A bit of mincemeat

In a few days, I'm touring again, visiting Chicago and Milwaukee areas. Check out my events page for more info. It's always nice to meet squeetusers on the road!

I continue to fight the good fight in whatever time I scrape together for writing. I have twelve pages of notes on what I need to change in the new grown-up book. Twelve pages of notes. That's oodles. I'd better get crackin'! forest born is inching closer and closer to first draft completion, over a year after I began it. That book (Bayern #4) is my first priority now that the rapunzel sequel is completed. Yes, you heard right--that elusive rapunzel sequel script is finally done! Not that you'll see it illustrated and in stores until, oh, 2010. That one was a bugger. We spent a year writing it. For a short book, that's quite a lot. It just wasn't working, we had a fatal plotting flaw from the beginning that was impeding the whole process. Finally this summer, we got some great feedback from my editor and Nate our illustrator and made some drastic calls. We cut half of it entirely and rewrote from scratch, making other major changes as well to the parts we'd kept. What a difference that made. Don't be afraid to cut big! If you cut and rewrite and the original was better, then you can always go back. But it usually isn't. If you think a section is bad, then it's bad. No fear, my friends. No fear.

And happy happy, joy joy, book of a thousand days is garnering some outstanding reviews! School Library Journal, Publisher's Weekly, and Booklist all gave it a star (how the review publications mark their standout books.) The independent bookstores across the US chose it as a Book Sense Pick for fall. It's on to a second printing, and the response from fans has been breathlessly exciting. I'm so thrilled Dashti is being loved and her story is finding a home.