Scroll down this page for my blog and click here for the Red Hair Is Not As Uncommon As You Think - Twenty-five of the most overused things in YA and MG Fiction article! Also, my Fave Fifteen for 2007 is up here. And thanks for stopping by. Oh, and due to comment spam, I have to approve them all, so if your comment doesn’t show up right away, that’s why. Sorry!

  You know, just because the domain is joelleanthony.com, why should this blog be all about me? I think I’ll take the day off. Today’s Friday Five is all about y’all. Well, about five of you anyway.

Eileen Cook - You knew I’d start with the queen of weird stories (bats in your bra, snakes under the bed)

Alix’s funny take on…well, lots of stuff! - and because she likes Cadbury choclolate as much as I do (but Marmite? oooh…yuck!)

Victor Anthony’s myspace page - what kind of a wife would I be if I didn’t link to my husband? You can hear some of his music here (as well as on my music page). And what the heck, why not a two-fer. Check out his photo blog too!

The Longstockings blog - The girls in the know. Lots of info about writing, reading and publishing.

The Nature Conservancy Canada - because I’m feeling environmental today. How about you?

Earlier, it was the fawns, now I just had three Pileated woodpeckers fly over my head and into my yard. One was clearly a junior and the parents were trying to teach him things (apparently by leaving him behind). He clawed his way up the tree, looking all around for the parents and when he couldn’t find them, he began to do this little, “uh…uh…uh…” and sounded exactly like a baby about to start wailing for its mama. How’s a girl supposed to finish her new chapter with all these wonderful distractions?

I was over at The Longstockings and Siobhan is talking about how she’s going to try a seat-of-her-pants approach to writing for a change. She’s always been a detailed outliner and she wants to try something new. If you’ve been hanging out here, you will know that I just tried outlining for the first time (without success) and am now back to free form writing (and happily so). At first, I thought I would blog today about some tips for anyone who wants to try this form, but while I was making my breakfast (the most amazing English rock cakes that are mostly butter) - oh! wait! I must interrupt with this notice that the mama and twin fawns just wandered through looking sooooo cute - okay, anyway, I’m digressing. While I was making breakfast and contemplating the kinds of tips I would put up here, it occurred to me that perhaps this whole flip-flop thing that writers do - exchanging one technique of writing for another - really has very little to do with getting that first draft down and actually is much more about looking for the magic solution to make writing easier.

I mean, really…I write by the seat of my pants. I have written numerous bottom drawer novels, and several that I hope to see as books someday, but the truth is, why did I want to switch to outlining? Because the guy who wrote the thing about how to do it said it would make writing easier! I’ve come to the conclusion that nothing makes writing easier. Some things make it more fun, like sitting outside and writing on a summer day, or cuddling up in front of a fire in the winter, but there’s really no magic solution. It all comes down to butt in the chair and a lot of hard work. Some find the hard work terrifying, difficult, and frustrating. Ninety-five percent of the time, I find it exhilarating, interesting, and fun, so I can’t see any reason to try changing techniques now. Do you outline? Write free-form? Have you ever switched from one to the other and found it works better for you?

Yesterday I was just zipping along on my revision and I added a new scene that I’d thought of the other day on my walk. Sometimes when I add scenes, they go in directions I never expect. When I was done with the chapter I had to stop and pause. You see, I’d just moved a major event from the halfway mark of the book to the third chapter without even meaning to. At first I was kind of concerned because…well…now what’s the big event in the middle of the book? But then I realized that it really made much more sense for it to come earlier and I should just shut up and listen to my characters! They always know what’s going on if I let them lead.

The next two days will be busy…probably too busy to write because I have to sort out the changes in my mind before I go back to it and I can’t really do that without some long walks. I won’t have time for that until Thursday. On the plus side, it’s always better to let things like this germinate AND I am about to have approximately nine days of write, write, writing time (minus the weekend for Sunday Soup ). The husband has volunteered to help a friend for a week and I will be on my own all day, each day. While I’ll miss him (and all the funny things he says that I steal for my books) at lunchtime and breaktime and walking time and baseball time, I’m looking forward to completely uninterrupted chunks of writing time too.

Do your characters tell you what to do too?

P.S. The photo is of me and my husband and we took it ourselves with the timer. It was the cover of our wedding invitation. All together now…”Awwwww!”

Their sheer cutie-pie-ness can really be a distraction if you write outside!

The weekend…a new experience…click here to find out why!

Tell me why you love TV!

Click here to find out who’s going to star in the film of my book…

  My husband spends lots of time each day at the Community Gardens where he is the Compost King, a member of the squash, potato, and corn co-op, and has his own garden plot. He also “lifts heavy things” when needed. Because of this, he has gotten quite tan (well…his forearms, neck, face & head, his white chest still glows in the dark). The other night we were brushing our teeth and he looked in the mirror at us both and said, “Wow! I’m really tan. You’re really white!” I made a snarly face at him and he said, “What? You’re a writer! If you were tan it would mean you weren’t getting anything done!”

Ha! While that’s true, I hate to think I’m missing out on summer!

I’m one up on him now. I’ve moved the bed outside onto the porch and today I am spending the whole day outside, lying in bed (well, propped up) writing. I’ll be tan in no time AND I’ll get something done. All I need now is someone to fan me and bring me drinks. Do you write outside in the summer?