A friend asked about it recently and I realised that I haven’t touched the post in a year. The odds of my finishing it are low. When I spend my scant few hours at the keyboard I focus on my novels, not blog posts. So here is my unfinished and pretty rough account of writing Liar using Scrivener:

In the acknowledgements of Liar I wrote the following: “Without Scrivener this book would most likely not exist.” Ever since people have been asking me to please explain. Here, at long last, is my explanation.

For those who don’t know Scrivener is novel-writing software. A while back I wrote an overview. If you’re unfamiliar with Scrivener I suggest reading that first.

Scrivener Streamlines

The first words I wrote of the novel were “I’m a liar.” What came after the words “I’m a liar” in my first draft of the opening bears no resemblance to the final novel:

I’m a liar. I don’t do it on purpose. Well, okay, yeah, I do. But it’s not like I have a choice. It’s just what comes out of my mouth. If my mouth is closed then I’m cool, no lies at all. Well, okay, there’s also writing, isn’t there? I do that with my mouth closed and there’s just as much bullshit on my blog as there is coming out of my mouth. Like I’m not 30, I’m not blonde and I don’t live in New York City. I am a girl though, and Australian.

That was written in October 2006. By the time the novel was published in 2009 the opening looked like this:

Promise

I was born with a light covering of fur.

After three days it had all fallen off, but the damage was done. My mother stopped trusting my father because it was a family condition he had not told her about. One of many omissions and lies.

My father is a liar and so am I.

But I’m going to stop. I have to stop.

I will tell you my story and I will tell it straight. No lies, no omissions.

That’s my promise.

This time I truly mean it.

I began writing Liar in Word way back in 2006. I spewed out a bit over 500 words which were mostly notes like this:

After preamble. First chapter starts with her at a new school in NYC. Preamble can mention that she’s determined not to lie anymore that the new school’s going to give her a new start. And as it’s in a foreign country she’ll be the cool one. So she tells all these outrageous stories such as dropbears and they all buy it and she’s the cool one and there’s this really cute guy.

Beginning of second chapter she’s all like okay so the last chapter was the total truth except that there was another oz student in the class. So then she tells the story going back a little ways and having the other oz blow her first outrageous story about Australia. And also the other oz likes the boy too (who is now different in this chapter).

As you can see, originally I thought it would be more of a comedy than Liar turned out to be.

I didn’t work on Liar again until 2008. This time I was using Scrivener, not Word. I’d already used Scrivener to write “Thinner than Water” so I was comfortable with the program and very excited about writing my first novel on it.

I plugged in the existing words, quoted above. They looked wrong in Scrivener. It may just be me, but there’s something about Scrivener that makes me want to streamline my words.¹ It’s a very clean, uncluttered program. So my extremely cluttered, messy first words of Liar had to go. I’m not saying I wouldn’t have wound up chucking them anyway. See this extremely crappy first draft of the first chapter of Magic or Madness to see that I have never been averse to throwing everything out, even pre-Scrivener.

However, when I resumed writing Liar with Scrivener what came out was more pared down than anything I had ever written before. There are parts of the published version of Liar that are pretty much unmodified from the first version I wrote. That’s untrue of any of my other novels.

Though the majority of Liar was rewritten more times than anything else I’ve written.²

Many Little Pieces

Liar is a novel made up of 138 short pieces. Part I has 60, Part II has 29, and Part III has 59. Some of those pieces are as short as the opening piece, “Promise,” quoted above, which is only 90 words. Some are even shorter. The shortest piece in the book is 41 words. The longest is 1,897. The average length is probably in the 300-500 word range. None of the chapters are longer than 2,000 words which is usually considered to be a shortish chapter.³ That’s part of why I call them “pieces” rather than “chapters.”

As I wrote, those pieces kept having to be moved. I did not begin with a clear three-part structure. That didn’t emerge until I’d written about a third of the novel. But once it did emerge I realised that many of the pieces I’d already written belonged in the third part of the book. So I moved them there, which left gaps in the first part where they’d been. New pieces had to be written.

That kept happening a lot. A piece that I’d written early on turned out to belong much later in the book, which meant that it had to be rewritten to fit into its new location. The pieces around it also had to be rewritten. Every time I moved a piece the same rewriting process would happen, which is why so much of the novel has been rewritten more times that I’ve rewritten anything else.

To be clear: rewriting is not a novelty for me. I’m very big on rewriting in all my books. As someone once said, “There is no writing, only rewriting.”

The Glory of the Corkboard

Scrivener made working with 138 different little pieces of text a cinch because it has a wonderful corkboard function. The corkboard allows you to see your novel as if it were a series of cards pinned to a corkboard. Like so:

Pretty, huh?

At a glance those cards tell me three kinds of info.

First, there’s a brief description of each piece on every card. This saves having to scroll endlessly through the larger document trying to find a particular scene.⁴

Second, there’s the different coloured pins holding the cards to their virtual corkboard. You can also see the different colours in the left sidebar (the binder). Liar is made up of three different kinds of pieces. There’s Before (purple), After (green) and then what I thought of as Backstory (white). The After pieces go forward in straight chronological order. I determined early on that they would be the most common pieces. Part I has 31 After sections out of 60. Part III has 31 out of 59.

I also determined that I would never have more than one in a row of the Before or Backstory pieces. The colour coding means that I could see at a glance whether I’d violated that.

Um, I did.

Part II turned out to run on its own rules. It’s mostly Backstory with a sprinkling of Before pieces. There are also two places in Part III where there are two Backstory pieces in a row.

What? Rules were made to be broken. Even your own rules that you make up for your own novel. But, trust me, I only broke the rules when it was essential. Like grammar, really.

Third, there’s the diagonal stamp across each index card. Every time I started a new piece I would label it according to what state I thought the writing was in: Incomplete, Rough, Semi-Polished and Polished. (I was going to call them Sketchy, Crappy, Less Crappy and As-Uncrappy-as-I-can-Manage-Right-Now but while accurate that seemed unduly negative.)

Most of the cards in the picture above say Polished. That’s because it’s the final draft. A snapshot of the novel I’m working on now would show a predominance of Incomplete and Rough.⁵

This is a huge departure from my previous system of writing novels. I used to write the first draft in a mad hurry and then go back and rewrite the whole thing. Thus the whole first (or zero) draft would be labelled as Rough and it would stay pretty rough through several drafts. Usually the first few drafts were all about making the plot and overall structure work. Only once that was working could I do any serious polishing.

With Liar I rewrote as I went along. As a result many of the pieces were what I considered to be polished long before I had a complete draft. It was a very strange way of writing but it was the only thing that worked for Liar.

This labelling system was also really helpful whenever I was stuck on writing new pieces. I’d go into corkboard view and find a piece labelled Incomplete and work on it until I could upgrade it to Rough. If there were no Incompletes, I’d work on a Rough and so on.

Usually in the course of working on one of the rougher pieces I’d realise some other pieces that needed to be written before or after it. I’d write those next. And so it went.

I know it sounds really painstaking but it was a lot of fun. I was never stuck writing Liar, there was always something for me to work on.

The most important glory of the corkboard for Liar was the ease with which it allowed me to move the pieces around. That’s right, every single one of those index cards can be dragged to a new location. Brilliant! I don’t even want to think about what a major pain in the arse it would have been to write it with any other writing software. Like the dreaded Word. I may have had to print it out. Multiple times. *shudder*

Some of my days writing Liar consisted of me doing nothing but shifting index cards around until I was satisfied with the order. Then rewriting to make sure it all flowed right.

Often I’d start the next day’s work by doing the same thing. Fun!⁶

Notes on Each Piece/Overall Notes

One of the other glories of Scrivener is the Inspector. That’s the thing taking up the right sidebar. It’s where you write your index card description, colour code it and label the state of the draft. It’s also where you can write notes on each piece. Notes such as “This makes no sense at all. Where did the rabbit come from?” Or “Too many knives. Cut them down!”

I got into the habit of striking through each note after I addressed it:

Dunno about you but there’s nothing I find more satisfying than crossing things out. It’s almost as satisfying as deleting whole scenes.

Document notes can toggle over to Project notes. This allows you to write notes on a particular piece/scene/chapter as well as notes on the overall book. Being able to see my micro and macro notes that easily made a huge difference. Simple! Clean!

One of the questions I’m most frequently asked about Liar is how on Earth did I manage to outline it. I think everything above makes my answer clear.

I didn’t.

But Scrivener made outlining unnecessary.⁷ It allowed me to see the structure as it emerged from the various pieces I was writing. I have no idea how I would have kept track of everything without software that’s designed to allow you to manage such a big and complicated text as a novel.

It has both changed how I write as well as what I’m able to write. Scrivener has been a revelation.

1. You can tell that I didn’t write this post in Scrivener, can’t you?
2. I swear there are some sections that were rewritten more than a kajillion times. Honestly.
3. To give you a sense of length, this post is more than 2,000 words and is thus longer than any piece of Liar.
4. Something that always drove me nuts with Word.
5. Also Adequate. While working on novels after Liar I decided the leap from Rough to Semi-Polished was too daunting. Adequate is my intermediate phase.
6. I’m not being sarcastic. It really was fun.
7. Though there is an outlining function for those who crave such a thing. I’ve never used it.

For reasons I’ll explain in more detail below (but are mostly I was not online much) 2010 was ridiculously productive for me. I now have more than 100,000 words of my 1930s novel. Most of it written this year. And I declare those words to be good.¹ I have not enjoyed writing a book this much in I do not know how long. I never want to finish. Which is fortunate because I suspect that I’m not even half way finished. Likely not even a quarter. Possibly not even a tenth. Ooops. I may well not EVER finish. But, hey, at least I’m having fun.

For those of you who actually like to read words I write do not fear! I also wrote (with someone sekrit) a whole other sekrit (but hopefully not for much longer) project about which you will hear much next year when we’re allowed to tell you. Writing it was just about the best fun ever. I adore collaborating it turns out. Or maybe I just got lucky with the smartest, wittiest, fastest-writingiest collaborator of all time. Whatever the reason the two of us finished that project and sold it in two different countries.² And now we get to do it all over again. Colour me, excited.

Such a productive year was particularly wonderful because in 2009 I stopped writing for many months. In that year all I did was rewrite Liar, a few thousand words of the 30s book, and about the same on two other unfinished projects. It was my least productive year since I became a professional writer and it scared me. For a while there I was worried I wouldn’t write again. So, phew! Despite annoying injuries 2010 has been my most happy and productive writing year ever. Here’s hoping 2011 will bring more of the same.

But this is my what-happened-in 2010 report, I shall continue:

Books out in 2010

This year I had only one new book: Zombies Versus Unicorns which I put together with Holly Black. It was published in the US (Simon & Schuster) and Australia (Allen & Unwin) with one of the most perfect and gorgeous covers any book of mine has ever had. I cried tears of joy when I first saw it. Josh Cochran is a genius and so are the design team at Simon & Schuster. The book has had wonderful reviews and even won an award for the audio edition and sold way better than anyone expected.

It’s a publishing truism that anthologies don’t sell.³ Well, this one sure does. Yay! Thank you so much for reading ZvU, buying it, and telling your friends and librarians about it. Much appreciated.

There’s also an audio edition by Brilliance, which features me and Holly reading the introductions. Well, sort of reading, we got more and more ad-libb-y as the day went on. Let’s just say we had a great time. I would happily record audio books with Holly and the Brilliance team whenever they want.

ZvU also sold into France (Pocket Jeunesse), Germany (Bertelsmann Jugendbuch Verlag) & Brazil (Editora Record).

Liar came out in paperback in North America. It was also published for the first time in Denmark (Hoest), France (Gallimard), Italy (Salani) & the Netherlands (Mynx). I had the great pleasure of meeting the Gallimard Jeunesse team in Paris and they were all wonderful and work in the most gorgeous building complex I’ve ever seen. They even have a sekrit garden!

There will also be editions of Liar in Brazil (Editora Record), Germany (Bertelsmann Jugendbuch Verlag), Taiwan (Sharp Point Press), Turkey (Artemis, an imprint of Alfa Yayin Grubu) and Spain (Ediciones Versatil).

Reception of Liar

It’s been brought to my attention that some people don’t feel Liar has gotten the recognition it deserves. While it’s lovely that people feel passionately about the book I want to point out that Liar‘s gotten a tonne of recognition. Liar was more widely reviewed than any of my other books and almost all of those reviews were extremely positive. It also made a gazillion different best book of the year lists. Liar was shortlisted for eleven different awards and won four of them:

• the Davitt Award for best Young Adult Crime Novel 2010, which particularly thrilled me because I deliberately wrote Liar as a crime novel and the Davitt Award people were the first to notice,
• the WA Premier’s Literary Award, Young Adult Prize 2009. In Australia the Premier’s awards are a huge, huge deal and even come with a big old fat cheque,
• the Fellowship of Australian Writers (FAW) Christina Stead Award 2009, which is an award for best novel of the year regardless of genre—Liar was the first YA novel to win. I could not be prouder,
• and the fourth award has not yet been officially announced but the 2009 Carl Brandon Kindred Award. When I found out I screamed. I think the wording of the award will explain why this means so much to me: “The Carl Brandon Kindred Award is given to any work of speculative fiction dealing with issues of race and ethnicity; nominees may be of any racial or ethnic group.”

So there you have it Liar is by a country mile my most successful book by whatever metric of success you want to use. It’s the best reviewed, won the most awards, generated the most fanmail and discussion,⁴ and has sold better than any of my other novels in Australia and the USA. On top of that it’s a book I’m proud I wrote.⁵ I’m stoked.

Read These Books!

My favourite YA book of 2010⁶ was Bleeding Violet by Dia Reeves. Dark, weird, quirky, full of unexpected turns, fabulous world-building, and gorgeous writing. It’s not like anything else I’ve read. Well, other than her second book, A Slice of Cherry, which comes out in 2011. I highly recommend both.

Onto next year:

Books out in 2011

The paperback edition of Zombies versus Unicorns

⁷

and, um, nothing else . . .

That’s right for the first time since 2005 I have no new book out. But I promise you there will be something new (see above about my sekrit project) in 2012 and in 2013. Truly.

My Silence this Year

You might have noticed that this is my first post in six months. For someone who used to blog every day that’s a huge change. A weird one. Yes, I do miss blogging. No, this is not the beginning of me blogging frequently again.⁸ I won’t be blogging much for the foreseeable future. Sorry. But thank you so much all of those who wrote to let me know how much you miss this blog. You made me all teary, you did. As did you lovely people I met at ZvU events this year who told me ditto. Bless!

I spent the year dealing first with an acute injury that kept me from writing but that healed relatively quickly. Then I discovered that I had RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury) i.e. shooting pains in my arms and neck because of having typed a vast deal for about thirty years.⁹ I still have RSI. I cannot type for more than twenty minutes at a time or more than four hours a day without pain. I spent 2010 learning how to deal with it.

I tried many, many, many different things but here’s what worked for me:

RSI management:

• My computer is for writing novels. I only tweet or blog or IM or email or any other non novel-writing keyboard activity on days when I don’t write. I also make sure I have at least one or two days a week completely away from the computer.
• Most days the internet is switched off on my computer. Ah. The calm and ease of concentration with it gone. I honestly don’t miss it.
• I am very strict about writing only in twenty minute bursts with stretching in between and not for more than four hours a day.
• I use an ergonomic split key board, two trackballs with writst rests—one for my left hand and one for my right, my screen is at eye level, and I sit on an exercise ball forcing me to use my core muscles at all times.
• Weekly massage and physical therapy. Accupuncture has also helped. I have tried other therapies but those are the ones that have given me the best results.
• I work out five times a week with a trainer.¹⁰
• I do pilates once or twice a week.

So, yes, I am doing much better than I was—most importantly I’m able to write—but it’s a continuing thing for which there is no magic cure. I hope those of you at the beginning of your writing life pay attention and start developing good habits now before permanent damage is done. I wish I had! /lecture

Being offline a great deal of the time does mean I’m harder to contact than I was. My apologies. If you wish to contact me the best way to do so is still via email. If I don’t get back to you and you deem it urgent contact my agent, Jill Grinberg. (Her details are in the automatic reply.)

In conclusion

This time last year my writing was not going well. I was in a dither about what to write next and was working on four books at once. Obviously, see above, I concentrated on the 30s novel, which is not finished, and the sekrit project, which is.

I said my goal was to be happy writing and I was. That’s my goal for this year too. And for the rest of my life. I declare it to be a most excellent goal. I commend it to you!

Thanks everyone who wrote me letters of support and letters about my writing this year. Those letters were wonderful. I treasure them and I’m very sorry I haven’t been able to respond. I don’t think I’ll ever stop being moved by the different responses people have to my work.¹¹

I hope 2011 shapes up beautifully for all of us.¹²

Happy new year!

1. I’m sure when I re-read them I’ll be less thrilled but right now I think they’re fabulous. I’ll stick with that feeling, thanks.
2. Well, our agents did. Thank you, Jill!
3. Take that, smelly publishing truisms. I bet green covers aren’t the kiss of death either.
4. And, no, I’m not counting discussion generated by the cover controversy.
5. I don’t care what anyone says I think that’s the most important thing of all.
6. Not written by a friend or husband of mine.
7. And this was not, in fact, published in 2011. Current rumours are that it will be out April 2012.
8. You do not want to know how many days it took me to write this.
9. This is a very common condition. I know gazillions of writers in the same boat.
10. Yeah, I’m one of those people. Sorry!
11. Yes, many of your letters made me all teary. What can I say? I’m a sook.
12. Even the Australian cricket team. Not that I’m holding my breath on that one . . .

Here’s where things stand with me:

The good news: The original injury that caused me to cut back on blogging is completely healed. Yay!

The bad news: The RSI in my hands and forearms got worse.

I took four weeks off from the computer entirely. I have reorganised my computer setup. I’ve been doing a vast amount of physical therapy. I’m improving. Slowly and frustratingly but surely.

However, my time at keyboard remains limited and my top priority is my novel. All else—blogging, tweeting, emailing—is on hiatus until I can get through a day’s¹ work without pain.

I see that all sounds depressing. But honestly I’m doing great. While I miss being in close contact with all my fabby online friends.² I’ve been spending more time with friends in the real world. I’ve been reading more than I have in years. Watching lots of crazy good anime. Who recommended Moribito? I LOVE YOU.³ I’ve been cooking up a storm. And immersing myself in the WNBA, NBA, French Open, various cricket series and am ecstatic about the coming World Cup and Wimbledon and the Tour de France.

Life is very good.

So this is farewell for now. Thanks for all the support. It means heaps.⁴

I’ll be back.⁵

1. I.e. four hours.
2. A LOT.
3. Feel free to make more recs in the comments.
4. Thanks to the lovely folks who inquired after my health at BEA. Even if most of you were Team Unicorn. What’s up with that?
5. But not in a scary way. I swear that I’m not a cyborg from the future hellbent on wiping out humanity. Me, I like humanity.

Second, we recently finished watching Fullmetal Alchemist and Read or Die and LOVED them both with a fiery burning passion. Thanks everyone who recommended them. What should we watch next? And why do you recommend it?

Third, without googling how many have you heard of Joel Chandler Harris? And what do you know about him? And where are you from? (I suspect how old you are is pertinent also.)

Thank you!

If you’re in NYC you can see me and Scott reading this Saturday:

Justine Larbalestier, Bennett Madison,
Scott Westerfeld, & Cecily von Ziegesar
Reading and Q&A
12:30PM-1:15PM, Saturday, 10 April
Center for Fiction
17 E. 47th Street, Second floor
(between Madison & Fifth Ave.)
NY NY

The price of admission? Your donation of two or more new or gently used board books through grade 12.

I’ll be reading from my 1930s book.

Later!

Like almost every writer I know, I have a number of chronic—though not particularly bad¹—injuries, that were caused by (or flare up when) I spend a lot of time at my computer. Sitting at a computer for long hours is not good for your body. Which is why so many writers, receptionists, data processors, computer programmers etc etc² have repetitive strain injuries, headaches, chronic back and neck problems, shooting pains in the arms and hands and so on and so forth.³

Like many of you, I frequently spend more than fourteen hours a day at my computer.⁴ A recent injury (not sitting-at-computer related) has made that impossible. In order for my injury to heal I have had to drastically reduce my time at the computer, which forced me to prioritise what I do there:

1. Write novel.
2. Answer urgent business related email.
3. Blog.
4. Answer other emails.
5. IM with friends.
6. Read blogs, twitter etc.

Here’s what most days since the injury have looked like:

1. Write novel.

I no longer spend more than four hours on the computer. If the pain flares before four hours I stop. Four hours is not long so my novel gets my top priority. Many days writing my novel is the only thing I do at the computer. Ironically, I’ve written more in the last month than in the previous six. The book’s going well and I’m loving it. Bless, this injury!⁵ I have not once gotten past no. 4 on my list. So that is why you have not heard from me.

The acute injury is improving, slowly but surely.⁶ However, I have decided to stick to the current regime at least until the injury is completely healed and maybe longer because I have experienced less pain with my other chronic injuries as well.

In fact, February has seen me increase the amount of walking I do every day, I’ve taken up Pilates⁷, and I’ve upped the amount of time I spend at the gym.⁸ Injury aside, I feel better than I have in a long, long time. I’ve been reading way more books and manga as well.⁹

Because of this injury I’m fitter than I was, more flexible and, best of all, getting more writing and reading done. All good, right?

Not exactly. The reduced computer time has meant that I have not been communicating regularly with many of my close friends. I’m massively behind on email. I no longer IM.¹⁰ I feel like I’m losing touch with my online communities, which may sound trivial, but as Varian pointed out last week that sense of community is very important. It’s a large part of why I blog in the first place. Not blogging and responding to your comments has been difficult.

In fact, that is why this post. I don’t much like whingeing about my health here.¹¹ Boring! But I couldn’t really think of any other way to let people know that even when I’m not responding I’m thinking about them. I feel especially bad about all the lovely fan mail I’m not answering.¹² Several of the letters people have written me about Liar and have reduced me to tears.¹³ Thank you.

Thank you also to all my guest bloggers. You’ve kept this blog alive with entertaining, moving, informative, funny, wonderful posts. Bless you all. And thank you readers for supporting the blog in my absence. I’ve been so delighted to see the continued volume of traffic and comments. Yay!

One last thing: I know a fair number of you are in your teens and twenties and spending a vast amount of time at computers.¹⁴ If you’re not already taking care of your body now’s the time to get into good habits. Take frequent breaks, have an ergonomic set up,¹⁵ mouse with both hands¹⁶, take up yoga/pilates/tai chi/some kind of something that’s all about putting you in touch with the muscles in your body,¹⁷ drink gallons of water,¹⁸ stay as fit as you can, go outdoors etc etc.

You only get one body. Trust me, it will turn on you if you don’t treat it right.¹⁹

Update: You all need to read this beautiful, moving post by Tessa Kum about her struggles with RSI.

1. I know people who have been crippled by RSIs and now can only write with voice recognition software.
2. There are bazillions of jobs that involve long hours sitting in front of a computer.
3. Any kind of repetitive movement done day after day can lead to injuries. I know a house painter with carpal tunnel. In fact, almost every profession has occupational hazards. I wish that careers days at school would include a list of the health risks & how to avoid getting them alongside all the other information they give about jobs.
4. I have, on occasion, spent fourteen hours straight just IMing. Yeah, I know.
5. No, not really.
6. To repeat, it’s not a drastic injury.
7. On doctor’s rec. I was dubious, but it’s been great.
8. While injured I can’t do upper body strength stuff but I can do lots of cardio.
9. Pluto is awesome!
10. Which I miss so much. It’s such a great way to stay in touch and shoot the fat. It’s also a great way to stay online for hours and hours and destroy all that great rehab work.
11. Especially as I know many people who are dealing with much, much worse than I am.
12. Once I’m properly healed I’ll be devoting time to answering it.
13. In a good way. I am a big sook but that doesn’t mean the letters aren’t beautiful and moving.
14. I know several people in their twenties who are already dealing with RSIs.
15. Yes, writing hunched over your laptop on a couch is really bad for you.
16. I have two mouses attached to my keyboard and alternate between them when I work
17. Just to state the obvious: different things work for different people.
18. Drink much water = pee much. Which means getting up a lot. Which is a very good thing.
19. Not that you aren’t your body. Mind/body split, you are imaginary!

*********

Sarah Cross is the author of Dull Boy, a YA superhero novel. She blogs intermittently, posts random videos on tumblr, and is hiding in a unicorn-and-zombie-proof bunker until this whole mess is over.

Sarah says:

You may be wondering where Justine is.

And I am sorry to tell you that something horrible has befallen her.

She’s been kidnapped by unicorns.

Yes: these vile creatures.

You may be familiar with the zombies vs. unicorns debate, and the forthcoming anthology that was inspired by that eternal struggle. If you take a look at the anthology’s cover, you’ll see that the zombies and unicorns are engaged in an epic battle for dominance. It’s a gorgeous panorama of rainbow-colored destruction: severed unicorn heads, zombies impaled on pearlescent-yet-deadly horns, and corpses floating in a sky blue stream.

But one element has been left out of this struggle–and that, my friends, is the human element.

Members of Team Unicorn pose with their deadly mascot.

Humans will not emerge from this battle unscathed. They have been forced to take sides. (Vote here … if you dare.) Either you’re Team Zombie, or you’re Team Unicorn; and Justine, unfortunately, as the founding member of Team Zombie, has been targeted by her enemies: those sparkly, bone-crushing, rainbow-mane-shaking, marshmallow-defecating, zombie-impaling unicorns. From what I understand (I’ve been sent several encoded messages, written with a crayon that was rubberbanded to their leader’s hoof), the unicorns intend to hold Justine prisoner until she betrays the zombies and swears allegiance to her sparkly captors. Since we KNOW that will never happen … I was hoping to drum up some support for her release here.

Please, if you believe in fairies … er, believe the unicorns should release Justine, leave a comment here pleading her case. Personally, I believe that zombies, humans, and unicorns can get along. But some people are so frightened for their lives (or so passionate about unicorn domination), that they’re doing their best to disguise themselves as unicorns.

I think this is Diana Peterfreund’s new author photo …

It’s a sad state of affairs. And yet, given the ‘corns’ legendary cruelty, totally understandable.

Unicorns are more ruthless than the Spanish Inquisition. Their rainbow vomit can induce madness in even the most stable mind.

Unicorn torture tactic #1.

And you do NOT want to be subjected to their special blend of “Lucky Charms.” Seriously–you’re better off starving. If they bring you any colorful marshmallow cereal, beg for some gruel.

That’s so unsanitary, Mr. Unicorn …

I am posting these lovely unicorn pictures as a peace offering. Please, infernal unicorns, release Justine. Before Sarah Rees Brennan comes back and blogs about another Matthew McConaughey movie.

In Istanbul we have eaten.

A lot.

First course at Borsa restaurant.

A baklava shop, which sells many sweet and wondrous things. Yes, we bought and we ate.

The Egyptian spice market.

I am of the school that finds Turkish Delight delightful. In fact, even Scott liked the Turkish Delight here and he claims to hate it on account of its grandma soap taste. The Turkish Delight in Istanbul is the best I’ve ever had.

Ciya, my favourite restaurant so far. So many things I’d never tasted before in my life. All of it really good. If I could live at Ciya, I would. A multi-course meal for the two of us cost under forty USD (that’s together, not each). And we ate an INSANE amount of food, and drank mulberry and other fruit juices of wonder.

Brunch at the Four Seasons. This is the dessert station.

Once again my apologies for not posting or responding to mail and comments. We are too busy eating and seeing the glorious sights. This is the first real holiday I’ve had in a long time and I’m enjoying it muchly.

Hmm . . . is it lunch time yet?

I have many posts brewing or brewed. More on race, writing and publishing (here’s a few links to others. I’m especially loving the Writers Against Racism series on Amy Bowllan’s SLJ blog like this one with Ari of Reading in Color.); a complaint about Being Human (Why does the woman have to be a timid ghost? Wouldn’t it have been much more interesting if she was the werewolf or the vampire? Um, okay no need to write that post.); on re-reading Han Suyin’s A Mountain is Young; the long awaited stalker song post; a response to Sarah Rees Brennan’s wonderful essay on the way female characters get dumped on (hmmm, I think those last two posts may be connected); the art of writing dialogue, and many others.

Feel free to make requests for anything else you’d like me to blog about in the comments.

And for those who keep asking: both Liar and the paperback How To Ditch Your Fairy publish on 29 September. I.e. this very month! I happen to have two copies of HTDYF in its glorious paperback edition. So beautiful. Liar is also already a complete book with brand new dustjacket. I bet they will both start showing up in book shops around or even before the 29th.

Okay, I admit that this comes from 1942. However, part of my 1930s novel takes place on a cruise ship just like Ship Ahoy. Well, except for not being a sound stage. And, um, one of my characters adores the Tommy Dorsey band. So even though this is a future Tommy Dorsey band appearance that she will never see it totally counts as research. And also another of my characters can see into the future and uses that ability to follow Eleanor Powell’s career.¹ Thus watching this clip is TOTALLY research.

Lord, how I adore Eleanor Powell. Broadway Melody of 1940 is one of my favourite movies of all time. I know everyone squees over her “Begin the Beguine” routine with Fred Astaire, which to be sure is deeply squee-worthy, but I also love this one (gets going around 2:15):

Eleanor Powell + boats = joy!

And Broadway Melody of 1940 totally counts as research because it was shot in 1939 and last time I looked that was in the 1930s.²

Just in case some of you have never seen “Begin the Beguine” here you go:

You’re welcome!

1. Some of these things may not be true.
2. Even though my book is more set in the early 1930s. But never mind that!

So far it has led me to many pleasures but few top the delight of the world’s worst Dalek cakes. I confess that I laughed so hard I cried.

Then it led me to this. The making of the most incredible cake I have ever seen:

Apparently it took twelve days to make. Wow. Just wow.

Rewriting the Liar book is all I am doing right now. It is the beginning and the middle and the end of each day. It doesn’t matter how much I want to play in my brand-new, shiny, shiny 1930s novel, or how much I want to gallivant about town, I’m not allowed.

I will probably still blog. If I don’t blog my head explodes. But I am unlikely to respond to your gorgeous comments. Though I will read and cherish them as I always do. Of course once I’m finished with the rewrites I head to Texas.

Right then, back to the grindstone goes me.

1. Or, um, possibly next Monday.

But who am I kidding?

Like everyone I know my concentration has been totally shot by the US election. I’ve been writing and rewriting the same sentence of the Liar novel for the last three weeks. This afternoon when all our attempts to work failed, me and Scott went and phone banked. The Bowery Hotel was overrun with volunteers, using their own phones to make calls to people all over the country,² telling them where their local polling station is, giving them a phone number to call if they need a ride.

Last election I knew maybe two people who volunteered and I thought that was amazing. This year I have friends working for the Obama campaign in California, Florida, Kentucky, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. There’s a whole YA for Obama site. Here in NYC it’s all anyone is talking about. At my hairdressers, at the gym, in the laundromat, at our favourite cafes, at the cheese shop, everywhere!

I cannot wait for tomorrow. I cannot wait till there’s a result—a good result. Because then I’ll get my brain back. Fivethirtyeight doesn’t need my constantly refreshing it anymore and I suspect the Liar novel would like me to work on more than one of its sentences.³

Let it end now, please.

If you’re USian go forth tomorrow⁴ and exercise your democratic right: vote!

1. Write like the wind!
2. Particularly battleground states like Indiana and Ohio. Wow, they must be sick of all those phone calls. Though I gotta tell you all the people I spoke to were lovely. Chock full of enthusiasm and rearing to vote if they hadn’t already.
3. You’ll be shocked to learn the Liar novel has more than one sentence. There’s at least a few dozen. Possibly more.
4. If you haven’t already.

He bravely responded to Lauren Myracle’s dare and faced his worst fear.¹ And, um, well, go see for yourself. Yes, that is me you hear laughing. C’mon, wouldn’t you have laughed?

I can’t believe he did that . . .

I seriously can’t believe it.

1. As, um, I did not. Not because I’m more cowardly than Scott but because I’m busier! My books don’t write themselves, you know! Okay, neither do Scott’s, but my book’s trickier than his! Honest.

I recently said NO to several antho invites. To Lauren Myracle’s fabulous Halloween dare. Not to mention doing an appearance on the Rachel Maddow Show.¹

Remember, how I got my mail down below 100? *Sigh*. Already they head back to scary out-of-control territory. I doubt I’ll be able to catch up until December at the earliest. Sorry!

I will attempt to keep blogging. You know, in order to stay sane, and delude myself that I’m actually communicating with real live breathing people, and not just communing with Scrivener and all the people I’ve populated it with. Plus, well, I’m kind of a blogging addict . . .

Thank you all for continuing to read and comment here. In the midst of this insanity it’s lovely to hear your voices. Bless!

1. Okay, not really. But a girl can dream, can’t she?

At the time I thought it was excellent that I could get away with it. In class I read novels under the desk. I never studied and finished my maths exams quicker than anyone else cause I guessed all the answers. Thus giving me more time to read novels.

Now I regret it. My regret is very very very big. Because now I don’t have the underpinnings to understand even the most basic mathematics and science. (I also stopped studying science very early.) Writing the Magic or Madness trilogy was a nightmare. It’s very difficult to write a character who is a mathematical prodigy when you yourself are a mathematical moron.

My current regret, however, is fuelled by the Rethinking Basketball blog. Quentin who writes it is a numbers boy. He has all sorts of fancy formulas and statistics to map the performances of different WNBA players and teams. Like how to take defence into account when figuring out who the Most Valuable Player should be.

I understand almost none of it and that fact fills me with despair. If I could go back in time I would tell the bored and cranky twelve-year-old me that maths would come in handy later on and I should really pay attention to the nice man. (My Year 7 maths teacher was a sweetie, who did not deserve me as a student.)

But plenty of people—including my parents—were telling me that at the time and I ignored them. I probably would have ignored the adult me as well. Sigh.

So it’s now more than a little bit ironic that I am in the position of telling twelve year olds that they should pay attention in maths class. But you really really should. Who knows when or where it will come in handy. But trust me, it will. Don’t be as stupid as I was.

This has been a public service announcement. You are most welcome.

I’m really sorry I haven’t replied yet. Right now there are more than three thousand emails in my inbox. And lots and lots and lots of other more pressing matters—you know, the kind that pay bills—have to be dealt with before I can get to the non-urgent email. Please forgive me.

Obviously I’m not very good at managing my time, but I’m working on it. I will get to your letters I just don’t know when. Please bear with me.

In the meantime, I remain committed to blogging every day. So if all else fails you’ll always hear from me here.

I just wanted you to know that your letters and comments make my day. Thank you.

And if anyone can loan me a time-enlarging device, I’ll be your best friend.

It may not cure anything but, damn, it eases the symptoms.

You?

But I hate to be rude and I love to see new folks here. So,

To everyone else: sorry for not responding as much even though I read all your comments,¹ also for being months and months behind with email, for not having done that thing I promised I’d do for you, and for generally being as slack as, um, a very slack person.

Book comes first! Before hygiene, friends, nutrition, changing polls, health, admin and pleasure. Is just how it is.

1. Except for the ones about USian gridiron. Boring.

While that’s a lovely offer, and I can’t tell you how thrilled I am that so many of you are keen to read the book, it so happens that I do not have any ARCs of HTDYF. Truly. The tiny number I was given were handed out to local Big Mouths.² I also swapped with a few writer friends for their ARCs. I have none left. Not even my parents and sister got a copy.

The person to ask for an ARC (of any book) is the publicist of the company that publishes it. But in order to get one you’ll have to show that giving you the book will help spread the word about. That is how it works.

The reason that a number of reviews have appeared of HTDYF recently is because 500 ARCs were handed out at BEA. A decent number were also sent by my publicist to key Big Mouths all over the USA. I have sent no one an ARC. It is not my job to do so. That’s why the author is given so few in the first place. We’re usually not the best placed person to get them into the hands of the most important Big Mouths.

So the person you should be bugging for ARCs is not me, but my publicist. And, no, I will not give you her email address. With a wee bit of googling you will find it on your own.

Besides, do you really want an ARC? They’re full of typoes, they fall apart easily, and they don’t even smell as good as a real book. And guess what? HTDYF will be a real book very very soon. While the official pub date’s in September I’m pretty sure it’ll start showing up in shops in August. August! That’s mere minutes away.

1. I also remain many months behind with email. If you wrote to ask me for an ARC this is my reply. Sorry not to respond more personally.
2. Isn’t that a quaint term? It refers to the booksellers and bloggers and librarians and journalists who are well known in the YA world and are very good at getting the word of mouth flowing.

I am at work on a post about the fabulous food we ate and a number of others—including another writing one¹—but work on my next novel has got in the way of finishing them. Stupid novel! Not to mention the erraticness of our internet access. But, soon, my pretties, soon!

In the meantime I’m exhausted but happy: there’s cricket on the tellie. All’s right with the world. And even though England’s doing kind of okay I still think the Kiwis are a possibility. Those are only flesh wounds!

London, 24 March 2008, 11:12PM.

1. See? I do listen to you. You ask that I blog it and blog it I will.

Lately I’ve been getting a bunch of people writing me wanting advice on how to blog. They’ve been told that it’s a great way to promote their books but they don’t know how or they want some magic recipe for attracting lots of traffic.

I haven’t answered any of those letters yet. (Hey, I owe my mother emails! No one’s ahead of Jan in the email queue.) But mostly I haven’t answered because I really don’t know what to say. For starters, I don’t get lots of traffic. I average around a thousand hits a day,¹ which ain’t bad, but it’s no where near the numbers of the truly popular blogs. Also blogging just to promote yourself? Meh.

For me the least interesting part of having a blog is talking about myself and my books. The most fun is ranting and opinionating about stuff I care about like writing, fashion, politics, cricket, Elvis and quokkas. I have a lot of opinions and I likes to share them. More than that I likes to hear other peoples respsonses to my rants. When I first started pontificating online back in 2003, I didn’t allow comments. Mostly I didn’t like the idea of flame wars or dealing with spam. When I switched to proper blogging in 2005 I quickly realised that the comments were the best part.

Blogging’s a dialogue, that’s one of the many reasons I love it. Part of what’s so awesome about Scalzi’s Whatever and the Nielsen Hayden’s Making Light is that they’re communities. They’re smart, argumentative, witty communities and they’re that way because of the high quality posts and comments they’re responding to. You’re never going to wind up with a community like that if all you can talk about are your books. BORING!!

I always have several posts I’m working on at once. Right now I have one about my friend Lisa Herb’s incredibly inspiring non-profit organisation, Alliance for International Women’s Rights, another about torture inspired by this incredible book, which I read because of Scalzi. Then there’s the long-overdue insomnia post, more stuff on fashion, DNA and race, and answers to reader questions about agents, how to give public readings, and world-building.

But most of my posts are an immediate response to something I saw or read or tripped over that day. It’s occasional writing—as in, inspired by a particular occasion. I see a stupid list of rules for writing so I write my own and so on and so forth.

Keeping a blog has changed how I view the world. Mostly for the good, but sometimes for the bad (ish). You know you might have a problem when your friends ask you, “Are you going to blog this argument?” “Er, no,” you tell them as you mentally erase the post you have just composed in your head. “How could you think such a thing?” Or worse when they ask if you’re going to blog the fabulous evening you’ve just had when that was the last thing on your mind because you was just having fun. That’s one of the many reasons I don’t blog about my life directly.

My advice to would-be bloggers is the same as Michelle Sagara’s and Scalzi’s if it’s not fun, don’t do it.

There are many extremely successful writers who don’t blog. There are some wonderful bloggers whose books don’t sell that well. A successful blog is neither here nor there when it come to a successful writing career.

1. When I first started pontificating online in 2003 I had barely a hundred hits a day

It’s like this: writing about writing is way easier than, you know, actually writing.

And now I sleep.

When I wake up there’ll be, like, real content.

I like having polls but I definitely need less buggy WordPress compatible software.

The “How To Rewrite” post will go up as soon as I, um, finish, the book what I have to rewrite . . . And the manga/manhwa/graphic novels one not long after that. Promise!

Update: Eric Luper jinxed me into breaking the poll! Oh noes. Oh well, at least the quokkas were ahead. But I had planned to leave it up for a few days. And I am too deadline addled to come up with a new one. Stupid crappy poll software! Stupid deadlines!

And now it turns out the poll is not broken. That’s it! I’m backing away from the intramanets, leaving the polls alone, and becoming a rabbit farmer.