I’ve never believed in Writer’s Block. I always thought it was a convenient excuse for soft people who didn’t want to do the hard work of sitting in a chair for hours on end, wrestling with the thousands of words needed a create an entire book.
Joy, and Sponge Bob
Ironically, I did not allow my children to watch Sponge Bob when they were little, so I was unfamiliar with the finer point of Sponge Bob’s life as a sponge who lives in a pineapple under the sea in a tight knit community called Bikini Bottom.
Why Banning Books is Bad
Banning books is like banning eyesight, or hearing, or taste, touch, or smell. It’s an attempt to make kids blind and deaf to the world around them, to protect them from reality. It’s wrong, and completely ineffective. As the parent of teenagers, I disagree with this impulse, but I do understand it.
Betsy Ray-Feminist Icon
This month we’re talking about why we write Young Adult novels. I write YA because the YA novels I read as a teenager had a bigger impact on me than…
Out with the Old, In with the New
Out with the old, in with the new is our topic this month, and it’s been a thought-provoking subject for me because for the first time ever, I have no idea what to write.
Fear itself
I fear all the usual things; snakes, heights, enclosed spaces, dark alleys at night. I also fear driving on the Beltway, people not liking me and a worldwide shortage of gluten free Twinkies.
Change
“Transition” is a soft and gentle word for a serene flow from one thing to the next. “Transition” is also fancy word for “change,” and as we all know, change is a no fun whatsoever.
The Best Bad Advice
Most of the writing advice I consider “bad,” isn’t really bad at all. It’s usually perfectly good advice that just doesn’t work for me. Conversely, my idea of good writing advice is probably terrible advice for someone else.
Trixie Belden, Girl Detective
It was all so thrilling and perfect, if you were a thirteen-year-old girl, which I was. After it became obvious to me that I couldn’t go to Narnia, I wanted to crawl into Trixie’s world and live there instead.
The Mother of all Christmas Parties
Then, like Thomas Edison with a guttering candle or Henry Ford in a carriage pulled by a really slow horse, I muttered, “There must be a better way.”