I happened upon the website of children's author Mette Ivie Harrison and it's chocked full of things for writers, and not necessarily just your generic stuff for newer writers that you've read a thousand times before! Check it out:  http://www.metteivieharrison.com.

If you click on the heading of Writing and scroll down, she offers her Free ( Read more... )

Stealing from my reply to another blogger's post yesterday (about a 6th grade reluctant reader)...

Our 6th grader used to love reading, but lately he only does it when he has to. His taste in books has changed. He's suddenly all into adventure and fast-paced action and is no longer patient enough for the quieter stories he used to enjoy.

So when he ( Read more... )

Last month I attended the Rutgers One-on-One Plus Conference. In both my one-on-one with my mentor and my five-on-five discussion with four other authors and their mentors, I posed the question--how do editors and agents feel about YA stories featuring college-aged main characters? My mentor (an editor) and the agents and editors in my five-on-five ( Read more... )

It amazes me how slow going the process is. I get so impatient. I mean I know exactly what needs to be done, but it takes so long to do each scene right and fix all the other parts of the book it's linked to and are affected by changes to it. But day by day, hour by hour, if I can keep myself from procrastinating, it gets done. IF the story is ( Read more... )

I used to pack lunches for our two oldest when they were younger and didn’t feel like eating hot lunch. But then the lunch bags/boxes starting coming home with half of the food uneaten. When I asked why, they’d say it was because I packed things they didn’t like or things that were “too healthy,” so I stopped. I told them if they wanted a packed ( Read more... )

I just started reading this book called Make a Scene (by Jordan E. Rosenfeld) and in the second chapter, it talks about how you have to “set scene intentions for your character,” and, reading it, I realized I don’t do that! Or at least I never think about doing it, except for maybe in the very first chapter of the book. I have intentions for each ( Read more... )

I'm back from taking our oldest off to college for the first time. Drove 11 hours straight and got home at 1:30 in the morning so when I woke up this morning I was not a pretty sight. I had bags under (and above?!) my eyes, bags like I have never seen before, weird, tiny, asymmetrical pockets of  swollen  tissue.  And I didn't even cry as violently ( Read more... )

Being that this is our oldest daughter's last couple months at home before going off to college, and seeing how fast time with children flies, I determined that I would put down my computer this summer whenever they were around. If they started doing something with each other or had a friend over or were otherwise happily occupied, I could write. ( Read more... )

I had a dream last night that I was at a writer's conference of some sort in a small group session, sitting around a table with a half dozen editors agents and maybe a couple authors. See, that was the problem--I didn't know who any of the people were, didn't recognize their faces or names. They didn't have name tags on so I was straining to read ( Read more... )

I have a stack of great books from the library, books I have had on hold there:

Wednesday Wars
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
The Green Glass Sea
Julia's Kitchen
First Boy
Clementine
Way Down Deep
The Slightly True Story of Cedar B. Hartley
Donuthead
Jim the Boy
Freedom Writer's Diary

...but I'm finding it hard to find the time to read them ( Read more... )