After a year’s worth of immersion in what L. M. Montgomery, author of Anne of Green Gables, called “spade” work, I am about to jump into the murky waters of writing the first draft of a new tale for young readers. As an incentive, I have signed up to participate in NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing… Read More
Today, in preparation for NaNoWriMo, I created a working notebook for the 45,000 words I hope to write in the 30 days of November. Because I know that my best, first-draft work happens when I write longhand, I now have a 3-ring binder filled with 300 blank, college-ruled sheets of paper, for an average of… Read More
National Novel Writing Month starts in three hours, at 12:01 am on Thursday, November 1st—a little too late (or too early?) for me to start writing. But my alarm clock is set for 6 am, my coffee maker is set and ready to turn on, and my favorite coffee mug is waiting to be filled:… Read More
Last night I couldn’t sleep. I’d set my alarm for 6:00 am in order to begin my first day of participation in National Novel Writing Month 2018. Still wide awake at one o’clock in the morning, I tried to talk myself out of getting up to write a mere 5 hours later. But I did… Read More
Infinite possibilities … that’s the challenge of writing fiction. Face it: all fiction is made up; lies, in fact — fickle dalliances of an author’s imagination. In truth, sometimes infinite possibility is inspiring. Sometimes infinite possibility is overwhelming. This morning, near the end of my three-hour writing chunk, I found inspiration. A new scene visualized in… Read More
Encouragement came in a number of different forms on this last day of the first week of National Novel Writing Month. For the first time I didn’t reach my daily writing goal by late morning, a habit I knew I’d have to maintain if I were to successfully write 45,000 – 50,000 words during NaNoWriMo.… Read More
In my writing I’ve always been inspired by the visual, which is why I seek out opportunities to view visual art in its many forms: film, photography, painting, sculpture, pottery, book arts, collage. In our “Write a Novel in a Month Class” today we did a series of writing sprints: 5 minutes, then 10 minutes,… Read More
One of the most interesting aspects about my work-in-progress is the amount of research that I’m doing; about Eastern cottontail rabbits, of course, but also about their predators. A main character in my animal adventure/fantasy is a barred owl who develops an unlikely friendship with Nettie Rabbit. I’ve been fascinated by barred owls ever since… Read More
One of the most enjoyable learning experiences that I’ve had was in 2006, when I was in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Hamline University and was asked to to serve as the Assistant Editor of the Water~Stone Review. The cover image of Volume 8 was taken by Karolina Karlic, an arresting photograph that… Read More
On this 11th day of the 11th month of 2018, 100 years after Armistice Day, the poppy is a flower of remembrance and sacrifice. Fitting, then, to post this picture of an original oil painting of a girl in a poppy field that hangs in my husband’s home office. This particular work was done by… Read More