Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction, written purely to entertain myself and (with any luck) a few others. The world and characters belong wholly to J.K. Rowling, and I lay no claim to them whatsoever! If you're reading this journal for non-fanfiction-related reasons, do not click, this will probably not be your cup of tea. If you are nodding impatiently because this is totally your cup of tea, I hope you enjoy and remember that all the fanfiction comes down on September 6th!

Public Service Announcement: After September 6th, there will be a PDF up here for a month that people can download and keep. I won't make the PDF until after the stories are all done and I won't be emailing the PDF to anyone - so now everyone knows what the deal is with the PDF, and will not email me asking for it! (Really, I have now automatically written an email to someone telling them they couldn't have it - when they hadn't asked for it. I was so, so embarrassed. I blame myself for being unclear before.)

Dedication: This is for blackbird0414 - happy birthday!

( Quality of Mercy Links )

( Quality of Mercy, R, Chapter 25 )

I meant to have something written for you guys today but, um, I don't. This is because I spent the weekend luxuriating in the sunlight.

Don't get me wrong. I like Ireland fine, but our seasons go much like this: chill wintry rain, brisk autumnal rain, refreshing spring rain and gentle summery rain. Sometimes hail and snow happens, which we deal with exactly as we would deal with the zombie apocalypse: Fear! Panic! Stock up on the food supplies! Shoot everyone in the head before they eat your brains and the brains of everyone you love! (Maybe not that last part.) But I love sunshine, and it happens so rarely in Ireland I took advantage of this sunshiny weekend to go shopping and lie in the parks with my flatmates.

SARAH: I now have everything in the world. Including cocoa butter shower gel.
DURHAM LASS: Oh, you think you're just so sophisticated, don't you?
SARAH: With my new shower gel, I can say in all confidence that I do.
DURHAM LASS: And you like to rub it in my face.
SARAH: ...
DURHAM LASS: The sophistication! The sophistication, not the gel.

A lady disrobed before us at the Iveagh Gardens where we lay sunning ourselves and caused a sensation.

JENNET: I am glad that neither of you girls are ever possessed by an urge to strip down to your skivvies. I would be badly startled.
DURHAM LASS: I wouldn't bat an eye if Sarah did it.

This was obviously a reference to a Certain Easily Misunderstood Episode of my girlhood. I will explain it to you, so that you understand that the Durham Lass in mentioning this was being completely unfair in casting aspersions on my virtue. Because none of it was my fault.

As I may have mentioned before, I had something of a youthful weakness for dares. I was sitting around a lunch room in my convent school with several other girls, when one of them dared me to climb into a very tiny cupboard.

Naturally, I took and triumphantly completed the dare. I crowed my triumph from inside my tiny cage.

Then I tried to get out.

That didn't go so well. Jammed up very small in a tiny prison of wood, I began to feel uneasy about the entire situation. But my trusty comrades told me not to panic.

Our Catholic schoolgirl uniform (everyone turn off the va-va-voom music right now!) was thick and woollen to prevent any males of the species who might ever behold us from guessing we had any shapes at all. As one girl wisely pointed out, the uniform took up a lot of room. Surely without clothing, I would have room to wiggle out and be free!

Carefully my schoolfriends tore my uniform off. (Seriously, enough with the music.)

Then I tried to make my escape. Unfortunately, I was still stuck fast.

At this point I felt it was well past time for panic, but then another schoolfriend had a brainwave. Think of the phrase slippery as a greased pig, she said loudly!

The statement was sufficiently bizarre that I stopped hyperventilating in order to demand an explanation.

She explained that greased pigs are apparently slippery enough so that people can't catch them. Apparently this is an actual sport in some places. People trapped in cupboards wearing only their delicates shouldn't judge others, so I simply nodded.

She then seized up the butter dish on our table and advanced on me with a terrible glint in her eye.

People trapped in cupboards can't run. So I endured, and it was working! Slowly but surely I eased my way out of the cupboard.

I was almost free when our Matron, a plump but severe lady in a crisp white uniform, came in to check on us. She stood transfixed in the doorway as she beheld three girls diligently applying butter to another student, as said student flailed half in and half out of a very small cupboard.

Eventually she said 'GIRLS! That butter belongs to the school, you know.'

For the next two years I went to convent school (until I didn't anymore, and that is several other stories) and all any of us had to do was whisper 'That butter belongs to the school, you know' for us to break down laughing. It also became a regular term for something that was forbidden: someone else's boyfriend? A trip out of bounds? School butter.

That aside, I hope you can all see that the Durham Lass's accusation was utterly unfounded. Because I generally regard public disrobing as total school butter.

While lying about in parks, I also thought up the breakfast game. I mention this mostly because when I made up the paintbucket game, the fabulous Helen actually played it. (And there are pictures to prove it.)

So the breakfast game also requires a field, and then - a fight with breakfast things. Yoghurt. Oatmeal. Milk. Honey in squeezy bottles. But the most important weapon in the game - cereal. Imagine how fun it would be to hit other people with cereal that you've taken out of the box but not out of the plastic bag. You hit them over the head and the bag explodes on impact, and you get about a hundred points.

Of course I realise this would leave me with hair gloopy with honey and yoghurt and Rice Krispies stuck to it, but I feel it would be completely worth it.

So there you have it: the embarrassing truth about what I have done with my weekend. I promise to be a more worthwhile person and come back with useful things very soon. Until then, consider playing the breakfast game.

The last month has been a trying one for my friends and family, but they have come through it with flying colours. My brain on edits is a scary thing. It being my first time, I did a lot of freezing and panicking and staring at my computer screen like some kind of computer-literate deer.

There have been other problems.

DURHAM LASS: Augh!
JENNET: Augh!
SARAH (stumbling out of bed): What, what is it, what is it? Has someone been murdered!
JENNET: Our shower's broken.
SARAH: ... That's much worse.
DURHAM LASS (on the phone to landlady): This needs to be fixed. Please understand. If we cannot wash we will attract flies. We will be fired from our jobs because we are health risks. Then we will take to a life of crime. After that-
SARAH: Wow. I guess I need to go use the showers in the gym.
DURHAM LASS: - After that Sarah will voluntarily go to the gym and we will know the end days are upon us.

There has also been awesome news. While deep in edits, I learned that the book has sold in Finland!

Best comment on this was my friend Las's.

LAS: Non Indo-European language with backness harmony, yay!
SARAH: Yes. The backless harmony is important to us all.

Staying up late willing words onto the screen (Deer Impression: Send help! I may be computer literate, but my hooves, they hit the wrong keys and type only strange gibberish!) meant that I started sleeping through my alarm.

SARAH: Could you possibly wake me in the mornings?
DURHAM LASS: Absolutely.
SARAH: Please don't let me sleep! Be firm.
DURHAM LASS: I won't, I will be harsh, I will be cruel. I believe in brutality!
DURHAM LASS: *wakes me up every day with a lovely cup of tea*
SARAH: ... This is not exactly the cruel treatment I was expecting.
DURHAM LASS: Turns out I believe in brutalitea.

There were days when people were greeted solely with shrieks of 'Rewrite makes no sense,' 'The deer has forgotten how to structure sentences' and 'Hero accidentally shirtless for a whole chapter!' Everyone was very brave.

Last weekend was a bank holiday weekend in which my flatmates decided to go home and spend time with their families (they have all kinds of weird hobbies, I don't judge). I decided to shut myself up and work for four days straight.

This plan was foiled by my mamma.

MOTHER: Oh hi, daughter of mine. So I just finished work at the clinic and I thought you could use some fresh air. Maybe a cool drink.
SARAH: Absolutely not, vile temptress.
MOTHER: Oh, come on.
SARAH: I completely refuse.
MOTHER: Fine. Just desert your poor old mother. Sitting here all alone in a bar.
SARAH: Too bad.
MOTHER: Wearing pink lace and leopardskin. I wonder if that nice young man over there would like to have a drink with me-
SARAH: Stay right where you are! I'm on my way!

Today I finished the first round of edits on my manuscript and went skipping down the street, where I met Jennet Wilde on her way back from work.

SARAH: I'm done, I'm done!
JENNET: Oh thank God! The long nightmare is over!
SARAH: Sorry, what?
JENNET: Wonderful, congratulations! We in no way considered having you exorcised!

I am lying. She did not make an exorcism joke, because she is a marvel. As tall girls sometimes will in the summer sunshine when their edits are done, I picked up my teeny doll-sized flatmate and swung her around on the street. Then I skipped merrily off to buy dessert called Indulgent Chocolate Now You Are Truly Damned Cake, or something.

I will return very soon, I promise! For now, though, I shall eat cake.

I have a lot of fun imagining the phone calls that must happen about autobiographies.

Okay, so there was this one autobiography published which was about a woman's escape from a Nazi camp, her dangerous trek across Europe, and... wait for it... her adoption by a pack of wolves.

Imagine the discussion about that.

PUBLISHER TYPE #1: So this lunatic woman calls and says she escaped from a camp.
PUBLISHER TYPE #2: That sounds pretty gripping, actually.
PUBLISHER TYPE #1: And was subsequently raised by wolves.
PUBLISHER TYPE #2: ...
PUBLISHER TYPE #1: Yes sir, you should've heard the woman. She was obviously totally crazy!
PUBLISHER TYPE #2: Think very carefully about this next question.
PUBLISHER TYPE #1: Okay...
PUBLISHER TYPE #2: Did she sound crazy enough to have been raised by wolves?

Shockingly, this autobiography turned out to be somewhat less than true, which probably caused a discussion that went a bit like this.

PUBLISHER TYPE #1: So actually, you aren't even Jewish.
WOLF WOMAN: I've always felt like I was Jewish.
PUBLISHER TYPE #1: Have you always felt like you were raised by wolves?

Another woman recently wrote an autobiography which was set to be a smash hit with a book tour and a spread in the paper showing the lady's picture and talking about her book, an account of growing up in the ghetto, being mixed race, and dealing with her sister's drug abuse, various activities that funded the drug abuse, and death.

This caused a call to the newspaper.

ANONYMOUS WOMAN: Hi there. Uh, I was just calling to tell you that this woman's autobiography is all lies. She grew up in a loving family in the suburbs, and she's not mixed race, and she's never been involved in drugs.
PAPER: And how, may I ask, do you know all this?
ANONYMOUS WOMAN: Well... I'm her sister.

Obviously, not all autobiographies are crazy packs of lies. But these extreme examples do show that, uh, sometimes you'd be right to be a little doubtful when reading an autobiography.

I don't read many autobiographies because they're meant to be true, and I have a hard time believing them. I mean, when my friends ask me how my day was, I get carried away. I'll tell them a different story, a funnier story, a story with a proper conclusion. Real life is sometimes boring, rarely conclusive and boy, does the dialogue need work.

If thousands of total strangers opened a book called Ask Me How My Entire Life Was... well, I'm not saying I'd tell people I was raised by wolves. (I would not call it Ask Me How My Entire Life Was either. I would call it Throwing Up Daffodils, because - that is something that once happened to me. Kids: don't take dares to eat all the daffodils in a vase. Seriously, I mean it.) But I'm not sure that the end result would bear all that much resemblance to reality even if I really meant it to, because it would be so personal, and memory is so tricky, and stories slip their leashes and end up in unexpected places.

Now of course, I could just accept autobiographies as partly-fiction and roll with it.

But there's still the problem that you have to be really interesting to make an autobiography work. In fiction, even if there's a clear protagonist the writer isn't that protagonist and there are other people who are really important in the story. Everyone's interested in their own life because it is happening to them, but I would completely understand if people said, for instance 'What do I care if some poor half-wit girl eats flowers?'

So my problems with autobiographies: it's hard to make them truthful, and it's hard to make them interesting. Usually I steer clear, but there are some autobiographies I really like. And why do I like them?

( Wild Swans by Jung Chang and All The Fishes Come Home to Roost by Rachel Manija Brown: Concubines, Potato Windscreen Wipers and Very Few Spoilers )

Do you guys have any autobiographies you really like? (Because that is what these posts are about, saying 'I would not usually read this, but here are some exceptions, and I'd love to see more'). Would you like to beat me upside the head for talking smack about autobiographies? Does anyone want to write an autobiography? (Hint: Bribe your sister.) Tell me all!

The reason I have not been posting lately is that I am blue. Not very blue - just a little blue. Eggshell blue. Periwinkle blue.

Partly this is because I now live in a nest of paper made by my trying-to-be-edited manuscript. It is my first book and my first editorial letter, and so I keep stressing about it and intermittently going a little bit crazy. Luckily, Jennet Wilde and the Durham Lass can read me like a book - if I'm shrieking and throwing things, I'm probably all right. If I try to mop the floor, they stage an intervention.

It's just so important. And I want badly to get it just right. So sometimes I fret about things like the line between letting the characters evolve through action, and the point where readers say 'Yes, but who are these people, and why should I care?' and go quite mad. Wish me luck there.

Another reason for my delicate blue colour is that Jonas Wilde and Ashling, mentioned in this journal before as my trusty companions in many adventures, have gone and moved to Canada! I walk the streets pining tragically. People point at me and say 'There goes Sally no mates.'

Naturally I deal with these tragedies in my own way, which is to say - I go to country music concerts in beaded cowboy skirts. My flatmates regard this as nothing but a jaunty and colourful cry for help.

DURHAM LASS: I am going with you!
SARAH: Hooray, another convert to the beautiful country tunes.
DURHAM LASS: It's more that we don't want to get a postcard telling us that you've decided to go on the road as a country music groupie.
SARAH: Aw, you care!
DURHAM LASS: Of course I do, of course I do. Besides, there's the question of the rent.

And despite the tragedy of my friends emigrating, their goodbye party was a lot of fun, including impostor waitresses, all-out noodle warfare, and diverse humorous misunderstandings.

I was standing at one point in a very, very noisy establishment with a girl called Lily-Ann.
LILY-ANN: So I hear you're a writer!
SARAH: Yes!
LILY-ANN: What is your book about!
SARAH: Sexy dances! - Dude, step off.
LILY-ANN: Oh really!
SARAH (voice climbing): Hot demons! - Seriously, dude, get away from us.
LILY-ANN: Cool!
SARAH (at the top of her voice): Assorted weaponry!
SARAH AND LILY-ANN: stare at the sudden space and silence around them
LILY-ANN: Sounds great.

My family has rallied around me in these times of trouble, and this naturally cheers me up. They took me out to a play yesterday, and before that they dropped by to visit the flat.

Now the thing about my family is that they're all more than six foot tall. To a man my siblings are blond, tanned, athletic six footers. We speculate that I may be the postman's child, an alien, or a changeling. Or the alien postman's changeling child.

I'm tall myself, not that you could tell the family that without them bursting into hysterical laughter. So the lot of us en masse made Jennet Wilde and the Durham Lass look like teeny, tiny doll people. I mocked them until my baby brother put me in my place with his new favourite game since his growth spurt, which is staring kindly down at me and patting my head in a patronising fashion.

I've always felt very hard done by in my family. It's much like school. I had the ability to negotiate corridors with my head in a book! I developed weird, batlike nerd sonar! Surely people could have misunderstood me just a little, so I could have been properly artistic and put-upon.

Same with my family. Not that we understand each other: we don't. My brother Rory is a pro poker player, and my poker face consists of shrieking at high volume, throwing the cards up in the air like confetti, and then saying 'Uh... my cards are fine. How're yours?' It's just that, as all families should, we have built a beautiful relationship on a rock-solid foundation of mutual disrespect and intense mockery.

SARAH: So how's partnering Mum at tennis going?
SAUL: She psychs out the people we play with by singing loud victory songs.
SARAH: You know, that's an interesting strategy used by barbarian hordes-
SAUL: Did the barbarian hordes sing 'Doncha Wish Your Girlfriend Was Hot Like Me?'
SARAH: ... Point taken.
MUM: Match point. Boo yeah!
EVERYONE: ...

So in short: I am still alive, going just a little crazy, and will one day emerge from my tiny paper home filled with country music. Today is not that day, but it's not so bad in here.

So yesterday my mother rang me.

MOTHER: You are a bad daughter!
SARAH: Why am I a particularly bad daughter today?
MOTHER: Why didn't you tell me you were going to be in the paper?
SARAH: I'm not in the paper!
MOTHER: Yes you are.
SARAH: You're having one of your funny turns again, aren't you, Mother? Listen, there are no vampires being interviewed on television, and I am not in the paper. I'd know if I was in the paper. Surely they tell you. Unless you've suddenly become involved in some kind of... terrible scandal.
SARAH: ... Maybe I'd better go buy a paper and call you back.
SARAH (some time later): Hey mom! Guess what, I'm in the paper!
MOTHER: I'm shocked.

I'm totally in the paper, you guys! And not involved in any sort of terrible scandal, which is a relief.

But this post isn't about newspapers. It's about letters.

So after you wrote a book, rewrote, secured an agent, rewrote some more and went on submission (more about the submission process another day), your book's been accepted for publication! Score! You have a publishing house, and an editor, and cheques even arrive, and everything in the world is wonderful.

But then your editor sends you a great big package. You open it slowly. You start to read...

Dear Author

I have just had the amazing experience of reading your breathtakingly wonderful novel again. All other work stopped in the office as I read out pages of your glittering golden prose. Assistant editors wept. The entire marketing division swooned as one. It would absolutely be a crime to change a single word of this glorious

Wait Muriel, is that Sarah Rees Brennan's letter? Ahem. New line. Take dictation, Muriel!

Excuse me, Sarah. I meant to send that letter off to someone else. Okay. So I re-read your novel, and I remembered that we were having a Mardi Gras party in the office when we bought it. So many things seem like a good idea at Mardi Gras... Well, we'll have to do the best we can with it! First off, I'm sure that you've already considered the fact that making the hero a talking rabbit would improve the book a hundredfold! I see this as a sort of Watership Down meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer...

Rabbits are hot right now. Very hot.

Okay, so perhaps my editorial letter didn't read exactly like that. (It certainly didn't read like the first bit!)

( I Am Not Drowning But Waving From My Sea of Post-Its: How I Learned to Love My Editorial Letter )

I hope this was an interesting publication post! Any questions about editorial letters or requests for me to hush up with my ill-informed babbling welcome.

I write to you from Dublin again, my friends! I have journeyed far and it was all fun.

Eastercon was a blast. Conventions are still a little strange to me, but I think that people meeting and bonding over and yelling about fantasy books is one of the coolest ideas of our time. I trot around conventions looking like a slightly backward but friendly deer - wide-eyed, might flee at any moment, but happy and interested as anything. I like to pluck people's sleeves and say earnestly, 'Look, Neil Gaiman! Look, a Klingon! Look, a cheese mayonnaise sandwich! Amazing!'

I met piles of fabulous people, among whom were Alice and Sidney, whom I met on a bridge over water that had glass fish in it and who told me they liked my stories. I felt famous! And I saw many excellent panels, in which writers and other specially selected folk talk about things like how to deal with the apocalypse, and the growing darkness in children's literature.

At a convention this summer, I am going to be on panels, and talk about vampires, demons and fairies, among other things. That'll be special. 'And what do you think, Sarah?' 'Could we make them breed and have an army of demonic vampire fairies?' '... Yes - well. Thank you for your input...'

Then Holly, Cassie and I went to a writing retreat in darkest Ireland. There was a dog named Dog. There were megalithic cairns a brisk six miles' walk away. There was a ruined castle across from the gas station.

There was much, much writing. It was like being in a writers' office. It was fabulous to sit and type and talk out plot points. Sometimes I would look over and see Holly smiling fondly at her screen, and that would make me smile too. Sometimes I got up and danced to the country music mix that Cassie had made just for me, and I presume that made them both very sad about my supreme lameness.

Speaking of my supreme lameness, I was naturally an invaluable cog in the writers' office machine.

CASSIE: So I'm stuck on a scene. Say we have-
SARAH: Don't worry. I know what to do.
CASSIE: But I haven't told you what-
SARAH: I know what to do whenever you're stuck. Add a make-out scene!
CASSIE: What.
SARAH: It never fails. Disgusting, romantic, life-threatening - doesn't matter how it plays out, it's always interesting. I love a make-out scene.
CASSIE: ... What if the scene is between a werewolf-
SARAH: Fine!
CASSIE: And a giant eyeball.
SARAH: ... I'm not saying that would be one of the romantic ones. But it could be done!

On one of our country rambles, we came upon a great grey manor for sale, with a beautiful pony frolicking outside it. We approached cheerfully, taking pictures as we went that were mainly of my chin. (The others are petite beauties. Me not so much.)

Then we became aware of the terrible stench.

I was the first one to see what was in the moat. Then Cassie saw. Then Holly demanded to know what we were shuddering about and despite our advice, she looked too.

The moat was full to the brim with nothing but (obviously unwashed) tins of cat food. It was all the same type of cat food.

We stared with growing concern at the crazy house.

Then as we backed away, a little car came around the crazy house and started slowly driving down the country lane towards us.

My nerve broke. I went running down that lane with my arms waving wildly as if I was a scarecrow in a gale. I know it was wrong to leave the others, but... I could see my death in those tins of cat food.

Despite everything, we got masses of work done. I was going to celebrate this triumph, but then - on Friday, I got my editorial letter. That will be another post.

For now, I leave you with the news I have been promising to tell you all! Today my press release went out.

What's a press release, you may ask. (I did!) It's an awesome thing and I am really lucky to have one. It's information about my book that gets sent out to reviewers, publishing journalists, booksellers and so on. And it tells them what the books are about and who I am and my publishers say nice things about me and never mention how concerned they grow about my failing mind at all.

I am so happy to have one that I have to share a little bit with you all. So you can see!

( Look What They Made For Me! - UK and US Press Release Excerpts )

I love press releases and writing retreats and conventions. And I love editorial letters - but they are very, very scary.

Maybe scarier than cat food tin moats.

I write to you from London, dear friends.

A humbling thing happened to me today. I arrived at the hotel and then dashed back out again to Charing Cross Road, the road of bookshops, the road of my heart. I happily told one shop lady that I was visiting from Ireland. She eyed me coldly, in a way that told me she disapproved of people who told fibs. 'No you're not,' she said sternly. 'You're here all the time.'

Obviously, I am totally unconvincing as a glamorous jetsetter.

I meant to post before I left, but St Patrick's Day and other things which must for now remain secret occupied me. St Patrick's Day in particular completely overset me.

You see, I like the jesters in the parade. I like their hats with bells on. I like a man who makes me laugh. I'm kind of a jester groupie. This means that I was tired out after all the jester-related excitement of St Patrick's Day, and did not expect my phone to jangle in my ear in the early hours of the next morning.

MAMA: Holly Blood's on television!
SARAH: Whuh? Who? Who's that? ... Is she a vampire? Would vampires even show up on television? Wait, vampires aren't even real!
MAMA: I tell you she's on television!
SARAH (severely): Mother, it is very early in the morning and you are raving. There are no vampires on your television. Good day to you!
MAMA: You are not listening, it's that girl you know.
SARAH: I don't know any vampires. Well, I don't think I know any vampires. I am sure I would spot it. Given time.
MAMA: Just turn on your television!
SARAH: Oh cool, Holly's on television. Holly Black, Mother. Not Holly Blood.
MAMA: Blood, Black, what does it matter? One of those good old vampire families.
SARAH: ... Mother, do you know any vampires?

But what, you may ask, am I doing in London? I am going to Eastercon. It's my second convention where I get to meet other people who write and will talk to me about writing and fantasy and during which I will try to hide behind pillars, people and glasses much less than I did at my first convention.

You see, I am shy. This is not immediately obvious on meeting me. It is not immediately obvious on getting to know me better. In fact, sometimes I tell my friends I am shy, and then they start laughing and pointing hurtfully at me.

When I was a solemn bespectacled eight years of age, I was sitting on some stairs and reading a book at a party. And it occurred to me that if I went in to the party, I might utterly shame myself, but at least that would be entertaining. This is the thing, you see: I have a terribly short attention span. That's why I read so much and I write so much and I talk so much. Otherwise I get bored. Even in the short time it takes to brush my teeth I sometimes get bored, so bored that I make up a story to amuse myself and then I get too into it and I forget what I'm doing and then I realise five minutes later that I am chewing my toothbrush. (True fact: I go through a new toothbrush every two weeks.)

I really like people. I think they're terribly interesting. So even though I have horrible fears about meeting new groups of them and I often end up saying embarrassing things, well - it's still a lot more fun than not meeting them. So wish me luck: I promise I won't sit on the hotel stairs.

I am also very, very much looking forward to being with writing folk again. My Irish friends are incredibly patient with me as I sit with them and talk about covers and popular trends and they even listen when I do small dramatic re-enactments of stories I have read or stories I'm thinking about writing. But I love being told stories back.

And after Eastercon, I shall not be done with writing folk yet, as I carry two of my favourite writing folk, Holly and Cassie, back with me to write in an Irish cottage in the countryside. It should be great fun, though I fear they may look to me as a Native Guide.

I can read Irish road signs. I can tell them all about the history of the cairns nearby. It's just... I have this fear of cows.

I am a city girl who reads a lot. When I was young, I read a lot of pony books. Then I was taken to a farm. I looked at the cows in the field. I did not think they were so different from ponies. I decided it was time to tame a noble steed!

... It all seemed perfectly reasonable at the time. I still think that the whole herd of cows over-reacted.

I've been suspicious of cows ever since. I think they are plotting their revenge.

So, in summary: I like jesters. I do not know any vampires, but my mother might, and I will be at a convention and in a tiny Irish writing retreat, so I will be scarce around these parts for a little while.

However, if I am not back by April, presume the cows got me.

Since I won't be posting for a bit I thought I'd also put up this interview I did with my friend Sinéad for her college paper: it doesn't appear online, and I wish to share eeeverything. As ever, if you guys wanted to see interview questions asked that weren't, ask away!

( Many Things You Never Wanted To Know About Sarah, But She Went and Told You Anyway )

This post is brought to you by a sudden descent of indignation at midnight, so I beg everybody's pardon if it is completely crazy. (Ahem. If it is any more completely crazy than usual.)

I would first like to make one thing clear. I really love Susan Cooper's Silver on the Tree, Patricia McKillip's Ombria in Shadow and Libba Bray's The Sweet Far Thing. Long passages of descriptive writing have been known to bore me, but I can read McKillip's description of an orange for five pages because it is bee-yoo-tiful. I love the way women are the movers and shakers in Libba Bray's Victorian boarding school plus magical land books, and in particular I have a fearful girl-crush on arrogant blonde Felicity Worthington. Susan Cooper is just a flat-out genius and I only wish I'd read her Dark Is Rising series as a child and grown up with that fantastic world a familiar place in my brain.

That said: there is one thing that all three books have in common which I find extremely unsettling.

Imagine if the Lord of the Rings had contained a scene like this...

PIPPIN: Hey Frodo. I'm so glad that you decided to get over all that Ring business.
FRODO: Ring? What ring? Have you lost one, Pippin old chap?
PIPPIN: ...
FRODO: Have you looked under the sofa cushions?
PIPPIN: Well - not in Mount Doom. Er, Frodo, my man, how did you lose that finger?
FRODO: Well now, I don't think I quite recall - uh, no - Was Sam involved somehow?
PIPPIN: Yes! Yes, you've got it!
FRODO: I don't blame him at all. Poor fellow. Those gardening shears can be awfully tricky.

( Those Gardening Shears Can Be Awfully Tricky: Spoilers for all three books, though I try not to give away endings )

In summary - I think you should all read these books, and I am against magically induced amnesia! Are you?

Recently I have been having a rather frantic time of it. Let me begin this story by telling you that I am almost completely computer illiterate. I have a fear of technology. When I was sixteen my papa got a computer in the house that connected to the Internet and I eyed it with suspicion for months. 'No good will come of this,' I predicted darkly. 'The little whoosh sound of the computer dialling is information about us being broadcast to the FBI. You'll see. Oh, you'll all see.'

Eventually Chiara, the Best Friend, took matters calmly in hand as is her way and taught me how to use the computer. 'Fine,' I hissed. 'But I won't enjoy it.'

I see now that I was wrong. But this doesn't actually make me any good at computers. This makes the whole 'having a website' business very worrying indeed.

Particularly when I tried to change web hosts (hosts? Don't ask me, apparently they are necessary but the word makes me think of Alien) and all seemed to go according to plan.

Then suddenly my website disappeared. 'We don't have it,' said Web Host #1. 'We might have left it in our other pants,' said Web Host #2. '... Hey, is this yours?' asked Random Mystery Web Host #3.

I believe at this point I had to retire to my fainting couch.

Of course it happened the very week that for a Secret Reason I hope I will be able to tell you guys soon, it was very important that I have a website up. Cue many panicked phone calls to America begging them to release my website unharmed.

WEBSITE KIDNAPPERS: Wait, it takes a while for the seeds to propagate.
SARAH: The seeds to... oh God, this is just like Alien, I knew it!
WEBSITE KIDNAPPERS: What you have to do is-
SARAH: Pay you anything you ask. Give up my country's secret codes. Sacrifice the white goat!
WEBSITE KIDNAPPERS: Calm down.

The host situation was resolved, thankfully without human sacrifice or having to defend our world from savage alien attack. For now what I have up is this new splash page, which has a Graveyard Picture and a little more about the book, but soon there will be a real website! theoblack has been showing me very awesome things, and I am much excited.

I was however somewhat crazed as a result of this drama, and decided to go to Brussels to visit the Best Friend for a rest cure.

SARAH: O I am so glad to be here. Now to spend the weekend pallidly decorating your sofa.
CHIARA: Put on your sparkly party dress, we're going dancing!
SARAH: Well - I do like dancing.
CHIARA: Have this stroopwaffel to give you energy.
SARAH: ... Stroopwaffel. (experimentally) Stroopwaffel, stroopwaffel, stroopwaffel...
CHIARA (patiently): It's a sort of pressed waffle honey caramel cinnamon vanilla biscuit thing.
SARAH: It is the new love of my life.

Brussels passed by in a whirl of dancing, parties, shopping, meeting people from college in Irish bars, writing and eating cream swans in Belgian cafes, and speaking my own particular language. You see, I understand French perfectly well, but my idiot brain just turns on to Foreign, and thus I often happily chat to people in a mixture of French and Irish.

Of course the Belgian people all think I am speaking in tongues and pat my demented head.

Things I Learned About Belgium On My Holidays:

1. New York has the Statue of Liberty. Brussels has the Manneken Pis - a statue of a little boy peeing. Possibly this has to do with an infant lord who peed on enemy troops from a tree. Possibly it has to do with a little boy who peed on the fuse of an explosive and saved his city. Possibly it has to do with a merchant's son, lost and then found peeing on a street, which caused the merchant to put up a statue to mark his gratitude, which probably caused a lot of fights between father and son in later life. The Most Embarrassing Parent in the World is a tough and competitive game, but I think we may have found a winner here.

Memo to all Belgians: I do not mean to disrespect your noble and ancient culture. I think all the stories are very cool! I am sorry for laughing so hard!

2. Belgium has over 2, 000 chocolate shops in it. I think Brussels must have at least 500, and I think I went into all of them. I just wanted to buy some Easter gifts! I did not know that at every shop, they would offer me a tray of sample chocolates. I did not know how very ill I would soon feel.

CHOCOLATE SHOP #346: Tray?
SARAH: Please... no more... can't take it. Will tell you anything you want to know!
CHOCOLATE SHOP #346: Biscuit?
SARAH: Oh biscuit! Oh yes please, I love biscuit! Mmm, bis-
CHOCOLATE SHOP #346: With tasty chocolate filling!
SARAH: ... ohdear.
CHIARA: Are you all right?
SARAH: Fine, fine. Just experiencing a new and different take on Death By Chocolate. Not to worry.

3. Belgium celebrates International Women's Day by having sales in half the shops! On one hand, you know, Belgium, not every woman likes to shop, let's not perpetrate stereotypes here, and yet - I do like to shop. Chiara and I went into a frenzy of pretty thing acquisition.

I also bought new shoes with swirly patterns on them. I loved them. I loved them so much that I insisted on wearing them that day, in stockings, over cobblestones. Of course it only took a half hour before they started hurting me almost as much as the chocolate had earlier.

CHIARA: C'mon. I am wearing proper socks. Let's switch shoes before we get to the party.
SARAH: No! You are too noble. I would never let a friend suffer for my fault.
CHIARA: Hand them over this minute, silly wench.
SARAH: Never, never, I will never be vanquished-
CHIARA: Give them here! Don't argue! A plague on both your high heels!

A nice middle-aged Belgian couple passed by as the wrestling match on the cobblestones took place and shook their heads, slowly and sadly, at today's youth. Loose morals. Rock'n'roll. Shoe fights in public arenas. Where will it end?

I tottered home and almost immediately out to a champagne lunch with my friend Las, who just got accepted to Oxford! (Diplomacy in Brussels, scholarly brilliance in Oxford. It's clear I need less awesome friends so they don't show me up so much.)

Once I was actually home...

DURHAM LASS: Welcome back, Sarah!
SARAH: *slow blink*
DURHAM LASS: Did you enjoy your rest cure? Did you have a lovely relaxing time?
SARAH: ... Stroopwaffel?

This is partly a list of book reviews and a request for book recommendations, and partly a Traumatic Tale from my Childhood. I am sorry you will have to suffer through Whatever Happened to Baby Sarah until you get to the good stuff!

So, Baby Sarah was a small, solemn and bespectacled child with a bowl haircut and a passion for flowered leggings and Jane Austen. She was also a very tiny militant feminist.

My mother married my father and moved to Ireland, which back in 1978 was a very different place to England. Mother had swinging hair and was brought up with the Beatles playing down the street, and she was stunned to find herself in a country where divorce and abortion were forbidden and the Catholic Church was extremely unhappy about the fact that Mother had Lived With A Man Before They Wed. My mama being my mama, she immediately joined a family planning clinic, started magazine and newspaper columns with sex advice, and was almost thrown down the stairs of her clinic while pregnant because protesters thought she was going to have an illegal abortion.

Abortion is still illegal in Ireland. Divorce was made legal twelve years ago - I still remember my parents sitting on the sofa holding hands and going 'Divorce, divorce, divorce!' (My parents are still married.)

This kind of thing has its effect on a child. I have a picture of myself aged two, balanced on the edge of a bin full of burning bras. I gave speeches about sexism in the playground and also drew helpful and informative sex diagrams in the gravel. And uh, I will not conceal this from you guys, but - a boy tried to play kiss chase with me and I had already decided it was promoting gender stereotypes and I, uh - I bit him. (And it was very wrong and violence is never the answer!)

So Baby Sarah was permitted to read anything she wanted, always. I'd gone through all my mother's sex books and was informed about all the facts of life when aged about four. When I was eight I read Dracula and my mother was so convinced I'd have nightmares that she had nightmares and came into my room extremely agitated to find me curled up peacefully with my vampire book cuddled in my arms.

So Baby Sarah, aged nine, was visiting her grandparents in England and she took a book down from the shelf confidently expecting it to be her friend like all books were. It was her very first romance novel.

( Welcome to Pleasure Town: A Summary of Baby Sarah's First Romance )

Then Baby Sarah stayed up all night, stock still and terrified that a marquis would come and brainwash her. That book stayed with me a long time. I entirely refused to read romance because of it.

( What Do You Read That You Don't Read - small spoilers for Georgette Heyer, Jennifer Crusie, Loretta Chase, Mary Balogh )

Other genres I used to be prejudiced about and which I found awesome books in were sci-fi and paranormal romance. I shall make more posts about those, but for now - what romances would you guys recommend? And what do you read that, you know, you thought you never would read?

Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction, written purely to entertain myself and (with any luck) a few others. The world and characters belong wholly to J.K. Rowling, and I lay no claim to them whatsoever! If you're reading this journal for non-fanfiction-related reasons, do not click, this will probably not be your cup of tea. If you are nodding impatiently because this is totally your cup of tea, I hope you enjoy and remember that all the fanfiction comes down on September 6th!

Dedication: This one is for Ms A.P., still, because this was meant to be one chapter! So it totally counts.

( Drop Dead Gorgeous Links )

( Drop Dead Gorgeous 10, R, H/D )

Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction, written purely to entertain myself and (with any luck) a few others. The world and characters belong wholly to J.K. Rowling, and I lay no claim to them whatsoever! If you're reading this journal for non-fanfiction-related reasons, do not click, this will probably not be your cup of tea. If you are nodding impatiently because this is totally your cup of tea, I hope you enjoy and remember that all the fanfiction comes down on September 6th!

Dedication: This one is for Ms A.P., because (among many other reasons, some to do with fated sunsets) we both love faeries. And for everyone who knew I was a woman of my word.

( Drop Dead Gorgeous Links and Shameful Confession )

( Drop Dead Gorgeous 9, H/D, R )

So here's the thing: I love fantasy. I presume most of you do as well - I mean, why else are you here? I love, love, love fantasy. I think it is the most awesome genre by far. When a tutor on my MA course looked down his nose at fantasy, I chewed my own notebook in rage and made growling sounds whenever he approached from then on. I love it so much that I just flail when I try to tell people how much I love it. I become overly enthusiastic and incoherent and I say things like 'No, but really, really, fantasy is everything that can be awesome about other genres plus awesome magic! Like, a coming of age story with pain and loss and awesome magic! Or a dark terrible romance with awesome magic! Or a drop dead laughing comedy with awesome magic! Or an autobiographical tale - plus awesome magic! How awesome is that?!'

Then I flop forward onto a flat surface and try to get my breath back. My face goes all sorts of interesting colours. People think I have fits. It's very sad.

I talk a lot about fantasy books here, and I have a couple parodies of fantasy movies. But I don't talk very much about fantasy movies, because movies release here a lot later. Sometimes two months later. Sometimes a year. I try not to have hysterics about this, but it is hard right now, because I want to see The Spiderwick Chronicles like Romeo kind of wanted to date Juliet. And this is its opening weekend in the US and basically, I want everyone in the world to go see it and this is why.

( The Spiderwick Chronicles, much babbling, no spoilers at all )

Not that I can have any possible influence on how the movie will do, because sadly I have yet to build my army of flying children (not monkeys, children. Much better idea. Children think better and also will listen to my stories) and take over the world. But I wanted to babble about fantasy movies, bad and good, and starting off positively seemed like a good idea. Now for recent fantasy films which are just dreadful and which I will warn you off.

( Tomatoes So Rotten They Resemble Kiwis: Eragon, The Dark Is Rising and Jumper. Very tiny spoilers, none for any endings )

All three of these supernaturally terrible movies were adapted from books, and at least two were very, very loosely adapted. I don't want movie people to think it's a bad idea to adapt from books, because I love books, and fantasy books best of all. I want them to see the numbers and realise that they need to make really cool adaptations of totally stupendous fantasy books. That is my belated Christmas wish!

I did not see many movies as a kid, because I always had my tiny bespectacled head stuck in a book. I did see Labyrinth and loved it, while being outraged that anyone called Sarah would be stupid enough not to marry the Goblin King and rule the super fantastic magical kingdom with a sparkly white-gloved iron fist as her husband sang her rocking love ballads. Can you guys recommend me older fantasy films to watch? If you please.

And also, which superlatively awesome fantasy books would you like to see as breathtakingly wonderful films? My inquiring mind wants to know.

It occurred to me that I hadn't done a 'Stumbling Towards Publication' post in a while, so here it is: another step in my enormously hapless journey.

Let's talk about research. No, I don't mean the comfortable kind of research where you sit with your glasses perched on the tip of your nose and go through sources until, by some crazed and circuitous route, you find yourself reading an essay on Stephen King's Pet Sematary and remember you really only wanted to spend a minute checking how many days were in May.

I'm talking about research in the field. See, the thing about magic is nobody can really say you're doing it wrong. You can look up stuff about demons and rituals and use everything as guidelines rather than rules - who knows about magic? - but if your characters spend ninety per cent of their time in the real world, which is a stern world requiring maps and signposts and some way of paying the rent and the electricity bill... Well, someone will know if you get the real world wrong.

Unfortunately, research in the field is hazardous. I have already recorded in this journal my trip to Salisbury to get a scene right, and how I was rewarded for my dedication by being mistaken for a very young health inspector.

Research in the field often goes wrong. Or maybe it's just me.

Okay, so Nick, the protagonist of The Demon's Lexicon, does a lot of things - puts the sexy in dyslexia, can handle a sword a little - and one of them, since his family is really not well-off and everyone has to pull their weight, is work part-time in a garage. Seemed like a good idea at the beginning. Fit the character. Full steam ahead!

Until I remembered that I knew absolutely nothing about cars.

So one fine day the hardworking men in a garage near Guildford were rather surprised to see me descend upon them. One man rolled himself out from under a car to behold a creature with mismatched eyes, impractical shoes and an alarming smile.

( Is That A Carburetor in Your Pocket, Or Are You Just Happy To See Me? )

Since this is a Writing Post, I should also point anyone who'd be interested to this mini-interview.

And I should tell you where I am. I am at the airport, typing cheerfully as I wait for my flight to London.

Because another step on the road to publication is author photos. Now, I had some done: I always fear that I will look like a deranged wombat in photos, but I was willing to brave this. And they came out not so bad: Slightly Eccentric Wombat in a Nice Dress, thanks to the brilliance of my photographer.

UK PUBLISHER: So... your photos are fine, but we were thinking of doing some slightly different photographs.
SARAH: Is this about the wombat thing?
UK PUBLISHER: Er - no. What wombat thing?
SARAH: Oh never mind, never mind. Absolutely! I would love to.
UK PUBLISHER: That's great! Okay, do you want to meet us in the graveyard?
SARAH: ... Where?

Do not worry, I do not think my publishers are plotting to lure me to a burial ground and kill me. (Livejournal, avenge my death!) They are awesome people! I have absolute faith that they mean me only good, and that they have an excellent plan for my photos and that they will look lovely.

I do have some fears. If I can get myself in trouble sitting in a garage in Guildford, I can only imagine what might happen to me while flitting about a graveyard in London - making, of course, my traditional wombat face. Wish me luck!

Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction, written purely to entertain myself and (with any luck) a few others. The world and characters belong wholly to J.K. Rowling, and I lay no claim to them whatsoever! If you're reading this journal for non-fanfiction-related reasons, do not click, this will probably not be your cup of tea. If you are nodding impatiently because this is totally your cup of tea, I hope you enjoy and remember that all the fanfiction comes down on September 6th!

Dedication: Helen is sick, and I cannot make her chicken soup. So I tied up my hair and wrote this to comfort her in her illness.

( Drop Dead Gorgeous links )

( Drop Dead Gorgeous 8, R, H/D )

Hamnet the Laptop and I are now safely installed in our lovely new home, where we sit splendidly happy by the fireside and write and write. Living with Jennet Wilde and the Durham Lass is going very well so far, with many adventures had which I will write up another time and the beautiful security that I will always have someone to answer my strange questions.

For example...
SARAH (looking up randomly from reading): And what will you call your band?
THE DURHAM LASS (thoughtfully): The Dilemmons.

There is no band. There will never be a band. But I am glad it has a name.

Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction, written purely to entertain myself and (with any luck) a few others. The world and characters belong wholly to J.K. Rowling, and I lay no claim to them whatsoever! If you're reading this journal for non-fanfiction-related reasons, do not click, this will probably not be your cup of tea. If you are nodding impatiently because this is totally your cup of tea, I hope you enjoy and remember that all the fanfiction comes down on September 6th!

Dedication: For mcollinknight - sorry about the banshee!

( Quality of Mercy, R, Chapter 24 )

So I came to Prague, land of slanty streets with spiky towers and round villas leaning companionably against each other, land of hot white wine with little bags of spices. My trusty fellow adventurers I shall name as follows: The Durham Lass, Jonas Wilde and Ashling.

The Durham Lass is Snow White with a Madonna smile and a passion for tea and antiquities. Jonas Wilde is a gallant gentleman who occasionally lets us decorate him with eyeliner and has simply dreadful taste in, hem hem, Scrabble partners. Ashling has a dry wit and the look of a jazz baby, and a letter from her sometimes contains half a dozen colourful pictures - I don't think anyone else in the world writes graphic letters the way she does. My humble self you know already.

We were unleashed on an unsuspecting country at night, and by morning judgement had fallen on us.

SARAH (singing in the shower, widely regarded as the first disaster): That boy's just a runaway joe, born to be a leaver, tell you from the word go-
ASHLING: Stop! Stop singing while Rome floods!
SARAH: While Rome burns.
ASHLING: Oh no, I think you'll find it floods.
SARAH (gibbering): Oh my God, oh my God, the flood has come upon me. Oh my God, the hotel room floor is ankle deep in water. What shall we do? Dear God, what shall we do?!
ASHLING: Strange, frantic towel dances. Apparently.

Ashling took command of the situation and all ended well. We were dry and dressed on the streets of Prague, and we stopped to admire a beautiful church.

Then the church exploded.

Into a sort of cuckoo clock church. Saints popped merrily from every window. Jesus cruised by. And best of all, a tiny skeleton Death came out and started ringing the bell. With his scythe.

SARAH: Okay, I don't know who slipped the hallucinogens in breakfast...
JONAS: ... But we want them again tomorrow. Okay?

Prague was just like that. We came to accept it. We serenely sailed by art museums where the exhibits were all made of chocolate body paint, and came upon the Café Imperial. Where, we happened to know from our guide book, you could order a tray of stale doughnuts and throw them at each other.

It was immediately clear to everyone that there was a gaping hole in our lives that could only be filled by unleashing full-on doughnut warfare.

We arrived at the café and were so crushed by the discovery they no longer threw doughnuts that we had to be consoled by an enormous lunch.

SARAH (toying with her glass): You know... we can still order doughnuts. I'm just saying, is all.
ASHLING: SARAH, NO.
SARAH: Do you know in a famous Czech novel it says that there are three kinds of people in the world? Those who just stare at a bowl of doughnuts and think nothing, those who dream of throwing doughnuts at others, and those for whom the idea of a doughnut whistling through the air is such an enticement that they get up and actually make it happen!
ASHLING: No, there are four kinds of people in the world, and the fourth kind say Sarah, I hate you, put that doughnut down!

Like a good friend, I waited until Ashling and Jonas Wilde had discreetly left the building. Then the Durham Lass and I stared at each other with sticky pastries in our hands and a terrible speculation in our eyes.

SARAH: Don't leave me alone with this, soldier. Give your doughnut wings!
DURHAM LASS: Fire at will!

Any spectators who claim they later saw me on a tower top with doughnut fragments in my hair are, I hope you will understand, either lying or tragically mistaken.

I am saddened to inform you that I also became the kind of terrible dullard who brings her work on holiday. My agent and I had been conferring on names for the overall series title of my trilogy, and she'd suggested that I make a big list.

Naturally, I stayed up half the night looking up poems and works of literature to quote from. (Hey, it worked for Philip Pullman.) I cannot be held responsible for the things I wrote down at three in the morning.

My friends not only nobly and consistently refrain from beating me to death with lampshades when I go on about my books, but actively intervened to save me from myself and culled the three a.m. lists.

JONAS WILDE: The Fiery Antidote? Seriously? Do any of your characters ever have a terrible, tingly rash?
SARAH (mutters sulkily): ... fantasy not after-school special...
JONAS WILDE: A terribly, tingly magical rash? Do they go on a quest to find this fiery antidote?
SARAH (haughtily): I couldn't possibly tell you. I don't want to spoil the book.

I still don't have a title. If anyone has any brilliant ideas, I urge you to come forward. I will give you anything you ask. Half my non-existent kingdom. My hand in marriage. Jonas Wilde's hand in marriage. Incriminating photographs from Prague.

Speaking of incriminating photographs, let me tell you of our last night in Prague. We all dressed up in splendid raiment and painted our faces and looked like princesses. (Especially Jonas Wilde.) And we went to a very fancy and solemn restaurant.

ASHLING: The best books Enid Blyton ever wrote were the Five Find-Outers and Dog.
SARAH (in high excitement): That is so true! Fatty was a sexy beast.
WAITRESS BEHIND ME: ... Uh. Um. Bread?

Since we are pure class, once we left the restaraunt we went to a dive bar. And in this bar, with a flickering neon sign above the door, in this seemingly perfectly normal and innocent bar we found our last piece of classic Prague insanity.

SARAH: Let us venture below, down two flights of twisty stairs to the dark and empty cellar!
DURHAM LASS: I am ever valiant and loyal. Sometimes I really, really wonder why.

And in that dark and empty cellar, we found a sword in a stone.

Nobody ever told us why it was there. It was the sort of thing that needed no reasons why.

Of course I dashed forward, King Arthur in a black and gold dress and too much eyeliner, and tried to pull the sword from the stone. Of course the Durham Lass recorded my shame to keep for al