I just got back from my favorite August event – an epic two-week camping trip that my son and I take every year. This year we started at the absolutely mystical Fairy Stone State Park in Virginia:
The view from our camp site. These are definitely fairy woods.
Then we headed down to Greenville, South Carolina, where we got to view the eclipse at 100% totality. Totally indescribable and totally worth the trip! (Even the part where I left our eclipse glasses at home and had to have a friend mail them to our camp site – thanks, Janet!)
Leave it to a couple of introverts to find an uncrowded place to view the eclipse!
Got my eclipse-appropriate reading!
Our last stop was Knoxville, Tennessee, where we indulged my son’s animal-loving instincts at Zoo Knoxville and the Gentle Barn, a truly transformative animal rescue. And of course he managed to make a friend at the campground:
Now I am back and getting ready to dive into line edits for the sequel to Sword and Verse (I SWEAR I will be able to share the title soon!). And today I got a sneak peek at the cover. It’s gorgeous and I can’t wait to share it with you all!
Back in May, I was honored to participate in a panel about the experiences of women in publishing, media, and broadcasting at Balticon 51. The other panelists were Nuchtchas, Lisa-Anne Samuels, and Veronica Giguere, and John Walker moderated. You can hear the panel now on the Nutty Bites Podcast. Prepare to hear stories from the trenches, good and bad, as a diverse group of women talk about what it’s really like to fight for recognition of their creativity and hard work.
This writing thing can really knock you on your butt sometimes. Twice this year I got caught up in the maelstrom of negative thoughts, putting so much pressure on myself that I pushed myself to the brink of an abyss of anxiety.
Why does this happen? I suspect it’s different for every writer, but for me it’s because I get caught up in the myth that it’s somehow easy for other people, and if I just push through and push through, somehow it will become easy for me too. But the thing is that making art is hard, even if it doesn’t look it from the outside. But even that thought didn’t help as I was driving toward the abyss last month, because I’d just tell myself that it was hard but that I should somehow be able to just get over it all and do it anyway.
And then a newsletter arrived in my mailbox, from my friend Steph Lagana, a lighthouse in the world, and it told me exactly what I needed to hear when I needed to hear it:
“And this is really important, DON’T DO IT BEFORE IT FEELS RIGHT. It doesn’t need to feel easy. In fact it could be really simple and feel SUPER @#$%&*$ SCARY. See above. It also doesn’t need to make sense. It just needs to feel RIGHT.”
And I suddenly understood why everything felt wrong with the writing project I had been working on. Even though I loved the story, the characters, the premise, I was trying to do it at the wrong time. I had been trying to write with an empty pen.
Earlier this year, I reread an old favorite with my son, The View from Saturday by E.L. Konigsburg. One of the characters, Noah, learns calligraphy, and one of the most important lessons he learns is this:
“Filling the pen is not what you do before you begin. It is the beginning.”
(My Sugar Quill people will appreciate the fact that this bit of wisdom appears on page 87.)
My head knew this; I even had several conversations about it with other authors back in October. Yet still I pushed myself, trying to force this book into existence. It wasn’t until I was at my wit’s end that I finally understood this with my heart and decided to take time off from writing altogether.
When I made that decision, it was like a weight had been lifted from my lungs. And I realized the utter ridiculousness of the fear that had been driving my push forward: I was afraid that if I really took a break from writing, somehow I would never be able to start again. This is ludicrous. I have finished six novel manuscripts and nine nonfiction manuscripts; I’ve done it before and I can do it again. And yet the fear persists, every single time. The irony is that there was no way I could find my way back to writing until I let go of it for awhile.
So now I am focusing on the things that inspire me, so that, when the time is right, I can go back to that work in progress with joy and vigor. Here are some of the things that have been filling my pen lately:
Because any list of what inspires me naturally has to include Harry Potter, and this is the one my son and I are currently listening to. On this listen, I am especially appreciating how well Narcissa Malfoy’s storyline is developed.
Also a staple of my inspiration. You can’t be uncheered by Fraggle Rock. Here’s one of my very favorite clips. It always inspires me, so maybe it will inspire you too:
My son and I just got back from an epic 2-week camping trip to Tennessee and Arkansas. For 2 glorious weeks, I did not work on anything and did not check even one email. Here are some pictures from the fun:
View from our campsite in Knoxville:
Fun in the fountain at World’s Fair Park in Knoxville:
The alligator farm in Hot Springs (aka the content of my nightmares):
The only picture I got from the absolutely gorgeous Garvan Gardens before my phone died:
And my son’s favorite part of the trip: the ducks at our campsite in Hot Springs. They followed us around and wagged their tails. So of course he named them. (From left to right: Jerry, Tina, Mr. Grumpy Gills, Bob)
I’ve posted a round-up of the most common questions I get about Sword and Verse, my writing process, and my favorite stuff. Which Hogwarts House would I be Sorted into? Do I write longhand on a computer? What’s my favorite movie? Check out the FAQ to find out!
Earlier this year, I reread an old favorite with my son, 
Stories By Hand with Kathy MacMillan 