{"id":3018,"date":"2013-08-29T16:11:22","date_gmt":"2013-08-29T20:11:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.old.caraghobrien.com\/book\/?p=3018"},"modified":"2020-09-01T17:57:48","modified_gmt":"2020-09-01T21:57:48","slug":"promised-in-paperback-plus-extras","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/promised-2\/promised-in-paperback-plus-extras\/","title":{"rendered":"Promised in Paperback, Plus Extras"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"PromisedCoverHighrez\"

Promised, the paperback, is due out September 3rd, 2013<\/p><\/div>\n

Next week, the paperback of Promised (Birthmarked 3)<\/i><\/a> comes out, completing the paperback set of the Birthmarked<\/i> series.\u00a0 I\u2019m curious to line up the three books for the first time and see how they look with matching covers, and I wonder if that will create a sense of completion or closure.\u00a0 So far, I have not felt like Gaia’s world is completely closed, partly because I keep hearing from readers about it, and partly because stray ideas still hit me, like I wondered the other morning what would happen in a novel about the building of the wall.<\/p>\n

For the paperback edition of Promised<\/i>, (see a giveaway here<\/a>), I worked with my Square Fish editor Lauren Burniac<\/a> to come up with bonus materials for the back matter.\u00a0 Lauren asked at one point if I wanted to include the opening chapter of my next novel, but since the novel is not ready and has no firm title yet, I took one panicking gasp and squelched that.<\/p>\n

Instead, we included a friendly interview I did with my chum\u00a0Genn Albin<\/a>, author of the Crewel<\/i> series, and the short story \u201cRuled,\u201d<\/a> which was released as Birthmarked 2.5 on Tor.com shortly before Promised<\/i> came out in hard cover last year.\u00a0 Lauren also invited me to write something new, like discussion questions, a Q&A, or another story, but none of those seemed right.<\/p>\n

Instead, I came up with \u201cThe Unwritten Stories,\u201d five separate sketches for what could possibly happen to Gaia and other favorite characters after Promised<\/i> ends.\u00a0 I had a delicate line to tread.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t want anything to undermine the true ending of Promised,<\/i> which I\u2019d labored so hard to create.\u00a0 A full story, even if it were from an alternate point of view, would have risked reading as an epilogue.\u00a0 On the other hand, summaries that were too skimpy or too vague would certainly be a let down and not fun to write.\u00a0 In the end, I tried to capture the glimpses I had of what might be around the corner, and I added a caveat so that readers who prefer their own imagined directions don\u2019t follow mine.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Unwritten Stories\u201d are not a big deal.\u00a0 I don\u2019t want to mislead anyone that they\u2019re important.\u00a0 They\u2019re a bonus, nothing more.\u00a0 Still, if you\u2019re one of the readers who wrote to me pleading for more, please know that I heard you, and I used your requests to inspire my sketches.\u00a0 So, thanks to you, and thanks to my paperback editor, Lauren Burniac!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Next week, the paperback of Promised (Birthmarked 3) comes out, completing the paperback set of the Birthmarked series.\u00a0 I\u2019m curious to line up the three books for the first time and see how they look with matching covers, and I wonder if that will create a sense of completion or closure.\u00a0 So far, I have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[147],"tags":[109],"class_list":["post-3018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-promised-2","tag-promised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3018"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3018\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5761,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3018\/revisions\/5761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}