Signing in New Orleans this Saturday with Maggie Stiefvater and Jackson Pearce

Last year I went to Savannah on a writing retreat with the Gothic Girls and it was awesome.  This year I'm headed to New Orleans with several of the same authors and I'm anticipating that it will again be awesome.  I'm totally planning on badgering everyone there to let me read their books (Tessa Gratton's Blood Magic and Brenna Yovanoff's The Replacement (I've already read Sisters Red by Jackson Pearce - loved it!) and Maggie Stiefvater's Forever (I already know she ain't gonna let me pry that out of her fingers, sigh!)).

To kick the week of right, I'll be joining Maggie and Jackson at Octavia Books on Saturday, April 17th from 4-6.  I hear Maggie will be putting on a show that may involve rolling around the bookstore.  We can only hope!  I'll be signing and answering questions (and watching Maggie roll through the aisles).

For the rest of the week, I shall be basking in the joy of being around other creative types.  There's something just so joyous in being surrounded by other authors and talking about craft, goals, ideas, careers, stories.  Just thinking about it has me excited beyond belief!  Also, hopefully, there will be writing.

I'm actually working on two different books right now.  One of them I can't seem to get out of my head and I've oddly been hand-writing it.  I've wanted to handwrite a book for ages and even spent an entire afternoon driving around town looking for *just* the right journal with *just* the right type of paper.

What happens?  I find two perfect journals, buy six different pens and then end up writing in an old spiral notebook with a pen I found tucked in the couch cushions.  And naturally, being the superstitious fool that I am, when I needed to find another spiral to write it, I went to three different stores all over town looking for the EXACT same kind (in different colors).  And for some reason I'm writing it back to front (not the story, but physically I started writing in the back of the notebook).  I do not understand myself sometimes.

Anyway, because of said superstition I don't want to say too much about the book.  It's like a secret and though I stink at keeping secrets, this one I like to have rattling around in my brain.  When I talk publicly about this book I always call it "the wrong book."  Because it is the wrong book.  And yet, I shall continue to poke at it because I'm enjoying it and if I learned anything from writing The Forest of Hands and Teeth it's to not worry about the right book or the wrong book and just focus on telling a story you're passionate about.

Luckily, I'm also super excited about the other book I'm working on which I'm hoping will soon become "the right book."  The problem with not being an outliner is that I tend to spend days and weeks moaning and wailing as I wait for the seed of an idea to develop enough to make sense.  At least by now I've come to realize that this is my process and so I haven't agonized quite as much.  I've just taken my spiral notebooks outside and tooled around on the wrong idea, waiting for the right one to solidify.

Today I wrote a synopsis of the first quarter of my new idea and so I'm waiting to see what JP says before going forward.  It's caused me to bounce around quite a bit in excitement... thank goodness I have a mega-chat tonight to take my mind off the waiting!

Speaking of the megachat: here are the details: http://yalitchat.wordpress.com/88/.  I'm off to poke at my synopsis some more... I'm one of those people who gets mongo excited about new things and I'm just hoping my excitement doesn't wear off and that the shiny will still seem shiny :)