writing updates #5

I have been writing about my writing, avoiding spoilers, but trying to paint a portrait of the day-to-day oddness that is the core of writing any novel.
I want to thank the kind people who have been waiting for this book for far too long (there are reasons, not interesting ones, for the delay).  

Welcome!!  readers from the Philippines, Germany, Poland, France, Canada, Russia, United Kingdom, USA, Georgia, India, Australia, South Korea,Latvia,Czech Republic, South Africa,
Hungary, Macedonia, Malaysia, Ukraine, New Zealand, !!  


Hello and thank you!!   I love it when you find me on FB, here, my website: http://www.kathleenduey.com, and twitter @kdueykduey


If you want to read the writing updates in order here are the links:

http://kathleenduey.blogspot.com/2011_04_01_archive.html
http://kathleenduey.blogspot.com/2011/05/writing-updates-all-projects-2.html
http://kathleenduey.blogspot.com/2011/06/writing-updates-3-2011.html
http://kathleenduey.blogspot.com/2011/07/writing-updates-4.html

......Or you can start here and fly on
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7.29.2011

Olive trees, those ancient, patient trees that watched Rome rise and fall. 

Today's writing will take me back to a place I don't want to go. The characters are real to me, especially now, in the third book of the trilogy...





I wrote most of the chapter yesterday, was amazed at the turn it took, stopped writing and answered fan messages for an hour or two instead of facing what I knew was coming.  Today, NOW, I have to go back.  


The City of Limori has been destroyed by war so many times over the centuries. Wizards and kings, back and forth, the people  swept up into a battle they become convinced is their own.
But it isn't.  It never was.


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7 30 2011

This is a Euphorbia. The thorns keep it safe. And if that isn't enough, the milky white sap can burn your skin or blind you. 

I was awake much of last night and slept in until 7:30am-- unusual for me.  I have been sitting at the desk, writing notes from last night's insomnia-blast of revelations. I am just about to start writing for the day, a chapter with Hahp and Gerrard. They have learned to survive the pressure and disorientation of the dark passages they live in, the strange tests they are given. But now, the wizards are gone and everything has stopped. Why?  


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The moon and one star. Taken with a shaky handheld camera, the lens madly searching for light. I held my breath and counted to sixteen before the shutter finally snapped.  

8.1.2011
I spent a lot of yesterday rereading what I have written so far. I also read first person accounts of coal miners and documents from early American mines that describe the effects of working and living underground--and being trapped there. So now I know that what Hahp said yesterday is true, that what he is feeling is not unusual and what he intends to do is a typical human reaction. And I know now what will happen to him if he manages it... 


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8. 5. 2011


I do critiques sometimes and yesterday was full of talking to people about their work.  It's always interesting and always makes me see my own work more clearly. So today I am going back into the dark stone corridors with no idea what will happen, just that I need to be there to record it when it does. 

Silk floss trees would rather be in  South America, but they tolerate California. The thorns are huge, and store water in dry seasons.  They can grow to 60 feet. mine is about 20 feet tall now.

The blooms always surprise me, like they were meant for some other more delicate, more poetic, less thorny tree. I am hoping for unexpected blooms today, for Sadima and Hahp. And Gerrard. Maybe especially for Gerrard.

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A bio-green-building in Paris....the windows are  reflecting the trees across the street. Do they talk? The wall-plants and the ground plants--do they discuss flat ground and roots pointing down vs. roots clinging to wire frames filled with soil three stories up and having roots parallel to the ground?

  The grand plan for a foggy Sunday:  Three writing sessions today. First 90 minutes on A Resurrection of Magic #3. Thanks to everyone writing to ask when it will come out. I KNOW it is taking too long, but it is a complicated book and I am writing as fast as I can. It is intensely emotional for me to write--if you have read the books, you know why.  Second session will be two projects I am not talking about yet, still exploring what will come next. Third session back to Limori and book #3. Now, off to DO all that....


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8.9 2011
An amazing thing is happening in Limori. Last night, the people in Market Square were stunned into silence, and so was I.  This morning, I will go back and see if I imagined it, if it was an illusion, or real. If it is, I have no idea what will happen to Sadima now, or the boys inside the cliffs. 

This is the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the picture was taken on an night walk.  When the tower was built, it amazed the world, a triumph of art and  steel, built to awe anyone who saw it. 

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Did more critiques yesterday, two by Skype.  Critiques in LA: twenty minutes (they have to, the volume of writers is massive) When I do them from home, average time about an hour.  Two more today, later in the day. For now, I am about to sneak onto the green of Limori's Market Square in the middle of the night and see if I can find out who is building this thing. (see below)  And why.

This ceiling is in the United Emirates,  in a hotel that was built to accommodate royal visitors. The gold is really gold. The "opera balconies" are about 40 feet overhead.  Sunlight pours through the high windows.  Somehow, nothing echos, all sounds are hushed. So I was standing in a hotel lobby feeling like a transfixed, rural pilgrim,  staring up at a cathedral/shrine/temple roof in 1429.  Strange and lovely.

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This is in Fez Morocco, a family business of leather tanners and dyers. It was amazing to watch them work, moving sheep skins from one basin to anther. . In Sacred Scars it is the tannery where Sadima sometimes goes to sit beneath the nearby trees, protected from interruption by the piercing stench, knowing that both Grrur and Charlie are close, as close as they can be now. 

I thought I knew what Somiss wanted, what he has searched for all this time. And I was wrong. I have three writing sessions planned today interspersed with my usual critiquing, tree trimming, planting, gardening, etc. The deepest insights come when I am outside doing something physical.  This one did, yesterday. I dropped the shovel and ran for my office.




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8:18:2010


I sort of auto-wrote something last night, right before I shut down to go to bed. I was in that tired, defenseless, fluid/creative state that disconnects writer-support from the character--and they begin to breathe on their own. I think it is the protagonist of the next book talking to me. I hope so. If it isn't, whoever she is, she will get a book out of me
someday.  (or the reverse?)


**added two days later***....below the photo is a short excerpt of what she said to me last night: 

This is an old butter churn.  I used it for years...then stopped spending every second of every day  to  grow and make food....so I could write books. It sits on my kitchen counter, a reminder and an old friend.  The voice that came to me has a butter churn just like this one. But she doesn't use it to make butter--or anything like butter.

The Mystery Voice

“It’s not what you think, this ain’t any thimblerig. I’ve never been afraid of my mother. She’s no help, not ever, but she never hurt me nor Kerf, not once.  It’s just that no one has seen her, not even Grabbat and she wouldn’t dare buy from no one else.  I’ve wished for that. For her going missing, staying gone. I’ve hoped for the day of never again having to help her come up with enough for one of Grabbat’s little blue bags. But Kerf is sick. He needs food and I can’t leave him alone to go work the station crowd. The hat boxes are all empty. I don’t have one single thing left to sell.”


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8. 24. 2011


This is Heather Brewer, me, and Ellen Hopkins, in Rochester NY, at a book festival (an AMAZING one) a few months ago. I am including it here because sometimes the weirdness of writing (like any other weirdness) can only be honestly discussed with friends who share it.  So, Yeah. We talked writing!!! And when any of us mentioned hearing voices, the other two just nodded.  

Last night, just a few minutes before I closed up shop, Hahp started talking to me on the screen. And now I understand something in Skin Hunger that had never made sense to me before. I am about to start today's work. Hahp is near the lake, searching that huge dark chamber...he is hoping.  And so am I. 


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8. 26. 2011
About to start writing for the day. I kind of dread it this morning because I have come to love Limori and some of the things happening in the city of Limori are happening in my country, right now, too. So I guess even in books people are...people...wary and unfair. 

This is a South American ice cream bean blossom. It's a pretty, rangy, tree with weirdly shaped leaves. New leaves are a deep blood red that changes to vivid green as they grow...Inga edulis is the Latin name. The fruit, which is not really a fruit, is amazing. It took me a long time to try it, I think because the tree itself is so...unfamiliar. 



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8.30. 2011
The thing I am wrestling with now is that I have come to love the characters or pity and understand them, or I wish I could help them....so the hard scenes are REALLY hard to write.  I have to write with hope, but I have to record what happens without making it up.  And, yes, I know that sounds silly, but that is how it feels to me. If *I* write this story, it is going to be untrue--probably at least a little sappy with almost everyone surviving and finding some kind of life. And I know that isn't what really happens. It couldn't. 

There are too many isolated, protected, powerful people involved. There are too many descendants of massive wealth in the city of Limori, most of whom harbor old hatreds, old rivalries.  There is so much decadence, extravagant entertainments,exotic foods and a life-long feeling that they deserve to live this way as the step around the beggar children, annoyed at unpleasant smells.  But there is no one with the means to stop it because they also pay guards and buy their loyalty. 

I woke up this morning knowing this: There are a lot of desperate poor people in Limori, too, many more poor than rich, as is always and ever the truth.  

This is a teapot, decorated with a bracelet. It sits on a table in South End, in a quiet room waiting for children to arrive. The woman who owns the tea pot is named Theodora Nerak. You haven't met her yet, but you will. 




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Writing updates #4

If you want to read all the recent  updates you can find them here:

http://kathleenduey.blogspot.com/2011_04_01_archive.html
http://kathleenduey.blogspot.com/2011/05/writing-updates-all-projects-2.html
http://kathleenduey.blogspot.com/2011/06/writing-updates-3-2011.html

Or you can just start with this one and fly on....


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July  8 2011

Book #3 of A Resurrection of Magic, in progress:

Late last night I finally understood the difference between  the acceptance of  love and the call of duty for three of the characters. I don't like what this means in terms of where I have to start today, but I don't have a choice. And it is after ten o'clock am here in CA and I need to stop procrastinating NOW.  Sigh.  Sometimes writing is painful.
The first two of the trilogy:

art copyright David Ho

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It is astounding what people can build from stone and mud: from hope and courage: from despair and longing.  

July 10 2011
Before I start to write my current work today:
Free Rat: a story that has been incubating inside me for almost 15 years. It might be the next YA  book, or maybe next to next. It took over my fingers and my brain last night again. Sometimes all I can do is listen and type.  I am thinking about it more and more because even though I began weaving it a long time ago, it seems to be weaving itself now.Maybe because every time I read the news, I realize how close to my own world it really is. Mine and yours.

And now, back to the city of Limori, and everything it is hiding...

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July 13th, 2011

Trees have even more moods than people do-- This one matches mine this morning, perfectly, as I stare down the barrel of the chapter I am about to start... 

In Limori Sadima is isolated and facing a decision so huge that I keep starting the scene over and over, because it hurts to write it and the last part will be the worst if it goes the way I think it might. Hahp and Gerrard are still both alive, both angry, and scared.  I am hoping for some kind of happy ending but I can't see it from here. Yet. I am about 3/4s done. I think. I hope. It is getting longer and longer..

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I wrote a scene last night that I am almost sure will be "questioned" once the book is out. Sigh. I will read it again this morning and see if I was right about it being inevitable, necessary. I am almost sure it is. No actual sex involved...but there are other things.  Fantasy seems to slip past the censorship fans. We'll see.

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7 20 2011

This is me, typing.  And typing.

I am getting into the part of the book where things tighten and slowly begin to fall into place. I  find there is almost nothing I can say that isn't a spoiler. Market Square is a dangerous place now.  The poor people hold their children close and the rich are hiring guards.

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7.21.2011

First, I want to thank the people from all over the world who are reading this blog--about 500 of you this week so far!

Next:
Thanks to everyone on Face Book and Twitter who stay in touch and read these updates!!

WRITING UPDATE
In Limori, there is a rising chaos. This is the first time in the city's history that powerful merchants and City Magistrates (most descended from the old royal houses) are dealing with Magicians who have prolonged their lives in order to perfect magic. This is the first time Eridians have had both wealth and influence. There will be no easy victory this time, fought only by guards hired by each faction. There will be no behind-closed-doors compromises made.

Sadima, Hahp and Gerrard are still alive... and that's all I can say without spoilers. (trust me, I just tried four or five times to be vague enough and couldn't.)

Thanks for all the messages here and FB and Twitter and my website http://www.kathleenduey.com
Every kind word about my books is wonderful and appreciated.

Taken from a train window on the way to San Luis Obispo....marshes are lovely to me.  There are marshes north of Limori's South End. Sistra's mother is buried there. I had no idea how important that would become in the third
 book. .....where and how she was buried. 

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7 22 2011

Sometimes it is music that shows me how to write a scene.  This morning, thanks to Elvis Costello and Fiona Apple for a lesson in immersion, conflict and  pain.  (and thanks to Richard for sending this to me weeks ago. I have watched it many times since) 

  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiOmhOumh-w

San Luis Obispo train ride...The tracks come so close the the edge of the bluffs...so close ..... 

bombax blooms!

 bombax flowers begin as green and brown pods that elongate slowly, then erupt overnight into full bloom.  This one is in my back yard.  Click any of these twice for max enlargement. 

The flowers last only a day or two, and I love them even  more because of that.  I have decided that they grow in Limori, inside the cliffs, in Jux's forest, magically, unnaturally, on command.... 

Writing updates book #3: 2011

image copyright Omar Rayyan, 1999

I love this illustration, created for The Unicorn's Secret.  It's a series, eight slim books written so that third graders can read it, but almost half the fan mail is from adults.  The story came from dreams I had in gradeschool, contiguous dreams that went on for about a year and a half and  felt like a second life. Every night I went back to the same place, then, when night fell in the dream, I would go to sleep there and wake up *here*.  Writing these books was the beginning of my strong preference for letting the story write itself. 

http://www.kathleenduey.com/KidsBooks/  for first chapter excerpts.

okay, on to much darker things.....

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Resurrection of Magic book #3---in progress. 

Traveling always interrupts my work, but it also provides distance. After a week of teaching writing, I spent the first two days here at  home rereading.  Here's what I know now. Hahp has passed a point of no return--and he knows it.  Gerrard is hiding something, from me, from everyone.  Sadima's choices are heartbreaking, logical, impossible. I can only hope.

An acacia tree that died, maybe...didn't.

I have almost 50 solid chapters now, and the time lines are crossing, converging. The city is on the edge of terrible things and the boys in the cliff are almost beyond fear. Almost.  I have one more conference next weekend--four days counting planes days--and am taking my Neo with me.  Then I have a whole month at home. This is so hard to write. I love these people.  

Thanks to everyone getting in touch to ask when the book will be finished. Soon. Probably all too soon...

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6 26 2011

Euphorbias -- the fleshy cactus-like limbs sometimes drop and rot, but the thorns live on and on and on....like bones. 

Just returned home from two conferences, back to back. I'm always amazed by the blooming writers in my class sessions and critique sessions. My two-day home-again acclimation is over. The garden is tended, the jet lag is gone and about half of the third Resurrection of Magic book is now sent off to gather early feedback. I will start the day by rereading chapters, listening to my recorders, reading the pile of notes from me to me... and then, probably around noon, I will start writing. 

There is so much trouble in the city of Limori.  The boys in the cliffs can't hear the shouting or see the guards' hands, always on their sword sheaths. They can't see the beggar children in South End who stand silently, one hand out, afraid to speak, to ask anyone for food...but they can feel something changing, collapsing... 

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6 29 2011

between thunderstorms in Florida...

Last night, very late and very sleepy, I might have gotten a glimpse of how things will end.  I cried, then smiled, then wrote the notes and filed them.  I am a long way from writing those end scenes...but not THAT long...so it's good to have the future revealing itself.  

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6 30 2011

I woke up dreading the place I have to start today.  Immediate, unscripted, un-outlined writing is all about not letting yourself blink, or run away.  I know what will probably happen and I just have to record it accurately whether I am right or wrong.

some trees are like poems 

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The backstory in this trilogy is so intricate that I find myself rereading sections of the first two books to check details, to make sure the physical set up of some part of the city is consistent, but then I keep reading far past what I needed to read, notice small things that set me thinking and I finally look up from the book when I realize I am hungry. I am a deep writer. Maybe not an efficient one, though.

But there is THIS:

Karen Bale and I wrote this book for middle grade readers many years ago. It stays in print--and once in a while, gets translated again.  This is the brand new German version--a reminder that life and death drama never gets old. Heroism--and the lack of it--play a part in every life. 

WIFYR (( Writers and Illustrators for Young Readers conference...))

I am just back from an WIFYR  conference in Utah. I met with my class for five days--four-hour sessions each day. It was the best teaching experience I have ever had. We critiqued as a group and I tried to tell them everything I know--and/or suspect about writing. Writer-bloom filled the room!!!

This is the view from the campus....the colors change with every shift of light, every cloud shadow.



The lovely, incredible and famous King's English
Bookstore  was kind enough to hold a pot-luck
dinner for authors and others. The food was so good! The people were wonderful....

and oh, the BOOKS!!!






THE BOOKS...

THE BOOKS!!!
The store is in an old and beautiful neighborhood. There are five or six interesting book rooms, a gorgeous and artsy patio, amazingly informed and helpful staffers and, as befits a premier independent bookstore....an *astounding* range of books.

The faculty http://www.wifyr.com/   was full of people I like and admire, including the brilliant Holly Black, so every meal was a writer-fest.
and .....




I got to see Shannon Hale  at The King's English Bookstore!!  We once shared a panel in San Antonio and try to keep in touch. She is fun, funny, and one of the nicest people I know.




I am just hoping WIFYR will ask me back. (Are you listening Carol?)

thanks!!!

this picture was taken in Wisconsin, a state full of odd and lovely trees and very nice people.

Thanks to everyone for writing to me, leaving comments here, getting in touch through FB, Twitter, my website, my publishers, etc.  It makes me write better, and sometimes faster. In a few days, I fly to Utah to talk to writers about their work http://www.wifyr.com/ .  Then I will be back in CA for three days before I go to join http://www.marjettageerling.com/ and Michelle Burke of Random House publishing and everyone else at http://www.scbwiflorida.com/details.htm.

THEN, SCBWI LA (after all)

After that I have a blank calender until October.  I will be chained to my desk during that time--finishing (then revising) the third book of the trilogy. I can't wait to hear your reactions. I think...I hope, it is going to be amazing.

P.S.  I think I will be going to SCBWI after all, mostly living in the critique room...!
http://www.scbwi.org/Conference.aspx?Con=8



this picture was taken in Wisconsin, a state full of odd and lovely trees and very nice people.

Resurrection of Magic

 Two stories, 200 years apart. The first story causes the second one.



I am writing the third book now. Click the red link for more news:  http://kathleenduey.blogspot.com/

Rochester NY Teen Book Festival. WOW.

 Heather Brewer, me, Ellen Hopkins


Terry Trueman


Plus twenty- four more teen and tween authors.....and about 4,000 other wonderful  people...
   

Teachers and teens fill the room... Ms. Johnston loves literature!! Her students learn about peanut butter poofs, her family in Germany--and how to read deeper and write better.

....Everyone had a fabulous time at The Rochester Teen Book Festival.  We had amazing transportation...a lovely vintage bus, classic cars!!! A marching band and a Drum Corps met us at the gate. There was amazing food, a beautiful campus, a little misty rain, and BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS.  (Note to all the teen boys who did not come to the book festival. Look at the above photos carefully. Lots of girls. Smart, interesting, girls. Next year, get on the bus!!)

Check out the art behind Heather and me...even the faculty dinner restaurant was amazing.




YAY Rochester!!!  A thousand thanks to Stephanie A. Squicciarini  and her amazing staff. Nothing went wrong, EVERY SINGLE THING went right.  If you can get to Rochester next year, do it. I am hoping to be there.  

writing updates, all projects #2

What is better than the mile long post Writing Updates 2011?   MORE writing updates that pick up where it left off. And this one is important. A weight has lifted. I can now go on with the writing....because...

Yesterday was one of those days that starts with prolonged frustration and continues into headdesk confusion that sends me outside with a shovel to re-arrange the earth.

Then late in the evening it suddenly bloomed into 2000 words that are so right, so perfect, that it was worth the wait.  Sadima has made the decision.  Not the one I expected, but the one I hoped for. So. This changes everything for her, for me, for the city of  Limori.

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5/17/2011

Back from Rochester NY. Traveling is always interesting, and sometimes amazing, even though it interrupts my work. I took manuscript pages with me and read on the planes...and I think the 400 or so pages I have written is good. Maybe really good. So today I am going back to Limori.

The basics: Somiss and Franklin and Sadima and Hahp are all still alive.  So is Gerrard. Winter is ending now and Sadima has made the monstrous decision I thought she *wouldn't* make. The angry young men in South End are crossing the line into the city of Limori. Guards are everywhere. Hatred and blame and anger are everywhere, too.  The children of the wealthiest people have guards of their own, hired by their anxious  parents...and things are getting worse. Sadima is crossing Market Square, walking fast, hoping...

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5/19/2011

It is 7:30 am. I am rocking back and forth in my chair, wishing I knew what was going to happen today.  The boys inside the cliffs are facing something deep and true and lethal.  The ordeals they have lived through are enough, too much, really, for anyone to endure, but this will be the thing that defeats them. Maybe. They are almost at the point of not caring and that might save them.  Maybe.

The photo was taken from a plane window, flying at 37,000 ft. This is Iceland.  I was coming home from Dubai and Abu Dhabi school visits. Skin Hunger had just been published. A teacher at one of the schools was the first person to read it and tell me he loved it.

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Hahp knows what he has to do and he knows what it is going to cost him. So do I.  Oh, man this is going to be a hard one to write. If I am still coherent by the end of the day, I will add to this and let you know how it went. Blood is involved--and fear.

This was taken from a train window, traveling north along the pacific coast.

This is where I want to be today. But I am not. I am in my office and scared to start writing. But I will.  NOW.

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Last night was a blind leap and now I need to read the pages again and see if it is as true as it seemed. I think it will be. I hope so. It is hard when you love the people in the book and you know that not all of them can possibly survive the shitstorm you know is coming. They know it, too.

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May 23 2011

This Aloe bainesii tree is in the front yard ((that isn't a yard. really.))

Yesterday's  pages were deep and true and painful.  And today I have to get back to the task of tweaking time lines again before I can go on....Hope to be writing new words by about 2:00pm PDS.  The next scene is pretty tense...and sometimes that means it won't be anything like I imagined it would be.

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May 26th:

I want to start by thanking everyone who has written to me about my books. You can't imagine what it means to me. I try to answer at least some of the messages. Please know that I am just overwhelmed in projects right now, I appreciate every single word you write. I always have. You would be amazed how much your responses give me courage.

http://kathleenduey.blogspot.com/2011/02/unicorns-secret-new-covers.html
art copyright Omar Rayyan, from The Unicorns Secret:



WRITING UPDATE!
Today, in the troubled city of Limori,  something terrible will happen. Hahp won't know about it--he is inside the cliffs, trying to find a way out. Neither will Sadima. She is caught between what is right and what might save someone she loves.  But it is going to change both of their lives.

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Hahp is facing a terrible choice this morning, if it is morning.  There is no daylight inside the cliffs except inside Jux's forest--if it is a forest. A wizard has pounded on the door, then walked away--so no classes today. Hahp can smell a faint scent of smoke in the stale, still air. That scares him.  It should.

This is a tree in the courtyard of the Alamo.
Where people who could have run away stayed and died.
Yes. All the images echo the book one way or another.


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5-26-2011

Yesterday's pages were painful to write. Reading them this morning...what happened makes sense, I can see it as I read it....and the emotional depth was there. I cried again.  So....back to work now.  I usually clean up the previous day's work, which also gives me a running start.

This epiphyllum didn't bloom last year.  I think the rain this winter made it happy enough to blossom.  The flowers last a couple days, tops, but they are spectacular, hanging downward at the end of long, flat, leaf-links. This one is about 8 inches across. Within a few days, the flower with shrivel and it will be a scruffy green succulent plant again, plagued by snails, drab and almost invisible to anyone walking past.

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June 1 2011
Inside the cliffs...two people have just been reunited, more or less. One of them is probably not going to live much longer. Outside the cliffs, the city of Limori is seething. And now I will go see what happens next.

I was standing on top of a sea cliff in Hawaii when I took this, looking straight down at the ocean--which is never, ever, still.










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6  3 2011

Sitting here trying to summarize yesterday's writing without a spoiler and this is the best I can do.  All this training, all the magic, all the brutality it takes to learn it...changes people forever. It has to.  So it is spring in Limori but the flowers are not blooming this year.

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I have started to write this update three or four times, then delete it because the story is entering the last third of the book and anything I say will be a spoiler. So, just the basics:  Hahp and Gerrard are alive. Sadima is alive. Everything is changing, partly because of things happening outside the cliffs. As always, it is hard for the boys to tell what is real and what isn't.  And there's this:  I cried for a long time last night because of the chapter I had just written.

Small World!

Another thanks to all the people reading my books here at home and outside the US.

A young man from Russia contacted me last week for information for a class presentation. I hope it went well.  If you know Anton, tell him hello for me!  Anyone can contact me through my website:  http://www.kathleenduey.com


visitors: 
May 23 2011:

United States, United Kingdom, Israel, Russia, Slovenia ,Taiwan, Canada, Australia, Germany, Georgia, Malaysia, Japan, Australia, Philippines, Arab Emirates, Turkey, Ukraine, Brazil, Poland, South Africa, Romania, Hungary, New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand, France, China, Switzerland!!!  Ireland...hello!  My great grandparents left there to come here.   

Hello to everyone...I wish you all peace, prosperity, and happiness. 

A Resurrection of Magic: Balance.

 In my trilogy, A Resurrection of Magic, students are required to do the impossible. Random videos sometimes help me imagine the kind of disciplines learning real magic would include. The line between skill and magic is astonishingly thin. 

video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knowhnbCV-E

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