Summer Sun + Writing Update

Well it's summer, ladies and gents—smack dab in the middle of, in fact. It's hot here. Feels like it's gonna continue to be hot forever (and it kind of is). But I DO live in a place nicknamed THE VALLEY OF THE SUN, so I guess that's to be expected. I super need to stop checking the weather forecast, as it's supposed to be 110+ until basically THE END OF TIME.

Um, I mean… I do super well in the heat and stuff.

But complaints about heat is not why you come to this blog (that's what my Twitter is for!!). How about some writing updates??

I had a lovely time at the mini writing retreat in June! I had more work to do on my fairy tale retelling than I thought, but I DID finish it a few weeks later. I'm super, super thrilled with how this novel came out—I'm falling more and more in love with it the more I work on it, which is the opposite of what usually happens………

It's so interesting to watch a novel grow and change and morph into something you couldn't have initially imagined it would ever be. This particular novel was sparked by a dream I had about a girl riding a reindeer across the ice being chased by wolves. I realized it needed to be a retelling of East of the Sun, West of the Moon, and decided to write a short story, hoping to keep it under 10K and submit it to a contest. Long story short (hahaha—I should say SHORT STORY LONG), my "short story" is now an 89K word novel. I'm really bad at short stories, you guys. (Incidentally, that initial scene from my dream never made it into the book…)

But my, I'm rambling. All that to say, this novel has gone through several incarnations, and the latest one is my absolute favorite—I love it to bits!!

In other news, I'm slowly starting to outline a new novel that feels super plot-heavy and ambitious for me, but also intrigues me deeply (so I have to try it, right??). It has: lots of characters, betrayal, winter, an evil king, a prince who can control animals, a kick-butt female acrobat, secretsssss, and many other things!! We shall see how it comes out when I eventually start writing!

Okay, I think that's about it for now. Stay cool out there, everyone!

ETA: Here's a guest blog I wrote over on Adventures in YA Publishing about rejection, going easy on yourself, and how it's okay to take things personally! Hope you enjoy! :-)

How to Survive an Arizona Summer

(a not-really-all-that-sarcastic-blog-post-by-Joanna)

1. Stay inside as much as is humanly possible. Draw the blinds. Keep the lights off, turn the fans on. DON'T LEAVE YOUR HOUSE.
2. Drink lots of water, and bring water with you any time you have to leave your house.
3. Park your car away from the direction of the sun.
4. Go shopping before noon.
5. Bring a cooler with ice packs to keep your perishable food from… perishing… en route from the grocery store to your house.
6. Bring a sweater when going to restaurants/movie theaters. Somehow business establishments can afford enough air conditioning to mimic arctic temperatures.
7. Stick your head in the freezer, shut your eyes, and dream of Alaska.
8. Remind yourself that November is coming. Eventually.
9. Try not to envision the grisly and most-definitely-pre-meditated murder of the next out-of-state person who tells you glibly "It's a dry heat."
10. Try not to weep at your power bill.
11. Head north to Prescott/Flagstaff for the weekend. Or every weekend.
12. Eat ice cream. You deserve it.

Ju-ly, Ju-ly, Ju-ly-y-y-y, It never seemed so strange...

Well, we're smack dab in the middle of summer, now. Temps have been rising horribly into the hundred-teens, and I'm getting cranky. Especially when I realize that 1) There's three and a half to four more months of this, and 2) Billions of people across the planet live surrounded by trees and green growing things and can be outside during the summer without the flesh peeling off their bones and their inner organs gasping and dying like a bunch of shriveled-up raisins.

Not that I'm complaining or anything.

Okay, not much.

But really. It's HOT here. I mean, seriously! I tried to take a cold shower the other day, and there wasn't any cold water. If that's not bad, I don't know what is.

And now for an update on all things novel related:

• As of last night, I have twelve rejections, eight outstanding queries, and one request for a full (which is a MAJOR yayyy! but doesn't necessarily mean anything).
  

• Editing on The Fire in the Glass is going absolutely terrible. I'm very disheartened.

• Re-reading The Rose Queen and thinking it might be possible to fix after all...
  

And that's it.

Guess I'll blame the heat for my increased levels of inactivity.

Dang heat.