Category Archives: On Writing

Books That Made Me: The Queen’s Thief Series

Authors You Should Know, On Reading, On Writing, , ,

Welcome to the fourth and final installment of my “Books That Made Me” series, part of the #SixteensBlogAbout series featuring The Sweet Sixteens’ favorite books and authors.  So far in this little series, I have written about the book that made me evangelical about reading, that books that enthralled me, and the books that launched me into a community of readers.  Today I get to talk about a series of books that is close to my heart – the series that made me want to be a writer: The Queen’s Thief series by Megan Whalen Turner.

TheThiefAug05   QueenOfAttoliaAug05   KoA404x612   CoK133x201

Continue reading Books That Made Me: The Queen’s Thief Series →

Guest Post from Celeste Lim: How I Got My Agent

Authors You Should Know, Guest Posts, On Writing,

celeste-lim

Today we’ll hear from author Celeste Lim, who shares her agent story as part of The Sweet Sixteens’ #SixteensBlogAbout November theme.  A Chinese born and raised in Malaysia, Celeste holds an MFA in Creative Writing from The New School and an MA from Manhattanville College. She is represented by Rosemary Stimola of Stimola Literary Studio and her debut middle-grade novel is forthcoming from Scholastic Press in spring 2016.

About Celeste’s book: In Medieval China, a girl is sold by her family to become a nursemaid and wife to a toddler husband. With the help of sentient creatures called jing, she discovers internal strength, and a destiny that is foretold to intertwine with her spirit guardian – a great, golden fox spirit.

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1000 is the Magic Number

On Writing, Works in progress, ,

For me it is, anyway. As in 1000 words per day. Ever since I started the draft of my newest work in progress, I have committed to writing 1000 words per day as a manageable amount, and this morning I hit 18,000 words after two weeks. This is lightning fast, for me. It’s a new era for this tortoise.

Years ago, when I first started writing, I couldn’t give myself word count goals – too frightening, too much pressure. So I set time limits for myself. I had to work for an hour at a time. I made myself a CD that was exactly an hour long and I had to keep at it, even if I was just staring at the screen, until the last song was over. The first 30 to 45 minutes were usually agony, but by the time that hour was up, I was hitting “repeat” on the CD player. That tactic got me through several manuscripts. Continue reading 1000 is the Magic Number →

Another Sneak Peek

Authors You Should Know, On Writing, Works in progress, Young Adult Fantasy

So remember a few weeks ago, when I posted 7 lines from a recent work-in-progress because the current one was too formless for such things?  Well, maybe the 777 Meme has burned itself out by now, but I am bringing it back because I am so excited that the as-yet-untitled sequel to my as-yet-untitled debut now has words on pages (over 6000, even!).

Set-up: this story is from the point of view of a different main character than the first book, but I am not going to tell you who because it would spoil the end of the first book.  🙂 So I will give a very broad description of the plot: this story is about a character from a privileged background struggling to find her place in a new world where the things that made her special no longer matter.

I am supposed to post the first full 7 lines on the 7th page, starting 7 lines down.  Here you go:

Continue reading Another Sneak Peek →