In the Final Hours
I had written twenty, maybe thirty, pages of my first draft when I had the idea of setting the climax at a theme party. I thought it would be fun to put my characters into costumes and get them in…
Category: Books
Taking a Lesson from Moonlight
A few weeks ago, when I walked out of the theater after seeing Moonlight, I experienced a feeling akin to what I felt three days ago when I closed the cover of Zadie Smith’s Swing Time and sat back and…
‘Tis the Season for Discipline
Fortunate are the writers whose first germ of a novel is a plotline, a concept, a scene, or a theme – ideas that provide a starting point, the bare bones, a guide. Then there’s me. Having grown up in Wisconsin with…
YA Wednesday: Embracing and Escaping Trump
Try as I might, I cannot stop thinking about the consequences of a Trump presidency. And clearly many of us are in the same boat, what with all the drum-beating, march-planning, and blooming activism in all corners of the country….
Writers’ Original Sin: Control
We all know that exhilarating feeling of banging out a first draft when the ideas are flowing, the characters are talking and pages are filling of our their own volition as we put our vision into words. There’s no better…
YA Wednesday: Thoughts, Feels, and Burning Questions from Gilmore Girls: A Year in The Life
I recently binge-watched Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life with my daughter. We’d watched Gilmore Girls together many times in the past and it was wonderful to get lost again in Stars Hollow. At one point the cat joined…