Atlantic Author Day

It's been quiet over here. Quiet in my head, too. Writing has largely been shuffled aside for the past month or so, and we know already that Missy's not one to wait patiently. More on that in a moment.

Well into the summer and fall, a new season of signings and readings and bookish events begins. Tomorrow I'm all over Halifax and Dartmouth, appearing at bookstores as a part of Atlantic Author Day. Catch me at the following locations tomorrow, Saturday, June 26, 2010:

10:00 - 11:00 AM -- Chapters Mic Mac Mall

11:15 - 12:15 PM -- Tattletales Bookstore, downtown Dartmouth

1:00 - 2:00 PM -- Chapters Bayers Lake

3:00 - 4:00 PM -- Woozles, downtown Halifax

I'm excited to be chatting with readers again. And I've finally given in to signing books with my actual signature rather than writing out my full name. It's a bit loopy and unintelligible. But writing my name makes me feel like I'm doodling on a social studies binder in grade seven. So if you've got a copy of The Dread Crew (or if you'd like one if the gorgeous new softcovers with the new Glossary of Terms), and you're not averse to loopy scrawls, show up tomorrow. I'd love to meet you.

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The next book turns its attention to Missy, you might already know. She travels the world and meets new and strange pirate crews, and becomes a spy herself, and encounters a mystery -- in that order. We'll still have Dreads, and Eric and Joe feature too. The deadline for her manuscript is this coming November, and up until a month ago, I was in the thick of it. I'd written one-quarter of the book, by measure of word count -- though I don't write in a linear way, and so those words hop and jump all over the story. But still. I was chugging along the underground of London, England... among the tall grasses of the prairies... in the Chief's office at the union's eastern seaboard headquarters... and way up in the northern forest around Hudson Bay.

Then June arrived, and writing stalled. And Penelope, my editor, kindly read a few snippets of Missy's story and said OMG HURRY UP and THIS ONE'S GONNA BE EVEN BETTER and IF I SEE ONE MORE @*#*%^!*!! BLOG POST FROM YOU I'M GONNA COME OVER THERE WITH MY OWN PIRATE CREW OF EDITORS AND WE'RE GOING TO WHIP YOU WITH BALES OF STINGING NETTLE UNTIL YOU GET BACK TO MISSY'S BOOK.

Penelope actually said the first two of three. She transmitted the third psychically.

I can feel Missy tapping on my shoulder. She agrees with Penelope, and she wants me to start writing again on July 1. And so I'll follow her, back up into the sky.