and yet another weekend goes by without ironing

 announcements, journal, shaping lily  2 Responses »
May 092010
 

I have 98 AA batteries for the trip to Mongolia. They may well take up the majority of my baggage weight allowance. The perils of trying to calculate how many batteries you'll need to see you through 3 weeks of a potentially avid photography spree.

I've also spent the weekend collating all the medicinal and toiletry stuffs I'll need. I'm a shampoo and toothbrush kind of girl, mostly, but travel to remoter places always requires so much more. First aid kits, emergency antibiotic kits, emergency contact lens solutions, stuff I'll hopefully never need but have to take anyway. My toiletries may well take up the majority of my baggage volume. Once I shove a sleeping bag and sleeping mat in there, I'm not actually sure there'll be any room left for, yanno, clothes.

I see a slight flaw in my packing plans.

This weekend also saw an email from my ASIM editor bearing news. Blog readers blessed with an eidetic memory will have noticed that the April 2010 publication date of the ASIM #45, the issue to feature my story, "Shaping Lily", has been and gone.

Apparently this is because the issue preceding it is running late, and thus we wait. However there is talk afoot of staging a revolution, in which case #45 will be published first. Nothing concrete yet on that front; I mention it now only in case it does happen, and the issue gets published while I'm away fleeing bubonic marmots, and you are all left unawares. So, consider yourselves suitably aware'd.

she has a face!

 announcements, journal, shadow bound  6 Responses »
Apr 012010
 

Yesterday I suffered from sponge-brain caused by a criminal lack of sleep which, I don't mind telling you, is entirely Tripod's fault, for scheduling their show so late.1 (Although when I pointed this out to them, what did they go and do but thank me for making the effort to turn up! Who thanks people for being a teasing jerk? The boys from Tripod, obviously. Sorry, Mum — their mums obviously did a better job at instilling polite behaviour.)

(Also, said show was fantastic. I realise the comedy festival has only just started, and it's a big call to make so early on, but this is my favourite show so far and may well turn out to be my favourite show of the festival. A lot of this has to do with Tripod, who are, of course, we all recognise this, brilliant. It also has to do with their special guest star, Elana Stone, whose voice in the first dragon song utterly slayed the entire audience. I do love me a strong female vocalist.)

And today Reliably Absent Yarra Trams sabotaged my attempt at a social life.

But it doesn't matter! Why, you ask? Because Allen & Unwin have released their July 2010 catalogue!

Er, yeah, that's great, Deb, I hear you say. But what does this, yanno, mean?

Well, for all of you oh so patiently waiting for Shadow Bound to become a real grown-up book, this means you are now in possession of a firm publication date2 AND, as a bonus, a first glimpse of the cover art.

Is it not pretty? And shiny?

Yes, okay, I know it's not particularly large, but I don't have a large version to hand to show you, on account of the large version not being actually finalised yet. Once I do, you can bet I'll be slapping it up on the blog for you all to ogle and admire.

  1. Oh, okay, Meandering Yarra Trams probably has some share of culpability as well. [↩]
  2. Note: due to the vagaries of the industry, a publication date of July 2010 means the book should start appearing in stores sometime in June 2010. [↩]

but two miles more and then we rest!

 announcements, journal, shadow bound, writing life  2 Responses »
Sep 212009
 

News from the powers that be at Allen & Unwin is that the publication date of Pledged, aka Matilde #2, aka the sequel to Shadow Queen, aka That Book I Have Been Studiously Pretending Does Not Exist, will now be May 2010, not March 2010.

There's a few reasons for the change in schedule, not least of which is that my editor would like to edit the book herself rather than delegate. Truthfully, I'm happy about the change.

Yes, I know it means the book is coming out later, and you all have to wait just that bit longer to find out what happens to Matilde. I'm sorry!

But it will be worth the wait. It was Louise's hard and patient work that quashed all my writer's tics in Shadow Queen, and made my incoherent ramblings look like a narrative, and I'd love her deft touch to carry through to the sequel. I'd rather the book be as strong as I and my editors can make it, and giving the edits the time and attention they need is part of that process.

So May 2010 it is!

In the meantime, I promise to entertain you with stories of how the edits are driving me mad ;-)

honest to goodness news

 announcements, away come away, journal, shadow bound, shadow queen  6 Responses »
Jun 182009
 

An email from my publisher today tells me that the mass market paperback version of Shadow Queen should be available for purchase before the end of the year. This means those of you who hate and loathe the trade paperback format, or don't hate it so much as think it's simply too expensive, will have the chance to buy the smaller, cheaper format. Much more suitable for shoving in small bags and reading on buses and trains and planes.

This means the current publication date for the second book, which I've been calling Pledged (but the title is already slated for change), should be hitting shelves around March 2010.

The (first round of) publication edits for Pledged are due to land on my desk inside the next month. At which point I'll probably have to put aside the faerie novel and retreat from the world until they're done, because otherwise they'll never get done and the book won't be out in March because I'll still be slaving away over where to put my commas and everyone who's waiting to find out how on earth Matilde manages to dig herself out of the hole the first book put her in will come and bludgeon me to a paste with their trade paperback versions of the book.1

  1. Except for Tessa, who already knows what happens. But she may join in just in the interests of solidarity, I suppose. [↩]

but when can i buy it?

 journal, shadow queen, writing life  1 Response »
Dec 122008
 

As the official publication date draws nearer, the question is arising more frequently:

When will it actually be on the shelves in my local bookstore?

The short and apparently-contradictory answer is: 1) 1 January 2009 and 2) I don't know.1

The longer answer is that the official publication date is 1 January 2009. This is the date that the publisher promises the book will be available, on shelves, in all the bookstores which happened to purchase copies for retail sale. In order to fulfil this promise, it gets shipped to the bookstores ahead of this date. So when it appears on the shelves depends on whether your local bookstore has ordered any copies, and whether they've unpacked the box they received from the publisher yet.

I'm not expecting copies to be on shelves quite this soon (it's more likely to appear closer to Christmas Day), but if you want to know whether it will appear in your local bookstore, the quickest way to find out is to ask the staff at said local bookstore. They'll be able to tell you whether the store has ordered any copies, and when they expect it to arrive. If they haven't ordered any copies, and you want them to, that's your cue!

If you missed yesterday's post, there's books being given away

  1. This presumes your local bookstore is located in Australia or New Zealand. If it's anywhere else, then you're out of luck, at least in the short term, although you can always buy online through an Australian store. You'll find links on the Shadow Queen bibliography. [↩]