Roads Go Ever On 14: New books!
💻 what I'm up to 💻
I’ve been baking. A lot. As part of a Christina Tosi baking class I’ve made cookies, pies, and cakes. It’s been 5-10 hours a week since the beginning of April. The idea is you make one Milk Bar recipe in each section, then you learn how to invent your own. I made Comic-Con snack cookies with Cheetos and pretzels and a caramel popcorn pie inspired by Karamell-Küche at Epcot… I just have to come up with a cake next. I’ve learned a ton. Including that my body 100% has an upper limit for sugar. And that baking this much means washing a million more dishes. It feels like a very beginning of the pandemic activity but hey, we’re not out of this yet.
And now as baking class is winding down, it is nearly time to welcome my next two books into the world. The Art of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge arrives on April 27, while A Kid’s Guide to Fandom drops on May 4. I am fully in promo mode doing podcasts and interviews and tweeting a pile of information about giveaways, signings, and events. I am Midwestern. I loathe asking for things, including attention. Writing is hard. Editing can be harder. But truly I find promoting books to be the toughest aspect. I always harbor this absolutely irrational hope that you just put a book on shelves and people will find it. That is… not how it works. I mean, sometimes it probably does. I’m not going to count on that though.
I don’t begrudge anyone self-promotion. You should be proud of the thing you did! But I fret whether I’m posting “too much” about my books. I’m working on it because hey, I worked hard on these books. If folks buy them, it helps with the opportunity to do more. So I’m going to try and let go of those worries and show off my books. Key word there is “try.”
Finally, in my writing life, I just turned in edits (maybe final edits?) for a project I’ll hopefully be able to formally announce soon. Though of course it’s already listed on Amazon. 👀 And any day now I’ll be starting on a book I’m very, very excited about. It’s just one of those waiting on other folks situations.
📘 my book things 📘
Lots of exclamation points ahead, sorry/not sorry.
Giveaway!
Wow wow wow, so many of you signed up for the newsletter. Thank you! I had about 650 entries including subscribers and bonus entries. I put everything in a spreadsheet, randomly sorted/shuffled a few times, and then used a randomizer to pick a number. Congrats, Andrew J., you win! I’ve sent you an email.
Signed Books!
If you would like signed copies of A Kid’s Guide to Fandom and/or The Art of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, I finally have info and you also get to support indie bookstores. Yay!
Pre-order a signed/personalized copy of A Kid’s Guide to Fandom from Malaprop’s.
Pre-order a signed/personalized copy of The Art of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge from Malaprop’s. NOTE: this book comes shrinkwrapped and we will have to open that so I can sign it.
Pre-order A Kid’s Guide to Fandom and/or The Art of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge with signed bookplates from Wheatberry Books. Just note that you want a signed copy when you place the order.
A Kid’s Guide to Fandom Events!
We have a launch event with WORD Bookstores! Please join Dave Perillo and I on Tuesday, May 4 (release day!) at 7pm ET for this free, virtual, live event with trivia. Save your spot here!
And then on May 15, I’ll be doing a virtual event with Wheatberry Books at 7pm. We’re going to be making a fanzine together. More details on that soon!
📺 what I'm watching 📺
Picard
Through the grace of a press account for Paramount+, I’m finally catching up on some Star Trek series and I’m starting with Picard. I’m nearly through season 1, and I’ll be honest. The story doesn’t make the most sense, but I don’t care. I’m just so thrilled to see Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard again, and I do appreciate that he’s kinda gone on a similar path that Luke Skywalker did. He’s isolated himself (though he’s not entirely alone), he regrets choices he made. He messed up. PICARD messed up. And now he’s on a new mission, searching for answers about an android with connections to Data in a time when androids are banned throughout the Federation. I’m here for the nostalgia and for Michelle Hurd.
📚 what I'm reading 📚
I’ve been in the slumpiest of reading slumps. My one-two book a week pace has gone to… not anything for a couple of weeks. I don’t know what’s up but I do know I’ve been playing a lot of Cozy Grove on my Switch, which I highly recommend if you want something cute like Animal Crossing: New Horizons but also like the idea of doing quests each day to help some very precious bear ghosts.
Book Nerd by Holly Maguire
That said, I did quite enjoy Book Nerd, a book that’s basically made for book lovers. Cute and quite relatable illustrations, quotes about reading, library facts—it’s a charming book that would make a great gift for yourself or for the bookworm in yourself. You can see some spreads from the book in this post I wrote at Nerdist.
🐳 something whalesome 🐳
I like wholesome things and the whale emoji is cute so: whalesome!
Meet Alexis Nikole, a knowledgeable and awesome urban forager who posts all kinds of entertaining videos about foraging and making stuff with what she forages and enviro science. Follow her on Instagram.
🍃 creativity corner 🍃
Here I’ll share tips and tricks that are helping me write, imagine, and/or stay productive.
Okay, this one is specific to my entertainment reporting/book research productivity. If there’s any project I conduct a lot of interviews for—a set visit, The Art of Galaxy’s Edge book—I get all my transcripts together (after I’ve procrastinated sufficiently about transcribing them or sending them to a service) and read them. I outline my article or my book. I choose a different highlight color for each topic in my outline and go back through the interviews and highlight quotes about those topics from each interviewee. All digitally. It really helps me make sure I review everything about a specific location or set piece or a certain theme. And I can find holes in my coverage this way too.
📃 quote of the week 📃
"The dark is generous and it is patient and it always wins – but in the heart of its strength lies its weakness: one lone candle is enough to hold it back. Love is more than a candle. Love can ignite the stars." - Matthew Stover, Revenge of the Sith novelization
Y’all, if you haven’t read the Revenge of the Sith novelization, it is time. That quote is emblematic of its poetry.