Well! Hello!
(The redhead looks down at the key in her hand)
I’ve been invited in, and given a key, and very little restrictions. This is a bit daunting, and also a little exhilarating. I could do anything I wanted with this post! That’s… a little scary, really.
My name is Cedar Sanderson, and those of you who know me, from real life or online, probably don’t realize something. I’m shy. Yes, really, the Lady in the Red Dress is a wallflower, left to her own devices. When I was a much younger woman, I was an introvert’s introvert. Then life happened. Now? I have almost twenty years of public performance under my belt. Which, surprisingly, helps with being an author. For instance, I asked a simple question, and the host here invited me in, gave me a key, and now I get to talk to you all directly. Unsupervised. I don’t think the old wolf knows me, or does he?
I’m rambling, but this is more fun, I think, than just doing my usual straightforward statement: I am an author, artist, scientist, mother, and many other things. It’s like working a room at an event, you don’t walk up and introduce yourself and then brag. You want to learn more about that person, and if they want, they’ll ask you.
I guess this post is me, being asked. It’s certainly going to be less structured and formal than the whole canned author interview usually is. Pull up a chair, get cosy, and let’s chat, shall we? I mean, there are comments. After you’ve read this intro, you can talk to me there. Best I can do!
Oh, I’m writing. I do almost every day. I do art every day, almost religiously. It’s the only way I’ll ever get better – on both counts. Besides, art is my daily san check. Some days? I’m a student of sumi-e. I’m a minimalist. That means on a bad day I can get away with a few lines. Like this…
Writing, well, doing it daily is great for discipline. My latest novel, The East Witch, took me three years to finish. Which isn’t normal for me. Even slow the way I have been since I started building the science career, I’ve been managing a book or two a year, plus shorts. The East Witch, though, I hit a snag with the research for the story. I plot like I’m writing an action novel – I do that no matter what subgenre I’m working in – but I like to blend in mythology and fairy tales when I am writing fantasy. I’m familiar with stories of Baba Yaga, who appears in a big way (the title reference!) but finding Siberian ethnography was… challenging. So it took me a while.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m delighted with the end result. And, because I was working on other things in 2020, I have another novel appearing in a couple of months, plus the projects I’m working on currently! I stay busy. My brain is a bit like a squirrel on ripits and pixie sticks. So to keep it happy I have to write. And yeah, that’s about as weird in my head as it sounds. Which is why the new book will be The Case of the Perambulating Hatrack, which is a straight-up send-up of gumshoe, only fantasy. I had a blast writing it. Once it’s back from the editor (and that’s if it doesn’t send her over the edge!) I’ll share.
Currently? Oof. See, that thing about the squirrels up above? Yeah, there’s more than one. I have no less than three novels-in-progress, along with a couple of shorts for anthology calls. And then there’s the weekly prompt challenge, which of course I have to participate in, since it was my brainstorm to begin with. Although, that’s how Hatrack came into being. I wrote that novel in public, one week at a time, and then pulled it down after it was all done and off for editing. Living dangerously! So, there’s a pure space opera man-vs-nature in progress, that one ambushed me the other day. There’s a military fantasy I’m cowriting with my husband. There is the sequel to my homage to Heinlein and Norton, the first book was Tanager’s Fledglings. The second will be Tanager’s Flight.
Oh, well, that’s enough about me. What should I know about you? What more would you like to learn about me? See you in the comments!