Gwenda

• Novel draft currently sitting at 323 pages with about three or so chapters to finish, which means it will be the longest book I've written. My goal is to get the last chapters all drafted by Sunday afternoon so that I can cart my print out along for the polish and read-through pass next week, which is a flurry of travel and things, ending up with a whirlwind trip to NYC and out to Rhinebeck for the Oblong Books event (preorders available if you want a signed copy but can't make it). Anyway, I love this weird crazy book but am nervous as hell about it, and will be glad when it is complete and out of my hands for a bit. (No, this isn't The Woken Gods. This is secret book.) (NYC peeps, I hope to see some of you–will be in touch.)
• I can't remember if I've mentioned this here, but I am SO excited to have an essay (mine's called "Asking for a Friend") in the upcoming collection of essays about The Mortal Instruments series from Smart Pop Books, Shadowhunters and Downworlders. Here's the TOC and some info from Cassie, as well as a link to her introduction. Check it out.
• Malinda Lo has a couple of must-read posts this week: Heteronormativity, fantasy, and Bitterblue Pt. 1 and Pt. 2.
• "The Rise of the Backdoor Fantasy Story" by Annalee Newitz; I love these kinds of books.
• Helen Lowe talks with one of my favoritefavorite authors Elizabeth Knox at SF Signal.
• A really interesting profile of the generally delightful Tavi Gevinson. I do wish she seemed to like or read modern YA–though perhaps sentimentally, because her inspiration for Rookie was Sassy, which introduced me to the Weetzie Bat books (and many other wonders). Still: Rookie is great.
• RT rounds up some page to screen deals, including Blackwood (which makes me happy because I adore RT). 
• Fabulous keynote address text from Beth Kephart at Publishing Perspectives: "Lamp Lighters and Seed Sowers: Tomorrow's YA."
• "Derelict to Divine: Charlie Chaplin's London Water Tower Home."
• Skulls carved from books. And, on that note, happy weekending.

• Still. working. on. it.  (Though going well, on track I think, etc.) In the meantime, a few links.
• At the First Second blog, some reasons titles get changed. 
• Writing fight scenes, advice from some experts: "The most common mistake is probably the one that cannot really be corrected. Most fight scenes with weapons go on too long. The saying in the Filipino arts that I do is there are only three good stick fights: thud; click, thud; click, click, thud. Anything else means you don’t really know how to fight. Since most of the time, stories are about extraordinary people with extreme skills, fights that last minutes–even a minute–are unrealistic."
• A profile of the divine Liz Hand.
• PW covers a panel on the YA blockbuster.
• I do love a missing (or imaginary) island.
• Fantasy heroines from the 1980s in art nouveau renderings; love these.
• Daniel Handler interviewed in the NYT: "You have to wonder if dictators muse about how scary they are to certain young generations. Nowadays, with social networking, you could actually just name somebody. That would be terrifying if you were a dictator and you said, “There’s no one I hate more than such and such,” an 11-year-old in Lincoln, Neb."
• Midori Snyder pulls out some of the Voynich Manuscript's most lovely pages. 
• A nice Blackwood shout-out in Heroes & Heartbreaker's recent look at some YA and romance novels being adapted for the screen. (If you haven't seen the gorgeous first teaser trailer for the City of Bones movie, then what are you waiting for? It's also at that link. I. cannot. wait.)
• And another one among these recommendations from Suzanna Hermans of Oblong Books on WAMC–the one and only Libba Bray and I will be at Oblong at 4 p.m. on December 9. Come out if you can. (I'll also be in NYC briefly before and after.) 
• With that, I'm back to work.

• Let's get this link party started with a fantastic kickstarter I urge you to support. John Picacio–who's been nominated for or won every fantasy/SF art award under the sun, and deservedly so–is launching a new business. First up is the 2013 John Picacio Calendar, filled with amazing art and which you can snag exclusively via his kickstarter (plus other bonus goodies, depending on your contribution level). I've known John for years, and I suspect his world domination is nigh. And it couldn't happen to a more talented, nicer, or harder-working guy.
• Alexander McCall Smith on the allure of lady detectives in fiction, celebrating a new edition of the book featuring the very first fictional woman sleuth.
• Pyromaniac fun with candles just in time for Thanksgiving.
• Fairy wrens and secret passwords.
• The nine circles of Dante's Hell…in lego. 
• I found this comparison of women's magazine covers when they launched and now fascinating. (That first Glamour cover!)
• Laini Taylor on independent bookstores, e-reading, and more. So much of this resonated with me. Yes.
• An editor's perspective on editorial letters at Pub Crawl.
• Truly excellent interview with Philip Pullman–I was surprised by his superstitions. Snippet: "This is the value for me of writing books that children read. Children aren't interested in the least about your appalling self-consciousness. They want to know what happens next. They force you to tell a story." Also: A His Dark Materials TV show really could be amazing.
• This post by Kathy at Stellar Four about YA novels where male and female characters work together as equals made me very happy, not least because it includes my Phillips and Miranda in its list of couples.
• And last, my KidLit Cares auction item ends tonight at 10 p.m. EST. I'm offering a 50 page SFF critique, with bonus spitballing or pitch help via phone or email if the writer so chooses.
• And now it's back to work. End in sight, deadlines swirling, etcetera.

• Happy Wednesday, because yes, yes, it is one. To celebrate, a collection of many links…
• An excellent Vulture interview with Callie Khouri about Nashville et things. Snippet: "We’re constantly looking for songs that we love, and then we write towards them. We go, “Here’s where we’re starting, story-wise,” and then as we go along, we get a bunch of songs that we know we want to record, and we record a block of them. Then we just start folding them into story at various points." (You are watching this show, right? RIGHT?)
• I've been remiss in not pointing to the indiegogo to help revitalize legendary and amazing children's/YA bookstore Books of Wonder. Go here for more info and to pitch in; they've got two weeks left and are less than halfway to their goal.
• The entire archive of Omni magazine is online.
• Also via io9: freaky dancing pig.
• The New York Times hit Kentucky's doughnut trail. Combine it withthe bourbon one, and you know you want to come visit.
• Getting ready to entertain for the holidays or need a great cookbook for a gift? I can't believe I haven't mentioned the FABULOUS Kim O'Donnel's brand-new cookbook, The Meat Lover's Meatless Celebrations, the follow-up to her The Meat Lover's Meatless Cookbook, which is a stand-by in our house. Here's a great review of the new one. (I believe we test-kitchened at least one recipe in here and it was AMAZEBALLS. Must get a copy and try the rest, stat.)
• The cat cafe culture of Tokyo at Messy Nessy Chic.
• Fascinating Slate look at the National Book Awards intrigue in 1962, the year Walker Percy's The Moviegoer won. (Semi-related: In Nancy Pearl's recent Locus magazine interview, she said The Moviegoer didn't hold up for her when she went back for a reread. Which has now made me afraid to read it again, since I loved it the first time around. Ah, here's a post from Pearl about her disappointing revisit.)
• Why Authors Are Crazy tumblr. (Hat tip to Malinda Lo for the pointer.)
• The most excellent Carrie Ryan has a brand-new book out, the second in the  Infinity Ring series, Divide and Conquer.
• PW covered the KidLit Cares auction.
• Great post on showing and telling from Zoë Marriott.
• The always super-smart Beth Revis on why sometimes you have to delete to move ahead with a project…and why that is winning.
• Tie-in dolls from Twilight, LOTR, The Vampire Diaries, and others repainted to insanely realistic results.

My thoughts and sympathies are with everyone hit so hard by Hurricane Sandy and her downward spiral into destruction this week. My agent sister Kate Messner (who is generally amazing) has started the KidLit Cares auction to raise funds for relief efforts. I'm currently trying to decide what to donate, but will post here once my contribution goes up in case anyone's interested in bidding.

And Happy NaNoWriMo to those participating! I'm not doing it, but I am finishing this revision this month, hell or high water, as they say, and plan to suck all that novel-y energy that's in the air right in. Annd another member of the household just might be officially word counting in order to novel finish, not novel start. (If you're hoping it's Emma the Dog, well, you'll have to wait a while longer for her opus, I'm afraid. She has no thumbs.)

Some links:

• For the NaNo-ers, a helpful post from Sarah MacLean.
• How old is that bourbon? Why it probably doesn't matter, and may even be better younger.
• Famous writer maladies revealed! (My favorite book like this is the excellently titled Boswell's Clap and Other Essays.)
• Creepy Wikipedia entries.
• Real-life Island of the Blue Dolphins cave found?
• The delightful Sarah Rees Brennan talks cliffhangers.
• A great post from Robin LaFevers on creating character, which invokes Michael Hauge's theory of identity vs. essence, and other really helpful things.
• I loved Robin Wasserman's post about what scares her. Yesss, amorphous evil. My favorite kind.
• The one and only Beth Revis is running an ENORMOUS giveaway, a library of about fifty signed books from everyone she's done an event with this year, to celebrate the upcoming release of the last book in the Across the Universe trilogy.