Showing posts with label who am I?. Show all posts
Showing posts with label who am I?. Show all posts

Thursday, January 24

I confess I wasn't much of a reader in my childhood. From age 4 to almost 9, I lived on a 100-acre farm (most of it forested), where I spent many happy afternoons imagining adventures with a host of imaginary friends, a few barn cats at my heels. Being cooped up inside looking at paper was the stuff of school, the stuff of have-to, must, and you'd better.... Out among the trees was the stuff of color, texture, and life of all kinds. The worlds my imagination built were more real to me than Dick and Jane, cursive, and George Washington.

I suspect this concerned my parents a bit. They were both big readers who filled our house with books and magazines. They often read to me at bedtime, and on long car trips, Mom or one of my sibs would read aloud to us. Several books of the Narnia series got us through the insanely long drive from Pennsylvania to my grandparents' house in western Montana.

My parents rarely, if ever, watched TV. In fact, my oldest siblings grew up without one in the house. I was, according to them, lucky to even have a TV. It was black-and-white in an era when absolutely everyone else had color, and we got only four channels out in the sticks--the three major networks and PBS. The 70s weren't known for realistic programming--aside from the Bionic Man, Wonder Woman,  and Fantasy Island, were the distant luxury worlds of The Love Boat, and the sanitized "Old West" of Little House on the Prairie. These shows, plus The Wonderful World of Disney, and some Saturday cartoons made up my entertainment diet, which was quite time-limited. When I complained about my meager TV time, "Go play," was the usual response. So I did.

We ended up having to sell the farm because my father had a mental health crisis. My ability to get lost in my imaginary world saved me, I think. Out in the woods, I could process my anxieties. Nature soothed me and brought joy in a very dark time for our family.

Our new home was a more manageable three acres, part of it wooded with a creek, so the adventures--and my source of nature therapy--continued there. Through a school friend, I soon got caught up in an obsession with horses. Her family had kept them sporadically, and she took riding lessons from a stable near her house. Many a Saturday, I trailed her around the barn, soaking up knowledge about how to care for these amazing creatures.

My seventh-grade reading teacher somehow caught onto the fact that I didn't really read for pleasure, though I had no struggles other than a lack of interest. One day during study hall, she called me over to her closet at the back of the classroom. "I hear you like horses," she whispered conspiratorially. "Check this out." She handed me a book with a gorgeous bay mare on the cover. "You want to borrow it?" Boy, did I ever.

I read every horse book Mrs. Brooks had. Over the next two years, I read nearly every horse story my public library had, and there were quite a few. When I finished those, I read other books written for middle schoolers, most notably Madeleine L'Engle's work.

During the same period, I was placed in the gifted program, and our advisor got us playing Dungeons and Dragons as a problem-solving and creativity-building exercise. D&D draws on historic and fantastical lore from many, many sources, which opened up even more avenues for reading for me. And the storytelling aspect of role play also captured my imagination.

Soon I was writing my own stories. Not just short works, but the beginnings of full novels with large casts of characters. The itch to create worlds with words was a natural outflow of many, many hours spent in creative play early on. My writing only grew from there, and my love of reading continued to flourish into an English degree and a career in publishing.

So if you have a reluctant reader in your house, take heart.  Not every writer starts out bookish. Model good reading habits. Keep your home full of books that are cool to look at. Read aloud to this child and as a whole family, enjoying and discussing a book together. Limit TV and computer time. Give lots of outdoor playtime in nature. Be patient for the right opportunity to let your child follow their passions in pleasure reading.

Have you seen other reluctant readers go on to become writers? What encouragement would you give to parents of reluctant readers?

The wild child comes inside: a parable of hope for reluctant readers

Thursday, January 24, 2019 Laurel Garver
I confess I wasn't much of a reader in my childhood. From age 4 to almost 9, I lived on a 100-acre farm (most of it forested), where I spent many happy afternoons imagining adventures with a host of imaginary friends, a few barn cats at my heels. Being cooped up inside looking at paper was the stuff of school, the stuff of have-to, must, and you'd better.... Out among the trees was the stuff of color, texture, and life of all kinds. The worlds my imagination built were more real to me than Dick and Jane, cursive, and George Washington.

I suspect this concerned my parents a bit. They were both big readers who filled our house with books and magazines. They often read to me at bedtime, and on long car trips, Mom or one of my sibs would read aloud to us. Several books of the Narnia series got us through the insanely long drive from Pennsylvania to my grandparents' house in western Montana.

My parents rarely, if ever, watched TV. In fact, my oldest siblings grew up without one in the house. I was, according to them, lucky to even have a TV. It was black-and-white in an era when absolutely everyone else had color, and we got only four channels out in the sticks--the three major networks and PBS. The 70s weren't known for realistic programming--aside from the Bionic Man, Wonder Woman,  and Fantasy Island, were the distant luxury worlds of The Love Boat, and the sanitized "Old West" of Little House on the Prairie. These shows, plus The Wonderful World of Disney, and some Saturday cartoons made up my entertainment diet, which was quite time-limited. When I complained about my meager TV time, "Go play," was the usual response. So I did.

We ended up having to sell the farm because my father had a mental health crisis. My ability to get lost in my imaginary world saved me, I think. Out in the woods, I could process my anxieties. Nature soothed me and brought joy in a very dark time for our family.

Our new home was a more manageable three acres, part of it wooded with a creek, so the adventures--and my source of nature therapy--continued there. Through a school friend, I soon got caught up in an obsession with horses. Her family had kept them sporadically, and she took riding lessons from a stable near her house. Many a Saturday, I trailed her around the barn, soaking up knowledge about how to care for these amazing creatures.

My seventh-grade reading teacher somehow caught onto the fact that I didn't really read for pleasure, though I had no struggles other than a lack of interest. One day during study hall, she called me over to her closet at the back of the classroom. "I hear you like horses," she whispered conspiratorially. "Check this out." She handed me a book with a gorgeous bay mare on the cover. "You want to borrow it?" Boy, did I ever.

I read every horse book Mrs. Brooks had. Over the next two years, I read nearly every horse story my public library had, and there were quite a few. When I finished those, I read other books written for middle schoolers, most notably Madeleine L'Engle's work.

During the same period, I was placed in the gifted program, and our advisor got us playing Dungeons and Dragons as a problem-solving and creativity-building exercise. D&D draws on historic and fantastical lore from many, many sources, which opened up even more avenues for reading for me. And the storytelling aspect of role play also captured my imagination.

Soon I was writing my own stories. Not just short works, but the beginnings of full novels with large casts of characters. The itch to create worlds with words was a natural outflow of many, many hours spent in creative play early on. My writing only grew from there, and my love of reading continued to flourish into an English degree and a career in publishing.

So if you have a reluctant reader in your house, take heart.  Not every writer starts out bookish. Model good reading habits. Keep your home full of books that are cool to look at. Read aloud to this child and as a whole family, enjoying and discussing a book together. Limit TV and computer time. Give lots of outdoor playtime in nature. Be patient for the right opportunity to let your child follow their passions in pleasure reading.

Have you seen other reluctant readers go on to become writers? What encouragement would you give to parents of reluctant readers?

Thursday, June 8

When I first started this blog in 2009, blog "awards" were all the rage. I think 2010-11 was a peak period, in which I received and passed along more than a dozen. By 2013 no one was doing them any more, and it made me a little sad. I can see how they might seem like public chain letters, but by golly they are fun. They give you something entertaining to blog about when all your creativity has gone into finishing a fantastic chapter the night before.

So I will not be joining the anti-blog-award brigade. Nope. I'll be having some fun. So here goes....

There are rules to this award, of course…
Rule 1: Put the award logo/image on your blog.

Rule 2: List the rules.

Rule 3: Thank whoever nominated you and provide a link to their blog.

Big thanks for the nomination to awesome A-Z Blogging challenge co-host J. Lenni Dorner, who I knew on Twitter for some time before becoming blog buddies.

Rule 4: Mention the creator of the award and provide a link as well.
About the creator: Okoto Enigma’s blog 
The creator’s name, Enigma, means mystery, thus the title of the award.

Rule 5: Tell your readers three things about yourself.

1) I can identify nearly any early 1980s pop song within five measures or less. I was obsessed with America's Top 40 in my misspent youth. (I could have been memorizing Pi to the 400th decimal place or all the world capitals or something a little less frivolous). My husband sometimes makes me demonstrate my skill for guests.

2) I did props management and set decoration for about a dozen college productions, as well as for some community theatre shows. Once I'm an empty nester, I will likely take it up again. It is so much fun to build the material culture for a play.

3) I'm convinced that one of my childhood homes was haunted. We often heard movement in distant rooms, and one of the bedrooms had a distinct cold spot. I sensed the presence of our ghost more than once, particularly in the daytime when playing alone. My sense was that it was a young woman who'd perhaps died in childbirth and continued going about the business of taking care of her family, as if unaware she was dead.

Rule 6: Nominate other bloggers. (I'm going to cheat a little on this one. Twenty is a bit much).

Faith Hough
Jean Davis
Nick Wilford
Samantha Dunaway Bryant
Tyrean Martinson

Rule 7: Notify those people.

Rule 8: Ask your nominee any five questions of your choice, plus one weird or funny question.

The questions I have for my nominees are:
1) What are three things on your "bucket list"?
2) Which authors have influenced you in terms of genre, style, or theme?
3) What book's milieu (place, time, culture) would you most like to live in?
4) What are your favorite writing resources?
5) What's the best book you've read recently?
Fun/weird bonus:  Have you ever developed a "book crush" on a fictional character? Who and why?


I was asked
1) What is the most memorable trait or visual oddity of a fictional book character you’ve read?

Anne Shirley's intense flights of fancy into imaginary worlds (Anne of Green Gables series). I didn't read the books until post-college and felt like L.M. Montgomery could have been writing my girlhood (minus the orphan thing, and living in the 1880s, obvs).

2) What most motivates you to buy a new book to read?

New printed books are a purchase I have to justify because of the space issue and the expense. I have to be convinced I will read it more than once, use it as a resource or model text, or will likely share it. A great sale might also convince me. I'm freer about picking up used books and ebooks--the former aren't as big an expense, the latter less a clutter creator.

3) How do YOU make an educated guess as to if a book by an author you haven’t read before will be “good” BEFORE you read any of it?

The description has to grab me. I can more quickly get past an ugly cover than this. And I never buy or download stuff--even freebies--without reading a sample. Because a great cover blurb of an interesting premise sometimes doesn't translate into style that draws me in. I'm a voice-driven writer and tend to be a voice-driven reader also.

4) What’s your favorite comfort food?

Mashed potatoes. My husband has a killer technique of boiling garlic cloves with the potatoes, then hand-mashing the cooked garlic into the cooked potatoes, along with sour cream, butter, and white pepper.

5) Where do you look for blogging inspiration?

My monthly critique group meetings often provide fodder, as does Twitter--sometimes a random post will catch my eye, sometimes a grammar or spelling error in a tweet will inspire an editing topic.

Weird/funny question: Do you have a celebrity encounter story you can share?

I am almost phobic about rubbing elbows with someone famous and doing something stupid, so I tend to go out of my way to avoid contact, even when given special access, like at comic conventions. So if there's a celebrity around, I will be trying to quietly creep away.


Rule 9: Share a link to my blog’s best post.
Rebel that I am, I'll share two. :-)

One of my analyses of Harry Potter characters continues to get the most hits. It's third in a series

What makes a villain? Part 3: Hero in Villain's Clothing

A newer post with nearly as many page views is this one on my revision process:

How I Do It: Identifying Story Weaknesses

Q4U: Do you miss the "good old days" of writing blogs (before 2012)? 
Answer any (or all) of my six questions listed under "rule 8."

Mystery blogger: nine things about me

Thursday, June 08, 2017 Laurel Garver
When I first started this blog in 2009, blog "awards" were all the rage. I think 2010-11 was a peak period, in which I received and passed along more than a dozen. By 2013 no one was doing them any more, and it made me a little sad. I can see how they might seem like public chain letters, but by golly they are fun. They give you something entertaining to blog about when all your creativity has gone into finishing a fantastic chapter the night before.

So I will not be joining the anti-blog-award brigade. Nope. I'll be having some fun. So here goes....

There are rules to this award, of course…
Rule 1: Put the award logo/image on your blog.

Rule 2: List the rules.

Rule 3: Thank whoever nominated you and provide a link to their blog.

Big thanks for the nomination to awesome A-Z Blogging challenge co-host J. Lenni Dorner, who I knew on Twitter for some time before becoming blog buddies.

Rule 4: Mention the creator of the award and provide a link as well.
About the creator: Okoto Enigma’s blog 
The creator’s name, Enigma, means mystery, thus the title of the award.

Rule 5: Tell your readers three things about yourself.

1) I can identify nearly any early 1980s pop song within five measures or less. I was obsessed with America's Top 40 in my misspent youth. (I could have been memorizing Pi to the 400th decimal place or all the world capitals or something a little less frivolous). My husband sometimes makes me demonstrate my skill for guests.

2) I did props management and set decoration for about a dozen college productions, as well as for some community theatre shows. Once I'm an empty nester, I will likely take it up again. It is so much fun to build the material culture for a play.

3) I'm convinced that one of my childhood homes was haunted. We often heard movement in distant rooms, and one of the bedrooms had a distinct cold spot. I sensed the presence of our ghost more than once, particularly in the daytime when playing alone. My sense was that it was a young woman who'd perhaps died in childbirth and continued going about the business of taking care of her family, as if unaware she was dead.

Rule 6: Nominate other bloggers. (I'm going to cheat a little on this one. Twenty is a bit much).

Faith Hough
Jean Davis
Nick Wilford
Samantha Dunaway Bryant
Tyrean Martinson

Rule 7: Notify those people.

Rule 8: Ask your nominee any five questions of your choice, plus one weird or funny question.

The questions I have for my nominees are:
1) What are three things on your "bucket list"?
2) Which authors have influenced you in terms of genre, style, or theme?
3) What book's milieu (place, time, culture) would you most like to live in?
4) What are your favorite writing resources?
5) What's the best book you've read recently?
Fun/weird bonus:  Have you ever developed a "book crush" on a fictional character? Who and why?


I was asked
1) What is the most memorable trait or visual oddity of a fictional book character you’ve read?

Anne Shirley's intense flights of fancy into imaginary worlds (Anne of Green Gables series). I didn't read the books until post-college and felt like L.M. Montgomery could have been writing my girlhood (minus the orphan thing, and living in the 1880s, obvs).

2) What most motivates you to buy a new book to read?

New printed books are a purchase I have to justify because of the space issue and the expense. I have to be convinced I will read it more than once, use it as a resource or model text, or will likely share it. A great sale might also convince me. I'm freer about picking up used books and ebooks--the former aren't as big an expense, the latter less a clutter creator.

3) How do YOU make an educated guess as to if a book by an author you haven’t read before will be “good” BEFORE you read any of it?

The description has to grab me. I can more quickly get past an ugly cover than this. And I never buy or download stuff--even freebies--without reading a sample. Because a great cover blurb of an interesting premise sometimes doesn't translate into style that draws me in. I'm a voice-driven writer and tend to be a voice-driven reader also.

4) What’s your favorite comfort food?

Mashed potatoes. My husband has a killer technique of boiling garlic cloves with the potatoes, then hand-mashing the cooked garlic into the cooked potatoes, along with sour cream, butter, and white pepper.

5) Where do you look for blogging inspiration?

My monthly critique group meetings often provide fodder, as does Twitter--sometimes a random post will catch my eye, sometimes a grammar or spelling error in a tweet will inspire an editing topic.

Weird/funny question: Do you have a celebrity encounter story you can share?

I am almost phobic about rubbing elbows with someone famous and doing something stupid, so I tend to go out of my way to avoid contact, even when given special access, like at comic conventions. So if there's a celebrity around, I will be trying to quietly creep away.


Rule 9: Share a link to my blog’s best post.
Rebel that I am, I'll share two. :-)

One of my analyses of Harry Potter characters continues to get the most hits. It's third in a series

What makes a villain? Part 3: Hero in Villain's Clothing

A newer post with nearly as many page views is this one on my revision process:

How I Do It: Identifying Story Weaknesses

Q4U: Do you miss the "good old days" of writing blogs (before 2012)? 
Answer any (or all) of my six questions listed under "rule 8."

Tuesday, March 17

Dublin photo by flokke from morguefile.com
Just for fun, I thought I'd post an entry from one of my high school journals describing my experiences marching in the St. Patrick's day parade in Dublin, Ireland, with my high school band.  I haven't altered the words I wrote at 16, except to remove names. Read on to learn about the magic of magpies, dueling saxophones and how to preform emergency surgery on a parade route.

March 17, 1985

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Up at the crack of dawn, we dressed and made our appearance at breakfast. Corn flakes and juice, followed by bacon, mutton sausage and eggs became an all-too-familiar breakfast. After loading the buses with instruments, everyone donned uniforms and boarded. To Dublin, Ho!

Conn [tour guide] told us of an ancient superstition about magpies, those huge crow-like birds of Europe. If you see a single magpie and wave to it, you’ll have good luck all day. If you see two, you needn’t wave, that is automatically good luck. If you wave to three magpies, you’ll have a girl child, and waving to four will bring a boy. We got caught up in the amusing Irish superstitions, to say the least—we waved at every big, black bird we saw for the rest of the week.

Entering the city, we stopped waving at magpies and started waving at the magnificent people. Everyone waved back, even some of the dignified guarde (police). We really got a kick out of that. With a little coaxing and much waving, we urged a peddler to come over to the bus and sell us Irish flags. Now we had flags to wave, as well as hands.

After lining up, we were in for quite a wait. A group of curious, kilted bagpipers came over to talk to us. They were intrigued by American saxophones, and we were intrigued by their bagpipes. One of the bagpipers challenged John S., an alto saxophonist, to a duel. We called it a draw.

The time finally came to enter the parade route. I swear, Dublin’s entire population must have come out to see us. They were so thick, we had to go single file at times. About 5/6 of the onlookers seemed to be under 18. I almost wished we didn’t have to march the parade—I just wanted to reach out and cuddle some of those adorable children. The little rosy-cheeked girls with ponytails in green ribbon and rosy little naughty boys were just too cute! The crowd seemed to love us too, asking as we passed if we knew their cousins in Pittsburgh or Scranton or Philadelphia.

The cord that suspends my xylophone upper keys [like the black keys on a piano] broke as I played the cadence, while we were squeezed into single file formation. One of the parents, Mr. F., saw my grimace, and thinking I’d hurt myself, rushed to my side. We were now two groups away from the judging stand, and I began to feel panicked. I restrung the bars, trying to keep moving and not swing my xylophone into anyone. Then Mr. F. pulled the cord taut and together we tied it, hopefully well enough to make it through our routine for the judges.

At the moment of truth—the Lord Mayor’s judging stand—we did our “Thriller” routine with utmost flash and precision. The crowd went wild. They’d probably never seen a drum major in a sequined glove moonwalk while color guard and instrumentalists alike did a Jackson-esque dance routine.

====

The entry goes on to describe the sightseeing tour they dragged us on after we’d marched in a parade and were still very jet lagged. We did take first place for our division with that homage to MJ, which was quite a thrill for our band from rural central Pennsylvania.

If you have no old journals to dig through, you might enjoy trying your hand at one of the following prompts.

Writing prompts
Write your most extraordinary holiday or travel memory.
Write a fictional journal entry for a kid traveling abroad for the first time.
Write a story in which a parade goes horribly wrong.
Write a scene in which your character is caught in the crush of a huge crowd.

Have you ever dug out things you wrote in high school? What did you unearth? Are there any memories you wish you'd captured in a journal?

Teen me: a St. Patrick's Day reminiscence

Tuesday, March 17, 2015 Laurel Garver
Dublin photo by flokke from morguefile.com
Just for fun, I thought I'd post an entry from one of my high school journals describing my experiences marching in the St. Patrick's day parade in Dublin, Ireland, with my high school band.  I haven't altered the words I wrote at 16, except to remove names. Read on to learn about the magic of magpies, dueling saxophones and how to preform emergency surgery on a parade route.

March 17, 1985

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Up at the crack of dawn, we dressed and made our appearance at breakfast. Corn flakes and juice, followed by bacon, mutton sausage and eggs became an all-too-familiar breakfast. After loading the buses with instruments, everyone donned uniforms and boarded. To Dublin, Ho!

Conn [tour guide] told us of an ancient superstition about magpies, those huge crow-like birds of Europe. If you see a single magpie and wave to it, you’ll have good luck all day. If you see two, you needn’t wave, that is automatically good luck. If you wave to three magpies, you’ll have a girl child, and waving to four will bring a boy. We got caught up in the amusing Irish superstitions, to say the least—we waved at every big, black bird we saw for the rest of the week.

Entering the city, we stopped waving at magpies and started waving at the magnificent people. Everyone waved back, even some of the dignified guarde (police). We really got a kick out of that. With a little coaxing and much waving, we urged a peddler to come over to the bus and sell us Irish flags. Now we had flags to wave, as well as hands.

After lining up, we were in for quite a wait. A group of curious, kilted bagpipers came over to talk to us. They were intrigued by American saxophones, and we were intrigued by their bagpipes. One of the bagpipers challenged John S., an alto saxophonist, to a duel. We called it a draw.

The time finally came to enter the parade route. I swear, Dublin’s entire population must have come out to see us. They were so thick, we had to go single file at times. About 5/6 of the onlookers seemed to be under 18. I almost wished we didn’t have to march the parade—I just wanted to reach out and cuddle some of those adorable children. The little rosy-cheeked girls with ponytails in green ribbon and rosy little naughty boys were just too cute! The crowd seemed to love us too, asking as we passed if we knew their cousins in Pittsburgh or Scranton or Philadelphia.

The cord that suspends my xylophone upper keys [like the black keys on a piano] broke as I played the cadence, while we were squeezed into single file formation. One of the parents, Mr. F., saw my grimace, and thinking I’d hurt myself, rushed to my side. We were now two groups away from the judging stand, and I began to feel panicked. I restrung the bars, trying to keep moving and not swing my xylophone into anyone. Then Mr. F. pulled the cord taut and together we tied it, hopefully well enough to make it through our routine for the judges.

At the moment of truth—the Lord Mayor’s judging stand—we did our “Thriller” routine with utmost flash and precision. The crowd went wild. They’d probably never seen a drum major in a sequined glove moonwalk while color guard and instrumentalists alike did a Jackson-esque dance routine.

====

The entry goes on to describe the sightseeing tour they dragged us on after we’d marched in a parade and were still very jet lagged. We did take first place for our division with that homage to MJ, which was quite a thrill for our band from rural central Pennsylvania.

If you have no old journals to dig through, you might enjoy trying your hand at one of the following prompts.

Writing prompts
Write your most extraordinary holiday or travel memory.
Write a fictional journal entry for a kid traveling abroad for the first time.
Write a story in which a parade goes horribly wrong.
Write a scene in which your character is caught in the crush of a huge crowd.

Have you ever dug out things you wrote in high school? What did you unearth? Are there any memories you wish you'd captured in a journal?

Tuesday, September 23

Today I'm taking part in the week-long Follow Fest, hosted by Melissa Maygrove. It's not too late to join the fun! Swing on by Melissa's blog to sign up. Melissa gave us a handful of questions to help us get to know one another, so without further ado, here's all about me:

Name: Laurel Garver


Fiction or nonfiction? 

Mostly fiction, but I'm branching out into nonfiction (writing resources)


What genres do you write?

I write young adult (YA) literary fiction with Christian themes: stories about the places where life and beliefs collide. I also write poetry and, as I already mentioned, writing resources.

Are you published?

Yes: Never Gone, a novel, and Muddy-Fingered Midnights, a poetry collection. Descriptions and links are  HERE. I also have a free, romantic flash-fiction story on Wattpad, "Sketchbook Rapunzel," a prequel to Never Gone.

Do you do anything in addition to writing?

I'm a professional editor with 20+ years experience, and I'm taking new clients. My specialty is line editing: ensuring everything is correct at the sentence level, including grammar, spelling, punctuation, word choice, and idiomatic usage. I also can help non-US writers who write American characters to Americanize not only spelling and punctuation but also vocabulary and usage.

Contact me at laurels (dot) leaves (at) gmail (dot) com to discuss your project.

Tell us a little about yourself

This is how I look on Twitter. 

I grew up rural, but have lived my whole adult life in a city and love it. I’ve had a weird love affair with magazines since I was quite young and pursed magazine editing as a career. I currently work on a scholarly journal--a magazine for academics with literary criticism of modernist era literature by Beckett, Eliot, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Joyce, Pound, and Woolf (and lots of others you might not have read unless you were an English major). 

I met my husband, a philosophy professor, through a book club at our church, so I have C.S. Lewis to thank for meeting the love of my life. We’ve raised our twelve-year-old daughter in our geeky image of loving Dr. Who, Middle Earth, and Hogwarts. 

Last summer we spent 16 days in the UK, 11 of them in a cottage on a sheep farm in Gloucestershire, taking day trips to castles, museums, ancient barrows and stone circles, Roman ruins, and a coal mine. Our favorite sites were Puzzlewood in the Forest of Dean, The Dr. Who Experience in Cardiff and the Harry Potter Studio Tour in London. This summer we stayed closer to home, traveling to the Hudson Valley and Catskills, in part for my daughter to compete in an Irish dance feis. 


What are you reading right now?

As part of my 2014 "read outside my genre" challenge, I recently picked up a short story collection, This Is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz. It's literary fiction that explores the Dominican immigrant experience. 

Which authors influenced you the most?

Madeleine L'Engle's books most made me want to write, and I fell hard for funny narrators from Paula Danzinger's early works for teens like The Cat Ate My Gymsuit and Can You Sue Your Parents for Malpractice? But my biggest influence is Susan Howatch, especially her Starbridge series. She writes deeply psychological, edgy stories with spiritual themes that feature complex, flawed characters. She does redemptive fiction better than anyone I know—fast paced, intriguing, never predictable or cloying. Her stories don’t shy away from the darker aspects of life, and because of that, the faith expressed is more profound because of its willingness to get dirty. I emulate Howatch most, though with a heart for the teen experience with touches of humor.

Where can people connect with you?

Blog
Twitter
Facebook
Google+
LinkedIn

Author pages:
Goodreads
Amazon
BN.com
Smashwords

Do you have a newsletter? 

Not currently. Social media keeps me busy enough

Is there anything else you'd like us to know?

I welcome guest posts here, especially those on writing / publishing tips (tie-ins with new releases are fine). I'll happily host giveaways for contemporary fiction (MG through adult) that would earn a film rating of PG-13 or below (moderately edgy and emotionally hard-hitting is okay).

Welcome, new friends! Tell me a little about yourself...

Follow Fest 2014

Tuesday, September 23, 2014 Laurel Garver
Today I'm taking part in the week-long Follow Fest, hosted by Melissa Maygrove. It's not too late to join the fun! Swing on by Melissa's blog to sign up. Melissa gave us a handful of questions to help us get to know one another, so without further ado, here's all about me:

Name: Laurel Garver


Fiction or nonfiction? 

Mostly fiction, but I'm branching out into nonfiction (writing resources)


What genres do you write?

I write young adult (YA) literary fiction with Christian themes: stories about the places where life and beliefs collide. I also write poetry and, as I already mentioned, writing resources.

Are you published?

Yes: Never Gone, a novel, and Muddy-Fingered Midnights, a poetry collection. Descriptions and links are  HERE. I also have a free, romantic flash-fiction story on Wattpad, "Sketchbook Rapunzel," a prequel to Never Gone.

Do you do anything in addition to writing?

I'm a professional editor with 20+ years experience, and I'm taking new clients. My specialty is line editing: ensuring everything is correct at the sentence level, including grammar, spelling, punctuation, word choice, and idiomatic usage. I also can help non-US writers who write American characters to Americanize not only spelling and punctuation but also vocabulary and usage.

Contact me at laurels (dot) leaves (at) gmail (dot) com to discuss your project.

Tell us a little about yourself

This is how I look on Twitter. 

I grew up rural, but have lived my whole adult life in a city and love it. I’ve had a weird love affair with magazines since I was quite young and pursed magazine editing as a career. I currently work on a scholarly journal--a magazine for academics with literary criticism of modernist era literature by Beckett, Eliot, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Joyce, Pound, and Woolf (and lots of others you might not have read unless you were an English major). 

I met my husband, a philosophy professor, through a book club at our church, so I have C.S. Lewis to thank for meeting the love of my life. We’ve raised our twelve-year-old daughter in our geeky image of loving Dr. Who, Middle Earth, and Hogwarts. 

Last summer we spent 16 days in the UK, 11 of them in a cottage on a sheep farm in Gloucestershire, taking day trips to castles, museums, ancient barrows and stone circles, Roman ruins, and a coal mine. Our favorite sites were Puzzlewood in the Forest of Dean, The Dr. Who Experience in Cardiff and the Harry Potter Studio Tour in London. This summer we stayed closer to home, traveling to the Hudson Valley and Catskills, in part for my daughter to compete in an Irish dance feis. 


What are you reading right now?

As part of my 2014 "read outside my genre" challenge, I recently picked up a short story collection, This Is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz. It's literary fiction that explores the Dominican immigrant experience. 

Which authors influenced you the most?

Madeleine L'Engle's books most made me want to write, and I fell hard for funny narrators from Paula Danzinger's early works for teens like The Cat Ate My Gymsuit and Can You Sue Your Parents for Malpractice? But my biggest influence is Susan Howatch, especially her Starbridge series. She writes deeply psychological, edgy stories with spiritual themes that feature complex, flawed characters. She does redemptive fiction better than anyone I know—fast paced, intriguing, never predictable or cloying. Her stories don’t shy away from the darker aspects of life, and because of that, the faith expressed is more profound because of its willingness to get dirty. I emulate Howatch most, though with a heart for the teen experience with touches of humor.

Where can people connect with you?

Blog
Twitter
Facebook
Google+
LinkedIn

Author pages:
Goodreads
Amazon
BN.com
Smashwords

Do you have a newsletter? 

Not currently. Social media keeps me busy enough

Is there anything else you'd like us to know?

I welcome guest posts here, especially those on writing / publishing tips (tie-ins with new releases are fine). I'll happily host giveaways for contemporary fiction (MG through adult) that would earn a film rating of PG-13 or below (moderately edgy and emotionally hard-hitting is okay).

Welcome, new friends! Tell me a little about yourself...

Wednesday, June 25

Karen Gillan and Matt Smith in PHILLY! 
I don't typically let my geek flag fly as much as some bloggers do, but when I learned that the 11th Doctor and his companion Amy Pond were going to be in MY city, well...it was something that could not be missed.

This was my very first Comic Con. I don't read comic books. Superheroes...I can take 'em or leave 'em. Other than Wii Fit and online puzzle games, I don't really play video games either.

Waiting for the Dr. Who panel with the fourth Doctor!
But I was totally willing to rub elbows with the geekiest of geeks for a chance to see Matt Smith and Karen Gillan live. They have great chemistry, love to laugh, and are just so thankful to have been a part of SciFi's longest-running TV series. The Q&A session ran 90 minutes, and fans asked lots of really great questions beyond "what is your favorite memory?" I especially liked their thoughtful responses to what aspects of their characters do they wish there had been more time to develop. For Karen, it was the period when Amy went through four therapists trying to cure her obsession with "the raggedy man." Apparently the two have an ongoing rivalrly to see which can remember the season and episode number for the particular plots. (Matt won, I think.)

Over the years, these conventions have diversified, and now include all kinds of SciFi and fantasy cultural production, beyond comics and gamer culture. If you like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Dr. Who, Torchwood, Orphan Black, Battlestar Galactica, Firefly, Game of Thrones, or The Walking Dead you won't feel entirely out of place at a Comic Con.

"Cosplay" is the term for all the amazing getups you are likely to see. Here's a small sampling.

Name those characters...'cause I can't.
Tim the Enchanter: "what is your favorite color?"

The boy wonder at Panera!

Sean has been acting since 1981. He's a busy guy!

The convention floor is largely a giant geek supermarket, where you can trade in or purchase an entire comic collection, pick up a light saber in the color of your choice (teal anyone?), build an enormous t-shirt collection, get signed films posters without the hassle of stalking stars, and turn your hard-earned cash into a cache of geeky gadgets and knickknacks.

My husband, daughter and I spent two days at the con, the first largely on the convention floor, the second largely attending Q&A panels with various TV and film stars. In addition to Karen Gillan and Matt Smith from Dr. Who, we also heard James Marsters from Buffy, Angel, Torchwood and others; Sean Astin, who you might know best as Samwise Gamgee from The Lord of the Rings films; and finally, Firefly and Serenity stars Alan Tudyk and Nathan Fillion.

The Firefly panel was by far the most crowded--standing room only. For a show that ran only one season, over ten years ago, it was pretty surprising it has such an enormous cult following. I think part of what keeps the show alive is these two guys. They continue to do lots of convention appearances and are completely hilarious together. Tudyk does lots of voice work for animated films, so at times he answered questions as King Candy from Wreck It Ralph or as the Duke of Weseleton from Frozen.

One of the funniest things they did was give out signed gifts to anyone brave enough to come to the microphone and ask questions. And those gifts? Random items from Alan Tudyk's bag--old mugs, t-shirts, script pages, a pack of gum. If there's any lesson to be learned, it's that fans absolutely adore starts who are approachable and willing to be a bit silly.

Have you ever attended a Comic Con? What questions would you have asked any of the stars I saw?

In which I geek out

Wednesday, June 25, 2014 Laurel Garver
Karen Gillan and Matt Smith in PHILLY! 
I don't typically let my geek flag fly as much as some bloggers do, but when I learned that the 11th Doctor and his companion Amy Pond were going to be in MY city, well...it was something that could not be missed.

This was my very first Comic Con. I don't read comic books. Superheroes...I can take 'em or leave 'em. Other than Wii Fit and online puzzle games, I don't really play video games either.

Waiting for the Dr. Who panel with the fourth Doctor!
But I was totally willing to rub elbows with the geekiest of geeks for a chance to see Matt Smith and Karen Gillan live. They have great chemistry, love to laugh, and are just so thankful to have been a part of SciFi's longest-running TV series. The Q&A session ran 90 minutes, and fans asked lots of really great questions beyond "what is your favorite memory?" I especially liked their thoughtful responses to what aspects of their characters do they wish there had been more time to develop. For Karen, it was the period when Amy went through four therapists trying to cure her obsession with "the raggedy man." Apparently the two have an ongoing rivalrly to see which can remember the season and episode number for the particular plots. (Matt won, I think.)

Over the years, these conventions have diversified, and now include all kinds of SciFi and fantasy cultural production, beyond comics and gamer culture. If you like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Dr. Who, Torchwood, Orphan Black, Battlestar Galactica, Firefly, Game of Thrones, or The Walking Dead you won't feel entirely out of place at a Comic Con.

"Cosplay" is the term for all the amazing getups you are likely to see. Here's a small sampling.

Name those characters...'cause I can't.
Tim the Enchanter: "what is your favorite color?"

The boy wonder at Panera!

Sean has been acting since 1981. He's a busy guy!

The convention floor is largely a giant geek supermarket, where you can trade in or purchase an entire comic collection, pick up a light saber in the color of your choice (teal anyone?), build an enormous t-shirt collection, get signed films posters without the hassle of stalking stars, and turn your hard-earned cash into a cache of geeky gadgets and knickknacks.

My husband, daughter and I spent two days at the con, the first largely on the convention floor, the second largely attending Q&A panels with various TV and film stars. In addition to Karen Gillan and Matt Smith from Dr. Who, we also heard James Marsters from Buffy, Angel, Torchwood and others; Sean Astin, who you might know best as Samwise Gamgee from The Lord of the Rings films; and finally, Firefly and Serenity stars Alan Tudyk and Nathan Fillion.

The Firefly panel was by far the most crowded--standing room only. For a show that ran only one season, over ten years ago, it was pretty surprising it has such an enormous cult following. I think part of what keeps the show alive is these two guys. They continue to do lots of convention appearances and are completely hilarious together. Tudyk does lots of voice work for animated films, so at times he answered questions as King Candy from Wreck It Ralph or as the Duke of Weseleton from Frozen.

One of the funniest things they did was give out signed gifts to anyone brave enough to come to the microphone and ask questions. And those gifts? Random items from Alan Tudyk's bag--old mugs, t-shirts, script pages, a pack of gum. If there's any lesson to be learned, it's that fans absolutely adore starts who are approachable and willing to be a bit silly.

Have you ever attended a Comic Con? What questions would you have asked any of the stars I saw?

Tuesday, March 18

When I read Melina Marchetta's Saving Francesca, it really resonated with me. What I especially liked was the way she develops non-romantic friendships between the teen guys and the girls who "invade" their once-all-boys school that goes co-ed.

photo by click, morguefile.com
Perhaps it's because my nearest sibling is a brother that I had loads of guy friends all through school. Boys brought something cool and interesting to the table that many girls didn't.

In grade school, it was the boys who eagerly went along with my imaginative play ideas. If I said the monkeybars were a spaceship, Duane would say, "Yeah, and I'm gonna run the lasers!" Jen, on the other hand, would stand there with her arms crossed over her chest and tell us we're dumb. Then she'd go play hopscotch or some other boringly conventional game.

In our monkeybar spaceship games, I often chose to play the comms or navs officer or the doctor. Soon other girls created roles they liked and would join our crew. We ran some pretty kickin' missions. There was something magical about mixing our different strengths. Our "soft" and "rough" ways of approaching the world balanced each other.

Those fun times of childhood carried on into junior high, high school and college when I got involved in band, choir and theater and started playing Dungeons and Dragons. Mixed groups were what I preferred. Occasionally romances would develop. But most of the time, we just enjoyed each other. Had fun. Had amazing conversations. Challenged one another. Offered support, listening ears and advice.

Sadly, guys and girls being great friends not a dynamic I see as often as I'd like in YA. Romantic attachments, flirting and mind-games is the predominant way guys and girls relate in books for teens. The romances that develop are often about surface attraction--the characters have no common interests, traits or goals. I'd love to see more "book teens" enjoying the benefits of cross-gender friendships, like Harry, Ron, Hermione, Luna and Neville do.

What's your take on guy-girl friendships? Know of any YA books that represent healthy cross-gender friendships well?

Just one of the guys: the magic of boy-girl friendship

Tuesday, March 18, 2014 Laurel Garver
When I read Melina Marchetta's Saving Francesca, it really resonated with me. What I especially liked was the way she develops non-romantic friendships between the teen guys and the girls who "invade" their once-all-boys school that goes co-ed.

photo by click, morguefile.com
Perhaps it's because my nearest sibling is a brother that I had loads of guy friends all through school. Boys brought something cool and interesting to the table that many girls didn't.

In grade school, it was the boys who eagerly went along with my imaginative play ideas. If I said the monkeybars were a spaceship, Duane would say, "Yeah, and I'm gonna run the lasers!" Jen, on the other hand, would stand there with her arms crossed over her chest and tell us we're dumb. Then she'd go play hopscotch or some other boringly conventional game.

In our monkeybar spaceship games, I often chose to play the comms or navs officer or the doctor. Soon other girls created roles they liked and would join our crew. We ran some pretty kickin' missions. There was something magical about mixing our different strengths. Our "soft" and "rough" ways of approaching the world balanced each other.

Those fun times of childhood carried on into junior high, high school and college when I got involved in band, choir and theater and started playing Dungeons and Dragons. Mixed groups were what I preferred. Occasionally romances would develop. But most of the time, we just enjoyed each other. Had fun. Had amazing conversations. Challenged one another. Offered support, listening ears and advice.

Sadly, guys and girls being great friends not a dynamic I see as often as I'd like in YA. Romantic attachments, flirting and mind-games is the predominant way guys and girls relate in books for teens. The romances that develop are often about surface attraction--the characters have no common interests, traits or goals. I'd love to see more "book teens" enjoying the benefits of cross-gender friendships, like Harry, Ron, Hermione, Luna and Neville do.

What's your take on guy-girl friendships? Know of any YA books that represent healthy cross-gender friendships well?

Tuesday, January 28

While doing a filing cabinet purge, I came across a year-in-review letter from one of the most difficult years of my adult life, 1993. I was a young, post-college girl in my first job as a reporter and editor on a trade publication for the natural gas industry. Go ahead. Laugh. The third grader inside is surely thinking about beans and bodily processes, not drilling, pipelines and seasonal fuel price spikes.

This particular year, I experienced in a somewhat literal way the effects of being "refined by fire." The now cliche phrase comes from goldsmiths who purify gold by burning away the impurities.

= = =

The Monday following the worst blizzard of winter, I was scheduled to fly to Houston to attend a trade show, The Houston Gas Fair. With every major road closed and the airport congested with three days' worth of stranded travelers, I was still able to make the flight within five minutes of takeoff [this was long before 9/11 and any airport security]. Not bad considering I had to dig my car out of 18 inches of snow, drive an icy circuitous route, pick up my boyfriend who could drive the car home, and dash like O.J. Simpson through the terminal with a suitcase, briefcase, and 2 huge displays.

Once I arrived and set up the booth, it was great fun to meet in person all the industry people I'd regularly interviewed over the phone. But as they spread the story of how I miraculously escaped the snowed-in East coast, my booth had a steady stream of new visitors wanting to hear my story. Apparently almost no one else coming from Philly, D.C., Baltimore, New York, Boston, or any other points northeast had made it to the trade show. I was feeling like the miracle girl. It wasn't until I returned to Philadelphia that I learned just how much.

The day after I returned from Texas, a high school friend called to ask how my parents were doing. I was a bit taken off guard. Was something wrong?

Yes, she informed me. Didn't I know about the two-alarm house fire?

WHAT?????

Photo credit: taliesin from morguefile.com 
It took about twenty four hours to locate my parents, in part because their home phone wasn't working and I had to rely on my high school friend to help me get phone numbers for the neighbors and my parents' pastor. [How we suffered before cell phones and the Internet!] The next-door neighbors had taken my parents in, and eventually I got to hear details.

My mother had been out of town on business and my retired father was home alone working on a project in the basement when the fire broke out. He heard a loud noise, went upstairs to investigate and immediately saw the smoke. Had it not been for that noise, he might not have escaped the fire alive.

Dad ran to neighbors' house and called the fire department. Two squads came out to put out the blaze. In the fire marshal's subsequent investigation, he concluded that arcing at an electrical outlet (when something is only partially plugged in) was crossed by a long curtain and it caught on fire. The blaze spread from there. The heat was so intense that the porcelain of the master bath toilet exploded, shoes in the closet melted, many of the windows burst.

I drove back to my hometown and spent a week helping my folks assess the damage and getting them back on their feet again. About a third of the structure sustained heavy damage and more than half of the contents were destroyed. During my time home, we dug through the sooty rubble in 30-degree temperatures and inventoried as much as we could of the destroyed contents. We also found a rental house for my parents and hired a contractor to repair the house.

The response from the neighbors and my parent's church was overwhelming. Food, clothing, household items and cash poured in. New church attendees my parents had never met appeared with casseroles and yet more clothing. Countless people pitched in with salvage, cleaning, and laundering.

Sometimes it takes a disaster to show you just how much your community loves you. That alone is priceless.

Being well insured was another gift in this particular experience. I hadn't taken all my belongings to Philadelphia with me. I lost thousands of dollars worth of books, clothes, and personal effects. The insurance payout for it became my sustenance later in the year when I got laid off from the natural gas publication and spent two months on unemployment.

Because of the fire money, I was able to move from the suburbs into the the city. I landed a far better job with excellent benefits, including tuition reimbursement. [Hello, free master's degree.]

Looking back on all this twenty-one years later, I come to a question. When things happen in your life, how do you decide whether they are good or bad?

I didn't mention that the fire, yes the fire, led my boyfriend to break it off with me because I wasn't giving him enough attention. It seemed like adding insult to injury at the time. But in hindsight, I'm glad to have gotten free of a guy who was clearly not for me in any sense.

I can see now that the persistence I learned trying to get on that plane to Houston served me well when helping my mom wade through the waist-deep charred remains of their coat closet, seeking a few less-burned fibers to identify each lost coat.

This experience helped me learn to accept the help and embrace of others. Letting others be strong for you is a gift to them. Generosity has a funny way of expanding everyone's hearts, both the receiver and the giver.

But most of all, I don't look at my circumstances now and assume they're the last word. The good times are a gift, but so are the hardships. Hardships are where real growth happens.

How have hard moments in your past shaped you?

Refined by fire

Tuesday, January 28, 2014 Laurel Garver
While doing a filing cabinet purge, I came across a year-in-review letter from one of the most difficult years of my adult life, 1993. I was a young, post-college girl in my first job as a reporter and editor on a trade publication for the natural gas industry. Go ahead. Laugh. The third grader inside is surely thinking about beans and bodily processes, not drilling, pipelines and seasonal fuel price spikes.

This particular year, I experienced in a somewhat literal way the effects of being "refined by fire." The now cliche phrase comes from goldsmiths who purify gold by burning away the impurities.

= = =

The Monday following the worst blizzard of winter, I was scheduled to fly to Houston to attend a trade show, The Houston Gas Fair. With every major road closed and the airport congested with three days' worth of stranded travelers, I was still able to make the flight within five minutes of takeoff [this was long before 9/11 and any airport security]. Not bad considering I had to dig my car out of 18 inches of snow, drive an icy circuitous route, pick up my boyfriend who could drive the car home, and dash like O.J. Simpson through the terminal with a suitcase, briefcase, and 2 huge displays.

Once I arrived and set up the booth, it was great fun to meet in person all the industry people I'd regularly interviewed over the phone. But as they spread the story of how I miraculously escaped the snowed-in East coast, my booth had a steady stream of new visitors wanting to hear my story. Apparently almost no one else coming from Philly, D.C., Baltimore, New York, Boston, or any other points northeast had made it to the trade show. I was feeling like the miracle girl. It wasn't until I returned to Philadelphia that I learned just how much.

The day after I returned from Texas, a high school friend called to ask how my parents were doing. I was a bit taken off guard. Was something wrong?

Yes, she informed me. Didn't I know about the two-alarm house fire?

WHAT?????

Photo credit: taliesin from morguefile.com 
It took about twenty four hours to locate my parents, in part because their home phone wasn't working and I had to rely on my high school friend to help me get phone numbers for the neighbors and my parents' pastor. [How we suffered before cell phones and the Internet!] The next-door neighbors had taken my parents in, and eventually I got to hear details.

My mother had been out of town on business and my retired father was home alone working on a project in the basement when the fire broke out. He heard a loud noise, went upstairs to investigate and immediately saw the smoke. Had it not been for that noise, he might not have escaped the fire alive.

Dad ran to neighbors' house and called the fire department. Two squads came out to put out the blaze. In the fire marshal's subsequent investigation, he concluded that arcing at an electrical outlet (when something is only partially plugged in) was crossed by a long curtain and it caught on fire. The blaze spread from there. The heat was so intense that the porcelain of the master bath toilet exploded, shoes in the closet melted, many of the windows burst.

I drove back to my hometown and spent a week helping my folks assess the damage and getting them back on their feet again. About a third of the structure sustained heavy damage and more than half of the contents were destroyed. During my time home, we dug through the sooty rubble in 30-degree temperatures and inventoried as much as we could of the destroyed contents. We also found a rental house for my parents and hired a contractor to repair the house.

The response from the neighbors and my parent's church was overwhelming. Food, clothing, household items and cash poured in. New church attendees my parents had never met appeared with casseroles and yet more clothing. Countless people pitched in with salvage, cleaning, and laundering.

Sometimes it takes a disaster to show you just how much your community loves you. That alone is priceless.

Being well insured was another gift in this particular experience. I hadn't taken all my belongings to Philadelphia with me. I lost thousands of dollars worth of books, clothes, and personal effects. The insurance payout for it became my sustenance later in the year when I got laid off from the natural gas publication and spent two months on unemployment.

Because of the fire money, I was able to move from the suburbs into the the city. I landed a far better job with excellent benefits, including tuition reimbursement. [Hello, free master's degree.]

Looking back on all this twenty-one years later, I come to a question. When things happen in your life, how do you decide whether they are good or bad?

I didn't mention that the fire, yes the fire, led my boyfriend to break it off with me because I wasn't giving him enough attention. It seemed like adding insult to injury at the time. But in hindsight, I'm glad to have gotten free of a guy who was clearly not for me in any sense.

I can see now that the persistence I learned trying to get on that plane to Houston served me well when helping my mom wade through the waist-deep charred remains of their coat closet, seeking a few less-burned fibers to identify each lost coat.

This experience helped me learn to accept the help and embrace of others. Letting others be strong for you is a gift to them. Generosity has a funny way of expanding everyone's hearts, both the receiver and the giver.

But most of all, I don't look at my circumstances now and assume they're the last word. The good times are a gift, but so are the hardships. Hardships are where real growth happens.

How have hard moments in your past shaped you?

Friday, January 10

Photo credit: cesstrelle from morguefile.com
Reflecting on the state of blogging over the past year, I've seen an unprecedented number of blogging friends abandon their blogs in 2013. They've fled to other platforms, or are focusing on other things.

I'm finding it harder and harder to stay motivated to post. Thanks to Twitter, my posts are garnering more hits than ever, but interaction? Well, that seems like a thing of the past.

 Because of that trend, I did a redesign last fall and turned my focus to craft topics and helping friends promote their work. Those posts seemed like what readers wanted. But I have to admit it feels like all dressage all the time for me (to use an equestrian metaphor), when sometimes I just need a relaxing trail ride. Or a quick and sloppy barrel race here and there.

Obviously, this is MY blog, so no one is forcing me into the "keep it professional, never personal" mold. It's simply a habit I drifted into, and now it feels strange to talk so very first-person to whomever might stumble across this post.

Perhaps I'd feel more comfortable putting myself out there if I had a better sense of who IS stumbling across my posts.

How did you get here? Why do you read blogs at all? Is it largely for information? To network and talk shop? To connect and build community? 

 Do YOU blog? Do you find it easy or difficult to post regularly? What are your thoughts on the state of blogging in 2014?

Back in the saddle

Friday, January 10, 2014 Laurel Garver
Photo credit: cesstrelle from morguefile.com
Reflecting on the state of blogging over the past year, I've seen an unprecedented number of blogging friends abandon their blogs in 2013. They've fled to other platforms, or are focusing on other things.

I'm finding it harder and harder to stay motivated to post. Thanks to Twitter, my posts are garnering more hits than ever, but interaction? Well, that seems like a thing of the past.

 Because of that trend, I did a redesign last fall and turned my focus to craft topics and helping friends promote their work. Those posts seemed like what readers wanted. But I have to admit it feels like all dressage all the time for me (to use an equestrian metaphor), when sometimes I just need a relaxing trail ride. Or a quick and sloppy barrel race here and there.

Obviously, this is MY blog, so no one is forcing me into the "keep it professional, never personal" mold. It's simply a habit I drifted into, and now it feels strange to talk so very first-person to whomever might stumble across this post.

Perhaps I'd feel more comfortable putting myself out there if I had a better sense of who IS stumbling across my posts.

How did you get here? Why do you read blogs at all? Is it largely for information? To network and talk shop? To connect and build community? 

 Do YOU blog? Do you find it easy or difficult to post regularly? What are your thoughts on the state of blogging in 2014?

Tuesday, October 29

Curious about what I've been up to in my creative life? Today I talk about my current project, what sets this story apart, why certain themes emerge in my work, and how I write.

This is part of a Kidlit Blog Tour, for which I've been tagged by the lovely Melissa Sarno and Faith Elizabeth Hough. Thanks, friends!

 What are you working on right now?

The Louvre (photo by priyanphoenix from morguefile.com)
I'm about 2/3 through a sequel to Never Gone, working title Almost There. The summer after Dani's junior year, she plans to take an art-filled, family bonding trip to Paris.  But a crisis arises with her grandfather, threatening not only her trip, but her mother's fragile mental health. Dani wants to keep their involvement to a minimum, but her attempts at quick damage control only get them more stuck. When her clever schemes to manufacture happiness for herself and others fall apart, can she trust God to redeem the mess?

How does it differ from other works in its genre?

Most YA fiction tends to separate kids from their families and never deals with inter-generational patterns of dysfunction. But so many kids experience this in real life. I tackle this from inside a faith tradition that calls us to have hope for the most seemingly hopeless situations. I also explore the joys and challenges of having a serious romantic relationship when you're young. Most YA books deal with starting brand-new romances rather than maintaining and growing them for the long haul.

Why do you write what you do?

I see kids struggling to be real in a culture that glorifies superficiality. When beauty, strength and charisma are idolized, all the ways we are broken never see the light, never have a chance to heal. Instead they fester under the surface, filling our lives with poison. I write about kids in crisis who learn to let go of their pretensions and falseness and allow God to remake them as people who humbly hope, believe, and love.

How does your writing process work?

So far, it has been largely voice-driven. I begin with a character who speaks to me and listen to what she tells me about her background and situation. From there, I daydream and research until I have a sketchy sense of some of the most important plot points. I write and rewrite the opening chapters until they let me go forward (and that can take a very long time). That draftivising process goes on into the story middle, which will at times call for more research until the events of the climax really gel. Then I write out notes about all the events needed to get me there and steadily create scene after scene. The back end of the book writes much faster than the beginning.

I always revise as I go, and usually begin to garner feedback from my writing group once I've gotten the opening to my liking. I find I need other voices to walk me through the story middle, and keep me from making wrong turns that are out of character, based on the opening.

Any departing words of wisdom for other authors?

Find a writing process that works with your lifestyle and temperament. There's not a one-size-fits-all way to make literature. If a process is truly uncomfortable, you'll simply stop. So find a method that's energizing and plays to your strengths. You're better able to tackle your weaknesses from a place of confidence than a place of doubt.

My nominees to answer these questions are C.M. Keller and Melanie Schulz.

Enter today to win a copy of 
my redesigned debut in paperback!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

What's next

Tuesday, October 29, 2013 Laurel Garver
Curious about what I've been up to in my creative life? Today I talk about my current project, what sets this story apart, why certain themes emerge in my work, and how I write.

This is part of a Kidlit Blog Tour, for which I've been tagged by the lovely Melissa Sarno and Faith Elizabeth Hough. Thanks, friends!

 What are you working on right now?

The Louvre (photo by priyanphoenix from morguefile.com)
I'm about 2/3 through a sequel to Never Gone, working title Almost There. The summer after Dani's junior year, she plans to take an art-filled, family bonding trip to Paris.  But a crisis arises with her grandfather, threatening not only her trip, but her mother's fragile mental health. Dani wants to keep their involvement to a minimum, but her attempts at quick damage control only get them more stuck. When her clever schemes to manufacture happiness for herself and others fall apart, can she trust God to redeem the mess?

How does it differ from other works in its genre?

Most YA fiction tends to separate kids from their families and never deals with inter-generational patterns of dysfunction. But so many kids experience this in real life. I tackle this from inside a faith tradition that calls us to have hope for the most seemingly hopeless situations. I also explore the joys and challenges of having a serious romantic relationship when you're young. Most YA books deal with starting brand-new romances rather than maintaining and growing them for the long haul.

Why do you write what you do?

I see kids struggling to be real in a culture that glorifies superficiality. When beauty, strength and charisma are idolized, all the ways we are broken never see the light, never have a chance to heal. Instead they fester under the surface, filling our lives with poison. I write about kids in crisis who learn to let go of their pretensions and falseness and allow God to remake them as people who humbly hope, believe, and love.

How does your writing process work?

So far, it has been largely voice-driven. I begin with a character who speaks to me and listen to what she tells me about her background and situation. From there, I daydream and research until I have a sketchy sense of some of the most important plot points. I write and rewrite the opening chapters until they let me go forward (and that can take a very long time). That draftivising process goes on into the story middle, which will at times call for more research until the events of the climax really gel. Then I write out notes about all the events needed to get me there and steadily create scene after scene. The back end of the book writes much faster than the beginning.

I always revise as I go, and usually begin to garner feedback from my writing group once I've gotten the opening to my liking. I find I need other voices to walk me through the story middle, and keep me from making wrong turns that are out of character, based on the opening.

Any departing words of wisdom for other authors?

Find a writing process that works with your lifestyle and temperament. There's not a one-size-fits-all way to make literature. If a process is truly uncomfortable, you'll simply stop. So find a method that's energizing and plays to your strengths. You're better able to tackle your weaknesses from a place of confidence than a place of doubt.

My nominees to answer these questions are C.M. Keller and Melanie Schulz.

Enter today to win a copy of 
my redesigned debut in paperback!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Tuesday, September 24

Today I'm taking part in the week-long Follow Fest, hosted by Melissa Maygrove. It's not too late to join the fun! Swing on by Melissa's blog to sign up. Melissa gave us a handful of questions to help us get to know one another, so without further ado, here's all about me:

Whose blog is this?

Laurel Garver, a city dweller, word nerd, Indie film enthusiast and incurable Anglophile. Professor's wife and mom to an aspiring Ravenclaw. Follower of the Good Shepherd, who is faithful when we are faithless.

Fiction or nonfiction?

Primarily fiction, but I do have a writing craft book in the works.

What genres do you write?

I write young adult (YA) literary fiction with Christian themes: stories about the places where life and beliefs collide. I also write poetry.

Are you published?

Yes: Never Gone, a novel, and Muddy-Fingered Midnights, a poetry collection. Descriptions and links are HERE.

Do you do anything in addition to writing?

I'm a professional editor with 20+ years experience in trade, association, and academic publishing. My specialty is copy editing / line editing. I make sure everything is correct at the sentence level, including grammar, spelling, punctuation, word choice, and idiomatic usage. If you're a non-US writer who writes American characters, I can help you Americanize not only your spellings but also vocabulary and usage. Contact me at laurels (dot) leaves (at) gmail (dot) com to discuss your project.

Where can people connect with you?

This is how I look on Twitter. 
Blog
Twitter
Facebook
Google+
LinkedIn

Author pages:
Goodreads
Amazon
BN.com
Smashwords

Is there anything else you’d like us to know?

I'm open to taking guest posts, especially those on writing / publishing tips (tie-ins with new releases are fine). I'll happily host giveaways for contemporary fiction (MG-adult) that would earn a film rating of PG-13 or below (moderately edgy and emotionally hard-hitting is okay; erotica, gore, and profanity-fests should look elsewhere). Contact me at laurels (dot) leaves (at) gmail (dot) com.

Welcome, new friends! Tell me a little about yourself...

Follow Fest

Tuesday, September 24, 2013 Laurel Garver
Today I'm taking part in the week-long Follow Fest, hosted by Melissa Maygrove. It's not too late to join the fun! Swing on by Melissa's blog to sign up. Melissa gave us a handful of questions to help us get to know one another, so without further ado, here's all about me:

Whose blog is this?

Laurel Garver, a city dweller, word nerd, Indie film enthusiast and incurable Anglophile. Professor's wife and mom to an aspiring Ravenclaw. Follower of the Good Shepherd, who is faithful when we are faithless.

Fiction or nonfiction?

Primarily fiction, but I do have a writing craft book in the works.

What genres do you write?

I write young adult (YA) literary fiction with Christian themes: stories about the places where life and beliefs collide. I also write poetry.

Are you published?

Yes: Never Gone, a novel, and Muddy-Fingered Midnights, a poetry collection. Descriptions and links are HERE.

Do you do anything in addition to writing?

I'm a professional editor with 20+ years experience in trade, association, and academic publishing. My specialty is copy editing / line editing. I make sure everything is correct at the sentence level, including grammar, spelling, punctuation, word choice, and idiomatic usage. If you're a non-US writer who writes American characters, I can help you Americanize not only your spellings but also vocabulary and usage. Contact me at laurels (dot) leaves (at) gmail (dot) com to discuss your project.

Where can people connect with you?

This is how I look on Twitter. 
Blog
Twitter
Facebook
Google+
LinkedIn

Author pages:
Goodreads
Amazon
BN.com
Smashwords

Is there anything else you’d like us to know?

I'm open to taking guest posts, especially those on writing / publishing tips (tie-ins with new releases are fine). I'll happily host giveaways for contemporary fiction (MG-adult) that would earn a film rating of PG-13 or below (moderately edgy and emotionally hard-hitting is okay; erotica, gore, and profanity-fests should look elsewhere). Contact me at laurels (dot) leaves (at) gmail (dot) com.

Welcome, new friends! Tell me a little about yourself...

Wednesday, September 18

Thanks, readers, for weighing in on my new author photos. It was helpful to hear which photo spoke to you and why. With so many sites requiring a profile picture, it's nice to have so many good options. I can use one picture here, another on Twitter and yet another on Facebook. Variety is the spice of life, right?

My plan is to go to a Tuesday-Friday schedule here on Laurel's Leaves, so swing by this Friday for a brand new Phonics Friday for help with those pesky sound-alikes, homophones. This week, I'll be talking about a pair that one of my college professor authors mixed up: compliment and complement.

Several weeks ago, C.M. Keller passed along the Super Sweet Blogger Award


I have to answer five sweet questions and nominate five sweet bloggers

1. Cookies or Cake? Definitely cookies. I have far too many favorites among the from-scratch variety. Of the store-bought, I have found nothing as heavenly as these:



You can get them only in the UK. We ate through almost a tube a day when we were there in June!

2. Chocolate or Vanilla? I'm more of a caramel and ginger gal. I do prefer vanilla when it comes to milkshakes, dark chocolate in cakes and especially paired with coconut. Or malted milk. Or that crunchy stuff in Butterfinger bars.

3. Favorite Sweet Treat? These:



4. When Do You Crave Sweet Things The Most? After having spicy food. Doesn't everyone?

5. Sweet Nick Name? My dad used to call me honey, which is funny because I cannot stand the stuff. I think it's the concept that it's flower nectar that a bee ate and then barfed up. Eeeew.


I nominate these five sweeties:

Charity Bradford
Faith Hough
Mary Aalgaard
Melanie Schulz
Shannon O'Donnell

Are you passionate about one kind of sweet, or do you like a variety (like I do)?

Sa-weet!

Wednesday, September 18, 2013 Laurel Garver
Thanks, readers, for weighing in on my new author photos. It was helpful to hear which photo spoke to you and why. With so many sites requiring a profile picture, it's nice to have so many good options. I can use one picture here, another on Twitter and yet another on Facebook. Variety is the spice of life, right?

My plan is to go to a Tuesday-Friday schedule here on Laurel's Leaves, so swing by this Friday for a brand new Phonics Friday for help with those pesky sound-alikes, homophones. This week, I'll be talking about a pair that one of my college professor authors mixed up: compliment and complement.

Several weeks ago, C.M. Keller passed along the Super Sweet Blogger Award


I have to answer five sweet questions and nominate five sweet bloggers

1. Cookies or Cake? Definitely cookies. I have far too many favorites among the from-scratch variety. Of the store-bought, I have found nothing as heavenly as these:



You can get them only in the UK. We ate through almost a tube a day when we were there in June!

2. Chocolate or Vanilla? I'm more of a caramel and ginger gal. I do prefer vanilla when it comes to milkshakes, dark chocolate in cakes and especially paired with coconut. Or malted milk. Or that crunchy stuff in Butterfinger bars.

3. Favorite Sweet Treat? These:



4. When Do You Crave Sweet Things The Most? After having spicy food. Doesn't everyone?

5. Sweet Nick Name? My dad used to call me honey, which is funny because I cannot stand the stuff. I think it's the concept that it's flower nectar that a bee ate and then barfed up. Eeeew.


I nominate these five sweeties:

Charity Bradford
Faith Hough
Mary Aalgaard
Melanie Schulz
Shannon O'Donnell

Are you passionate about one kind of sweet, or do you like a variety (like I do)?

Tuesday, July 2

Oxford, where we spent our first jet-lagged day.
We returned from our UK trip yesterday evening and soldiered on valiantly to stay awake until 8 p.m. (1 a.m. UK time). I brought back a head cold with me (thanks so much, germy London Underground), along with a handful of souvenirs, many photos and a head full of great memories of our experiences.

It will take me some time to unpack it all--the laundry, the photos and memories especially. In fact, I took so many photos, I used up the last of my available space on Dropbox to store them. If any of you aren't using Dropbox to back up your work (it's a free cloud server), let me know in the comments, along with your e-mail and I'll send you an invitation. I get a little extra space for my photos with each friend who signs up. Did I mention it's free? It also allows you to easily share data on multiple computers.

I'll have immense amounts of catch-up to do at my day job this week, so please be patient with my continued relative quietness online. In the meantime, here are some pretty pictures:

detail from a building in Oxford

Bourton-on-the-Water, Gloucestershire
Stow-on-the-Wold, another Cotswold village up the road



Church doors in Stow, looking like someplace in Middle Earth



Any tips for overcoming westward jet lag? Do you use Dropbox? If you'd like to try it, please leave your e-mail address.

I'm back!

Tuesday, July 02, 2013 Laurel Garver
Oxford, where we spent our first jet-lagged day.
We returned from our UK trip yesterday evening and soldiered on valiantly to stay awake until 8 p.m. (1 a.m. UK time). I brought back a head cold with me (thanks so much, germy London Underground), along with a handful of souvenirs, many photos and a head full of great memories of our experiences.

It will take me some time to unpack it all--the laundry, the photos and memories especially. In fact, I took so many photos, I used up the last of my available space on Dropbox to store them. If any of you aren't using Dropbox to back up your work (it's a free cloud server), let me know in the comments, along with your e-mail and I'll send you an invitation. I get a little extra space for my photos with each friend who signs up. Did I mention it's free? It also allows you to easily share data on multiple computers.

I'll have immense amounts of catch-up to do at my day job this week, so please be patient with my continued relative quietness online. In the meantime, here are some pretty pictures:

detail from a building in Oxford

Bourton-on-the-Water, Gloucestershire
Stow-on-the-Wold, another Cotswold village up the road



Church doors in Stow, looking like someplace in Middle Earth



Any tips for overcoming westward jet lag? Do you use Dropbox? If you'd like to try it, please leave your e-mail address.

Friday, November 2

Quick quiz: When I was a kid, which did I want to be when I grew up?

A. An architect
morguefile.com

B. A teacher
morguefile.com

C. A magazine editor
photo by Raphael Gorski, Flickr Creative Commons

D. A Broadway star
morguefile.com

To find the answer, go check out my post for Jessica Bell, the Alliterative Allomorph! I also discuss why writing is harder for professional editors, and how I got my creative and analytical sides to play nice  (hint, there was a bit of bloodshed first).

Last chance to enter!

The ebook giveaway of Never Gone at Margo's blog, Writing at High Altitude, ends tonight! Pop on over and enter now!

Did you guess correctly? What were your childhood career aspirations?

Aspirations

Friday, November 02, 2012 Laurel Garver
Quick quiz: When I was a kid, which did I want to be when I grew up?

A. An architect
morguefile.com

B. A teacher
morguefile.com

C. A magazine editor
photo by Raphael Gorski, Flickr Creative Commons

D. A Broadway star
morguefile.com

To find the answer, go check out my post for Jessica Bell, the Alliterative Allomorph! I also discuss why writing is harder for professional editors, and how I got my creative and analytical sides to play nice  (hint, there was a bit of bloodshed first).

Last chance to enter!

The ebook giveaway of Never Gone at Margo's blog, Writing at High Altitude, ends tonight! Pop on over and enter now!

Did you guess correctly? What were your childhood career aspirations?

Wednesday, June 27

Welcome to the next stop on the "Shh...it's a secret" blog hop. Participants can share a story about a secret pact they have made, a friend they are close to, or a close knit group that has helped them through hard times.

The Pub Pact (or the Anti-Saloon League gets some sense)

Welcome back to Warwickshire, long-lost cousin!
I’d been dreaming of going to England since the day Mom read me the story of Lucy Pevensie hiding in a wardrobe and landing in Narnia. Not only was England magical, but also, according to my Dad, our ancestral home. Though my Webster ancestor left Warwickshire for Connecticut in the 1600s, I was certain that going back would feel like arriving home. It would be a struggle to get there, of course. As the youngest of five, I knew college alone would be financially difficult for my family, and studying abroad? That would be above and beyond—something I’d have to make happen for myself. For seven years I worked a string of terrible jobs, from Avon lady to foam-head carnival character to janitor to discount store cashier. My college study abroad experience, I believed, would be my Cinderella-at-the-ball experience.

What a starry-eyed kid I was.

My college friends who’d spent a semester abroad before me gave me lists of things you couldn’t buy there (back in the pre-Internet era). I loaded up on Reese’s cups, a giant jar of Jiff and some favorite toiletries and considered myself ready.

I hadn’t prepared at all for the possibility that culture clashes would be deeper than a British dislike of peanut butter. My rudest awakening was discovering the program I’d joined, run by a consortium of Christian colleges, would be plopping us into a secular school—one with a culture built around pub crawling.

Social lubricant or demon drink?
I was old enough to drink in the US and well above legal age in Britain. But having grown up in a teetotaler household and spending 3.5 years on a dry campus, I found the idea of binge drinking a bit scary. And as hard as I’d worked to get to the land of castles, cathedrals and magic wardrobes, pub crawls weren’t high on my list of great ways to spend your time and money in England. This left me at total loss of how to not die of loneliness while my classmates went off to get wasted most nights of the week.

Fortunately, I wasn’t quite so alone. I soon discovered that about half of the other American students in our group of 18 weren’t that keen to binge drink. We quickly banded together to make the most of our time abroad actually traveling beyond the strip of pubs near campus. We shared the task of researching hostels and bus schedules, and had some great daytrips and weekends away together.

Early on, it became clear we all took our faith pretty seriously. Soon we were debating American Christianity’s taboo on drinking and whether it’s actually Biblical. Back home, there didn’t seem to be much room for debate on the topic, so it was really refreshing to re-examine my upbringing in light of another culture and try to find some middle ground between total abstinence and total debauchery. Visiting pubs to try local craft brews with a plate of bangers and mash or shepherd’s pie became as much part of the group’s identity as trying a variety of church services and praying together.

While my naïveté took a serious beating during that semester, my study-abroad buddies helped me not just survive, but change, grow and thrive.

image credits:  castles.org; realbeer.com
===


The "Shh...it's a secret" blog hop is in honor of the recent release of Poetry Pact volume 1. Blog hop host Angela Felsted is offering awesome prizes to those who participate in the hop and/or help promote the anthology. Click HERE to find out more.

Want to join the blog hop? Sign up here:

Shh...it's a secret blog hop

Wednesday, June 27, 2012 Laurel Garver
Welcome to the next stop on the "Shh...it's a secret" blog hop. Participants can share a story about a secret pact they have made, a friend they are close to, or a close knit group that has helped them through hard times.

The Pub Pact (or the Anti-Saloon League gets some sense)

Welcome back to Warwickshire, long-lost cousin!
I’d been dreaming of going to England since the day Mom read me the story of Lucy Pevensie hiding in a wardrobe and landing in Narnia. Not only was England magical, but also, according to my Dad, our ancestral home. Though my Webster ancestor left Warwickshire for Connecticut in the 1600s, I was certain that going back would feel like arriving home. It would be a struggle to get there, of course. As the youngest of five, I knew college alone would be financially difficult for my family, and studying abroad? That would be above and beyond—something I’d have to make happen for myself. For seven years I worked a string of terrible jobs, from Avon lady to foam-head carnival character to janitor to discount store cashier. My college study abroad experience, I believed, would be my Cinderella-at-the-ball experience.

What a starry-eyed kid I was.

My college friends who’d spent a semester abroad before me gave me lists of things you couldn’t buy there (back in the pre-Internet era). I loaded up on Reese’s cups, a giant jar of Jiff and some favorite toiletries and considered myself ready.

I hadn’t prepared at all for the possibility that culture clashes would be deeper than a British dislike of peanut butter. My rudest awakening was discovering the program I’d joined, run by a consortium of Christian colleges, would be plopping us into a secular school—one with a culture built around pub crawling.

Social lubricant or demon drink?
I was old enough to drink in the US and well above legal age in Britain. But having grown up in a teetotaler household and spending 3.5 years on a dry campus, I found the idea of binge drinking a bit scary. And as hard as I’d worked to get to the land of castles, cathedrals and magic wardrobes, pub crawls weren’t high on my list of great ways to spend your time and money in England. This left me at total loss of how to not die of loneliness while my classmates went off to get wasted most nights of the week.

Fortunately, I wasn’t quite so alone. I soon discovered that about half of the other American students in our group of 18 weren’t that keen to binge drink. We quickly banded together to make the most of our time abroad actually traveling beyond the strip of pubs near campus. We shared the task of researching hostels and bus schedules, and had some great daytrips and weekends away together.

Early on, it became clear we all took our faith pretty seriously. Soon we were debating American Christianity’s taboo on drinking and whether it’s actually Biblical. Back home, there didn’t seem to be much room for debate on the topic, so it was really refreshing to re-examine my upbringing in light of another culture and try to find some middle ground between total abstinence and total debauchery. Visiting pubs to try local craft brews with a plate of bangers and mash or shepherd’s pie became as much part of the group’s identity as trying a variety of church services and praying together.

While my naïveté took a serious beating during that semester, my study-abroad buddies helped me not just survive, but change, grow and thrive.

image credits:  castles.org; realbeer.com
===


The "Shh...it's a secret" blog hop is in honor of the recent release of Poetry Pact volume 1. Blog hop host Angela Felsted is offering awesome prizes to those who participate in the hop and/or help promote the anthology. Click HERE to find out more.

Want to join the blog hop? Sign up here:

Monday, February 6

...was not my bachelor's program in English or my master's in journalism, though they certainly helped. According to Steven Pressfield in The War of Art, my best preparation for a writing career was having a string of really crappy jobs to put myself through school. Why? It's essential to learn to do what it takes to get to a larger goal. Work ethic and professional spirit are learned in the trenches. So when I'm tempted to potter around instead of write, I have to apply the same mindset that kept me diligently on the job selling spark plugs to huge, tattooed truck drivers. Wearing an enormous Strawberry Shortcake foam-head costume around a county fair and talking in a helium voice to mobs of sticky three-year-olds. Scraping nine-month-thick layers of soap scum off of dorm tubs and disinfecting urinals. Vacuuming an acre of cafeteria carpet for two hours a day, seven days a week.

Pressfield says that accepting and even expecting misery as part of one's work experience is what separates the pro from the amateur. A pro shows up for the job day after day, even when it's boring, back-aching, humiliating and gross. She makes work a priority even though she has hayfever and needs to cram for a history exam and ought to visit her lonely grandpa. She does the difficult tasks, perhaps cranking her music, or joking and commiserating with coworkers, or dreaming of Bermuda. But the job, for all its misery, is a means to an end. She pushes through for the payoff--a paycheck.

In writing, one pushes through to a gripping story and a clean, error-free manuscript. Getting there may entail misery--insomnia and loneliness and boring Google searches and humiliating critique sessions.

Most of us start out writing for fun and as a form of play, and that's fine for one's early stages of development. But writing for publication requires taking things to the next level, Pressfield argues. Moving from amateur to pro. And the best training for that is developing a work ethic that can persevere through hardship and humiliation. For Pressfield, it was a stint in the Marines. I'd personally rather not handle firearms, thanks. But there are plenty of other unglamorous jobs that can provide the same mental and emotional training.

Have you worked crappy jobs? How have they shaped you?

*this is a repost from Sept. 2010

The best training to write for publication...

Monday, February 06, 2012 Laurel Garver
...was not my bachelor's program in English or my master's in journalism, though they certainly helped. According to Steven Pressfield in The War of Art, my best preparation for a writing career was having a string of really crappy jobs to put myself through school. Why? It's essential to learn to do what it takes to get to a larger goal. Work ethic and professional spirit are learned in the trenches. So when I'm tempted to potter around instead of write, I have to apply the same mindset that kept me diligently on the job selling spark plugs to huge, tattooed truck drivers. Wearing an enormous Strawberry Shortcake foam-head costume around a county fair and talking in a helium voice to mobs of sticky three-year-olds. Scraping nine-month-thick layers of soap scum off of dorm tubs and disinfecting urinals. Vacuuming an acre of cafeteria carpet for two hours a day, seven days a week.

Pressfield says that accepting and even expecting misery as part of one's work experience is what separates the pro from the amateur. A pro shows up for the job day after day, even when it's boring, back-aching, humiliating and gross. She makes work a priority even though she has hayfever and needs to cram for a history exam and ought to visit her lonely grandpa. She does the difficult tasks, perhaps cranking her music, or joking and commiserating with coworkers, or dreaming of Bermuda. But the job, for all its misery, is a means to an end. She pushes through for the payoff--a paycheck.

In writing, one pushes through to a gripping story and a clean, error-free manuscript. Getting there may entail misery--insomnia and loneliness and boring Google searches and humiliating critique sessions.

Most of us start out writing for fun and as a form of play, and that's fine for one's early stages of development. But writing for publication requires taking things to the next level, Pressfield argues. Moving from amateur to pro. And the best training for that is developing a work ethic that can persevere through hardship and humiliation. For Pressfield, it was a stint in the Marines. I'd personally rather not handle firearms, thanks. But there are plenty of other unglamorous jobs that can provide the same mental and emotional training.

Have you worked crappy jobs? How have they shaped you?

*this is a repost from Sept. 2010

Thursday, December 1


Today is Vicki Rocho's "Well, I Never" blogfest. She invited us to share something we'd never done, never thought we'd do (but did) or something that simply puzzles us. Go swing by Rambles and Randomness to see the other participants. Rather than a list, I'll share one quick story...

I never went to the prom. It wasn't because I wasn't asked. No, it was largely because I didn't want to go with the guy who asked me. We had a history, one I didn't care to repeat.

I briefly considered asking a friend who went to another school, but as fun and cool as he was, the fact he was a freshman and I was a senior gave me pause. Too much potential to get really awkward. I was also kind-of-sort-of seeing someone at the time, a junior from my own school. Our daily walking-home-from-school flirtation would really go nowhere if I asked someone else to the prom--someone even younger than he. I had a real knack for relationship muddles like this at 17. Is it any wonder I write YA?

From what I could tell, the prom would be just like the school cafeteria but with formalwear--every clique keeping to themselves, everyone carefully guarding his or her established image. Honestly, why bother? So I decided to throw an anti-prom party instead. I had a fantastic night watching movies and hanging out with my favorite underclassman and a senior or two, who, like me, decided the prom was one of the "high school necessities" we could happily live without.

Funnily enough, my friends who did go to the prom ditched early and came to my house instead. Apparently, annoying classmates become even more so under the influence of cheap beer and Jack Daniels. More genuine fun was to be had with us sober, soda-sipping geeks.

====

In other news, there's a wonderful new e-zine now accepting submissions: Vine Leaves Literary Journal. This publication features vignette writing--short pieces that deeply explore character, setting or description rather than being a traditionally plotted story. You can read more about the editors' vision and submission guidelines HERE.

Vine Leaves Literary Journal is the brainchild of Jessica Bell (author of String Bridge) and her critique partner Dawn Ius, a Canadian writer and marketing/communications pro. They felt this subgenre of literary writing deserved a venue of its own.

I'm thrilled to have a piece accepted to the premiere issue (January 2012). I'll post a link when the issue goes live.


Did you go to the prom? Tell me your story!

Well, I Never...

Thursday, December 01, 2011 Laurel Garver

Today is Vicki Rocho's "Well, I Never" blogfest. She invited us to share something we'd never done, never thought we'd do (but did) or something that simply puzzles us. Go swing by Rambles and Randomness to see the other participants. Rather than a list, I'll share one quick story...

I never went to the prom. It wasn't because I wasn't asked. No, it was largely because I didn't want to go with the guy who asked me. We had a history, one I didn't care to repeat.

I briefly considered asking a friend who went to another school, but as fun and cool as he was, the fact he was a freshman and I was a senior gave me pause. Too much potential to get really awkward. I was also kind-of-sort-of seeing someone at the time, a junior from my own school. Our daily walking-home-from-school flirtation would really go nowhere if I asked someone else to the prom--someone even younger than he. I had a real knack for relationship muddles like this at 17. Is it any wonder I write YA?

From what I could tell, the prom would be just like the school cafeteria but with formalwear--every clique keeping to themselves, everyone carefully guarding his or her established image. Honestly, why bother? So I decided to throw an anti-prom party instead. I had a fantastic night watching movies and hanging out with my favorite underclassman and a senior or two, who, like me, decided the prom was one of the "high school necessities" we could happily live without.

Funnily enough, my friends who did go to the prom ditched early and came to my house instead. Apparently, annoying classmates become even more so under the influence of cheap beer and Jack Daniels. More genuine fun was to be had with us sober, soda-sipping geeks.

====

In other news, there's a wonderful new e-zine now accepting submissions: Vine Leaves Literary Journal. This publication features vignette writing--short pieces that deeply explore character, setting or description rather than being a traditionally plotted story. You can read more about the editors' vision and submission guidelines HERE.

Vine Leaves Literary Journal is the brainchild of Jessica Bell (author of String Bridge) and her critique partner Dawn Ius, a Canadian writer and marketing/communications pro. They felt this subgenre of literary writing deserved a venue of its own.

I'm thrilled to have a piece accepted to the premiere issue (January 2012). I'll post a link when the issue goes live.


Did you go to the prom? Tell me your story!

Tuesday, May 31

Guest post interview
The lovely Yat Yee Chong interviewed me over on her blog--my very first interview! Find out about what I've been reading and my secret fantasy of being a jazz musician. You can check it out HERE.

Triplicity continues
I'm extending the deadline to enter my Triplicity drawing and contest, in celebration of reaching 333 followers. You now have until next Tuesday, June 7, to enter.

Drawing
I'm giving away a $30 amazon gift certificate to one lucky entrant (U.S. only). You just have to leave a comment here, or on the original post. Additional entries are given as follows:

+5 Existing follower
+3 New follower
+2 Tweet contest
+2 Link contest on your blog sidebar
+5 Blog about the contest
+10 Pose an "Ask-the-editor" question on grammar, punctuation, critiquing
+1 Calculate your total number of entries

 Microfiction contest
Groan-worthy similes and metaphors
Send up to three entries of original, groan-worthy metaphors or similes, just a sentence each, via e-mail as inline text to laurels (dot) leaves (at) gmail (dot) com.

A few examples:
~Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.
~It came down the stairs looking very much like something no one had ever seen before.
~His cover was blown like a man with a neat comb-over turning a windy corner.
~Her eyes were the mesmerizing green of a moldy cucumber liquefying in the vegetable drawer.

Open to international contestants.

Prizes (winners may chose any one):
~a 10-page detailed critique
~10 pages of copy editing
~an editorial overview of up to 50 pages, outlining areas for growth
~a character naming consultation. I'll help you research and find/create up to three character names, any genre.

How would you have answered Yat Yee's question: "how would you want your work to be characterized--first three words that pop into your mind?"

More time to win and guest post

Tuesday, May 31, 2011 Laurel Garver
Guest post interview
The lovely Yat Yee Chong interviewed me over on her blog--my very first interview! Find out about what I've been reading and my secret fantasy of being a jazz musician. You can check it out HERE.

Triplicity continues
I'm extending the deadline to enter my Triplicity drawing and contest, in celebration of reaching 333 followers. You now have until next Tuesday, June 7, to enter.

Drawing
I'm giving away a $30 amazon gift certificate to one lucky entrant (U.S. only). You just have to leave a comment here, or on the original post. Additional entries are given as follows:

+5 Existing follower
+3 New follower
+2 Tweet contest
+2 Link contest on your blog sidebar
+5 Blog about the contest
+10 Pose an "Ask-the-editor" question on grammar, punctuation, critiquing
+1 Calculate your total number of entries

 Microfiction contest
Groan-worthy similes and metaphors
Send up to three entries of original, groan-worthy metaphors or similes, just a sentence each, via e-mail as inline text to laurels (dot) leaves (at) gmail (dot) com.

A few examples:
~Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.
~It came down the stairs looking very much like something no one had ever seen before.
~His cover was blown like a man with a neat comb-over turning a windy corner.
~Her eyes were the mesmerizing green of a moldy cucumber liquefying in the vegetable drawer.

Open to international contestants.

Prizes (winners may chose any one):
~a 10-page detailed critique
~10 pages of copy editing
~an editorial overview of up to 50 pages, outlining areas for growth
~a character naming consultation. I'll help you research and find/create up to three character names, any genre.

How would you have answered Yat Yee's question: "how would you want your work to be characterized--first three words that pop into your mind?"

Saturday, April 2


Thanks to Vicki Rocho at Rambles & Randomness for hosting today's blogfest! Vicki asked participants to answer the following questions.

When did you start your blog?
July 12, 2009.

What is first denomination (price) of postage stamp you remember?
13 cents. The image was something bicentennial related.

How old were you when you learned to ride a bike?
I was six. Bike riding was much easier to learn than shoe trying.

What was the first concert you attended without parental supervision?
My junior year of high school, I went to an all-city youth event featuring a bunch of CCM rock bands who performed covers of Petra and Stryper songs. I also attended plenty of school concerts without my parents. They were in their late 50s by my teen years (in other words, tired) and gave me a fair amount of freedom.

How old were you when you got your first kiss?
I was a month shy of 14, about to start ninth grade. On a youth group trip to Florida, I met a nice guy from the church that hosted us, a dark-haired, freckled, Irish-looking kid with the sweetest Southern drawl. Our two youth groups had a swim party together at a local pool and I'd spent most of that particular evening on his shoulders. We were an almost unstoppable "chicken fight" team. He decided to celebrate our victory by laying one on me during the walk back to church afterwards. I've had a nostalgic fondness for the taste of chlorine since then. ;-)

What is your earliest memory?
I remember climbing out of my crib and wandering around the house late at night searching from my rubber duckie. For some reason I was sure it would protect me from the bad thing I had dreamed about. I was at most 3 years old, because we moved from that house just before I turned four.

How should I celebrate my second blogiversary this summer? Any ideas?

Memory lane blogfest

Saturday, April 02, 2011 Laurel Garver

Thanks to Vicki Rocho at Rambles & Randomness for hosting today's blogfest! Vicki asked participants to answer the following questions.

When did you start your blog?
July 12, 2009.

What is first denomination (price) of postage stamp you remember?
13 cents. The image was something bicentennial related.

How old were you when you learned to ride a bike?
I was six. Bike riding was much easier to learn than shoe trying.

What was the first concert you attended without parental supervision?
My junior year of high school, I went to an all-city youth event featuring a bunch of CCM rock bands who performed covers of Petra and Stryper songs. I also attended plenty of school concerts without my parents. They were in their late 50s by my teen years (in other words, tired) and gave me a fair amount of freedom.

How old were you when you got your first kiss?
I was a month shy of 14, about to start ninth grade. On a youth group trip to Florida, I met a nice guy from the church that hosted us, a dark-haired, freckled, Irish-looking kid with the sweetest Southern drawl. Our two youth groups had a swim party together at a local pool and I'd spent most of that particular evening on his shoulders. We were an almost unstoppable "chicken fight" team. He decided to celebrate our victory by laying one on me during the walk back to church afterwards. I've had a nostalgic fondness for the taste of chlorine since then. ;-)

What is your earliest memory?
I remember climbing out of my crib and wandering around the house late at night searching from my rubber duckie. For some reason I was sure it would protect me from the bad thing I had dreamed about. I was at most 3 years old, because we moved from that house just before I turned four.

How should I celebrate my second blogiversary this summer? Any ideas?

Friday, March 11

Fellow poet/fiction writer Alberta Ross was so kind as to pass along the Stylish Blogger Award to me. Thanks, Alberta!

The rules of this one are to share seven things about myself and pass along the award to some other worthy bloggers. Here goes.

1. My black cat, Keats, looks just like Toothless in How to Train Your Dragon. Seriously. He even lost all his fangs due to gum disease, so we've taken to calling him Toothless, too.

2. Whenever I walk with someone, I'll usually be in step with them. It's one of those deep-seated marching band things.

3. Music that changes time signatures frequently makes me extremely anxious and agitated. Sufian Steven's latest album, for example, which my hubby adores, has this affect for this reason. After years in a drum line, you start to feel personally responsible for rhythms around you being "right." Weird, I know.

4. I like to read psychology books, style manuals and my rhyming dictionary for fun.

5. My favorite chore is doing the laundry, especially if I can dry things on my clothesline. Nothing is quite so soothing as sheets flapping in the breeze.

6. I have never broken my teenage habit of listening to the same album over and over all day long.

7. I know more about cars than my hubby does. He didn't have to take two years of classroom driver's ed. in which we learned why tire pressure is important, took written tests on engine parts and watched many grisly movies demonstrating what happens when you don't wear a seat belt or maintain your car or you drive too tired or tipsy.

I pass this one along to the following bloggers:

Bethany at Aspirations.
Karen at Novels During Naptime.
Perri at Lesser Apricots.
Saumya at Left and Right Brained.

What odd habits do you still have that you acquired in your teen years?

Stylish Friday

Friday, March 11, 2011 Laurel Garver
Fellow poet/fiction writer Alberta Ross was so kind as to pass along the Stylish Blogger Award to me. Thanks, Alberta!

The rules of this one are to share seven things about myself and pass along the award to some other worthy bloggers. Here goes.

1. My black cat, Keats, looks just like Toothless in How to Train Your Dragon. Seriously. He even lost all his fangs due to gum disease, so we've taken to calling him Toothless, too.

2. Whenever I walk with someone, I'll usually be in step with them. It's one of those deep-seated marching band things.

3. Music that changes time signatures frequently makes me extremely anxious and agitated. Sufian Steven's latest album, for example, which my hubby adores, has this affect for this reason. After years in a drum line, you start to feel personally responsible for rhythms around you being "right." Weird, I know.

4. I like to read psychology books, style manuals and my rhyming dictionary for fun.

5. My favorite chore is doing the laundry, especially if I can dry things on my clothesline. Nothing is quite so soothing as sheets flapping in the breeze.

6. I have never broken my teenage habit of listening to the same album over and over all day long.

7. I know more about cars than my hubby does. He didn't have to take two years of classroom driver's ed. in which we learned why tire pressure is important, took written tests on engine parts and watched many grisly movies demonstrating what happens when you don't wear a seat belt or maintain your car or you drive too tired or tipsy.

I pass this one along to the following bloggers:

Bethany at Aspirations.
Karen at Novels During Naptime.
Perri at Lesser Apricots.
Saumya at Left and Right Brained.

What odd habits do you still have that you acquired in your teen years?

Tuesday, January 11

The truth is I'm on day five of a nasty respiratory infection and I'm getting worse instead of better. So I'm going back to watching goofy, nostalgic TV (everything from Gidget and the Partridge Family to Three's Company and The Three Stooges) on this new station called "Antenna TV." They have the best tagline: "Vintage,without the funny smell."

I've nearly depleted my haul of books from the library. Maybe I'll take another stab at reading Finnegans Wake. That one's on my bucket list.

How do you while away the hours on sick days? What books are you determined to read before you die?

Truth Tuesday

Tuesday, January 11, 2011 Laurel Garver
The truth is I'm on day five of a nasty respiratory infection and I'm getting worse instead of better. So I'm going back to watching goofy, nostalgic TV (everything from Gidget and the Partridge Family to Three's Company and The Three Stooges) on this new station called "Antenna TV." They have the best tagline: "Vintage,without the funny smell."

I've nearly depleted my haul of books from the library. Maybe I'll take another stab at reading Finnegans Wake. That one's on my bucket list.

How do you while away the hours on sick days? What books are you determined to read before you die?
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About Me

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City dweller, word nerd, Indie film enthusiast and incurable Anglophile. Professor's wife and mom to a young adult daughter. Follower of the Good Shepherd, who is faithful when we are faithless. My poetry and fiction explore the places where heart and soul are tested and growing up truly begins.

I'm also a freelance editor who has been editing professionally since 1991. How can I help you make your manuscript shine? Click my "editing services" tab to learn more

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"A lot of engaging starting points for any writer that will inspire you to write."

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You can face a blank page with confidence when you use these prompts to warm up, beat writer’s block, develop and maintain a writing habit, change up your routine, start a new project, experiment in a new genre, deepen parts of an existing story, or overcome burnout.


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