Cheryl Klein, Senior Editor at Arthur A. Levine Books (an imprint of Scholastic) blogged on “voice” in preparation for her upcoming talk. Cheryl, who’s so generous with her advice to writers posts many of her talks on her website. I urge you to check them out. And for anyone writing or revising and perhaps struggling… Read more »
The Writing Process
For the Love of 49 Words: A Revision Story Part 3
Well this is the final post in my series “For the Love of 49 Words” in which I spend hundreds telling you how I’m finding those perfect few. In the last episode you left me plunking my rhymers into my spreadsheet to form the spine of my story. Here’s what happened next: I ordered my… Read more »
For the Love of 49 Words: A Revision Story Part 2
When I first wrote this picture book, I composed a word list — a brainstorm of all possible kid words (and a lot of made-up words) that dealt with my topic, FOOD. Thankfully I still had that word list stored safely in my files. I don’t remember how I’d ever gotten to the text I’d… Read more »
For the Love of 49 Words: A Revision Story Part 1
One of my upcoming picture books was submitted at 45 words and sold at 65. Yesterday I received a very kind and thoughtful revision letter from my editor asking me to cut 16 words and change all the rest. You think I’m joking? Two funny truths about that letter: I completely agree with her suggestions… Read more »
That One Perfect Sentence
So today I went for a 45-minute run on this unseasonably warm Colorado day. And about half way through, I composed a line for the final scene in my current MG WIP. I loved that line. I adored that line. I mentally kissed myself for authoring such a vastly poetic, thematically targeted, perfectly voiced sentence…. Read more »
The Astonishing Pay Off of Hard Work and Research
It just so happens that the same day I started reading National Book Award Winner, The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing by M. T. Anderson, my GoodReads friend, Elizabeth C. Bunce, author of Curse Dark as Gold (winner of the first ever William C. Morris award) posted dozens and dozens of books she read to… Read more »
Totally Random Q: Story Status Quo and Problem Clues
I’ve been listening to Ann M. Martin’s HERE TODAY on CD and I’m been intrigued by how Martin develops the status quo in her story yet also drops hints as to the story problem. For example, in the opening pages, when Doris, the MC’s mom, begins her supermarket sweep one of the onlookers remarks “She’s… Read more »
Totally Random Q: Busting through Bad Writing
So I’m staring at my latest work-in-progress and today I happen to be hating it — the plot, the voice, you name it. It all sounds like “blah, blah, blah” to me. I know every writer, even the bestselling author, experiences this. When the honeymoon of that first inspiration is over and you wake up… Read more »
My Books
