Friday Hangovers - Gwenda Bond

Yeah, yeah, I know! I disappeared again. But Christopher and I are finishing the first draft of our (sorta secret, except if you follow either of us on twitter or are facebook friends you know we're doing one) collaborative middle grade book today. Yep, we wrote a book together. In a month. And it was fun. Now we do some fixing, and show it to people, and I will definitely do a post about what I've learned from this process. Useful stuff I hope to take back to my solo work…especially since I'll be starting something new SOON.
Other excitment in the works: I do believe you will get to see The Woken Gods cover (eek!!!) next week. Again: !!! And I imagine ARCs will be floating around soon as well, and of course, the book itself will be out in September. I'll just be over here breathing into a paper bag. Anyway, hope you like it–cover, book, the whole shebang. And now some links!
Let's start with the ancient tales of a shapeshifting Jesus. Dan Brown, start your engines. (Via the estimable Colleen Lindsay.)
"Ancient Egyptian relics were made of iron from space."
And one more ancient things link–"Lost Egyptian City Revealed After 1200 Years Under the Sea."
Author Jennifer Lynne Barnes has written two amazingly smart, incredibly fascinating posts following up on the "what makes a big book?" discussion that John Green touched off with his post about TFiOS' success and what he believes factored into it. These are MUST READS if you're an author or in publishing or just talk about books in real life or online (especially the second one). Post the first and post the second.
A crazy crazy vendetta story at Salon involving Ringling Bros./Barnum & Bailey. As I've already said elsewhere, some of the things mentioned in here are why I created my own circus for Girl on a Wire…so I could have the kind of circus I wanted to write about. Because after all the reading I've done, I do find the revelations in that piece shocking, but not surprising (if that makes any sense). But hey, we've got AGES before you get to read that book, so I'll say no more.
A lovely profile of the wonderful Karen Berger in the NYT. She will be missed in the comics world; that's for sure.
Veronica Roth's BEA speech is well worth your time. Snippet: "People say that writing is an isolated activity, but good writing requires company. Company that you ultimately love and cherish and value, and this perspective towards criticism, ultimate improvement requires humility."
Baked Avocado Bacon and Eggs. This little piece of heaven came from the fab Beth Revis and I will be making it this weekend. YUM.
The long-lost (and apparently terrible) ET game for Atari might be unearthed from a landfill? Snippet: "A Canadian studio has confirmed to the BBC it will search a former landfill site in New Mexico where Atari's much-criticised ET game may be buried."
Best news: Karen Joy Fowler's We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves is this weekend's COVER REVIEW (by Barbara Kingsolver, who raves!) of the NYTBR. Read it! Yay! Great things happening to a great book by a great person. My favorite.

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