B-Fest: A Nationwide Book Fest for Teens
Barnes & Noble is hosting a huge teen book festival this weekend, June 10-12, with games, trivia parties, giveaways, author panels, writing workshops, cosplay, spelling contests, and bookish prizes. Tons of YA authors are showing up to be part of the B-Fest fun, and the events are free for everyone. Check out B-Fest Events at a B&N store near you and drop in to be part of the story.
I’m doubly involved with B-Fest. First, Friday evening, I’ll be joining fellow Connecticut writer Emily Bain Murphy (whose debut… Continue reading
Happy Trails
I distinctly recall sitting at my desk in my 5th grade classroom, looking out the window past the pencil sharpener to the green of the playground and longing for summer vacation. Soon, I thought. Soon I’ll be free.
June freedom still calls to me, and I luxuriate in the long sunny evenings and weekends of adventure. I hope you soon find yourself on a hammock with a book, on a screen porch with a frosty glass of lemonade, or in a canoe with a dog. Embrace the kid in your heart heart. Happy trails.
Reach for the Impossible
Landscape Arch, Arches National Park, May 2016.
Just a reminder: reach for the impossible.
The once impossible already surrounds us. So many conveniences that we take for granted in our lives today (highway systems, ibuprofen, cell phones) exist because people before us had vision.
For more inspiration, there’s nature. Think of what bees can do to pollen, or time can do to stone.
Claim the impossible in your art. Write your novel, bit by bit. Compose your opera. Take up knitting or a ukulele.
Make your impossible community. Invite a… Continue reading
Happy Memorial Day
Today I’m recalling my father Thomond R. O’Brien, Sr. who served honorably as a cryptanalyst in the United States Army. He suffered hearing loss during his training, decoded Polish messages while working in Frankfurt, Germany in the 1950’s, and carried his service card in his wallet until the day he died.
Thank you to all our veterans and active military personnel who are now serving our country.
5 Tips for Book Research
Men with uteruses, midwifery, quantum computing, Huntington’s Disease, suppressor genes, under population, and dolphin sleep patterns are all fascinating topics that have lured me in while I’ve been writing novels. Who wouldn’t be intrigued? It’s tempting to spend hours and hours learning cool new things in the name of research for a novel. But it’s hard to know which information will actually be useful, and more importantly, it’s hard to know when to stop. If a writer spends months or years doing research for a novel she hasn’t started, that… Continue reading
How To Write a Novel
Get a fairly decent idea.
Write a few pages.
Keep writing to see what happens.
Be convinced this will be a bestseller.
Discover you don’t know what you’re doing.
Keep writing anyway.
Resist the urge to go back and revise.
Get a small new idea that might be slightly helpful.
Keep writing.
Delete the last ten pages.
Delete ten more pages.
Take a cookie break.
Sigh.
Get back to writing.
Claw your way forward through the worst pages you’ve ever written.
Keep writing.
Discover you still don’t know what you’re… Continue reading
Ari & Milo, my serial novel, is now up on Wattpad! I drew illustrations to go with each chapter, and best of all, it’s free! Because of problematic themes, this novel is for mature readers age 17+.
Book Trailer for Promised