This one over at Heather Zundel’s blog. (She also reviews, with a few spoilers.)
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Today at Genreality, I’m talking about the unexpected benefits of setting goals that are out of your control. You know, like the overwhelming joy and surprise of reaching them. First, an apology: I fell off posting my monthly goal check in around September. Oops. Here’s what happened: In the beginning of October, I got super busy with Queenie’s birthday party and a visit from my mom, and then I went to Florida, and then November and NaNoWriMo happened, and now… here we are. How was my year in review? In January, things were slow. I was in a sort of limbo, half on maternity leave, half trying to get back in the swing of things. I was caring for an infant full time and trying as hard as I could to squeeze in a little work on the side. However, I did write “Foundlings,” (Brave New Love, out February 2012)which was the first thing I’d written since having Q. In February and March, I was finally back in the swing of things after I found help for Queenie’s daytime care. I wrote “Stray Magic” (Under My Hat: Tales from the Cauldron, out fall of 2012) and finished the draft of For Darkness Shows the Stars. I also got the revision letter for the latter, and rewrote the ending. And did my taxes. April was more about home life than writing life, as we redid several areas of the house, finally giving me that wall of bookshelves I’d always wanted, a new china cabinet, and a new office for Sailor Boy. Also, Q started solids and I planted my garden. On the writing front, I went to the Annapolis book festival and kept pounding away at FDSTS revisions. In May, I got a new short story offer, finished the revisions, dog sat for my parents, worked in my garden, reorganized my kitchen, and spent lots of quality time with my new little family. That trend continued into June, where in addition to the usual summer family/garden/home diversions, I got a new non-fiction essay offer. In July, we had a ton of fun with Q — who loves to swim — and my crazy tomato garden, and worked on the outline for my new book so I could dive into it in August during Camp NaNoWriMo, which I did, until I got the copyedits for FDSTS, which I proceeded to kill, and got some foreign offers for a bunch of my books. In September, I wrote short story #4 and signed a hwole bunch of new contracts. In October, I went to the NINC conference in Florida, planned out a new idea, wrote “Hunger Game Theory” for The Girl Who Was On Fire: Movie Edition (out in January), threw Q a wildly awesome birthday party, and watched her take her first steps while dressed up as an Ewok for Halloween. In November, I did NaNoWriMo and wrote half my new book. I had a super mini writing retreat with writing retreat queen Carrie Ryan in Charlotte — during which she helped me fix my heroine and I helped her figure out an ending for one of her short stories, before we took off for Y’AllFest in Charleston, SC. When I got home, I threw myself into the marketing ramp-up for FDSTS. This pattern continued into December: working on new book, marketing for new release. And the big list for 2011:
I know where I’m falling down, and it’s the two Rs: reading and Rio. So my next year’s goals are definitely going to include some of that! Stay tuned tomorrow, when I share my hopes for 2012! Today I had the privilege of being interviewed on Marissa’s blog, Many to Read Before I Sleep, in which I talk about my chidhood literary crushes and BFFS, and a few points of trivia you may or may not know. Check it out! Gee, wonder when I went out of town to YA’LLFest:
Back on the wagon and trying to catch up. Go, NaNoWriMo! This weekend, I’m at YA’LLfest in Charleston, SC with a TON of other authors. See the full schedule here. I’m actually going to be on TWO panels, despite this earlier schedule: 4 PM DON’T DYSTOPIAN: Cinema Room, Theater Beth Revis (Across the Universe) Kim Derting (The Pledge) Diana Peterfreund (Rampant) Eliot Schrefer (School for Dangerous Girls) Moderator: Sarah Rees Brennan (The Demon’s Lexicon)
5 pm ZOMBIE ATTACK PANEL • Ballroom, Theater Dave Stohl (Head of Worldwide Studios, Activision Video Games) Carrie Ryan (The Forest of Hands and Teeth) Diana Peterfreund (Zombies vs. Unicorns) Moderator: Margaret Stohl (Beautiful Creatures) Come see me, y’all! Yesterday I promised to tell you all about how a music video inspired the cover for For Darkness Shows the Stars. But that’s not entirely true. When we last left our tale, I had been sending pictures of starscapes to my editor in hopes that it would inspire the art department. Time passed, as time does when you’re waiting to hear about the publication of a book that’s been moved back three spans because you went and had yourself a baby that totally threw off your production schedule. Which is to say: like a glacier. Then, one day, I was watching TV, and I saw a music video. The music video for the song, “E.T.” by Katy Perry. And, in this music video was an image that I loved. An image that I thought would make a very fitting cover for my novel. It was not this one, in case you’re wondering:
Too much nudity (this is a JANE AUSTEN-INSPIRED YA, y’all) and too many weird faun legs. Nor was it this one:
Because… wow, the hair. And oosh, the makeup. And of course, blue Kanye. I mean, AWESOME, right, but not really in keeping with my farm girl heroine. Anyway, I digress. There was an image in there that I found really inspiring. And I said to myself. “I would like the cover of For Darkness Shows the Stars to look like this Kay Perry video.” I thought to myself, I should send this along to my editor. And my husband, Sailor Boy, who is a wise and practical man, said, “Darling, think about this for a minute. Katy Perry is a paragon of bubblegum pop. She has been known to dress like this:
“She is not, for whatever reason, regarded as highly as an artiste as another current bubblegum-pop shilling, outrageously-costumed rockstar. (Even though you, Diana, actually prefer Katy’s music.) I am sure this non naked-butt-nor-faun-leg-nor-blue besunglassed-Kanye image that you claim to have found during the ‘E.T.’ video is lovely and classy and all that, but do you really think the best thing to say to your editor about your book, your lyrical, partly-epistolary, layered tome about class struggles and social justice and genetic engineering set against a post-apocalyptic landscape, a book that you based on a classic work of the Western canon, is ‘I want the cover to look like a Katy Perry video?’” And I looked at my husband and knew he was right. Later that day, I got in the car and turned on the radio, and lo, what was playing, but “E.T.” And these are the lyrics I heard: They say be afraid
You’re from a whole other world Divorced from the video (in which Katy seems to be the alien; you know, with the faun legs and the gills and the flying through space), the words took on a whole new meaning, one I thought resonated with Elliot. (Yes, these are the things I think about when I’m in the car listening to pop music. About whether or not the lyrics match the mindset of my main characters.) Like the singer, Elliot has been taught to fear the future, and the person who embodies it for her. (In passing, in college, I once wrote an academic analysis of a Shania Twain song. Pop is poetry, people.) I could not get the song out of my head. I mentally added it to my ongoing For Darkness Shows the Stars playlist. When I next spoke to my editor, I thought to myself, “Hey, Kristin’s got a good sense of humor. She’s young. She’s hip. She’ll laugh if I point out how the a Katy Perry song remind me of my book.” And, during that conversation, I was all, “Heh, heh, you’ll get such a laugh out of this — I mean, I know it sounds so silly and all, but I was watching the music video and I saw this one image, and I thought, wow, wouldn’t that be awesome on the cover? Hee, hee, a Katy Perry video.” I sent her the screenshot. Silence. Then, “Actually, Diana, this kind of does look like the comp for the cover.” These are the thoughts that proceeded to go through my head: What? Awesome! Wait, what? Oh no, my cover is going to look like a Katy Perry video. Be careful what you wish for, folks. That’s all I’m saying. A few days later, as I was hiking through the woods with Rio and my friend Erica Ridley, I got an email from my editor with said comp attached. “I can’t look, Erica,” I said, thrusting my smartphone away from me. “You do it.” She looked. And then she passed it over to me. It was hard to see, on the phone, on the trail, in the glare of the bright sunlight. But it was very promising, which is great for a comp (which is publisher-speak for a “mock-up” of the cover, using the art, but usually unphotoshopped, and without the final fonts). And, yes, it looked a little bit like the image from the Katy Perry video. Tomorrow, I’ll be showing y’all the cover, and you can judge for yourself. Yes, tomorrow. Because I’m a terrible tease.
On the radio this morning, the DJ was talking about how there are now fantasy bowhunting leagues, like fantasy football leagues. How neat is that? Of course, I already have a fantasy bowhunting league. It consists of Astrid, Cory, Valerija, Melissende, Grace, Dorcas, Ursula, Ilesha, Zelda, and Wen. I’m sorry for my lack of substantive posts of late. I’m hard at work. I’m writing a new story (a unicorn story), and my new book, codename PIMP (which is hilarious — the codename, not the book, though the book does have some LOLs in it), and planning Queenie’s birthday party. I know, I can’t believe she’s almost one year old, either. Mostly spoiler-free:
Season 2:
That’s as far as I’ve gotten. I only did one disk of S2. But it’s interesting to see my take on it now, after a few years away. I don’t love Logan as much. But I find Duncan even creepier and more boring than I did before. Some of you may have already seen the announcement, but my pal Carrie Ryan has sold an anthology of short stories. From Publisher’s Marketplace:
I am also in said anthology, and so is: Heather Brewer My contribution is called “Burned Bright,” and it’s about a girl and a boy and the end of the world. And if you think you know what that means, I promise you, you don’t. So that’s fall 2012. In spring of 2012, you’ll see “Foundlings” in BRAVE NEW LOVE, and in summer of 2012, “Stray Magic” in UNDER MY HAT. All I know about this last one is the release date is August, 2012, and some of my fellow contributors include Garth Nix, Jane Yolen, Tim Pratt, Ellen Kushner, Francis Hardinge, Patricia McKillip, and Mary Rickert. All three are stand alone short stories, set in completely different worlds. FORETOLD will be my second antho with Meg Cabot and my fourth with Carrie, since she’s also in BRAVE NEW LOVE. UNDER MY HAT will be my second antho with Garth Nix, and my second compiled by Jonathan Strahan, who also did the Best SF&F one. There’s also TWO more, but all the deets on those are still a secret… except: they are unicorn stories. You’re welcome.
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