squeetus

Christmas Card

Merry Christmas from the Hales! Here's our little digital Christmas card Dean made. Yes, we're all wearing devil horns. By way of explanation, the photo was taken at a family reunion this summer, where my entire family performed a dance/lip sync to the Squirrel Nut Zippers' "Hell" in the family talent show. We were good, darn good, but my cousin Diana and aunt Bonnie stole the show with their ukulele duet. Spotlight stealers. I mean, how can you compete with that? So, yep, that's why we're wearing horns. Here, I'll go a step farther and show you a photo of the event:

  Proof! And you thought I might be making up stories. Hah! And see my little niece Ellie dressed as an angel? I thought that was a nice touch. As I recall, after this photo was taken she threw off all her clothes and spent the rest of the evening running around completely nude. Yeah, it was pretty much that kind of a family reunion. As conservative as my extended family is, somehow someone always ends up naked.

Merry (cough, cough) Christmas!

Ah, the holidays always go by too fast. So much build up and then, blop, they're over. It was a great day, but also hard, as poor Max suffered with a fever of 102 that didn't respond to fever reducers. I've coughed more in the past 24 hours than in my entire previous life, I think. My parents are in Mongolia and nieces and nephews in California, and it's always hard to have family gone on Christmas.

Here's Max in the little Mongolian attire his grandma sent him. Super cute! And there's the whole family in front of my sister's Christmas tree, since we don't have one. I know, I know, what a bunch of scrooges, huh? Next year, when Max won't pull the whole thing down on his head. I got a new cell phone from my husband, a very and unexpected gift, but my current one dies after 30 minutes of use and doesn't recharge unless coaxed and bribed.

I got my husband a first edition of Lo! by Charles Fort, and Max scored big with a sit & spin, Batman action figure (also Wild Cat and Metamorpho - this kid won't talk but he can identify obscure superheroes like Booster Gold and Aztec in a line-up), and a little train set. Did you guys get or give any memorable presents this year?

Muddle headed

To summarize my last three days - cof, cof, sneeze, moan, sniffle, cof.

Fever of 102 F, cough, throat, congestion, restless sleep, you know the drill. Flu, or cold masquerading as flu. At least, Max is getting better. I'm a couple of days behind him, so hopefully I'll be better by Christmas. My good husband has as yet kept the feverish beastie at bay. If he gets sick too, we may as well put up a quarantine sign, board up the windows, lay on the floor and die. I don't seem capable of much coherent thought. I wonder if I'm making sense. Are the pigs dancing? Yes, the pigs are dancing.

um, maybe I shouldn't blog when ill...

Enna the Uber-frau

I just discovered enna burning is out in Germany, according to the German amazon site, anyway. I still find it very odd that they chose to publish enna but not goose girl. Anyway, they had a little bio of me in German and I stuck it in one of those free translators, and I had to share the results:

"Shannon Hale studied in England, Mexico, Paraguay and the USA.  Today it lives as a youth book author with its man in Salt Lake City."

I live with its man! My husband will be so thrilled to hear.

Still working on Graphic Novel X. I'm finding that many people don't know what a graphic novel is. That will change shortly, I imagine. More graphic novels are being written for people outside the superhero comic book community than ever before. It's a very exciting form, I think. I'll post some illustrated pages for the new book soon, maybe after the new year. I think you guys are going to dig it!

Graphic Novel X

I'm just so excited...my husband and I have been co-writing this graphic novel and we've just begun to pitch it to some publishers. So far, it looks like Bloomsbury will want it! I love the story we're doing, I love working with my husband, and I'm so elated that it looks like this project will take wings. No one's made an official offer yet, but it's looking good so far. Sadly, as these things take time to illustrate and print, it'll be at least a year and a half before any of you will get to see it. But as soon as we get an official offer and accept it, I'll reveal the story and post some early sketches here.

Besides Bloomsbury, my agent is showing it to two other publishers who are doing graphic novels for kids and teens. What I really want, what any writer wants, is a publisher that falls in love with your project, who will get the best illustrator, get behind it with publicty and marketing, and see it through lovingly from beginning to end. I don't know what will happen yet, but so far, all is a dream come true.

I can't believe it's going to be published, I'm so excited!

Party for the little tyke

My Max is two years old! Crazy. Hard to believe he's a little guy now and not the snuggly potato bug he used to be. We had his cousins over for festivities, opened presents, ate pumpkin bread, played games, then went to our fabulous local indoor swimming pool. Later that day after we were coming back from a book signing, Max pointed to the balloons and presents and did the sign for "again!" It was fun to watch him amid all his pals, getting gifts, blowing out candles, all the attention focused on him - he acted as though this was how things should always be. This is right. In this setting I feel completely at home.

What, is Midvale, Utah the literacy capital of the state? I've had two signings at different bookstores in Midvale in the past month and I was just asked by another store to do two more this month. Crazy.

I changed representation this week. I'd been with my original agent since the beginning and it was so hard, so miserable. I feel awful about it. Yuck, yuck, I just hate so much this kind of stuff, but I think it was time. She is a good, good person, she is a wonderful agent, she has a true heart and a good eye. And yet it was for the best, I really believe. Dang it. I hope we both heal from this. Even though I think it's good, it doesn't mean that the situation doesn't hurt. Bless her.

Newsletter open to public

So, I said I'd wait two weeks before posting The Squeeter Pig here, to give those who subscribed an advanced viewing. My outlook calendar just reminded me that it's time! Enjoy. And don't forget to submit an entry for the Reading Teacher Award.

I was at a signing last night at The King's English, my local independent bookstore, and I had someone take a picture so you could see, a.) my new hair-do with extra red coloring, and b.) the cover for the Italian princess academy, which I just received yesterday. And yes, I AM wearing a tiara. See, my hair color doesn't look too fake, does it? A little splash of color never hurt anyone.

It's so freaking cool to get a foreign edition of your book. I love it. And it's been really interesting to see the very different covers for this book. You can see the UK cover at amazon.co.uk.

Comment-o-mania

Check out the new digs! As several clever people have already noticed, the blog area is new, allowing you to add your own comments. It's the first step in a slow redesign of the site. We'll keep all the same content, just change the appearance and navigation a bit. And now, writing these blogs is so easy, my html skills are going to get rusty.

If you've gone to make a comment, you've noticed the program asks three things of you:

1. Name - use any name you want, make up a name if you want to be anonymous, or your real if you like. This is just so we can all remember you if you make repeat comments.
2. Email - this functions as a password, so no one else can make comments with your name, pretending to be you. If you don't feel comfortable using your email address, make up a fake one. Just remember what it was so you can come back. I promise we're not going to do anything with your email address.
3. URL - if you have a website, putting your URL turns your name into a link so others can visit your site. If you don't have one, you can skip it, or just put in a URL of some other site that you like.

So, hooray! Comment away.

And in other news, I had my hair done yesterday. I was born a redhead, but apparently as you get older (I'm 31), red hair fades and gets dull, so a couple of years ago I started doing what I never thought I'd do - I had regular appointments with a stylist to get highlights. I enjoyed that for a while, but when I met new people, they'd refer to me as a "blonde." Ack! I thought I was a redhead with blonde highlights! I felt like part of my core identity had been hacked away. So, my stylist (the very capable Alison Service at Tangles salon in Salt Lake City) has begun to weave copper-red color in with the highlights, turning me slowly, unnaturally, back into a sassy redhead. Hm. I never imagined when I was younger that this would happen, and I was certainly teased about being a redhead enough (we're all teased about anything out of the ordinary, aren't we?), but it's WHO I AM, dang it! So...I hope you weren't looking for some profound insight into being an author today, 'cause you got beauty shop talk.

The Great Giveaway

One cool thing about being a writer is you occassionally get to donate books. You get a small number of free books from your publisher, and I keep a few, give a few to family, and donate the rest away.

Recently I was able to get donations of 42 autographed books from several Utah-based writers, and working with a few families from the area, we created "The Reading Tree." Utah has a Festival of Trees every year, where hundreds of decorated trees are donated and auctioned to benefit the Primary Children's Hospital. Our tree was so cool, with a reading lamp as the star, a reading chair, rug, cuddly toys, and a bookcase full of these wonderful, signed books. I don't know who ended up buying it, but I hope it was a library or hospital or somewhere the books can be read.

After hurricane Katrina, I emailed my publisher, asking if I could buy 50 books with my author's discount and have them sent directly to Texas where thousands of people were living in a sports stadium. Bloomsbury emailed back, offering to do 500! And I just heard--you know how the goose girl paperback had that printing error and they recalled all the copies? Well, Bloomsbury was able to donate 20,000 goose girl paperbacks First Book, who is getting these books to children who lost everything in the hurricane. What a tremendous thing to come out of a mis-printing.

Holly Black and the new book

I can't believe I forgot to put this in before. Holly Black read an early copy of Razo's book (I revealed the new title in the newsletter, but I promised I wouldn't do here for two weeks). She agreed to give me a blurb--my first blurb from another writer! She gave me three choices:

"Shannon Hale will steal your last water bottle."
"Shannon Hale is the r0x0rz."
Or:
"Shannon Hale writes deft, lyrical, wonderful fantasy."

I turned in the final draft of Razo's book today! It's such a great feeling. Now it'll go to copy editing, which means a copy editor will look over it for consistency, grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Then I'll get the copy edited manuscript back and agree or disagree with all the editor's suggested changes. We'll do that again once it goes to typesetting, so I'll read through the book at least two more times before it's printed, but the hard part is over. On to the next project! And to celebrate...we're having Chinese food. Actually, we just ate. Max is down for the night, my sister and brother are downstairs watching an episode of Justice League. I'd be watching it (it is the best show on television), but I just saw this episode the other day. Wonder Woman and Hawkgirl rock. And I have a secret crush on Batman. Don't tell.