Big, better, stronger, faster!

It's here, and it's here to stay!  Yes, ladies and gentlemen (if there are any gentlemen reading this), the website is all new!  Isn't it spiffy?  Isn't it cool?  Isn't it New Wave?  (Sorry, that's what we still say to my mom when we're shopping: Do I look cool, am I New Wave?  I grew up in the 'Eighties.)  So explore, enjoy!  There will soon (as in this week some time) be recipes for the foods mentioned in the Dragon books.  Isn't it great to have a programmer for a husband?

And Big News Part 2: I have shiny new copies of Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow sitting in a big box in my office!  YAY!  It's gorgeous, and I'm so excited for it to launch next week.  So look for it in stores on Jan. 8.  I'll be doing booksignings on the 11th, and the 19th, so check the Meet Jessica page for the exact info.  And, drumroll please, I'll be on TV Jan. 10th!  Isn't that weird?  I'm going to be interviewed on Park City TV at 6 pm on the 10th.  So if you're one of the, er, hundreds of people who get PCTV , you can watch me babble like an idiot!   :)

And I'm 80 pages into Sarah Beth Durst's "Into the Wild", and loving every minute of it!  Thank you, Santa Claus!

 

I'm a Squeetus Exclusive!

Yay for me! Shannon Hale interviewed me for her blog. And that's another reason why I just love Shannon. How often does a world-famous, New York Times bestselling, Newbery Honoree take the time to interview a first-time author for her blog? Like never! Unless you're Shannon, and gracious and lovely! The link is: http://oinks.squeetus.com/, but I'm sure that most of you know that. I'm sure that you only know about my website because you've followed me back here from Shannon's blog after one of my pithy comments. . . .

The Editing Fairy came back. . . .

Darn her little butterfly wings! She dropped a big ol' pile of manuscript on my doorstep this morning, which apparently has to be read by Wednesday. WEDNESDAY! That's like . . . um, less than a week! And I was so happy slacking off! Knitting, and reading stuff that doesn't have a deadline. And getting together some fresh new text for my website! Of course, it's the manuscript for Dragon Flight, and I know that we all want Dragon Flight to be nice and pretty and full of juicy goodness. Sigh. So, for the sake of the dragons, I shall endeavor to meet my deadline with grace and aplomb, and also with perspicacity and all kinds of big words that will just make this the best sequel EVER! Up until I finish the third book, and that becomes the best sequel ever. And speaking of which, I may be changing the title of that one. I know I've been calling it Dragon Crown, but it seems to me that that might be a more apt title for a fourth book I've been mulling. . . . Hm. Well, just don't get too attached to any titles you can't find on the cover of an actual book in an actual bookstore, that's all I'm saying.

It's coming!!

Do not fear change! Change is good! If you do fear change, I hate to break it to you, but change is coming. My husband realized a couple of weeks ago that he has to take about 57 days off before the end of the year or his vacation pay will go to waste. (Yeah, you thought we took some fancy pants vacation back in the summer like normal people, didn't you? Nope.) He has nobly agreed to use this time to revamp, recycle, and renew my website. GASP! He's been telling me that some of the doohickeys and buttons and things are "so '90's", but I don't program so all I could do was nod politely. Well, it's apparently gotten bad enough that he's going to fix it. Different colors! Different menus! Different . . . other stuff! The fun thing is that I am writing all kinds of new and exciting text for it. There'll be a little feature for each book called Why I Wrote It, where I talk about what inspired each book. I might even reveal some of my inside jokes, like where I got certain character names. www.dragonslippers.net will also be updated, with recipes for some of the food mentioned in each book, a pronunciation guide, and information on the sequel(s). Fear not, for lo, this change shall thrill you!

Authorpalooza, January 8!

Hey, kids! For those of you located in or around the Salt Lake valley here in Utah, Authorpalooza is tomorrow! What is it? It's an all day, mass book signing event at the Jordan Landing Barnes & Noble in West Jordan. I'll be there from 11:30 to 1:00, along with Mette Ivie Harrison and other authors, from 1:30 to 4 you can see Sara Zarr, Mark and Caralyn Buehner, and from 4 to 6:30 you can meet Shannon Hale, James Dashner, Brandon Mull, and many, many more! This is a great opportunity to get a Christmas gift autographed, or just see how weird-looking your favorite authors are!

I have a worldview?

An alert reader recently asked me how my worldview informed my writing. This question, I must admit, made me feel rather dense for a little while. My worldview? I thought. Do I have one? I actually had to ask my husband and my friend Rachel B. (we have been blessed with several Rachels, not a plethora, but close), what my worldview was. I tend not to define things like that.

The question made both of them laugh.

I explained to that this question had taken me aback, since I tend not to think about "the world." Thus their hilarity. They both knew this, my husband more so than anyone. "You don't think about the world," he reminded me. "You get angry and frustrated, and then you go and read a book a feel better."

This, sadly is true. The reason why I write fiction, and fantasy fiction in particular, is because I prefer the worlds I make up in my heads to what's going on around me. I wouldn't say I'm hiding, I am aware of world events. But rather than rant and rave all day long about things that I can't control, I choose to read a book. Or write one.

I don't have any agenda in my books, I'm not trying to convert my readers to my religion, or political party, or even say that we should all turn off the news and read fantasy all day long instead. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.) What I want most to do with my books is tell a good story. A story about people being brave and good and loyal and hopefully making wise decisions, but also a story about laughter and excitement and suspense and hope and even a little romance.

After talking this out with Rachel B., with her degrees in political science and her ambition to one day rule the Senate, she had to admit that my worldview had some good points. For one thing, I'm less likely at the end of the day to get enraged and have to chug a can of Pepsi to relax (how caffeine and sugar relax her, I don't know). For another, I get a lot of reading done.

So I suppose that we might say that I view the world from over the top of the book I'm reading, and when that isn't enough of a shield, I go have a bit of a write in a world where there are dragons and magic and the good guys triumph.