Well, that was a week. I was sitting at my computer, twittering, when the earthquake started. At first I thought it was a truck passing closely outside. Then I noticed my tomato trellises shaking away and as the vibrations grew stronger, I put it together. (Yes, that’s a B.A. in Geology, why do you ask?)
You know how they say animals feel these first? Rio didn’t even wake up.
We didn’t sustain any damage and we’re all fine, here.
A few days later, everyone started panicking about the hurricane. Where I come from, people prepare for hurricane season the same way people up north prepare for winter. It’s a given that when you hear a storm is coming, you make sure you have fresh batteries in all your flashlights, a bunch of grillable/ready-to-eat food, a full tank of gas, and a few gallons of water, just in case. The large-scale panic, I think, was entirely media-generated. Hurricanes are bad and dangerous and this one hurt a lot of people, don’t get me wrong, but the shelves empty of flashlights and batteries and red wine were a little shocking to me. Pick up some staples, and make sure you have flashlights and water. Thanks to the fact that Sailor Boy and I are part of the 9/11 Generation and we live in our nation’s capital, we’ve got a permanent “emergency cabinet” in our house (which reminds me, I need to add stuff for Queenie to my jump bag.)
Even my parents, who have lived in hurricane-central for over twenty-five years, called me to report whatever piece of yellow journalism they were hearing on the news. We were all set — but we were lucky. Our power didn’t even go out. (Compare to July 2010, when an unnamed storm knocked out power to our house for a week.) We stayed indoors all day Saturday, and now there are little leaves and twigs all over my yard, but Sunday was gorgeous. We even took Rio for a hike in the park (the creek was running way high).
The moral of the story is, respect the weather, respect natural disaster,s be prepared, and for goodness sake, Don’t Panic.
In other news, remember when I posted these stats of For Darkness Shows the Stars? Turns out they were a little premature. No, I haven’t suddenly decided to add zombies. But I did have to do a little rejiggering of the chapters during the last round of edits. so now the chapter count stands at 43 and the unchapter count at 21. To compare: There are 26 in Ascendant and 27 in Rampant. There are 21 chapters in Under the Rose, which is the longest secret society book, and the one whose length is most comparable to FDSTS (see sidebar).
That’s a significant difference, to me. I wonder if it will feel so different to readers.I think sometimes I get overly obsessed with things like chapter breaks and chapter headings and the titles of various internal parts of my novel that readers don’t really care about. I suspect a significant number of readers never read the “confessions” — let alone the chapter titles — of the secret society books.
But of course, there are all kinds of crazy ways that I’ve learned readers read books over the years. Some read all the dialogue first and then go back and read the narrative. Some read the first few pages and then the last few pages and use that as a barometer to decide whether or not to read the book. Some buy all the books in a series and then hold off reading them until the series is complete. Some always skip the prologues, or never read the chapter titles, or refuse to read anything set in italic, or only read chapters with numbers divisible by six.
Some of these reading habits make me wonder how the reader in question can ever make sense of a novel.
Me, I’m a straight through, don’t skip a word kind of reader. I would never dream of skipping a prologue or a text block or a sex scene — the author put them there for a reason, and if I skip it, I’m missing something they designed to be part of the whole. And because I read that way, I write that way, too. I mean for all the words in my books to come in a particular order, and to be read in that order. I think you’re missing something if you don’t, but that’s the way my brain works.
There are no chapter titles in FDSTS — a first for my original novels. I felt like between the parts, and the quotes, and the unchapters — well, it was starting to get a little busy in the header arena. I don’t miss them. They were right for my other series, but simple numbers are right in this case.
Enough of that. You guys are going to be SO SICK of hearing me talk about FDSTS before the book comes out next June.
Next. June. Ugh. Kidlit publishing moves at a glacial pace, y’all. When I wrote Secret Society Girl, I turned the draft in August 31, and it came out in May of the following year. At least this isn’t as bad as Rampant, though, which had a 12 month wait time after proofs. One day, maybe I’ll be patient enough to write a book and not announce it until the ARCs come out.
Hahahahahhahahahhaha. Good one.
Yes, there will be ARCs of FDSTS. Sometime this fall, I hear.
This is what I’m doing to distract myself until then:
- reading a lot
- writing a lot
I am very excited about my new project. I am jamming it full of all kinds of things I’ve been interested in recently. Pets. Frocks. Swimming. Banter. And of course, fabulous names.
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