I have been absolutely terrible at updating my website––as in, the last time I touched it, Ash Princess wasn’t even up for preorder! How far we’ve come: all three books in the series are now out, I’ve got two new projects coming out next year (one YA, one adult. For more information, check out the Books page), and in case you haven’t seen me shouting about it on Twitter and Instagram: I’m moving to London in just over 2 weeks!

I’m going to be better about updating here, and I’ve also gotten a lot of requests to have my recipes in a more easily accessible place instead of just sharing them on my instagram stories. To start, here is my absolute BEST scone recipe (British style, studded with diced crystalized ginger). They aren’t too sweet, and pair perfectly with a smear of apple butter or orange marmalade. Ideal with a little clotted cream, but sadly for those of us State-side, that can be tricky to find.

Crystalized Ginger Cream Scones

(Adapted from Cook’s Illustrated)

Makes 8 scones

Ingredients:

• 250g (2 cups) all-purpose flour
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 37g (3 tbsp) granulated sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 70g (5 tbsp) unsalted butter (cultured or European-style if you can get it!), cold and cut into small cubes
• 1/2 cup chopped crystalized ginger
• 231g (1 cup) heavy cream

1. Preheat the oven to 425º

2. Mix flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt in large bowl or the bowl of food processor fitted with steel blade. (The food processor is a great tool to have here, but you can do it by hand if you want, it’ll just be a bit of a workout!)

3. Add the cubed butter to the food processor and pulse until the mixture looks like wet sand, though it’s okay if there are some larger pieces of butter intact. If doing this by hand, use your fingers or a pastry blender to get the dough to the wet sand consistency. Add the ginger and mix a little more, though you don’t want to break the pieces up too much, so be careful if using a food processor––one or two pulses should do it.

4. Use a rubber spatula to fold in the heavy cream until a dough forms.

5. Tip the dough (along with all those dry, floury bits on the bottom of the bowl) to a lightly floured work surface and knead just enough to get it into a solid, slightly sticky ball. From here, you can break the dough ball into 8 similarly sized balls and flatten each one into a thick disk (like a biscuit). Alternatively, flatten the large dough ball into a large disk and cut it into 8 wedges, like you’re cutting a pizza.

6. Place the scones on an ungreased baking sheet (or a baking mat for less mess) and bake for 12-15 minutes. Let cool at least 10 minutes before serving.

It’s hard to believe it’s already been over two months since ASH PRINCESS came out and you all have been the most amazing readers I could ask for! I said that when it got to over 100 reviews on Amazon, I would release a deleted Erik scene and I’m so excited to get to fulfill my end of that bargain.

This scene was in the very first draft of ASH PRINCESS back in the fall of 2015 and as such it’s very VERY rough and that are likely some bits that won’t make sense. In this original draft, Erik was actually revealed to be working with his own band of rebels and this scene slotted in between Blaise visiting Theo in the dungeon and Søren coming to “save” her.

In the end, it was an easy scene/plotline to cut because it was too much going on and it didn’t actually contribute anything to the story that wasn’t already there. Also, as my agent (or editor? I can’t remember exactly when this hit the cutting room floor.) pointed out, the security in this dungeon was kind of a joke if pretty much everyone could come and go. Still, Erik is one of my favorite characters and this scene still has a soft spot in my heart so I’m thrilled to share it now. You might recognize some bits and pieces that made it into the scene with Blaise.

Without further ado:

There are eleven evenly spaced bars that make up my cell door. The floor has seventy-two square stones as long as my thumb, though they’re mostly covered in dirt. Each of the side walls have thirty-five bricks that I think must have been red once, but between the grime and the dark they look closer to grey. This is all there is to do while I wait and though I’m sure only a few hours have passed, I can already feel myself starting to go mad.

Maybe I should have taken Blaise up on his offer when he was here.

I start to count the bricks on the back wall, because I need something to distract me from my own thoughts. Otherwise, doubt will creep in and if I let that happen I really will go mad. My plan will work, it has to work. Even Blaise begrudgingly agreed.

And if it doesn’t…

I lose count and have to start over.  The first row has six bricks, the second five and a half, the third six again…I’m nearing the bottom when one of the bricks moves. It must be a trick, the dark playing tricks on my tired mind, but as I stare at the brick it moves again, jutting out from the rest by an inch.

The Kaiser would be a fool to have me killed by an assassin, without an audience. He knows that, which is why he didn’t kill me in the throne room. Still, my heart thunders louder in my chest as I step forward and grip the brick with the tips of my fingers. I have to wiggle it as I pull, but after a minute or so, it comes free and I see a bright blue eye staring back at me.

“Søren?” I ask.

“Guess again,” the voice says, and I’m sure he’s smiling even if I can’t see it.

“Erik. What are you doing here?” Even though I don’t mean for it to, irritation creeps into my voice.

“I’m rescuing you,” he says, as if that should be obvious.

“The Kaiser really needs to evaluate the security of these cells,” I say.

“Usually, by the time he has people tossed down here, they can barely breathe let alone escape,” Erik says. “Help me with this brick?”

He brings a chisel and hammer to the corner of the brick next to the hole he’s made, but I stop him with a hand on his wrist. “I appreciate the gesture, really, but I’m fine,” I tell him.

I still can only see one of his eyes, but that widens and I’m sure that if I could see the rest of his face he would look as dumbfounded as Blaise did. I’m a bit disappointed that I can’t see it. The Gods know I could use a laugh just now.

“Your execution is scheduled for five hours from now,” he says slowly. “And you want to stay here, locked in a cell?”

I shrug my shoulders. “That’s my plan. What’s yours?” I ask him.

“I nicked a set of slave clothes. I can use my knife to cut your hair, dress you like a boy and have you pretend to be a farmhand on the way out of the city. So long as we move fast before anyone knows you’re gone, we shouldn’t have a difficult time of it. The city’s been in uproar since your execution was announced, we can use that to our advantage. My people will meet us in the mountains and we’ll go from there,” he says.

“Hmmm.” I purse my mouth and think it over. Assuming he’s telling the truth–and I can’t imagine what the Kaiser would have to gain by using him as a spy here and now–I’m curious about who Erik’s people are.

“I’m trying to save your life, you realize. What do you have to think about?” he asks, annoyed.

“It’s a perfectly good plan,” I admit. “I’m struggling to find any holes in it, and I feel confident enough to say I trust you.”

“Good,” he says, exhaling loudly and starting to chisel at the next brick over.

“But,” I say, stopping him again.

“You said it was a good plan, your highness,” he says.

“It is,” I say with a smile. “It’s just that I have a better one.”

Now, he doesn’t even attempt to hide his irritation. His blue eye glowers at me through the hole.

“Does it involve sitting in a dark and dirty dungeon, waiting for your death?” he asks tersely.

“It does!” I say with mock glee. “However did you guess?”

“You’re doing a wonderful job of it so far,” he grumbles.

“Oh, cheer up, Erik,” I say. “This is only the first part. The second will come soon enough, and I would love for you to be around to see it yourself. You said you have people in the mountains, so go to them. Bring them to meet us in Anglamar.”

“There’s nothing in Anglamar but ruins,” Erik protests.

“What better place to rise from?” I ask.

He doesn’t look convinced. “Who is we?” he asks.

I laugh. “I said I trust you, Erik, and I meant it, but my trust has its limits. Would you tell me who you’re working with?”

His eye narrows. “No,” he admits. “But they won’t be happy when I show up without you.”

“They’ll move past it,” I say.

He hesitates. “Did you see my mother at all?” he asks.

In everything that has happened, I’m ashamed to realize I haven’t thought of Hoa at all. “No,” I say. “Not since early last night. As far as she knew, nothing was amiss.”

“My mother knows more than anyone realizes,” he says, shaking his head.

“Then maybe she had the sense to run,” I tell him. “The Kaiser executed two other slaves in front of me, if he had Hoa, I’m sure he would have done the same with her.”

Erik nods his head but he doesn’t look convinced. I don’t blame him. Hoa is the closest thing I have to a mother, and I’m worried for her too.

“I think it would be a mistake for us to underestimate her,” I tell him, hoping the words are true. “She’ll be fine.”

“You’re right,” he says, though I think he’s trying to convince himself more than anything. “Are you sure I can’t convince you to come with me?”

“It’s a tempting offer,” I tell him. “But you’ll just have to trust me on this. It will make sense soon enough.”

“May our paths meet again, Theodosia,” he says.

I can’t help but smile at the fact that he calls me by my real name. It’s happening more and more, but each time feels like a gift.

“Good luck, Erik,” I say before replacing the brick in the wall.

And there it is! Thank you all again for your continued support and I can’t wait for you guys to see more of Erik (and the rest of the crew) in LADY SMOKE, coming out April 2nd, 2019.

…just kidding. But all jokes aside, ARCs are making their way out into the world and a few people have asked me about one of the last pages, which announces the title for the sequel.

Ash Princess isn’t out until April 24th, 2018 and the next book won’t be out until Spring 2019, so it’s still aways away. I can’t share too much about it yet without spoiling the first book BUT I am thrilled to announce the title.

EEEEE!! I have always hated titling books, but when my agent asked me to come up with summaries and titles for the rest of the series when we went on submission with Ash Princess, they somehow came easily. The titles, that is–the summaries were a whole different beast.

I wanted to keep the fire imagery constant but show a progression as Theo’s story moves forward. Lady Smoke captures the atmosphere and character of the book perfectly.

I love it and I hope you all do too!

It has been a crazy busy month, hence the lack of posts, but in case you missed it, Bustle revealed the cover of Ash Princess!

Covers are one of many things in publishing that authors have very, very little control over. In my case, I had a few conversations with my editor about the feel of the book and other covers we both loved, but then one day early in the year, she sent me a gorgeous cover design that was actually very close to the finished project.

It was so beautiful I couldn’t stop showing it to people–baristas, mailmen, even strangers on the street. I loved it so much.

And then Delacorte somehow made it even better.

A little background on the crown: in the book, Theo–the main character–is held captive in her own court by the people who invaded her country. She’s degradingly referred to as the Ash Princess and forced to wear a crown made of ashes to any public events that disintegrates over the course of the night.

It’s a central image in the book and I had my fingers crossed that it would make its way onto the cover, but I was unprepared for how phenomenally Delacorte would interpret it.

Seriously, I want to get it framed and hang it on my wall.

I also visited the Delacorte/Random House offices last week and the cover had inspired me to bring along a little surprise treat.

Yes, those are Ash Princess Crown cookies! They’re made from a coffee sugar cookie base with cinnamon and topped with a honey glaze dyed black and sprinkled with red sugar crystals. In the book, the characters drink coffee with honey and cinnamon, so I wanted to represent those flavors in the cookies as well.

I’ve gotten some requests for the recipe, so here it is!

I adapted it from this recipe here and added a little extra cinnamon and the honey glaze.

You’ll need:

1 cup butter, softened

1 1/4 cups sugar

2 cups flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

2 eggs

2 tablespoons fresh ground coffee (can be decaf if, like me, you were baking with kids)

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon salt

For the glaze:

Powdered sugar

Milk

Honey

(No measurements for this, unfortunately, because I just eyeballed it. You’ll want to experiment to get the consistency right–too thick and it’ll never dry and swallow the sprinkles, too thin and it’ll slide right off the cookie)

Optional decoration: black food coloring, red sugar crystals.

The next bit I’m pasting directly from the above-mentioned website:

1. In a mixer, cream together butter and sugar.
2. In a small bowl, combine eggs, vanilla, and coffee until fully incorporated.
3. In separate bowl add together flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt.
4. Slowly add your egg mixture to the butter mixture until well combined. Slowly add flour mixture until fully combined, do not over beat.
5. I would chill this dough for AT LEAST one hour, preferably overnight.
6. When you are ready to bake, preheat oven to 375 degrees and bake for 8-10 minutes, or until edges are slightly golden. Allow cookies to cool completely before covering in any icing.

Wiser writers have said that you never write two books the same way and I’ve realized this year more than ever how true that is. Drafting the second book in the Ash Princess series was one of the hardest things I’ve done even though Ash Princess itself came out somewhat easily. I knew the characters and the world right away and the voice just appeared one day out of thin air. It stands to reason that all of these things would be even more set when I started writing book two but that was…not the case. At all.

Now, I’m working on another book outside of that series and it’s a whole new experience. I’ve never been one to adhere too tightly to a structure but in this new project structure has been mandatory. We’re talking index cards and three act structures WITHIN three act structures. I’ve never been much of a free writer either, but suddenly my notebook was overflowing with daily free writes that took up pages and pages and delved deep into character arcs and relationship dynamics and world building. And it’s working in a way it probably wouldn’t have if I’d tried to write Ash Princess or its sequel the same way.

I’m attaching links to strategies that other writers have given, though it’s worth pointing out that these bits of advice were made to be adapted and adjusted as needed. So whether you’re a pantser or a planner or fluctuating somewhere in between like me, I hope you’ll find them helpful.

My go-to is Susan Dennard’s website. The Witchlands series author has written on just about everything authors need to know from coming up with ideas to the steps taken in traditional publishing. My favorite posts are the entire ‘How I Plan a Book’ series, but this post on the importance of Magical Cookies specifically, this post about productivity, and this post about endings. In all honesty, though, I could get lost on Susan’s site for hours on end.

I’ve fallen down a bit of a rabbit hole lately with the three act structure and one of the most helpful resources I’ve found has been Alexandra Sokoloff’s website. For the uninitiated, the three act structure is most commonly used in film but it’s a great way to craft compelling, page turning plots. Here is a practical dissection of the structure using Harry Potter. Interested in trying it out for yourself? This is a great intro post, about using this method with index cards and here is a list of common story elements that can be very helpful in figuring out what happens where in the plot.

And last but not least, one of the widest-reaching resources available for writers is Pub Crawl. If you aren’t familiar, you’re going to want to go ahead and bookmark it. The archives are full of just about every kind of post you could hope for–writing, plotting, editing, querying. It’s all just a click away with plenty of guest posts by some very familiar names. Here’s a post from Leigh Bardugo on coming up with ideas. Another post from Alexandra Bracken on handling criticism. One from Adam Silvera about the between book. This recent post from Patrice Caldwell about balancing a full time job with writing is one of my favorites, and not just because she talks about our lovely weekend writing group. It’s a virtual treasure trove of wonders, really.

What are your favorite online writing resources?

Question: What does a unicorn have in common with a rejection-less author?

Answer: Neither one exists. (Sorry, unicorns.)

By this point, everyone knows about how many rejections J.K. Rowling received for Harry Potter. It’s a classic motivational story—J.K. Rowling is enormously successful now! Her books are modern classics that are beloved around the world! People name their dogs after her characters! And yet, most of the publishing professionals who initially read her manuscript didn’t see then what the world sees now.

Her story isn’t unique among authors. She isn’t the exception to the rule. There are no exceptions. Name an author—literally any traditionally published author—and I can guarantee you that they have dozens of rejections to their name. At the very least.

In my first blog post, I talked about the rejections I got for all of my queries, dating back eight years. There were over three hundred rejections in all, but let’s look just at my stats for Ash Princess.

I sent thirty-seven queries, which I sent out in batches every few weeks. I didn’t exhaust my query list because I signed with my agent before my list was done. Of those thirty-seven queries, I got thirty-three form rejections. Two revise and resubmits. Three full requests that bowed out after I got an offer. One offer. (Side note: my first offer came from a different agent for a different manuscript, which set off the above bow-outs.)

So that’s thirty-six Nos and one Yes. The ratio is pretty shitty, but it’s par for the course.

And one Yes is all it takes. Ash Princess sold at auction in a major deal. It’s since been sold in eleven other countries and territories. If I’d given up after ten rejections none of that would have happened and it certainly wouldn’t have happened if I’d been too scared of hearing no to query in the first place.

Unfortunately, that’s more common than you might think. I’ve talked to other querying authors who balk when I tell them how many agents I queried before I got an offer. Other authors have said they don’t want to query certain agents with all-star lists because they know it’ll only lead to rejection. Still more authors have said that they scrapped their book after getting just a few rejections because they think that means their manuscript is unsellable. And every time I hear these things, it makes me want to scream.

If there’s one thing I learned interning at agencies (and I learned a LOT, blog post to come) it’s that agents want to fall in love with your story. They get excited when a query grabs their attention, they wait impatiently for the manuscript. They want to enjoy it so much that they can’t stop talking about it. Taking on an author is a lot of work, it (usually) involves editing a manuscript and reading it a dozen times before sending it on submission and still loving it enough that you can pitch it to editors with passion, and then (usually) following it through on the rest of it’s journey. My agent continued to read every new draft even after I got an editor; at this point she’s read Ash Princess nearly as many times as I have! So, unfortunately, a lot of times an agent will really enjoy a book—love it even—but they’ll know that they just aren’t as in love with it as they need to be.

It sucks. Send more queries until you find an agent who who is.

Here’s an ugly truth: you will hear ‘no’ a lot in publishing. It’s unavoidable. You’ll hear it when you send out queries. You’ll hear it when you go on submission to editors with your first book. You’ll hear it when you’re selling your second, third, fourteenth book. You’ll hear no a lot from other people so there’s no point in wasting time saying it to yourself.

Before I knew I wanted to write professionally, I wanted to act. I went to a theater/film high school and I majored in performing arts in college and even before that–at the tender age of two–I acted in a Rescue 911 reenactment where I played the star-turning role of Girl with Foot Stuck in Toilet. Not a joke.

I switched to writing for what I realize in hindsight was a lot of reasons–that I preferred to work in solitude and that the focus on weight was unhealthy for me being chief among them. Sometimes people ask me if I miss acting, especially given all the time I put into studying it, but I honestly don’t. And what’s more, I’ve found that the years of studying acting actually helped make me a better writer.

There are a lot of methods of acting. The Stanislavsky method is probably the most widely known, but there are many. The one that always connected with me the most was Ivanna Chubbuck’s method, outlined in her book The Power of the Actor, which a teacher in high school introduced me to. Though it’s similar to Stanislavsky, there are some differences. I’ve found that I often think back on this method when I’m writing–often unconsciously–almost ten years after reading the book.

Why? The method boils down to asking a few small questions based on one larger one: What does this character want?

Chubbuck wrote that every character has an overall objective that precedes and (often) succeeds the frame of the story. This can and should be vague. Some characters want love, others power, others glory. This is something we often think about in other ways, like when we sort our characters into Hogwarts houses. This objective may not always tie directly into your story, especially in the case of supporting characters, but it’s something you have to know because it directly affects how your characters behave in any given circumstance. A character who craves glory is going to behave very differently when facing a dragon than a character who wants safety.

The example I’m going to be using throughout this post is the main character in Ash Princess, Theodosia. Theo has spent ten years powerless and raised by her enemies so what she wants most in the world is power.

Beyond the main objective, there are smaller objectives that will fit more neatly into your story arc. What does your character want in this particular moment. Sometimes an objective can change one a scene-by-scene basis, while others may last a little longer. Before I write a scene, I always figure out what my characters want in it and unlike earlier, now that objective needs to be specific and it needs to be active.

Theo wants power isn’t enough anymore. In one of the first scenes, Theo is called to see the Kaiser, the ruler of the people who conquered her country and killed her mother. For ten years the Kaiser has tormented and beaten her. Theo’s terrified of him. Her need for power is dormant in this moment. What Theo needs in this particular moment is to convince the Kaiser to keep her alive.

What is their ideal vision of this scene? What will happen if it doesn’t go their way? You often hear agents and editors talk about stakes and this is what they mean. Give your character something to gain and give them something to lose. Even if it’s not life and death like it is for Theo in this moment, every scene should always have its own stakes.

And now that your character has their goal, they need to work toward it. Above I used the word convince but that’s a bit on the vague side. How is she going to convince the Kaiser to keep her alive? These are your beats and they change as your character’s attempts change. One attempt might not work so your character should move on to another. Maybe they can’t talk another character into giving them the last piece of pie so they decide to wrestle it away from them instead. That’s a beat shift.

Of course, the other characters involved all have their own objectives and beats and that’s where the conflict comes in, giving you compelling scenes with high stakes that move the story along.

Keep in mind though, what works for me might not work for you. There are all kinds of writing methods out there to try out to see what fits your style.