The prompt box I've been writing again–this morning, 2,000 words in an hour, words that came easily and almost effortlessly. This, after noodling around, trying to decide which novel idea to pick up next. (I've got four of them churning around in my brain.) I'm also a tad bit distracted, because my agent is […]
So, last Friday, March 20 was Macaron Day worldwide. What is Macaron Day? It was started by the venerable Parisian baker Pierre Herme (his name has an accent mark, but I can never figure out how to do those) in 2006, and the way it works is simple: you drop into a bakery, donate money to […]
As I've announced at least fifty million times in every place I could possibly think of, I'm busy rewriting my novel for my new agent, Erin Niumata, which is why things have been quiet around here. But as I've been concentrating fiercely on my rewrite the last couple of weeks, I've realized some things that […]
I was talking to my friend Janet yesterday, and I told her my story about acquiring my agent. "Wow, when the time is right, things happen fast," she said. Yes, they do. And, when the time is right, things happen a bit differently. I do NOT recommend this, but I ignored lots of the advice I routinely […]
My brain looks like these Christmas lights some mornings. Another title for this post might be Why You Need a Routine. Or more to the point, why I need one. Here's the setup: A morning in December. After a busy weekend of Christmas parties (we survived hub's resurrected Christmas office gala!) and work deadlines (yes, […]
Good morning. It's 6:35 AM and I should be writing. My main character, though, is in the middle of a somewhat dicey scene during which she not only sees an unpleasant side of her love interest but she must also confront him about it. And I don't do confrontation well. So I thought I'd leave […]
On Wednesday, I gave a presentation at a local retirement center. I talked about how and where writers get ideas, and interspersed readings from Emma Jean's Bad Behavior. Afterwards, I got to sell books. It was a lot of fun! Anne, the organizer (an amazing dynamo of a woman) told me that the room could […]
Like so many other writers, I came to writing through reading. From the time I first learned to recognize words on the page, I was fascinated with those words. And from the time I figured out that somebody actually put those words there, that's what I wanted to be–a writer. I remember back when I […]
This is a short-ish post, seeing as how it is two days before Thanksgiving, when I host a dozen family members here for dinner, and the lovely Olivia (19 months) is spending the day with me, and the house needs a lot tad bit of cleaning and, oh right, I do have to figure out […]
Before I started the actual rewriting of my novel, I did a lot of prep work. One of the things I did was make a chart listing the goals, motivations (what the character wants), interior and exterior conflicts of each character. These are the kinds of things that you generally at least have a vague […]
