And because I know you’ll ask: I’m presently wrapping up some edits on Chapter 2 of my next book. So another book’s happening, too. But it’ll take a little longer than March 12th.

More news:

• As usual, whenever I release anything, I get a lot of questions about Boy. Boy is still in the works, though I’ve had to put it on hold for other projects. Death & Elsie is something to keep you all entertained for a while as I work on those other projects, which, at the moment, include another novel. But I’m reallyreallyreally going to try to put Boy out before 2012 is a distant memory! Cross my heart!
• About that other novel: the one I’m currently working on is not a sequel to Skary Childrin and the Carousel of Sorrow, but I think it’s something you’ll all like if you liked Carousel. I can’t say much about it right now, but I’ll continue to make posts now and then about the process.
• By the way, I get a lot of questions about an audiobook of Carousel. I’m not aware of any plans for an audiobook right now. The excerpts I posted were just a little something for the people who weren’t able to attend the readings I did when the book first came out. If it ever does come up, however, I’ll be sure to announce it. If my daydreams came true, Tim Jones would get to do the honors.
• Death & Elsie Part 2 is called An Elephant’s Memory and should, cross my fingers, be ready by this weekend. Part 3 will be out soon after.

I’ve started using Scrivener to keep all my notes all organized and whatnot. Last time, I used several paper journals, index cards, sometimes napkins, Google Docs, and Word. Those work, of course, and it feels more authentic, but Scrivener does actually speed the process up a bit, I find. And I can never be one of those authentic writer types anyway. I’m more like some girl at the mall. “OMG! So, like, this character said this, right? And then this other character was all like, ‘I’m gonna rip out your guts and feed them to the hounds!’ and then I was like, wait, would that character actually say that?” You know.

After I wrote my last one, a lot of you were curious about the writing and illustrating process. It’s really pretty simple. You write and illustrate the thing. You edit the thing. The thing gets printed. You scramble at the last minute to promote the thing because you didn’t plan ahead when you were writing the thing. Then, if you’re lucky, you get to do it again with another book, and you change the way you did some things before because maybe now you’ve learned some lessons but probably haven’t. That’s it in a nutshell.

The long version is what I’ll be posting to this blog every now and then in the weeks and months to come! No sneak peeks at the book for now, though. I can’t even really tell you a whole lot about it just yet except that it’s spooky and sad. But you knew that.

So far, I’ve finished two chapters. It took me way longer than it did to write the first two chapters of Skary Childrin and the Carousel of Sorrow, but that’s because I rewrote these from start to finish about four times. I’ve also got this nagging voice in my head that keeps telling me “It has to be better than the last one! It has to!” There are other nagging voices, but their goals are so lofty it’s a little easier to laugh them off. I can’t be president of the world because of one novel; that’s ridiculous! (Wait. Can I?)

Now on to chapter three.

If you’ve got a copy of the book, and you’d like to have it signed by me, here’s what you do:

1. Mail your copy of the book to me along with a prepaid self-addressed envelope that’s big enough to hold the book. If you’re in the US, it’s easiest if you use a Priority Mail flat rate envelope. Send it to:

ADDRESS TBA (I’ve closed the old box.)

2. Email me to let me know you’ve sent me something so that I’ll know to go and actually, you know, check my mail. If you don’t do this, you’re at the mercy of my laziness.

3. Be sure to let me know what name to sign the book to and if there’s any special message you want me to write. Otherwise, I’ll just make out the inscription to the name on your return address.

And that’s it! Easy, isn’t it?