Though I have much work to do to prepare a manuscript for submission, The Killers plot bunny won’t leave me alone. After rolling my main character’s possible name on my tongue for a few hours, pretending her friends were being either tender or tough with her, I think I’ve settled on it. The name is [...]
Archive for the ‘Thinking out Loud’ Category
New Thoughts on Historicism
Posted in Thinking out Loud, Works in Progress, tagged Roger Sutton on July 7, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Pote-Purry
Posted in Revising, Thinking out Loud, Works in Progress, Writing on July 3, 2010 | 3 Comments »
Last night I stopped looking at cute cat pictures and actually wrote. Me and words: reunited, and it feels so good! Accomplished: – Revision of my MbM picture book. I shoe-horned in a subplot, and like Cinderella’s glass slipper, it was a perfect fit once everything settled. – Envisioned two brief scenes and came up [...]
Almost There
Posted in Thinking out Loud on June 30, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
The past few days I have been in Iowa visiting family. I read, I reflected, I edited my nephew’s collection of short stories (he’s 9), and I breathed. In terms of my writing life, I feel as if I’m teetering on the edge of some precipice, hesitant to fly off. I can’t go back. The [...]
“I Know it When I See it”
Posted in Thinking out Loud on June 11, 2010 | 1 Comment »
The it does not refer to what the original speaker of the titular quote used it to refer to. Instead, “it” is that pronoun that encompasses any number of sins in literature (or sins of literature for that matter). In my online life, I recently railed against an “it” that led me to question my [...]
Day of Pauses
Posted in Thinking out Loud on May 31, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Today, I pause to say a prayer of thanks for my dad (Vietnam), his friends Phil and Dave (Vietnam), my grandfather (WWII), my cousin Brian (reserves), and my friend’s boyfriend Sean (Iraq). Luckily, all these men decided to choose to fight for freedom – if not directly ours, that of our brothers and sisters around [...]
Matter of Consent
Posted in Thinking out Loud, Writing on May 30, 2010 | 1 Comment »
When writing mainly young adult fiction, I come to the moment in plotting where I consider giving my characters typical teenage firsts: pimple, period, um, accident, kiss, that other first. Generally the characters I write find themselves both wanting the it-takes-two firsts. At the very least mentally, if not outwardly expressive of the desire. Yet [...]
The State of Education and SB 6
Posted in Thinking out Loud on April 14, 2010 | 1 Comment »
The issue: In March, Sen. John Thrasher of Florida introduced legislation that could forever change the culture of education: SB 6. The House soon introduced HB 7189. The bills, nearly identical, would introduce annual end-of-year exams (beginning as early as in kindergarten). Teachers’ bonuses/raises would be tied to their students results beginning in 2014. Beginning [...]
Chapter One
Posted in Cheering, Editing, Prompting, Publishing, Revising, Thinking out Loud, Works in Progress, Writing, tagged improper citation, random thoughts on April 9, 2010 | 2 Comments »
It was a dark and stormy night. So I stayed in and started a blog. Though I may travel into another dimension in my dreams. But you, grab a sandwich, book, and kitten and get in bed. That is perfection. This blog will not be. But it will be full of wit and whimsy and [...]
