Category Archives: On Writing

Writing for All Ages

Authors You Should Know, Interviews, On Publishing, On Writing

I was honored to take part recently in a group interview of authors who publish books for multiple age groups, along with authors: Hena Khan, Nora Shalaway Carpenter, Leah Henderson, and Casey Lyall. Robin Galbraith conducted the interview for Cynsations, the excellent writing resource blog run by New York Times bestselling, award-winning children’s-YA author and all-around lifter-up-of-other-creators, by Cynthia Leitich Smith. Click here to read “Writing & Marketing for Multiple Age-Levels” at Cynsations.

(And shout-out to Casey Lyall, who provided my new favorite phrase in listing her picture books as being geared to “ages 0 to Immortal Being”. )

10 Things You Can Do to Put Off Writing/Editing and Still Feel Like You’re Working

On Writing, Silly Stuff

…brought to you by the terrifying plot point I am supposed to be fixing right now.

1. Sharpen pencils. Writers need pencils, right? Really, you are just making life easier for Future You. It’s preparation.pencils

2. index-cardsDecide you need index cards to attack the particular plot problem you are working on. No, those index cards in the drawer won’t do. Go to the office supply store and spend an hour picking out just the right size, color, and style. Maybe you need sticky notes too! That could even be a separate trip!

3. Light a candle to call the Muse. Spend fifteen minutes sorting through your candle selection to find the perfect scent to match the mood of the scene you are supposed to be working on.

The answer is always Oxford Library, but that doesn't mean I can't spend time asking the question.
The answer is always Oxford Library, but that doesn’t mean I can’t spend time asking the question.

4. Make a cup of tea. Not only does this put off the inevitable moment when you have to sit down and work, it guarantees a break in an hour when you will have to go to the bathroom.

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5. When you get up to go to the bathroom, make more tea. See? It’s an endless cycle.

Please note that my house does NOT look like this.
Please not that my house does NOT look like this.

6. Search for images for your screensaver or Pinterest board to get you into the mood for the scene. Spend fifteen minutes artfully arranging them and/or writing cagey comments about what they represent.

garden

7. Make a playlist of music to inspire your writing. This yields lots of fodder for procrastination: you can spend time making the list, tweeting and blogging about it, and then spend lots of time before you write deciding which songs to listen to.

cat-with-headphones-728x4098. Post a pithy observation about writing on Twitter with the #amwriting hashtag. Then look through the other entries under that hashtag, because it’s all about being a part of the community.

9. Read one sentence of your scene and then decide you need to do more research on an obscure plot point. So it will be more real to you, of course

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10. Write a blog post about how to procrastinate. It definitely counts toward your platform as a writer.

so-blogging

Oh, look at that!  My tea is cold.  Time to go make another cup…

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.”

Read the full post here – maybe you need Steph’s wisdom too

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.

the-view-from-saturday-9780689817212_lgEarlier 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:

disenchantedbookcover-243x365

Disenchanted: The Trials of Cinderella by Megan Morrison

Whimsy with a conscience.  I truly love this book.

 

 

ham

The Hamilton Mixtape

The phrase “sheer brilliance” just about sums it up.

 

 

tgfe

The Girl from Everywhere by Heidi Heilig

Smart fantasy at its finest.

 

 

winter

Winter Dreams for Christmas by R. Carlos Nakai and William Eaton

My  very favorite Christmas album, with haunting, beautiful arrangements of classic songs for cedar flute and guitar.

 

dumplin

Dumplin’ by Julie Murphy – audiobook narrated by Eileen Stevens

A funny, heartwarming book, with a terrific narrator.

 

 

3-things

Tell Me Three Things by Julie Buxbaum – audiobook narrated by Jorjeana Marie

An insanely compelling audio book that kept me in the driveway to find out what happened next!

 

downton

Downton Abbey

Thanks to Tobie Easton getting me hooked on this, I have mainlined most of the series over the last three months.

 

 

hbp

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling – audiobook narrated by Jim Dale

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.

fr

Fraggle Rock

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:

 

 

Shinings and Veilings and Lamps, Oh My!: The Qilarite Calendar

Extras, On Writing, Sword and Verse, Young Adult Fantasy,

“How exactly does the calendar system in Sword and Verse work?”

That’s a question I get often from readers curious about the Shinings and Veilings of Qilara’s calendar, so I thought I’d share some of the background information about the system here.

The story of the gods, of course, plays a huge role in the Qilarite understanding of time:

Gyotia fashioned a lamp from the sky-fire and carried it as he wandered the night philandering, though he veiled it when he visited the bedrooms of mortal women.  So regular were his wanderings that the mortals below began to order the year by the fourteen Shinings and fourteen Veilings of Gyotia’s Lamp.

Each Shining/Veiling pair, then, is what we know as one lunar cycle.  The Qilarite year is made up of fourteen of these cycles.

A Shining begins at the waxing half-moon, continues through what we would call the full moon, and ends at the waning half-moon.  A Veiling (i.e. when Gyotia covers his lamp) begins at the waning half-moon and continues through the new moon and until the next waxing half-moon.  Shining and Veilings are fourteen to fifteen days each and vary in length depending on the visibility of the moon in Qilara at various times of year.

Here is how Qilarite scribes envision the year:

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This calendar begins at the peak of the diamond and goes clockwise.  As you can see, the year begins at First Shining, halfway through the dry season of Lilana.  Eighth Veiling, in the middle of the wet, dark season of Qorana, is considered the low point of the year.

Notes about special days:

First Day of First Shining: Festival of Gyotia.  This day is sacred to Gyotia and many weddings are held on this day to earn his blessing.

First Day of Second Shining: Festival of Lanea, also known as the Day of the Brides.  On this day, women who were married at First Shining are celebrated by the female members of their families.  This day signifies the end of their wedding celebration and their taking on the full responsibilities of a wife.

First Day of Fifth Shining: Festival of Qora, also known as Qorana Qia (first day of Qorana).  Traditionally celebrated with a fair or market and several days of festivities.

First Day of Eighth Veiling: Sotiana (the festival of Sotia).  This has not been openly celebrated in Qilara for hundreds of years, though it is celebrated on the Nath Tarin.  It is the only festival celebrated at the Veiling instead of the Shining, and it centers around images of the light of Sotia’s wisdom against the dark.

First Day of Tenth Shining: Festival of Suna. Celebrations of this festival center around home, memories, and family.

First Day of Twelfth Shining: Festival of Lila, also known as Lilana Qia (first day of Lilana). This festival is celebrated with several days of physical contests and mock battles to welcome the dry season.

First Day of Thirteenth Shining: Festival of Aqil. Celebrated with a pantomime telling tales of the gods, with the highest ranking Scholar boy of sixteen playing Aqil.

How would you identify a specific day on the Qilarite calendar?

Years are identified by the monarch.  For example: “the seventh year of the reign of King Tyno”.

Specific days are identified by their place with a particular Shining or Veiling.  For example: “the second day of Fifth Veiling”.

Put them together, and you identify the date.  Here are some important dates within the timeline of Sword and Verse:

The story opens with Raisa in the Library: Seventh day of Eleventh Veiling in the Thirteenth Year of King Tyno’s Reign

Jonis tries to recruit Raisa to the Resistance: First Day of Thirteenth Veiling in the Fourteenth Year of King Tyno’s Reign

Mati’s Eighteenth Birthday: Third Day of Second Veiling in the Sixteenth Year of King Tyno’s Reign

 

 

New Interviews

Interviews, On Writing, Sword and Verse

I’ve got a couple of new interviews to share!

  1. I was honored to be interviewed by fellow author and Sweet Sixteen admin Dee Romito for her excellent Query.Sign.Submit.Debut! series.  Dee has amassed a treasure trove of information from published authors about their varied journeys to launch day!
  2. I was also interviewed by Blackplume for the Celebrating Debutantes 2016 series.  I was especially delighted to have a chance to discuss some of the social justice issues in Sword and Verse. Check out the link for lots of wonderful interviews and giveaways with 2016 debuts!