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Chapter 11

Oh Chapter 11, I love chapter 11. From the opening song on. It's a long one. Let me see what little nuggets I can find to share with you.

The empty barrel dance: Kind of sad and brave that their largest celebration, spring holiday, celebrates not harvest or times of feast but the end of supplies, the empty barrels. They survived the winter, and that's cause enough to celebrate.

"tattered red strips of cloth": We live in such abundance. I was often reminded, while writing this book, how precious something like a red ribbon would be in a place like Mount Eskel.

"the girl with no hair": The story shouts came out of my own memories of camping with my family. There were songs like "No you can't get to heaven" where each verse was different and you could make up your own rhyming verses on the fly. I remember being quite young and making up a verse that made others laugh, and how good that made me feel.

Miri & Peder's conversation: When I first published this book, someone asked me what my favorite part was, and I remember saying the action in chapters 20-23. But when I listened to this book on audio, this conversation between Miri & Peder became my favorite.

"A smile tugged at one corner of her mouth like a brook trout on a fishing line." and "Jans trailed Britta around like a thistleweed stuck to her bootlace." and "Being near him made her insides feel like twisted vines, choking and blooming at the same time": I love similies. I always overwrite and then delete the extras, keeping the best. If you don't like similies, you may not like my books. I tend to celebrate them.

Tiffany L asks, "Without the help of an editor or agent, how do you know when a book is DONE, and ready to send off." I think it's really hard to know, and impossible for me to tell someone else because every writer's process is different. I will say that every agent or editor I've talked to says 90% of the manuscripts they receive aren't done yet, were sent off too hastily, were a first or too early of a draft. I personally suffer from chronic Fourth Draftitis. The first draft is okay, the second I realize how much work needs to happen. The third I try to fix it. THe fourth I "polish" the third draft. And then I have this rush of completion, this amazing high, and I immediately want to share it! See! Look! Admire what I've made! And I rush off to show it to someone--often another writer friend or a reader who I think will have some good feedback. Every time, when I'm back into rewriting, I realize how crappy that 4th draft really was and am so ashamed I showed it to anyone. You'd think after 12 books I'd learn, but I did it YET AGAIN early this spring with my current book's 4th draft. Everyone's different, but I'd suggest rewriting a book a few times, let it sit for a month or two, go back again, get some feedback, rewrite again, more feedback, rewrite...about twenty times. And then let it sit again, read it again and see what you think. One of the most valuable skills a writer owns is understanding his/her own process, and that just comes through experience.

I'll get to the other questions tomorrow, and feel free to ask more!

Chapter 7

Flashback!: A flashback is, of course, a scene that takes place earlier than the current story. The narrator takes us back, usually because the main character is remembering something. I do everything I can to avoid flashbacks. They can weaken the narrative. A flashback early in a book is especially dangerous, and in the middle of a chapter can feel cheesy or forced. This scene was important enough that I didn't just want the info relayed through thought or narrator. I wanted to see it. A nice reminder of Peder while he's away. And important info about quarry-speaking. Rereading it now, I'm happy to find I didn't cringe. I like how it feels at the beginning of the chapter.

Quarry-speech: Page 82 has the first real description of how Miri feels using it. Quarry-speaking was not in my first draft. While researching quarries, I learned how deafening the work can be and also how dangerous. The Eskelites were so disadvantaged, I wanted them to have a talent, something unique that lowlanders did not. The ability to communicate warnings in a noisy quarry would be very helpful.

"The sky was achingly blue." pg 83. I like this line. And the ones that follow. They make me feel and see the day.

Holding hands: Someone I know immigrated to the US from Germany when he was 13. The first day of school, speaking little English, he walked with a neighbor boy. As they began to walk, he reached out to take the other boy's hand, as they always did in Germany. The American boy pulled away and looked at him as if he were a freak. It dawned on him that hand-holding was not something boys did in America. I loved this story, and it's the root of Mount Eskel's tradition of hand-holding. Bits of real life and stories I hear often work into books in this way.

Singing: Another Eskelite custom and one, like most of their customs, comes from their work in the quarry. I love Britta's confusion on page 86. Should she sing along? That disconnect, that bewildered loneliness that comes when two cultures meet. I find it both scary and fascinating.

"Thanks for talking to me.": Oh Britta! I want to just hug her! I imagine what the last year of her life has been like. Loneliness is something, I think, everyone has tasted.

The princess house: Miri could never dream about marrying someone she's never met and could never imagine, but the house to give to her family is a tangible goal.

Mount Eskel: The mountain itself naturally became a character in this book. While it's possible that the mountain has some kind of magical sentience--that it's aware of the people--it's also possible that's Miri's imagination. I am very careful to never declare one way or the other. I imagine some readers might believe one way and others another.

Isobel asks, "while working on other books and gathering ideas for Princess Academy, did you ever feel impatient to get on with things, or just happy to let the story build?" I'm often, like a magpie, charmed by the shiny thing off in the distance. It's always a temptation while writing any book to abandon it for a currently-more-interesting idea. I jot down ideas I have, but I'm very firm with myself to finish the book I'm working on. If I didn't, I'd have dozens of books begun and nothing finished.

Alison asks, "How long does it usually take you to plan and write? Once you have an idea, does it just flow out, or do you have to sit down and plan out everything that's going to happen in the plot? Or do you just let things happen?" Every book is different. With PA, I had the idea, wrote it

Chapter 6

Whiskers taut, front teeth bared: I opened up to chapter 6, not remembering what was about to happen until I read the opening song. I worked hard to make sure each song snippet conversed with the events of the chapter in interesting ways. There were many songs I wrote because I liked them but didn't use because they didn't work well enough with any chapter.

Page 70: Miri physically aches with loneliness. I've felt this way before. Poor gal.

"She fell asleep without resting.": I just did a search in my first draft and found this line: "Cold and miserable, she fell asleep without resting, dreaming that she was locked in a coffin, hearing shovelfuls of dirt thumping the lid." I must have liked that bit buried in the middle and pared off the excess, whittled the sentence down to its best part. I approve of that edit, Seven-Years-Ago-Shannon.

Also, originally the now-non-existent Ingir locked Miri in the closet and Olana rescued her. Better this way.

"The tip of a tail licked her cheek.": Eek! I don't have a rat phobia but this would Freak Me Out. It's the darkness aspect that makes this event so much creepier for me. If there was a rat loose in my house--gross, but okay, I'll grab a broom and wage battle. But I'm locked up in the dark, unsure what I'm facing and how to fight back? Nightmare.

Singing in the closet: Miri needed this scene to jump-start her inquiry into quarry-speech. She could have just wondered about it, but a story is always better when action leads to action.

I'll get to your questions tomorrow, sorry! Weekend is all family time, not much computer time.

Chapter 4

Miri helps Gerti: Miri has this fierce sense of justice, of right and wrong, and here’s an instance when it gets her into trouble. This character trait/flaw is one I’m intimately familiar with.

Page 54: Miri speaks out and gets them all punished. This scene was tricky and took many attempts, partly because it has such lasting consequences. I feel for Miri here! She means well, but the outcome is not what she expects. Was she right to speak out? Better to follow the rules? I don’t think that everything a main character does has to be the right choice, and I don’t want any of my stories insisting that there’s only one right way to do anything. Her actions here were true to her character and moved the story along, but I don’t know if she acted well or not. There are many events like this one in the book. What I hope for my readers is not that they try to model their own behavior after any character, but that the actions of a character help them think through things and decide perhaps what they would do, figure out what they believe about things.

Miri’s character: I feel like I was kind of lazy when I started writing this book and made Miri a lot like myself. As her character was forming on the page through the action, I let her react as it felt natural to me, let her relationships form as I remembered mine from that age. This made her character trickier rather than easier to write. It’s hard to be objective about yourself! Again, figuring her out took many drafts.

“Miri thought she understood how a lost goat would feel on meeting a pack of wolves.”: Everything in the book is pushed through Miri’s own experience. Although it’s a third person narrator (says “she” instead of “I”) and uses words in ways Miri might not, still, every simile, metaphor, analogy, etc., must be one in Miri’s realm of experience, and since she’s spent her life isolated on a mountain top, that experience is narrow. So, a lot of goat metaphors. Writing this book, I grew very fond of goats.

Page 58: Another trait Miri and I share--trying to make people laugh. How many times have I said something I thought was funny and no one agreed! I feel for you, Miri, darling.

Academy princess: Miri has a goal! It’s important for the main character to have something they desire. There were many things she longed for back home--to be useful, to be sure of her pa’s love, Peder--but here’s where she first names something she’ll strive for there at the academy.

Laura asks: "what part of Miri's story came to you first?" The general concept came first, the idea of a village where one girl might be chosen as the next princess. The characters and why the story mattered to them came through the process of writing.

Sally asks: "I've often wondered when reading PA if you did research on stone cutting, working in a quarry and stone in general to write this book?" Yes indeed, I did as much research as I could, and as usual with research, ended up only using a fraction of what I learned. For a while there, I felt like an expert in marble and granite quarrying!

Katie asks: "Did you do very much research in your first draft or did you just write and then research?" I do minimal research before beginning, write the first draft or two, and then do more intensive research, so that I already know what I'm looking for. I like the story to lead the research, not the other way around. I know other writers research in different ways.

You may recall when I had the first contest for PALACE OF STONE, I said, "If you win, you are required to read the book and email me about how much you liked it. That's right--REQUIRED! You are NOT allowed to dislike this book!" Well, the first of the winners has responded, and she was very good at following instructions. We can only guess if she truly means it or just fears me (I'm scary), but I'm going to post the non-spoilery parts of her email here because it made me so happy.

"No surprise, I loved it.  I’ll admit I wondered about the sequel since Princess Academy stands so well on its own, but now I cannot imagine one without the other.  The story flows seamlessly throughout the two books.  Miri is a delight as always.  She does everything with such conviction, even her mistakes are respectable...Palace of Stone is a remarkable story and one that I will constantly recommend. "

Winners! Winners! Wow, the 2nd guesser got it all right only 9 minutes after I posted. And I thought it would be so hard.

SORA!

1. English-UK
2. Indonesian
3. English-UK
4. Japanese
5. Dutch
6. Hungarian
7. Korean
8. Spanish
9. French
10. fan art by CrownJewel
11. Indonesian
12. Turkish
13. Vietnamese
14. Korean

Here's where things get freaky. Using the random number generator, the random winner was: Q. Yes that's right, the same gal who correctly guessed the last contest and already won an ARC. I don't think she meant to enter. She wasn't guessing, just wishing everyone luck. So I'm going to send you some foreign edition, Q, and save the other ARC for someone else. Second time, the winner was:

TAIGER!

Sora and Taiger, email me: squeetus (at) g mail (dot) com.

Still more opportunities to win an ARC of PALACE OF STONE. On Twitter, my publisher (@bwkids) is running a contest. Tweet something you learned from Princess Academy with the hashtag(#PrincessAcademy) and you're entered into a contest. I believe one person each week is chosen. Here are some of the entries they sent me. Just lovely. And I can't take credit. Of course when I write, I'm not thinking, "What can I teach people?" I'm just thinking about making the best story I can. These lovely readers found their own messages in the story, part of the magic of reading.

@jessung #PrincessAcademy taught me that it's okay to feel vulnerable, and that being brave--even if I may feel quite the opposite--is okay, too.
 
@domisimone At #PrincessAcademy I learned that I can do or be anything, and that I don't have to end up with the prince to be happy.
 
@JayaLaw I learned from #PrincessAcademy that education can heighten your awareness of the world and improve your community's standard of living.
 
@sherryberrett #PrincessAcademy I learned to communicate through stone, but I must not be soon it right because it isn't working. (ßhahaha J)
 
@moltenbook Learning and friendship are worth more than any crown or gown. #PrincessAcademy
 
@broadwayforever Reading #PrincessAcademy taught me that everyone has talents that make them special, even if it takes a while to figure them out.
 
@abackwardsstory #PrincessAcademy from @bwkids teaches girls that it's okay to love and be YOURSELF, and not rely on boys to save them!
 
@chelserbug What I learned from #PrincessAcademy? I learned that everyone is a princess :) (And also, I found a new appreciation for my home mountains!)
 
@Robin_Weeks #PrincessAcademy by @haleshannon taught me that we don't like people who can't make us respect them. And that I want my own linder house.
 
@rebeccamherman I learned that there are much more important things than being beautiful or rich or a princess! #PrincessAcademy
 
@LauraLyle #PrincessAcademy taught me knowledge is power. And that appearances are deceiving. Cliche because they are true!
 
@BookSnatch I learned that no matter who you are, you can become the type of person you want to be if you work hard. #PrincessAcademy
 
@Kiirs I learned that even a girl who thinks she's insignificant can change the world. #PrincessAcademy

And don't

Lots of fun stuff gearing up for the PALACE OF STONE publication. If you're ages 14-23 and read PRINCESS ACADEMY when you were younger, enter this contest Bloomsbury is hosting: Note to My Younger Self Sweepstakes. I'm so excited to see those entries!

If you're on Twitter, another contest from Bloomsbury Kids: "Want to win the sequel to PRINCESS ACADEMY - or even ALL of @haleshannon's books? Tweet what you learned at #PrincessAcademy with the hash tag!"

PRINCESS ACADEMY is getting a new paperback cover in the US and will include a sneakpeek of PALACE OF STONE. It should look pretty familiar. Can you spot the differences from the original?

For years I've been meaning to put together a page on my website showing the different foreign covers for my books. I have some, but my scanner is currently being devilish so I haven't been able to scan their covers. (I wish I got a copy of all of them!) With the help of Enna Isilee at Squeaky Books I've been able to track down images of quite a few. I'll put them on my site soon but thought I'd feature them on my blog from time to time as well. Since I've got princess academy on the brain (going through the first page proofs of palace of stone and feeling really happy and relieved!) here's Miri from around the world. I'll put the publishing language beneath each picture. If you want to play "name that language," scroll slowly and see if you can guess first without looking!

Spainish hardcover and paperback. Spain consistently does beautiful covers, in my opinion. Wait till you see Goose Girl and Enna Burning!

Romanian, keeping the US hardcover.

Chinese hardcover and paperback. I love that it's not just the US that tends to vary styles between the two formats.

Korean also kept the original painting. Korea is another country that consistenly wows me with their high quality publishing. Can't wait to show you their Book of a Thousand Days.

English - UK. Do you prefer the first or second?

WOW! Thank you for the enthusiasm for this book. Instead of making me more scared, your comments just made me excited to share it. That and I'm 2/3 of the way reading through the first page proofs and feeling  confident with it. Whew!

So who won? I wish all of you had! I was filled with admiration by your comments and willingness to share your fears. What lovely people. The four lucky, random winners are:

Kate Hamberlin
"I am excited to read another one of your books! Can't wait to get engrossed again!
I am scared that I haven't taught my children everything they need to know to leave my home and be out in the world. I have two children leaving home this summer to college. I am scared that someday they will regret not having what others had as children. I pray that I have done enough for them to help them gain success."

Christina (A Reader of Fictions)
"Oh my goodness! More Princess Academy!?!?! I had no idea this was coming! No idea at all, but I am the happiest right now!!!
Princess Academy and Goose Girl are among my favorite books of all time. You just made me day.
Winning an ARC would make my month at least!"

BooksforYAs
"I'm scared of not getting an ARC of this book to read?
Okay, I'm scared that my blog will never make me any money and I'll have to either start over with something completely different or go out and get a second job (again). Or try to publish something, which is a whole new level of scary in and of itself..."

Chanis
"Princess Academy is the first book of yours I fell in love with, so I'm smitten with the idea of another!
My bizarre, crippling fear is looking for jobs. Somehow, I can write the cover letter and even interview without too much angst, but searching through"

Winners, please email me at squeetus (at) g mail (dot) com, something in the subject line about being a giveaway winner. Also, tell me who you want me to sign your book to. Congratulations! I believe there will be more giveaways through spring and summer via my publisher and I will be sure to announce them all here.

(Yes, I did indeed gracefully place a scarf beneath the books for effect.)

I have four ARCs of Palace of Stone to give away! I can't believe they're already here and real and this is happening. Comment on this post to enter. Let's say one entre per person, okay? I'm not going to check, but you know, honor system. Since I am so scared* to release this book into the world, in your comment, tell me something that scares you too, especially if it's a good thing that you know is right. I'll use a random number generator to pick four winners on Tuesday morning.

If you win, you are required to read the book and email me about how much you liked it. That's right--REQUIRED! You are NOT allowed to dislike this book!

...okay, personal opinions are valid, everyone is different, blah blah blah, I will respect your response no matter what it is...whimper of fear...

*Lemme 'splain. I love this book, you guys. I'm really proud of it. But ever since I finished the final draft, I've been doused with the tremblings and the panic attacks. I've never felt so much expectation. The part that I can control--the writing of the book--I felt good about. But now comes the part that I can't control--the opinions-at-large--and this time, more than ever, the reaction to come scares me.

I had a very nice note this morning from teacher Terrell Shaw, to let me know that he has put some original poetry to my photograph of a robin's egg. As I replied to him, the kids got quite a kick out of seeing my photo accompanied by his poem; and in the midst of a Canadian winter, the idea of robins and their eggs gives me a little thrill, not to mention hope for Spring. In addition to his