FRAIL HUMAN HEART BLOGTOUR: DAY #5

Woohoo, happy Friday muffins! You made it, and the week is so, so nearly over. Here are three pieces of good news to speed you onto the weekend:

1) Today's blogpost is a juicy, spoilerific deleted scene from THE NAME OF THE BLADE which has never been released before and is being hosted exclusively by the lovely Beth at The Reader's Corner. Run over there now and check it out! I promise it's worth it :) *Hint hint*

2) The FRAIL HUMAN HEART Blogtour will be continuing over the weekend, with two more juicy deleted scenes, one on Saturday and one on Sunday - and there are still more posts set for next week! I will carry on posting the links for you here so you need have no fear you'll miss anything.

3) For those of you who are fans of my movie live-snarking, here's some advance warning that I'll be watching and tweeting about X-Men: First Class today - Friday - at 9pm. The film is showing on Film Four, but if you have the DVD you can always pop that in and sync up. Everytime I spontaneously live-tweet a film people say 'I wish I'd known you'd be doing this!' so here I am, responding to popular demand.

In other stuff, I've had one new review on the Frail Human Heart page on Amazon, and a couple of others have popped up on the other books of the trilogy, which I appreciate very much. But the offer of a special secret prize related to the trilogy is still open, so if you're interested in that, now is a good time to nip over there and leave a review - an honest review! - so I can put your name on the list of people who will be in with a chance to win.

And now, a quick snippet for you from one of my two current WIPs.

I'm not actively working on either of these because I'm still waiting for my publisher to hint at me which - if either - they're likely to offer a contract for, and also because I'm expecting my #BaBBook (that's Barefoot on the Wind!) edits back any day now. I think most of you know about my Mulan retelling but I'm also working on another project, which I'm mostly describing as - Downton Abbey meets Outlander, by way of Rebecca. And this second book is the one I'm quoting from today (in completely rough, first draft, unpolished, subject-to-change form of course)!

Here goes:

The opaque, jagged black sea seethed beneath a delicately pink-flushed sky. Long vertical drifts of cloud, soft grey, were limned with the fiery glow of the rising sun. The headland was a mist shrouded blue-grey shape curving at what seemed like an impossible distance across the surging water, as it it were a half imagined faery land that might evaporate or sink down into the waves with the coming of dawn.

But as the orange ball of the sun continued its steady rise up through the ragged clouds, the whole character of the water began slowly to change, gradually smoothing and paling, until it resembled a long roll of gleaming silver silk, tinted with the warm colours of the sky, that I could have stepped out onto and walked across, and feel ripple, warm and flexible, under the bare soles of my feet. The forested cliffs firmed in my sight, swimming into reality, and the mist that hovered around them lit with gold. The unmistakable, jigsaw puzzle shapes of the ruined castle on the hill loomed up like giant sentinels, looking down sternly on the bay.

Something panged inside me, and I felt my mood shifting, brought down by a vague but strong sense of... what? Unease? A sort of wrongness, like waking from a dream that you were someone else, and for a moment still feeling that it must be real, even though your true memories and life were already forcing their way back in your awareness.

The shape of the ruins was wrong.

My eyes instinctively wanted to trace a different shape, a more symmetrical silhouette, placing turrets and ramparts against the streaked, glowing mists that no longer existed there, mentally rebuilding walls where the walls had clearly fallen down long ago. It was as if some part of me had expected to see the old castle as it had been before. Before the place had.... Before... Before I ever came here.

A chill shivered over the vulnerable skin of my neck and I wrapped my arms around myself, hugging my own chest tightly, digging my nails into the thick nubby wool of my jumper. It didn't help. For the first time I was aware of the cold breathing off the dense, lichen-pocked stone of the sea wall where I sat, seeping through the fabric of my jeans. Hopping down, I forced my eyes away from the inexplicably distressing ancient black ruin to look up at the town instead, spilling down the hillside above me. 

It was a pretty sight - everything was pink and gold, and I could already smell the tempting bready scents of someone baking carried on the mild spring breeze. Maybe it was even Belle - her shop couldn't be far away from here.

When the goosepimples stubbornly stayed, prickling on my skin, a couple of tugs on my hairband sent my hair tumbling down in wild, kinky curls around my shoulders. I shook my head and fluffed it with my fingers. The familiar warm tickle against my nape banished the anxious, alien feelings as much as the reassuring sight of the brightly painted houses hugging the curve of the bay and the buttery warm smell of freshly baked croissants.

Those croissants did smell awfully good, though...

A PEEK INSIDE THE NOTEBOOK...

Hello, my well-iced cupcakes! Sorry for my blogging absence last week. I'm afraid I caught two bugs one on top of the other and I pretty much lost the full seven days. I'm still recovering, but at least I feel mostly human now. That was my NaNo efforts out of the window, though. I think I've learned my lesson now that it's happened three times: the universe does not want me NaNoing. I can take a hint!

Today's post is one that I promised on Twitter to the delightful Dear Readers Jenni (@JuniperJungle) and Lucy (@ChooseYA) aaages ago, after I posted a screencap of part of the original page of notes I made back in 2010 when I first came up with most of my ideas for THE NAME OF THE BLADE. So here is me finally getting to it, half a month later.

I've mentioned on the blog before that I use a programme called OneNote - a sort of virtual notebook which lets you open up new pages and tabs and jam random notes all over the place in no particular order - to keep track of my messy, developing ideas as all the elements of a story start coalescing in my brain. It's not really the same as brainstorming. It's just jotting things down, actually, but it's better for me than a normal notebook (le gasp! No, I still love normal notebooks and my stationery fetish is intact, I'm not a pod person, honest!) because after writing the notes you can move them around, add things, take things away, change the size or colour, add hyperlinks or paste in reference pictures, and generally make a mess of the virtual page without *literally* making a mess of the page, as you would if you did this on paper.

For this reason, while showing you any of the actual notebooks I used to write the trilogy (nine of them!) wouldn't be very interesting because most of the pages are barely legible and all of them are a mess, showing you screencaps of my OneNote pages is not only possible but feasible. And since Lucy and Jenni assured me it would be fascinating... here we are.

 

This is a continuous screencap of my very first page of notes for THE NAME OF THE BLADE, written over the course of about four or five days of furious inspiration in 2010 - and then added to over the following year. As you will be able to see immediately if you've read any of the books, my original ideas were all over the place and many of them evolved or changed completely between starting to scribble down ideas and the book actually being written and then ending up on shelves.

For instance, if you look at that first double column of notes, you can see that in the beginning I was working on the assumption that this would be one book. So all the events that ended up being spread out over the course of TNI and DH are jammed together. And initially Rachel and Jack weren't sisters. Rachel was going to be a babysitter/au pair who got killed early on to underline the terrible threat of the Nekomata. But when Rachel appeared in the story - with her mild OCD, bossiness and common sense - she was far too good to be squandered that way. So she ended up getting her own viewpoint and storyline! Good going, Rach. There was also a bit of confusion about everyone's names that I'm a little puzzled by now...

However, some things - like the haiku which gave the series its individual book titles and guiding theme (that the powerful, passionate love mortals are able to feel within their finite lifetimes is terrifying and awe-inspiring even to such ancient forces as the ones surrounding them in this story) stayed exactly the same. I actually wrote the haiku within minutes of the idea of a warrior trapped in a sword appearing in my head - and as my ideas kept getting bigger and bigger, realising that there were three book titles in there was part of how I knew it was going to be a trilogy.

The blurred section, by the way, is a bunch of mythology stuff that's going to be revealed in the final book. And since no one but my editor and agent have read that yet, it didn't seem fair to splash it around and ruin things for everyone else. If any other notes up there seem like massive spoilers, they're probably things that I actually changed later on, so I've left them because they won't do any damage to your reading pleasure.

You can see down the right hand side that I have other pages for each individual book - which is where things get really detailed and spoilery. There's also one called THE NAME OF THE BLADE which was my series bible, so to speak, keeping track of who knew what when and all the little niggly details that I needed to remember. And finally there's one called The Name of Love, which is a short story in the universe that I've been working on intermittently.

Every book that I've worked on over the last few years has a notebook like this in OneNote. Since most of my books are standalone most of them have less tabs - but not all. For instance, #BaBBook has just as many tabs because I've been doing in depth research into Japanese flora and fauna and food and house construction and a host of other things, and I've got a mini-encyclopaedia filled with reference notes, pictures, and links.

I hope this was interesting to someone, anyway! Thanks for pushing me to post it, Jenni and Lucy! Read you later, my lovelies.

MUSICAL MUSES

Hello and happy Tuesday, Dear Readers.

I'm sorry that I didn't post last week. As I mentioned (rambled on about) here, I've been really unlucky with my health for the past few months. I've had bronchitis for about six weeks now and have been unable to shake it; constant coughing eventually caused a cracked rib, which is a particular agony that I'll probably inflict on a character one day, just to be nasty. And then, when I thought things couldn't be worse, I had a recurrance of the famous prolapsed disc. So I was pretty miserable, physically.

But I'm not going to lie - I could probably have managed a quick update even with all that. I mostly didn't post because I was feeling really low and melancholy all of last week, and I couldn't find the energy or enthusiasm. Anyone who follows me on Twitter or Facebook will probably have noticed that I've barely been around. Basically, I went into hermit mode.

I've started to feel a little better already this week. I think partly it's to do with spending time with my adorable nieces over the weekend, partly to do with the sun making an appearance, and partly to do with forcing myself to really get stuck into my revisions on The Name of the Blade #3 and finding that it's not quite as much of a hot mess as I was afraid it would be.

With all this, it feels like a good time to share some new pieces of music that are helping me to feel motivated and inspired. I hope you like them too.

Finally, either this week or next week I'm going to get a really important decision on something which could make a huge difference to me over the following eighteen months. I don't want to get more specific about that - although I will tell all if I'm successful - but if anyone has any spare good luck vibrations or positive thoughts to send my way, I'd appreciate them. Thanks.

THE BIGGEST WHOOP IN THE WORLD

Welcome to Thursday, Dear Readers! It's a very special Thursday indeed: the 4th of July and the OFFICIAL RELEASE DATE FOR THE NIGHT ITSELF.

Holy cr*p, guys. I thought it was never going to get here.

I mean really, seriously, at times I doubted that I ever had the guts or talent or skills to pull off a trilogy, or even the first book of one. I doubted that my agent would want to try to take on and sell something so different and, let's face it, kind of weird. I doubted that any publisher would be interested in investing in a trilogy from a writer who had never written anything but standalones in a different genre. I doubted that I was going to be able to handle the unexpected and extensive re-writes required to turn The Night Itself from a funny, fast-paced urban fantasy thriller into something that still held all those elements but was deeper and more intense. I doubted everything and everyone, and at each turn the amazing publishing professionals in my life proved me wrong - and I proved me wrong too.

It feels so amazing to be that wrong, and to know that the proof will be turning up on shelves in shops and homes all over the country today.

The Night Itself is so special and personal to me, it's almost embarrassing to talk about. It (and the rest of the trilogy) is the most 'me' thing I've ever written. That's me in those pages. Me as a teenager, me now. All the stuff I think is cool and funny and amazing. It's my special-unicorn-rainbow-cupcake-angel-baby project and I love it, even while it scares the cr*p out of me. Seeing it go out there into the world is a little like being a kid on mother's day, when you pull your homemade card out from behind your back and offer it up to the most important person in the world. You're so full of fear and anticipation. All you want to say is: I made this for you. I want to share it with you. I hope you like it.

And I do I hope - God, I really, really hope - that you guys can kind a place in your hearts for this book. That you will get it, and love it even a little bit as much as I do. Because you are all such important people to me.

I felt like this called for a special, The Night Itself (The Name of the Blade: Book One) themed post, so decided to do a little linky round-up for you.

First, I did a post for Diversity in YA about the Five Things I Learned writing this book, and that should be up some time today. Check back if you don't see it the first time.

These other links are posts from this very blog, dating back to when I first had the idea for The Name of the Blade, aka, The Katana Trilogy, aka Big Secret Project, just because I thought it would be interesting to chart my progress from 'OMG, cool idea!' to 'It's a real live book %$"$@KH*"!GN!!!' What's amazing about this is that when I went into OneNote to look at my very first rough notes about this? I realised that the idea dates back to September 2010, which is way earlier than I thought. I've been dreaming about seeing The Night Itself on the shelves for nearly three years!

The very first post where I refer to Big Secret Project (and another book which... I don't even know guys. Do you remember this? This was the Giant Killer Clockwork Praying Mantis Death Robot book! I totally forgot about that!).

My post on the challenges of plotting a trilogy - where I ask for your help in deciding if the character of Jack should be a guy or a girl.

The first post where I gave you all hints - in pictorial form! - as to the nature of Big Secret Project. This was before Pinterest, and you can definitely tell...

A Letter To My Characters about 70% of the way through writing the book.

In which I get a visit from the Muses.

Big Secret Project's Publishing Deal Announcement (finally!).

The Making of The Night Itself's Cover.

AND NOW IT'S HERE.

Wow.

I think this is all I have to say. Apart from that I intend to spend today celebrating in the way I know will make me happiest: by ploughing on with book #3 of The Name of the Blade.

Read you later, darling duckies!

NEW TRILOGY TITLE REVEALED!

Hello, hello, hello Dear Readers! My week's hiatus is over, my manuscript is marked-up and ready to be hacked into - and I have an exciting announcement for you, in case you hadn't guessed :)

You may remember a little while ago I told you that my new urban fantasy trilogy (details here), which will start coming out next year, was going to need a different series title than it's original one, The Katana Trilogy. This is because someone out there has already copyrighted (or possibly trademarked - it's a bit confusing) the word 'Katana' and this makes it hard for a publisher to go ahead with books under that name.

At first I was anxious and disappointed not to get to keep the orignal title. As soon as I realised that the story would need to be told over three books, I knew I wanted to call the series The Katana Trilogy. Katana is the Japanese name for a traditional longsword, and one of those magical words that brings to mind all kinds of beautiful imagery, even for people who aren't aware exactly what it means. I also thought that, what with it being short and simple, it would be easy to remember.

After my editor broke this news to me I spent the whole day coming up with new possible titles that ranged from OK to meh to downright nuts. But late that night I was unloading my tale of woe to friends in my writer's group, and someone made a suggestion which, while it didn't quite work, did spark off another possible title in my head. And this one I *loved*. It tied into a motif that was important in all three books individually, and also to one of the central mysteries of the whole trilogy.

I can now safely say that it is one of my favourite titles ever.

I was actually going to wait a while longer to announce the new title for the trilogy, because I wanted to combine it with the reveal for the cover artwork of the first book, The Night Itself. But we're still working on the cover, and the Amazon listing to pre-order The Night Itself has just appeared with the trilogy title on it! I thought I'd better spill the beans before some bright-spark noticed, amended the Goodreads page or something, and stole my thunder.

THIS is the new title for my very first urban fantasy trilogy (hi, those of you who scrolled straight down through all that waffling to get to the title). We're calling it: 

**THE NAME OF THE BLADE**

This is the Amazon listing for The Name of the Blade, Book One: The Night Itself.

The release for the book is shown as the 4th of July, which is the first time I've seen a solid date for publication, so that's exciting too.

What do you all think? Do you like the new title? Let me know in the comments!

BLOG HIATUS #2

Hello, my lovelies! Happy Thursday to you all!

You can probably guess from the not-very-imaginative post title what I'm talking to you about today. No fear! Just as last time, I'm not going away for long, and not for any scary reasons.

As my two week holiday from work draws toward its close, I'm getting incredibly revved up to dive into the re-reading, revision and polishing of As Yet Unnamed Trilogy Book #2. More than anything, I'd love to lock myself into my Writing Cave with a stock of Cup Ramen and chocolate and just tear through the editing process. But since my real life responsibilities can't be put aside that easily, I'm forced to look around for other stuff that I could cut out to make a bit of extra room for writing - and the blog clearly fits that definition. Much as I love you, Dear Readers, I'm fairly sure that you can manage to get along without me for a short while.

The blog hiatus will last for one week, and I will be back on Tuesday the 19th of November. If anyone would like to take the chance to leave questions on writing, reading & publishing in the comment thread here for me to answer when I get back, I'd love that.

In the meantime, take care of yourselves!

TRILOGY BOOK #2 - FINISHED!

Well, not really finished. The first draft is, though, and is printed out and waiting impatiently in its sealed blue plastic case on the cushion on the rocking chair in the corner of the writing cave. It'll be staying there for the next two weeks while I gorge myself on new books, Season 4 of Castle, and sushi. Hopefully when that fortnight is up, I'll have enough distance to be able to revise it and improve it a bit before sending it off to Wonder Editor and Super Agent.

In the meantime: Whoooooooot!

Interesting facts about Book #2 of The As Yet Unnamed Trilogy (subject to change at the whim or myself or Wonder Editor):

The book has a title.

The title of the book is also the title of the final chapter.

The final chapter is eleven pages long.

The first word of the book is 'stealing'.

The final word of the book is 'home'.

For the first half of that final chapter, I was listening to the piece of music called 'Courtyard Apocalypse' from the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part Two sound track.

For the second half, I was listening to 'The Moment I Knew' from Taylor Swift's new album Red.

I listened to 'The Moment I Knew' twenty-three times before I was finished.

I cried for approximately three and a half hours while writing that chapter (which was not the whole day, but pretty much the whole afternoon).

Even though I call this the first draft, technically it's the third. That's because I write everything longhand in my notebook first, then type it up, revising as I go. And each day, before I start writing in my notebook, I read the day before's work and edit it again. This means that by the time Wonder Editor and Super Agent actually get to see it, it's really on the fourth draft. Which is sobering, when I consider how many drafts Wonder Editor and I normally go through...

In Other News! I'm very much hoping that I'm going to get to see the cover of The Night Itself soon, and that I'll be able to share it soon after that, along with the new series name (because it's not actually called The As Yet Unamed Trilogy, guys, okay?).

I think that's it for today, my lovelies! See you all for - I think - a writing related post on Thursday.

FINALE FEAR

Hi everyone! Today's post is about a new writing experience I have just discovered: Finale Fear.

Finale Fear is sort of a new thing for me, and I think it's because right now I am writing Book #2 of the As Yet Unnamed Trilogy. Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up (will I ever get tired of quoting The Princess Bride? Probably not!).

Normally when I come to write the finale of any book I am so excited about finally getting there, finally getting to the end - usually writing one of the first scenes I ever envisioned for the story - that I get swept along on this tide of euphoria. It's an amazing feeling that often produces some of my best writing, and it lasts until about half an hour after I've typed The End, at which point I get a bit tearful and need chocolate and Taylor Swift or possibly Katy Perry.

Anyway, the point is: I love writing endings. Normally. The only exception to this was the end of FrostFire, for reasons which people who have read FrostFire will probably understand.

Now, the ending of The Night Itself was no exception to this. Long-time readers may remember that my Finale Euphoria was so strong that I wrote the whole thing (nearly 9,000 words of it!) in a single mammoth session one Sunday, and that I had to ice my hand afterwards because my hand kind of swelled up and went all stiff.

But somehow, the ending to Book #2, which I will be starting as of tomorrow, is freaking me out.

Maybe it's the fact that I love the ending of The Night Itself so much. Because I do. Something magical happened during my insane writing frenzy that Sunday and for the first time in my life the stuff that ended up on the page? Actually matched the stuff in my head. Which may sound really crazy but I know the writers out there get what I mean. That *never* happens. Except this one time it DID. It might never happen to me again, so I cherish the experience - but it does mean that future finales have a lot to live up to.

Or maybe it's because the events of this finale are huge, dramatic and emotional and yet - because there is another book to come - they aren't really the *end* of this story. Obviously plenty of threads need to be left lying loose or there would be nothing left to happen in Book #3. With The Night Itself I don't think the fact that I was writing a trilogy had quite sunk in yet. After spending the last ten months editing The Night Itself and drafting Book #2 at the same time? It has now definitely sunk in. So even though I'm going to put everything I have into writing this finale, some tiny part of my brain is not seeing it as a proper ending, and is refusing to give me my delicious euphoria.

But whatever the reason, now that I'm looking at the final 10,000 words of so of my book, instead of Finale Euphora, I have Finale Fear. Oh, the FEAR. It is not delicious at all.

Cross your fingers for me, my lovelies! I need all the help I can get.

FOREIGN EDITION LOVE AND KATANA UPDATES

Hi everyone - and happy Thursday to all! I hope you're having an excellent week so far, because I certainly am.

You might recall that back in March I told you about the Polish edition of Shadows on the Moon and shared the cover, which I had gotten off a European book website. I absolutely loved the cover artwork and was very excited about it. Since the release in April, I've had a lot of Google Alerts for Polish sites talking about and reviewing the foreign edition, which intrigued me even more (although the quality of Google's 'translate' function made it pretty impossible to tell what anyone was really saying).

But while it was in my contract that I should get some copies of any foreign language versions of my books, none arrived. So a little while ago I asked Lovely Lass about it, and this week she came through. I got the parcel containing the Polish books on Tuesday... and I am in love.

This is honestly the most beautiful incarnation that any of my books has ever had. It is the kind of book that I, as a book addict, would probably end up buying from the shop even if I had no interest in the contents, because it's simply THAT gorgeous.

Let me try to convey this with some images.

Look at the beautiful lettering on that spine. It's been treated with Spot UV, so it's glossy and shiny, and I love the way it seems to spill over from the spine onto the front cover. I also adore the way the red starts out vivid and bright around my name and shades gradually darker and bloodier toward the other end.

The covers and the page paper are both that luxurious, extra heavy stock which sort of flops open and stays there. You can bend the whole book practically in half. And it's not standard paperback size, either, but what I would call 'trade paperback', which means it has the same proportions as a hardback (I'm not sure if that's standard in Poland, but it's unusual in the UK).

The outside of the cover has been treated it give it the most amazing, velvety texture. I've only come across this texture on books a couple of times before - normally on high profile, front-list titles. In addition, the bamboo leaf decoration is also picked out with Spot UV, and the ultra-glossy effect creates the most gorgeous contrast with the matt, suede-feel cover.
 

 

The gloss continues INSIDE the book, on both the front and back flaps. Oh, and that's another thing: French flaps! These are one of my absolute favourite things to find on a paperback. I adore them; a book with French flaps is almost irresistable to me. I never thought that a book of mine would get them because, again, they're normally saved for Mega Big Deal Titles.

The bamboo silhouette continues onto the title page, both filled in and in outline, which again has the most beautiful subtlety to it. This decoration is on each of the section headers too.

Frankly, if every book that I ever write were to look exactly like this? I would be deliriously happy. I made the silly mistake of letting my mother see these, and she pounced and demanded one for herself but the other two are MINE ALL MINE and I shall be snuggling them forever more. *Sigh*

Now for another piece of news. Big Secret Project, aka my first ever urban fantasy story and my first ever trilogy, aka THE KATANA TRILOGY? Is going to be getting a new series title. It turns out that the word Katana has been copyrighted (or possibly trademarked? When I Googled it, it turned up a kind of golf club, so... iunno?) which means it's really awkward for Walker Books to publish a series with that name.

For about eight hours after Wonder Editor called me up to tell me this, I was a little bit flustered. I sent her a very long list of all kinds of other possible titles - many of which I liked, but none of which I really loved - and she went away to ponder them, and I went away to nibble on pencils and worry about it.

However, late that night as I was discussing it with a member of my writing group I suddenly had a brainwave and came up with what I personally thought was the perfect title for the trilogy. So I sent it off in an email and now I'm waiting for Wonder Editor's approval. But I'm not worried anymore, because it feels so right to me that I'm convinced the golf club people actually did me a favour.

And that has been my week so far! What about you guys? Tell me in the comments!

FOYLES SUMMER SCREAM EVENT REPORT

Hello and happy Tuesday to all, Dear Readers!

Today I'm going to try to sum up my weekend experience taking part in the epic Summer Scream Event at Foyles. It's going to be tough, because A LOT of stuff happened. And even more tough because, like the fluffy-brain fool I can often be, I remembered to take my camera, and remembered to take pictures in the green room before the event... then failed to take the camera to the event itself.

*Hangs head in shame*

Sorry! But I only realised once we had started, and it seemed a bit rude to ask everyone to wait while  ran off to get my handbag. So I will have to paint you a word picture instead. No booing at the back! A WORD PICTURE I SAID I AM A WRITER DANG IT HAVE SOME FAITH.

First of all - London was gorgeously sunny and *extremely* hot on Saturday. I'm always caught off guard by how much warmer it is in London than in Lincolnshire, where I live. I had on a dress and some matching blue tights with ankle boots, and was perfectly comfy up until changing trains in Newark. Thereafter I got steadily warmer and warmer and by the time I got to London all the make-up had melted off my face and I was really wishing I'd put my hair up. Alas, my well-known travel jinx had also made me quite a bit late, so instead of having time to find my hotel and drop off my luggage, I was forced to haul my wheelie suitcase onto the Underground with me.

Here's a fact about the Tube, for those who don't live in or often travel to London: if you're not willing to discard all tenants of civilised, polite behaviour, you will never manage to board an Underground service. Or if you DO manage to get on the Tube, you'll never manage to get off again. Basically, this is because native Londoners cram themselves into the doors without any regard for their own safety or well-being, or the safety and well-being of others, and if you don't cram too, you'll still be standing there waiting for someone to let you in/out when you die of old age.

This sort of thing is hard for me, Dear Readers. I'm Northern. I'm the sort of person (some would say sucker) who lets the elderly and anyone who looks ill or disabled go in front of me in queues. I hold the door for everyone. I give up my seat for pregnant ladies. The idea of shoving and pushing and whacking people in the shins with my suitcase (and running over their feet with the wheels) makes me feel as if my mother is about to appear behind me, hissing, and clip me around the ear.

I just about managed to haul myself and my luggage from King's Cross onto the first leg of my Tube journey, but the next line was much busier and my natural politeness would probably have resulted in me being stranded on the platform for quite some time if (by one of those strange, it's-a-small-world miracles) I hadn't met a member of my writing group who lives in London and was intending to participate in the event in order to provide moral support, right then.

With her encouragement - which came in the form of her forcefully crying 'Go! Push in! Go on, NOW Zolah!' in my ear - I managed to board the Circle Line. I will gloss over the part of the journey where my hair got sucked through one of the ventilation windows and I was nearly balded, and move onto the part where we were met by Lovely Lass (who you may remember from this post about the FrostFire Trailer) at the station and led to Foyles. There my writer friend went off to the cafe to meet with another writer friend who was attending, and I was whisked, babbling and incoherent, up to the green room.

There I met lovely writers. I mean, really genuinely lovely. And gorgeous and kind and nice. Despite the babbling and incoherency, I managed to collect hugs from everyone, and took some pics.

Michelle Harrison with Dear Reader Becky who now works for S&S!

Lee Weatherly and Kaz Mahoney

The whole lot of us! From L to R - Michelle, Lee, Me, Kaz

I also took pictures of Wonder Editor and Lovely Lass, along with a Walker person I had never met before - Designer of Delight, who had come along to show me some of her preliminary ideas for Katana Trilogy art (and by the way? OH MY GOD. Never been so excited in my entire life, GENIUS, I nearly did starjumps around the room, BEING A GROWN UP IS SO HAAAARD. Ahem). But I didn't think it was a good idea to ruin their super-identities here, so I'll keep those ones for myself.

Lovely Lass, rightfully alarmed by how shiny I was, swiftly arranged for some cold drinks, and I gulped down a bottle of lemonade and a glass of water as Wonder Editor (who had decided to attend probably to help Lovely Lass control the disaster that is me) gently asked me if I had remembered that we were all supposed to be doing a reading, and sensibly brought my copy of FrostFire with me.

Nope. And no, I had not.

Usually I am more professional than this, Dear Readers, I promise! I think I must have missed the email mentioning the reading aspect of the event - there were quite a lot of emails flying around at one point. So Wonder Editor hurried off and promised the lovely Neil, who was the event organiser, her first born child if he would lend me a copy from Foyles stock to read from. Which he did. Then we quickly decided that I'd just read the preface bit, which is very short and easy, since I've never actually read from FrostFire in public before and haven't perfected the rhythm and timing.

And then we were off! Giggling and a little nervous, we were ushered into a lovely room with walls covered in all different kinds of art (which I sadly never got the chance to examine as closely as I wanted) and this huge vaulted ceiling with exposed beams, and a stage and lots of readers all looking at us expectantly. Eeep.

We sat down, giving each other worried looks, as Neil introduced each of us and asked that we start with the reading. Brave Lee (that's L.A. Weatherly) started us off with a really horribly intriguing scene from ANGEL FIRE, which is the sequel to ANGEL. I haven't read it yet, so I had to remind myself (again) that I am a grown-up and it would *not* be mature to lunge across the stage and try to wrestle the book from her hands so that I could find out What Happened Next. Kaz Mahoney followed this up with an exclusive reading from her upcoming novel FALLING TO ASH, which is the start of a new series about a teenage vampire called Moth. It was an exciting action scene, but her delivery of the dialogue was hilarious. I loved it.

Then it was my turn. I'd swiftly realised that I was going to have to read more than the preface, since Lee and Kaz had each read for about four or five minutes. So I winged it by doing the preface and then skipping a spoilerific bit and going onto the first chapter. To be honest I'm not sure how it went - I was concentrating extremely hard on the page because I didn't want to trip over my own words (that would have been embarrassing). But when I was done, Michelle Harrison read a brilliant, spooky, atmospheric section from the beginning of her first YA novel UNREST, reducing the audience to terrified shudders.

Then we took turns to talk a little bit about our publishing journey. Lee told us that she had written literally dozens of books for young readers series and that when the idea for ANGEL came knocking she had three contracts on the go and really didn't have time. But the characters stayed in her head for years and eventually she just gave in and let them take over her brain.

Kaz talked about how she always wanted to be a writer, but how she struggled to finish stories (doesn't *that* sound familiar, Dear Readers?) and for a while got so discouraged that she gave up on writing and getting published completely. When she wrote THE IRON WITCH for NaNoWriMo it brought all her enthusiasm back, and she decided to really take getting published seriously.

I told my story - including how I, too, had often struggled to finish books - and how I eventually I managed to talk my way into getting Walker Books to take a chance on The Swan Kingdom.

Then Michelle Harrison spoke about how she always imagined she would write horror stories, but how this idea for a book about a girl who saw fairies had turned out to be the first thing she finished, and she described working behind the bar at her mum's pub and scribbling in her notebook between pulling pints.

When we'd all finished talking we took questions from the audience, who asked some brilliant questions. I chucked FrostFire swag at readers who addressed questions to me, and managed not to bean anyone in the head. Then we adjourned to the signing tables, where I finally got to glomp a whole bunch of blogger-friend and Dear Readers. It was so lovely to meet them all! I really wanted to just stand there and babble and chat to everyone, but Lovely Lass and Neil were making meaningful gestures at me, so I sat down and started signing (with frequent breaks for jumping up and hugging). The pile of books next to me disappeared at the most amazing rate, and I felt incredibly blessed.

By the time everyone had gotten all their books, postcards and signing books autographed Neil was needing us to clear out so that the next panel could come in and do their event. I said goodbye to everyone, hugged everyone again, picked on Wonder Editor a little bit (I'm so sorry Wonder Editor! I don't know why I always tease you - you're an angel to put up with it!) and then the two ladies from my writing group whisked me away, first to the Tokyo Cafe where I had bubble tea and got carried away and ordered a huge amount of food (I couldn't even eat half of it - luckily reinforcements arrived and demolished the leftovers for me) and then... to Haagen-Daz...

*Cue Angels singing*

Cookies and cream, pralines and cream, and butterscotch pancakes, along with a mango sorbet passion surprise. I ought to have taken pictures of this culinary art for you, but frankly I was too busy eating it. I probably consumed enough calories in that one sitting to keep me for the rest of the week and I DO NOT CARE.

If I ever get rich and famous, I shall hire a personal trainer - and move in next to Haagen-Daz.

And then I hauled myself back onto the Tube (carrying not only my swag bag, my suitcase and my handbag, but also TWO ADDITIONAL BAGS of books and presents and sweets from the best Dear Readers in the whole wide world) and went to my hotel and just about managed to have a shower before I collapsed to watch Britain win three gold medals in an hour. Whoot!

So yeah. It was pretty awesome. Invite me back any time, Neil! I'm there!

A thousand thanks to every blogger-friend and Dear Reader who turned up for this. You guys made the whole experience so special that even with my travel jinx (both my trains home were cancelled - no joke) and the heat and the suitcase I will still look back on this weekend as some of the best fun I've ever had. Snuggles for all.

And now! It's time for a Summer Scream giveaway! While at the event I managed to get Kaz, Lee and Michelle each to sign a copy of one of their books. Lee actually signed two, ANGEL and the sequel ANGEL FIRE. I am going to send these books (ANGEL, ANGEL FIRE, UNREST and THE IRON WITCH) PLUS a signed copy of FrostFire PLUS a signed copy of any other book of mine that you want PLUS FrostFire swag... to one lucky reader. It is the grand prize to end all grand prizes.

What do you have to do to win? It's simple. Sugarscape have just put up an interview with me in which I talk about FrostFire and love triangles and snogging Mr Darcy, and I want you to visit that article. You can tweet it or share it to Facebook as well if you like, or mention it on your blog - that would be awesome. If you already have a Sugarscape account you could comment on it. Any of that would be great. But once you've read it? Come back here and comment on THIS POST and tell me something you liked about the interview. Anything you liked, that made you smile or think, or whatever.

One entry per person, just to keep things simple. And I will pick the winner NEXT TUESDAY. So entries will be counted until midnight on Monday. To review: go here, read, share if you like, come back here and comment. That's all.

Okay, I'm exhausted after all this, my lovelies, so I'm going to slope off and quietly scribble some notes about flying monsters and rooftop battles and the like. What? It's how I relax! See you on Thursday :)

THE STATE OF THE WRITING CAVE

Today's blog title comes from the 'State of the Nation' address made by the President of the United States. Obviously the work that goes on in my Writing Cave is far more important than running a country or whatever, so I thought I'd flatter that poor Obama guy with some imitation. It'll make him feel important.

Aw. You can tell he's moved.

Anyway! Happy Thursday to all. Since the FrostFire Blog Tour is now officially over we're back to our regular posting schedule of Tuesday and Thursday, and it seemed like a good time to update you on what's going on around here and what I'm working on.

So back in this post I told you that my editor decided to do a sort of awesomeness-overhaul of The Night Itself (Katana Trilogy Book #1) at pretty much the eleventh hour. Working on that has kept me extremely busy for a large chunk of time (and I went through four highlighter pens. Dude) but I finished the initial - and hopefully most difficult - revision and returned it to my editor. She's going to collaborate on marking up the new version of the manuscript with my U.S. editor, because Walker and Candlewick have been working closely together on this project in the hopes of reducing the wait between the book coming out in the UK and being published in the U.S. I probably won't hear anything back about the improved version of The Night Itself until late August.

I imagine there'll be another run through of the book then in order to smooth it and polish it and make it as good as possible. I'm really crossing my fingers that I'm not asked to make any more major changes, re-think any characters or add any more new scenes at this point. Not because I don't want to do the work on TNI, but because I'm obviously trying to work on the second Katana Book (which does have a title, promise - I'll probably share it when I have a cover design for The Night Itself to show you). Before I was asked to revise the first book I was about 65,000 words into the second one, which I expected to be about 73-80,000 words long in total.

With all the changes that I made to the first book, the second one now not only needs to be finished, but also completely overhauled itself (above and beyond the normal revision process) because in many key areas it no longer matches the first book, and THAT means large chunks of action and plot and characterisation no longer make the slightest bit of sense.

The problem is that because I'm not entirely sure if the new version of the first book that I've turned in will be the FINAL version (or if I'm likely to have to make more radical changes) I don't really know how to overhaul book #2 yet. And it's hard to imagine being able to push on and finish it without overhauling it, knowing that everything I'm writing is most probably fundamentally *wrong*.

I've got a fat manuscript of the incomplete second book printed out here, in a smart plastic document holder. It's been my constant companion for the past few weeks, but I've not yet been able to bring myself to open the holder and look at it because I literally have no idea what to do with or to it. Not to mention that printing it out breaks my Number One Cardinal Rule for myself when I'm writing, which is DO NOT LOOK BACK.

Looking at any part of an unfinished manuscript has been known to cause total paralysis in my writer's brain (accidentally reading a page from the beginning of the first draft of Shadows on the Moon caused writer's block that lasted for SIX MONTHS). In this case I know I have to re-read the manuscript before I go on. There's no way I can move forward with it otherwise. But that doesn't stop my whole brain from lighting up with red flashing signs saying DANGER! DANGER WILL ROBINSON!

So... *Sighs* I've basically spent the last few weeks grinding my teeth and procrastinating to the utmost extent of my ability. Which is great. Finally acknowledging that I've also been ill for a bit (once again, kids: denial doesn't work like antibiotics!) and getting some pills has helped, because it's made the headaches, dizziness and constant nausea (which my mother insisted was caused by stress - thanks mum!) go away and now I feel slightly better. I think I'll most probably bite the bullet and try to start re-reading this weekend. Eeep.

In the meantime! Remember the Summer Scream Event in London on the 4th of August, at Foyles Bookshop at Charing Cross? Where I will be part of a panel event also staring mega-stars L.A. Weatherly, Karen Mahoney and Michelle Harrison? Well, now some new authors will also be coming along to take part in a second panel event - Ruth Warburton and Laura Powell. And this is happening - Good Lord - SATURDAY NEXT WEEK! Where did the time go? I'm getting more and more excited the closer it gets. I'll probably do a post about it on Thursday next week, just to give a bit more detail for anyone who is coming - and I promise to take pictures and write up a detailed event report on the Tuesday after I come back so that even if you couldn't attend you'll get a flavour of the whole thing.

My publisher has been kind enough to get me a later train back from London on the Sunday and I'm hoping to use that time to do some Katana Trilogy research, specifically for locations I'm planning to use in the final book, which is brilliant and I'm really looking forward to it. It will, of course, be even more brilliant if I've managed to un-chicken myself and re-read Katana #2 by then. Wish me luck with that...

How are things with all of you, Dear Readers? Unload in the comments!

UPDATES

Hello, Dear Readers. I hope you are having or will have a delightful Tuesday!

Today I've got various bits of news to offer up, about what I'm doing and also about the blog and...well, just read on and see.

Firstly, some Katana Trilogy: The Night Itself news. I can't remember if I posted about it before, but when my editor first read the intial draft of the book she really liked it and thought it didn't need too much work. So we went back and forth on line edits for a bit, but we both felt sort of stuck - we didn't seem to be getting anywhere. The more my editor read the book as it was, the more she felt something was missing. So last week (last Thursday actually - which is why you didn't get a post!) we met up and had a really fabulous, intense editorial meeting and agreed to overhaul the whole book, to make it the absolute best it can possibly be. Basically, it's about taking everything - story, characters, writing - from 'good' to 'craymazing'. Which I'm totally on board with. I'm very excited about the re-writes and changes we have planned. But this does mean a lot of extra work that wasn't part of my original, tightly packed (slightly OCD) work schedule.

The draft of Katana Trilogy: Book #2 (which is currently at about 80% of complete) has to go on hold for now. It's probably going to need extensive re-writes to get it to match up with the first book again, but I would have been doing re-writes anyway as part of my normal process when it was finished, so that's not a huuuge deal.

However, what can't go on hold is the blog tour for FrostFire, which is starting at the end of this week! There's going to be one guest post by me on a different blog every Friday running up to the book's publication date of the 5th of July, and this will continue until the 20th of that month. I've only written one of the posts so far (the one for this Friday) so I seriously need to get cracking. I'm told there should be a banner for me to post here shortly so you can see where the posts will be on what date - there are some really great bloggers taking part - but don't worry, I'll be linking them here anyway every Friday so you can click through.

Which brings me to...the blog. Guys, I'm really sorry but for the duration of the blog tour I'm not going to do any new posts here. Ah, don't throw things! Hear me out, wait, wait! Every Tuesday I'm going to do a Retro-Tuesday blog post - pulling up an older post from the archive that you might have missed the first time around, or I think you'd enjoy reading again. Then every Friday you get a brand new post, only on someone else's blog. So you're not really missing out all that much. It's just that I feel like I need to take some pressure off myself at the moment, and new posts here are the only thing I can feasibly decide not to worry about. After Friday's post about my inbox I feel like an awful slacker, but once again: I hope you will forgive me!

See you on Friday, cuties!

InCreWriMa: The Final Check In

Hello and Happy Tuesday to you all, Dear Readers. Today marks the very last day of our International Creative Writing month, and it's time to share, share, share!

How many words or pages did you write in May (and this little bit of June)? Did you achieve your target? Miss it by miles? Blow past it? Adjust it? Tell us how you did in the comments and get support and encouragement from your fellow writers.

Remember - people who checked in on every InCreWriMa day will be eligible for entry into my surprise prize draw, and since today is the last check in, you'll need to comment today too. You'll have until Thursday THIS WEEK to get your comment in. Thursday is when I will randomly pick the winners and announce them. You don't want to miss out!

As I'm typing this post out I'm looking at my current notebook. In a very few pages the notebook will be full and I'll need a new one. Frankly, I'm a bit staggered to realise that at the beginning of May I'd only filled (let me see)... twenty-seven pages. This particular notebook is one hundred and sixty-four pages long. Subtracting the title page and the ones left blank at the end, that means this month I've filled...

*Drumroll please*

One hundred and sixteen pages! 

And that comes to just under 21,000 words. Not the highest word total I've ever managed in a month (I managed 40,000 words in a fortnight once - I must have been very highly caffeinated!) but nothing to be ashamed of, especially considering all the travelling and excitement and nervous tension in the last two weeks of the month, which never helps me to get words down.

My word total on Katana #2 is now 58,500 words, which is around 80% of the estimated word total. 80% peeps! Of course, that's assuming that the book does end up the same length in first draft as the first book (which is a dangerous assumption to make with any book I write) but still! I'm very happy with that. With any luck I'll be able to turn this book in a couple of months in advance of deadline - and that's always great, because it means extra time for editing, and extra time for me to work on the next book.

In celebration, here's a teeny tiny teaser snippet of The Katana Trilogy Book One: The Night Itself.

*

A scream rang out, cutting through Jack’s rising anger. The noise died off with a wet gurgle that made goose pimples spring up over my entire body. Without a word, we both set off running toward the sound.

Look, you don’t have to say it. I know that we were two teenage girls out walking alone, and that we should not have been running towards the sound of screaming. But it was broad daylight, and Jack already had her mobile out to call the police. Nine times out of ten, if people come running, your potential mugger or rapist is going to drop what he’s doing and get out of there, right? And I suppose all those years of martial arts classes had made both me and Jack feel like we could take care of ourselves. Besides, I’ve already admitted that I’m not the brightest bulb on the chandelier. What more do you want from me?

Where the tarpaulin covered railings curved away there was a narrow alley between them and the railings of the red-brick building next door. I took one look down it and stopped dead. Jack, a step behind, nearly fell over me.

“Near the Justice building, on the corner of Carey Street and Grange Court,” she was saying into her phone. “I think someone’s been attacked – ”

Her voice cut off with a gasp as she looked over my shoulder. Faintly I could hear the 999 operator demanding more details. We both ignored her.

“Holy crap,” Jack whispered. “Holy crap.”

I recognised the person in the alley – the pretty face and the long red hair. I had seen her on the news in Jack’s flat before we headed out. It was the woman who’d been murdered at the museum. A dead woman. And she was ripping someone’s throat out.

She looked up from the man she was holding, her teeth bared in a snarl. Blood was smeared across those teeth – teeth that were way too long and sharp for any human’s mouth. Her gaze fixed on me, and the bright blue of her eyes flashed yellow, like a cat caught in the beam of a flashlight.

Her victim groaned weakly, and she flung him down at her feet like trash. Ragged clothes and a straggly beard marked him as homeless. There was a lot of blood on those threadbare clothes. My first impulse was to go to him and try to help, but another part of me – a part that had been humming with tension since we heard the scream – held back.

“Yamato,” the woman said, and ice shot down my spine. Her voice was like a special effect from a film, a sort of cat warble with human tones underneath – but worse than that was the fact that she knew my name.

Her bloody lips stretched into a smile that spread wider, wider, revealing rows of needle-like fangs all the way back to her ears. “I knew you were near. I knew you would come. Yamatos can never resist a cry for help.”

“Run Jack,” I whispered. I wanted to shout it, but my throat wouldn’t work properly. “Run.”

The woman’s body was spreading, losing its human shape as it drifted out into a mantle of darkness with nine long trailing tails. An overpowering smell of animal, dung and wet fur, and something sickly and rotting, rolled over me. I gagged on the stench as memories unfolded in my head. This was the creature I had seen fighting the boy in my dream – or vision – or whatever the Hell that had been – last night.

Desperately I scanned the windows of the red building, but they were all veiled by thick grey blinds. The tarpaulins on the fence concealed us from the Courts of Justice. It was the middle of the working day and the street was deserted. There was a monster, a nightmare monster, right here, alive and walking around in daylight on the streets of London, and no one had noticed.

“Give me the sword.” The creature was suddenly right before me. I hadn’t even seen it move. “I know you have claimed it. Give it to me.” Black, jelly-like tentacles reached out for my face.

Something shoved me hard. I fell, and the tentacles closed on air.

Jack hadn’t gone anywhere. She was stood directly in the monster’s path, in her fighting stance, fists raised.

“No!” This time my scream worked. It was too late.

The creature lashed out at Jack. Its tentacles thudded solidly into her midriff and swept her right off her feet. She went flying over my head and crashed into the rank of motorbikes parked behind me. They toppled like dominoes. 

Jack disappeared in the tangle of wheels and exhaust pipes.

*

Now, over to you, my lovelies! The comment trail is open!

P.S. My Top Ten UK YA Novels is posted over on the UKYA Blog right now - check it out :)

InCreWriMa WEEK 3: Check In

Happy Thursday, my lovelies. Have you checked out yesterday's surprise post about how I'm going to meet Cassandra Clare on her UK City of Lost Souls Book Tour yet? If not, hasten hither. Then come back and let's chat about the last week in the Word Mines.

So! It's our third International Creative Writing May check in, which means we've all technically been beavering away for two weeks now. How is it going in your notebook/laptop/papyrus scroll over there? Did you have an awesome seven days, a terrible seven days, or a so-so seven days? Did you hit your target, miss it, adjust it? Let's hear all about it in the comments, and remember - talk to each other as well as to me! We're all friends in our wordliness here.

My progress this past week has been thus:

Thursday and Friday I got my six new pages in as planned - in fact, I wrote slightly more than that on both days, and found myself on Friday (12th of May) with a total count of sixty-five and a half handwritten pages. My target was fifty-four. I also handed in my edits on The Night Itself and was well-satisfied with my week's efforts.

I had Saturday off and went to see Avengers Assemble. Which, by the way, made me feel as if I'd sat in a darkened cinema for over two hours having someone repeatedly poke my eyes with explosions. AND IT WAS TOTALLY WORTH IT. Seriously, Tom Hiddleston alone was worth it. Go see it! This is such a great year for geeky films so far.

Then on Sunday something didn't feel quite right. I was a bit achy and headachey and couldn't focus no matter how much caffeine I ingested. So instead of writing new pages I wrote up some notes, but not half as many as I wanted to.

Monday I felt worse. All my joints had gone painful and stiff and I kept hurting myself - I accidentally punched a bookcase, stabbed myself in the finger with a needle, gouged my arm with a planting stake and poured boiling water on my foot *just in the morning*. I'm reluctant to say I had a bug, because I think every time I blog about being ill more germs are attracted to me, but let's say I wasn't exactly in a writing mood. I tried! St Jude knows I tried. But no matter how long I stared at the computer and notebook, no words came out.

Tuesday felt slightly better, but for some reason my notebook looked a bit intimidating to me. I wrote some new stuff directly into my computer instead (about three pages, which is roughly equivalent of six notebook pages) and then typed up some more notes.

Wednesday was briefly, if gloriously sunny. I snatched every spare minute to sit in the sun and, as normally happens when I can sit in the sun, I hit my six pages easily.

So my full week's progress has brought me to 47,800 words typed up - which, if Katana #2 turns out the same length as The Night Itself in first draft, would mean I was about 65% of the way through. We'll say no more about that. I don't want to jinx myself and end up writing another 130,000 word long first draft. I also have seventeen and a half pages of notes still to type up, which means, counting the three pages I typed straight onto the computer as six notebook pages, my current InCreWriMa total is:

Eighty-three notebook pages. My target for this date was seventy-eight pages. VICTORY!

In other news: think I'm going to need a new notebook.

INTERNATIONAL CREATIVE WRITING MAY

Hello, hello, hello - and happy Tuesday to all!

Whoa, so I guess my blog title kinda gave it away there (if you hadn't already worked out what the 'InCreWriMa' I hinted about last week was). It's International Creative Writing May - partly inspired by NaNoWriMo and partly inspired by Kaz Mahoney's genius SpringKazNo which I somehow managed to TOTALLY miss until about a week ago, when it was too late to join up, dammit.

No, that's not really accurate. It's not 'somehow' managed to miss. It's 'missed because the end of March and all of April this year have been kind of a no-go zone as far as writing is concerned'. This is why I put a progress metre for Katana up there, because I hoped it would motivate me a bit.

Let me 'splain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.

I don't really talk about it much on this blog, but I'm a carer for my dad, who is disabled. You might remember that earlier this year I switched from a thrice (thrice, what a nice word, I should use it more often) weekly posting schedule to twice weekly. This was because my dad was moving onto a new form of treatment which would would take place at home and I knew that this was going to take a lot more of my (ha ha) 'spare' time.

What none of us - me, my dad, or my mum, who is obviously also involved - realised was just how much there was going to be to this new system of home treatment, how many hours we would need to dedicate to training for and learning how to do it, and how much time the treatment itself would take up. It took us all completely by surprise, and for the past six weeks or so I've been desperately scrambling to keep up, trying to convince myself that I *can* do this, that it'll all work out, and we're doing the right thing. Basically, my whole family has been in crisis mode, and although I've been trying my best to keep Katana #2 ticking over, I haven't made nearly the progress that I hoped I would have by this stage.

Now I feel like I've reached a bit of a crossroads.

My dad is doing brilliantly on his new treatment, and has more energy and positivity than I've seen for absolutely ages - years. That makes me very happy. I think we're getting on top of all the stuff we need to learn and I'm no longer feeling constantly overwhelmed, tearful and depressed.

At the same time, though, I'm coming to an understanding of how the new routine is going to work, and there's no getting around it: my writing time has been drastically cut down. I'd estimate I've lost about half the hours I would previously have spent writing, and that's not going to change much from now on.

I've still got way more hours to play with than I did back when I was doing an office job, and I managed to write three books back then. But if I don't adjust and learn to work around this, it's going to have a big impact on my productivity. So what I need now? Is something to kickstart me into getting words down on paper again.

Dear Readers, I really want us to write together.

It doesn't matter if you feel like writing poetry or short stories. Novels or synopses. Blog posts or entries on Tumblr. Just so long as you write something - anything creative - you're welcome to take part! If you want to use this as a way to help you finish the novel you have on deadline, that's brilliant. If you want to use it to start creative writing for the first time ever? Also fantastic!

Pick a target for yourself. Something realistic and achieveable for you, something that you can hit with a bit of effort. Nothing feels as depressing as failing right away because you pushed yourself too hard. But once you've picked that target, stick to it. Because nothing feels as good as pushing through, working hard, and reaching your goal. And when I said realistic? I meant it! If you don't think you can realistically manage to write more than five lines every day? THAT IS 100% A-OK for InCreWriMa too! On the other hand? Don't be too easy on yourself either. There's more satisfaction in going the extra mile than in never putting on your running shoes because you're afraid of blisters.

The really important thing about this is that we're going to do it together. It's supposed to be exciting, and fun, and motivating, and part of that is being around to help and support each other. Every Thursday in May I'm going to do a check in post. I will be completely honest with you about how many words I wrote in the preceding week, if I struggled or had a great time, and how I'm feeling about the book. I might even do breakdowns as to how many words/pages I managed each day, if you're interested in that much detail.

I hope you guys will be equally honest in the comments. If you caught a cold, felt awful, and wrote two words the whole week, we'll offer encouragement and reassurance. If you blew past your target and wrote pages and pages more than you expected, you'll get high-fives and cheers.

At the end of the month, we'll all do a review and round-up of what we've accomplished. And any commentors who checked in on every single IntCreWriMa Thursday (that's five, from May 3rd, to May 31st) will be eligible to go into another giveaway prize draw and maybe receive special surprise presents. My surprise presents? Rock. You want to be eligible, trust me! Especially since the giveaway will be open to everyone, from the brilliantly coloured beatles dwelling on the hot, eastenmost rocks of Timbuktu to the tiny dwarf Artic rabbits hopping around on the snow of the polar icecap.

I'm really excited about this idea, Dear Readers, and I hope you are too! But don't get too excited; take some time to think about whether this seems like fun to you, and what a REALISTIC target would be. Don't rush in and commit yourself too fast. I don't want anyone to put undue pressure on themselves or to take part if it's not right for them just now. I don't want to see any comments pledging certain amounts of words per day, or anything like that, in the comments today. The first check-in post will be Thursday this week. That's when I'll tell you my target and ask for yours.

I would like to know what you all think, though! Let me have it in the comments :)

JUST BECAUSE APRIL PRIZE WINNERS!

Hello, my dear duckies! Happy Thursday to you all - I hope you're having a fine time wherever in the world you are, even if you are hiding from the rain and the icy wind under three layers of blankets (like me).

Today, as promised, I announce the winners of the Just Because April Giveaway. All of you guys that entered by leaving a comment (on either the original giveaway or the revised one) were assigned a number, and then I used a random number generator to pick three of you out to win.

The first to be picked were the winners of the two runner-up prizes, which included:

* Signed and personalised bookplates.

* FrostFire and Shadows on the Moon swag.

* Surprises!

 And the winners are...

(Drumroll please!)

Amy Celestia and The Book Queen

Congratulations, you guys! I hope you're happy. Please email me ASAP with your postal addresses and I will send your prizes out to you (I have a feeling one of you may have won a giveaway from the blog before? But you still need to email me, because my chances of being able to find your address among the insane disorganisation of my inbox are pretty much nil).

And now for the grand prize winner, who will recieve:

* A pre-order of the UK paperback of FrostFire sent directly from the Book Depository to you the moment the book is available (or one of my author copies, depending on which would reach you quicker).

* A rare signed and personalised Advanced Readers Copy of the U.S. version of Shadows on the Moon, with the all-new versions of the haiku which I wrote especially to be more faithful to a Japanese aesthetic.

* An extremely pretty signed and personalised U.S. hardcover of Daughter of the Flames (according to Amazon and the Book Depo these are no longer available from Candlewick Press, so you probably want to get your hands on this while you can).

* FrostFire swag - full-colour postcards and magnets - and assorted Shadows on the Moon swag.

* A secret surprise item!

This lucky winner is...

(Even longer and more suspenseful drumroll, please!)

Gil Hix

Congratulations, Gill! Well done! Again, email me pronto with your address, and I can get it boxed up and sent out, with the obvious exception of the FF pre-order, which has to wait until July 5th, or until I get my own copies, whichever comes first :)

Wow, that was really tiring. Phew! However, if you've not had your fill of excitement for the day, here's a link to a blog put together by Bonnie of A Backwards Story to celebrate the U.S. release of Shadows on the Moon. 

She's analysed the differences in the haiku between the U.S. and UK of the book, and even got me to tell her the inside scoop on how they happened, as well as reviewing the book and comparing the covers. Awesome, right? Go give her some love.

Also, you may have noticed a dinky new feature in the sidebar on the right - a progress metre for each of the Katana books and the trilogy as a whole. What do you think? Are you interested in knowing this stuff, or does it just clutter up the joint?

Oh, and one more thing: I'm going to have an early start and a busy day on Thursday, so I'm posting this just a tiny bit early (actually, slightly before I said I was going to pick the winners, which was midnight - I just didn't think anyone else was likely to enter at this point). But even though it says Wednesday up there, this still counts as Thursday's post, not an extra Wednesday one. Get it? Got it? Good.

And now it's time to take Finn on a last ramble around the block before bed. Au revoir, Dear Readers. See you on Tuesday!