This Is My Secret: The Blog and Website of Writer Kristin Cashore

Two important things. First, I am the absolute worst for taking so long to announce this, but I'm doing a panel this coming Thursday, February 23, with my dear friend and the author of the Wings of Fire dragon books, Tui Sutherland!

It's called A Midwinter Night's Fantasy Panel. The Horn Book Magazine's Martha Parravano will be moderating. It's from 5:30–7:00PM at Simmons College, 300 The Fenway, Boston, MA, Management Building M501/502.

This panel is hosted by Children's Books Boston and space is limited, so if you'd like to go, register here.

And sorry for the late notice. The truth is that ever since about, oh, I don't know, the second week of November, I've been dropping a lot of straws.

*****

The other important thing is that I just wanted to let all of you know that I found the perfect office :). It's close to my home, it's in a lovely, historical office building, it has all the space I need, and its existence is making all this moving…

Hi everyone – I'm reaching out with an unusual request.

We're looking to rent some office space for me outside our home. I'm pretty flexible in terms of what would work. A room I could have unlimited access to and also furnish myself would be amazing, but I'm open to all sorts of creative arrangements. Which is why I've decided to reach out. Maybe there are possibilities out there that exist in your brain, but that I would never think of.

These are my only absolute requirements:

I need a room or space to myself where I will have uninterrupted solitude and access to a bathroom, generally during business hours.

I need it to be within a one- or two-mile radius of the Whitney Hill Park/Cushing Square area of Watertown/Belmont, OR, be within easy walking distance of the 73 bus line which runs from Belmont Street to Mount Auburn Street to Harvard Square. (Click the links for more geographical info.)
That's pretty much it. Other perks would be great, but this is all …

That's a mouthful.

February 14 is Pan-Universal Be Who You Are Day! (For those of you who are new to the blog, eight years ago I decided to reclaim Valentine's Day and turn it into something else.)

I don't have a lot of time this afternoon, but in the spirit of this alternative holiday (ack, the word "alternative" no longer means what it used to mean),  here are fifteen funny cards for people who see Valentine's Day differently from how we're told to see it.

And here is an article, with lots of pictures, about an artist named Ambivalently Yours who considers ambivalence to be a form of feminist resistance. After I read this article, I wandered over to Ambivalently Yours's website and spent some time scrolling through her various drawings. It made me feel... seen, as a sensitive, emotional, complicated, and strong-as-nails person. Maybe it'll make you feel that way too.

I hope you have a lovely day, being whoever you are. :o)

I have three links to share.

1. Indivisible: A Practical Guide for Resisting the Trump Agenda. Written by former progressive congressional staffers, this is intended as a practical guide to influencing the legislature. It's well-written and easy to absorb, it contains insights that only people in the business would be able to provide, and it has some practical ideas for things we peons can do. It's also inspiring.

2. How to #StayOutraged Without Losing Your Mind: Self-Care Lessons for the Resistance, by Mirah Curzer. This article has some great tips for staying engaged in activism without burning out. (Please note that it does assume some things about its audience – for example, that we would all benefit from therapy and can afford it; that we all live someplace where it's safe and pleasant to go for mind-clearing walks; that we have the privilege of part-time activism.)

3. Who Represents You in the US Congress? Finds the names of your representative and senators. (Should…

Here's how it looks outside the windows today…



I left the endless rain of Northern California and came home to the snow of Eastern Massachusetts :o). Weather is so good for writing. I wrote two and a half pages this morning while curled up in blankets and watching the snow fall. (I consider two pages to be a good day's work – though some days I only managed a few lines, and some days I manage 12 or 15 pages.)

As I prepare for the release of Jane, Unlimited next September, I continue to plod through my new novel, which is the eighth I've ever written. (Two unpublishable; Graceling; Fire; Bitterblue; Jane, Unlimited; a mystery/boarding school book currently in revisions; and this new one.) How does it feel to be writing my eighth novel? Pretty much exactly how it felt to write novels one through seven: pointless, hopeless, stupid, exhausting, a waste of time, torturously slow, and with an endpoint so far in the future that I'm sure I will basically feel like this for the…