Happy New Year! I spent the first part of 2012 going back in time, rereading and making edits to a book I first conceived in 2007, and wrote in 2008, and saw published in 2009. Fade Out (aka Dani Noir with a new face and new changes to the insides) will be coming out this year, in June, and I have the opportunity to make minor updates to it before it does. Now, I should say that I am restraining myself, I am. But there are some line edits I’m making and a new layer to the character that I’m lifting up into the light (it was there from the start, but buried for a middle-grade audience; it wasn’t difficult at all to bring it out now that the book is being reissued on the YA shelves, since, for me, this piece to my character was always there), and as I’m working this morning in my café it occurs to me just how strange this is:

I never reread my work once it’s published—except when I read pieces aloud to you, at readings.

I let go and I don’t look back.

So it’s a peculiar thing to be looking back. I remember writing Dani Noir, watching all those noir movies to get in the mood, and how much fun it was. I just finished rereading and editing the whole book, and I think it’s really cute. I like this book. It’s what I meant it to be. I’m happy that Simon Pulse is giving it a second chance as Fade Out.

Now, to return to 2012—our new year!—and into the deep, dark trenches of 17 & Gone. I’m already working through my New Year’s Resolutions, and part of that is living the life I’m living, being the writer I am instead of what I think anyone else wants me to be. I can’t be.

17 & Gone is exactly what I mean by this, so you’ll see soon enough once revisions are done.

This is the year I write solely for myself and no apologies. How freeing.

What’s different for you this year? Let’s make it happen.