Click here to find out all about my young adult novel, RESTORING HARMONY, forthcoming from Putnam!

Scroll down this page for my blog and click here for the Red Hair article! Also, my yearly Fave Fifteen lists are here.

I realized that not only have I not posted in a while, but it’s been ages since I did a Friday Five, so I thought why not now? And why not add pictures?

1. This is how I spent Canada Day. Oh, heck, who am I kidding…this is how I spent most of the week!

2. If you live anywhere around these parts, you do not want to miss this barn dance on July 10th. It’s the kick-off to the Dancing Man Festival. 

3. And back to the sock theme, these fantastic socks were made for me by Eileen Cook. Really! She knit them herself! How cool is that? They’re really comfortable too.

4. There are a lot of baby type things here on the island at this time of year, but this is one of my favourite “baby” photos. Click on it to see it properly. My husband, Victor Anthony took it.

5. Well, okay, come on…yeah, I know you can see this all over my site, but guess what? It’s my favourite picture, so there!

Hope you had a great holiday if you’re in Canada and that you have a fun one tomorrow if you’re in the U.S.

I was just doing my morning blog reads. I don’t check out very many because my eyes do not like to read on the internet, but I do stop by Editorial Anonymous on occasion and there was a post there this morning from someone just getting started. From the post, I couldn’t tell if the writer actually had written anything, or just had ideas, but they wanted to know, “Where do I start?”

I was happy to see that there were 44 comments from people willing to help. Quite honestly, the thought of being that fresh in the business made me heave a heavy sigh and think, “Oh, gosh. This person does not want to hear my advice, for sure!”

That’s because my advice is…find a nice boy, get a good job, have some babies, write short stories for your kids, volunteer in their classrooms, read books on the weekend for fun, take walks and family vacations, and run as far away from writing/publishing as you can! Run far, far away! It will only bring you heartache!

Of course, I only sort of believe that. I personally, would not have any other life! But I did meet my husband in the kitchen to refill our coffee cups a minute ago and we had a good laugh over the run away advice. He is a musician. The real deal…CDs, radio, record deal, etc. which means he’s gone through many similar trials and tribulations that I have with writing/publishing. We both agreed that we would not change anything, and we’re very happy that we chose these paths, but honestly, if someone had told us upfront what we would have to go through to get where we are…well…the run away advice would’ve been quite tempting.

I often meet people who are amazed by the fact that we’re both professional artists and that we live such exotic (their words, not ours!) and creative lives. However, I’m here to say that every artist I know also envies people with normal lives, families, and yes, health insurance.

I just read a (nameless) ARC that has made me pause and think for almost two days! It has a stunning first chapter that got me hooked immediately. However, after about three or four chapters, I could’ve plotted the entire book on paper without any problem. I could’ve even given you the highlights for the subplots. And the surprising twist? I was there a hundred pages before the author. It wasn’t just obvious, it has been done a zillion times. There wasn’t anything new about this book’s plot at all. And yet…I never once contemplated stopping reading it. Why is that?

I’m actually quite perplexed because while the writing was pretty good, it wasn’t stunning (there were quite a few continuity errors, but this was an ARC so hopefully someone has caught and fixed those). It was fairly tight and interesting though and the characters were pretty well-developed, but there were also some big coincidences to swallow. The hook went a long way towards getting me interested, but once I figured out the plot, it wasn’t the hook that kept me reading. So what was it? And the book was long-ish, but I blew through it. The ending was not only predictable, but also a bit didactic. And yet, even when I was done, I was glad I read it.

If this had been chick-lit, that would’ve explained a lot about why I kept reading. I mean, in chick-lit, you really can plot them out at least half the time, right? And it’s no big deal if it’s a good one because they’re entertaining, funny, and have great voices, but this was a quite serious book.

It’s true, I would not recommend it on Need To Read (which is why I’m not naming it) as one “you have to read”, but if someone asked me if they should, I’d say, “Sure…it’s a good read.”

This is just so weird for me…to like a book that is essentially fairly flawed in the area of craft. Do you ever like books against all odds like this?

*It’s a debut novel, another reason I won’t give too many details because OMG, a debut is so exciting…I just wouldn’t want to take away from that in any way for the author.

I want to say right off the bat, this post is strictly about using certain terms that are true to your characters, NOT about political correctness.

I grew up in the seventies. They taught us in school (and probably at home) that the word negro was out, and we should use the word black. While I know that African-American is politically correct now, it does not roll off my tongue easily. For no other reason than I have always used the word black.

I have noticed that in books written by black authors, the characters refer to themselves as black, not so often as African-American. This term seems to be reserved for white writers and their white characters who refer to black characters. Like I was just reading a book where the writer had the teen character say, “Our principal is African-American.” Interestingly, and somewhat to my annoyance, the writer also had this character point out the Latinos, Asian-Americans etc. while never once saying, “She was white” when introducing a new Caucasian character, but that’s an entirely different post, so let’s not go there right now.

So my question is, are writers having white (or non African-Americans) use A-A because it’s politically correct, or because that is the term that teens use today? Are you a teen or do you have a teen? What would you/they say? And how does my (adult) black character refer to himself? Does he call himself black, or A-A?

The reason I’m asking is that my new MC has grown up in a predominantly white world and she makes friends with a black man and she contemplates her thoughts on race. I’m just wondering if it is more natural for her to think/say, “I’ve never had any black friends before.” or “I’ve never had any African-American friends before.” I want to be true to the character, not to political correctness.

Any thoughts?

I am reading a couple of great YAs which are part of a series. As I read, it got me thinking a bit about copy edits and regionalisms in language. I have one more round of line edits before Restoring Harmony goes into copy edits, but they’re on my mind.

My editor and I have discussed the fact that my main character is a Canadian and therefore, there are things that she would say a certain way that an American would not say. While you will hear a Canadian say “bathroom”, it’s much more common to say “washroom”. Things like that. What I’ve tried to do is leave out as many of those things as I can, and only keep the ones that really need to be there. I also have a couple of Canadian teens who are reading RH and specifically looking for mistakes that I might have made (because while I live here in Canada, I am relatively new) and they found a couple.

In these books, which are set in Seattle (I was raised in Portland, so it’s pretty much the same region), the author has her characters “wait on lines for tickets” or “wait on line for lunch”.We don’t wait on line out here though. We wait in line.Waiting on line is an east coast thing. I checked with my southern husband and he’d never even heard on line and thought I was crazy!

So, because I couldn’t help wondering if the copy editor had changed it or what, I checked the author’s bio (and by the way, we could be BFF*) and found out that she was raised at least part of the time in Seattle. So it seems to me that one of two things happened. Either she’s forgotten that we’re all out here in line because she now lives in New York, or she had it as “in line” and the copy editor changed it.

Obviously, this is not a big deal, but it does make me think about a great story that I am pretty sure Janet Reid told about one of her writers on her blog. If you are worried that someone from another region will change something and you’ll miss it, you could always take this route. When the writer got his copy edits, he wrote across the first page, “STET the whole F*&^*%G thing!”

That always makes me laugh! I won’t be doing that, for sure, but it is funny. I wanted to find you the link, but I couldn’t, so if Janet’s reading this, maybe she’ll leave it in the comments.

*Me & the author = BFF because we love to cook, we’re vegetarians, former actresses, started writing when we were 22, love guacamole, live(d) on the West Coast, and more…)

The perils of living in paradise are wonderful writing distractions like this:

Click to see it larger.

The husband wants me to state for the record that while he took this picture, it is a SNAPSHOT TAKEN WITHOUT THE PROPER LENSE AND DOES NOT REFLECT HIS PHOTOGRAPHY SKILLS IN ANY WAY, SHAPE OR FORM.

Speaking of photography, last night’s slideshow was a great success and the audience contributed $133 in donations for the PHC foodbank. Way to go, everyone and thanks for coming!

P.S. This photo is dedicated to Eileen Cook who has been demanding requesting to see pictures for a few weeks now, ever since the first spotting.

My husband has been known to say about me and my writing, “I’m so proud I’m gonna pop.” Yeah…he’s a Southerner so he says things a little differently than everyone else. As he claims, “We’ve got language, the rest of y’all just have words.” Anyway…

It’s my turn to be proud. One year ago today, my husband stated a Daily Photo Blog of our island. He has posted a picture every single day! Tonight, he is doing a slideshow at The Roxy of more than 300 of his pictures, but you can see any and all of them here.

Aside from being proud of him, the reason I bring this up is because writers should know about the City Daily Photo Blog website where you can find photographers all over the world posting daily pictures of their hometowns. It doesn’t matter if you’re writing a book about New York City or Pretoria, South Africa, you can probably find a visual record of it. It’s a great resource if you’ve never been to your location, but also if you’re writing about a place that you used to live, but need some visual details that you can’t remember.

Anyway, I hope you’ll drop by his site if you haven’t already and enjoy some great pictures of our home.

Lately, the wonderful and funny writer Eileen Cook and I have been commiserating about the fact that while we have the best job in the world, we also don’t have enough to do writing-wise and it makes us blue at times. I know I had the misconception that once I’d sold a book, the waiting would be over. HAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHA…that’s the sound of every other published author laughing themselves silly.

I don’t mean the waiting for the book to come out, or the waiting for the edits, or anything like that would be over…I mean, the waiting to write. I just kind of thought that between new projects and edits flying back and forth, I’d be busier. And I am busy at times (like a few weeks ago!), but for the most part, I still have a lot of in between time.

Eileen hit the nail on the head when she said that she thinks the blueness comes from the fact that writers like schedules and when we’re writing, we have one, but when we aren’t, we are totally up in the air about what to do with our day. For example, my agent asked when I was free to talk to him today. My answer was NOT, “Well, you can make an appointment with my secretary.” My answer was, “Well, I have to feed the neighbour’s cat…but other than that…I’m open.”

Here is my dream schedule:

Mon-Fri

6am - wake up, drink tea while writing in my journal

7am - check email and blogs, eat breakfast

7:30am - start writing (taking mini-breaks every hour or so)

10:45am - get a snack and listen to The Archers, the British radio serial I’m addicted to.

11:30 - write

1 - lunch and reading

2:30 - write

4:00 - wrap up the writing

After “work” I would walk to the Village with my husband for groceries or socialization and library books…have tea and a snack, listen to baseball on the radio, make dinner around 7pm.  Hang out. Go to bed around 10pm.

This IS my schedule when I’m working (except when edits force my days to be longer, then I just skip making dinner!).

The thing is, if I did this schedule every day, I’d need about 3 pseudonyms to publish all the books I’d create and my agent would go crazy with all the stuff I’d want him to read! No one is telling me not to write like this (not exactly anyway), but both Eileen and I find the idea of writing stuff that won’t be read for years and years to be somewhat disheartening too. So where does that leave us?

Eileen and I have been trying to brainstorm ideas of ways we can be involved in this writing life in between projects. We both hope that someday we’ll have enough books out for our lives to be BUSY…maybe not Meg-Cabot-busy, but say…Sarah-Dessen-busy (well, maybe Eileen wants to be Meg-Cabot-busy, but that would involve leaving the house too often for me).

Eileen suggested that maybe I use my marketing skills to help other people market their books. Or she might teach writing in lower-income schools via the internet. I’ve thought of writing a play I can perform in schools that has to do with books/writing/authors??? I think the crux of our problem really is that all we want to do is write though. The other things sound good in theory, but they don’t light a fire under our butts the way sinking ourselves into a new story does.

Eileen suggested I get a job, which made us both laugh. I mean, come on, “don’t be rash” as my husband always says in regards to real jobs. I know that this is an excellent problem to have, the too-much-time-to-write-problem, and that a lot of writers would be envious as they try to squish writing in between helping kids with homework and doing laundry, but it actually is an issue that I think a lot of full time, just getting started writers have. Anyway, if you are a full time writer, what do you do? Do you write anyway?

I am starting to worry about a disturbing book trend. Okay, maybe not a trend, but this is the second ARC I’ve read in the last month where the book doesn’t actually have an ending. Yes, these are both the first books in a series, but the beauty of a good series book is that it still has its own Beginning, Middle, & Ending.

Think about Harry Potter. Let’s say you read #1. If you loved it, you could probably hardly wait for the second one, but it was like waiting for an installment in a long story, not waiting for the continuation of a story you were right in the middle of reading and someone just took it from you and said, ‘you can have this back in a year’. And if you thought it was just okay and weren’t really interested in reading more, at least it was a complete story on its own.

Authors, you are not writing for TV. First books in series that simply end on a cliffhanger are not being fair to their audiences, and I personally think that sometimes an open ending like that will backfire. It certainly will with readers like me. The thing is, you are not asking me to remember the BIG MOMENT for a week, you are asking me to still be excited a year or more from now when the next book comes out. Personally, if I feel cheated out of an ending, why would I want to pick up the next one, knowing that there probably isn’t an ending there either?

Maybe kids feel differently? My friend, who is a teen, and who recommended I read this, did not seem nearly as upset as I was. Although, she did warn me, so it must’ve bugged her somewhat. Will she look for the sequel? Who knows? I doubt I will bother looking for the sequels to either of these books though. What about you? Do you like these books that just end in the middle? Do they hook you?

I bet y’all thought I forgot about this. It’s been sometime since I asked for your help thinking of some sort of school/activity/career for my main character, Jamie, in my current WIP. I didn’t forget…I was just editing Restoring Harmony. I’ll be starting line edits and then copyedits sooner rather than later too, so I doubt I’ll get back to Jamie for a while, but I did want to get back to you all.

First, thanks so much for the great responses! Some of them came via email, some via comments. Here are a few of the suggestions (not all, some are in the comment section, come came via other email addresses, so while I have them I’m not going to list everything here) that a person could do after finishing high school:

Tree technician, musical instrument builder, massage therapist, Animal Welfare Program, internet business, Katimavic (kind of like AmeriCorps, but here in Canada), AmeriCorps, photography, dog training, luthier, dog grooming…

And the winner is…well…me. The truth is, that right after I posted that, I came up with an idea that would work really well. However, your answers were all so interesting and exciting (and inspiring), that I left the post up just to see what y’all could come up with and what I might use in another book.

Postage is very expensive in Canada, but later this summer, I will be traveling to the U.S. If you made a comment or sent me a suggestion via email and you would like an ARC, email me your address and when I travel to the US, I’ll send you one. Include what genre you like and I’ll even try and find one for you that appeals to your interest (chick lit, fantasy, scary, etc.). This is only for people who commented on this topic prior to today.

Thanks for all your wonderful suggestions and I hope to use a bunch of them someday!

A lot of you have emailed and asked me who did the cover for my book. Until now, I didn’t know, but I am happy to say that my editor has passed on that info. The artist’s name is Hugh Syme and he has some wonderful work up online for your viewing pleasure at both his website and here.

POW! Going, going, gone! That is the sound of my edits going off into cyberspace and landing in my editor’s inbox. Ahhhhhhh…..life is good!

I am basically way too fried to tell y’all all the stuff I want to, all the wonderful things I learned about both my writing and writing in general during this process, but I did want to let you know I’m still here, still alive. I haven’t updated Need To Read in ages either, but I did just read a wonderful book called JULIE AND ROMEO. It’s adult fiction, and I highly recommend it. The author is Jeanne Ray. It’s an especially good lounge-chair-in-the-sun-while-you-drink-wine lemonade book. It will make you laugh, guaranteed.

Anyway, hope you’re all well. Sorry if you’ve emailed me and I haven’t responded yet. I intend to, really I do. I have just worked 11 days in a row though, and so it might take me a few days to recover before I manage to clear out my inbox. To give you an idea, I normally have about 10 emails in my inbox and the other day I had 135! I’m thinking of you though!

If you’ve been hanging around here for a while, or you have clicked on the above link to read about Restoring Harmony, then you know the story of my friend, Sarah Tradewell, the fiddler who looks just like my character, Molly in RH (who is also a fiddler).

It’s a pretty cool story how we met, and Benjamin Madison is directly responisble. He has just posted another great photo of Sarah, as well as a link to hear her fiddlin’, so stop on by his site and get an earful.

Not only do I not have to get dressed, but apparently, I don’t even have to comb my hair!

If you’ve emailed me and I haven’t responded, it’s because I have been editing. I will surface eventually and LOVE to hear all your nice comments about my cover. Thanks, so much. You all are the best!

I am thrilled to share with you the cover* of my very first novel, Restoring Harmony! I am so excited because I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this cover! It says everything I could want the cover to say.

Click on it to see it bigger.

*Still slightly in progress as some enhancement will be done to the text, including adding the spots over the first ‘e’ in my name.

Guess what? Just found out that Restoring Harmony is going to be a Summer 2010 release! So excited, as I thought it wasn’t coming out until the fall. Also, any time now, I should get a sneak peek at the cover! It may be a while before I have anything I can post, but I’m pretty excited…my first cover for my first book! How can that be? How did I end up such lucky girl? Truly blessed, I am, with a wonderful agent, fantastic editor, and most excellent publisher.

What I can share with you today is something you’ve probably seen, but now it has been “officially selected” as my author photo. As my agent said, “It’s a purrfect author photo.” Yes, he is a goofball smart guy! I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to be quoted here too!

I am on a very, very tight deadline, which of course explains why I’m procrastinating here on my blog. As I do this edit, I think I will add to this post all the things I’m learning. Free advice for you!

What I have learned so far:

1. If your editor questions your choice of words, the easiest way to fix it is to simply delete it.

2. Take lots of breaks so your head doesn’t explode.

3. Tea is your friend (as long as you’re also close to the bathroom).

More to come…

4. Turn Twitter off.

I know…I know…I have not been a good blogger. I have not updated Need To Read much because I’ve read a bunch of stuff that I either wasn’t that enthusiastic about or was adult fiction that I didn’t really feel like blogging about. I have not updated here though for a very good reason.

I am writing a brand new book!

Yes! It’s true! And I’m really excited. But I need your help! The life advice I need is not for me. It’s for my main character, Jamie Lexington-Cross (fancy name, eh?). Here’s the deal…and I need your brilliant ideas…I need to come up with something cool for Jamie to do after high school that definitely requires a HS diploma, but is NOT going off to college. At least, not traditional college.

Here are some ideas I have already:

The military

The Peace Corps

Beauty School

There’s nothing wrong with any of these ideas, and Beauty School might actually work, but I’m not sure that you have to have a diploma. And it is IMPORTANT that it is an actual diploma, and not a GED. So hit me with your best ideas! If I use yours, I’ll send you an ARC from my stash (and I just got the Penguin Fall ARCs, so I have about 50 to choose from!). Thanks, everyone!

After I signed with my brilliant agent, I sent him a long letter (yeah, it could probably have been cut by 30%) telling him all the things I would do as a writer to make his job easier and to help sell books - like publicity stuff, and meeting deadlines, and blah, blah, blah.

I ended the letter with this:

I have never been able to write an outline and three chapters. I write whole books. If you tell me you need an outline and three chapters, I will try. I will do my best to say yes when you need me to do something, even if it’s out of my comfort zone. Or maybe, especially if it’s out of my comfort zone. After all, a stretch is good for everyone.

You really shouldn’t say something like this if you don’t mean it, because yeah…I’m now writing three chapters (well, 50 pages) and an outline/synopsis, per my agent’s suggestion. And guess what, I can actually do it! And I am LOVING this approach. Seriously.

I had one totally false start a few months ago, and have scrapped that idea, which is this huge relief because I put a couple of weeks into it, not months or years. Now I am onto something that is really working out and I am sooooo excited.

This approach has forced me to design a story and not to wing it. I think that there will be a lot less revision. Heck, there probably won’t even be any more pages unless my agent and editor likes what I’ve got. There’s something very freeing about starting a book knowing that it’s an experiment and not a commitment for the next year. It allows you to play. Of course, I am happy because I’ve got the 50 pages mostly done, but ask me next week! The synopsis is still in my head…wish me luck extracting that!

Do you outline? Do you write synopses and do character work (I did this time and it’s already paid off)? Or do you dive in?

When I started college, I was a theatre major. My grandmother kept telling me to take classes like accounting and typing (yes, this was way back when everyone used typewriters and computers were still in the future). I was not about to take anything so that I could “fall back on it” when my acting career did not pan out, but I did decide to take typing just so I could get through college. Believe it or not, way back then, you could still turn in handwritten papers. But they had to be legible and that’s where I was a failure. I had handwriting that would make you mistake me for a doctor!

I’m not proud of this, by the way. In fact, every day, I write three full pages in my journal and every single morning I open the journal, look at the fresh white pages and think to myself, “Today is the day I am going to write carefully and my handwriting will be beautiful.” but no matter what I do, it’s always basically loopy chicken scratches. When we got married, my husband addressed all the invitations so that, you know, people would actually get them.

I know some of you are probably wondering how the math study is going, and while I did sort of forget about it and the book is now overdue at the library, the bits I did on prime numbers was really fun. I’m now thinking that my next project should be a handwriting improvement course. I’m not exactly sure why I need to improve my handwriting when everything I write these days has to be typed, but there are always thank you notes, right? And it’s best if they’re not only legible, but they actually get there too.

There are debates in schools right now about the need to even teach cursive writing at all. What do you think? How is your handwriting?

This picture was taken this morning. I was laying in the sunshine on the porch and my cat Grinder came out and climbed up onto my chest and licked my face. After a while, he crawled under this coffee table so that he could get into the box. He had never met a box he didn’t love.

I have many beautiful pictures of Grinder, but this one is just funny (a face only a parent could love) because it shows off his battle scars from the time he jumped out of a moving car on the Interstate. He used up a few of his lives that day (before we met), and today, this afternoon, he used up his last one. Our darlng Grinder went quickly, a stroke in my husband’s arms. One minute he was fine. The next he was gone. We should all be so lucky.

I have often said that if I had Grinder’s determination to get the things I wanted in life, I would be one successful girl. He never let silly things like rules about walking on the table or not drinking out of a glass stand in the way of getting what he wanted. One of my most favourite things that I’ve ever written is this piece about Grinder.

See ya on the flip side, Grinder. We miss you already.

Probably not, but over at my husband’s photo blog, there’s a great story to go with this picture/quilt. You can see it bigger there, too.

People say that writing is solitary. For the most part I agree, but I have had a bit of a change of heart lately. For years I wrote alone, only having one or two people read my stuff when I thought it was finished. I learned a lot, but it seemed like I did a lot of rewriting. Over the last few years, I have been very lucky and have expanded my group of readers to include about five regulars, plus my agent, and it has made a tremendous difference. Still, for the most part, I worked like I always had. I wrote and then I gave them the manuscript and they gave me notes and I went back and revised.

Recently my editor gave me a round of edits that included cutting 63 pages of a 313 page manuscript. This was an enormous challenge that I wasn’t too sure how to approach because I’d cut 65 pages from the previous draft and I was wondering exactly where I was going to find 63 pages more to cut when I hadn’t even been able to reach that first goal of cutting 75 pages. However, my editor asked a lot of good questions which sent me off in a new direction for the beginning and gave me ideas. The problem was, “Did they work?” For the first time I was faced with a deadline that would not allow me to write to my heart’s content and then give the pages to my readers. I knew it would take me nearly the whole month just to fix everything and so if I waited to get their opinion then and I’d goofed up somehow, I was going to be in big trouble.

So what I did was I started giving my husband (who is an excellent writer and critiquer) one chapter at a time. Sometimes I’d just give him a scene. Sometimes a paragraph. He was much more ruthless than he’d ever been before, and I think this was because he was dealing with much smaller portions. If you give someone a six course meal and ask them to give you a detailed report afterwards, it’s going to be much less specific than if after the appetizer you ask for a review, and again after the soup, etc. And that’s what happened here. He just refused to let me go on until what I had made sense and was done as well as I could do it. It was frustrating at times, especially when I reworked a paragraph three or four times before he would say, “Ahhh…yes.”

So the revisions are off and while I wait for the next round, I am working up a proposal for my next YA. I have an idea that I think will work and I ran the hook by my agent. He seemed to agree that it could be interesting. The thing is, he wants me to write 30 pages and a synopsis. He wants to see that before I jump into a whole novel. I have one thing to say to that. Nooooooooo!

Okay, not true anymore. He was right and I can do this. And so I have been working on this for a couple of weeks. Today, I felt I was ready to start working on the thirty pages, but something was holding me back…was the bit at the climax that I had in mind to stupid? Too unbelievable? Too contrived? I took a deep breath, sat my husband down on the couch, and pitched him my new book, complete with backstory, character descriptions, and as many plot points as I could get in. He found holes, but overall he loved it. And the bit that worried me at the end, he thought was the best part of the story. Whew…

So the point of all this rambling is that I think that keeping things in, not letting any of my trusted critique group hear what I have in mind just doesn’t work for me anymore and this discussion and brainstorming is going to work better for me. I think (hope) there will be less revision involved. I’ve already seen how points that I might have struggled to make work for days were noted, discussed, and resolved all in a matter of minutes by talking about this to my husband.

Now I know that not all of you have someone as handy as he is (he doesn’t have a regular job because he’s an artist, so basically, if I can pry the guitar or camera out of his hand, he’s ready to read), but if you have struggled along valiantly, all alone, you might give this approach a thought. Maybe there is someone that you trust that might not even be a writer, but loves to talk stories over coffee. Or someone you can call.

I read a long time ago in a screenwriting book that, “Writers cannot write in a vacuum.” and for years I told myself that they meant screenwriters, but I’m starting to think that it’s true of all kinds of writers to some extent. And yes, I know that the clipart is not the kind of vacuum they mean…I was just checking to see if you were still paying attention!

This picture is the one that I said looks like my superhero character Enviro Avenger. The photographer noticed that people were clicking over from my site to hers and emailed and offered to let me put it up here! Cool, eh?

You may have noticed that not only have I not been blogging as much as normal while finishing my edits, but I haven’t updated much on Need To Read either. I’ve discovered that I can’t really read fiction while editing. Instead of getting into the story, I find myself thinking, “the author just used that word two paragraphs ago”. Haha! Or “Another startling green-eyed character? I must update the Red Hair list!” This is not conducive to entertainment reading.

But you know me…I could not go without books entirely. I’ve been reading nonfiction. And honestly, I can’t even really remember what. Except this book. Let me just tell you that lately I’ve been feeling kind of smug in my environmental cloak, but then I read this. I seriously dare you to check out his website or read David Suzuiki’s Green Guide. You will not feel so great about what’s going on, but you will feel very inspired to do better. And it’s possible that you might just become a vegetarian too. As you know, we are vegetarians, but I don’t really preach about it (I want to, but that’s so boring!) because it is a spiritual decision for us. However, I might start talking about it more on an environmental platform because seriously…meat production is screwing up this planet big time. Anyway…

I am now back to reading fiction, and I spent all day yesterday reading Nevil Shute’s The Far Country, possibly one of his best books. Man is he good! And I’m pleased to see that he has been a bigger influence on my writing than I realized. That’s very good news. Not that I’m saying I’m the next Nevil Shute or anything, far from it, but I can definitely see what I’ve taken from his style and incorporated into my own and that makes me very happy. I can’t link to it because it’s OP and hard to find, but your library should have it. Or you could try The Paper Tiger.