Vivian spent much of Saturday coloring a cape made out of paper.  It has a big V in the middle and some brilliantly colored scribbling elsewhere, and ties around her neck with a purple ribbon.  She needs it, she explains, so that she can be "a superhero villain" and protect her friends Carol and Kaci from Carol's dad:  "He eats kids!"    Later ( Read more... )

Today in SORROW'S KNOT, I got my hero Otter to take temporary leave of her friend and head down the side of a mountain to The Next Place Where The Plot Needs Her To Be.  It's only a short scene -- maybe a thousand words -- but it's a lovely one:  effortless and delicate writing, a moment of decision which arises suddenly and believably from the ( Read more... )

Well, SORROW'S KNOT is stuck as I try to get my characters from A to B.  They won't go.  I am thinking of leaving them by the side of the hotspring to die.  That's a good ending, right?   The spring that we had last week has retreated into spitting icy rain and (today) snow.  And ...  at least some part of my subconcious is having second thoughts ( Read more... )

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 Here's my quote for the day:

"Writing is like having about twenty boxes of Christmas decorations. But no tree. You're going, Where do I put this? Then they go, Okay, you can have a tree, but we'll blindfold you and you gotta cut it down with a spoon." --Carolyn Chute

This is me.  I have breathing characters, striking images, wonderful scenes ( Read more... )

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Research for Gilbert Perez  has me tearing my hair out.  I am about to toss in the towel and admit that I don't have a hope of understanding how the Aztecs saw the world, and that I'm about to commit massive cultural appropriation and race fail.  So I am taking a break and instead assembling a list of books that would be better with zombies in them ( Read more... )

It's been a whole two weeks since I sold my book, and I am firmly entrenched in post-book blues.  This happens to me whenever I finish a book or a major draft of one, and is part post-partum depression, part caffeine withdrawal, and part me being a twit.  It's complicated this time by the two weeks of unbearable excitement while my book was at ( Read more... )

Writing versus life.  I hate it when they seem to be in opposition.

Can I admit that the need to write can make me resent my kids and get snippy with my husband?  Or admit that my house is such a mess that it's eligible for federal disaster relief, which overwhelms and sickens me and makes me feel like a failure as a woman?  Which in turn makes me ( Read more... )

Multiple choice: when I finish writing a novel (or other major creative work) I:

a) start writing another one
b) break out the champagne, have a little celebration, and move on
c) mark the occasion with an artifact of some kind
d) have a nervous breakdown
e) other (specify)

I'm thinking of more stained glass, myself, and I use c) to ward off ( Read more... )