If you want to know how I juggle kids and writing, 2014 debut author and agent-mate Jen Longo is doing a series on just that (my interview is here). Mostly, it involves stuff like… …and my netbook.     If you don’t care about any of that, maybe stop by her blog and show her some [...]

I SOLD ANOTHER BOOK! Actually, my awesome agent did. More on that and other details later. I’m going to try to keep quiet until it’s officially announced, but I just had to say it. That’s all. Carry on.

47,416 words and I’m out. Is the book done? Heck no. But it wouldn’t have been done even if I spent four more weeks on it or six to eight months, like I usually do. It’s a draft and, by definition, drafts are nothing but a start. And mine usually stink. Is it any worse than [...]

It’s 11:04 EST on Tuesday and with Thanksgiving break/travel/festivities beginning tomorrow, I think I’ve reached the end of this week’s writing time. I’m short of goal by almost 2500 words (10 pages) but I’ve gotta throw in the towel. Too tired. Too much to do tomorrow. This week’s epiphanies… Um… I do have one, actually. And [...]

Yep, its still working. I’m at 30,865 words, just over this week’s goal of 30,720. But I see trouble looming…and not just in the form of Thanksgiving and all the writingless days around it. I still have more than a third of the book left, but have already worked through almost all the chapters I’ve outlined action [...]

It’s awesome! It totally works!  I love it! Which is probably what everyone says one week in. The honeymoon phase. But, having written almost 45 pages this week, I have to give it credit. Discipline or structure or whatever you want to call it, works. To backtrack for a sec – and for those who don’t know [...]

I signed up for NaNoWriMo this year. If you have no idea what that means, you can clink the link for deets, but the gist is that you – and more than two-hundred thousand other people who’ve signed up -  write a fifty-thousand word novel in a month. I’ve never tried it before, but the timing this year seemed perfect: [...]

This was the question from a girl at the writing workshop I did last week: Do I have to read to be a writer? Because I don’t really like reading. My short answer was no. You don’t have to do anything. You want to be a writer? All you have to do is write. I read a lot less [...]

NY area peeps: I’m doing a writing workshop this Thursday, October 18 from 12:30-2:00pm at the Chappaqua Library. It’s free and open to anyone in grades 8-12. We’ll be talking about character, setting, plot and using paranormal elements, with a heavy emphasis on hands-on writing and sharing by participants. Also, there will be pizza. For more info, [...]

I’ve been holding off writing this post until I had the happy ending, but since we’re not quite there yet, I figured it was time. If you’ve read this blog at all, you probably know that I’ve been working on my current manuscript (formerly The Box, now How It Ends) for a while. I finally finished a draft, had some [...]