Alma Alexander March 5th 2008

The good and scary, hand in hand…

And so, here it comes - the helpful widget that Harper Collins has provided as a countdown for the release of “Spellspam”, the second in my Worldweavers trilogy, reads only just over five days - the baby book is due to hit the shelves on March 11. I’ve had one “official” review already, and it’s a great one - but the biggies haven’t weighed in yet, the ones that my publisher collects and sends to me, the PW, the Kirkus, the Kliatt, the VOYA. So, the wait begins.

For what it’s worth, the preorder numbers on Amazon are consistently astonishing - although I have no idea what they actually mean. For example, “Spellspam” is currently - as I write this - #112,849 in Books  It is also ranked number 57 in something Amazon calls Books > Children’s books > Educational > Explore the world > Fiction > United States (my eternally grateful thanks for everyone who DID pre-order, by the way…) That’s kind of AWFULLY specialised - but a rank of 112000 for a pre-release book isn’t too bad, and it’s been up as high as 70 000 - I know, I track the thing obsessively, doesn’t every author? So here we sit, biting nails, thinking about a brand new book with my name on it gracing the bookshelves across the nation - and there’s a box of them sitting upstairs, by the way, it’s a VERY handsome book indeed.

But in one sense it’s already the distant past for me.

It’s coming out this week, but between the time I finished this book and sent it off to its publishers I’ve completed Book 3 in the trilogy, currently in copy edit, and if any part of the story is uppermost in my mind it’s that one. And even THAT is now kind of out there, over, done with, out of my hands, and I’m actually four chapters deep into my next new book…

…which is not under contract.

For the first time in five years, I am not actually in a position to be writing something that someone somewhere has already bought and paid for, In some ways it’s awfully freeing, there are no dangling deadlines, no expectations, nothing except pure storytelling, the joy of it, and that kind of excites me because that is the way I started out writing - untramelled by law and order, letting pure creative chaos have its head.  But in other ways, well, I’m kind of USED to the checks coming in from my agent’s office. I would kind of like that state of affairs to continue. So I’m conflicted, the good and the scary hand in hand, and the year is falling open before me, full of the unknown, of mystery, of possibilities.

I’ll be doing a bunch of appearances in the short term - go look at my website for details, and if you’re anywhere near Storrs CT or Boise ID or even my hometown of Bellingham on the days that I’m doing things in those places, I”d love to see a friendly audience, so come and say hello.  For those not near those places, I”m doing one of those “virtual blog tours”, with interviews and stuff popping up all over the web in the next week or two. Watch my LJ blog for links and details of that.

If you want a taste of Worldweavers, there are excerpts - including the beginning of “spellspam”, the new one - posted at the books’ dedicated website at www.WorldWeaversWeb.com. Go look. And if you like, buy the book. if you want a signed copy, contact Village Books in Bellingham (they’re on the web and they’ll ship) and tell them you want one, and they’ll make the arrangements with me. Alternatively, send me a SASE and I”ll happily send you a signed bookplate for a book you already own (they’re SPECIAL bookplates, especially designed for Worldweavers books, and they’re real pretty…)

Back to the grindstone, now. Chapter Five of New Novel awaits.

And next week… see you in New York.

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