Sarah J. Maas

I Sold Another Series!!! (And a CROWN OF MIDNIGHT Giveaway!)

2013-05-13T18:27:02Z

Okay, so I’m just going to save you the build-up and say…

I SOLD ANOTHER SERIES TO BLOOMSBURY!

For those of you who have been following me/this blog for a few years, you might know it as A COURT OF THORNS AND ROSES—my New Adult fantasy retelling/blending of "Beauty and the Beast," "Tam Lin," and "East of the Sun, West of the Moon," where “Beauty” is a huntress, and the “Beast” is a Faerie Lord whose lands have been enslaved by a tyrannical queen.

For those of you who have NO idea what I’m talking about, you can find a (very rough) summary on my website here. Or, even better, check out my Pinterest board for ACOTAR, which gives you a wayyy better sense of the vibe of the series.

SO, here are some quick facts about the A COURT OF THORNS AND ROSES series:

-It is New Adult romantic fantasy (YAY Team New Adult!!).

-It will be out in Winter 2015. But that doesn't mean an end to the THRONE OF GLASS series! It just means you can expect two books a year from yours truly starting early 2015. (WOOOOOHOO!)

-It’s a trilogy (…Because I am a crazy person and have not been able to stop thinking about this book for years, I’ve already written Book Two and part of Book Three, though GOOD LORD they both need some mega elbow grease).

-I wrote Book 1—MORTAL— back in 2009. It was one of those can’t-write-fast-enough books—a magic book. I got the idea, and then BAM—I could not stop writing it for the next few weeks. I’m pretty sure it’s still the fastest I’ve ever written a novel.

-The idea for the book (and Feyre's character) came when I listened to THIS piece of music from the PRINCESS MONONOKE soundtrack (that's actually a kinda different version from the one I have, but the feeling of it is mostly the same). And THIS piece from THE SECRET GARDEN soundtrack.

-Since then, it has spent years sitting on my desktop, patiently waiting for its turn. It was a book I could NOT get out of my head, and would sometimes go back and reread/tinker with just for fun. No matter how many other books I worked on, I always kept returning to the characters and world of ACOTAR, kept daydreaming about it.

So, because of that, being able to tell you guys that it’s found a home with my amazing, ridiculously awesome team at Bloomsbury is so damn surreal. This is a book of my heart—a book that harkens back to my fairy-tale roots/obsession and I am just…FLOORED that it’s going to be published.

And because this would NOT be possible without some amazing people, I have to quickly thank: my fearless, cunning, and badass agent, Tamar Rydzinski; the brilliant Michelle Nagler and the whole worldwide team at Bloomsbury; AND my amazing critique partners, especially Alex Bracken, Susan Dennard, Biljana Likic, Erin Bowman, and Kat Zhang. Thank you all for making this dream a reality—and for making this entire journey the most fun, thrilling, and epic thing I’ve ever done. It’s an HONOR to work with you all.

AND – just to celebrate my news, I’m giving away an ARC of CROWN OF MIDNIGHT! (Hooray!)

The contest is open internationally, and ends on May 20th (a week from now)! For some reason, Livejournal doesn’t support Rafflecopter, SO if the contest form doesn’t work below, just click on the link. And if THAT doesn’t work, then just…leave a comment and it’ll count as an entry! (God, could I be any lamer when it comes to technology stuff?!)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

YAYYYYY!

P.S. If you haven't heard already, I'm going on the road in a few weeks as part of the Young Authors Give Back Tour! Click here for details about the tour and all the FREE WORKSHOPS we're hosting for aspiring authors!

Upcoming Events & THRONE OF GLASS Paperback Release!

2013-05-08T18:26:39Z

SO, I’ll keep this post (relatively) short and sweet, and just say YAYYYYY! The US paperback for THRONE OF GLASS is now out in stores!

I took a break from drafting Book 3 this weekend to sneak out to my local bookstore, and wound up spending about 15 minutes just standing in front of the book, grinning like an idiot. In my defense, it just looks so damn AWESOME—like, a bajillion times more gorgeous & badass in person.

Seriously, I couldn’t be happier with the new cover and the overall gloriousness of the paperback (Confession: I was so tempted to pull a Honey Boo Boo and call it “beautimous.” BECAUSE IT IS. The paperback is 110% beautimous.)

AND I am so, so pumped that the paperback is out in the world because there is some brand-new extra content in the back! Like a sneak peek at CROWN OF MIDNIGHT. And a scene between Chaol & Dorian before they head out to Endovier. The scene between them was one of my secret projects this fall, and was SUCH a blast to write (and, okay, I got a little emotional while writing it, but I'm just gonna blame it on the music I was listening to).

[Mini Playlist For Chaol & Dorian's Bonus Scene: I listened to “Harry’s Sacrifice,” “The Resurrection Stone” and “Lily’s Theme,” from the Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows Part 2 soundtrack, and “Can You See Jane?” from the Thor soundtrack, and then the last minute of “My Fist Hungers For Justice” from Kung Fu Panda 2.]

So… YAY, paperback! Hope you guys love the new cover & the bonus content as much as I do! :)

ANNNND, since a bunch of you have asked about my upcoming events, I thought I’d quickly recap where I’m going to be in May/June! (I’ll do another BEA & Tour reminder a few days before, too).

AT BOOKEXPO AMERICA (BEA):

May 30th: 1-2 PM: I’ll be signing copies of CROWN OF MIDNIGHT at table 9

May 31st: 12:15-1:45: I’ll be participating in the BEA Author Speed Dating event
June 1st: 11-11:30 AM : I’m on the New Adult Crossover: From YA to Adult and Back Again panel with Samantha Shannon!
(Click here for more info about the panel).

--

I’ll be hosting free writing workshops & having book signings with my best buds, Erin Bowman, Susan Dennard, and Kat Zhang as part of our Young Authors Give Back Tour! For more tour information, click here. For workshop information and registration click here! ALSO--Sooz is hosting a giveaway of an ARC of her upcoming book, A DARKNESS STRANGE & LOVELY, over on her blog!

New York, NY / BEA
(See my BEA info above)
5/31: 10:30-11:00 AM: Erin Bowman (TAKEN), Susan Dennard (SOMETHING STRANGE & DEADLY), and Kat Zhang (WHAT'S LEFT OF ME) will sign copies of their books.

Philadelphia, PA
6/2 Workshop @ Main Point Books — 3:00-5:00 pm
1041 E Lancaster Ave, Bryn Mawr, PA 19010
Space is limited. Register via the workshop page.

6/2 Signing @ Main Point Books — 5:30-6:30 pm
1041 E Lancaster Ave, Bryn Mawr, PA 19010
Event is open to the public.

6/3 Workshop @ Might Writers — 6:30-8:30 pm
1501 Christian Street Philadelphia, PA 19146
Space is limited. Register via the workshop page.

6/4 Signing @ Barnes & Noble – 5:00 pm
1805 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103
Event is open to the public.

Baltimore, MD
6/5 Workshop @ Baltimore Public Library — 6:00-8:00 pm
9833 Greenside Drive Cockeysville, MD 21030
Space is limited. Register via the workshop page.

6/5 Signing @ Baltimore Public Library — time to come
9833 Greenside Drive Cockeysville, MD 21030
Event is open to the public. Books will be available for purchase at the library.

Pittsburgh, PA
6/6 Workshop @ Carnegie Library — 4:30-6:30 pm
708-710 Brookline Blvd Pittsburgh, PA 15226
Space is limited. Register via the workshop page.

6/6 Signing @ Penguin Bookshop — 7:15-9:00 pm
420 Beaver St, Sewickley, PA 15143
Event will be open to the public.

Cleveland, OH
6/7 Workshop @ Coventry School (co-sponsored by Mac’s Backs Books & Lake Eerie Ink) — 4:00-5:30 pm
2843 Washington Blvd, Cleveland Heights, OH 44118
Space is limited. Register via the workshop page.

6/7 Signing @ Mac’s Backs Books — 6:00 pm
1820 Coventry Rd, Cleveland, OH 44106
Event is open to the public.

6/8 Workshop @ Medina County Library — 1:00-3:00 pm
210 South Broadway Street Medina, OH 44256
Space is limited. Register via the workshop page.

6/8 Signing @ Medina County Library — 3:15-5:00 pm
210 South Broadway Street Medina, OH 44256
Event is open to the public. Books will be available for purchase at the library.

Grand Rapids, MI
6/11 Workshop @ Schuler Books — 4:00-6:00 pm
2660 28th Street SE Grand Rapids, MI 49512
Space is limited. Register via the workshop page.

6/11 Signing @ Schuler Books — 7:00-8:00 pm
2660 28th Street SE Grand Rapids, MI 49512
Event is open to the public.

Chicago, IL
6/12 Workshop @ 826 Chicago — 6:00-8:00 pm
1331 N. Milwaukee Ave Chicago, IL 60622
Space is limited. Register via the workshop page.

6/14 Discussion Panel and Signing @ Anderson’s Bookshop — 7:00-9:00 pm
123 W Jefferson Ave Naperville, IL 60540
Event is open to the public.

Hope to see you at one of these stops!

A Kirkus Star For CROWN OF MIDNIGHT!

2013-04-29T18:55:19Z

Well, I think the title of this post is pretty self-explanatory, so I’m just going to save you all the build up/explaining and say... HOLY CRAP. A STARRED REVIEW FROM KIRKUS (!!!) FOR CROWN OF MIDNIGHT.

I was on the phone with my Soul-Twin, Sooz (big surprise), when I got the email—and our convo went something like this:

Me: Blah blah Star Wars and Lisa Frank and blah bl—What? ….WHAT? Wait—WHAT? What is this? What…?
Sooz: …Um. What?
Me: I think—No effing* way. NO EFFING WAY. CROWN OF MIDNIGHT got a starred review from mothereffing KIRKUS.
Sooz: Dude. DUDE!!!!!
Me: WHAT IS HAPPENING TO MY LIFE RIGHT NOW. Let me read this review—wait, let me read it aloud to you while I do.

So I DID read it aloud to her. And the review said some amazing things like this (I’m picking out some favorite lines, because the entire review won’t be publicly available until 2 weeks before COM hits stores. BUT if you have a subscription, you can see the whole review here.):

“After being named the King’s Champion in Throne of Glass (2012), Celaena Sardothien serves as the king of Adarlan’s personal assassin—at least, she pretends to—in a densely plotted sequel. … The complex friendship between these two formidable women [Celaena & Nehemia] is a particular treasure. … Vivid Celaena, loving and brutally violent in turn, is a fully realized heroine…. An epic fantasy readers will immerse themselves in and never want to leave."

By the time I got to the end, Sooz said this:

Sooz: Dude, are you CRYING right now?
Me: OF COURSE I’M EFFING CRYING. My hands are shaking so bad that I gotta put you on speakerphone now.

(SEE? It’s real!!!)

And then I spent the next hour or so crying/shaking and reeling. Even over a week later, I’m still glowing about the review. I think it’s because I just poured EVERYTHING I had into that book—like, EVERY last drop of heart/soul/blood/tears went into writing CROWN OF MIDNIGHT. And it is just... wonderful. Really, truly wonderful and an honor and… I’m going to shut up right now and share my two Kirkus Star Dance Party songs with you guys instead.

Also, can we just freak out for a moment over the fact that the THRONE OF GLASS paperback comes out in a WEEK? I got my copy and it is GORGEOUS. And it's full of awesome bonus content. Like a never-seen-before scene with Chaol and Dorian before they go track Celaena down in the salt mines.

…Oh, and it also has a sneak peek of CROWN OF MIDNIGHT. ;)

YAYYYY!

** I think it's pretty obvious that I was NOT actually saying "effing" at that moment, but I'm trying to limit my excessive daily F-bombing.

Erin Bowman's TAKEN Is Out Today!

2013-04-16T15:01:11Z

SO, I am emerging from the THRONE OF GLASS Book 3 Drafting Cave yet again to share some super, super, SUPER exciting news.

Erin Bowman’s amazing, gripping, and absolutely stunning YA dystopian debut, TAKEN, releases today!!! WAAAHOOOOHOOOOOO!

Guys. This book.

THIS BOOK.

I still remember the first time I read TAKEN (a looong while ago, before it was in its glorious final form). The first chapter hit me like a freaking brick to the face because it was just SO beautiful and haunting and compelling, and I instantly fell in love with Gray & his world. After that, I was GLUED to my kindle and completely/utterly unable to put the damn thing down until I’d read the last word. And even then, I couldn't stop thinking about the book--especially the characters that had found a place in my heart.

And I’m not saying that because Erin’s one of my closest friends—I read TAKEN back in the beginning stages of our acquaintance, when I had about zero obligation to love it. But the book was so damn good that I’m pretty sure I sent Erin an email that was mostly all caps and full of gushing/flailing/fangirling. It is so, so surreal that TAKEN is finally, finally out today—I think I’ve been almost as impatient as Erin to see it in stores & available for the whole world to read & love. (You can check out a summary of the book here.)

In the months since I first read the book, Erin has become one of my People—someone I can’t imagine my life without & someone that I rely on for everything from cheerleading to commiserating to laughing until I cry. Not only is she a super-talented author, but she’s also a badass web designer, a fellow Battlestar Galactica/Arrested Development/Veronica Mars/Firefly/Harry Potter fan, and is just one of the kindest, loveliest people you will ever meet. Seriously—I hope you guys all get the chance to meet her some day and realize that I’m not exaggerating in the least.

So, before I dissolve into a crying mess, let me just say: Do yourselves a favor. Grab a copy of TAKEN. You can buy it via Amazon, Barnes & Noble, IndieBound, Book Depository, etc.. And if my gushing isn’t enough to convince you, check out the baller book trailer:

And Erin: I am so, so proud of you, and SO PROUD to call myself your friend. As a fellow survivor of the 2012 Lake Glenville Crawfish Attack, you and I are now forever linked by the bonds of Wilderness & Workaholics. You deserve all the success that is coming your way—truly, I can’t wait for everyone to love TAKEN as much as I do. Here’s to many more adventures in Wilderness, obnoxious clothing choices, and epically poor decisions. Love you, Ders.
P.S. And they were never seen again…

CROWN OF MIDNIGHT Cover Reveal!

2013-04-09T19:04:04Z

Emerging from the Drafting Cave (currently working on TOG Book 3) to quickly say…

Go check out the THRONE OF GLASS Facebook Page for details about the cover reveal for CROWN OF MIDNIGHT! (Just click the image below!)

….Please don’t kill me. I don’t make these utterly cruel & heartless decisions! ;)

Musical Musings: CROWN OF MIDNIGHT Copyedits Were Brought To You By…

2013-03-19T18:32:32Z

So, first of all, I suck for not posting last week BUT I wanted the Big Tour Announcement to be up there for a while before it was swallowed up by my other entries.

Plus, copyedits for CROWN OF MIDNIGHT arrived this past weekend, so I was busy-busy-busy going through them. It was actually a LOT of fun to read through the manuscript after a few months away from it—especially because of the music I was listening to (big surprise) while working.

Because I love CROWN OF MIDNIGHT so much, it’s fairly easy for me to not pay attention when I’m editing and just get sucked into the story. And by ‘sucked in,’ I mean I actually will play the music that inspired that scene, act out the whole damn thing, laugh/cry/rage, and totally forget that I am supposed to be WORKING.

(This sucker weighs like 1000 lbs.)

So, I decided that I’d try something different—that I’d listen to music I love, but very rarely find conducive to daydreaming. That way, I’d have something to listen to during the two straight days I toiled over copyedits, but I wouldn’t be so prone to… distractions. So, I popped on the Sirius/XM/Whatever Alt Nation station, and…. Two things happened.

1) I was focused and grooving and totally enjoying myself and not wasting time!

2) I wound up with this:

THAT is the back of a Someecards 2013 Daily Box Calendar sheet (...Erin “Ders” Bowman gave it to me for Christmas). And I wound up writing on it because it was the only piece of usable paper within reach that I could start scribbling on. I intended to write down just a few songs that I liked, but…obviously, you can see JUST HOW LONG I WAS LISTENING WHILE WORKING ON COPYEDITS.

You can also see that my handwriting is somewhat similar to a serial killer’s, and that I was SO effing lazy I preferred SQUEEEEEZING in every song rather than get my ass up to find an actual piece of paper.

I’ve begun the arduous task of deciphering the code, but I’m pretty sure my main Copyedit Jams were:

Kitten, "Cut It Out" (I don’t know why, but every time this came on the station, I used up my once-per-hour rewind to listen to it. I also looove their song, “G#.”)

Two Door Cinema Club, "Next Year"

The Joy Formidable, "This Ladder Is Ours"

A Silent Film, “Cuckoo Song” (This song actually DID distract me because it fits Book 3 SO well that I totally burst into tears when I heard it. Also “Harbour Lights” is another Reminds-Me-Of-Book-3-And-Shattered-My-Heart.)

That song also reminds me of THIS moment from THRONE OF GLASS (beautifully illustrated by the absurdly talented Linnea/compoundbreadd, whose TOG fan-art has been SUCH a source of inspiration & motivation for me while drafting Books 2 & 3.)

Ahem. .... *wipes eyes*

And then I heard this Depeche Mode/AFI mash-up called “Miss Murder’s Personal Jesus” by Celldweller that provided me with a much-needed dance break (during which I was STILL too lazy to get a real piece of paper).

Annnd, obviously, those are just a few of the songs that made me pause my copyediting to scribble down the artists/names.

ALSO, I’m now back to drafting Book Three, which means I’ll probably be appallingly shitty (yet again) at responding to stuff within a reasonable timeframe. Honestly, I need to turn off the internet in order to focus & get into The Zone. BUT I am going to dedicate AT LEAST one day a week to answering tweets/comments/emails, so pleaaase don’t think that if I’m slow to reply it means I 1) don’t care 2) didn’t get your message or 3) am a douchebag/jerkface. Interacting with you all is my FAVORITE part of being published, but…I have a deadline and the internet is full of shiny, pretty things (*shakes fist at pinterest*).

Anyway, what are you guys jamming to this week?

BIG, Super Ridiculously Awesome Announcement!

2013-03-08T15:00:33Z

So, since I’m 1) still sans internet at my new house and 2) have some big news today, I figured I’d take a break this week from my usual music update!

So, several moons ago (and by “several,” I mean “Probably at least six but I have lost all sense of time and don’t even know what month it is right now.”), my best buds Susan Dennard (SOMETHING STRANGE & DEADLY), Erin Bowman (TAKEN), and Kat Zhang (WHAT’S LEFT OF ME) and I got started talking about doing something fun this coming summer—vacation, epic road trip, or… book tour?

One of the realities about having all your friends at different publishers/imprints is that it is highlyyyy unlikely (aka never ever) that you will be officially sent on a tour together. Which just SUCKS because it is SO fun to do that stuff with your friends. Like, INCREDIBLY FUN. So, while we were debating the cool things that we could do in Summer 2013, it occurred to us that it might be the perfect time to organize our OWN tour—epic road trip style.

We brainstormed for a while about what this tour would be about--what linked us all as writers and friends. And we realized that we have two major things in common:

1) We all got our start writing as teenagers—we wrote throughout high school and college (hell, Kat got her first book deal IN college), and got published at a fairly young age.

2) We all feel strongly (and I mean SUPER strongly) about the importance of giving back—of paying it forward, whenever and however we can.

Thus, the Young Authors Give Back Tour was born.

In some ways, it’s your usual multi-city book tour: we’ll be doing signings and talking about our current and upcoming books. But we decided that it wasn’t enough for us…not by a long shot. No—we really, really, REALLY wanted to use the tour as a chance to give back. Actually, we wanted the heart of this tour to be ALL about giving back, because the four of us have been so tremendously blessed.

So, at every stop along the way, we’ll be hosting FREE writing workshops for young writers (ages 13-22). No matter what genre you write, no matter how far you are in your writing career, the workshop is open to ANYONE in that age group.

We’ll be posting workshop details (and registration forms, because space is limited) as soon as we have a set schedule, but tentative tour stops include (keyword "tentative"):

New York, NY (5/29-6/1)

Philadelphia, PA (6/2-6/4)

Baltimore, MD (6/4-6/6)

Pittsburgh, PA (6/6-6/7)

Cleveland, OH (6/8-6/9)

Grand Rapids, MI (6/9-6/11)

Chicago, IL (6/12-6/14)

For more info, head on over to our official tour tumblr! We'll be updating the site as new events get locked into place, as well as while we're on tour. Photos of our epic road trip, video clips from events, random absurd musings & playlist selections (You KNOW there's going to be an Official YAGB Playlist)--all of it will be shared while we travel from New York City (starting at BEA) to Chicago.

And in honor of announcing the Young Authors Give Back Tour today, and to help us spread the word a bit (even though the tour is months away), we’re having an INTERNATIONAL giveaway of our books! There will be FOUR winners (one book each), and we’ll announce the giveaway results on April 1st!

To enter, here’s all you have to do:

Retumble this blog!

Tweet the following message: YA authors Erin Bowman, Susan Dennard, Sarah J. Maas, & Kat Zhang hit the road for the #YoungAuthorsGiveBackTour! http://youngauthorsgiveback.tumblr.com

Share this on Facebook! (But please leave a comment below that links to your Facebook share!)

Pin the tour image above! (Also, please leave a link to your Pin in the comments!)

If you live in/near any of the areas where we’re touring and can’t make it to a workshop (or you’re outside of the age bracket), we WILL be having signings at bookstores, and would LOVE to see you there!

Eeeeee!

And what the hell. This is totally our tour anthem (...except not really):

THRONE OF GLASS Paperback Cover Reveal! ...And Musical Musings: What's On Celaena's iPod

2013-02-27T17:01:14Z

In case you missed it on Monday, we revealed the US paperback cover for THRONE OF GLASS on the TOG Facebook page (click here to view it)! I am BEYOND ecstatic about the cover change (like, I danced/cried when I saw it), and can't wait to see it on shelves on May 7th. Yay!!!!

I'm still in the middle of moving and sans internet for the next few weeks (...yes, WEEKS. Kill me now.), so I'm keeping this week's Musical Musings short and sweet. Last year, my hands-down favorite interview question was something along the lines of: "If Celaena had an iPod, what songs would be on it?" So, in honor of the semi-new/improved portrayal of Celaena on the US paperback, I thought I'd share a few of the songs I think Celaena would have on a "Kicking Ass and Taking Names" playlist (...you KNOW that's what she'd title her playlist.).

"Back in Black" by AC/DC.

"Higher Ground" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers

"Heads Will Roll" by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (Side note: This is one of my all-time favorite songs & music videos.)

"Dirt Off Your Shoulder" by Jay-Z

"Infinity Guitars" by Sleigh Bells

"The Beautiful People" by Marilyn Manson

For those of you with books/manuscripts/WIPs, what songs would YOUR protagonist have on their iPod? (Sorry again if I'm slow replying to comments... I do read them all, but it's hard to answer without internet... I'll try to reply as soon as I'm able!)

P.S. The embedded videos aren't showing up properly in the Preview window, so forgive me if they don't work! Livejournal has some weird new updating layout/form, and it doesn't seem to work well with embedding videos...

Musical Musings: Moving Music

2013-02-20T17:00:29Z

So, as soon as I typed the subject of this post, I realized that it could be construed in two ways: moving in the emotional/touching sense, or moving in the, well, moving-to-a-new-house sense. (Or moving in the...literally MOVING from one place to another.)

Anyway, this is about the latter--since I'm actually in the middle of moving and won't have internet access for a little while. (Doing this via phone is...difficult. To say the least. But (confession time!) I was mortified at the thought of stopping this Musical Musings series after two weeks with no explanation. However, please forgive me for any typos/formatting errors...I feel like it's a 50/50 chance the videos won't embed properly. Oy.)

So, I figured I'd share some of my Moving Playlist (...Have we discussed my somewhat OCD need to make playlists for EVERYTHING?)--which are songs I've been unable to get out of my head for the past few weeks/months. I've been listening to them (and a bunch of others) almost nonstop while packing/driving/unpacking.

"Wild" by Royal Teeth. My love for this song (and the band's entire EP) was made infinitely greater by the fact that they actually responded to my uber-gushing tweet about how much I adore their music.

"Ooh La La" by Goldfrapp. It's impossible for me NOT to dance when I hear this song:

"Punching In A Dream" by The Naked and Famous. This song has been out for a while, but I still frakking ADORE it.

"Personal Jesus" by Depeche Mode. ....Just because this is one of my all-time favorite songs.

What are you guys listening to this week? I might not be quick to reply to comments because of the move, but feel free to leave recommendations!

Musical Musings: An Alien Geekfest... And Cello Wars!

2013-02-13T16:00:30Z

Can someone please tell me HOW a week went by so quickly?! Seriously—HOW is it Wednesday already? *dies*

I have absolutely NOTHING of value to say (big surprise), other than a huge THANK YOU to all of you who shared your music last week! It was so, so cool to hear what music inspires you—and I discovered a bunch of awesome stuff as a result. <3

Also, a BIG thank you to the amazing and talented Meredith Anderson, who had the idea to call this weekly music-fest “Musical Musings.” Gold star and upcoming TOG/COM swag for you, Mer! (And check out her inspiring, lovely blog, too!)

This week, I figured I’d share what I’ve been listening to these past several weeks. I’ve been working on a few different projects (some TOG-related, some not), but I somehow got SUPER into the score for ALIENS. And by “somehow” I mean “I’ve watched ALIEN and ALIENS about 7 times EACH in the past three weeks and can’t seem to stop watching them and analyzing them and harassing everyone I know with my love for them.”

[I honestly can’t tell what my current ALIEN franchise obsession MEANS about me as a human being.]

Anywayyyyy.

For some reason, even though the tone of the music has very, very little resemblance to what I’m actually writing, these two tracks from ALIENS have gotten my creative juices flowing.

[Side note: I wonder if part of that is because the original ALIEN score was written by Jerry Goldsmith, who ALSO composed the score to LEGEND, which is one of my go-to tracks to get inspired. The ALIEN soundtrack isn’t available, but the ALIENS one is—and James Horner (another favorite go-to composer) used a lot of Goldsmith's theme/variations in it.]

AHEM. So, these two tracks have pretty much been on repeat for the past few weeks:

Just listening to them makes me want to 1) Write and 2) Go watch ALIEN and ALIENS for the bajillionth time.* I’m not even writing stuff that’s all that dark/scary/intense—but something about this music just helps me stay focused, stay energized, and keep my imagination flowing. (….Have we discussed what a NERD I am?)

Anyway. THAT'S what I’ve been listening to almost nonstop. Though my soul-twin (WHO HAS NOT YET WATCHED ALIEN), Sooz, introduced me to THIS bit of genius:

(Nerd Confession: I totally teared up at the end because of how EPIC it is.)

So, that’s all the music I’ve got to share this week! What are you guys listening to right now?

*Maybe my obsession with the first two ALIEN films is because Ripley is such an awesome, awesome heroine and I love the gender dynamics in the films and I’m not seeing much of this kinda stuff out there in popular culture right now? Seriously, my obsession with these movies is bordering on ridiculous. At a Super Bowl Party, I cornered some poor guy after he mentioned loving the movies and made him discuss the symbolism in the films, gender dynamics, and Why Ripley Is Awesome for a good quarter of the game. Dude ran away as soon as I was distracted by Beyonce.

Quick Announcement, Mind-Blowing Fan Art, & Some Music!

2013-02-06T19:54:06Z

By now, I think most of you saw the big Book 2 title reveal on the THRONE OF GLASS Facebook page last week! It is SUCH a joy (and a relief) to finally be able to call Book 2 CROWN OF MIDNIGHT! The kickass team at Bloomsbury will be revealing more awesome stuff over the next few months, so keep checking back!

ONE awesome thing that’s happening RIGHT NOW is that THRONE OF GLASS is on sale for $2.99 as Amazon's Kindle Daily Deal today! Click here to check it out! Yay!

Other than that, I’m finallllly catching up on months and months of emails. I should be all caught up by Friday, so if you’ve emailed me and don’t hear back by the end of the week, PLEASE re-send! Also, I just want to say a HUGE thank-you to all of you who have taken the time to write to me—I really am the luckiest author in the world to have SUCH amazing readers. <3

Also, this Chaol-Celaena fan-art by compoundbreadd KILLED me. Just KILLED ME. I honestly got butterflies in my stomach when I first saw it. And then grinned for hours afterward. Eeeeee! *dies again*

To switch gears (and stop sighing over that artwork)… I’ve been feeling really bad about not blogging that much over the past few months. It’s one of my 2013 resolutions to get back into blogging more frequently, BUT since I’ll be drafting Book 3 (*sigh* ...No title for THAT book yet!), and juggling a few other projects, I don’t want to declare that I’m Officially Back, and then vanish.

HOWEVER, a bunch of you have expressed interest in hearing more about the music that goes into writing my books, so I figured I’ll just start casually posting a few songs here once a week, and invite you guys to share whatever music you’re currently listening to as well. (Of course, I’ll still make more official/thorough blog posts every now and then, but I figured this would be a fun way to stay connected!)

So, to kick off this Music…Wednesday (Um, now I feel like I need a proper name for this weekly music-fest. Muses & Music? Weekly Music-fest? Any ideas?) … AHEM. Anyway, I figured I’d share the first four tracks on my CROWN OF MIDNIGHT playlist!

(For those of you who don’t know, I obsessively and extensively outline my stories using playlists, since every scene/moment/character is inspired by some piece of music or another. Since I HATE properly outlining, using playlists has become a good way for me to keep track of wtf happens in my stories, and get into the mood when I need to jump into a particular scene).

So, the first chapter of CROWN OF MIDNIGHT was basically inspired by this piece from the WATCHMEN soundtrack. I honestly can’t remember if I first had the idea by listening to the track, or if I had the idea and then immediately thought the track would be perfect. Either way, I can’t read the first chapter and not hear this music:

It’s hard for me to talk about the next three tracks without giving stuff away, so I’ll just let the music speak for itself (and leave you guessing what kind of scenes it inspired in Chapter Two).

(Okay, so the third track is Joe Hisaishi's 'The Boy Who Drank Stars' from the HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE soundtrack, but it is literally IMPOSSIBLE to find on Youtube. If you ever DO find it, I don't think this spoils anything to say that this piece has ALWAYS reminded me of Dorian. And Celaena. Not together, but…different pieces of it remind me of them as individuals.)

(The entire BATMAN BEGINS soundtrack played a BIG role in inspiring CROWN OF MIDNIGHT).

Annnnd that’s it for this week! What music are you guys listening to right now? (Any/all music is welcome!)

Book Two News! (...Sort Of!)

2013-01-28T20:23:12Z

SO, I'm still in the middle of Deadline City, BUT I just wanted to quickly say that we're about to reveal some super-exciting news regarding the sequel to THRONE OF GLASS on the TOG Facebook page!

However, because the people who work at Bloomsbury are vicious and cruel*, they won't share the news until 100 new people have Liked the FB page! (They're so mean, right?!)

SO... Like the page? Tell a friend? Please? I'm DYING to share the news with you all!

Okay, back to work! (And by "work," I mean "twiddle my thumbs until we can make the announcement.")

Annnd, just because, here's some amazing Chaol-Celaena fan-art (by compoundbreadd) that I found on this SUPER INCREDIBLE THRONE OF GLASS DeviantArt community! (The fact that this community exists just...blows my mind.)

Hope you're all well!

*The people at Bloomsbury are actually brilliant, warm, and awesome. Just in case that wasn't clear. ;)

I've Returned! With Some Updates! And Cool Stuff!

2013-01-17T18:31:32Z

Well, holy crap. THAT was an unexpectedly long break from blogging! I meant to update over the holidays, but I wound up spending most of December away from a computer (including one heavenly week at a beach house in FL with my soul-twin, Sooz), and have been playing catch-up on emails/deadlines ever since.

I don’t actually have *that* much to say, other than (yay! It’s List Time!):

1) A belated HAPPY NEW YEAR! 2012 was AMAZING—here’s hoping 2013 is even better!

2) It’s Deadline City around here (I’ve been working on some Secret Stuff that I will be murdered if I talk about right now), and I’m expecting copyedits for Book 2 sometime next week (maybe). With that in mind, I’m hoping to get back on a regular blogging schedule beginning in February.

3) Even though I might be buried under some deadlines for the rest of the month, DEFINITELY check out the THRONE OF GLASS FB page! We’ll be announcing some BIG STUFF next week! Eeeee! (Side note: can I just *die* for a second over the fact that there are over 10,600 of you on the FB page?! Jesus. You guys are INCREDIBLE.)

4) Speaking of TOG & FB… My AMAZING Mexican publisher, Alfaguara Juvenil (an imprint of Santillana), just created a TOG FB page for Spanish-speaking fans! Even if you don’t speak the language, it’s definitely worth checking out! Yesterday, I stumbled across THESE incredible gems (click for larger images):

Okay, because I don’t speak Spanish & because the “translate” feature on FB is pretty atrocious, I’m not sure which is the actual cover (or maybe there’s another cover floating around), but…holy hell. I am OBSESSED with them. Especially the first one! The border with the roses and the swords and the arrows…! Wahhhhhhhh.

5) This happened last month:

(Still can’t quite believe it happened, actually.)

6) And here’s some amaaaaazing Celaena-Chaol fan-art from the mind-blowingly talented Linnea. It’s now my desktop background, the wallpaper of my iPhone, and is hanging on the wall of my office.

Annnnd that’s about it for me.

Anyone see any good movies lately? (LOVEDDDD: Zero Dark Thirty. LOVED But It’s Complicated: The Hobbit. Liked But Wanted To Love: Les Mis. Absolutely Hated: Pitch Perfect. Still Want To See: Argo, Django Unchained, Silver Linings Playbook, Life of Pi, Beasts of the Southern Wild, and Amour).

Hope you guys are well!

THE DARKEST MINDS is out today! And Some Other Awesome Things...

2012-12-18T16:01:27Z

SO!

A few things before I launch into a super-long, somewhat emotional blog post…

1) Kirkus named THRONE OF GLASS as one of its Best Teen Books of 2012! WHAT. (Seriously. ....WHAT?!)

2) Amazon just released its list of its Top 100 Bestselling Kids & Teens Kindle Books of 2012. I almost fell out of my chair when I saw THE ASSASSIN AND THE PIRATE LORD listed on the first page! THANK YOU SO MUCH to everyone who bought the novella! You guys are AMAZING.

3) Want to buy a signed and/or personalized copy of THRONE OF GLASS (AKA the most perfect holiday gift EVER)? Well, all you have to do is order one from Mysterious Galaxy in Redondo Beach, CA (NOT the San Diego location!). They’re my nearest local indie (and an AMAZING store), and generously offered to work with me to get signed/personalized copies to TOG readers. SO, if you want a signed copy, then just contact them to purchase it (and tell them who it should be signed to), and then Mysterious Galaxy will contact ME to come in to sign it before it's shipped to you! You can find contact info for Mysterious Galaxy Redondo Beach here. Hooray!

....SO.

So.

Today, one of my all-time favorite books comes out. Some of you might have heard me gushing about it before. It used to be titled BLACK IS THE COLOR, but now it’s called THE DARKEST MINDS. And it’s by my amazing, amazing friend, Alex Bracken.

When Ruby woke up on her tenth birthday, something about her had changed. Something alarming enough to make her parents lock her in the garage and call the police. Something that gets her sent to Thurmond, a brutal government “rehabilitation camp.” She might have survived the mysterious disease that’s killed most of America’s children, but she and the others have emerged with something far worse: frightening abilities they cannot control.

Now sixteen, Ruby is one of the dangerous ones.

When the truth comes out, Ruby barely escapes Thurmond with her life. Now she’s on the run, desperate to find the one safe haven left for kids like her—East River. She joins a group of kids who escaped their own camp. Liam, their brave leader, is falling hard for Ruby. But no matter how much she aches for him, Ruby can’t risk getting close. Not after what happened to her parents.

When they arrive at East River, nothing is as it seems, least of all its mysterious leader. But there are other forces at work, people who will stop at nothing to use Ruby in their fight against the government. Ruby will be faced with a terrible choice, one that may mean giving up her only chance at a life worth living.

(Here's a link to the trailer, too.)

Honestly, I don’t even know where to begin when talking about this book. I don’t really know how to convince you that my love/support for this book has very little to do with the fact that Alex is my critique partner. But… I DID have the privilege of CPing this book.

I'll never forget the first time I read the manuscript. I was still working full-time, and on the road for my job (I used to work in study abroad recruiting for a university in Egypt), and I was spending the night in some relatively unmemorable hotel room. I don’t even remember what state and/or city I was in.

But I do remember gobbling down page after page. I remember SOBBING—honestly SOBBING IN A FETAL POSITION—because the book touched this…this fundamental part of me and just DESTROYED me. I finished the book and cried and cried and cried. For days afterward, I’d think about the book, about the characters, and just break down. It was like someone had blown a hole straight through my chest.

And every draft I read after that killed me as well. Every time I’ve spoken to someone about THE DARKEST MINDS, I’ve had to avoid the urge to cry, because the book means THAT much to me. And every time I’ve told someone about TDM, I’ve mentioned that I haven’t been so moved by a book since I first read THE HUNGER GAMES.

…I do not use that phrase/comparison lightly.

Here’s another story for you. SO, my parents came to California to celebrate the launch of THRONE OF GLASS. And while they were here, I gave my mom my ARC of THE DARKEST MINDS.

She did Not. Stop. Reading.

My parents are pretty…picky readers. Very literary, intellectual, just…well-read people. And my mom COULD NOT put TDM down. Seriously. Even when we were driving to my freaking LAUNCH PARTY, she didn’t put down the book. I’m pretty sure she got home that night and just kept reading.

She had to go back to NYC soon after, and was so engrossed in the book that she BEGGED me to take the ARC home (it was a personalized ARC, so I made her swear 10000 oaths to return it to me). And when she finished, this was the email she sent me—just one sentence in the subject line: "The Darkest Minds --incredible!"

…Amen to that, Mom.

So. I love this book. I love it with an unbridled, insane, and slightly creepy passion. I love the characters as if they were my real-life friends. I love the role that music plays in the book (every time I listen to Alex’s Black Betty Driving Mix, I get choked up if I start thinking about the characters). I love that there is something just…TRUE about the book. There’s truth in it. I can’t describe it, but it speaks to me as a reader, as a writer, as a human being.

So, if you do anything today, or tomorrow, or EVER, just…go buy this book. Read it.

You can buy it here. Or if you love supporting your local independent bookstore, you can order it from IndieBound. Or if you live internationally, you can buy it from The Book Depository and have it shipped to you ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD FOR FREE (there’s no excuse for pirating, folks). Just—buy it.

And Alex:

I am so, so proud to be your friend. SO proud. And honored. Your kindness and courage and strength inspire me every day. I have NO idea how I would function (as a writer, as a person) without you in my life.

I would have loved TDM even if you weren’t my friend. In fact, if we hadn’t been friends until now, reading TDM would have made me stalk you until you WERE my friend. I have been waiting and waiting for the rest of the world to get the chance to read your book, and I am SO glad that I will finally have people to discuss the book and the characters with!

Enjoy today, my friend. You’ve earned it—and then some. <3

LOVE YOU.

P.S. You have NO IDEA HOW HAPPY THIS MAKES ME:

A (Belated) Look Back At NaNoWriMo, What I'm Reading, And Stuff You Should Watch

2012-12-07T17:53:22Z

So!

There was a slight hiccup in my plan for doing a final post about NaNoWriMo, mostly because I got a surprise/super-tight deadline and had to drop everything to work on it. On the plus side, I freaking love this little TOG-related project (mum’s the word for now, but I can’t wait to tell you guys!), AND I managed to "win" NaNo anyway (at almost 60k words...and I'm not even halfway through this freaking book. Oy.)! So…hooray!

I was planning to do a giant reflective post about what I learned during NaNoWriMo, but I wound up doing something like that over on Pub(lishing) Crawl earlier this week with Sooz. SO I just wanted to quickly say THANK YOU to everyone who participated in NaNoWriMo with me! I had SUCH a blast, and can’t wait for NaNo next year!

Speaking of my BFFer/soul-twin/Person, if you won NaNo and have NO idea what to do next with your manuscript, READ THIS POST. Sooz wrote an AMAZING post on Pub Crawl today about revisions—and she also offers entire worksheets and lessons available FOR FREE as printable pdfs (the link is at the bottom of the Pub Crawl post).

Also, because my friends are freaking awesome (and I’m allowed to brag about them, okay!?), if you are looking for a critique partner, check out this post at Pub Crawl! Erin Bowman basically turned the comments into a CP classified section. So check it out!

AND, other than that… I am still working on Book 3, still working on this secret/surprise project, and just doing a LOT of great reading. Recent reads that I LOVED: ANGEL-SEEKER by Sharon Shinn (GO BUY ALL OF HER BOOKS. ARCHANGEL is the first in her Samaria series. Agh, I am the BIGGEST Sharon Shinn fan-girl. TROUBLED WATERS is another amaaazing book by her.); THE HUNDRED THOUSAND KINGDOMS by N. K. Jemisin; LORD’S FALL by Thea Harrison; A DISCOVERY OF WITCHES by Deborah Harkness; and DAYS OF BLOOD AND STARLIGHT by Laini Taylor.

I’m currently reading MYSTIC AND RIDER by Sharon Shinn, and savoring every single page. I read all of two chapters before ordering the rest of the books in The Twelve Houses series and…agdhisghaighasg. *dies* Books like these are the reason why I got into reading/writing/loving fantasy in the first place. (Seriously, go buy ARCHANGEL. Even if you think you hate "angel books," this is NOT an "angel book." And, for that matter (PSA time!), I happen to LOVE "angel books," so let’s stop using the quotation marks and looking down our noses at them, okay?)

Annnnd, I should get back to work. BUT before I do, here are two videos that you should MAKE TIME to watch. Especially if you are a writer. (But, really, if you’re in any creative field, or have creative people in your life, they’re worth your time.) Both made me cry like a baby (happy tears, though). Seriously—go watch them.

(You can learn more about Jarrett here.)

…And watch this, just because it made me cry happy tears…and then listen to it on repeat for hours. :)

Hope you all have a great weekend!

NaNoWriMo Confessional: Week Three

2012-11-23T20:56:11Z

First of all…To those of you who celebrated Thanksgiving yesterday, I hope it was lovely/yummy/wonderful! Because our families are both on the east coast, the Hubs and I wound up celebrating Thanksgiving on our own. And because we're lazy, we opted to go to our favorite dumpling house instead. SO, I spent yesterday gobbling down (har har) dumplings and rice cake and spicy wontons. And it was DELICIOUS.

Anyway, this week has gone by SUPER fast, probably because of the holiday. I’m hovering at 48,400 words right now, and—hopefully by the time I finish today’s #NaNoWriMoBattle with Sooz, I’ll have crossed the 50k threshold! Woooot!

…I guess that makes me a winner in SOME sense. But…looking at where I am in Book 3, I’d guess I still have, oh, about 100k left to write. Oops. SO, obviously, I won’t be finishing this book for NaNo. But I’ll talk about that next week, when I do my whole “Serious NaNo Reflection” post.

TODAY, I figured I’d talk about the music that’s gotten me to the 50k-threshold these past few weeks. I’ve talked before about my obsession with music/movie scores, and how I outline my books using my iTunes playlists, so I won’t bore you with that. BUT part of the reason why Book 3 is turning out so differently than what I’d planned is because I found NEW (well, kinda) music that made me reconsider the plotlines/characters/etc..

When I finished Book Two, I knew that the way it ended would vastly change the tone/plot of Book Three. It wasn’t something I realized until I actually wrote the last word of Book Two, and I then spent months kinda avoiding thinking about what Book 3 would be like. But then this October rolled around, and I was watching TV one day, and the Cloud Atlas trailer came on, and I was just…FLOORED by the music that played. Like, so floored that I RAN into my office and hunted down the music, and listened to it again and again and again.

And as I listened to it, the tone/feel/images of Book Three just BLOOMED. Like, I just GOT it. I realized/understood things about my characters, about the world, about the plot... Seriously, I spent hours just listening to the music (…and crying), and just figuring things out.

A week or two later, I wound up watching that Hocus Pocus marathon on Halloween night. And, unsurprisingly, it was the MUSIC that got my creative juices flowing. And, even more unsurprisingly, I hunted down the soundtrack the next morning. It’s really, really hard to talk about Book 3 without giving away any spoilers (either for Book 3 or Book 2), BUT if you’ve read the TOG novellas, you might remember Celaena learning a little bit about the Ironteeth Witch-Clans in The Assassin in the Desert.

WELL, for years and years now, there’s been a character—Manon Blackbeak—that appears later in the series (she was never in the FP draft, but was in my own rewrites). She's one of those horrible/vicious/cruel Ironteeth witches. And I’ve always known what her role in the series is, BUT listening to the Hocus Pocus soundtrack made me start thinking about her character and arc, especially this piece (just skip the first minute):

I spent a good day listening to the soundtrack, and the more I thought about Manon Blackbeak, the more her character and plot arc started to change. And THEN (God, this just shows how much TV I watch), I saw a Breaking Dawn Part 2 trailer one morning… And (yet again), RAN to download the trailer music.

It took all of one listening for me to see Manon’s plotline clearer than ever—not just in Book 3, but in the entire series. Again, I can’t really talk about it, but… I spent HOURS listening to that music, and then I stumbled across some more music that suddenly fit (especially “Outro”--the first piece I listed here), and just…I realized that Manon’s plotline NEEDED to begin in Book 3, and that her plotline would be way different than what I’d imagined/previously written.

(I also realized that how I pictured Manon for years wasn’t actually what she looked like. No, it wasn’t until I saw ALL THESE pictures (the ones featured in this post) on Pinterest that I realized “Holy shit, it’s Manon!" ...Just imagine the girl with the white-blonde hair in the red cloak is savoring the moment before she rips out someone’s throat and that’s pretty much Manon in a nutshell.)

I realized I LOVED Manon. I’d liked her before, but I honest to God fell in love with her that day. Weeks later, I still can’t stop thinking about her, and her plotline, and keep listening to the playlist I made for her story arc (I sat down one afternoon and made a separate/long playlist for her plotline) again and again.

(At the moment, her plot/story is wholly separate from Celaena/Chaol/Dorian—though connected in small ways I can’t talk about yet—so what’s in Book 3 may get cut/moved to its own novella or something if the ms just too long. BUT right now, I’d love for Manon to be in this book.)

So just a few pieces of music forever changed the way I view not only this character, but also the series.

And...I think this post has gone on for long enough, because I could keep talking about Manon and the music that's inspired her arc (the Fright Night, Matrix, and Deathly Hallows Parts 1 and 2 soundtracks have been instrumental (har har) in figuring out her character/plot), or talk about the rest of the music that's inspired the Celaena/Chaol/Dorian plotlines in Book 3...

BUT I’ll just quickly add that when I was feeling all “Wtf am I doing with this ms?!” last week, I heard a trailer for some Coldplay HBO special playing in the bedroom (GOD I NEED TO STOP WATCHING TV), and just hearing “Charlie Brown” in the background made me buy the song… And as I listened, I found the one emotional/plot thread that was missing in Book 3—the core of Celaena’s emotional growth/arc. Again, I can’t talk about it, but I listened to the song a bajillion times, and could see her arc as if it were a movie playing out right before my eyes.

SO… That’s just a glimpse into my (somewhat insane) creative process. In a nutshell: I watch too much TV, but I sometimes overhear awesome music that makes me run to my computer and obsessively listen to it as I have near-spiritual epiphanies about my stories/characters. And then I go on Pinterest and find out that my characters actually look completely different from how I'd imagined them to be. ;)

ONE WEEK OF NANO LEFT!!! WOOOO HOOO!

NCTE and NaNoWriMo Week Two

2012-11-15T18:40:49Z

So, before I dive into today’s NaNoWriMo Confessional, I have a little bit of housekeeping to do:

1) I just wanted to say a huge, huge, HUUUGE thank you to all of you who voted for/wrote in THRONE OF GLASS for the Goodreads Choice Awards! Because of YOU, it’s now in the semifinal round!!! Seriously, you guys are the freaking BEST, and I am just HONORED to have you as readers and friends. Waking up on Monday to learn that TOG was in the semifinals was just…beyond cool. Thank you so, so much.

2) I also learned this week that THRONE OF GLASS is one of Amazon’s Best Teen Books of 2012! (I may or may not have had a dance party when I say that shiny gold badge on the TOG Amazon page).

3) If you’re going to be at NCTE this weekend, I’ll be signing copies of THRONE OF GLASS on SATURDAY (November 17th) from 2:30-3:30 PM at the Bloomsbury Booth!

I’ll also be on the “An Incredible Adventure: A Journey Into Fantasy and Publication” panel on Saturday from 4:15-5:30 with the amazing Catherynne Valente and Sharon Cameron (Level One, Room 104)!

So, it’s been two weeks since NaNoWriMo began. I passed the 35k mark earlier this morning (so, a bit slower than last week).

Usually, when I get to the 30k + mark, I hit the “What Have I Gotten Myself Into?” phase. Also known as the “What The Hell Happens Next?!” phase, or the “I Can’t Even Remember Why I Wanted To Write This” phase. In other words, it’s not fun.

And…as usual, I hit it this week. Of course, this is my payment/comeuppance for refusing to outline. But, even though this phase SUCKS, it’s also when I roll up my sleeves and put on my thinking cap. And getting through it requires a chance of pace, usually. Gone are the indulgent days of the beginning, where I could have slower-ish scenes to introduce characters and plotlines. Things need to really Start Happening now, and I have to figure out HOW.

(It doesn’t help that at this particular moment in the world of TOG, Celaena is being a stick in the mud and refusing to do what she’s told.)

(No, it's not a stick in the mud. But it's Atreyu and Artax in the mud, which is close enough. So just imagine that I'm Atreyu, and Artax is Celaena/Book 3, and that is EXACTLY how I feel right now. Though let's pretend that I actually save her/this book from the Marshes of Sadness.
WHY, YES, I AM LISTENING TO THE NEVERENDING STORY SOUNDTRACK RIGHT NOW.)

So, that means stepping back to think. Or doing Productive Things That Give Me An Excuse To Think (showering, cooking, laundry, BAKING COOKIES). I made a beautiful Irish beef stew on Sunday night, and I think I did it because 1) It gave me an excuse to let my mind wander and 2) Celaena is currently in a very…domestic situation, so Playing Scullery Maid let me get into her head a bit more. (WRITERS ARE CRAZY.)

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the next Celaena-scene I wrote POURED out of me. (It also scared the crap out of me, and I had to go turn on all the lights in my house.) And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that after a long, hot shower yesterday, I figured out some Dorian/Chaol scenes that then poured right out of me, too. (I actually had to start chanting the ideas to myself in the shower because I was so scared I’d forget them before I could write them down.)

So, as this second week of NaNo draws to a close, the gears have shifted. The gears are STILL shifting. The writing is becoming a bit tougher, but I also think it’s…getting better. The first 100 page jitters are gone. I’ve introduced the new characters, gotten a feel for them, can write more confidently about them. And even if I can’t see farther ahead than the next scene and those Big Events looming on the horizon, I know I’ll get through it.

Even if I have to bake a thousand batches of cookies and cook a hundred beef stews.

And for those of you who might also be in the Doldrums of NaNo, you’ll get through it, too. Even if you don’t know what the hell to write, just keep writing (however absurd, however melodramatic and silly and useless).

KEEP. WRITING.

NaNoWriMo Update: Week One

2012-11-08T19:25:49Z

Before I begin my update/NaNoWriMo Confessional, I just want to quickly say that if you live in Southern California, then you should DEFINITELY come to YA In The Sun THIS SATURDAY (November 10th) at the Encinitas Library from 2-4:30 PM! I will be there signing THRONE OF GLASS, along with these amazing authors:

Josephine Angelini, Leigh Bardugo, Jennifer Bosworth, Jessica Brody, Debra Driza, Cynthia Hand, Nancy Holder, Kirsten Hubbard, Suzanne Lazear, Marie Lu, Gretchen McNeil, Shannon Messenger, Tone Milazzo, Cindy Pon, Andrew Smith, Barrie Summy, McCormick Templeman, Greg VanEekhout, and Kiersten White!

For more details, click here! Hope to see you there!

So, it’s been one week since my first official NaNoWrimo started. One crazy, awesome, exhausting week. As a first time NaNo-er, I went into NaNo with a mixture of excitement and dread. Could I do it? Would I like it? Would it be a good use of my time?

The answer to all of those is a resounding YES.

Since beginning NaNo, I’ve written 21,000 words of Book 3. Which is just…awesome. I couldn’t be happier to have made such progress in one week—and that I’ve had such great company while doing it.

In case you don’t follow me on twitter (or don’t use twitter at all), the BIGGEST reason why I’ve written so much in a week is because my soul-twin/anam cara, Sooz, and I have been hosting daily NaNoWriMo Battles. Basically, we do 30-minute sprints, where we write-write-write as much as we can, and at the end of 30 mins, whoever has written the most wins. (And then they to wear the Badass Crown until the next battle.)

We decided last week that it’d be fun to have these battles on twitter, and invite anyone to join. Which has just made the whole thing way, WAYY more fun. (If you’re interested in joining us, then we usually host our battles every weekday at 4 PM ET. We’ll do two or three in a row, then either end for the day or regroup around 8 PM ET for one or two more battles before bed. Just follow #NaNoWriMoBattle)

But while I’ve been doing these sprints and getting past the 20k-mark, there are a few things I’ve noticed.

The first, and biggest, is that when I’m doing these sprints, it’s mostly about getting the plot down onto the page. Because the sprints are on twitter/very public, I don’t really get to LOSE myself in the story the way I usually do. Which means that after we finish battling it out, I’ll go back through that I’ve written and heavily revise, adding in more of the emotional-type stuff.

So, the sprints are awesome. But they are also not reflective of how I usually write. Yes, I write pretty quickly most days. But I also write in a bubble, where I listen to music and act out the scenes and cry and get really, really into what I’m writing. And because of the competitive spirit/pace of the sprints, I don’t get to do that. Which isn’t a BAD thing, because I’m getting down GOOD material when I sprint, but it also means I have to later go back and do more work/figure things out.

Another confession:

You know how I said I wasn’t going to look at that old, old 420k manuscript for Book 3? Well, I did.

I looked because I initially couldn’t REMEMBER wtf happened, how Celaena got from Point A to Point B, especially in the beginning. I was terrified to open up the ms, because I had this nostalgic “I will read it and fall in love” idea in my head of what the book was like. But then I opened it up, and was…shocked.

I was shocked because the story I need to tell for Book 3 just doesn't work with what I wrote years ago. The characters, the world, the plot…It’s all different now. And yes, some things WILL be similar, but what I wrote back in college just…doesn’t work.

Also, that writing I thought was soooo great? I was cringing while reading it. It was rambling, and stiff, and, honestly, a little boring… And it wasn’t MY voice. It’s not at all who I am as a writer NOW. It’s not how I now see Celaena and the THRONE OF GLASS series. Not even close to how I see it.

And you know what? It was LIBERATING to realize that. It was like a giant weight was lifted off my shoulders when I realized that I could ditch so much of Book 3, that I didn’t have to cleave to every word or scene or character, that I could play around with things the way I wanted to.

The work I did back then—the hours/days/months I spent drafting Book 3 (and all the books in the TOG series)—isn’t without merit. Only by writing draft after draft, by revising again and again, did I get to the heart of this series—to the heart of Celaena and her journey. So even though that 420k-word ms makes me cringe, it’s still a part of how I got to where I am today…how I became the writer I am now.

I’m PROUD of that 420k-manuscript, because those were 420k words spent learning how to WRITE. Those were 420k words that made me understand Celaena & her world a little more. So it’ll never be a waste. Yes, I might not use 90% of it, but writing ANYTHING is never a waste of my time.

So, it’s been a big week for me and THRONE OF GLASS. It’s been a week of letting go, a week of falling in love (both with old characters and new ones), a week of understanding that, above all else, my faith in myself and this series is what will get me through writing this book.

It’s been a good week.

--

What about you guys? How has YOUR first week of NaNo been??

Happy First Day Of NaNoWriMo!

2012-11-01T18:19:37Z

Happy First Day Of NaNo, Everyone!!

I hope you guys all had a fabulous Halloween. My Halloween was pretty low-key, since I 1) didn’t have a costume 2) forgot to buy candy, and 3) was too preoccupied with NaNo prep to do anything other than watch the obligatory scary movies (…and by "scary movies" I mean "a Hocus Pocus marathon.").

Honestly, I’m super-nervous about NaNo. Excited, but nervous.

What’s funny is that I wrote Book 2 in 30 days last April (the first draft was 111k), and wrote the TOG novellas under similarly tight deadlines (they were each around 30k words). I’ve written several other manuscripts in a month or so, most of them 90k or more. So this whole 50k in 30 days thing is nothing new to me. But I’m still nervous.

For starters, it’s so public—so official-looking. If I slack off or fall behind, then it’s up there for everyone to see.

Then there’s the fact that I have a bunch of events in November, and I’m worried that they’ll seriously interrupt my writing flow. Honestly, while I LOVE doing these kinda events, I’ll often need days to recover—emotionally, physically, creatively. Though maybe having the pressure/competition of NaNo will help me recover faster from my usual post-event exhaustion. (…I’m hoping that’ll be the case.)

I’m also not a weekend writer. Mostly, it’s because I like to have SOME semblance of a Real Life, and want to spend time with my hubby. Right now, I’m thinking that because I usually can punch out several thousand words a day (sometimes into the 10k+ level), I might be able to make up for weekends off, but… It’s another “What If” that’s adding to my start-of-NaNo jitters.

But the biggest thing that’s freaking me out about NaNo? Book 3.

For those of you who read THRONE OF GLASS when it was on FictionPress, Book 3 roughly correlates with the events of Part 2 (when Celaena is in Wendlyn). When I rewrote the series years and years ago (after pulling it from FP and completely rewriting it word for word), Book 3 (then Book 2) wound up clocking in at a whopping 420k words.

Yep. 420k words.

I haven’t opened up the ms yet. I’m afraid to. I’m afraid that I’ll wind up falling in love with every scene and drive myself crazy trying to condense 420k into a 120k-manuscript (and Book 3 really, really needs to be ONE book).

For months, I’ve been dreading writing Book 3, because there were so many parts that I LOVED, so many characters and events and little moments that are still close to my heart. And even though the cutting/condensing is usually for the best… sometimes it’s really hard.

So I decided months ago that rather than open up the ms, I’m just going to write (from scratch) the story that I remember—the story that’s in my head right now. But that still scares the crap out of me, because even THAT story might wind up super-long. There are new characters, new plotlines… And risks. I’m taking a lot of risks with this manuscript, and that’s what scares me most.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I am NOT an outlining kind of writer. I tried sticking to an outline for Book 2, and what looked great on paper did NOT translate into a good book. And I have a feeling that the risks I’m taking for Book 3 might not look so great in an outline, but could work REALLY well in an actual book.

So these risky parts—they’re something that I have to feel out by writing the book. It’s the only way for me to know if they work. Taking risks is how I grow as a writer—it’s how I learn what kind of writer I am, what kind of stories I want to create. And nerves aside, I love the challenge. I think the challenge is what makes me come alive. The thrill of the challenge is what made me decide to do NaNo this year.

So maybe those risks will pay off in Book 3. Maybe they won’t. But I’m giving myself permission to take them—and to see what I can learn about my writing, my characters, and myself in the process. I’m giving myself permission to tell the invisible audience lurking behind me to shut the hell up. I’m giving myself permission to lose myself—heart & soul—in this book. I’m giving myself permission to write as much as I want, whether it’s 50k or 120k or 420k (though I hope to God this book doesn’t get that long again). I’m giving myself permission to write freely.

So, if I have one bit of advice to offer you guys on this first day of NaNo, it’s this:

Take risks. Be brave. Don’t focus on word counts—focus on the story. Don’t worry if what’s coming out on paper isn’t what’s in your head—you’ll have time to revise later. But for now… for now, focus on finding the joy in storytelling, the thrill and the rush and the challenge of it.

In the wise words of Ursula K. Le Guin...

Now go kick some NaNo ass!!!

P.S. If you haven't signed up for NaNo, you can do so Here. You can also add me Here. Throughout NaNo, I'll be updating this blog once a week (with everything from writing advice to inspiration to confessions about how the writing is REALLY going). My anam cara, Sooz, is also going to be doing the same on her blog (we're also hosting a super-awesome NaNo giveaway), so be sure to stop by her website! ALSO--in case you didn't see my last update, I'm participating in the Ask A Published YA Author Forum on the NaNo site, so don't be shy with your questions!

P. P. S. This is my Start of NaNo Pump-Up Track today. (Yes, it IS from the Breaking Dawn Part 2 trailer. And NO, that fact doesn't diminish how awesome this piece is.) I heard this music for the first time yesterday, and it reminded me SO much of the feel of Book 3 (and the Risky Parts) that I seriously just sat at my desk for an HOUR, listening to this again and again and daydreaming.

NaNoWriMo Prep & An Update!

2012-10-26T18:14:03Z

(Before I dive into this post, I just want to say… Be sure to check out Sooz’s blog on Monday, because she’s going to reveal the cover for A DARKNESS STRANGE & LOVELY—the second book in her SPIRIT-HUNTERS trilogy! She’ll also be giving away copies of SOMETHING STRANGE & DEADLY anddddd a signed copy of THRONE OF GLASS by yours truly! Don’t miss out!)

--

SO, NaNo is now less than a week away. And I am so, so excited and nervous and just AMPED to write. THANK YOU to everyone who added me as a writing buddy on the NaNo site—and thanks to those of you who entered the giveaway that Sooz and I are hosting in honor of NaNo!

About that giveaway…

Well, Sooz and I started tweeting/posting about our NaNo plans, we realized that a bunch of AMAZING YA authors are also participating this year. And then Beth Revis (author of ACROSS THE UNIVERSE) came up with an awesome, awesome idea…

Participating in NaNo? Got any burning questions about writing/the industry/the creative process? Then head on over to the Ask A Published YA Author forum, where you can post your burning questions and have them answered by me, Beth Revis, Sooz, Jessica Khoury (author of ORIGIN), Jessica Spotswood (author of BORN WICKED), Erin Bowman (author of TAKEN), David Macinnis Gill (author of BLACK HOLE SUN), Robin LaFevers (author of GRAVE MERCY), and Wendy Higgins (author of SWEET EVIL) . We figured it’d be a fun/exciting way to give back just a *little* more during NaNo.

So, this is the last weekend before NaNo begins, and I am totallyyy going to spend it doing some NaNo Prep. Because it’s my first time doing NaNo, I figured I’d share what I’ll be doing to get ready (especially since Sooz is being Wise and Intellectual by posting today about her favorite books on writing)...

1) Laundry. So ridiculous, but any time I’m about to go into Drafting Mode, I do the laundry. Mostly so I don’t have to worry about doing it while I’m drafting, but also because I want to have a full supply of yoga pants, comfy t-shirts, and oversized sweatshirts (my writing outfit of choice. Super chic, I know).

2) Food Shopping. Even though NaNo starts on a Thursday, I want to stock up on all my favorite writing snacks. So, I’m going to be buying lots of fruit (honeycrisp apples!), fresh bread (Boudin Bakery in Costa Mesa is my current favorite fix for all my carboholic needs), coffee (MAKE SURE YOU HAVE ENOUGH CAFFEINE), fancy cheese (my favorite writing food!), mint-chocolate-covered espresso beans (lifesaver), and milk (totally unhealthy, but sometimes I’ll just drink a glass of milk to fill up instead of wasting time on a meal when the writing is going really well).

3) Preparing My Significant Other For The Storm That Is About To Hit. This means telling my husband that he will basically be cooking dinner for a month, that he will have to remind me to shower, and that he needs to give me Lots of Alone Time.

I’m someone who CANNOT write/focus/get into a scene if someone is nearby. It’s mostly because I like to blast my music, and get so emotionally involved that I cry and laugh and act things out and just act like a crazy person. (In fact, I’m writing this post a few days ahead of time because my housekeeper is here today and it means I can’t focus on edits until she’s gone.) SO, I’m going to have The Talk with my poor husband this weekend, and make sure he clearly & absolutely understands what the next 30 days will be like. If you live with someone (significant other, roommate, family, etc.), it might be good to give them a heads-up, too.

4) Buying Shit I Don’t Need But Like To Have. This includes things like: my favorite writing candle (I love the Illume Boulangerie candle line, especially the angelfood cake scent. You can buy it at Anthropologie.); my favorite lip balm (Smith’s Rosebud Salve. I keep a tin of it on my desk.); MORE yoga pants and comfy t-shirts and oversized sweat-shirts; and maybe a brand-new/artsy coffee mug. Because it’s my first NaNo, I’m feeling more inclined to indulge myself in this kinda crap (and it’s autumn, which means I’m predisposed to craving candles and swaddling myself in comfy clothes).

5) Making sure my playlist for Book 3 (my NaNo project) is ready to go. This is probably the biggest thing for me. I HATE outlining—HATE it. BUT, I recently realized that I actually DO outline—I outline using my iTunes playlists.

For years, I’ve kept extensive playlists for all of my manuscripts (since almost every scene/moment/character is inspired by music), and whenever I revised/moved things around, I’d ALSO move the songs that inspired that scene/moment around in the playlist. Basically, it’s musical outlining.

Right now, my Book 3 Playlist is a 563-song mess. There are clusters of songs that make up scenes/parts (left over from my FictionPress years), but then there are also just HEAPS of unsorted songs that I need to form into some kind of order. So, this weekend and early next week, I’ll be hammering them all into the rough shape of the novel.

I’m also going to be getting my Brooding/Unsticking/Brainstorming music in place. I have a few albums that I always go to whenever I’m Stuck. This week, when I got stuck while editing, I put on one of these albums, and just started hand-writing all my thoughts as I daydreamed/brainstormed my way out of it. (Confession: my hand-written notes wound up making a circle around the page. Not, um, straight lines. Basically, I am a crazy person.)

My musical tastes can be kinda unusual, BUT I figured I’d share my top three Get The Creative Juices Flowing albums:

1) LEGEND by Jerry Goldsmith. The original film actually didn’t feature his amazing score (they replaced it with that weird-ass synth score by Tangerine Dream), but you can still hear it in the Director’s Cut (which is a better movie, anyway). I don’t know what it is about this score, but there is SOMETHING very primal/feral fairy-tale in the music—especially the first track. It was THIS piece that I listened to this week while brainstorming my way out of a plot-corner. Maybe there’s something about the way my brain reacts to the chords/beat/whatever…? (Science, you are cool, but I don't understand you.)

2) THE SECRET OF N.I.M.H. by Jerry Goldsmith. When you guys read Book 2 and come across a bard with the last name “Goldsmith,” just know that it’s a small tribute to my favorite movie score composer. Seriously, Jerry Goldsmith wrote music that speaks to my creativity at some basic, instinctual level. And THE SECRET OF N.I.M.H. soundtrack is one of the most underappreciated soundtracks of all time. It’s dark and charming and haunting and violent and moving, and I cannot even begin to tell you how many scenes, how many stories, how many characters have come out of this one soundtrack. “The Tractor” is one of my favorite pieces—and the opening always makes the hair on my neck stand up (this youtube vid does it NO justice, btw).

3) Rimsky-Korsakov’s SCHEHERAZADE symphonic suite. This is my favorite “lie on the couch and brood” music. (I also listened to it on repeat while reading Patricia A. McKillip’s masterpiece of a novel, ALPHABET OF THORN and it fit the book PERFECTLY.). Again, I can’t quite pinpoint what it is about this music, but it can’t be a coincidence that me AND Sooz AND a few other writer-buddies also find this track extremely, extremely conducive to brainstorming/doing creative stuff.

ANNNND, that’s it. Next week, I’ll be checking back in with some thoughts about what I’m really feeling before diving into NaNo. And, again, feel free to post questions on the Ask A Published YA Author forum! We’re here to help!

Tell Me: What are YOU doing to get ready for NaNo?

That Time I Signed Up For NaNoWriMo... And A Giveaway!

2012-10-22T17:39:05Z

So, when this time of year rolls around, one of the questions I get asked fairly often is “Are you doing NaNo?”

Usually, my answer is “Nope. My life is pretty much one big NaNo, or X-Y-Z deadline has made doing it impossible.”

(For those of you who don’t know wtf I’m talking about, NaNo = NaNoWriMo = National Novel Writing Month, a month-long challenge/event where thousands of people try to write a novel in 30 days. It has been going on for years, and is super inspiring and badass.)

I’ve spent past years watching NaNo participants with some degree of jealousy—the sense of community, the explosion of creative energy… It has always looked like SO MUCH FUN.

So, it feels like the stars aligned the year…in a few ways:

I will be sending in my second round of edits on TOG Book 2 any day now, which means I will be (somewhat) free for November.
Thanks to travel, events, and life, I have been actively NOT WRITING new stuff for a few months. Which means I have been ACHING to write-write-write my little heart out. And what better time to do it than NaNo?
Thanks to all those events, I’ve met a lot of incredible, incredible people. A lot of aspiring authors, actually. And (here is where I start squirming because I don’t particularly like tooting my own horn, but bear with me) at many of these events, AT LEAST one person has come up to me and told me that they are a) a writer b) stopped writing because they didn’t think they could do it, and c) hearing me talk about how I went from a teen writer to published author and kept with it for ten years inspired them to start writing again.

More than hearing that a reader loves THRONE OF GLASS, it’s hearing THAT—that I made just ONE person want to write—that hits me in the freaking gut every time. It makes every hour of work worth it, it makes me stay the course, makes me remember why I love writing.

I’m a debut author, but I’ve been doing a lot of Thinking lately about my career—how I see it long-term, what I want from it, the things that matter the most to me. Recently, I became totally addicted to Alex Bracken’s “Black Betty Driving Mix” for her (amazing, amazing) novel, THE DARKEST MINDS. I listen to it when I’m cooking, when I’m cleaning, when I’m chilling out. And one of my favorite-favorite songs on the playlist (and of all time) is Bob Dylan’s “Forever Young.” (Which is also the freaking hardest song to find on youtube, so if you want to hear it, head on over to Alex's playlist. It's #10.)

So, the other night, I was cooking dinner (AKA revising went badly that day), and “Forever Young” started playing. And I just stood in my kitchen, listening—REALLY LISTENING—to the words.

And, I started thinking about how I’d listen to this song back when I was a teen and dream big, how it is one of Those Songs that reminds you of Who You Are and What You Want. And then I started thinking about those people at the events who told me that they’d stopped writing, or convinced themselves they weren’t good enough, or who wanted to write but were too afraid to type one word.

And I wound up listening to that song nearly a dozen times that night, especially the lines: “May your wishes all come true / May you always do for others / And let others do for you…”

See, a lot of my wishes HAVE come true. My BIGGEST wish—to be published—came true, and then some. And thanks to that wish coming true, I haven’t had much time to give back lately. But I am here today because someone remembered to reach back (my lovely friend and author/agent, Mandy Hubbard). And because I’ve been doing all that Thinking lately about what I Really Want from my career, and what means the most to me as a writer and author, I got this idea.

It’s not much. And as a published author, I now don’t usually have the luxury of the time to do this kind of stuff, but, again, the stars aligned this year, so…

If you are a writer, if you are thinking of doing NaNo, if you have wanted to write your whole life but have been too scared or had someone tell you it was a waste of your time…. If you’ve always wanted to try NaNo but have been too freaked out and/or intimidated…

If you’re in, I’m in.

I signed up for a NaNo account last week (and it scared the crap out of me, because OMG, it’s so Public and Official). So, add me and I’ll add you. Let’s rock NaNo together.

Write that story you’ve had in your heart for years. Write the story you started but didn’t finish. Hell, even if you don’t make the daily word count, just write. Write WITH me.

If I can do it, then you can do it, too.

So, we’ve got nine days until NaNo begins (on November 1st). And last week when I spoke to my BFFer, Susan Dennard, I mentioned wanting to do something special related to NaNo…. And she said that SHE had been wanting to do something, too (this is obvi why we’re BFFers).

See, one of the things that both of us have realized about What We Want To Do With Our Careers is this: pay it forward. In whatever way we can, whenever we can.

So, again, it’s not much. BUT if you participate in NaNo (and wind up winning), then you can enter into a raffle for a 5-page critique from Sooz and me. We’re actually going to pick TWO winners once NaNo is over.

If you want to enter, then go on over to Sooz’s blog (because Livejournal doesn’t support rafflecopter giveaways)! She also has some great advice/motivation (she’s a NaNo vet and will be writing TWO projects this year for NaNo. Whaaat!).

Throughout NaNo, both of us will be posting frequently on our blogs—advice, The Truth about how NaNo is actually going for us, and general inspiration/silliness/fun. Basically, this is just our way of encouraging all of you to WRITE, and our way of giving back.

So…Be brave. Sign up for NaNo. And then add me. Add Sooz. Follow the Pinterest board that we made to post daily bits of inspiration/snark/humor/hot guys. But just write. :)

Southern Festival of Books... And Some MORE Throne of Glass Fan Art!

2012-10-10T20:08:40Z

So, I’m knee-deep in my second round of edits on Book Two of the THRONE OF GLASS series, which means: 1) I don’t even know what day it is, 2) I can’t remember the last time I showered, and 3) My brain hurts. (Seriously. My brain just tried to condense “second round” to “sound.”)

BUT, I’m getting a teensy break this Friday, when I go to Nashville for the Southern Festival of Books!

I’m on an AWESOME panel on Saturday morning with C. J. Redwine (author of DEFIANCE), and Karyn Henley (author of EYE OF THE SWORD). I’ll also be signing copies of THRONE OF GLASS after the panel, so…yay! (Details on the panel at the bottom of this post.)

I’ve never been to Nashville, and even though I’m going for less than 24 hours, I am SO freaking excited (it also means I get to see the amazing Kat Zhang, author of WHAT’S LEFT OF ME).

Anyway, if you live in/around Nashville, be sure to stop by the festival!

AND, just because I am kinda obsessed with this fan-art… Here are two amazing pieces by Leafette (aka Nicole) of Princess Nehemia and Queen Elena! She totally nailed how I imagine Nehemia and Elena to FEEL/look/seem, and I am just…in love. (Also, I have the BEST readers in the whole wide world. I love you guys.)

(Left: Princess Nehemia; Right: Queen Elena)

AND, holy shit. I also just stumbled across this piece of Celaena and Elena (also on Nicole's tumblr). Excuse me while I flip the hell out from sheer Awesome Overload.

(Holy crap, right?!)

--

UPCOMING EVENTS:

SOUTHERN FESTIVAL OF BOOKS
Nashville, Tennessee
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 13th:
10:00 AM - 11:30 AM: Room 29, Legislative Plaza
Panel: The Hero, The Heroine, and The Assassin:
YA Fantasy Novels with Karyn Henley (EYE OF THE SWORD), and C.J. Redwine (DEFIANCE)

11:30 AM - 12:00 PM: Signing Colonnade:
I’ll be signing copies of THRONE OF GLASS!

Hope to see you there! :)

Chat with me LIVE tomorrow at 4 PM EST! (...& Some Awesome TOG Fan Art)

2012-10-05T20:17:41Z

Happy Friday, everyone! (Is it just me or did this week go by really quickly? Like...HOW IS IT FRIDAY ALREADY?)

So, just a quick reminder that I'll be chatting with THRONE OF GLASS fans for an hour tomorrow (Saturday, October 6th) at 4 PM EST! The chat is open internationally (hooray!)! I'll be answering all of your THRONE OF GLASS questions, plus anything else you'd like to know about me & my writing process! (So, basically, ask me ANYTHING.)

For details on HOW to access the chat, scroll down to the bottom of this post. And you can RSVP to the event here.

BUT before I post the directions, I just have to share this AWESOME piece of Celaena-Chaol fan-art that the awesome Michelle Mags pointed out to me (Michelle runs the incredible By The Wyrd tumblr account--where she posts lots of TOG-related stuff). It depicts Celaena and Chaol at the ball, and...I died when I saw it.

I also died when I heard that the artist listened to "Enchanted" by Taylor Swift while creating the artwork--and that the ball scene reminded her of that song, too.

Well, I'd never actually heard that song. So I looked it up, and read the lyrics as I listened... And totally burst into (happy) tears. The song fits that scene (especially from Chaol's POV) SO PERFECTLY. Like...I was totally floored when I heard it.

Confession: I wound up spending an HOUR just staring at the picture and listening to the song again and again and again.

The ball is one of my FAVORITE scenes in the book, but seeing the artist's interpretation and hearing the music that SHE thought fit the moment just made me love it even more. (Book Two Non-Spoilery Fact: There is ANOTHER ball. And you can bet that whenever I work on THAT scene during revisions, I'm going to be listening to "Enchanted" from now on.)

So...that made my day/life. I pretty much felt like the Grinch, when his heart grows a bajillion sizes.

ANYWAY.

Here are the directions for how to access tomorrow's chat (....Written by someone at Bloomsbury. Just in case you think I've started talking about myself in the third person.). Again, you can RSVP for the event here!

Make sure your Flash player is up-to-date. Go to the following address to get the latest version of Flash: http://www.adobe.com/support/flashplayer/downloads.html
To access the chat, go to: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/throne-of-glass-author-chat-with-sarah-maas
You should see a video box (it may be blank if you're early for the chat) on the left of the screen, and a chat box on the right. There are two tabs on the chat box: "Social Stream" and "Chat." IMPORTANT: Make sure to click the "Social Stream" tab!
Just under the "Social Stream" tab label, in the text box, you'll see a gray avatar box with a white silhouette inside it. Click the arrow to the right of that box to open the drop-down, and choose the option to "Connect to Facebook."
A separate window should pop up asking you to allow UStream access to your Facebook profile. If the window asks you to click "Allow" or "Okay," do so.
You should now see your profile picture in the text box back on the main video chat page. Type in what you want to say, and press "Send" to talk to Sarah!
Enjoy chatting with other users on the "Social Stream" tab, and send your questions and comments to Sarah the same way -- she'll answer as many questions as she can LIVE on camera!

Hope to see you guys tomorrow!!!

Chat With Me THIS SATURDAY! (...Plus Some Other News & A Recap Of My NorCal Trip!)

2012-10-03T19:55:59Z

So, awesome news:

THIS SATURDAY, October 6th, I’ll be chatting LIVE with readers of THRONE OF GLASS! The event is international, and open to everyone! (If you’re in the US, the event will start at 4 PM EST. For other time zones, check out the TOG Facebook Page for info! …My math skills are too atrocious to figure out all the time zone conversions.)

I am so, so excited to chat with you all, so bring your burning questions about THRONE OF GLASS! Eeee!!

So… Another bit of cool news: We sold rights to THRONE OF GLASS in JAPAN! (As someone who was a massive anime nerd in middle school & high school and basically wanted to live in Japan, I pretty much freaked out when I heard the news.) No word on when it’ll be available, but it’ll be published by Villagebooks, a division of We've Inc.!

Including the US, UK, and Australia/New Zealand, that makes FOURTEEN countries where TOG now has a home. And that just…blows my freaking mind. Seriously, it’s beyond anything I could have ever imagined.

Speaking of dreams coming true and whatnot… I recently got back from my trip to Northern California, and aghhh. It was fantastic. I met so many wonderful people and had such a blast. (A HUGE thank-you to Dolores and Martha, my media escorts for the trip. You guys are absolutely incredible.)

It was SO surreal and awesome to visit middle schools and high schools (I visited 5 schools in the 2 days that I was there)—especially when so much of THRONE OF GLASS was written between classes (and during classes) and after/before/instead of homework.

Another fun thing I got to do while in NorCal was attend a lovely tea party (for real!) with some amazing, amazing bloggers. These ladies are so smart and funny and welcoming, and I wish I’d had more time to chat with them (Thank you, Jaime, for the pics!)!

(From left to right: Jean, Mindy, Nancy, Jaime, ME!, Bella, Tara, and Anna!)

(This is me. Signing Books and trying to look like I’m NOT about to eat ALL THE SCONES.)

(This is also me: About to burst out laughing at something Anna said. Because she’s hilarious and lovely and I <3 her.)

I also had two signings in NorCal, and at one of them, I finally got to meet Juliann Ma, who is one of my oldest fans (9 years!!), and who has been such a source of endless support and encouragement (seriously, she’s in the acknowledgments). Basically, she's part of the reason why THRONE OF GLASS is even in bookstores today.

Meeting Juliann went something like this: I was signing copies of TOG when I looked to the next person in line and did a massive double-take. And then a triple-take. Then I think I went into shock and my eyes popped out of my head. And then all I remember is trying so hard NOT to burst into tears, because if I let the enormity of that moment hit me, there was NO WAY I’d get through signing the rest of the books.

But here’s proof that it happened (Thanks, Juliann, for the pics!):

(Once I stopped gaping at her and making weird squealing noises, I ran around the table to hug her.)

(And, obviously, one hug wasn’t enough, so we eventually hugged again.)

(And then we took a Nice, Civilized Photo. And, okay, I'm totally crying while looking at these pics.)

Honestly? This is the best part of being a writer: the amazing people that you meet. The people that writing brings into your life. And meeting readers—whether from FictionPress or brand-new ones—makes every bit of hard work, sweat, and tears worth it for me. Meeting readers is just…a joy.

So, if you’ve ever come to one of my signings or events… Thank you. I can’t find the words to express how much it truly means to me, but please know that I am HONORED. <3

Annnnd, I think that’s about it! If you’re free this Saturday, be sure to stop by the chat (for more details & to RSVP, click here)!

Hope you guys are well!

Upcoming THRONE OF GLASS Events!

2012-09-24T21:42:00Z

So, it somehow seems fitting that just when I finally made my Grand Return To Blogging, I’m off on another adventure! (….only for a few days, though!)

At the end of this week, I’ll be in San Francisco/the Bay Area for a few events (more details at the bottom of this post)!

THIS THURSDAY (SEPTEMBER 27th) AT 7 PM, I’ll be at Kepler’s Books!

And THIS FRIDAY (SEPTEMBER 28th) AT 7 PM, I’ll be at Copperfield’s Books in Petaluma!

I am insanely, insanely excited about going up to NorCal for a few days. In addition to the signings, I’ll be doing a few school visits, which is just…ridiculously surreal. And an honor, actually.

So, pleasure forgive me in advance for any belated replies to tweets/comments/emails later this week/this weekend. I usually try my best to tweet photos/updates while I’m doing these events, but honestly? I’m normally having so much fun that it never occurs to me to snap a photo until long after the event has finished. :)

ALSO! If you live in Southern California, I’ll be attending the Orange County Children’s Book Festival THIS SUNDAY, September 30th, at Orange College in Costa Mesa! (Details at the bottom of this post!)

AND:

I also realized this weekend that I’m way, wayyy overdue for a What I’m Reading/Book Recommendation kinda post... BUT until I get back, here are some awesome books you should definitely check out:

FALSE MEMORY by Dan Krokos.
The Quick & Dirty: Badass, action-packed, swoon-worthy, and thought provoking. A stellar YA debut.

WHAT’S LEFT OF ME by Kat Zhang.
The Quick & Dirty: Elegant, haunting, and unforgettable. YA at its best.

The PSY-CHANGELING series by Nalini Singh (first book is SLAVE TO SENSATION).
The Quick & Dirty: I read all 11 books back to back over the past few weeks. I am obsessed. BEYOND obsessed, actually. Like, I want to write fanfic about this series because it’s so effing good. The characters, the world-building, the plot... Aghhh. I’m a massive, massive fan of her GUILD HUNTER series (also adult paranormal romance), and this one is just as amazing. I’m torn on which series I love more, actually. My heart hurts every time I think about either series because I want the characters/world to be real SO BADLY.

And…that’s it! If you’re in the San Francisco area, I hope you can make it to one of my events later this week—and I can’t wait to meet you! :)

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UPCOMING EVENTS:

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 27th: 7 PM:
Signing at Kepler’s Books in Melo Park
1010 El Camino Real
Menlo Park, CA 94025-4349
Details Here

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FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 28th: 7 PM:
Teen Pizza Party at Copperfield’s Books
140 Kentucky St.
Petaluma, CA 94952
Details Here

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SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 30th: 11:30 AM (Teen Stage):
Orange County Children’s Book Festival
Orange Coast College
Costa Mesa, CA
Details Here
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Hope to see you there! <3