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Do Not Disturb: Am Writing.
Don’t try and stop me. I have writing to do. I’m writing while I fold laundry and wash dishes. I’m writing while I sit by my husband’s bed awaiting his back surgery. I’m writing while I drive home late at night. I’m writing when I get up at 3 a.m. to let the cat in. Or out. I’m writing when it looks like I’m reading. Or spacing out. Or chopping vegetables. Because, for me, writing doesn’t look like writing until the last 10 percent. “Genius is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration.” — Thomas Alva Edison Writing — for me — is like that, too, sort of. It’s all in…
- authors, Books, Booktrope, gratitude, NaNoWriMo, novel, Tongues of Angels, Uncategorized, Veronika Layne, work, writing
Work-in-Progress blog hop!
I know I wrote on this topic about six months ago, but I’m working on new things, so I said yes to the invitation to share my WIP. I was invited by Laurie Baxter (click here to visit her blog post). Thanks, Laurie! What is your working title of your book (or story)? Veronika Layne Has a Nose for News: #2 in the Hot Off the Press Series Where did the idea come from for these books? I wanted Veronika to have some more adventures, of course, but my friend Woody Minor told me a true story about a local Victorian house that possibly had Gold Rush coins hidden in the…
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Third Time’s a Charm!
You know how it feels when your child attempts to do something, and you know it’s going to be difficult, but you stand back and watch her struggle anyway? And maybe she’s not so successful? And then she tries again, a few years later, and struggles, and is still not completely successful? You cheer her on no matter what, even though you have the gut feeling that she might not make it? That’s what it has felt like with my first novel, Tongues of Angels. This novel, TOA for short, was my creative thesis in grad school. My poor thesis advisor read it at least three times, and it was…
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To Subscribe or Not?
Sitting on my desk is an invitation to renew my subscription to Poets and Writers, a magazine I have loved and hated over the years. I have treated it as my bible, my oracle – tell me how to get published! Teach me all your secrets and ways! And I have burned with jealousy when new voices, that is, the same white, nerdy, khaki-wearing writers who had the luck or the moxie to be in the right place at the right time, or have somehow broken the glass ceiling, grace the cover. In recent years, I’ve felt dismissed and insulted by P&W, as well. Their grudging admission that self-publishing exists…
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The Artist’s Way
A few years ago, I went to Europe to visit my eldest daughter, who was working in London for six months. We met up in Paris, and after some days there and in Belgium, we crossed the Channel to England and finished our sojourn by visiting a plethora of literary sites. People who know me realize that I am a Jane Austen aficionado and understand that a trip to her native land, and a walk through her very environs, is like a heroin hit to me: once is not enough, and I suspect I’ll anxiously pursue more of All Things Jane until I die. The literary trail began in Paris, with…
