IT'S FINISHED!!!!!!!!


\(^O^)/ \(^O^)/ \(^O^)/ \(^O^)/ \(^O^)/ \(^O^)/ \(^O^)/ \(^O^)/

I haven't been around, I know. I've been working my butt off on BLOODHOUND, for one, having company (much loved and appreciated!) two weekends in a row, nursing an unhappy cat who really wanted to be outside and who really didn't want his medication, and now Tim and I are getting ready for Penguincon. (This promises to be a very, very cool convention. At last I will get to meet Jennie Breeden, author/illustrator of my favorite webcomic The Devil's Panties! (No, it's not obscene. The Devil's Panties show up only once, and they're boxer shorts. It's about life as a 20-something comics artist who makes a living at it and attends a lot of conventions.)

Jennie does comics to announce her attendance at particular conventions. You might like the one she did for this Penguicon--I sure did!

There are a couple of new things on my website:
The 2007 Favorite Books list, which you regulars have already seen, my Books for Boys list, which has been upgraded with a lot more new books (if you really need to know, I'll explain later why I put together a list of books for boys--there are a lot of books you'll like, too), and there's an update to my travel schedule as well.

I think that's all the news I dare to type now. I have to get back to BLOODHOUND--I can hear furniture breaking!

I'm betwixt and between all kinds of things, so I thought I would let you know I haven't forgotten you! I spent Thursday and Friday of last week at two schools in Rochester, New York, where I had a wonderfully warm welcome from the kids, teachers, and librarians. Then two friends were here for the weekend, and now our friend who was the basis for Thayet is coming up this weekend. Next weekend we'll be at Penguicon, an open source software science fiction and fantasy convention (they explain on their site), which promises to be an utter hoot.

We've also been dealing with cat health problems. Butch, one of our back yard strays, is finally off medication, but not before he managed to give my assistant Cara and me each good chomps, earning us both courses of antibiotics and Cara a tetanus shot (she needed one--I had mine two years ago). This is why you have to be really careful handling creatures who have been outside in particular. Luckily we had gotten Butch all of his shots and we've had him with us long enough to know (10 days) that he doesn't have rabies. Having really painful hands is bad enough, but the rabies series of shots (12) and having Butch put down is far worse. (We've been feeding him for two years before he got hurt so badly that we brought him in and took him to the vet.)

Also, our beloved Scrap has developed a huge mass on her shoulder. She's having a biopsy today. We're all really worried, as you can imagine. She's 15, and this appeared over less than a week ago.

And with all this going on, I'm trying to finish BLOODHOUND.

Good things: Tim brought home a Brit TV show called "Primeval," about a team of archaeologists and other folks who stumble across anomalies in space and time that are letting dinosaurs into England. Big dinos, little dinos, carnivores, herbivores . . .There's the Professor, and his hot lab assistant, and the cute lizard girl from the local zoo, the weird conspiracy student, the woman from the Home Office, the bureaucratic squid from the Home Office, and the eight years vanished archaeologist wife of the Professor, who's a nasty piece of work.

And get this: all of the women are capable! They may be tremendously cute and girly, like the lizard girl (though how girly can you be when you have a python wrapped around you?), or sophisticated and efficient like the woman from the Home Office, but in a crisis, all of them keep their heads. Sometimes they're the ones who save the guys! They're actual, working members of the team! I love this show! Tim got it from Amazon.uk, so if you have a Region Free DVD player, or if you live in Europe, find this show and watch it!

And something everyone can see, the cover for the print edition of MELTING STONES:

marlinpoo (or rather, his aunt), jules4848, and lady_pamina raised the question of movies based on my books on the Ultimate Movie Cast thread, and rather than answer it there and have it buried, knowing it's a question that comes up often and often, I thought I should answer it here.

Though I confess, you just won't get the same effect of me wailing "All my friends have movie deals!" via lj as you would if you got me in person. Of course, as people keep asking me, you also run a smaller risk of me snapping at last and leaping for your throat if you get the answer here and now, rather than risk asking me about it in person.

Yes. I get asked this one a lot.

My film agent tells me that the largest barrier to my getting a film deal is one of the things my fans like best: the fact that, for 14 of my Tortall books, and 10 of my Circle books, there is a good chance the reader will encounter friends from the earlier books. Readers of the Kel series will encounter characters from the Alanna and Daine books; readers of THE WILL OF THE EMPRESS will encounter characters from The Circle of Magic.

The feeling among moviemakers is that if Company A makes a movie based upon the Alanna books, and Company B makes a movie based on the Kel books, Company B will be profiting from all the work Company A did, for free! (Gasp! Say it's not so!) The bottom line is that unless I get J.K. Rowling-hot, so that a film company will buy an entire universe, my chances of getting a film deal are Not Good. (My other alternative is to write a stand-alone book in a brand new universe, then not write any more in that universe. Where's the fun in that?) Of course, Beka's books may stand a chance, since they don't have any characters from the other Tortall books except Pounce.

When I'm not writhing with envy, I actually don't much mind. Unless I get as big as You-Know-Who, the likelihood that I will be given any degree of control or any advisory position on a movie is zilch. Have you ever heard the woefully incorrect joke: "How do you know who's the stupidest starlet? She's dating the writer"? (And that's the writer of the movie writer.) Hollywood filmmakers are notorious for taking books and turning them inside out. Think a moment: "Eragon." "Ella Enchanted." "The Dark Is Rising." "The Golden Compass." I rest my case.

If I did make a movie deal (I can be had--movie money is VERY good), I would warn my fans not to expect to see my books on the screen. As I said above, Hollywood is notorious for changing the book in their translations. Books take place in the reader's head. No one will capture what you imagine, which is what I love about books.

So there it is: welcome to my reality. I will keep creating my movies in books and audio, when I can get them the way I like them! And who knows? Maybe someday I'll catch up with my friends. I just won't hold my breath! ;-)

Edited to correct my assumption regarding marlinpoo's gender!

I heard something amusing on one of Tim's podcasts, and thought I'd try it on y'all for fun, since it's a quiet Sunday and I thought it would be nice to post and say I'm not dead. I did spend the last week or so on the road, first in beautiful, exquisite, amazing Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where the people were great and welcoming and fun, and the critters were astounding and the scenery left me breathless, and then in Idaho, visiting my Ma and my step- brothers and niece and some wonderful fans. (The scenery was splendid there, too, and the river was the same one as in Jackson Hole--the Snake.)

I'll be away next weekend, too, for just a few hours in New Jersey, then off to the Ad-Astra science fiction convention in Toronto, Canada. Back on post by Monday, I should think.

So here's the fun thing: what would be your ultimate perfect cast for a movie you might write, 5 men and 5 women? Here's mine:

Edward Norton (The Illusionist, The Painted Veil, Fight Club, Primal Fear)
Dakota Fanning (Dreamer, Man on Fire, War of the Worlds)
Denzel Washington (Man on Fire, Training Day, Deja Vu)
Sigourney Weaver (Aliens, Galaxy Quest, Ghostbusters )
Ian McKellen (the Lord of the Rings trilogy)
Jodi Foster (The Silence of the Lambs, The Brave One, Little Man Tate)
Liam Neeson (Michael Collins, Darkman, Rob Roy)
Hayden Panetierre (tv show Heroes)
Jonathan Rhys-Meyers (Bend It Like Beckham, The Tudors [cable tv series])
Queen Latifah (Hairspray, Hoodlum, Chicago)

I can't reply to your message--I think you're blocked. The answer is, No, I don't get spring breaks. Or vacations. Or holidays. I'm self-employed! Bwahahahahaha! Livin the American dream!!!!!

No, this one isn't a pet. I don't nurture it and give it food. I'd just as soon never have dealt with it.

The audio book MELTING STONES is available online in bitTorrents.

This really, really burns my bacon. You know why? It's not because I'm being ripped off. I suppose I am, in the long run. No, what burns me is that Full Cast Audio is being robbed. FCA isn't a big company. The income from the audio MELTING STONES goes to them, not some humongous anonymous corporation that markets tires, silicon chips, thongs, and oh yeah, audio books. One of the reasons I wrote MELTING STONES to be published first as an audio book was to give Full Cast whatever financial bump my name and the first publication of a Circle of Magic book are worth. They aren't the secondary publisher here, getting whatever people buy when they've already bought the print book--they are supposed to get all of the book's sales income until the print edition comes out this fall.

Then some cute person thought that--in the name of freedom of expression!--they would make my desire to help a really good small local company out meaningless by posting the audio book in bitTorrents. Maybe that person even thought the loss of income would be a drip in the well of some megacorporation. Except, of course, that it isn't. It's a sizable chunk of income for a company of 20 people or so.

I'm sure plenty of people are now going to get all worked up and come back at me about how information is supposed to be free. My response is, artists have to live and pay their bills. If they can't do that from an income derived from their art, they have to stop creating their art and get jobs that will pay their bills. Small companies are vulnerable. They don't get tax deals from the government. They don't get special rates from those who produce the materials they need. They don't get kickbacks on their utilities.

I worked hard on MELTING STONES. The Full Cast actors, producers, artist, composer, and office staff worked hard to get this book to people. Now our work, that we all hoped would generate good things for the company, is being stolen. And there's nothing we can do--except let you know.

Yep. I numbered that first one for a reason, and here comes the second volley. I figure it will let folks know I'm alive while I have my second cataract surgery and then go to the Boskone science fiction convention next weekend. I'll be out-of-touch probably for the next full week as a result. So brace yourselves . . .

Anyways

It's anyway. "Anyways" is not a word. For anyone at all, ever.



impact used as a verb, as in "the car impacted the tree"

"Impact" is not a verb. I don't care how many times you hear newsreaders and teachers say it as a verb, it's a noun, at worse an adjective, as in "an impacted wisdom tooth" (ouch!). "This vote will have an impact on the population." NOT A VERB.
Edited to add:
Actually, conuly points out--and supplies the link to back it up--that "impact" is a proper verb, and here I am wrong. I hang my head in shame. Here's the link.

"myself"

Do you notice how often this word is misused? I do, and it is like a dental drill right into that bunch of nerves on my cheekbone. "Joe and myself went to the movies." NO! "Joe and I went to the movies"--if you broke the sentence into the part with just you, you would say "I went to the movies," not "Myself went to the movies." That's how the grammar works. You aren't supposed to say "Grandma gave the cookies to my sister and myself." It's "Grandma gave the cookies to my sister and me." Again, if you're confused, break the sentence until it's what it would be with only you: Grandma doesn't give the cookies to myself, she gives them to me.

I know you read this one in books. I know you hear it on the television. I don't care. It is wrong, so very wrong. "I went by myself" is correct. "Myself and Jim went" is wrong twice, because you put the other person first, and because "I went," not "Myself."

Okay. I'm calmer now. No, really.

You don't wait with baited breath, either, did you know? What, did the person who wrote that have worms on his tongue? You wait with bated breath, as in, breath that's held back or caught.

I'm done now. Seriously.

Off to wet my eyeball pre-surgery. Kthnxbai!

edited to add:
and purplepaperwing caught me on a typo in my third paragraph! Good thing I wasn't ranting about typos, hunh? ::blushes::

Art courtesy of the wondrous Cara Coville--I'll let you guess whose insignia it is!

And an update: my first surgery went well, and I now have 20/30 vision in one eye. I get the other eye done on Monday--welcome, brave new vision world! I'll still need glasses, but much weaker ones!

So on to the insignia for a certain person from one of my worlds:

I'm going to be offline again, maybe for only a few days, maybe for a week. I'm having cataract surgery, this time. Everyone I know who's had it assures me it's a breeze.

The biggest pain it seems I'll have is Tim's moaning over having to be up to take me to the hospital at 6 AM! ;-)


edited to add:

Thanks so much for all the good wishes, even if I can't answer them individually! You folks are great!

Is there a special name for the kind of bracelet that doesn't have a clasp? It's shaped like a C, with nothing to close it around the wrist? I'm in the middle of writing, and when I tried to Google it, I got, well, ads.

Does anyone know? If there's a specific name, I'd like to use it!

EDITED TO ADD:

Thanks, folks! I'm going to go with a bracelet in the torc style, since folk of that time are familiar with torcs--a cuff to them is a wide, flat wrist wrap, and a bangle is anything that jingles, pretty much. (I also have to allow for differences in period.)

GOD, I LOVE BEING ABLE TO COME ONTO LJ AND GET HELP!!!!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

I figure this might have gotten lost in the Pounce LOLCat thread, so I wanted to post it independently where people would notice it.

dimruthien, incited by kalesbohan, boldly went where no fan has gone before and created (fanfare here):

tpierce_lolcats

Not only is it shiny, but it now has a lolJump and a lolrat!

Yes. I am easily amused. Go check it out! And thanks mucho, dimruthien!

Courtesy of Cara Coville, Artist in Residence at Tamora Pierce, LLC!

Yes! Yes! The whole megillah, adult and kid books, every genre! Brace yourselves! (And I'm gonna try an LJ Cut again....)


(c) = contemporary fiction
(h) = historical
(f) = fantasy
(df) = dark fantasy
(sf) = science fiction
(gn) = graphic novel
(nf) = nonfiction
(ah) = alternate history
(hor) = horror
(th) = thriller


Teen/Intermediate Reader Books

WORLDWEAVERS: GIFT OF THE UNMAGE by Alma Alexander (f)
TWISTED by Laurie Halse Anderson (c)
WHITTINGTON by Alan Armstrong (f)
13 REASONS WHY by Jay Asher (c)
THE SHIELD OF STARS by Hilari Bell (f)
THE NIXIE’S SONG by Holly Black & Tony diTerlizzi (f)
CURSE AS DARK AS GOLD, A by Elizabeth Bunce (f) (pub.: 3/08)
GLASS HOUSES by Rachel Caine (hor)
GRACELING by Kristin Cashore (f) (pub.: 10/08)
LOOKING FOR JJ by Anne Cassidy (c)
DRAMACON 1, 2 by Svetlana Chmakova (gn)
LAMPLIGHTER by D. M. Cornish (pub.: 2008)

Yep. Those are the ones I liked. Please note the four in YA—A CURSE AS DARK AS GOLD by Elizabeth Bunce, GRACELING by Kristin Cashore, OUT OF THE WILD by Sarah Beth Durst, and LAMPLIGHTER by D. M. Cornish—that won’t be out till this year!

Oh, I love ARCs (Advanced Reader Copies)!

Here’s to a 2008 filled with great books—it’s off to a great start!

After the World Fantasy Convention, my friend Julie Holderman gurmpy and I got to talking about issues with the writers of young adult (teen) and kid (children's) fantasy and science fiction at conventions. To make a long story short (you can read our thought process in the initial post), we decided it would be a grand thing if we could pull together the talent and funding to organize a convention for the fans and creators of teen and kid fantasy and science fiction.

After a lot of back-and-forthing, we decided the most efficient way to open the way to input and the recruitment of a talent pool was to open a livejournal community with the current, ungainly name of Teens & Kids Fantasy & Science Fiction Convention.

You may have already noticed the new link in my links section. It's up on my fan lj, too, and will be up on my website this week. We're also going to be sending e-mails to friends we think will be interested, so we're hoping business will be booming soon. You are invited to come to offer input, support, ideas, snaps, and whatever may come up. In the end, what we hope for is a con attended by the best and brightest of our field, some of the heroes of your childhood, and some of the heroes of your present, writers, artists, editors, even booksellers. Cross your fingers and lend a hand, advice, or a good thought!

It hasn't made it to the I Can Has Cheezburger front page, or even the voting page's first twenty pages, but at least I can share my first lolcat effort with you!

And those who are here from Sheroes will recognize this tired old wheeze of mine (or of Ogden Nash's) from previous years, because I do this every year:

From his poem "Good Riddance But Now What?"

The clock is crouching dark and small
Like a timebomb in the hall.

Hark! It's midnight, children dear.
Duck! Here comes another year!

And wishes for a healthy, happy, prosperous, book-filled 2008 to you!

Apologies in advance for the curst spam...

Korean Freestyle blade runner

Benazhir Bhutto, who was running as a centrist candidate for president in Pakistan, was murdered yesterday as she was leaving a political rally. Her killer shot her twice, then blew himself and her car and nineteen other people up. She died an hour later.

She had returned to Pakistan from exile just seventy days before, knowing her life was at risk if she ran against the current, hardline president, Musharraf (the man who instigated martial law and has taken U.S. money to fight Al-Qaeda and the Taliban while allowing both groups to grow stronger and almost unchecked in the last three years). Three months ago Bhutto sent an e-mail to CNN to say that if she were killed, it would be because Musharraf kept reducing her security measures, and people should investigate him as her killer. Political analysts are saying only religious fanatics like Taliban assassins blow themselves up as Bhutto's murderer did.

Now her party has no one to run against Musharraf in the elections that are due to take place a little over a week from now, and there is no one else to oppose him. She was the most popular candidate, and during her last term in office, she nearly erased the Taliban's presence from Pakistan.

I'm not saying she was perfect. Both of her presidencies ended with her leaving accused of corruption. But she was a moderate influence. And she was one of the world's most powerful women in a part of the world where people don't believe women can achieve power. She was a blazing symbol for what women can achieve.

Not long before her murder (I won't call it by a pretty name like "assassination"), she told reporters that the welfare of her people was more important than her own life.

She also told the world, over and over, smashing at the wall of prejudice against all Muslims, "The Koran forbids violence against women."

It's tragic in so many ways that in her faith, as in every faith, there is a minority that refuses to follow the book they claim to support.

Go in peace, Benazhir Bhutto. We will remember.

If it is a sword or a dagger, it is not a handle! It is a HILT.

It is not a "road to hoe," it is a "row to hoe", as in gardening or farming!

It is not "honing in on something," it is homing" in, like the pigeons, or a signal!

Even copyeditors are missing stuff like this these days, and it's shameful and bad and wrong and it makes people like me start screaming while I'm happily reading a book! And all you have to do to fix the sword thing is look up the parts!

Okay, calm now.

Still lurking about . . .

So I have a confession to make--this book isn't coming as easily as some of the others. I suspect that counterfeiting just doesn't appeal to me as much as murder, epidemic disease, war, forest fires, and earthquakes do as plots. There's so much explaining to do with counterfeiting to do. I have to come up with a ring of counterfeiters (colemongers, in the book), and hide them where you won't spot them so easily. (Coles are fake coins.) I have to figure out who's making the coles (colesmiths), and hide them even deeper. How do you know a coin is fake? And how do you set out a major hunt for the counterfeiters without tipping off the whole country?

Because you see, that's the last thing Lord Gershom wants, and it's the last thing the Dogs who know there are false coins making their way into Tortall's moneystream want. There are always a few coles about, but this is a lot of them, which could turn the whole national economy on its ear. A search for the colemongers and the colesmiths has to be done quietly, by Dogs who can be trusted to keep it close. And how many Dogs would that be?

The hard Dogs of the Lower City have assembled some information, and all of it's bad. They know gamblers from Port Caynn are losing a lot of false silver coins in games in Corus and on the riverboats. Lord Gershom decides to start a quiet search within Corus for the fakes, and to send word to the Deputy Provosts of the cities, to warn them and to get them started on their own searches for colemongers. He sends Dogs out on the riverboats.

And to Port Caynn he sends two Dogs who just happen to be free. Remember that riot? Tunstall got both his legs broken. Yep. Both. And the problem with all those healings in the past is that he's built up an immunity. Healing now only takes him so far. The rest he has to do the hard way. That means Beka and Goodwin have each other. Goodwin is familiar with Port Caynn, as it happens, and she worked on the report about the colemongers for Lord Gershom. So did Beka. She also has the powerful Duke of Queenscove screaming for her hide because she talked back to his drunken son. Lord Gershom thinks Goodwin and Cooper are just the pair to send to Port Caynn to snoop around off the leash.

On the surface, they are there under the guidance of Sergeant Nestor Haryse, Gershom's cousin, posted to the Day Watch in Deep Harbor District in the port city to learn the way Dog work is done Port Caynn. They wander the city during the day, talking to people and looking around. At night, they're supposed to party in the gambling dens, losing money, winning coles, being sociable, making friends, and keeping their eyes open for the colemongers. Because all threads lead so far to Port Caynn.

Beka has already made friends in Port Caynn, too, it seems. It happened while she was still in Corus. One is a limber, laughing gambler named Dale, another is a hulking, hard-handed caravan guard named Hanse, and the third is his fellow guard, the slab-like Steen. (They all met during the riot.)

The problem is that Beka's and Goodwin's hunt may be over before it begins. Port Caynn's Rogue, Pearl Skinner, just had them kidnapped and brought to her. Pearl is a very nasty piece of work, and she doesn't like having strange Dogs in her city. She really doesn't like them interfering with her pickpockets, as Beka has already done. And she suspects that Beka may be a spy for Rosto, and that Rosto may be planning a move against her. Pearl's not as cool-headed as Rosto. She's thinking that now that she has these two Dogs, she might just send them back to Rosto in a box.



Now where did I put those counterfeiters?

And thanks, everyone, for the birthday wishes!