blog tour of RADIANT ROAD blogging madness blogs! bloggity!

Maybe I am JUST NOT a blogger, is that a possibility? Why can't I keep up here? 

Anyway THIS post is really just going to be a constantly-updated list of kindly sites hosting my The Radiant Road blog-tour blogs. Updated as they happen! So you can't say I'm not blogging! SHUT UP! STOP SAYING THAT!

Okay here goes:

O RLY?

• At Muggle.net: Me on the longggg and twisty road to publication for this crazy book. They posted a lovely and thoughtful review of the book as well.

• At Winter Haven Books: An amusing (well: to us!) game of "Would You Rather?" Would I rather have dinner with a werewolf or a vampire? You're probably wrong.

• At WordSpelunking (motto: "books and cupcakes" -- I can fully support that mission statement): A list of my ten favorite things as illustrated by gifs! I got to use my favorite gif, which is the one up there. WordSpelunking also posted a very generous review of The Radiant Road.

• At Dark Faerie Tales: a book soundtrack for The Radiant Road--music I listened to while I was writing to put me in that right (or write) place. They also have a smart and lovely review up.

• At YABibliophile: An interview I quite enjoyed!

• At Alexa Loves Books: My one or two (okay maybe five or six) biggest inspirations as a writer and how they shaped The Radiant Road.

• At the Penguin Teen Tumblr: A bunch of amusing questions, including "If you could spend one year on a deserted island with one character from literature, who would you choose?" to which I have a weird answer.

• At Live to Read: A playlist of songs my main character Clare might listen to.

• At BookPage: An interview in which Cat Acree asked some awfully perceptive questions about the book.

• At Gone Pecan: 25 Random Things About me. For some reason I LOVED doing this. You won't BELIEVE #13.

• At Across the Words: A very cool interview with photos of Irish places that inspired me.

These next aren't strictly part of the blog tour but happened around the same time:

• At WordMothers: A nice interview about my book, process, writing room, what inspires me.

• At The Page 69 Test: I did a brief (and fun) analysis of page 69 of The Radiant Road and how it relates to the rest of the book. Among other things, it turned out to be the only page where the book title appears!

• At The Writing Barn, an Austin TREASURE, I sing the praises of the Barn and also a song of myself.

new book gorgeous cover hi how are you

argghhh I broke my own rule about posting monthly and missed June AND July! But it was a mad July with visiting and visitors and lots of work and ANYWAY.

The main thing, Danny, is two things (<---quote from a long ago play I was in): 1) my new book, The Radiant Road, has a gorgeous cover with art by Scott McKowen; and 2) there will be an audio version, recorded by the Listening Library, which does all the best young-reader books. To say I am psyched doesn't even.

Try to tell me that is not magnificent. I am the luckiest author with covers EVER.

It's about adventure and making art and finding courage and figuring out love maybe possibly? (or maybe just liking a lot?) and saving worlds and all that. Read all about it. 

In less giddy news, I've also written a couple more Cabinet of Curiosities stories this summer: one very short one about tiny creepy crawlies that are ALL OVER YOU! RIGHT NOW! called "How It Feels When They Come"; and another about hikers who don't get back before dark, like they were warned to do, called "Night Walkers."

And I'm working on some other stuff, and oh I just started rehearsing an excellent play called The Quarry, by Greg Pierce, which will go up at Hyde Park Theatre late next month.

But more on that and other things next post. For now let's all just sit around and stare dreamily at that cover.

a long haunting

Hey all, all three dozen of ya. How are you today? It's rainy here, has been rainy for weeks*, and I am feeling meditative today. Keep thinking about how fast life goes from this . . .

to this: 

In the case of those flowers, both of which are on my magnolia tree today, the process takes about three days. So I guess I should be grateful that the ones I love are not magnolia flowers or mayflies.

(BTW, I am talking about mortality. not loss of cuteness. Are you kidding me, I look fantastic in slowly-decaying brown.)

So anyway but good news! My second whole book (the Cabinet is only a quarter mine), a YA fantasy, long long long in the making, is now in copyedits. So it is real. And it has a title finally: The Radiant Road. And I hope to be able to share something or other else about it here soon, maybe even a publication date. [EDIT: no sooner posted than answered--my husband saw on Amazon that it's scheduled for January 19, 2016. The writer is ever the last to know! but very happy to know now.]

Also I wrote a Cabinet story this month called "What Caroline Said." It is based on a real newspaper story about a haunting--and I researched the real family, which was maybe kind of weird of me?--and then made up a bunch of lies to go with it. I like this one. Hope you do, too.

*Weeks of rain is good--we've been in drought for many years Also it's so pretty out, all that gray and soft light.

writing is hard

Long time no see. I was doing a tricky revision for most of February, and then I was in Ireland for a couple of weeks, researching my second book. (That period should really be a !, which is more how I feel about being able to take that trip.) It was gorgeous and terrifying--the left-hand driving at highway speeds on tiny shoulderless roads was the terror--and tremendously useful.

Anyway. I am now on a mission to post on this blog at least once a month -- I realize that's a low bar, shut up: I am like a nervous second grader, I need ACHIEVABLE GOALS to boost my confidence. 

I am also going to tweet more often. Yeah you've been warned. 

The point of both exercises is to meet writers and readers. I feel like there's this giant Intenet cocktail party going on and I'm sort of hovering at the edge of people's tables, eavesdropping, hoping they'll notice me; and then if they look over at me, I'm quickly looking away. Because I am 13.

Anyway: so more blogging! I want to talk about stories. But for now, some Ireland pictures.

Ross Castle in Killarney National Forest. I have to say well done (or Fair play to you! more Irish-ishly) to my super-cheap Canon point & shoot.

That was seriously the view from my room at this B&B in Dingle, Pax Guest House. Fair play to you iPhone camera (it gets jealous.)

 That's a two-way road, just FYI.