Sandy
There’s a character in my new book. She’s wild, impetuous, the kind of woman everyone takes notice of when she walks into a room, a woman who leaves a trail of heartbreak and destruction wherever she goes. Her name? Sandy. Yesterday, the real Sandy tried to sock my city in the eye. She blew out…
Who Owns Author?
Last week, I wrote about the difference between the terms writer and author. This week I want to know, when do you get to call yourself an author? I have friends who write for very well-known blogs, or have established blogs of their own, but haven’t written a complete manuscript and thus won’t use the…
Denim versus Dress Up
Twice this week people have asked me what I do for a living. That’s a question I always find interesting, and perhaps one of these days we’ll get around to the whole Mommy Wars discussion on this blog. But today I want to talk about how I tend to answer, which I also find interesting…
Big Fat Cheater Pants
I am behind today. There are many reasons, including the holiday weekend (in the US Monday was Columbus Day) and the fact that someone was Put Out about having to run in almost rain conditions. Can you tell? Instead of rocketing along at near-heart attack pace, we took a more leisurely approach today. Which was…
Writer Unboxed
I love being a writer. I’ve been doing it for so long, in one capacity or another, that I can’t imagine not being able to play with words. Spending hours alone at the keyboard making stuff up (as my son puts it) is satisfying, but there are days when it can be a tiny bit…
Head space
When I quit my job to start freelancing, lo these many years ago, I was very serious about my work space.I had a little office, and I would trundle up there each morning with my patient brown dog and sit in my seat until I had made the requisite number of phone calls or written…
Revising
Many of my writer friends appear to be in the middle of revising their manuscripts. I can tell because they are making the noises I hear when I hurry past the waxing section of the salon. To ease the sting, I thought I’d share how I revise these days. First, go read this. It is…
Memory
Ten years ago, I sat down in the house of a woman who had lost her son on September eleventh. She’d been out grocery shopping that day and hadn’t heard the news. She came home to a message from her son, who worked in one of the towers. “He told me a plane had hit…
Review
Audio books listened to: Nine Favorite: No Passengers Beyond This Point, by Gennifer Choldenko (Caveat: The Graveyard Book will always be my very favorite. As my children grow, I find it more mournful, but each summer that we listen it’s like running into an old friend.) Sharks sighted: None (Thank God!) Boat rides taken: Two…
Lost
Has anyone seen my summer? It was here just yesterday. I swear, I took good care of it. I might have taken my eyes off of it, just for a moment, to look at a sunset. I did forget to hold it tightly on the water slide, but we were going so fast. It could…
Keeping Cool
Is it hot where you are? It’s been brutally hot here. We’re keeping cool by dipping into the ocean, into pools, having water gun fights. Some of us are devouring our own weight in watermelon, others (ahem) are quietly turning into iced green tea addicts. Listening to The Graveyard Book again in the car —…
See You Later, Aligator
Yes, it’s that time of year again. The demands of summer — baking pop rock cookies for the Fourth of July, watching sunsets, and trying to finish freelance deadlines — has created the perfect storm of anti-blogging pressures. I’ll still be posting, just not on a regular schedule. At least not until minion one and…