The Rule of Mirrors
Double Voices
Perspectives
Before I wrote Birthmarked, I worked on a novel that contained five points of view, all following different members of the same family in crisis. It was a worthy experiment, but I swore afterward that I’d never try it again. I couldn’t make all the perspectives equally compelling. I felt like I was shortchanging each character, and the collective honesty I was aiming for didn’t resonate enough.
Imagine, then, my surprise when I started writing The Rule of Mirrors and discovered I could not write it from only… Continue reading
ARC! Squee!
My editor sent me an ARC of The Rule of Mirrors so I have an actual, book-shaped item to hold in my hand. It has flipable pages and a life-size cover, and it tempts me to start counting down the months (four!) until February. The nicest thing? It has arrived just as I’m finally past the second-guessing agony of writing this book and into the joy of completion. I love how this book turned out, and I can’t wait until I’m able to share it! For all of my friends… Continue reading
Rule of Mirrors, 1st Pass Pages
1st pass pages of The Rule of Mirrors
My first pass pages for The Rule of Mirrors arrived last week so I’m seeing what the novel looks like on paper in its real format for the first time. It looks nice, and reading this paper copy gives me a chance to feel like an outsider, a reader, rather than the writer. At the same time, this is my last real opportunity to catch any details I want to change, so I don’t want to lose my… Continue reading
Linus’s House
Linus’s House in Rule of Mirrors
To design a map for The Rule of Mirrors, I first sketched a view of Linus’s house as seen from the Lookout Tower at the Forge School. His house is the second one behind the water tower, so I imagine it looks roughly like this, with Molly’s doghouse in the back yard. This way, from Linus’s upstairs bedroom, his windows look back on the Forge School.
Dam Jumpers
Jumpers at the Farmington River, CT, July 31, 2015
Three kids jumped off a dam this weekend. I arrived by bike just in time to see them balancing out along the edge of water, the up-river side smooth, the other side dropping in a curtain of white, and one by one, they leapt into the Farmington River. After the third one resurfaced, he waved to me, and I was thankful for the proof he was unharmed. I don’t know if he was ever scared. He seemed joyful.
I was vicariously,… Continue reading
Works in Progress
My first batch of line edits for The Rule of Mirrors (Vault 2) came a couple days ago, so I back-burnered my new draft of Book 3 to work on them. On my breaks, I’m writing the Q&A for the back matter of the paperback of Book 1, which takes me to thinking about where the series started. So, essentially, I’m mentally in all three books right now, and I like that.
At the same time, I’m hyper-aware that it’s summer, and the season has become inextricably intertwined with… Continue reading