Great Endings, From The Beginning
I did a dumb thing this week. After swearing up and down for months that we were going to get rid of cable, my husband and I finally pulled the trigger. Because who needs it? Waste of money. Bigger waste of time….
Category: Rewriting
Sex in YA Novels
There’s a lot of discussion online about sex in YA novels: too much of, not enough of, inappropriateness of, negative consequences of, condoning of, etc. etc. Among the critiques I received on the first draft of my YA novel was…
Lessons on Narrative Distance: What Essays Can Teach Novelists
How Not to Write I used to keep a book on my shelf to remind myself how not to write. The book, call it Stricken, consisted of a collection of essays on the author’s recent widowhood. She had written it perhaps…
Leitmotifs For My Characters
Feeling a bit of cabin fever? Try coming up with a theme song for each major character in your novel. Fellow incubee Anjali Mathur gave me this idea last spring when she said she put on certain songs when she…
Friday Feast: Write, Revise, Repeat
We Bostonians are known for our strong feelings. After last week’s snowmageddon grump fest, it is now time to hunker down and focus. This week, we bring you links focused on writing and revision.
I Am Not a Success Story
There’s not a lot of advice I can give to other writers about how to be successful. The problem is that there are too many individual interpretations of “success.” To me, success looks like this: I can pay my electric…