So, as regular readers of this blog may have noticed, I’m a little . . . lax about posting. I can keep up with my Twitter and my Facebook and my Tumblr, but I tend to let things go a little slack here on the blog. If I want to make excuses, I could say this is partially because being a writer and having a full time job can be, well, pretty tough, ( Read more... )

Last summer, NPR gathered together reader votes to create a “Top 100” list for science fiction and fantasy books. This summer, they’re getting even closer to my heart with a “Top 100” YA list. And you can vote for 10 of the 200-odd finalists! (Though I'm not seeing when the voting ends for some reason, so get your votes in now.)

As I said about the ( Read more... )

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I've chronicled the painfully slow progress I've been making on my 2nd-ever knitting project here and here. These posts are dated in March of 2011 and February of 2012, so when I say slow, I really, really mean it. In fact, I've been calling the ruana I've been working on the Never-Ending Project. But, as of this week, it is never-ending no more. ( Read more... )

You know how you make bargains with yourself? Like, I can only have that slice of cake if I exercise first or I can’t watch the new episode of Game of Thrones unless I actually go through those emails I’ve been putting off. Well, for the past few years, I keep making bargains with myself about my books.

It started when I looked around the house one ( Read more... )

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Before my mom was a Pre-K teacher, she was a landscaper. Which meant that I spent a lot of my early childhood being carted around to businesses and private houses, finding ways to entertain myself while my mom worked. So there was a lot of reading, lots of pretend play, and even some practice for being a writer, which I talk about here. I don't ( Read more... )

I haven't been around on the blog as much over the last few months. In part, that's been because my husband spent the last 4 months in a land I like to call Dissertation Hell. It's a dismal land, one that prohibits most-to-all of your social contact, forces you to leave household chores undone, and leaves you with only enough energy to fall in ( Read more... )

I've talked elsewhere about the importance I place on character names. And, as I've been having some Naming Issues in the book that I'm working on right now, I've been thinking recently about my process of naming.

With major characters, I generally can't introduce them into the story until I have their name. And not a place holder name-their real, ( Read more... )

One of the questions that I get asked a lot is “Did you always know you wanted to be a writer?” The short answer that I give is “yes.” By the age of eleven or twelve, if you asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would, without hesitation, say “a writer.” Before that age, I might have answered “writer,” but I also might have answered any ( Read more... )