Do writers have overactive right brains?

Potters, painters and photographers all have tangibles to work with. Writers work in a sphere of the unseen. What an ethereal realm we are engaged in…weaving the fabric of our stories from little more than imagination and inspiration. Sometimes I feel like one of the weavers from ‘the emperor’s new clothes’, spinning my story from invisible thread and inviting my readers to believe in [...]

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Libraries going ‘bookless’

Does anyone else find this terribly disturbing? I’ve been reading about the trend for libraries to digitize themselves but this is unbelievable!  “The headmaster of a central Massachusetts school that eliminated most of the books in its library says the move has worked well, turning the the library into a magnet for students and faculty. [...]

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Urban Dictionary — resource for writers who lead a sheltered life

From my Writer’s Toolbox: Here’s a good resource to keep you from ‘stepping in it’ literally when it comes to slang and the new urban language. For instance, I want to use the word ‘wuss’ in a children’s book and I need to know if it has any off color overtones that would be inappropriate for [...]

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So you want to be a writer…

Here’s what I’ve learned about writing in the last three years. When everyone else is: watching TV, I am probably writing. sleeping, I am usually writing and editing. on FaceBook, I’m…ooops…gotta get back to writing. blogging, I am writing, wishing I had more time to blog. shopping, I am revising a chapter. texting and tweeting, I am talking to my MC. eating, [...]

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Point of view: a reader and writer’s perspective

Writing has made me a more critical reader. My latest library book lost me as a reader because of technical issues. Besides some rather drab characters and a meandering plot, the POV shifted so often I was starting to feel the main action of the story was my ability to leap about between character’s heads. I won’t tell you what [...]

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Take a peek in my writer’s toolbox

“The work was like peeling an onion. The outer skin came off with difficulty… but in no time you’d be down to its innards, tears streaming from your eyes as more and more beautiful reductions became possible.” ~Edward Blishen My SCBWI writers’ group had its monthly ‘schmooze’ Saturday morning at Kaffe Latte.  A relatively new [...]

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Think like a writer

The more I write, the more I find myself thinking like a writer when I’m not at the keyboard. Some of my best ideas come when I’m in the shower,  especially when I’ve hit a wall or have a question for my character who gives me a blank stare as an answer. It’s usually a [...]

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Why read?

I love C.S. Lewis’s powerfully simple answer: We read to know we are not alone. We learn we are not alone in our struggle to make sense of this world. We learn that everyone throughout time struggles with various aspects of hope and despair, good and evil, love and hate, along with all the varying degrees of [...]

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What is humor?

Humor is… despair refusing to take itself seriously. Arland Ussher (b. 1899 – d. 1980) Anglo-Irish academic, essayist and translator.

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The right word

“A powerful agent is the right word. Whenever we come upon one of those intensely right words… the resulting effect is physical as well as spiritual, and electrically prompt.” Mark Twain

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