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so the ithaca saga, huh

my jaw was dropped for twenty two minutes and thirty five seconds straight

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okay update I’ve been Instagram stalking and I think I can put pieces together. This is such a long deep dive so bear with me.

January: "I have two that I've written the first draft of and will go into revision soon. I have one that I'm writing now and I'm about halfway through. I have another that I'm planning." (source)

I will label these four books, in order, Mystery Book, Big Book, Paper Model Book, and Little Graceling Book. We'll follow them over the course of the year, and you'll see where the names come from.

The one that she was writing at the time, we're going to call Paper Model Book, because she said this about it: "My WIP includes a character who’s building a paper model of a castle and does other paper art too. Butterflies and moths are also an important part of the book." (source)

This draft was started many months earlier, pre-brain surgery, and went on pause for obvious reasons. From earlier notes, it appears the main character may have an M name. (source) I believe the draft was started all the way back in September 2023, and just took a while due to the aforementioned brain surgery, as well as copyediting for There Is a Door in this Darkness. (source)

She continued working on Paper Model Book for several months. She finished and submitted the manuscript around late April/early May. Several of the notebooks for this book have fox stickers on them, and she also had fox socks and fox art on her desk, which could mean there are foxes in it, but could also mean that she was just in a fox mood.

May: "With this draft done, I now have three entire books in revision, plus There Is a Door in This Darkness releasing on June 11." (source)

In May, she was on a bit of a vacation, but mentioned at one point that she was "listening to a lot of math podcasts and books to help me with a character I’m brainstorming." (source) Guessing this was for Little Graceling Book, the book she started writing in September; it's the only one she would have been planning/brainstorming for.

In June, she began revising a 430-page book. She described this revision as "so complicated" and the novel as "pretty complex". (source) The first draft of that book was written, in part, summer 2023. (source) This should be the one we have called Big Book. She continued revising Big Book for several months, while also doing release stuff for There Is A Door in this Darkness.

Peeks from that revision:

(source 1, source 2)

In September, she started plotting a new book, which we will call Little Graceling Book. Two posts about it have been tagged #gracelingrealm, implying that it's the next Graceling book.

Words I have caught in her notes for this book include: “fox” “castle” “heartless world” “the reader has guessed what A is up to and so has O; move on to other mysteries” (who’s A?? could it be adventure the fox??). Stickers include at least two foxes and a very Graceling-feeling castle.

On November 10, she mentioned writing “a bunch of pages, in a book about a world where things can change for the better (as they can in our world).” <3 (source)

A few days ago (December 21), she posted that she will be setting aside the partial first draft of Little Graceling Book to return to Big Book, her next book to come out. This book has gone through two drafts, and she’s about to get editorial letters back that will allow her to start on the third draft. There appears to be a grandfather clock and a horse sticker on the cover of its notebook, but we don't know anything else about it as far as I can tell. (source)

She also shared that two other books (Mystery Book and Paper Model Book, as far as I can tell) are in progress and hanging out on a shelf. They appear to be printouts with sticky notes in them, which indicates that they're further along in the revision process.

So. That's what I have. Hopefully this is of interest to someone besides me that will justify the several hours I spent back-scrolling Kristin Cashore's Instagram lol

hi excuse me kristin cashore is working on FOUR books rn ??

what do we think they are 👀

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Have you seen this Guardian article? I'd love your thoughts on the last two paragraphs!

https://amp.theguardian.com/technology/2024/dec/21/were-figuring-out-cool-ways-of-storytelling-how-tiktok-is-changing-the-way-we-watch-musicals

Fascinating article, but HOLY SHIT?

I KNEW WE WERE GETTING A GAME, BUT THREE?? AN ANIMATED MOVIE AND A STAGE SHOW??

If we get all of these it would be beautiful- (I wonder which High Level Company?? I’m nervous???) Also I NEED the stage adaptation- I’m gonna cry?

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Daughter of fantasy villains decides to rebel against her parents by actually going through with her arranged marriage to a local golden retriever of a prince instead of running off with some local villain-to-be or conquering said golden retriever’s kingdom and ruling it solo like her parents expect her to. Plus, sue her, she’s into the clean-cut earnest look.

At the same time, local prince charming discovers that he’s actually very into the gothic fiance his parents have landed him with in order to try and establish peace with the local evil lair down the lane, he would never have guessed a spiderweb pattern could look so fetching on a ball gown…?

Meanwhile, two pairs of parents in a tizzy because they both expected their offspring to whole-heartedly reject this union and give them an excuse to conquer their goody-two-shoes/evil neighbours, they’re not supposed to actually like each other-!

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“for nine days I’ve stayed wide awake” -Odysseus

Gilgamesh could NEVER

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They should install public grappling hook points

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Beth Riesgraf as Parker in Leverage and Leverage: Redemption

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24 page comic adaptation final: COMPLETE! Now I just have to print it tomorrow and everything will be peachyy

Edit: forgot to say this but this is an adaptation of a few chapters of the book Seasparrow by Kristin Cashore.

Second edit: I’m not actually going to continue drawing this… it’s a whole ass novel 😭

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99% of all murders committed by women in ancient greek plays are completely justified

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pspspspsps poetry mutuals come here... new quiz... making you the patron saint of something...

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there's something about maggie/sophie that will always have me in its thrall... it's not even about the mutual nate of it all, necessarily, although that's delicious.

it's also about, they both love art in a visceral way. and about the fact that maggie recognized sophie in the museum. that the "of course she bloody speaks spanish" is reminiscent of the cat and mouse game sophie had fun with with nate.

and it's the easy way in which sophie manages to instruct maggie. and how "she's turning into quite the grifter" actually does highlight how sophie's area of crime is probably the one maggie's most suited to, too.

and then, of course, there's the whole thing about maggie being "the most honest person" the team knows and sophie being The Liar of all time.

something so simultaneously jagged, mismatched and soft, understanding about them that makes me want to eat gravel.

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I’m sorry to talk about Luigi Mangione so much but like. Imagine his parents.

Your son was living the good life. Valedictorian, Ivy League, working for game design startups, surfing in Hawaii. He’s doing great, right? Nothing really out of the ordinary. Maybe he posts some weird stuff on Twitter, maybe he’s dealing with an injury, but like, he’s still mostly a normal kid.

And then, fairly abruptly, he drops off the face of the earth. No one has heard from him. You reach out to his old high school classmates. You hear nothing. Your texts go unanswered. You file a missing persons report.

And then the next thing you know he’s on national news for killing a health insurance CEO ???

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update wtf guys

i need the ao3 tag wranglers to tag wrangle so it's easier to find the united healthcare shooter fic (there are 23 fics about him currently) (i did manually count) (i don't know what to tell you the internet is a bizarre and hilarious place sometimes)

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Sophie loves to go dancing, but she rarely goes with Nate. He takes it too seriously, and he always get involved in the dance hall politics. Plus, as technical and detail oriented as he is, he isn't really good at dancing. He can do the steps, but he doesn't understand how to let himself get swept away by the music.

The first time she asked Eliot, he laughed at her. Said there was no way he was going to spend his night off in some dusty ballroom when he could be at home relaxing. She'd shrugged it off, having anticipated his refusal, and had gone by herself, intending to find a partner when she got there.

Except when she showed up, she found Eliot dressed in jeans and a button-down shirt, his hair pulled back in a pony tail, mumbling something about not wanting her to have to go without a partner.

The next time she asked, he complained about how slippery his shoes were and how handsy Mrs. Gunderson had been during the open dance, but he picked Sophie up at 6 and dropped her off at 10 and smiled most of the time between.

A week after that, she found a flyer for a foxtrot competition slipped under her door, with the note "I'm free on Saturday" scrawled across the bottom.

(They won.)

They go several times a month now. Hardison laughs when he finds out, but Eliot says it's good exercise. Parker is very excited about their trophy but loses interest when she finds out it's plastic. Nate comes to watch sometimes, because as much as he dislikes dancing himself, he appreciates the skill involved.

(Maybe he's picking up pointers. He'll never tell.)

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I think a very funny dynamic for Sterling on Leverage: Redemption would be for him and Harry to be old best buds (and it just never came up until now)

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i need the ao3 tag wranglers to tag wrangle so it's easier to find the united healthcare shooter fic (there are 23 fics about him currently) (i did manually count) (i don't know what to tell you the internet is a bizarre and hilarious place sometimes)

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You guys went all in on becoming better people and you brought me along for the ride.