1. I'm thankful that I'm finally back to revising THE ART OF SELLING MY SISTER. I love this book so much, and it's so great to get back to characters I know so well and adore. I'm rewriting the entire act 3 of this one and changing the mystery solution so it's "bigger" and "more satisfying." I'm also amping the conflict.

2. I'm thankful that a good ( Read more... )

1. I forgot to mention this, but I *finally* finished the first draft (technically third draft if you count the previous two versions I discarded) of my retelling and I've already started revising it. I know I'm supposed to let it marinate for a bit, but I had so many days I couldn't write the last few weeks that I ended up doing that without ( Read more... )

I realize I have been slacking in my blog posting lately, but I have good reasons. I promise! Here they are as follows:
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I haven't posted one of these in a while, especially not from my book on sub THE ART OF SELLING MY SISTER. So here's one of my favorite scenes from this novel.

The set-up: my characters are pretending to be newlyweds so they can pull a prank on the cruise ship's Newlywed game. They are trying to get "in character" here. Earlier in the novel Finn, my ( Read more... )

1. So I got an email from my dad this morning announcing he's #2 out of roughly 5 million people on ESPN fantasy sports teams. That sounds pretty insane. This is more than a hobby for him, he spends like 2 hours maintaining his teams and he plays all sports (including things like bass fishing). Sounds like a lot of time, but probably less than I ( Read more... )

1. This morning I witnessed a live slush pile read through. At least I think so. I was sitting on the subway into NYC and a woman near me had a file folder with lots of slots. Each slot contained a small packet of paper, about the size of a first chapter. They looked like manuscripts with headers. She took one pile out, read a few pages, then put ( Read more... )

Here is an excerpt from The Art of Selling my Sister. In this scene, my protagonist Kasey is on a cruise with her family. She and her sister Lara just met brothers in the previous scene, and they all decided to try to get into the 18-and-over dance club using the older siblings' pass-back IDs. Lara is a dancer, Kasey is not, so she's nervous. In ( Read more... )

The first day of I-week went very well. I banged out 5k and tightened my outline, planning out the rest of the week and which scenes I had to complete in order to finish on time. Also, I received a very exciting email from my agent today. Yay for 2009!

I know I've been talking about Misjudged a lot on this blog. I wish I could post a teaser from it ( Read more... )

I'm probably more meticulous in my outlining methods than most people. It takes me longer to outline a book than it does to write the first draft. I always find it interesting to hear other writers' methods. We all start and end at the same point, but the routes we take from blank page to final draft are all different. I'm curious to know your ( Read more... )