s not something you see so often in films or stories these days. For all the talk of “strong female characters,” they seem to focus on physical strength. I think a lot of romances fail because there isn’t that THING where the audience recognizes why character A is utterly perfect for character B — but even when they succeed, when they have that THING, it’s very rarely, “Oh, baby, you’re so SMART.”
Long-time authors talk about author theme — or they used to; these days it’s all “brand brand brand.” Author theme is often described as something you find yourself writing about over and over again, even subconsciously, regardless of what genre you’re writing in. It’s not often something you can recognize after a handful of books — you need to have a substantive body of work. (The authors I hear talking about it most have usually been in the biz for decades.) I know that my two series are feminist books — they deal deeply with modern women’s issues like sexism, sexuality, and the expectations and limitations placed on modern young women. (That they deal with them disguised as comedies and fantasies is my own little trick.) But that’s the nature of those series — even though it’s six books. I don’t think the book I’m working on now is like that, or the one-that-isn’t-Ascendant coming out in October. However, each of those books are still about women who are valued for their intelligence — and I was attracted to the latter project in large part for that reason. I don’t think this is necessarily an author theme, but I do think it’s clear that I have a “type.” I probably wouldn’t get too far if I tried to write about a ditz.
What movies or books have you read recently that present this kind of story? I want more!
 So last night I went to the Printz Award ceremony at ALA — I’ve never been, and it was awesome. All the speeches were so wonderful. I especially enjoyed the one by John Barnes, a long-time science fiction author whose Printz Honor was the result of writing a true book of his heart, a semi-autobiographical novel about a teenage boy in the 1970s: TALES OF THE MADMAN UNDERGROUND.
(Ah, my book list. It grows ever longer.)
And of course, Libba’s talk was gorgeous. Have you all read GOING BOVINE? It’s not the easiest read in the world, especially if you have a weakness for hamburgers, like me. I had to put it down a few times because I’m freaking terrified of prions, y’all. Pretty much any disease of the brain give me the heebie jeebies. It’s that whole “I think, therefore I am,” stuff — I would like to be able to trust my own brain. It’s why zombies are so terrifying. And [spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler]. But GOING BOVINE is such a powerful, masterful work that I kind of had to get past that, because it is the sort of book that must be read.
I loved hearing Rick Yancey speak, because hearing him talk about crafting his gory Monstrumologist and freak himself out in the middle of the night and deal with his spouse’s take on him writing such a gory book — well, it reminded me of my own process with Rampant. I thought Monstrumologist was definitely gorier than Rampant, but I was pleased that YA had too such bloody books on the shelves at the same time last fall. Occasionally, I see us linked on “if you like this” type of features. I guess we’d fall under the “if you like creepy, coming of age fantasies with maggots, decapitations, and severed eyeballs” heading?
I haven’t read Punkzilla or Charles & Emma, but now I really want to! (See above, re: book list).
I got to sit with Ally Carter and right behind David Levithan and John Green. I caught sight, a few rows back, of Annette Curtis Klause — squee!
Afterward, at the reception, I ran into even more YA pals: Jennifer Lyn Barnes, Coe Booth, and Holly Black.
Some pictures from the evening:
Team Castle reunion! (Me, Jen, Ally, and Holly)
I bask in the glow of talent emanating from David Levithan and Coe Booth. (Do you think it’ll rub off?)
The stunning Libba Bray and her glorious Printz.
I also got to chat at length with a bunch of fabulous librarians, as well as a bunch of folks from New York.
And and AND I got my bookmarks. They are fantastic. But I don’t have a picture of them. I seem to be having some sort of problem with my photo uploader. I’ll remedy that and be back later.
So I survived ALA, thanks to the support of my editor and author friends.Friday afternoon, Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl took pity on me and called up, inviting me to come hang with them on the floor. We did. We snagged some swag. I also met their lovely editor Julie, and I may have accidentally sold her a book for $0.35 worth of parking meter change.
Oops. My agent’s totally going to kill me.
The next day, I left the house at 6:30 AM to make my early, early early morning breakfast with Harper Collins, where I met some other authors and a bunch of lovely librarians. Man, I love librarians. So knowledgeable! So passionate! So stylish!
Then, I headed back to the exhibit hall, where I ran into heaps of authors, attended a few signings, picked up even more swag — swag! Swag! How do I love thee? A few of the authors I hung out with: Malinda Lo, author of Ash; Danielle Joseph, author of Shrinking Violet; John Green, author of Looking for Alaska and PaperTowns and Will Grayson, Will Grayson.
Here I am with the beautiful Malinda Lo, whose moody, evocative debut ASH I read last year by firelight during a blackout. It’s also a great book to read over your air-conditioning vent this summer, though. Malinda’s next book is called Huntress. As you can imagine, I’m all over that. We had lunch and talked about researching hunting. She lives in Northern California, which is great for that.
I ran into Alaya Dawn Johnson ever so breifly — just long enough to tell her how much I love her story in Zombies vs. Unicorns (it’s awesome, ya’ll, even if it is about zombies). Speaking of zombies, check out this travesty:
She was so SMUG about it, too! To my face, y’all. To my face. Do you think Astrid would put up with that?
Actually, Astrid is afraid of zombies, too. She has no special powers to deal with those.
And, since I know y’all are wondering about the ice cream, I am so happy to report that at ALA, ice cream is free! Yeah, they were just handing it out on the street corner. Here’s Malinda, me, and Danielle Jospeh eating our free ice cream, in a picture taken by John Green. (You’d think someone who spends so much time filming could have snapped a pic where we were all looking at the camera, but whatever):
This was taken on our way to lunch with Pam Bachorz, author of Candor, Jon Skovron, author of Struts & Frets, Holly Cupala, author of Tell Me a Secret, and L.K. Madigan, award-winning author of Flash Burnout. Yeah, it was kinda a debs party I crashed. They’re very nice.
And yes, that means we had ice cream on the WAY to lunch.
After lunch, I rushed back to the exhibit hall for my signing. Yay, signing!
It went great — we gave away ALL my copies of Ascendant ARCs, and the unicorn horn lollipops were a hit. Killer unicorns FTW!
No matter what John Green says. (Also, I totally did the filming of the part where John steals the book.)
So I’m supposed to be at ALA this weekend. ALA, for those in the know, actually starts today. But I honestly can’t make heads or tails out of the schedule at all — people (like Kami Garcia) tell me they are appearing at events that don’t seem to be listed in any of the 378 pages of the schedule, and the links on their websites go only to registration pages, not to actual locations…
Add that to the major annoyance of finding out yesterday that some stuff I’d ordered specifically for ALA is not going to be here on time — arrrrrgh! My annoyance and frustration is threatening to turn into an anxiety attack right now. I’ve spent over an hour already this morning trying to look this stuff up. Poor Rio is lying in bed, wondering why I won’t take her for a walk before it gets oppressively hot outside. Did I mention it’s her birthday? Yeah, it’s her birthday, and instead of taking her for a walk, I’m trying to figure out this schedule and how I am going to salvage my ALA plans. Good thing she doesn’t know it’s her birthday. Still giving me a dirty look, though.
I seriously can’t find anything in this schedule. I wonder if they design it so that you have to have a Masters in Library Science to read it. I just want to bury myself under the covers and make it all go away.
At least I can find MY events. Here’s where I’ll be TOMORROW (SATURDAY, JUNE 26):
Harper Collins Fiction Breakfast, 7:15-9:00 AM, W Hotel, Altitude Room, 515 15th Street NW
Ascendant Galley signing in Harper booth (#2512), 3:00-3:30 PM, Walter E. Washington Convention Center, 801 Mount Vernon Place, NW
See how easy and clear that all was?
I’m feeling good this morning. First of all, I have some great news to announce about the secret society girl series:
Turkish rights to Diana Peterfreund’s SECRET SOCIETY GIRL, UNDER THE ROSE, & RITES OF SPRING (BREAK), have sold to Artemis, by Whitney Lee of the Fielding Agency on behalf of Elaine Spencer at the Knight Agency.
Savvy readers will note that this little deal does not include Tap & Gown. Yet. Savvier readers will be just as excited as I was by the name of my new publisher. Seriously, how awesome is that?
Next bit of great news: both of my anthologies out this year (Kiss Me Deadly and Zombies vs. Unicorns) are coming out as audio books! I’m so excited! I’ve never had an audio version of one of my books before.
Next bit of great news: I’ve received some advanced reviews of ASCENDANT and they have made me all happy:
April of Good Books and Wine says:
“Ascendant is a direct sequel to the super-awesome Rampant, which I actually really enjoyed. With Ascendant, the intros and exposition is pretty much out of the way so the book gets right on down to business. There is absolutely more sexual tension, more unicorns, more action, and a lot of moral dilemma. I loved it! What was so cool is how Peterfreund made her events grey areas. By this I mean things were taken out of a black and white context and given complexity and layers. I guess it’s awesome how we get to see two sides of a coin.
“I actually enjoyed Ascendant way more than Rampant. I thought Astrid really came into her own. Confession corner: After I finished I really had trouble finding a book to read. I mean, what’ll measure up to that kind of awesome?”
She also reviewed Rampant recently, AND she is giving away copies of BOTH right now! Go sign up to win!
Cassandra Yorgey of examiner.com also snagged an advanced review copy of ASCENDANT at BEA, and reviews it (along with a plea for a third book) here:
“[A] prominent theme throughout Ascendant is how we treat animals. Animal conservation and medical testing are issues that Astrid is on the fence about. She struggles with these things, often bordering each side of the fence trying desperately to reconcile necessities with human decency. And even if you don’t care one whit about those things, there are still killer freaking unicorns, which is awesome socks no matter how you wrap it up.
“Ascendant is one of those sequels that is so good I actually convinced myself it was part of a trilogy, even though there is in fact no third book under contract.”
Also on the rampage about the scheduling of the third book, we have Miss Havoc of Cry Havoc reviews, who was apparently so devastated by my 140-word tweeted reply to her about not having a third book under contract yet that she actually KNOCKED A STAR off her review of ASCENDANT ::sniff:: and prompted a few emails into my inbox on the matter: “First I just want to rant a little about how there ISN’T GOING TO BE A THIRD BOOK! At least not anytime soon. Which really upset me ’cause I love me some Killer Unicorns! That also had to bring Ascendant down to a 4 star, because if this is how it ends…it just isn’t enough. I think we need to start a petition so that we can get some more Killer Unicorns!
“OK, on to the review! Loved it! Want to give it 5 stars.”
Since I’ve gotten enough emails/twitters/blog discussions/random assumptions on the subject, I feel I should make what is as formal a statement as I can make at this time, namely: I would like to write a third killer unicorn book, and I currently have a two book contract with Harper Collins to write more YA books. The first book in this contract, which I am working on now and will be out in 2011, is a post-apocalyptic retelling of Jane Austen’s Persuasion. The second book (which will probably be a 2012 release) is undecided as of yet. It may be killer unicorns #3. It may not.
No one is the “bad guy” here. I am not holding killer unicorn stories for ransom (I have three coming out this year!). Additionally, Harper Teen is hugely in support of Rampant and Ascendant. Rampant will be out in paperback this fall (for the low, low price of $8.99), along with the hardcover of Ascendant, which was featured prominently at BEA and is going to be featured prominently again at ALA this weekend. We also have a lot of cool promotional things planned for the fall.
So, to answer the questions I keep getting about what you can do to make sure there is a third unicorn book, all I can say is, tell your friends about Rampant. Tell your local bookseller to stock it. Tell your local librarian to order a copy for her collection. Buy a copy of the paperback (for the low, low price of $8.99) when it comes out this fall. And just be patient, and we can revisit this issue in six to eight months. Think of this like a TV show. I don’t know if I’m “renewed” — I’m still mid-season! (And yes, I am aware of what my options are, one of them being that I’ve got a blank book under contract.)
Back to the great reviews!
Rene Kirkpatrick, a bookseller at Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park, Washington, is a fan of both books in the series:
“But, are the myths true? Are the unicorns all blood hungry, savage beasts? What about the people who are searching for the remedy, the cure for all disease? Who do you trust when those you want to trust have motives that don’t match yours? Were there nunneries filled with women warriors dating from the time of Diana who could keep the world safe from harm? Wouldn’t it be cool if there were a reason for them to still be viable? Man (and woman)-eating, not fluffy, no pink or purple manes or tales, unicorns; maybe not, huh?
“These books are really good. They are humorous and deal with a lot of the same questions that girls who aren’t unicorn hunters have to deal with. There is high romance, a little low romance, big questions about certain parts of life and how valuable these things can be, big adventure, strong and brave women. Good travel books, too, especially if you are on your way to Rome or France; good descriptions of the nightlife and tourist worlds. They are really good summer books. Ages 14 and up. (HarperTeen. $17.99. Rampant is available now, and Ascendant will be available in October! Ooh. October! Put it on your list, you’re going to want it when you’re done with Rampant.)”
W00T! I love booksellers who love killer unicorns.
And librarians. Seriously, this weekend at ALA, I must meet Betsy Bird (who apparently I know through two different degrees of separation?). Look what she had to say about ASCENDANT in her recent Harper fall 2010 preview:
“In an era of Zombies Vs. Unicorns, it seems appropriate that Diana Peterfreund’s killer unicorn book Rampant should get itself a sequel. Ascendant keeps up the fast pace of its predecessor and Peterfreund has been studying unicorn legends from around the world extensively for these books. Personally, I think Harper Collins is losing a huge opportunity with these covers. If you put a big, ugly, slavering unicorn with blood dripping from its mouth on the jacket, those copies will sell sell sell faster than you can print them up. Oh, and for those of you wondering what else Ms. Peterfreund has up her sleeve, I have five words for you: Post-apocalyptic retelling of Persuasion.”
Gotta say, Betsy, I too am disappointed they couldn’t squeeze a unicorn on that cover. But then again, prettyprettyAstridhair. It’s so hard to put everything that this book is on one cover. Maybe in a dozen years, when my series is recognized as a modern classic, I’ll get new gory covers. Then Roman ruin covers. Then chem lab covers. The possibilities are endless. 
And to wrap this up (and then go pick up my car which is finally ready, yay!) I have this lovely review of RAMPANT from a livejournaler called hamsterwoman:
“You know how, in about 90% of my reviews, I will get to the main character and say, “I liked [him/her] OK” or “Him/her I was ‘meh’ on”? Well, ha! Because I freaking LOVE Astrid Llewelyn. She is easily my favorite character in the book, my favorite thing about the book (and I really liked the book), and there isn’t even any question about it. Astrid is awesome!
“Astrid is a real scientist in training. Not only is she interested in science and actively going after becoming a doctor (volunteering in the hospital) even though she is just 16, but she is believable in this role. She has a scientist’s mind, analyzing inputs and details even in high-stress situations — e.g. noticing [snipped for spoilers]. And she thinks in terms of behaviour patterns and hypotheses, and she resents unscientific ideas, like that particular skills run in families, and is frustrated by the others’ reluctance to try an examine the unscientific but apparently true effects scientifically. And she stages actual scientific experiments with her fellow hunters, and uses words like “ambient unicorn influence.” (In retrospect, even at the very beginning her thoughts on her relationship with the douchy boyfriend feel kind of scientist-like — she is trying to maximize the benefits of dating him while minimizing how much groping she lets him get away with.
“I can’t readily express how awesome I find this, but it is. I’ve seen/read quite a few attempts to portray young geeks/science types, and so many of them end up feeling like caricatures to me or like shallow “my nerdness is pasted on” decals, or like someone’s fairly uninformed idea of what would-be scientists are like. And there’s none of that here — Astrid’s the real thing. She thinks and acts and argues in ways that are familiar and true to me. People talk about having different kinds of female heroines for girls to identify with, and there are tomboy types and girly girls and girls out to prove things to the world and girls looking to find themselves and to learn the meaning of love and friendship or whatever, but I don’t think I’ve actually encountered a female heroine before that I could identify with as closely as with Astrid. There have been plenty that I wanted to be like or think I was like, but for sheer identification, yeah, Astrid is pretty much it. And, yes, it’s quite nice to have that, even as an adult.”
I really need to start printing these babies out and pasting them up on my wall or something for those days when I feel like I suck and can’t write consistent characterization to save my life. Because one of Astrid’s core conflicts is trying to resolve the science that she knows is true with the magic that she must, as an astute observer, recognize. I hope with Ascendant that I’ve successfully evolved that inner struggle and kept Astrid a scientist, even if she happens to be a magical one. (I think Cassandra thinks I did.)
And now I’m going to shut up before I start in with the spoilers…
Another weekend of home improvement. We’re really starting to get somewhere on a few of our projects. I’m very excited. As you may know, this is our first house, and given that we’ve never really stayed in one place for too long before, it never seemed worth it to put a lot of money and effort into design and decor. Then, when we bought this place, we’ve had to work hard to break out of that mindset. We’ve been in our house for almost two years now, and we seem to do designing in fits and starts. (Luckily, I’ve been told this is the right way to do it — one room at a time.) The first winter we lived here, we bought some furniture (this is what happens when you move from a one-bedroom apartment into a two story house!) and some bathroom accessories, lights and — my favorite purchase — an antique hall tree.
Then, in 2009, we faced a money crunch, and the decor thing went on the back burner. (However, I did create my garden, so that was a total win!)
But this year we’ve jumped back into the fray. A new garage door! Deck furniture and a grill! A flat-screen TV and a blue-ray player! New shelves for the kitchen cabinets! (The person who lived here before us installed these giant, cavernous all new kitchen cabinets and then failed to put any shelves in them so they’d be, you know, USEFUL.) We’ve also ordered some furniture for the other bedroom (no more shall we jokingly call it “the dressing room” because it’s where we’ve been keeping our clothes). The all-white walls that I’m sure seemed like a good idea to the previous owner and her real-estate agent are beginning to drive me bonkers, so we’re probably going to be painting. I’d like to get some of the art we own (other than our marriage contract) up on the walls. I made a new spice rack to free up cabinet space (seriously, previous owner, you may have put in a totally new kitchen, but not one with particularly useful cabinets).
We’ve reorganized the bedroom furniture and the biggest change of all has been the basement, which we’ve completely cleaned out (I thought the recycling guys might have had a heart-attack when they saw our front stoop that week), reorganized (I have 15 boxes of books) and prepared for a transformation into a rec room. We’re going to put in a big, comfy sectional couch, a second TV and entertainment center, and an entire wall of built-in bookshelves (see above, re: my books). I’m super-excited.
This weekend, I bought curtains ($4 each!), a rug ($50 on clearance), and painted a $35 dresser I bought off craigslist. I am not much of a painter, so I’m more than a little pleased by how well it all turned out. When I go online to look up stuff about painting furniture, most people seem to be obsessed with getting a “lacquer-like finish” and it makes me wonder if there’s something wrong with me, because I actually like real wood furniture to look like, you know — real wood. Not laminate. I like a brush mark. I think it looks good. Am I alone here?
The garden is looking good, too. I’ve got a bunch of chili peppers, and finally some of my cherry tomatoes are ripe. I’m sure I’ll be drowning in them by next week. The squash are growing, though we’ve only had male zucchini blossoms so far. The cucumbers are still in blossoms. The basil is fantastic — I think we’ve eaten more of that than anything else. The lettuce, sadly, was a bust. I think I’ll pass on that next year. We got one (giant) salad’s worth out of it, but then it bolted and got huge and tough and bitter.
So those are my projects. I know some of you have been tackling home improvement stuff recently as well. How’s that going?
Speaking of “home improvements” — have you noticed all the work I’ve done on the site? I’ve updated the home page with all my 2010 releases, and there’s info about my short fiction as well as ASCENDANT all over the place. Enjoy!
I appreciate all the comments telling me to relax or meditate or forget about work… you guys are sweet, really, I was, however, hoping for more of a drill-sergeant-like approach. Like “unless I write 1,000 words a day, I have to [insert humiliating spectacle here].”
Come on, people. Let’s be creative!
Because hte week’s almost over and I am growing a bit concerned about my lack of output. I am having structural issues that I know I just need to ignore for now and fix later, but they keep staring me in the face every time I open my file.
Oh, and I’m not getting my car back for another week. AGH! Poor Nikita! I miss her.
I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.
– Douglas Adams
Last month, flush with the glow of working out a particularly thorny plot problem in PAP (seriously, Jane Austen, did you never consider the trouble you’d give me a few hundred years down the line?) I told my editor over shrimp tacos and strawberry ice cream floats that I’d have the draft of PAP done by the time I saw her at ALA.
Which is in 10 days.
Which is, I see now with the 20/20 hindsight that a few weeks of dealing with much-needed-to-be-dealt-with stuff on the homefront affords me, is so not going to happen. (Yes, editor, dear, I am pulling on the hairshirt right now.)
Now I’m thinking mid-July. And that’s if I really bust my butt the next few weeks.
(But seriously, crap keeps coming up. Like that car accident yesterday. I mean, I’m fine, but my whole morning was spent dealing with talking to the insurance company and getting Nikita towed and calling Sailor Boy a half-dozen times to assure him that I was fine, and by then I was so stressed I couldn’t even get it together enough to make a few paltry decisions about ordering bookmarks, let alone all important decisions about whether that adjective belongs in the third sentence after the scene break or not.)
So in the interest of butt-busting, I am here to make myself accountable to you, fine readers of the blog. Any suggestion on what I should do? I’m good with dares.
Today we have a very special treat: a guest blogger. I hardly ever have a guest blogger here, but I think I should start doing so more often. All the fun of blogging, none of the pressure of staring at that damned blinking cursor. (Ah, Hemingway, your white bull has been replaced by something even more phallic).
But I digress. Today we are visited by the utterly awesome Saundra Mitchell, whose debut novel, SHADOWED SUMMER, knocked off my flip flops when I read it last year. (I wasn’t wearing socks because her descriptions of a steamy Southern summer were so spot on I felt like I was getting heatstroke just turning the pages.) It’s a very creepy ghost story, and to my genre-loving heart’s eternal delight, it’s been racking up the award nominations and wins ever since it was published. (I am the girl who defiantly turned in a ghost story as a final project after the instructor of the one creative writing class she ever took sneered to another student that he did not accept genre works in class.) This book was an ALAN nominee, a Junior Library Guild pick, on the VOYA summer reading list, and up for an Edgar Alan Poe award. Y’all — read it.
Oh, how I love it when the ghosts win, and when savvy genre writers like Saundra show the world that family secrets and coming-of-age can fit perfectly into stories that go bump in the hot, humid night.
Today, Saundra is here to promote hte release of the SHADOWED SUMMER paperback and to talk about one of my favorite topics: strong, kick-ass heroines. And — I blush to type it — she is talking specifically about Astrid. Take it away, Saundra!
__________________________
INDEPENDENT WOMAN
Astrid Llewelyn is the ideal kind of awesome. I found myself thinking this often while reading RAMPANT on a train toward Chicago. I forgot to be nervous about the trip, because I was so wrapped up in watching Astrid grapple with her unexpected destiny.
Now, there are a lot of awesome female characters in fiction and in film. Gwen from Merlin is awesome. Hermione Granger from Harry Potter is awesome. Katara from The Last Airbender is awesome.
And Astrid is awesome, not because she’s perfect at everything, or gets it right all the time, or makes ideal decisions–but because she’s not, and she doesn’t. In fact, her reaction to discovering that her mother’s seemingly dippy attachment to killer unicorn stories is true is one of the best portrayals of dumbstruck incredulity I’ve ever seen.
In short, Astrid is exactly what a real girl would be, if confronted with an Ancient Destiny, a Mystical World, and Her Part In It: conflicted, and confused. And I love that she doesn’t rebel just for the joy of it. When she comes around to her mission, it’s not for the convenience of the plot.
Even though RAMPANT is full of mythology and mystical creatures, it’s completely honest. I believe in it, and that’s why I eagerly await September, when I can dip back into this amazing universe with ASCENDANT. It’s why Astrid Llewelyn is the ideal kind of awesome for me:
She’s real.
______________________
Hey, guys. It’s Diana again. So, who wants to read SHADOWED SUMMER NOW? I hereby provide you with six easypeasy ways to do so:
- Buy it though Indiebound at your local independent bookstore
- Buy it at the Book Depository (international shipping!)
- Buy it at Powell’s
- Head to Amazon
- Borrow it from your local library (Since it’s a JLG selection. you can find it at a lot of libraries)
- (I know this is the one you’re waiting for) — win it here, today!
All you have to do is leave your name in the comments. And yes, I know i never announced winners from the ASCENDANT ARC giveaway contest. Oops, sorry. But I will on MONDAY, as well as announce winners for this contest. That means you have until Monday to enter this contest and the other one.
Have at it!
We’ve been all about the home improvements Chez Diana of late. Spent the weekend clearing out the basement in preparation for turning it into a family room (with an entire wall of built in bookshelves, be still my beating heart!). We’ve also been rearranging things upstairs — getting new furniture, looking at painting options. I redid the shelves in my kitchen cabinets because I was so frustrated by the utter lack of storage (The previous owner of the house installed new cabinets, but failed to put shelves in them. What’s up with that?) Next up: installing a pot rack and a spice rack and a bookshelf for my cookbooks. I think I’m also going to be installing shelves to display my collection of gorgeous teaware.
We got a freaking awesome new steampunk-nautical wall clock:
And of course, I’ve been working on my garden:
Isn’t that insane? I mean, seriously, compare it to my last attempt. So, what do we have in this monstrosity?
- Yellow summer squash
- Zucchini
- Spinach
- Arugula
- Boston lettuce
- Red lettuce
- Marigolds
- Oregano
- Sage
- Basil, basil, basil!
- Cucumbers
- Approximately one metric ton of tomato plants
So for those of you following along at home, that’s the basil over on the far right, the zucchini immediately to the left, all the salad greens front and center, and then squash and cucumber all mixed up on the far left. In the back are the killer tomatoes. Everything (but the greens and herbs) is staked and trellised to within an inch of its life, as I’m clearly growing vertically instead of crawling vines.
The tomatoes are a shock to me. See, I’m such a newbie gardener, all I knew was that tomatoes don’t reseed, so I went out and bought another five tomato plants this year (sun gold grapes, which are phenomenally delicious, and beefsteaks). Well, what I didn’t realize was that though they don’t last more than a year, they are self seeding, and I might have lost a tomato or two (or two dozen) off the vines last year. So, even after Sailor Boy tilled the soil for me, I wound up with something more like a dozen tomato plants, and newbie gardener and recovering black thumb that I am, I didn’t have the heart to yank any of them. Which is why I have a tomato in teh middle of my squash patch. I even have tomato plants growing OUTSIDE the raised bed. Because of the aforementioned tilling, I have no idea what kind of tomatoes these plants are going to end up producing. Could be more sungolds, or black cherokees, or plum, which never did produce last year. We shall see, and soon.
You may recall that last year I lost all my squash and zucchini to powdery mildew. Luckily, there is no sign of that yet this year (knock wood) which I think is due to my taking out a tree (it fell over) that often shaded and dripped on the garden. Said tree removal is also probably the reason my garden is so insane these days. And the basil is doing WAY better in-ground than it did in pots on my porch. (I may have to try it with my struggling mint as well, though everyone tells me I’d be crazy to plant mint in the ground.)
There are also bell peppers in there, but I fear they are too shaded by the massive squash leaves to survive.
I also have some potted lovelies — strawberries and hot peppers:
I find it very satisfactory to garden, especially right now, because it’s the favorite activity of the main character of my current book. I feel very conected to her when I’m up to my elbows in soil.
Any home projects keeping you busy?
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