This morning a young warbler bounced off a screen door. It lay stunned on its side, but I could see it breathing ( Read more... )

It has been a good month and a half since I posted. Blame it on a week at the national SCBWI Conference in Los Angeles, which was wonderful, and on the Dread MFA Packet Deadline. --I say "dread" with all due affection, rather like Wesley refers to the "Dread Pirate Roberts" in The Princess BrideAn update is long overdue ( Read more... )

I'm starting a new project for my final semester. I'm not ready to talk about it yet, because it's still at the stage where it feels like entering a strange new house at midnight--not the teen stalker/slasher flick sort of house, but one I've been invited to by a friend. Still, it's a new house and it's dark and I've got to find my way around ( Read more... )

I've mentioned my love of office supplies in the past--markers, highlighters, pens of most types (never was a fan of the rollerball) and with most ink colors (yellow, not so much ( Read more... )

I had the best of intentions of at least putting out a short weekly post after I got out of residency ( Read more... )

I've already spent several hours working on the creative portion of my next MFA packet. I need to start the critical essay that is also part of each packet. To make the transition from right to left brain, I decided to make a pot of soup. If it weren't raining, I'd go for a walk, but it is, so this is the next best thing.

What about you? Do you have ( Read more... )

I've been thinking a great deal about satisfying endings lately, and came across this video, done for a High School AP class, that I think captures Lajos Egri's ideas fairly well.

Writer friends, what do you think?

Click to view

Jane Yolen's parting words to the New England SCBWI Conference still resonate:

BIC


( Read more... )

Since the main character in my WIP is applying to college, that's what I did today, filling out a Common Application. Writing the short answer and the essay were very useful exercises. They told me things about Stefan that I hadn't known.

It's a trick I'm filing away for future use.

One of my writer friends writes her character's obits for the same ( Read more... )

I am one step closer to revisions:

One of the reasons I drafted StT at such high speed is that I didn't let anything slow me down. So, for example, I knew that the family business that is one of the settings needed a particular sort of name, but one didn't occur to me immediately. So I simply wrote SALVAGE PLACE and went on. In some cases what ( Read more... )