Spring, Author Interviews, and Children’s Book Week!!!

Hey, guys!!! Welcome back!!! Isabelle Knight here again with a spring update!!! And yes, SPRING!!! It is officially spring here in China, and ahhhh, I love it!! There’s been warm sunshine, the magnolia tree outside my window has been blooming (the flowers are nearing the end of their life, sadly…. Ooh, that could be a book idea!), and of course, more people have been coming to the riverside where I live… Ack. Tourism. 😑 It can get quite crowded on a busy day, I’m afraid. Which is why I’m listening to music A LOT to block out the noise of talking and screaming children. I’ve been getting back into K-Pop, and also finding a new singer on Spotify!!! (her name’s dodie!)

And yeah! Stuff has been happening! Lots of stuff!!!

Including…….

AUTHOR INTERVIEWS!!!

And….

PAINTING!!!

And…

FINDING BOOK CELEBRATION DAYS!!!!

And…

A NEW ANTHOLOGY!!!!!

And me re-reading an amazing craft book on writing!!! Spilling Ink by Anne Mazer and Ellen Potter!!! I have read it before, but I only skimmed it the first time. Now I re-read it (NOT skimming) and I LOVE IIIIITTTT!!!

So, yeah!! But first up, the author interviews!!! Woohoo!!!! So. You can say that March is going to be a very very busy month, to say the least. If all goes according to plan, I’ll be interviewing three authors (ALL IN ONE WEEK. YIKES!!!). None of them are written, which is um… scary to say the least. Ack! What do I say? Ack! How do I not freak out?? Ack! How in the world do I act professional?! (which I’m totally not doing in my blog post even though people say I should…. Bah! I rather like my rants about writing and books. 🙂)

The authors I shall be interviewing are Elle McFadzean (eeek!!! I was her ARC reader for her middle-grade book, The Potion Experiment, and I loved it!!!), E.L. Shen (she writes Asian middle-grade contemporary novels. Well, not just MG. She also has a YA book that looks FANTASTIC!!! So excited for this interview!!), and another author who I won’t be revealing rn. ;D Even though I might on my YT channel, but…

You guys can all take a guess in the comments if you want! She’s my favorite writer, aside from Tae Keller, Sophie Anderson, Amy Wilson, A.F. Steadman, Shannon Messenger, Tui T. Sutherland, and Siobhan McDermott!!!

I have a lot of favorite writers by the way.

And several more author interviews that are written. Including one with Amy Wilson and OHMIGOSH EEEK!!! I read her books last summer at the bookstore and I just had to buy Lightning Falls! Her middle-grade books are FANTASTIC, and Lightning Falls was actually the first book review I ever did on YouTube!!

And I probably won’t list the rest just so that I won’t annoy you all to death with the list… 0_0 So, yeah. Fun? Yes. Exciting? Yes. Terrifying? Yes. Chaotic? YES.

If I’m this busy as a not famous writer, how busy are famous writers?! How do they even find the time to write?! I applaud them….

And I have also been on the hunt for book celebration days because I missed BOTH World Book Day AND National Writing Day last year!!!! Which was incredibly saddening. So I’ve marked all of them in my planner, including one I’m SUPER excited for!!! Children’s Book Week!!! I’m still thinking of a way to celebrate. I’m thinking of doing a live reading of Enchantria: Guardian’s Heir, but only if I can get YT’s livestream to work. I did try to livestream once, but it just kept loading and loading and LOADING while going live!!

Thank the stars there was no one waiting for me. (collapses in relief)

So, yeah. That was rather disastrous. But yes, I definitely do want to do something to celebrate those special book days! AND World Book Day in April is coming up soon! So exciting! Let me know in the comments if there’s anything you guys suggest? Some of my friends have suggested virtual author visits, but uh, I don’t think I’m that famous yet. 😅(though it would be fun!)

I’ve also taken up a fantabulous hobby recently – PAINTING!!!! Fun fact about me – I only ever paint in the spring and early summer.

If you see me painting, that’s when you know spring has officially come!!!!

Woohoo! Hurray! I’m also looking forward to the release of a brand new book I’ve been waiting for since January!!! Paper Dragons: The Rise of the Sand Spirits! Book two in the series!!! How exciting! I loved book one so much, and it turns out there’s a book two! The US edition is already released, but I’m waiting for the UK edition for several reasons.

1. The US edition is not available where I live. And I can’t buy it from Amazon since ack, shipping would just be impossible. And the ebook is eleven dollars! Seriously, what’s up with ebooks being more expensive than paperbacks?
2. My edition of book one in the Paper Dragons series is the UK edition, and I’d like them to match.

So, yeah. Waiting for a brand new book! It should be available on May 28 here in China, so eek, so exciting! The only thing left to do is to convince my parents to let me get it! Shouldn’t be too hard, right?? I mean, it’s only been what, one month since I did a huge book haul….. 🙃

But let us hope they shall understand my obsession love of books.

I’ve also been writing book four in the Enchantria series, and ack, there are way too many battles there. My solution? More magic!!!

Um…

Yeah. So that probably sounds weird, but I’m going to try and include more magic in the book, so that there’s also light and fun whimsicalness and not just dark, gritty battles, which I dislike writing.

So, yeah…… ummmmm hopefully that turns out well and doesn’t backfire on me!

I just invented enchanted candles, which is so cool! I’m also trying to pace myself and not rush, which should HOPEFULLY stop Enchantria book four from turning into a huuuuuuge panic-mess-fest…. Which is kind of what so many of my rushed projects have been like. But it’s hard.

Because at the same time, I’ve been struggling with self-doubt and only a few days ago, it took my friends, three published authors, and all you guys on the blog to stop me from quitting when I just felt really, really hopeless. I keep feeling like… I don’t know what’s going to happen and that is kind of scary. I feel like I am at this point, where I don’t know the path/story ahead of me, and I desperately want to know and I just stress myself out about it and just rush to the next point.

So I’m trying to just trust the story. Anne Mazer and Ellen Potter said in their book Spilling Ink that you have to trust your characters. It might take a while, but they’ll do something eventually.

So, yeah!!! I guess this kind of wraps up what I’ve been up to these past days! Hopefully this was an interesting post and you guys enjoyed reading this! Also, guys, please let me know if you’d like me to do any special events for either World Book Day on April 23 or Children’s Book Week this coming May!!! Right now, my thoughts are:

• Live reading of Enchantria: Guardian’s Heir. Well… perhaps not live since ack, YT’s livestreaming thing isn’t working. It just keeps loading and loading and LOADING before going live!
• Virtual event/talk with another middle-grade author.
• Any other kind of virtual event?

Yeah, so let me guys know what you think or if you have any other suggestions! They’d all be greatly appreciated!

Thank you guys so much for coming, I really appreciate you all, and I shall see you again in the next post!!! Bye!!! (and now I must go panic about my upcoming interview….)

Isabelle

P.S. (starts panicking)

P.P.S. I wrote this blog yesterday but am posting TODAY so……. The interview with Elle McFadzean has been done, and it went marvelously!!!!!! So fun!! She’s super nice! And her book is super fun!