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Thought Unlocked

We try to clean up and organize our thoughts when we express them so others can understand us and like us and follow our trains of thought, but in our own minds we don’t need to explain. And sometimes if we can write only purely what we’re thinking, if the mash and muddle of the confusion behind our lids could land on a page like bird bone black twigs light as pepper, they could fall into miniature runes, messages from the gods or the jungle or the fairy dust, and… Continue reading

Minute by Minute

flowersIf I could only revise novels and never have to write a first draft again, I’d be a happy camper. As it is, I’m delving into a new novel, with new characters and new terrain, and after two tries, I’ve made it past the first 100-page milestone of my first draft. I may end up cutting much of what I’ve written, but it seems solid enough to keep going, and that’s a relief.

Every morning, I return to the spot where my characters ended the day before, read the last… Continue reading

Why to Write in the Near Future

“The near future” sounds like a new verb tense, like the past or the pluperfect, but to me it means a writing time somewhere between five minutes and a fifty years from now. My recent novels fall in this time frame, and I’ve been asked why I like to write then.

It’s simple, really. I’m curious about where we’re going as a people. In the Vault of Dreamers series, 50 years from now, a girl from the boxcar community of fictional Doli, Arizona, the poorest zip code in the country,… Continue reading

Return to Mountain

When I recently took a break from my writing to focus on family time, I was off the couch and far more active than I usually am, and I like the feeling so much that I don’t want to lose it. Now that I’m back to writing, which keeps me inactive for hours, I’m trying to make a point of taking longer walks, closer to two miles, rather than my old strolls to meet a friend for tea a block away.

I’ve also resumed my version of Tai Chi: a… Continue reading

5 Quirky Summer Writing Tips

Summer arrived this week with the solstice and a gift of sunny, balmy days here on the East Coast. School’s out and families are settling into new routines. If you’ve been secretly thinking all year that you’ll get to your writing in the summer, you might be surprised that it’s harder to ease into your new novel than you expected. I’m certainly finding that distractions abound. How can you get the most out of your summer writing days?

1. Like with exercise, you’ll get further with writing if you encourage… Continue reading

2nd Pass Pages for Keep of Ages

This weekend, I finished going over the 2nd Pass Pages of The Keep of Ages and sent them back to my editor. I thought I’d just be reading through the novel in its final perfect form, but I still found things that needed changing, and not just switching “west” to “south” and such. I few lines of dialogue needed finessing, and a distant relative in Calgary who remained as a mention from an earlier draft needed cutting. I don’t know if anyone else would ever notice such tiny things, but… Continue reading

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