Blog awards

From Shannon at Book DreamingFrom Jen at uneditedFrom Medeia at Medeia Sharif and Tyrean at Tyrean's Writing SpotFrom Simon at Constant RevisionFrom Janet at It Is What It IsFrom...

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Stories are everywhere*

Where do you get your ideas?It's the Grand FAQ we writers face nearly every time we meet someone new. Some writers will tell you they write from life. They're trying to process...

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More giveaways

Check out MG and YA writer Christina Farley's big book giveaway at Chocolate for Inspiration: your chance to win one of three fabulous prizes. The deadline to enter is January...

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Gifts for the fourth day of Christmas (minus the calling birds)

My long-overdue thanks to Shannon at Book Dreaming for the Picasso Award!This little beauty comes with the stipulation that I pass it on to seven other blogs and share seven things...

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Enter today -- contest at Book Dreaming

Shannon over at Book Dreaming is hosting a big book giveaway in honor of reaching 100 blog followers. Stop on over to win one of two prizes--a set of adult fiction and writing...

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Daytripper: tips for researching on location

Yesterday my family and I took a trek up to NYC for some holiday fun and a wee bit of research for me. How I landed on a New Yorker MC rather than a Philly girl (which would require...

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Gasping, clutching the stitch in my side

My sincere apologies to you all for being a big time blogland slacker. I am way, way, way behind with acknowledging all the generous blog awards bestowed in the past week and...

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Snogfest in blogland

In honor of mistletoe, a group of writer bloggers are participating in a Kissing Day Blogfest. To sign up, stop by Sherrinda's blog, A Writer Wannabe.Kissing scenes are not the...

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Handling the holi-daze

It's less than a week till Christmas and chances are the holiday hubbub is upon you: attending and hosting parties, decorating, cooking, baking, shopping, wrapping, attending...

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What is not there

While washing my hands at work this morning, I realized my left hand looked a little strange. Naked. The spot where my engagement ring and wedding band usually sit was empty....

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All I want for Christmas...

...or maybe Easter, is this Gilmore Girls book! The university presses are rolling out their spring catalogs and this particular title made me squee with delight:Screwball Television:...

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You say you want a resolution...

(My apologies to the Beatles. I've listened to far too much Weird Al in my lifetime, and seem to hear parody potential everywhere.)As the calendar year wraps up, my mind leaps...

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Editor on call:** ending apostrophe abuse

Apostrophe anxiety in the digital ageRoots of the problem--the demise of gatekeepersFor generations, the humble apostrophe has been quietly helping us keep track of who owns what...

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Editor on call

Last night, one of my critique group friends called with an urgent punctuation question. It was something pretty simple about quotes within quotes.This got me wondering if any...

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Scrappy-doo

The lovely, soon-to-be published Tamara over at Chasing Dreams bestowed my second blog award--The Honest Scrap. I blush, I swoon.... Seriously though, it was a wonderful treat...

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You got some 'splainin' to do

I was mercilessly flogging revising chapter six last night and hit a paragraph where my MC cues up Mozart's Requiem on her iPod in what should set up a totally Emo, wallowing-in-self-pity...

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I humbly accept...and sincerely shout out for some superior scribblers

Thanks to Simon over at Constant Revision for naming me a Superior Scribbler! He must've gotten wind of my love of jotting notes on ATM receipts and in el-cheapo spiral notebooks....

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Is it them or is it me?

Ah, holiday parties, when well-meaning friends inevitably ask, "how's the book coming?" and I have to admit I'm revising AGAIN."But I thought you were trying to find an agent.""Well,...

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Apprenticeship in the guild

Meeting for writer's group is always a highlight of the month. We're an exceptionally diverse group genre-wise: literary fiction, fantasy, magical realism, young adult, memoir...

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The best gift: getting published

It's been sooo hard to keep this under wraps, but one of my pieces was published today in the Winter 09-10 issue of Flashquake! "Wedding Singer" is the true story of one of my...

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Seeds of book love

True confessions: as a kid, I was a bit of a rebel when it came to reading. I come from a family of anti-sports book lovers. Our coffee table was always piled high with magazines....

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The cat's pajamas: slinging slang

Slang: do you love it? Hate it? Find you can't avoid it?Using lots of slang can date your work, or at least your characters. That can be a slippery proposition in some genres....

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Trauma, courage and antagonist insights

Sunday morning. I made my coffee palatable with ice cream, because we ran out of milk Saturday. A milk run was not top priority after a tiring day helping prep an apartment for...

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Review round-up: Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, oy, oy, oy!

Occasionally my library runs will open up some fantastic new world, or in this case, a new continent. My penchant for titles with religious resonances (in the off chance I’ll...

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Bellows of the imagination

"I am a great surmiser, a bellows, blowing life into people and things, though they already have lives of their own."--John Hazard. "Signage." South Dakota Review 46.4 (Winter...

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Recharging...and a review

Yesterday, I hit a point revising when I felt I'm losing the love for the story. Does this ever happen to you? It was time to recharge. Nothing does it for me like a library run...

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Frankensteining severed scenes

I'm in the process of cutting 14,000 words out of my manuscript, which obviously requires more than simple line edits. Big, honking chunks must go: characters, subplots, dragging...

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Plot thought: random reality

Sometime this morning, after I'd squeezed in a shower and a couple loads of wash, we realized the water heater had sprung a huge leak. While my hubby shop-vacc'ed up 40 gallons...

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Revising for scene variety

"Write what you know" sometimes spills into our approach to scene writing. We stick to the scene format that feels most comfortable to write, whether that's action, dialogue,...

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Child voice

I'm a bit burned out on revisions after several days of long slog, so I thought for fun I'd dig out something completely different to blog about. A poem. An old poem written during...

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Revising for emotion

In writing early drafts, even plodders tend to skim the emotional surface of their scenes. One's initial focus is on pushing the plot forward and grasping the first burst of emotional...

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Heads up: YA query contest

Literary agent Anna Webman of Curtis Brown Ltd. will be judging a contest on the Query Tracker Blog this coming week. She wants to see the first five pages plus a synopsis of...

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Magic moment, brought to you by networking

Last night, we took our small person to meet some favorite authors at kid lit event in Haverford. This place was so packed, we could barely squeeze in the door. This is the sort...

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Author/ Illustrator night

Thanks to the SEPTA strike, my hubby and I will not be taking a group of his college students via subway to First Friday in Philly's Old City gallery district tonight. Instead,...

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Drafting neuroses

Revision is my thing. I work as an editor, after all. Give me a stack of pages and a pen and I'm happy as a clam. But put me in front of a blank screen? Ai-yi-yi.As a result of...

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Settings find us

Not long ago I had a nice IM chat with a friend my husband and I visited in England in 2006, when I was in the early stages of drafting Bring to Light. It got me thinking about...

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Write it slant

The fiction experts tell us time and again to "show, not tell." It's a useful enough guideline, as far as it goes. But how should one go about showing? Describing physical sensations...

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Beginnings

My writing buddy Simon, who really got the ball rolling with our critique group, now has a blog. He's an insightful reader and emerging talent--I look forward to his contributions...

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Would she really ____?

In How to Write a Damn Good Novel, James N. Frey says many plots lack integrity because the author doesn't have her characters acting at their maximum capacity.What does he mean...

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Check it out!

My "flash fiction" novel excerpt, "Swan Moment" has been published on the e-zine Maternal Spark. You can read it he...

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Excuse busting

Most of the folks in my critique group write short stories--something I haven't attempted or marketed in years. When they ask why, I usually trot out the explanation that the...

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Getting unstuck

It's pretty common to hit road blocks while taking on the Herculean task of drafting a novel. What I didn't expect was how simultaneously trying to market a finished book has...

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