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.

Procrastination, Rewrite Update, and Arizona Always Does Its Own Thing

And because I'm behind on blogging this month and I want to procrastinate actually working on my novel, here's a second post for today. :-)

On the writing front, I'm still slogging away on that giant rewrite. I'm just about to start chapter five of part two, and there's fifteen chapters after that, so I've still got a ways to go, blech. I reallllly want to be done with this draft by the end of March, so I'd better get cracking. Trying not to think about how I get to go through it again after that because this rewrite is so massive it's like 50% brand new material which needs editing and pondering and possibly rearranging and rewriting. Oh man this is so much work. You see why I'm procrastinating??

I'm so ready to be on to something NEW! Trying do decide if I'll start writing a brand new novel (from last year's set-aside short story), finish off my draft from November, or Something Else Entirely. So many possibilities!

Meanwhile, Arizona has forgotten it's February and has decided to skyrocket into the mid-to-upper-80s, which is making me grumpy because summer is coming soon and WE NEVER HAD WINTER!!!!!! >:-( It's so weird to me that the rest of the country is wreathed in eternal White Witch Narnian winter, and Arizona is all like "la dee dah, let's break some heat records for this time of year." Anyways. I REFUSE to turn on the air conditioning. You know. In the house. It's definitely on in my car…

So. There you have it.