Update-arooni

Life is crazy, isn't it? Blog taking a back seat to kids and books. Can't seem to find anything extra to devote to thoughtful blog posts. Here's just a general update.

I don't have any Austenland: The Movie news, but here's a short video that shows the set and interviews with Bret McKenzie, JJ Feild (who, I just read, is expecting a baby with girlfriend Neve Campbell!), Ricky Whittle, and Georgia King. I don't even know who did this video. Also, Stephenie Meyer put an update about the movie on her website. I think I tweeted both these things but never blogged them.

Sending a 5th-ish draft of my current book to my editor today. She and Dean read 2/3 of the first draft several years ago, and then I put aside this one (formerly called Daisy Danger Brown) to work on Midnight in Austenland and Palace of Stone. I'm really liking it right now. I love working on it. It's getting huge, though, at 145,000 words. I've been cutting like crazy, having trimmed 40,000 words in large chunks and many thousands more in smaller chunks. Add and delete, add and delete. I'll do at least seven more drafts before its done.

Princess Academy: Palace of Stone will be out in August. There's a cover out there somewhere but its not final, so I'm waiting for a final version to post it. It will have a photograph to match the style of the Princess Academy paperback.

I'm very excited about The Princess in Black! No illustrator yet, but I will post as soon as the publisher makes the choice. This book series was directly inspired by our kids. It's been fun to write for them for the first time.

Writing for Charity was amazing! Thanks to all who came. We raised a good amount of money and will be able to buy a lot of books for kids in disadvantaged areas. There will be another conference next year.