One of the things that makes speculative fiction so fascinating is setting. Often you want to give the reader a sense of the setting right away, but how can you do that without boring her? Well, as I was reading Dark Life by Kat Falls yesterday, I realized she does this very well. First off, [...]
So I’m back from NYC, tired and rejuvenated at the same time. We did all kinds of fun things like biking around Central Park and watching the World Cup with a bar full of strangers. I didn’t write a word all weekend and you know what? That was absolutely fine. What’s funny is that ordinarily, [...]
Thanks to everyone who commented on Wednesday’s post. It was great to hear your advice and encouragement, and to know that I’m not all alone in the muck! A couple of you said a change of scenery might help me get unstuck. Well what do you know? The husband and I are actually heading to [...]
Things have been a bit sluggish with my WIPs recently. I’d hoped to get my fairy tale revision done by June 15th but things haven’t quite worked out that way. I know which areas need work, but figuring out how to fix them has been a bit daunting. I finally went back to doing some [...]
In a recent post on Children’s Writing and Illustrating, David Caruba shared some of his “State of the Children’s Book Publishing Industry” presentation from this year’s NJ-SCBWI conference. There was lots of great info there, but what really stood out to me was his report on the middle grade market. Middle grade stories remain strong, [...]
I love creating other worlds in the stories I write. That’s why I’m terrible at realistic fiction; even when I set out to write realism, fantasy always creeps in. I guess I like having control over the world and its rules. But the thing about world-building is that you have to stay in the world [...]
I was planning on doing a world-building post today, but I don’t quite have all my thoughts in order yet, so it will have to wait until Friday. In the meantime, here are some writing links you might find useful. -Gail Carson Levine looks at writing un-sappy romance -Janice Hardy examines describing emotion in first [...]
Recently, I mentioned that my husband and I were thinking of getting a dog, a “furry muse” if you will. We knew we wanted to adopt an adult dog since puppies are so much work (plus grown-up dogs have a harder time finding homes). Well we found “the one” not too long ago and she’s [...]
Considering how much time I spend naming and renaming projects, it’s kind of amazing I haven’t done a post specifically on this topic before. I’m one of those people who needs a title from the beginning, even if I know I’ll wind up changing it later on. Having a title for my story helps keep [...]
A while back I set a goal for myself to finish the revision of my fairy tale retelling by June 15th. Last week, however, things weren’t looking that great. Whenever I thought about all the things I needed to change, my head started to ache. But after I went through and outlined the manuscript, I [...]
