BOOK NEWS!

WHOOP!

I have news! 

I am so excited to tell you about this. 

Can you tell!?!

I might be using more exclamation points than are allowed for a few weeks

because...

TWO MORE BOOKS!!!

 Ah. I am exuberant. 

I am ecstatic. 

Thank you, Molly O'Neill and Root Literary,

thank you, Nikki Garcia and Little, Brown 

for believing in this story and in me!  

So much of this joy is thanks to my agent Molly O'Neill, 

who talked me through the finishing of my first book 

(THE STARKEEPER which comes out with Random House in June!) 

and helped me face the beginnings of another one!  

Thanks to Molly, I found out that while making book number two is HARD!, 

hard is not necessarily a bad thing. 

See, if we didn't struggle, the end result wouldn't be so victorious. 

Which is sort of how PERFECTLY IMPERFECT MIRA has made her way here!

I can't wait for you to meet MIRA. 

This story is kind of about being a work in progress, 

and learning to love the journey of becoming. 

Which is something that feels very familiar to me. 

 Another fun thing is that during the time this story was in revision,  

 I took a writing course with Jolie Stekly "MINDSET MEETS CRAFT." 

MIRA's story is so much about mindset, and revision, too. 

When I had a stroke, then heart surgery, and other life surprises   - 

each time, I felt thrown for a loop. 

That was not the direction I planned. 

That was not the way my road was supposed to go.

 Or was it? 

Because if I hadn't had the stroke and kind of lost my way into writing, 

I wouldn't have taken a WRITING WITH PICTURES course, 

which opened up my heart to illustration and stories 

in a way I'd never dreamed of being able to do.

So, here's to the journey, my friends! 

Here's to the blooms that can come out of hard things. 

- and sometimes the blooms that come because of hard things! 

And here's to the work, day and night, 

learning!

growing!

revising!

 

Hooray!