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
One thing I’ve realized while drafting my last three middle grade novels is that writing the first 30 pages is “easy.” I’ve heard other novelists say the same thing. And then, you run smack dab into a DEAD END. You realize that, at its deepest level, you don’t know what your story is about. You… Read More
Today I was thinking about Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Written by Lewis Carroll and published in 1865, it was not a book that I read as a child. Recently I bought a copy of my own because, after all, it is a rabbit who sets the events of the plot in motion: “Alice started to… Read More
“Coming to Light” is a documentary film about the incredible life and photography of Edward S. Curtis that a friend and I saw at the Film Society of Minneapolis-St. Paul on Sunday afternoon. After learning about Curtis’s creative journey, there was no doubt that he paid an enormous price personally, financially, and emotionally for his… 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