Hi all!

A note that if you’re not interested in tour events for Seasparrow or the preorder campaign but you are ARE interested in my writing process, scroll down past the two big, informative squares :). I share photos below of some of the tools I used to sustain my emotional mood while writing Seasparrow.

First, events. The release of Seasparrow is just around the corner — November 1 — and I have gatherings to share! I’m doing three local, in-person events and one virtual event. Everything’s listed below and you can get all the details at my Events page. (Please note that I’ll be signing books BEFORE my panel at the Boston Book Festival on October 29, NOT AFTER. I’ll add those details to my Events page as soon as I have them.) Please come join me and Hava!

Also, my US publisher, Penguin Random House, is running a preorder promotion for US readers. Readers in the US, preorder Seasparrow in any format, from any vendor, and register/upload your receipt here. Please hit @PenguinTeen at Twitter or Instagram with questions!

Finally, I have some photos to share from my writing notebooks for Seasparrow. Before Seasparrow, I always wrote in large, college ruled, spiral-bound, hard-covered notebooks — always, for every book. But a couple things changed as I transitioned from writing Winterkeep to writing Seasparrow. One change is that my physical pain increased and I started to have more hand and finger problems. I started to need more forgiving pens. I taught myself to write with my nondominant hand and began using both hands alternately to write my books.

Another, unrelated change is that for whatever reason, the voice or mood of Seasparrow felt different to me from anything I’d done before. I knew the book was going to be told from Hava’s first person perspective, and for some reason, I found myself searching for notebooks that felt Hava-ish to me. She doesn’t keep a diary, but if she did, maybe she would like the notebooks I chose?

The picture below shows a sampling.

The beautiful art shown in the two pictures below was created by Elise Hurst. You should definitely check out her website.

On October 23, 2018, I began the first serious first draft of Seasparrow on the page below.

Sometimes these notebooks gave me an opportunity to decide how Hava herself would fill in the boxes. 🙂

I also added stickers to my writing pages, as I’ve talked about before. The fox sticker below is the work of Kate at BearandFoxCo.

On the page below, I lined up a series of stickers to look like a skyline.

And Katie Harmon at PinkPolish Design created the very Hava-ish sticker below.

There’s a beauty and ease to filling your workday with images that feel like the writing you’re doing. Before I go, though, I’ll mention that there’s a hazard that goes along with it — namely, that when you read your own writing to assess whether it has the emotional impact you mean it to have, your judgment is clouded by the emotional impact created by the art around you! It’s the same with listening to music while you write, which is something many writers do effectively. It’s great if it works for you, but you need to make sure that when you read your own writing, you’re assessing its impact and its impact alone — not merely being swayed by the music you’re listening to. Use the tools that help you get through the hard work of creation, but don’t forget that the reader will be reading your words, and your words only. Your words must carry the book.

And that’s my news for today. I hope to see some of you out in the world for the release of Seasparrow! Happy reading, everyone.