A few months ago I heard Holly Black, author of Tithe and the Spiderwick Chronicles say that being a writer was the loneliest of jobs. She pointed out that even in the most regimented of cubical infested offices you at least have the knowledge that on the other side of that cloth and Styrofoam wall is another living breathing human being.

As writers ( Read more... )

 
I really hate when someone begins a sentence with the words “I don’t mean to make anyone angry…” Yes you do. You just don’t want them angry at you. So I won’t begin this little bit of tough love by apologizing for it in advance.

This may seem an odd thing to be irritated by, and I wasn’t at first, but the more I thought about it the more ( Read more... )

 
I sat at the local diner on Saturday watching all the cars drive by with their Christmas trees tied to the roof of their cars. SUVs, pick up trucks and even a few compacts with the tree sticking out in the front and back whizzed passed carrying home that little piece of holiday tradition. I began to feel absolutely nostalgic for all of about 30 ( Read more... )

Continuing my guest blog on Novelspot's Behind the Scenes II.

Today's entry is called Trying to Catch a Plot Bunny

http://www.novelspot.net/node/2041


( Read more... )

I'm featured this week on NovelSpot's Behind the Scenes blog, so I'm taking a bit of a shortcut to blogging.

Today's Topic: If You Tell Them, They'll Lock You Up.

Link: http://www.novelspot.net/node/2039

I was reading the blog of a friend today, Anny Cook, and found my hands shaking as I did. Anny wrote about the way so few in our world have so much and so many have so little. And in the face of Thanksgiving, she wrote how it was a shame that so much was wasted while so many went without. It was a bit painful to read. Not because it held anything I ( Read more... )

The children of the 60’s have grown up. They are now the parents (and in some scary cases the grandparents) of the 00 generation. The harvest we are reaping isn’t exactly what I think the peace and love generation intended.

Now I fully admit being born in the mid 60’s I barely qualify as a child of the sixties, however, I was raised by a mother who ( Read more... )

I've had the good fortune to be featured on blogs by Amarinda Jones and Anny Cook, two author's I greatly admire. I have the good fortune of sharing the same editor with them and it's been such a wonderful experience.  In reading Anny's review today, which you can find at : http://www.annycook.blogspot.com/ , I realized I've yet to post an excerpt ( Read more... )

This may be a delicate and controversial topic for a blog but the most interesting thing to appear on my radar in days is the announcement by J.K. Rowling that Dumbledore is gay. Or rather the lack of response to this announcement that came Friday at a large speaking engagement Rowling held at the beginning of a U.S. tour. I would have expected to ( Read more... )

I firmly believe it is important to know your limitations. A friend of mine has as his signature: " 90% of being smart is knowing what you're dumb at." This is a very smart man, my friends. By knowing what you don't do well, you can avoid some of those lovely little moments in life when you end up looking like a complete idiot.  Some not all. There ( Read more... )