Ahh, the start of Spring!
You may not feel it, if you’re reading this from north of the equator,
but here at our place it’s like the first touches of the changing season are
thrumming in your blood – the blossoms and leaves are bursting out, all green
and pink and fresh, and you feel the nip of cold more keenly as your skin gets
impatient to feel air and sun again. And
it’s still cold, of course: the fire still burns in our house every night, and
sometimes during the day as well, and you still can’t hang washing
outside. I’m soo sick of wearing thermal
underwear – I can’t wait for t-shirts and shorts and skirts again! The house feels crowded as we all start
stretching. But jackets and warm socks
and scarfs are still de rigeur come afternoon…
I’m emerging from self-imposed exile, after two weeks of
knuckling down, finishing the edits/rewrites for Every Move. And they’re
done! That is, the complicated narrative
part is done. Now comes the fine edit,
when we prune away some of the excess verbiage, and make the book leaner and tougher
and right handsome. Someone asked me
what that meant, to give a book a ‘trim’, and I said it’s like cutting the
excess fat off a chunk of beef. My only
concern is that this book could be a complicated trim, as the fat is veined
right through the meat, like a nice marbled steak. But my editors, Eva and Sophie, are both
experienced knife-wielders, so I’ve no doubt that it’ll work out okay!*
Every Move is due
for release in March 2015 – it goes to the printers in November. If you’re anticipating it, I can only say
that it’s a wild ride, and takes Rachel back to places – and people – she thought
she’d left behind… The book has been a
real labour of love (ie. it was bloody hard work), but I’m very happy with it,
and I hope you will be too.
Now here’s some other cool news – Every Breath was awarded a Highly Commended in the Sisters in Crime
Davitt Awards for Best YA Fiction, which is thrilling and amazing. Here’s a little pic of me and the other
winners on the night, as well as Lauren Beukes (The Shining Girls, Broken
Monsters) who presented the awards.
A hearty congratulations to everyone!
While Every Breath
didn’t make it past the shortlist for the Ned Kelly Awards (and congrats too to
Candice Fox, who won the Best Debut category of that award with her excellent
book Hades), there is another award
that Every Breath is listed for – and
which you can help out with.
Every Breath has
been shortlisted for a Centre for Youth Literature award – the Gold Inky. And now that the shortlist has been decided,
YOU can be the one who chooses the winner.
If you’re between 12-20 years of age, GO HERE to vote in the Inky Awards
(Gold for Australian, Silver for International), and whether you’re voting for Every Breath or not, I do encourage you
to vote! Because the Inkys are the only
award in the country where teenaged readers can choose which – in their opinion
– are the best books of that given year – that’s right, you choose. I really want to see the Inkys continue
strongly onward, so that teenagers themselves can exercise their right to vote
on which books rock their world.
So go vote! Vote for
Every Breath, if you loved it, or vote for another book you loved – but definitely
VOTE!
Finally, the most thrilling bit of all – Every Breath is about to be released by
Tundra Books in North America and the Philippines!! I am VERY EXCITED (I can’t really express how
excited I am, except to use a lot of exclamation marks and say that I’m squeeing
a lot) that the October 14 release date is drawing ever-closer, and even more
excited that there will soon be a blog tour.
The blogs that are participating so far are listed below, and I’d like
to say a massive welcome and thank you, to all participating bloggers!
It is quite incredible to think that – very soon – people in
Canada, the US and the Philippines will be reading Rachel and Mycroft’s
adventures, and checking out Melbourne in the pages of a book I wrote.
I find that staggering! And I
hope folks love it, and laugh, and I hope they crush on Rachel and James, and I
hope… Oh, so many things I hope! But above all, I wish Every Breath luck on its travels, and the love of many new friends
on the way.
So that’s all the news, but I’ll be updating again soon with
more info about the blog tour and upcoming release. Until then, I’m enjoying a well-earned break
after the excitement of Melbourne Writers Festival, school visits, Adelaide
Emerging Writers Festival, sick kids, sick husband, Davitt Awards, Book Week,
CBCA events, edits, rewrites and blah blah etc – I’m actually LOVING being able
to read again. I sometimes have to take
a break from reading while I’m deep in writing mode, as I find I get so
absorbed in some books that I either a)can’t tear myself away, or b)find myself
thinking about the characters and plot of someone else’s book all day, when I
should be thinking about my own.
But now I can read again – and I’ve had a few books saved up
in celebration. Right now I’m totally
sucked into 18th century Scotland with the Outlander series (Diane
Gabaldon), and after that I’m going slightly crazy hanging out for Blood of My Blood, the finale of the Jasper
Dent series (Barry Lyga). I’m also a bit
desperate to finally read This Shattered
Earth (Amie Kaufman/Megan Spooner), We
Were Liars (E. Lockheart), and The Incredible
Adventures of Cinnamon Girl (Melissa Keil), and I’m pretty sure there’s
other books on my TBR pile as well…
I hope you have a good book to read right now, to get you
through the early weeks of the season, and a nice warm spot to read it in. Have a great week – remember to go vote for
the Inkys! – and see you on the blog tour J
Xx Ellie
* If I’m going to draw that analogy, I have to say too that
sometimes cutting the fat makes you bleed, as if the meat comes from your own
body. So it stings a bit. An experienced and gifted editor will make
sure that the knife doesn’t knick an artery, and drain the lifeblood of the
piece. Both my editors are gifted, for
which I ‘m enormously grateful. I do
have to keep the BandAids handy though, for minor wounds…
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