squeetus

Update-arooni

Life is crazy, isn't it? Blog taking a back seat to kids and books. Can't seem to find anything extra to devote to thoughtful blog posts. Here's just a general update.

I don't have any Austenland: The Movie news, but here's a short video that shows the set and interviews with Bret McKenzie, JJ Feild (who, I just read, is expecting a baby with girlfriend Neve Campbell!), Ricky Whittle, and Georgia King. I don't even know who did this video. Also, Stephenie Meyer put an update about the movie on her website. I think I tweeted both these things but never blogged them.

Sending a 5th-ish draft of my current book to my editor today. She and Dean read 2/3 of the first draft several years ago, and then I put aside this one (formerly called Daisy Danger Brown) to work on Midnight in Austenland and Palace of Stone. I'm really liking it right now. I love working on it. It's getting huge, though, at 145,000 words. I've been cutting like crazy, having trimmed 40,000 words in large chunks and many thousands more in smaller chunks. Add and delete, add and delete. I'll do at least seven more drafts before its done.

Princess Academy: Palace of Stone will be out in August. There's a cover out there somewhere but its not final, so I'm waiting for a final version to post it. It will have a photograph to match the style of the Princess Academy paperback.

I'm very excited about The Princess in Black! No illustrator yet, but I will post as soon as the publisher makes the choice. This book series was directly inspired by our kids. It's been fun to write for them for the first time.

Writing for Charity was amazing! Thanks to all who came. We raised a good amount of money and will be able to buy a lot of books for kids in disadvantaged areas. There will be another conference next year.

The marvelous mutations of Pride & Prejudice

If you missed my chat last night on figment.com with E. Lockhart and Elizabeth Eulberg, here are some highlights. Good fun! Love those sassy dames.

Also, here's a reprint of a guest blog I did for figment.com on Austen.

 

I first read Pride and Prejudice in high school for unassigned pleasure. I can’t remember who recommended it to me. Everyone, I guess. I loved it. I’d never read a romance before, and I lapped it up. Mr. Darcy was perfect! Elizabeth was perfect! The long ago–far away, the longing and finding—perfection! I immediately sought out the rest of Austen’s novels and ate them up too.

At 19, I went on a study abroad to Mexico. Saturated with Spanish, far from home, I found a worn copy of Pride and Prejudice in the school’s small English-language library. I didn’t mean to read it. I was supposed to be immersing myself in a new language. But I opened the first page and that was all it took. I was in England again and falling most dangerously in love with Mr. Darcy. I turned pages, hungry, as if I had no idea what would happen next. It was as fresh to me as it had been at first.

At age 23, I read Pride and Prejudice for at least the third time. But wait . . . it was no longer a romance. How on earth could a book simply change genre? Now it was social commentary, feminist and raw and heady and fascinating. The slavery of women! The bindings of social custom! I wrote a seething essay for a college course—well supported from the text, I thought—on how Austen is mistaken for a romantic when really she was a biting satirist.

At 27, I read Pride and Prejudice again. I was married, my master’s degree finished, and working on novels of my own. And the book changed genre on me yet again. It was a comedy now! How had I never noticed? It was a laugh-out-loud romp with the most fun dialogue and deliciously askew narrator. Simply brilliant.

Many people ask me, why do you think Jane Austen is so enduring? Simple answer: she writes books people want to reread. Books mean different things to different people at different times. It’s impossible to generalize why so many people love her. All I know is, her books are just plain good. She’s a marvelous writer. Her characters are unique and relatable, her voice is funny and sharp, her observances are intelligent and worth examining, her dialogue is rich and believable. Heck, the dame can write a sentence. A book written with that much skill and depth doesn’t age. So many of the classics are historically dependent—a reader needs to decode language or understand complicated historical contexts in order to fully appreciate why the book was (and/or continues to be) important. Austen is only human dependent. Her characters could live then, now, or anyhow. Her stories feel vibrant and alive. They grow with you.

I can’t wait to see what genre Pride and Prejudice becomes next.

After Austen

Tonight at 8 pm EST (6 pm MST) I'll be doing a live chat with uber-fabulous authors E. Lockhart (The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks) and Elizabeth Eulberg (Prom & Prejudice) on figment.com. We'll be talking about that bottomless topic "why does everyone love Austen so much?" and answering your burning questions (but not your itching questions--keep those ones to yourself). You should be able to follow along here on my blog as well. Come harass us!

On gothic romance

More from the midnight in austenland section of my website:

H.P. Lovecraft wrote of "the thrill of the chimney-corner whisper." That's what gothic romance writers explored. The genre flourished in Austen's time with books like The Mysteries of Udolpho and The Monk by Ann Radcliffe. With a middle class suddenly at leisure, there was time for novel-reading, especially for women, and gothic romances were extremely popular. A gothic heroine was young, virginal, naive, tender-hearted, a beautiful singer or piano player (angelic in nature), living in some tragic circumstance (newly and unfairly impoverished, orphaned, etc). In short, completely unrealistic.

Austen loved to play with this ideal. Her heroines like Elizabeth Bennet and Catherine Morland are emphatically not good at music or painting, their families are large and untragic. Catherine is naive and tender-hearted, but the rest of her story clashes with the idea of a gothic heroine in humorous ways. Her anguish comes from missing an outing. Her moments of terror were all in her head.

In college I took a literature course on Romance and Realism, in which we studied gothic romance, among other genres. I was fascinated by this genre, and often thought that if I went on to do a PhD, I'd explore gothic romance in some way for my dissertation. Instead I got an MFA in creative writing, but the gothic romance always intrigued me. midnight in austenland allowed me to explore gothic romance, where it intersects with horror, romance, character drama, and fantasy, and add comedy as well, a mishmash of genre that all seemed to fit together. For a book nerd like me, this kind of storytelling is absolute indulgent fun.

From my research notes, elements of a gothic romance:
Ancestral curse
Secret passages
Crumbling ruins (abbey?)
Fainting ladies
Meeting of fanciful past and strictly realistic present
Threatening mystery
Brooding gothic villain
Gothic romance as examination of the caging of women in certain roles
More is going on than you know, what seems to be isn'€™t
Meeting of two times, modern and ancient
Passion and danger of falling in love with the wrong man
Danger at home--women in danger in the domestic environment (paralleled by fearing what'€™s inside herself)
Inclement weather - fog, rain, lightning, thunder
Eerie atmosphere
SUSPENSE

In the 19th and 20th centuries, gothic romance naturally branched into both the horror and mystery genres as we know them. My story hinged on a somewhat traditional murder mystery plot. Agatha Christie is the queen of the modern mystery, and I read many of her books, although I knew I could neither hope to replicate her style nor did I try. Her mysteries are so complex and subtle, they must be the entire focus of the story. I had other things I wanted to achieve with this story besides the mystery element. For this book, the mystery subplot must support the central story, not the other way around.
Agatha Christie books I read in 2010:
And Then There Were None
Mousetrap
Appointment with Death
Sleeping Murder
Dumb Witness
Witness for the Prosecution
A Murder Is Announced
Crooked House
Three Little Pigs
ABC Murders
The Murder of Lord Edgware

Other books I enjoyed and leaned on during the writing of this book included Austen's books (naturally), especially Northanger Abbey; Rebecca, by Daphne Du Maurier; Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte; and The Haunting of Hill House, by Shirley Jackson.

Elementary, my dear Austenland

Fun stuff brewing for the midnight in austenland launch party tomorrow, including an in-store treasure hunt with cool prizes and an interactive murder mystery to solve. The winner of the latter gets...wait for it...

That's right, my 2012 Ricky Whittle calendar! (Not Ricky Whittle himself. Sorry, ladies.) Ricky, as you may know, plays Captain George East in the upcoming Austenland movie, and is a completely delightful human being. What you may not know is that he has a very serious medical condition that makes it impossible for him to wear a shirt when photographed*, as evidenced in his 2012 calendar. Ricky asked me for photographic evidence that I do indeed have his calendar, so I'll need to take a photo of myself with the winner and prized calendar to send to him. Hopefully whoever wins doesn't have Ricky's serious medical condition* and so all shirts will remain on.

Saturday, Feb 4, 2 pm, The King's English in Salt Lake City. If you can't make it but want signed books, you can order them from The King's English and I'll sign when I'm there. Yay! See you tomorrow!

*There is no such condition. Shannon may be a pathological liar.

Yes, but what do the critics say?

This week I've been doing a blog post featuring the different pages of the midnight in austenland section of my website. Today's turn is the reviews section. Too goofy to list review blurbs? Avoid in the future? I always feel like a dork retweeting any nice things people say about my books on twitter, and then I feel ungrateful if I don't. Ah, the tortured soul! So you have to tell me if this is too goofy to get away with. Anyway, don't forget the book launch at The King's English this Saturday and other upcoming events.

ps. So grateful for book bloggers! Thank you! In a time when review space is hugely limited, and newspaper reviews almost unheard of for women's literature and children's books, book bloggers reach out to readers like no one else.

 

"Hale's fans will be thrilled to revisit Pembrook Park and reunite with its regulars. Hale provides a welcome, witty glimpse of a side of Austen rarely explored in the many contemporary riffs on her work."
PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY

"Hale's light romantic comedy will appeal to chick-lit fans as well as Austenites who have grown weary of the never-ending sequels to Pride and Prejudice and are looking for a fresh way to explore the author's enduring legacy."
LIBRARY JOURNAL

"A smartly plotted mystery"
KIRKUS

"[A] wonderful read...a quick and fun novel sure to whet the appetite to read the Austen novels if one has not, and to reread them if one has."
VOYA

"Midnight in Austenland is the kind of book to read on those days you just want to wrap up in a blanket and eat three pounds of chocolate."
DESERET NEWS

"[I]nteresting characters, and a fabulous ending."
SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL

"How does she do it? How does author Shannon Hale evoke so much emotion from me?  How does she make me feel like I have butterflies flying all through my body.  I got that feeling when you're just about to be kissed for the first time, you remember don't you? I LOVE that feeling!"
THE SWEET BOOKSHELF

"If you like Austen, buy this book. If you like Shannon Hale, buy this book. If you liked 'Austenland' buy this book. And if you are a fan of feisty, intelligent and very funny heroines, buy this book....one of my highest recommended books for the coming year."
THE REVIEW DIARIES

"The plot is fun, with a little bit of a murder mystery, gossip, and plain Jane Austen fun. (With a healthy dose of Shannon Hale humor). Oh, and a bit of heartbreak and romance. Because, next to being married, a girl likes to be crossed in love a little now and then."
EMILY'S READING ROOM

"I will freely admit to much giggling and some hand clapping."
BOOKS BEFORE BED

"It was witty, hilariously funny, and the personal growth that Charlotte experiences was even more wonderful than Jane's in the first Austenland."
SQUEAKY BOOKS

"Hale's novel is at times poignant, mysterious and funny. I love a book that makes me laugh."
BOOKFAN

"If you love Jane Austen or a fun, romantic mystery, you'll be utterly charmed by Midnight in Austenland."
EXAMINER.COM

"I totally loved it. Not as frothy as AUSTENLAND, this one still made me laugh out loud. A lot."
NIGHT WRITER

"[A]n unpredictable, fun, thrilling and adorably romantic page-turner of a book."
BOOKS: A TRUE STORY

"Midnight in Austenland is witty, charming, has the right amount of romance, a strong female lead character and a murder mystery to be solved."
MUNDIE MOMS

"[C]lassic Shannon Hale...it has a strong heroine, is laugh out loud funny, poignant, thought provoking, adventurous and has just the right amount of swoon."
CONFESSIONS OF A FAN GIRL

A launch to remember

Just got off the phone with Anne Holman from the King's English. We're planning some fun stuff for Saturday's book launch of Midnight in Austenland! Books, laughs, a little mystery, games, and a bunch of the most unique giveaways I've ever done. One of a kind event, not to be missed, bring a friend, be there or be a circle.

Saturday, Feb. 4, 2012

2 pm

The King's English Bookshop

1500 South 1500 East, Salt Lake City Utah.

Check out my events page for the other signings I'll be doing in the upcoming weeks. I so appreciate anyone who comes to any of them. I know how busy life can be. I'm doing so many signings for this book in Utah, will anyone come? (The fear is well founded! See Mortification Monday)

The book is out tomorrow. In the meantime, read an excerpt!

One week till Austenland

I'm so happy in one week I get to share this book to the masses. I tweeted yesterday how I got my big box of books, the author copies of midnight in austenland (an event that always reminds of that one scene in Back to the Future). I sat down for my daily writing time and just opened the book to look it over. Sometime later I found myself on page 40. I got sucked in! By my own book! That I've read dozens of times already! Embarrassing, but still made me excited to share it.

I'm working on the midnight in austenland section of my website and will post here bits of it over the next week.

How it started:

This book started with a character sketch. Well, I suppose technically it started years before that with austenland, which was published in 2006. In November 2009, Jerusha Hess and I were working on the Austenland screenplay and I thought it would be helpful to her if I wrote up character sketches for all the major characters. With Colonel Andrews, I wrote that he is like the Julie McCoy of Pembrook Park. He enjoys making up little entertainments for the guests, such as performing theatricals, making up mini-mysteries for them to solve, etc.

I got to thinking about that last item, and the idea of it pleased me so much. What kind of mystery would Andrews invent? And what if there was a second, possibly real mystery as well? What if a guest wasn't sure which, if any, were make believe? Like Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey. Austenland was a perfect venue to further explore the ideas of reality and fantasy through mystery. The idea was positively alluring.

I had never considered writing a sequel to austenland. I liked Jane's story where it ended and nothing provoked me to bring her back. But now I was having ideas of another Austenland adventure. Pembrook Park went on without Jane, its inhabitants continued to live. Who else might visit and get entangled in Colonel Andrews's mystery? The idea of Charlotte's story came to me in such wonderful detail I knew immediately I was hooked.

It wouldn't be a sequel. I thought of it instead as a kind of Fantasy Island (note the Love Boat reference above as well--you know how I spent my Saturday nights in the early 1980s). Each week new guest stars came to Fantasy Island to live out their fantasy, got what they needed, then went home again. Pembrook Park was a sort of Fantasy Island, wasn't it? I could write another book where some of the characters from the first book are still present, but a new main character arrives on vacation. The idea that Miss Charming would still be there seemed an absolute (and made me laugh). Mrs. Wattlesbrook is still in charge. But there would be a new guest, new gentlemen, new adventures.

I started writing it almost immediately. As Jerusha and I continued to work on the screenplay through the first half of 2010, I kept getting more ideas for Austenland and was fully immersed myself. All in all, it was quite a quick book, taking me only a year from first to final draft. And it was a gift too. Most of my time writing, I was pregnant with twins (nausea leading into bed rest). Escaping to Austenland, like Charlotte, was exactly what I needed.

And winner #2 is...

Whoops, forgot to post this yesterday! And the winner is...Amber! Who wrote:

"I've been trying to think who I'd dedicate a book to and it's a harder question than I thought it would be. My husband dedicated his doctoral dissertation book to me (yes, so romantic! lol) so I'd probably have to return the favor. Or to my dad who's always wanted to publish a book but hasn't."

Please email me at squeets (at) gmail (dot) com with your address and who you'd like the book dedicated to. Thanks all for playing the random comment sweepstakes! I hope you all get that book published and get a chance to use your lovely dedications.

I'm dedicated to getting you a free book!

One more day on the character name auction.

If you're on Facebook, go "like" the Shannon Hale fan page (supported by Bloomsbury--no, I didn't make my own fan page, I swear). Bloomsbury will be giving away Midnight in Austenland ARCs shortly! And ongoing giveaways all year. Good stuff to come.

Speaking of giving away MIA ARCs, I got two more! One I'll give away on Twitter, and the other here. Add a comment on this post to enter, and I'll get a number from a random number generator to pick the winner. (and then I'll send you the one you won, Carly, I swear!) One comment per, I'll announce the winner Saturday. To give yourselves something to talk about, if you were publishing your first book (or if you already have, your next one) who would you dedicate it to?

And the winner is...

Carly! She who wrote: "Oh my gosh! So exciting! I hope I win! I can't wait to read this! OF COURSE I would go to Austenland if it really existed. I am a super obsessed Austen fan and actually have my own entire wardrobe already since I do historic costuming. The idea of three weeks in the actual "period" just sounds like heaven!"

Congrats, Carly! I put in the numbers into a random number generator and I was crossing my fingers that it was a smaller number so I didn't have to count up to 600+. Yay. Carly, send me an email at squeetus (at) gmail (dot) com.

I'm so pumped by the exciting response to this giveaway! So many of you wanted a copy. That's just awesome. I'm getting really excited to share.

By the way, I'm on twitter too. I don't tweet much, but more often than I blog. My tweets also go to facebook. Just in case you're like, "I just cannot get enough of that sparkly Shannon Hale! If only I could roll around in her sparkliness more often." Problem solved! You're welcome.

A juicy Midnight in Austenland copy is calling your name

Here's the new Midnight in Austenland cover. The jacket spine you see left. It's much the same as the previous one I showed you, just zoomed and juggled a bit. There are often many versions of a cover before a final is selected. While I am consulted, the book cover is chosen by my publisher, as is the case with 99% of books. (Many authors don't even get consulted, so I'm lucky!) I hope you love it.

And I have (or will shortly, postal service willing) an ARC to give away! You have till Wednesday, Sept. 14 at 10 pm to make a comment on this post to enter the contest. One comment per person. I'll use a random number generator to select a winner. And to give you something to talk about, if there was a real Austenland (i.e. immersive Austen vacation), would you go and why?