Thanks to the anonymous benefactor who gave me my first virtual snowflake cookie of the day, as well as tartanshell and izhilzha for supplying the others. Very fitting on a day when we're getting our first real snowfall of the season here in southwestern Ontario...

I hear that there are storms a-brewing to the south, but at present the snow is drifting from the sky in a picturesque fashion, and the green is still showing through the powder, and I think I shall put on some seasonal music* and make a cup of tea. I might even do some baking -- Snickerdoodles, perhaps.

What about you? What special treats does your family make at this time of the year, and which one is your favorite and why?


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* That would be actual Christmas carols with some dignity and meaning to them, not the annoying ditties that pass for inoffensive seasonal content. I really think that if I hear anyone's cover version of "Santa Baby" one more time, I will climb up the wall of my local department store and knock the loudspeakers off the ceiling.

Nearly all my good news these days seems to be coming from the other side of the pond -- which is not a bad thing by any means! But in any case, I found out this week courtesy of some schoolchildren who e-mailed me from the UK that Knife has been nominated for the Hillingdon Secondary School Book of the Year for 2010. The nominees are selected by a team of librarians, copies of the nominated books are read by students at all participating schools and then the final award winner is voted on by the students themselves, so I'm really delighted to be part of this!

And also related to the UK editions of my books, I just completed a short "Meet the Author" video where I talk about the inspirations behind Knife and Rebel, for Orchard Books to use on their website:



I have already been mocked* for the Scarf That Ate Rebecca's Head, so you can hold off on that one. :) Next time I shall know better.

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* Not by my publisher, I hasten to add. And it was all in good fun anyway.

Thanks to Rebecca Matthews on Facebook (who hasn't even read my book yet, but says she's planning to), I was just made aware that Knife received a glowing review on The Shak, a popular teen show on Australia's Nine TV network... and after a bit of sleuthing, I was able to hunt down the video. Click on the link below to check it out!


Review This!

Yesterday, thanks to the kind offices of Twitter, I followed a link to an opinion piece about the recent controversy in the Montgomery County school system, where a teacher is being challenged and accused of corrupting young minds because of the inclusion of certain books in her classroom reading list.

No, that isn't what I'm going to rant about. Actually, the article made some quite good points about the dangers of judging these things hastily or leaping to wrong conclusions about the people or books involved, so there's not much to complain of there.

The column was nevertheless responsible for triggering this rant, however. Because halfway down the page I came across the following statement:

"I believe consenting adults should be able to write, publish, read or surf almost any loony material they please (with the exceptions of child pornography and nuclear secrets), just as I believe they ought to be free to worship anything from the fire-spewing God of the Old Testament to pet rocks."

Think you know what I'm going to rant about now? You're probably wrong. Actually, it was the "fire-spewing God of the Old Testament" part that got my dander up, and not much else.

Is the author of this piece (a pastor no less) actually saying that the God of the OT is completely different from the God of the NT, and one whom only "loony" people would worship? I would hope that I am misunderstanding him on that point, not least for the sake of my Jewish friends. But whether the author means what he appears to be saying or not, he's far from being the first to claim that the God of the Old Testament is somehow significantly different in temperament from the God described in the New. I've been hearing similar assertions from people -- not just skeptics trying to disparage the Bible, but professing believers as well -- all my life.

And quite frankly, it drives me crazy. Because I've been reading and studying the Bible since I was a child -- I've read it cover to cover several times and studied the major books of the Old and New Testament more times than I can count -- and based on everything I can see about God's character as revealed throughout the Bible, the idea that the Old Testament God is a big meanie and the New Testament God is jolly old Santa Claus is just not true.

( First, let's have a look at God's character in the Old Testament... )

( Not to mention the New Testament… )

You may or may not agree with any of this: you may not think the Bible historically accurate or even in some vague sense "spiritually true". It may be that as far as you've seen, you find both the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New to be unappealing and as such, the idea that they are one and the same hardly matters.

But I do hope this rant of mine makes it at least somewhat evident that the much-touted dividing line between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New is really no wider than a single thin, rustling page... and that the God of the Bible is -- to use a New Testament phrase -- "the same yesterday, and today, and forever," whether you choose to love and trust and worship Him for it or not.

Today has been a brilliant day, I have to tell you. Being Canadian, I had my Thanksgiving over a month ago, but it might as well have been a holiday around here considering how much goodness has come my way in the last twelve hours.

First, I spent a lovely few hours at the house of a dear RL friend. Then I came home to find that my mother had been baking Saffron Cake in preparation for Christmas, and had left a warm golden loaf of it sitting on my counter. *inhales sentimentally* Ahh.

I was just making tea and preparing to sit down with a slice of saffrony goodness when the doorbell rang and there was the DHL lady with a package from HarperCollins, containing -- oh glory -- the ARC of A Conspiracy of Kings, the latest book by one of my very favorite authors, Megan Whalen Turner.

What can I say about Ms. Turner's Thief series that has not been said already, and better, by more seasoned reviewers than myself? Check out the glowing endorsements from Bookshelves of Doom, A Chair, a Fireplace and a Tea Cozy, and Angieville, among others (but ware spoilers on those last two links). These books are, quite simply, superb.

I am happy to say that A Conspiracy of Kings, the latest in the series, absolutely lives up to the promise of the earlier books. I felt confident that it would be a good story, but it even exceeded my wildest expectations of just how good it would be.

No worries, I am not going to spoil this book in my review. I would sooner cut off my hand* than spoil it for anyone. I will tell you no more about its basic premise than you can find in the HarperCollins catalog:

Sophos, heir to Sounis, doesn’t look like much of a prince. At least, according to those in power. At least, to those who do not know him or the size of his heart and the depth of his courage, loyalty, and love. But Helen, Queen of Eddis, knows him, and so does Gen, the queen’s Thief, who is now King of Attolia. Gen and the queen believe that Sophos is dead. But they also believe in hope, especially since a body was never found. So when Sophos is discovered in Attolia, the obvious question becomes: where has he been all this time?

I will say, however, that this summary is slightly misleading. There's so much more to the book than just the question of What Has Sophos Been Up To, gloriously so. There's the usual rich background, diverse cast of characters, byzantine political machinations (but they never get boring, and from someone as infamously apolitical as myself, that's saying something), flashes of wry humor, and unexpected wrenches at the heart. It's subtle and clever and outrageous and surprising and touching and thought-provoking, and all the things I've come to expect from Ms. Turner's writing -- plus some.

And it made me love Sophos -- who never really made it onto my radar in The Thief, being so eclipsed in that book by the irrepressible Gen -- more than I ever imagined possible.

I can't wait until April when everybody else can read this book, so I can discuss it with people like the good folk on sounis, whom I can confidently say are going to love A Conspiracy of Kings as much as I do -- or more. I don't want to overhype it (oh yeah, like I haven't already) to people who haven't read the series, because I am sure there will be readers out there (as with any book however brilliant) who don't connect to the story and the characters the way that I do. But I do feel confident in saying that if you have read the earlier books and are already a fan, A Conspiracy of Kings will definitely not let you down.

A Conspiracy of Kings by Megan Whalen Turner will be released on March 23, 2010.**

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* Sorry. That was bad, I know.
** ON MY BIRTHDAY EVEN. HOW AWESOME IS THAT.

Over the last year or so I've been reading through the Bible at the rate of about a chapter a day. I just finished Jeremiah yesterday, which is a really emotionally tough book if you identify even slightly with Jeremiah*, and as I was reading the first chapter of Lamentations I was struck by a thought that's been creeping up on me for a while.

Grief is not a sin.

Well, duh, you may say. Of course it's okay to grieve. We lose people or hear terrible news or suffer disappointment, we feel sad, it would be monstrous if we didn't react that way. And I think most people would agree that this is the case.

And yet it's easy to fall into the trap of expecting that grief, or lamentation, should only last so long or go so far. Just a nice neat little grief, not too long, something you can swallow back and force a watery smile and then put your chin up and keep marching with a smile on your face. Especially if you call yourself a Christian, because Christians are supposed to be full! of! joy! and count themselves blessed when they suffer tribulation, etc.

And for this reason people -- especially religious people, it seems -- can be amazingly cruel and dismissive toward others who are hurting, by trying to pep them up with positive talk and encourage them to stop focusing on all that negative stuff, or even (the worst) condemning and shunning them if they go on grieving and lamenting past the generally accepted time period for such things.

( Where does this come from? Not the Bible, that's for sure... )

Sin, and all the things that have gone wrong with our world because of sin, may be the ultimate cause of every grief we suffer, and it's true that one day all tears will be wiped away forever and that will be a very good thing. But until that happens, grieving and lamenting and suffering over sin and hardship are not just tolerable or permissible to a certain limited extent -- they're actually good and right.

So the next time you're genuinely upset over something terrible that has happened to you or someone you love, and somebody comes up to you and chirps, "Oh, well, praise the Lord anyhow!" You should feel free to punch them in the face** hand them the book of Lamentations.


--
* Actually, I keep thinking there has to be a YA novel in there somewhere, because God called Jeremiah to be a prophet when he was just a young teenager. I'll keep you posted if I ever figure the plot of that one out.

** See, that's why I usually talk myself out of writing serious blog posts without spending a week editing them first.

*** No belittlement is meant by the use of this term, believe me; I would gladly have used "Tanakh" instead except that some of my non-Jewish readers wouldn't have understood what I mean by it.

Two fantastic book prize packages are being given away soon, and my book is in both of them!

First, my fellow fantasy authors over at enchantedinkpot are running the First Annual Inkies Giveaway Extravaganza, with prizes including three bundles of eight books each -- one focused on Fairy Tales and Folklore (that's mine!), one on Adventure and Witchcraft, and another on Ancient Curses, Modern Ghosts, and Post-Apocalyptic stories. These prize packages contain a couple of droolworthy ARCs and some bestselling titles, so head on over and check it out! Contest runs until December 9, 2009.

Second, the stupendous Debs Library contest is still running over at debut2009! If you're a library professional and would like to win 46 free books by the debut authors of 2009 for your school or public library, zip on over and enter while there's still time -- the draw will be held on January 1, 2010.

It occurred to me tonight as I was doing dishes that there's a reason Hamlet is my favorite of Shakespeare's tragedies. (Yeah, I think about stuff like that while doing the dishes. I'm a little crazy that way.)

Anyway, even as a teenager I sympathized and identified with Hamlet even when I could see how his actions were leading him to disaster. I totally get how Hamlet behaves in that play, with his moral indignation at odds with his need to consider things from every possible perspective, and his fatal tendency to "think too precisely on the event" when he ought to be taking action. Because he's so very like me that way.

I overthink everything, and more often than not I end up talking myself out of doing anything whatsoever. (This is particularly disastrous when I go shopping, as you might imagine.) It's really easy to convince myself that having given the matter some serious thought, even if nobody else in the entire world but me and God knows that I thought about it at all, is enough.

So no wonder I don't blog much these days. I think so hard about what I should post and whether I should post and whether I have the mental energy to write a really good post or not (and the answer is, most often, "not"), that nine-tenths of my thoughts and opinions never make it to the end of my fingers. Which has the advantage of keeping me from saying things I might later regret, but that hardly seems important if I don't end up saying much of anything at all.

Which is a rambling way of saying that I'm going to try and overcome that, and blog more often from now on. Just so I don't end up killing myself and my whole family leaving only my best friend to mourn me, you understand.

(P.S. I said that I get Hamlet, but I should mention that my favorite character in that whole play is Horatio.)

It is possible that there is something more entertaining on the Internet today than the Muppets performing their own skewed take on "Bohemian Rhapsody", but somehow I doubt it.



I am going to be grinning idiotically about this all day. Thanks to Jeffrey Overstreet for the tip. And for more Muppety video goodness, check out shoebox2's recent post.

I drove to Toronto this morning to do an author visit with fifty schoolchildren aged 9-11, and it was so much fun. The kids all sat cross-legged on the floor and looked up at me with big eyes, which is pretty endearing to start with, and they were really attentive while I was talking about the book and reading. And afterward, they asked great questions -- I've been amazed by the insight and degree of interest some of these kids have in the process of writing.

I got a chuckle out of the boy in the front row who raised his hand toward the end of the session and asked plaintively, "Do you have any books that aren't about faeries?" He was so polite about it!

Really, I love doing visits and readings. And I hope to do some more of them now that I've joined the Skype an Author Network, which makes me potentially available to school groups, book clubs, and libraries all over the world by web chat. I got to do a little test run with a group of librarians yesterday thanks to kmessner, just a 15-minute meet the author thing (including a super-short reading from Faery Rebels: Spell Hunter), and it went off without a hitch.

So if you're a librarian or a teacher anywhere in the world, and you think you might like to have me speak to your school group or book club, check out my author page on Skype an Author Network and drop me a line!

I have been completely scatterbrained and generally useless these past few days, because on Friday the nice UPS man knocked at my door and brought me my new 15" MacBook Pro.

It has been nearly ten years since I worked on an Apple computer -- I used to use one when I worked in graphic design, but the PowerMacs we had there crashed and froze up almost as much as the PCs I was used to, and I really couldn't see what was supposed to be so great about them.

I take it back, Apple. I take it ALL back. Maybe I am just beguiled by the novelty of having a real shiny modern laptop instead of the giant 11-year-old Toshiba boat anchor I bought on the cheap a couple of years ago; maybe I am just excited about being able to access e-mail and the Web whenever I want. But no, I think it's more than that. It's just so nicely designed and has so many sensible and intuitive features! And although I still have a lot to learn about how to use it properly (and a lot of files and e-mails to somehow transfer from my PC to the laptop, ack!), it didn't take me long to get a handle on the basics.

Anyway, yes. My new laptop has a nice matte titanium finish and a shiny monitor that renders fonts and images with amazing sharpness, and the battery lasts for SEVEN HOURS, and already I am thinking I need to name this thing, which I have never wished to do with any other piece of computer equipment I've ever owned.

(Oh, who am I kidding? I've already named it. Go ahead, guess what it's called -- the first one to guess correctly gets a virtual prize!)

ETA: I suppose it's not fair to assume people know the workings of my brain (though pgoodman13 did come quite close with the explanation, just the wrong guess!) or can be expected to remember the name of a character in a book that's not even sold yet. Anyway, I'm calling it Faraday, because I bought it as a reward for finishing Touching Indigo.

An earlier version of this cover is up already as part of the HarperCollins Summer 2010 Catalog entry for Wayfarer, but I thought it would be nice to post the more up-to-date version. So here it is! Just click to embiggen if you want more detail.

And here's the jacket copy to go with it:

The faeries of the Oak are dying, and it’s up to a lone faery named Linden to find a way to restore their magic. Linden travels bravely into dangerous new territory, where she enlists the help of an unlikely friend—a human named Timothy. Soon they discover something much worse than the Oakenfolk’s loss of magic: a potent evil that threatens the fate of all faeries. In a fevered, desperate chase across the country, Timothy and Linden risk their lives to seek an ancient power before it’s too late to save everyone they love.

R. J. Anderson has artfully crafted a world of stunning magic, thrilling adventure, and delicate beauty, where a girl far from home must defeat the pervasive evil befalling her beloved faery realm.

The official publication date for Wayfarer is April 27, 2010.

This past Thursday I flew down to the AASL (American Association of School Librarians) conference in Charlotte, NC to meet some fellow debut2009 authors, hang out with my agent, drive up to visit cesario, and maybe, if all went well, get to sign a few of my books at the AASL PitStop. Those were my expectations, and they were modest and practical ones, and I had no idea that there was even the possibility of anything more. Especially since I'd left my laptop at home, my Canadian cell phone doesn't work in the US, and I wouldn't have access to e-mail or Internet until I got back Sunday night.

So I was wholly unprepared, when I met the Debs for breakfast on Friday morning, to find out from carrie_ryan that Knife has been nominated for one of the most prestigious children's book awards in the English-speaking world. The Carnegie Medal. We are talking the British equivalent of the Newbery or the National Book Award, people. C.S. Lewis won it for The Last Battle. So did Richard Adams for Watership Down.

I may have stared blankly at Carrie for about thirty seconds before I started flailing. And then I spent the whole weekend in a happy daze and I haven't come down since.

Congratulations to my fellow nominees sarahtales (The Demon's Lexicon) and halseanderson (Chains)!

I'm featured on Cynsations today (which is a really fantastic newsletter/roundup for those interested in YA lit -- if you're not subscribed to it yet, you should be), talking about the technical aspects of writing Faery Rebels: Spell Hunter.

If you'd like to know why I chose third rather than first-person point of view, or find out more about the research and the worldbuilding that went into the book, check it out!

I am happy to announce that in just a couple of weeks (well, three to be exact), I will be flying down to the AASL Conference in Charlotte, NC to do a signing for many lovely school librarians, and while I am visiting I will also be doing this:

Meet the Debs! Where: Park Road Books, Charlotte, NC When: Friday November 6, 2009 at 5 p.m. Who: R.J. Anderson (Faery Rebels: Spell Hunter) Lauren Bjorkman (My Invented Life), Jennifer Jabaley (Lipstick Apology), Neesha Meminger (Shine, Coconut Moon), Shani Petroff (Bedeviled: Daddy's Little Angel), Cynthea Liu (Paris Pan Takes the Dare), and Erin Dionne (Models Don't Eat Chocolate Cookies).

We will be signing copies of our books and chatting to all comers -- if you're in the area, please drop by and say hello!

I am especially excited about this trip because not only do I get to meet a bunch of terrific fellow authors and hang out with my wonderful agent, I will be jaunting up to visit my dear friend cesario while I am there. Whee!

***

Next, I am exceedingly excited because today -- yes! today! -- I am going to have tea and hang out with the lovely and hilarious Adrienne Kress, author of two of my favorite middle-grade books of the last few years -- Alex and the Ironic Gentleman and Timothy and the Dragon's Gate. More people need to read these books. Seriously. They are adventurous and fantastical and witty and insightful and just plain fun. And so is Adrienne. So this too is made of WIN.

***

There may also be some very, very good news brewing on the writing front. I cannot say what about, exactly, not yet, as the details are yet to be confirmed. But I will tell you as soon as I can.

***

And finally, something for you lot -- it's Debsness time again!

Serendipity is a word that sounds like it belongs in an Andrew Bird song, and that's fitting because that's exactly how I discovered his music.

Lava flows over crooks and craggy cliffs to the ocean
And explodes in a steam heat fevered cyclical motion
-- "Fitz & the Dizzyspells"

A couple of weeks ago, I was struggling to write the final section of Touching Indigo and feeling like I needed a little boost of inspiration. So I decided to go hunting for pictures that reminded me of my characters. I'd never found a really good Faraday, despite combing numerous stock photo sites looking for males of the right age and coloring, so I decided to try something new. Where would I be likely to find a guy in his mid-to-late twenties with scruffy, badly cut brown hair, who had an interesting face but didn't look like a model or an actor?

Aha, I said to myself, what I need is an indie musician.

So I went to Wikipedia and looked up their "List of Indie Musicians" and first of the solo artists on the list is some guy I've never heard of. I clicked on the link without much hope -- after all, what are the odds of finding someone who looked like Faraday after a mere two minutes' searching? But as soon as I made my way to Andrew Bird's MySpace page, I knew I didn't need to look any further.

Admittedly he's still slightly too conventionally handsome to be a perfect match for the Faraday in my head: more like Faraday crossed with Daniel Day-Lewis. But there are worse faults, to be sure, and I doubt I could find a better candidate even if I spent another five hours looking for one.

The fact that I fell in love with the first song of his that I listened to -- well, that was a bonus.



Andrew Bird's music is quirky, smart, and multilayered -- his most recent album Noble Beast, for instance, took me several listenings to really get a handle on, but after that I realized this was the kind of album I could listen to for the rest of my life. So I ended up buying The Mysterious Production of Eggs and Armchair Apocrypha as well, and I've been listening to them incessantly ever since.

If you're interested in hearing more from this artist, you could watch him perform six songs live in a cathedral, armed with nothing but a violin, a guitar, a loop machine, and his own whistling. Or check out some of my favorite songs on this playlist.

So I said I was going to post about some of the great new music I discovered during this year's Great Hiatus (a.k.a. the seven weeks I just spent finishing off Touching Indigo), and I am making good on that promise by telling you about Matt Hales, the artist more popularly known as Aqualung.

I'd never heard of this guy until renisanz recommended his song "Pressure Suit", and once I'd listened to it a couple of times I fell in love with its geeky, atmospheric romanticism. But it wasn't until I bit the bullet and started checking out more tunes by the same artist that I realized just how versatile and clever this guy really was, and what a fabulous lyricist. His rhymes are natural but never predictable, and he can sustain a literary conceit without becoming pompous, which is a rare talent in itself:

You say I'm a black hole, a singularity
An old supernova, a phase in blind catastrophe
But once I was a star
A long time before that, somebody's sun...

Basically, Aqualung has everything I like about Coldplay (strong melodies, memorable riffs) and none of the things I don't (musical sameness, cringe-worthy rhymes, beating those memorable riffs into the ground). I came across a review of an Aqualung album which remarked that Chris Martin should be sitting in the corner taking notes from Matt Hales because this is how it's done, and I agree.

Also, Matt Hales references Comet in Moominland in the same song I just quoted ("Black Hole"), which endeared him to me for life. It's one thing to be a science geek with a knack for writing lovely tunes, and another thing to love the Moomins, and anybody who can combine the two gets my vote, no question.

Anyway, if you're interested in checking out a sampler of Aqualung tunes, you can do so here on Playlist.com, since LiveJournal seems to choke on such things.

Next up: Andrew Bird.

Yes, you heard right, I have emerged from the depths of the word mines triumphant! Touching Indigo, my paranormal YA novel, is now complete at ~60K words.

I have to say, this was the most challenging book I've ever written. Part of it was my own fault, in trying a completely new approach to writing when I began the book in January 2007. In a foolish attempt to make myself more productive and "professional", I succumbed to the siren call of First Draft in 30 Days, and also to the spreadsheet method of outlining, both of which turned out to be serious mistakes for me and really hindered my writing of the book.

So there's a perfect example of how methods that work wonderfully for authors with certain mindsets/personality types can be disastrously wrong for others. In my case, I got so caught up with trying to make the spreadsheet all balanced and pretty ("Hm, I see that I've had X number of scenes with this character, so obviously I need to insert a scene with this character") that I lost the ability to tell the story in a natural way. It wasn't until I threw out my outline and just told the story as I remembered it, feeling my way intuitively from scene to scene, that it all came together again.

Anyway, I know the book can only get better from here, and I hope to make it better in subsequent revisions, but right now I am very well pleased. And best of all, I made my deadline, so now I can a) read Catching Fire and Dreamdark: Silksinger, among other new releases I've been drooling over; and b) buy myself that new laptop! I'm thinking seriously about going Mac this time, so I can use Scrivener. The only thing that makes me hesitate is that the nearest Apple Store is two hours' drive away, so if I need any service or repairs, I'm pretty much bunned...

I will post again soon about the wonderful new music I discovered over the course of writing the last two-thirds of Indigo, and many other things. Right now, I'm just glad to be back in touch with my online friends again.

In other news: still working on Touching Indigo. 43K as of today!

jadetrekeast just sent me this link to a friend's craft blog, and I was utterly charmed:

Summer Dreams and Faery Wings

A jar of faery wings (and eggs!) with a fanciful label makes me think of something my fellow small faery author Laini Taylor would have in her house. I am completely non-crafty and no good at decorating, but I love seeing and enjoying the creativity of others!