Welcome to my blog!
My Blog – September 24, 2007
Welcome to my website and my very first blog! I decided that I wanted to do a blog for three reasons. I can:
1. keep my fans updated on my writing
2. answer some of my fan’s most frequently asked questions and
3. share a little about myself and my life as a writer.
I hope to update my blog at least twice a week, although this might not be possible during crunch time when I have a deadline looming or on those occasions when the writing is going so well that I don’t want to stop.
The Salamander Spell came out a few weeks ago. For those of you who haven’t read the book, it is the fifth in the series and is a prequel to The Frog Princess. I am currently working on the sixth book. Dragon Trouble is about Emma and Eadric’s daughter and how she has to deal with a problem that she inherited from her mother. Like the other books in the series, it will be coming out in the fall (Fall 2008).
I am also working on the third draft of a book that is not related to Tales of the Frog Princess. Wings is a modern fairy tale and is very different from my other stories in that it has two main characters and is written in three parts. To put it simply – her story, his story and their story. I’m trying to finish Wings soon so that it is ready for its expected release date in the summer of 2008.
For those of you who have asked – yes, The Frog Princess has been optioned for a movie. A few years ago Disney optioned it for an animated musical. They are currently working on a movie that was originally titled The Frog Princess but is now called The Princess and The Frog. Because Disney is doing its own version of the story, we’ll just have to wait and see how much of my Frog Princess is in it. If you want to learn more about the movie, I suggest you google Disney’s Frog Princess, which is how I learn about it. Although I am the author of the book, no one tells me anything!
To answer a question I’m frequently asked – E. D. stands for Elizabeth Dawson – which really is my name and not a pseudonym that I made up.
As to my life as an author… I think about my books for a few years before I write them. By the time I start the outline for a book, I’ve given it a lot of thought. I generally have the ideas for at least five books fermenting in my head, waiting for their turn to appear on paper. I love that my fans want to send me ideas for stories, but by the time I’m ready to write one, I already know exactly what it’s going to be. With that said, I must admit that I hadn’t planned to write more than three books in the Tales of the Frog Princess series, but so many of my fans wrote to me asking whether Emma and Eadric were going to get married that I had to write No Place for Magic.
Shortly after Bloomsbury accepted the manuscript for The Frog Princess, they asked if I would consider writing a prequel to the book. I really liked the characters, so even though I had originally written the story without a series in mind, I had already begun to think of what would happen next. When they asked about the prequel, I said that I could do one, but how about this instead? I told them about my idea for Dragon’s Breath and the series began. After No Place For Magic, I finally decided to write that prequel – hence The Salamander Spell.
Now, with book six, we have a whole new generation of characters. (Emma and Eadric weren’t the only ones to have a child!) At this point, I intend to end the series after seven books.
Writing is not the only thing I do. My family and I live on a small farm in Maryland where we breed Appaloosa horses. For those of you who don’t know what Appaloosas are, think of the horses that the cowboys ride – with spots. Helping to care for the horses keeps me active and is a good diversion from writing when I need a break.
Feeding in the morning doesn’t take long. After the horses have eaten, we take out the ones that have spent the night in the barn. Cleaning stalls, watering, and feeding in the evening takes a few more hours. Our foals will start arriving in January, so that’s when we begin foal watch – meaning there are certain nights that we stay up watching for signs that the foal is about to be born. – That’s another time that I might not be able to update my blog as often as I’d like.
To those who have written to me and have not yet received a reply, I will be getting back to you soon… hopefully. I respond much faster to email than to handwritten letters, but I enjoy hearing from everyone.
And now I have to go back to work on Wings. Until next time…
Best wishes,
E. D. Baker
