OK, so May shot past...

Tinycat embodies my attitude

 ...but much was accomplished. May Madness. Mad May. May, May, go away. 

So in February, the first two books I ever wrote, Enemy and Outlaw, reverted. To me. Which I guess means they went out of print. 

Anyway, reversion means we can reissue! So we are doing that. The third book in that trilogy, Ally, had never found a home with the publisher, and we published it through JABberwocky. Now Enemy and Outlaw will also be published by JABberwocky. But in order to do that, we needed to get new cover art and new cover copy and people more technically savvy than I had to make epubs. 

So March and April were spent securing audio contracts and narrators and basically a lot of stuff that my agent and her assistant and the other folks at JABberwocky handled. I commissioned cover art (y'all, I cannot wait for you to see it) and wrote cover copy, the latter of which I like only slightly better than writing query letters and synopses. 

I also reread the manuscripts when they'd been set up as epubs, looking for stray formatting errors. I reread Ally, while I was at it, because it felt unfinished not to. (This was how I wrote them, too. I did that thing you're not supposed to do and wrote all three before I ever queried, because one way or the other, I wanted to know how the story ended. I also wanted to know I could finish three connected books.)

It was...odd. The experience of rereading, as more of a reader than a writer/editor. I mean, I know those books inside and out, right? I wrote them. I edited them. But I also haven't looked at them since they went into publication. I was half-dreading the experience--like, would I read and think omg, why didn't I--? and regret all my choices? Did I write something good, really? 

I did. I surprised myself in a few places, too, not with the unvarnished brilliance of my prose, but with little details or world-building things I'd done that I'd forgotten. Or even not so minor plot points. I am one of those people who can watch a film or a series and love it and then forget most of the important details almost immediately. Evidently I can do that with my own books, too. Ha.  

I learned that I still love those books. I love the characters. Part of that is nostalgia, sure--these were the books that got me an agent and my first publishing deal. But part of it is just loving that world and those people. (And the prose, which is jagged and fragmented and so very much not like the RORY books. NIGHTWATCH and WINDSCAR are closer in feel, but even they're more fluid.)

Anyway. The re-issue of On the Bones of Gods is in the final stages of production. Manuscript formatting corrected, prices and barcodes and ISBNs acquired. Now we're waiting on the fantastic Tan to finalize the cover text/placement (complicated by the fact of her wife's return from a business trip with COVID--she's fine, just miserable, and Tan's on single-parent duty in the meantime).   Stay tuned, watch this space--I'll make lots of noise when they're finally out in the world. 

AND, coda, postscript, lest you think I did nothing but read my own work and, like, teach and stuff--I finished the WINDSCAR edits early and turned in to my editor.  Copyedits are inbound, and I suspect they'll land the same time as 30-odd final portfolios for grading, which...could make the next couple weeks interesting. 

Fortunately, there is coffee.