THE TRUTH ABOUT FOREVER by Sarah Dessen

When I was in NYC a few year ago I discovered that I was out of books to read while I traveled, so I went to a bookstore to remedy the situation. NYC is expensive, and while I’m not cheap, I was on a budget, so when I saw that I could get two Sarah Dessen novels...

Vacation?

Well, I finished my manuscript and sent it to my agent last night. Now what? Vacation? I am feeling the urge to cook, so maybe we’ll eat really well for a while, which would be a nice change to pasta and pesto at 10pm because I’ve been writing all day. I...

THINK AND GROW RICH…if I must!

Maybe you’re familiar with oh…say…pretty much every self help book out there designed to help you do what you love for a living and be both financially and creatively successful, or maybe not. But either way, it is often believed that Napoleon Hill...

The work before the party…

If you’ve been following my blog, you will know that my life has been an alternating pattern of writing and painting. I write for a while, then I paint some more of the interior of our new house. Well, we’ve been here six months now and the kitchen and...

I’m about to surface again!

Well, I did it. I just sent my critique group my new revision. Now I wait for their brilliance and insight, do another (hopefully not too long) pass through, and send the book off to my agent. Wahoo! And just to add a little icing to the cake, I got an email the other...

RULES and THE YEAR OF SECRET ASSIGNMENTS

RULES by Cynthia Lord – I can’t remember who mentioned this book on their blog, but boy am I glad they did! As you know, I’m not always a big Middle Grade fan, but this one rocks! My husband always calls me a rule follower, so he probably thinks...

The home stretch…

I’m in the home stretch of this revision so if I disappear for a week or so, make sure you come back again! I will, I promise. And I’ll be updating Need To Read too, so stop by there. Happy writing (or whatever it is you do that makes you happy)!

Red Hair Be Gone continued…

I was working (not watching the Cubbies lose), when the phone rang. Usually, I ignore the phone when I’m working, but I saw on the caller ID that it was NYC and since I don’t have my agent’s number memorized, I thought I better answer it just in...

Burning the midnight oil continued –

One of the best time for me to work out plot problems is as I’m drifting off to sleep, or in the middle of the night, after I’ve gotten up to go to the bathroom. Unlike normal people who stumble out of bed, go pee, stumble back to bed and are instantly...

TYRELL by Coe Booth

This is a pretty amazing book. It is set in The Bronx, and I was thinking to myself after I finished it how I live in an entirely different world. Then I went out to the kitchen to get some water and two deer bounded through my front yard. Yep. A tad different than...

PLUS by Veronica Chambers

This is a hilarious book. It looks a bit like light chick lit YA, and I guess in some ways it is light, but it’s got some depth too and the character, Bee is just too funny! I read this straight through and really enjoyed it. I don’t usually include what a...

Burning the midnight oil…zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I know writers who keep a pen and notepad by their bed at night in case they wake up with a story idea, or a solution to a problem they’re stuck on. I don’t do this. The few times I tried it, my brilliant midnight ideas either turned out to be lame,...

Red Hair Be Gone!

The coolest thing happened yesterday, although I do think that maybe some authors are going to be pretty upset with me. Read about it here.

How dedicated are you to your writing?

Last year, before we moved, we debated back and forth on whether or not to buy a new flat screen TV because there was no way we were going to move our hundred plus pound 27″ TV. Heck, we barely got it out to the porch for the garage sale, let alone across the...

The knucklehead story continued (both of us)

This cat, which we will call Grinder, since that’s his official name, although today I called him a few choice other names, believes that the very best places to sleep are the places he is not allowed to go. For example, the top of my computer desk. Another...

STORY OF A GIRL by Sara Zarr

Can I just say that Sara Zarr is the coolest name ever? Okay, now I’ve got that off my chest, let’s talk about the book. This is a really good book, but you knew that because I’m blogging about it and I wouldn’t if I didn’t like it. This...

B FOR BUSTER by Iain Lawrence

I know that Iain Lawrence is an award winning writer, but for some reason I had never come across his books until I moved to the small town where we live now. And why did he suddenly end up on my reading list? Because he lives here too. All I can say is lucky me...

You couldn’t pay me to live here…

But you could pay me to write about living here. Heck, I’m writing about living here for free right now (but hopefully someone will pay me eventually). One of the notes my agent gave me was that I needed to work on my descriptions. Seems like they’re all...

Q&A with Elana Roth

Here’s a little about Elana Roth: Elana is graduate of Barnard College and the Jewish Theological Seminary, and is nearly at her 10 year mark in New York City. She started her career at Nickelodeon Magazine, researching wacky and even gross stories. Most...