More Catching up....Kindling Words 2007
I’ve got so much blogging to catch up on I don’t even know where to start! But here goes with two great things I’ve done for myself since Jan 1st:
1) Finally, after promising myself I’d do it for the last four years, I had that Japanese straightening thing done and I LOVE IT! As someone who has fought her thick, Jewish girl frizz for her entire life, I now just get out of the shower and dry my hair without even using a brush most of the time, just my fingers, and my hair looks good all the time. It’s heaven. Before I’d have spend ages blow drying, then use the hot iron, and it still frizzed up the minute there was the slightest bit of moisture in the air. Definitely one of the better things I’ve done for myself in a long time.
2) Attended Kindling Words 2007 up in Essex, VT. I went to KW for the first time last year, when I was completely demoralized about my writing and my life. Idea after idea for the second book had been shot down, and I was beginning to think I was a one-not-even-a-huge-hit wonder. Meanwhile my divorce was dragging into the second year with no end in sight. I’d just been dumped by someone I was dating. I was broke. Basically life sucked.
KW 2006 proved a lifesaver for many reasons, but the most important are these: thanks to conversations with Nancy Werlin, Elise Broach and Sarah Aronson, I realized that I’d lost touch with my process, and that maybe the secret would be to just write the entire book before I tried to sell it. Of course there’s always that little issue of money, especially when you’re broke, but after talking to Nancy I realized that maybe the secret was to take a day job. Sure enough, a part-time day job took the edge off the financial situation and I found that after writing about business topics all day, I couldn’t wait to work on my WIP.
The other wonderful thing was “Ketchup on my Cucumbers” - which emerged from a writing exercise in Ellen Wittlinger’s workshop on inspiration. I’d been told that I didn’t have a YA voice, and it frustrated me because there were topics I really wanted to tackle that need by their very nature to be YA. When I read my scribbled response to the exercise, my author colleagues told me that I could indeed write with a YA voice, and that gave me the confidence to embark on “Ketchup”, a book that I feel incredibly passionate about.
When I drove up to Vermont this year for KW2007, I remarked to Elise what a better place I’m in this year. My divorce is finalized; now it’s just a matter of selling the marital home (not fun) and moving to a new one (more fun). I’ve finished the long-awaited second novel and sent it to the Super Secret Agent. The Webmeister is in my life, and is incredibly supportive of my writing (he sent me a KW2007 T-shirt and notebook with a note saying to have a great time, a gesture that brought me to tears, but in a good way). I read a five-minute excerpt from “Ketchup” at the Candlelight Readings on Saturday night, and got really terrific feedback. Chris Tebbetts helped me make one of my character’s experiences more authentic. Tim Wynne-Jones taught us about the Objective Correlative, and I will never think of “The OC” as a TV show ever again. I had the pleasure of meeting the amazing Virginia Euwer Wolff, whose observation about my choice of the cucumber as OC in my novel has no doubt added another year or so to my therapy.
For my photo gallery of KW2007, click here:
KW2007
Once again, I came away refreshed, rejuvenated, and re-inspired -so much so that I’ve already started research on one of my ideas for a third novel. I’ve been working so hard to finish “Ketchup” for the last few months that I feel bereft not being in the thick of a MS. So time to dive right back in!
But first, I’m heading out to LA this weekend where I’m on a panel at the Western Jewish Children’s Book Writer’s Conference Sunday and then visiting a Jewish day school on Monday. The Webmeister is flying out from Boston to meet me for a warm-weather rendez-vous, and I’m hoping to meet up with some writer chums whilst out there.
California Dreaming….
1) Finally, after promising myself I’d do it for the last four years, I had that Japanese straightening thing done and I LOVE IT! As someone who has fought her thick, Jewish girl frizz for her entire life, I now just get out of the shower and dry my hair without even using a brush most of the time, just my fingers, and my hair looks good all the time. It’s heaven. Before I’d have spend ages blow drying, then use the hot iron, and it still frizzed up the minute there was the slightest bit of moisture in the air. Definitely one of the better things I’ve done for myself in a long time.
2) Attended Kindling Words 2007 up in Essex, VT. I went to KW for the first time last year, when I was completely demoralized about my writing and my life. Idea after idea for the second book had been shot down, and I was beginning to think I was a one-not-even-a-huge-hit wonder. Meanwhile my divorce was dragging into the second year with no end in sight. I’d just been dumped by someone I was dating. I was broke. Basically life sucked.
KW 2006 proved a lifesaver for many reasons, but the most important are these: thanks to conversations with Nancy Werlin, Elise Broach and Sarah Aronson, I realized that I’d lost touch with my process, and that maybe the secret would be to just write the entire book before I tried to sell it. Of course there’s always that little issue of money, especially when you’re broke, but after talking to Nancy I realized that maybe the secret was to take a day job. Sure enough, a part-time day job took the edge off the financial situation and I found that after writing about business topics all day, I couldn’t wait to work on my WIP.
The other wonderful thing was “Ketchup on my Cucumbers” - which emerged from a writing exercise in Ellen Wittlinger’s workshop on inspiration. I’d been told that I didn’t have a YA voice, and it frustrated me because there were topics I really wanted to tackle that need by their very nature to be YA. When I read my scribbled response to the exercise, my author colleagues told me that I could indeed write with a YA voice, and that gave me the confidence to embark on “Ketchup”, a book that I feel incredibly passionate about.
When I drove up to Vermont this year for KW2007, I remarked to Elise what a better place I’m in this year. My divorce is finalized; now it’s just a matter of selling the marital home (not fun) and moving to a new one (more fun). I’ve finished the long-awaited second novel and sent it to the Super Secret Agent. The Webmeister is in my life, and is incredibly supportive of my writing (he sent me a KW2007 T-shirt and notebook with a note saying to have a great time, a gesture that brought me to tears, but in a good way). I read a five-minute excerpt from “Ketchup” at the Candlelight Readings on Saturday night, and got really terrific feedback. Chris Tebbetts helped me make one of my character’s experiences more authentic. Tim Wynne-Jones taught us about the Objective Correlative, and I will never think of “The OC” as a TV show ever again. I had the pleasure of meeting the amazing Virginia Euwer Wolff, whose observation about my choice of the cucumber as OC in my novel has no doubt added another year or so to my therapy.
For my photo gallery of KW2007, click here:
KW2007
Once again, I came away refreshed, rejuvenated, and re-inspired -so much so that I’ve already started research on one of my ideas for a third novel. I’ve been working so hard to finish “Ketchup” for the last few months that I feel bereft not being in the thick of a MS. So time to dive right back in!
But first, I’m heading out to LA this weekend where I’m on a panel at the Western Jewish Children’s Book Writer’s Conference Sunday and then visiting a Jewish day school on Monday. The Webmeister is flying out from Boston to meet me for a warm-weather rendez-vous, and I’m hoping to meet up with some writer chums whilst out there.
California Dreaming….