“Sometimes you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself.” -Miles Davis Last week, I went to Laini Taylor’s book signing at Mysterious Galaxy. She’s one of those rare writers that is both skillful at plot and masterful with language. She started off by sharing her experience of writing Daughter [...]
First Drafts Jitters
July 19, 2011 – 4:00 am
So… I’m almost finished with the first draft of my new book. And I have to admit… I’m nervous! In a couple weeks, I have to turn it in to my editor and while I LOVE my new story, it’s still raw… like early drafts are. But the crazy part is, I thought it’d feel [...]
Braving The Oregon Trail
November 23, 2010 – 11:20 am
The other day, a friend of mine posted this beautiful quote about writing. “I feel that I am transcribing verbatim from a flow of language running through the room, an ink current into which I dip the pen. It is a dark stream, swift running, a twisting flow that never doubles back.” – Louise Erdrich [...]
Hearing Your Story
June 14, 2010 – 9:37 pm
Writing a new story is like inhabiting a new world. It doesn’t matter whether you’re writing about high school crushes or aliens or high school crushes on aliens, there are strangers you’ve never met, unfamiliar landscapes, traditions you don’t yet understand. And the trick is, you don’t just need to get to know this new [...]
Meep Meeeeep!
February 4, 2010 – 1:37 pm
Last week, we got a new puppy! Huzzah! Four-month-old Kitsu is adorable and fox-like and endlessly entertaining. But as I’ve watched her stalking dust bunnies, pouncing on shadows, and chasing her tail, I’ve been forcefully reminded of my own writing process. See, during the past months of revision, I daydreamed about starting a new story. [...]
Eating Paste
March 4, 2009 – 12:57 pm
Okay… maybe not eating it. So I finished my revision… now what? As a way to deal with the dismal No Man’s Land that lurks between revisions and new projects, I’ve been getting crafty. This past September at the SCBWI Working Writers’ Retreat, the creative Julie Williams gave us some unusual ideas about how to [...]
Brainstorming without consequences
October 31, 2007 – 4:51 pm
I’ve had the pleasure this week of looking over a couple of friends’ fantastic picture book manuscripts. Since picture books are my life right now, what I’m reading, what I’m writing, even what I’ve been dreaming about, it’s been a bit of a greedy endeavor. It’s wonderful to be presented with delicious stories and get [...]
The technicolor yawn of the writing world.
October 3, 2007 – 4:00 am
The first draft. Starting a story is actually my favorite part. It’s fresh and perfect and you’re sure that this time you’re going to be able to put it all down exactly like it is in your head. If I could spend my life writing the first 20 pages of stories, I would. Unfortunately, you [...]
