So, I'm in Asheville...

Yes, Asheville - the land of countless galleries, small green mountains, the Biltmore Estate, and Stephanie Perkins.

I know. I didn't give you any notice. I didn't even mention it on Twitter.

But don't feel left out. I didn't make a big fuss over it. In fact, I said just about the same thing to my family last Sunday.

Except I replaced "I'm in" with "I'm going to." Because you know, they would worry and stuff if I just disappeared.

It's kind of a writer retreat. Like this one and this one. Except this current one is a month long. :-D

I can hear what you're saying. Something like: "Dude, this girl goes on a lot of writer retreats."

Why, yes - yes, I do.

Because I HAVE A DEADLINE AND IT FRIGHTENS ME.

(There. I'm done. I promise I won't spend this whole post freaking out. Much.)

But because I need to figure out where I'm going to live next, I'm also going to try out new cities on a trial basis.*

Do you hear me, Asheville? You are on probation! Be on your best behavior, if you want to see more of me!!

But no, haha, so far (all four days of it), Asheville is treating me pretty well! In the half mile I walk to reach the library, where the majority of the writing gets done, I pass four or five coffeeshops and two bookstores! One of which is the glorious and much-lauded Malaprops!

This is my view when I'm walking away from the library,
where presumably, I've written many magnificent and brilliant pages.

(Which is dangerous, because if I buy the books, then I am tempted to read them INSTEAD OF WRITING. Noooooooooooo. But they have such a great selection - Even though I resisted with all my might, I bought two books from them! On two separate occasions. No, but yeeessssssssss. Cannot resist the lure of pretty book-type objects.)

Anyway. Ahem.

The only real complaint I have is that it reminds me of college, where basically everyone dresses cooler than me. So, if you spot someone who sports a look that can only be described as "Preppy McPrepsterson" among all the elegant earth goddesses and the bright-red-lipstick-wearing, messy glam hipsters..... well, that would be me.

But it's okay. In an effort to blend in and minimize blisters on my swollen feet,*** I purchased these super soft, almost loafer-like shoes****:

They are comfy. :-)

Also, I think my casual shoe stock is down to four pair - excluding flip-flops, boots, and heels (that would add another five. Wow, I have less than ten pairs of wearing shoes. That's just sad.)

But - and now I finally get to the main point of this post - I am away, and I've mentally reached the Land Where First Drafting Is The Most Important/ONLY Thing On My To Do List.

That means you won't see much of me online. I'm really REALLY trying to cut back on my internet time.

I've even taken email off my phone! And started checking it later in the day! Aren't you proud of my willpower/insanity??

But that includes blogging, and tweeting, and sometimes tumblring.

And if you do see me doing these things (especially the last two, which are more addicting), you have my permission to chase me away.

Like so:



(Muahahahaha. Now, I've made you want to rewatch Ferris Bueller's Day Off, haven't I??? :-P)

Last but not least:

HAPPY SEPTEMBER!!!

Footnotes:

*The initial plan was to fly out to San Fran for the first experiment, which I have been talking about FOREVER. But I need to be in North Carolina to get my adorable new car fixed. So, then there was Asheville.**

**Not that there's anything second-rate about Asheville. The biggest strike against it in my Book of Awesome Places I Might Live is its proximity to Charlotte. When they were my age, my parents moved over 1200 miles away from the town they grew up in. Living so close just would just feel so NOT grown up. On the other hand, I picked Asheville, because it was close enough to drive back if I forgot something/the parts came in to fix my MINI's bumper.

***SO not used to walking everywhere anymore. Bad, lazy, out-of-shape Shelby.

****On sale, because I am my mother's (bargain-shopping) daughter.

The Quarter Life Crisis

Okay, so there's really not a quarter life crisis.

But I've been joking about it all month - I couldn't resist putting it in here too.

Maybe it's just a family joke: If you know me well, sooner or later, I'll tell you that I'm going to live to be a hundred. I sound like I'm joking, but I'm really joking the way that Karou jokes with her art school classmates in Daughter of Smoke & Bone. As in, the tone is right, but the words are true.

I seriously am shooting for a hundred. A century sounds awesome. I'll be like Beverly Cleary (95), sharp as a tack - no, sharp as a freaking samurai sword, and lording over her legacy with deft skill of master-craftswoman. *daydreams*

What?! It could happen! Three of my great-grandmothers lived well into their nineties.

If you look up centenarian on Wikipedia, this is the picture that comes up.

I'm seriously not kidding about that. Her name was Muriel Duckworth. She was Canadian. I hope, on my 100th birthday in 2086, I remember to wear a color that brings out my eyes.

WOW, what a tangent.

I turned twenty-five this week. Hence, the Quarter Life Crisis joke.

(Sadly, jokes are never as funny if you have to explain them, which I have done above. Le sigh.)

But okay, I am still halfway to thirty. - Well, as my friend's fiance pointed out, it's technically halfway to fifty. But I'm not going to think about that.

If I wasn't happy about things, I could have had a mid-twenties crisis. I could whine about how I'm not doing anything with my life. How I'm not where I want to be. How I really want to be doing X, Y, and Z. I could be miserable.

But as you'll notice, I'm not.

I'm actually really grateful. Instead of feeling anxious on my twenty-fifth birthday, I felt all giggly. I'm talking little girl giddiness. Like Christmas Day, how-fast-can-I-open-these-presents joy.

You know what Sandra Cisneros says in her short story, "Eleven," about birthdays?

What they don't understand about birthdays and what they never tell you is that when you're eleven, you're also ten, and nine, and eight, and seven, and six, and five, and four, and three, and two, and one. And when you wake up on your eleventh birthday you expect to feel eleven, but you don't. You open your eyes and everything's just like yesterday, only it's today. And you don't feel eleven at all. You feel like you're still ten. And you are—underneath the year that makes you eleven.

I've talked about being a writer since I was five.

Five-year-old Shelby and twenty-year-old Shelby, thirteen, and twelve, and eleven year old Shelby, and all of the other Shelbys underneath -- they're all rather pleased with twenty-five-year old Shelby. Proud of me even.

Because all of them know that by the time I reach twenty-six, I will be able to hold my book in my hand. And turn the pages. And give it to people. And put it on a shelf in my house and see my own name facing out at me - every single day.

(Wow, apparently I'm kinda proud of twenty-five-year-old Shelby too. :-P)

Anyway, I spend a fair amount of time in panic, freak-out mode. Like - OMG, revision deadline! OMG, synopsis time! OMG, copyedits!!! Copyedits in the three days!!!! There's stress in this business, most of it self-inflicted.

But despite how I feel sometimes, I'm exactly where I wanted to be. This is what I've dreamed about for pretty much as long as I could remember. If I could go back in time and meet my younger self, the five-year-old Shelby would think I was cool. How many people can say that?

According to five-year-old Shelby, I'm a success. And that's actually not such a bad measure of success.

I think I'll keep it around for the day I turn thirty.

Of course, I thought a lot of things were cool circa age 5. I present exhibit A:

This may actually be four year old Shelby.
But it's clear from this pic that I've always been a lady of taste.
Tigger, for instance, TOTALLY goes with this outfit.

THREE AWESOME THINGS!!!! (And one not-so-awesome)

Hello, my friends!

I've been away for a while, I know. Long enough to have a bunch of announcements.

Are you ready for them????????

(I don't know if you're ready for them. I don't know if you can handle the SQUEEEEEE. *throws down gauntlet* :-P)

First, and most awesomely, I need to thank Kathleen Ortiz, Joanna Volpe, and Thananchai Pandey for THIS:

Thai rights to Shelby Bach's middle grade debut EVER AFTERS: Of Fire and Ice, to Amarin, at auction, by Thananchai Pandey at Tuttle-Mori Thailand, in association with Kathleen Ortiz at Nancy Coffey Literary and Media Representation on behalf of Joanna Volpe.

ISN'T THIS SO FREAKING AWESOME?

Thank you so much, Kathleen, Jo, Thananchai Pandey, and of course, all the fantastic people at Amarin! I am so thrilled!!

(On a random note, did you know that the ms mentions Thailand in the second chapter? It's just a passing comment in an convo between the main character and her dad, but still, it made me extra giggly to see it there when I was going over the copy-edits this weekend.)

Technically, I found out about this about two weeks ago -- one Monday evening, when I was making dinner. A totally unexpected email! I didn't even realize that this was going on in the far off realm of NYC, and even farther off place of Thailand, so I was totally blown away by the good news.

In case you're curious, I celebrated in the following ways:

1) I ran around the house singing and doing a happy dance (all pics of this incident have been destroyed/permanently deleted for the preservation of my supercool reputation :-P).

2) I watched the celebration video Kathleen sent me an obscene number of times. Here, you can watch it too:

KERMIT!!!! (Also, who ELSE is totally psyched for the new Muppet movie?)

3) I checked out what my Title looks like in Thai. I know you totally want to see it too:

หลังจากที่เคย | The Ever Afters
และบริษัทยักษ์ใหญ่ของน้ำแข็ง | Of Giants and Ice

Disclaimer: I don't speak/read Thai. I literally just plugged the title into a website or two and cut and pasted it here.

If you do read Thai and have a better translation, please contact me, and I'll post it and give you all my undying gratitude!

And at the suggestion of the lovely and talented Jenn Rush, I'm also gonna grab some friends and go out for some Thai food. There's a great place called Deejai just up the road.

So, anyway, some of you may have noticed that the deal announcement went up at Publisher's Marketplace last Monday.

Where have I been? you ask.

I've been here:

And here:


And here as well, even though it's just down the hill from the one above:


Pretty, right?

So, it might shock you that I only saw the beach for like seven hours altogether in the six days I was there. I basically found a fun, affordable, tiny one bedroom apartment at Carolina Beach; locked myself inside; stuck my butt in a chair at the kitchen table; and just wrote.

(As you may recall, I did something like this in February as well.)

I didn't take my computer with me. I uninstalled email on my phone. I was serious about having no distractions, and for a couple days in a row, I didn't venture out of the apartment until after the sun set.

My mom is going to paint something like this. (She came for the last two days.)

When I sent her out on Thursday morning so I could write, she headed out here with her disposable camera and shot tons of pics. (I know! Disposable camera! I offered to lend her my digital one, but she said the shadows are better with the disposable one.)

But just FYI, she didn't take that picture. I found it here. It just looked really awesome, with the crooked trees and the water glinting between the trunks - I had to share.

Anyway, that's the reason I was absentee for a week running. I didn't even realize that PM had announced it until I logged into Twitter after!

But I was very productive. I wrote as much that week as I did in the four or five weeks previous. And on the drive back, I had the most marvelous focus - the whole story stretched out shiny and winding, like the Yellow Brick Road glittering in daylight...

Until I stopped at a yellow light approximately ten miles from home, and a red PT Cruiser hit me.

So, yeah, I was in my first wreck on Friday. (Well, the first when I was driving - and the first where I was also all alone.)

You might have seen me squeeing over this little MINI on Twitter, but if not, let me just say: I just got this car on July 30, and I have been so excited that I've probably annoyed some people with all my enthusiasm.

So, the wreck was a double bummer. :-(

But it could have been much much worse. A patrol car was on the cross street of this intersection, so when we pulled off, a policewoman appeared before I even thought to call 911. The PT cruiser's axle was broken, and its driver reminded me of my eighth grade French teacher - very mild-mannered and apologetic. The crash tore a hole in my bumper, and it needs to be replaced. But I could drive home.

(That concludes the not-so-awesome portion of today's program. I'll stop complaining now. :-P)

And guess what else was waiting for me when I got home from the beach and (auto) body shop?

COPYEDITS!!!

Wasn't that fast? I feel like they came super fast. Almost shockingly and dauntingly fast.

And they were due back to S&S on Tuesday, which meant I had to pass them to the nice UPS man before 6PM on Monday evening. My timing for that little writing retreat could clearly have been better; the deadline was very tight. But with much caffeine, several late nights, and a little green pencil (to contrast the copyeditor's red pen), I MADE IT!!

(And as I was leaving the parking lot, I literally saw the UPS truck pull up to pick up those copyedits and whisk them off to NYC's Rockefeller Center and Courtney B., my wonderful editor. Which entertained me greatly.)

My one regret was that I didn't get to pore over the pages and make sure everything was as it should be as I promised to do here. Sigh. The best laid plans, etc. etc.

But I did enough. And you know, I actually believe that everything happens for a reason. Maybe, the copyedits kept me from bemoaning the wreck all weekend long. Maybe, if I had time enough to give each page the time I wanted, I would've gotten nitpicky in a crazy way and screwed up the ms with too many unneeded changes.

Sometimes, you just need to let go. (Ah, the laments of an overachiever.)

Okay, y'all - if you have read all the way to the end, you win about a thousand AWESOME points and my undying love.

And also, a lemon-ginger scone next time I see you. :-)

No, seriously - if I can, I'll make them for you (mine look more like muffins, though).
Also, click through for recipe. :-)

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland (In A Ship of Her Own Making)

Note: If you haven't taken a look at my Review policy, you can check it out here.

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland
(in A Ship of Her Own Making)
by Catherynne M. Valente
Feiwel and Friends (May 2011)

First off, can we just take a second and marvel at how awesome the book trailer is?

(Confession: I bought that song on iTunes.)

Every once and a while, a book will come along, and it is so powerfully vivid that when it sketches out a magical land, the fictional world does more than just entertain. When you begin to read, the rules of the mundane world falls away, and suddenly, you're swept away into a fantastical place which has a particular delicious flavor, which makes its own particular sense. One author's imagination can create its own logic. One story can build a world with its own gravity, drawing readers back to that imagined realm again and again, over decades and generations, until many years and rereads later, you realize that world has grown inside of you.

You know the books, I mean: Alice in Wonderland has...well, Wonderland. Peter Pan has Neverland. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe - and the other six book in the Chronicles - have Narnia. Haroun and the Sea of Stories belongs in this category, and Abarat, and the Golden Compass.

Today, I'm gonna add The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland to those ranks.


Yes, it's that good. This is a book that comes with words attached - words like Whimsy, and Awesome, and Flit, and Joyous, and Loverly, and Pandemonium (see below).

But here's what edges this novel out of the good category and into the great: Valente wrote a story that deserves the world it takes place in. Seriously. (Confession: I even got a little teary-eyed at the end, and that almost never happens.)

Blend one enchanting, mesmerizing Voice, many vivid and telling names, and an assortment of oddball characters. Stir in one main character's stubbornness, as well as her sacrifices. Add some themes on Choice, and the Burden of Hearts, and Leaving/Returning Home; deliver a wham-bam punch of great storytelling, and you'll get The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland.

5 out of 5 on the KVOT scale, peeps. For sure.

*Writer Tip Takeaway:

(No, British peeps, it has nothing to do with food. :-P)

*Okay, I can't resist. I have to share something Useful and Awesome that this book taught me in the Realm of Writing Skills.

Proper Nouns can develop setting in the most delightful and efficient of ways.

Here let me list some that Catherynne M. Valente used:

Dramatis Personae
(as listed right before page 1)

September, a Young Girl
Her Mother
Her Father
The Green Wind, a Harsh Air
The Leopard of Little Breezes, His Steed
Hello, a Witch
Goodbye, her Sister, also a Witch
Manythanks, their husband, also a Witch, but Additionally, a Wairwulf
A-Through-L, a Wyvern
Lye, a Golem
Good Queen Mallow, Former Ruler of Fairyland
Charlie Crunchcrab, a Fairy
Several Glashtyn
The Marquess, Current Ruler of Fairyland
Iago, the Panther of Rough Storms
Saturday, a Marid
Calpurnia Farthing, a Fairy
Penny Farthing, her Ward
Numerous Velocipedes
Doctor Fallow, a Spriggan
Rubedo, a Graduate Student, also a Spriggan
Citrinitas, an Alchemical Genius, a Spriggan as Well
Death
Two Lions, Both Blue
Mr. Map, the Royal Cartographer
Nor, a Nasnas
An Unfortunate Fish
A Shark (Actually a Pooka)
Hannibal, a Pair of Shoes
Gleam, a Lamp

Place Names
(for the sake of brevity, I'll only list the ones I found between pages 1 and 100)

• The City of Westerly, "where all Six Winds live in nothing at all like harmony" (6)
• The Closet Between Worlds
• the Perverse and Perilous Sea
• the House Without Warning
• the Barleybroom, a River
• Pandemonium, the Capital of Fairyland, with four districts called Idlelily, Seresong, Hallowgrum, and Mallowmead
• the Switchpoint, a gate into Pandemonium
• Groangyre Tower, "home of the Royal Inventors' Society (Madness Prerequisite)" (51)
• Janglynow Flats, "where once the Ondines waged their algae wars" (51)

Now, just with those 200-some words, can't you already kind of picture what kind of Fairyland this is?

Doesn't it make you want to dive right into the pages and find out more about "Hannibal, a Pair of Shoes" or "the House Without Warning"?

A Word on (My) Reviews

So, as of today, I will start reviewing here.

I don't know if anyone ever noticed this (probably not), but there aren't any actual reviews on this blog. I've recommended some and gushed over a fair amount of my favorites - but I've hesitated to review.

Why?

I don't like to be critical in a public place.

Especially when I don't know how the recipient of said criticism will receive that feedback.
Especially when nobody even asked for my opinion.

So, I made a little rule for myself, on this blog, so that I would just avoid the situation altogether: I just wouldn't review.

But I kept wanting to write about the books I just read - and not just as the last line in a Friday Five either.

Thus, as a compromise, each of my reviews must follow certain criteria.

Requirement: I can't know the author or have any sort of personal connection with them.

Why?

Well, if I told you blog readers how I knew the writer, you would think to yourself, Oh, she's just saying that, because the author is Shelby's agent-sister/Shelby's mom's best friend/that girl Shelby met at summer camp thirteen years ago. Her opinion is totally biased.

And you know, you wouldn't be wrong. Knowing the author does tend to influence my opinion of their book.

(This, however, does not mean that I won't gush over books of authors I know, and telling you all to buy them. I'm just not going to call it a "Review.")

Requirement: I must use the Best Versions of Themselves (B.V.O.T.) scale, which is as follows:

• 1 out of 5 - The author of the book had no inkling of what kind of story their book wanted to tell.
• 2 out of 5 - I liked bits of it, but the good stuff was marred by the frustratingly bad.
• 3 out of 5 - A balance between the good and the bad, or maybe just a whole lot of mediocre.
• 4 out of 5 - The author could've tweaked something major, but it still goes down on my list of Very Worthy Books.
• 4.5 out of 5 - The author could have improved it a bit, but I can still love it to death, (minor) warts and all.
• 5 out of 5 - The author perfectly told the best version of their story. I have no qualms about gushing to my heart's content.

For more info on the B.V.O.T. scale, go see this post.

Requirement: The book must score a 4 or higher on the B.V.O.T. scale.

Why?

Because there's a limit to how much criticism I can dish out without feeling horribly guilty.

Requirement: I need to like the book.

This is not the same as it scoring well on B.V.O.T. scale. I have read plenty of perfectly written books that I just didn't connect with personally.

(But this one is easy, because I won't waste time reviewing a book unless I love it. :-P)

Which means:

a) They will be (mostly) positive, because I already love them.

b) There won't be THAT many.

Also, note: Everybody's taste is slightly different. You might want to take a look at my favorite books (listed here) to see if your taste is anything like mine.

Why am I telling you?

Because you're bound to notice sooner or later that I seem to give good reviews to EVERYTHING. Which will be true.

Now, you know the reason. :-)

A Quick Update...

Hello, friends! This is just a quick note to tell you that I'm still alive. A very quick note - Friday Five quick.

1. But this wasn't what I started out writing today: I was going to write a Review of the Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making. Then I was going to write a quick meditation on Harry Potter, and What J. K. Rowling and Her Characters Mean to Me and My Generation (yes, I saw the film last weekend).
   
   But today, I'm too restless to concentrate.
   
   
2. My sister returns from France today. She went out there with the intention to stay three months, travel around, and learn some things about life and herself. I'm afraid she also caught bronchitis there. She is now headed home three weeks early, to rest and recuperate and talk to doctors she shares a mother tongue with. She'll arrive around 8PM. Which means that she is probably over the Atlantic right now, coughing up a storm and making her seat-neighbors worry that they'll catch TB or something.
   
   I'm a little worried about her as well. I always forget that she is only fifteen months younger than I am and that she can really take care of herself.
   
   
3. One of my oldest, bestest friends is sitting across from me right now, here at the Barnes & Noble cafe. She is flipping determinedly through the stack of bridal magazines in front of her. She got engaged in April, and the wedding will be in September/October of next year. This weekend, she and her mom goes to Charleston to meet with the wedding planner. We're holding a running commentary on dresses, straps on the bridesmaid dresses, kids to participate in the ceremony, flowers, etc.
   
   Example:
   "I definitely want roses, but not red. I've never been a fan of red roses."
   "They look so...Bachelorette-y."
   
   
   She doesn't know that I took this picture... :-P
   
   (This may explain why I'm having trouble focusing.)
   
   
4. Book 2 is taking over my life. 60% of my reading is research. 87.5% of my brain activity has been consumed with the characters talking in my head, and the chapter they're currently trapped in, and the world they're learning more about, etc. Which means I've become about five million times more absentminded than usual. For example, this morning, getting gas, I had to park about five times, because I kept forgetting what side the gas tank was on. :-/
   
   (This should explain why I've been MIA. It is a good excuse. ("I was writing," is always a good excuse.)
   
   
5. There's just an odd mood over my life, and over the lives of many of the people close to me: we are in transition, or on the move, or in between. It's not bad; it's not good. It's a stew of indefinable mush, where things happen, small unimportant steps in a forward direction, which add up to a big word like Change.
   

Okay, next week, I shall post that review. And if my sister is feeling better, I might drag her to go see Harry Potter - just so that I can see it again. :-P

A Copy-Edits Cause for CELEBRATION!!! (and also, for Craftsmanship)

These fireworks are beautiful,
like a bouquet of light.
(It was raining, so I didn't actually go see fireworks this year.
But I heard them start up circa 10PM.)

A week ago, right before the Fourth of July weekend began, I got a wonderful little email from my editor:

It said that my ms was going to copy-editing!!! (Squeeeeeeee!)

But when I first read the news, my memory shot back two weeks, right before deadline - when I was reading through my novel one last time, checking for anything that needed fixing.

The thing was, I wasn't finding much to work on. I mean, I did correct a few typos. But mostly, I would tweak a sentence, stare at it for a few minutes, and then decide it sounded better before and change it back.

While I was fiddling with one such a sentence, my mind wandered: You know, this revision didn't take too long. Compared to the one in March, it was a piece of cake, and this read-through isn't too fruitful on the tweaking front. I wonder what else we'll have to change. Wouldn't it be funny if it went into copy-editing after this round? And by funny, I mean awesome, but kind of unbelievable.

That thought provoked a number of different reactions:

(Disclaimer: oh, yes - I AM describing ALL the voices in my head. But all of these thoughts raced through my head in about a minute.)

• Terrified: No!! Not copy-editing! The ms can't possibly be ready yet. It's too soon! I've only done nine drafts, and worked for twenty-two months-- Er, wait... (Well, if you put it that way...)
• Lazy: Are you crazy, Shelby? You want to do more work on this? Don't you want to be done?
• Chiding: Besides, do you really think you're the person to decide whether or not your book is ready? - Your editor would know. She's the professional. She has been doing this a lot longer than you.
  
• Practical: It's not like you're making it significantly better right now anyway. The March revision improved the book by leaps and bounds; in comparison, this is more like a baby step in the right direction.

It was that last thought that made me stop and ponder for a second.

I really wasn't improving the ms a whole lot anymore. It's not like I thought that the book was Totally Perfect. (No book is totally perfect, even if it doesn't score a 5 out of 5 on the B.V.O.T. scale.) But I was running out of tweaks to make. The ones I made I didn't like as much as what I had before.

Maybe, just maybe, I thought, staring at the computer screen, I've reached the end of my skill as a self-editor. Maybe I have already made the book as good as I can make - at least right now.

In the March revision, I'd been shocked at how much I found to fix: whole scenes suddenly seemed unnecessary. Better jokes came to mind. Filler words fell away under a pink-pen-colored, line-editing rampage. When Jo put it on submission last year, the ms had felt polished then, so realizing how much more work I could find was a surprise.

At the time, I'd thought that after seven months away, I came back to ms with fresh eyes, which helped me find the problem spots. But maybe it wasn't that. Maybe my eyes were sharper, better trained, more focused. In the off time, I had ruminated about my characters. I'd read blogs and writing books. I practiced my line-editing by critiquing for other people. In other words, I had become a better writer and self-editor without really realizing it.

If that's true, that would mean that to improve my book again, I would need to improve my writer skills.

I'm always so focused on the book, and improving the book, and making the book the very Best Version of Itself. I often forget that I should be doing the same with my Writer self. I always want to push myself to do better, to leave my comfort zone, to grow, to sharpen my language until it explodes off the page. You learn by doing and revising, of course, but you also learn by going out into the world/blogosphere with the intention to learn and to practice.

And so, last week, when Courtney told me that the book indeed was going to copyediting, my first thought---

Okay, I'll be honest: my first thought was YAAAAAAAAAY!!!!

My second thought was actually, OMG, did I predict the future?

But I also knew exactly what I had to do: in the months between now and the day the copy-editing ms returns to me, I need to push myself to become a better writer.

And what better way to do that than finishing the second book, and striving to make it better than the first? :-)