Libraries, Lifelines, and Funny Books

In 2015, I was asked if I could save our town’s school library. It was in desperate shape, and we had no librarian and no funding. Getting it back on its feet was a major job.

At the time, I wasn’t in great shape myself. But how could I turn my back on a library in trouble?

Reader, I said yes.

I didn’t know it then, but that was the beginning of near 1000 hours of volunteer work — and some major life lessons. Today I’m over at MG Book Village talking about what it was like to bring that library back to life — and how it taught me about the power of funny books. Come and visit — and definitely check out MG Book Village while you’re there! It’s a wonderful blog and community for middle-grade writers and readers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fun and mysteries

Just a quick post today to say that I’m delighted to be a guest on Elizabeth Dulemba’s wonderful blog today, talking about writing, inspiration, and unexpected story twists. And also about how the BBC is a boon to writers and how beetles make things better. (Ra’s scarab beetle buddy would agree with me there.)

I even take a closer look at a goddess.

Yes, I’m looking at you, Bastet!

 

For more fun and mysteries, come check out my post at Elizabeth’s site. And do take a look at the rest of her great offerings, including her newest book, CROW BY CROW!

Mending, Monsters, and the Fantastic Flying Book Club

Almost six months without blogging! I’m pretty sure that’s a new record for me. But they were a tough six months, starting with a terrifying night in A&E in November (complete with my first-ever ambulance ride) and culminating in surgery in March, followed by complications, then flu, and finally pneumonia.

It’s been a long, hard trudge, and it’s not over yet.  Thankfully, however, I seem to have turned a corner this week, and at last the road looks a little easier. (Excuse me while I go find some wood to knock on.  With crossed fingers.  And maybe a little salt thrown over my shoulder.)

I’m doubly glad to be on the mend since this is the week that the wonderful bloggers from the Fantastic Flying Book Club are hosting a blog tour for Chantress Fury.  We have interviews for you and excerpts and reviews galore — and a giveaway, too! You can see if your Top Ten Sea Monsters match mine, and discover what 300-year-old book inspired Chantress. You’ll also find out what I think of the new covers, learn a few of my quirks, and get a hint about what’s coming up next.

The giveaway is a double feature, with TWO finished hardbacks of the book on offer! The first one, from Simon & Schuster, will go to a resident of the US.  The other one is open to anyone in the world.  Winners will be announced on Chantress Fury’s official publication day: May 19th.

You can find the giveaway entry at every tour stop. The complete tour schedule is here!

 

 

 

Gift books and transformations

It’s publication day! And my books have made it across the Atlantic: the paperback of Chantress, and the brand new hardcover of Chantress Alchemy. It’s wonderful to hold them in my hands.

 

Every once in a while, some writers get a “gift book” — one that comes together quickly and with much less angst that usual, one where the story seems to know from the get-go what it wants to be. That was my experience with Chantress Alchemy.

That didn’t mean I hardly had to lift a finger, or that I never made mistakes. I put in long hours, and there were weeks where I lived more in the story than I did in the real world. But mostly this book was a joy to write.

Maybe that’s because it was about alchemy, which is something that’s fascinated me for ages. It’s also about the transformative power of friendship and love, and about the way our weaknesses can sometimes make us stronger — all things I deeply believe in.

But then again, I always write about things I care deeply about. (I’d never find the strength to keep at the writing, otherwise!) So in the end I have no real explanation for my gift book. Which I think is the nature of the beast. All you can do is be grateful when it happens.

At the moment, I’m wrestling with book three, which alas, is not a gift book. Although there’s a lot I love about it, it’s been hard work, and I’m having to finish it on a very tight deadline. So that makes me all the more grateful that the stars aligned for Chantress Alchemy.

***

If you’d like to know more about Chantress Alchemy, I’m doing a tour this week with some wonderful bloggers, thanks to the amazing team at Rockstar Book Tours. Today I’m visiting Word Spelunking where I share secrets and photos of the great houses in England that inspired the setting for Chantress Alchemy.

The full tour schedule is here. And the tour includes a giveaway of copies of the book, which anyone in the world can enter!

***

ETA: I forgot to add that the first few chapters are now online! You can find them here.

Roses and juggling

Oh, my stars. Is it really mid-July? I can’t believe it’s been two whole months since I last posted anything here.

The trouble is that I’m juggling altogether too many things – publicity for Chantress, the last edits for Chantress Alchemy, and the start of the third Chantress book. And that’s just the writing part! When I do get a bit of online time, it’s measured in moments, so you’re more likely to find me tweeting than blogging these days.

All things considered, I’ve been fairly productive juggler. This summer I’ve done various guest posts for other blogs, including a fun one about the touchstone images for Chantress, where you can see the Tower of London at night and a chained book and one of the most amazing clockwork pictures ever. I’ve worked on flap copy and other odds and ends for Chantress Alchemy. And I’ve got Book 3 (still untitled) off to a great start. I even squeezed in a radio interview and a short writing retreat in deepest Oxfordshire.

But all the same, I have my issues with juggling. It’s a necessary skill, but you can do too much of it. After one too many nights up in the wee hours, mind racing, I’ve begun looking for ways to center myself and slow down.

I started last month with something I’ve neglected for a long time: meditation. It’s amazing how even five minutes of essentially doing nothing can somehow change everything. I’m starting to say “no” to a whole bunch of things that were wearing me out. Although I still have a heavy workload, I now have a little more time to say “yes” to the things that really make me happy: walks and talks with my daughter, playing the piano, concocting a new flavor of ice cream…

I’ve also been spending more time in my garden. Poor garden! At one point this spring, it was almost as neglected as this blog. But it’s holding its own now, despite this month’s brutal heat-wave. You still couldn’t call it a show garden, but every day it brings me pleasure.

The motto I chose for 2013 is “Fill the well” — and little by little, I’m working out how to do that.

How do you fill the well? I’d love to hear.

A walk around the garden…

…with the friendly neighborhood cat (who is especially interested in the catnip)

Lots of purples this month…

And pinks galore.

Chantress travels – virtual and real

As you may have noticed, Chantress and I are gallivanting all over the internet this month. Here are a few highlights:

*Today I’m talking about Putting Your Internal Editor to Work over at Janice Hardy’s wonderful writing blog, The Other Side of the Story.

* On the Enchanted Inkpot last week, the delightful Deva Fagan asked me some terrific questions about the music, magic, and science in Chantress, and the process of crafting an original fantasy world.

* I’ve also talked to some lovely teen bloggers this week. Nobonita of Daydreaming Bookworm asked me to write a post about the intriguing world of real-life Restoration London, and how it inspired the setting of Chantress. And Annabelle Marie of Sparkles and Lightning asked me to give tips on creating a character.

* These last two posts are part of the Chantress blog tour bonanza organized by the amazing Shane Morgan of Itching for Books. The tour includes an international giveaway of a signed copy of Chantress, which runs through this weekend. Thank you so much to all the bloggers who’ve participated, and to everyone who’s entered!

Besides gadding about on the internet, I’ll be doing some real-life travel, too. I’m thrilled to be attending WisCon this year from May 24-27th. Here’s my reading/speaking schedule:

Friday, May 24th, 4:00-5.15pm ENCHANTING THE PAST (with Ellen Kushner, Pan Morigan, and Caroline Stevermer and me)

London in the 1660s . . . . New York City in 1902 . . . An alternative America in the 1960s . . . . Painstakingly researched historical fiction, with a twist of Magic thrown in to make it even more–real? believable? Or just desirable? The double art of a historical fantasist is to make the magical as concrete as the real, and the past as real as today. Think we can do it? Come and see!

Saturday, May 25th, 10:00-11:15 am, WOMEN IN POWER IN FICTION AND HISTORY (with Rebecca Maines, Dr. Janice M. Bogstad, Valerie L. Guyant, Philip Kaveny, and me)

How have women fared, historically and fictionally, in positions of power? What speculative fiction works address this well? How have women in power in the real world addressed challenges? How does the behavior of men and men in positions of power compare, in both fiction and the real world?

Saturday, May 25th, 2:30-3:45 pm, IT’S ACTUALLY QUITE HARD TO RIP A BODICE, PART 2: HISTORICAL ACCURACY IN FICTION (with Mary Robinette Kowal, Vylar Kaftan, Delia Sherman, Jo Walton, and me)

Continuing the discussion from WisCon 36, the panelists will offer more advanced techniques for conducting historical research, ensuring accuracy, and how to handle situations with problematic historical attitudes to race, class, and gender.

I’ll also be at the WisCon Sign-Out on Monday.

On Tuesday, May 28th, I’ll be appearing at Simon & Schuster’s BEA Blogger Preview Party with Susanne Young, Cat Patrick, Corey Haydu, Lauren DeStefano, and Jason Reynolds. I wish I could invite everyone who’d like to go, but S&S is in charge of the invitation list. If you’re there, please come and say hello – I’d love to meet you!

Chantress, bookstores, and my high school cafeteria

Chantress‘s official publication day is tomorrow! And I hear that it’s already showing up in stores.*** WOW! and YIKES! and YAAAAAAAYYYY!

This week Simon & Schuster is going to be celebrating the book’s debut by allowing people to read it online for a few days on their PulseIt site. More details on that when I have them! [ETA: Until May 12th, you can sign up with Simon PulseIt to read Chantress for free online!

In the meantime I’ve blogged over on the S&S site about my inspiration for the book (including a few revelations from high school):

What inspired me to write Chantress? The remarkable ravens at the Tower of London played a role, and so did my love for romantic adventure and my fascination with English history. But I was also inspired by what might be the most unromantic place on the planet: my high school cafeteria…

For more, click here!

***It looks like Chantress will even be stocked in some Barnes and Nobles stores, despite the ongoing (and horribly distressing) dispute between B&N and S&S that Stephanie Burgis blogged about so eloquently. But as long as the dispute lasts, it will (like other S&S books) only be stocked in small numbers at best, and I’ve heard they won’t reorder — so if you want a B&N copy, hurry over! Or find yourself a wonderful indie and get it there. And please consider ordering yourself a copy of Stephanie’s Renegade Magic, too, while you’re at it — it’s such a delicious treat of a book!

A hundred posts, and a name change

My hundredth blog post, and only now do I tell you all that I’m changing my name. My LJ name, that is. I’ve had fun being historymaven, but after an incredibly complicated year I’m now on a drive to simplify, simplify. And one way to simplify is to use my real name for everything. So from now on I’ll be posting as amygreenfield.

(Everything from historymaven, from posts to friends, will automatically be forwarded to the new account, so there shouldn’t be any housekeeping involved for anyone, dear friends. Except maybe for me.)

Why I blog

I’ve been thinking a lot about the differences between Facebook and LiveJournal this week. They both have their strengths, but I’m so glad that I started out with LJ first. Fun as it is to connect with old friends by dashing off a line or two, I love the longer posts I find here. The writerly community on LJ warms my heart, and your words are a constant source of inspiration for me.

I never thought I’d be a blogger, but LJ reeled me in, and here I am, nine months later, asking myself: What is it about blogging that makes me so happy?

Well, that wonderful sense of community is a big part of the answer. But there’s something else, too, something that came up in conversation with a dear writer friend of mine last week.

Once when I was in a deep, dark hole in my life, and fearful that I’d never find my way back to anything good, another kind friend who had been in her own dark places said this to me: “You take one moment, one good moment, and you hold it up to the light. And then another one comes, just a brief moment, but you put it next to the other one, and you string those two beads together. And after a while — sometimes after a very long time — you start to see that you have a necklace there.”

For me, this is what blogging is like. It’s a way of holding certain moments and memories up to the light, and keeping them close. And after a while, you look back, and you can see you have a string of pearls.