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Writing Quote Wednesday: Making Art
“In order to make art, we must be willing to labor.” —Julia Cameron, Finding Water, p. 46 Creating stories is hard work. Sometimes I feel like an elephant holding a paintbrush in front of a crowd (only in the elephant’s case, there is always a cheering crowd).…
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Writing Quote Wednesday: Listen
“If you listen, you don’t have to make anything up.” —George Ella Lyon, VSRA Conference, March 18, 2011 Sitting in an ER, a coffee shop, a park, a restaurant I find that truth is almost unbelievable at times. It’s in those places that I catch snippets of characters,…
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Writing Quote Wednesday: Don’t Give Up
Todays’ quote is from a Publisher’s Weekly article last week after Katherine Applegate won the Newbery for THE ONE AND ONLY IVAN: “Fittingly, Applegate notes, she recently found a scrap of paper, something she had written a few years ago. On it were the words, ‘Should I give up…
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Making Time to Write Monday: A Virtual Research Trip
Last week I shared a few pictures from my research trip to Emerald Isle, NC. I spent several days there gathering a few details for my young adult novel. At the exact same time, my parents were visiting Bangkok, Thailand. They live in Thailand, but were visiting Bangkok for…
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Writing Quote Wednesday: Winter
“Let us love winter, for it is the spring of genius.” – Pietro Aretino I’m not a big fan of winter. I grew up in the tropics, so I love flip-flops and warm weather. I have a hard time staying motivated when the daylight hours are shorter. But this…
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Making Time to Write Monday: Research Trip
The protagonist in my young adult novel is from Emerald Isle, North Carolina though very little of the book actually takes place there. I’ve been working on this book for awhile (gulp, years). I’ve tried on a few occasions to make a research trip to Emerald Isle. I did a…
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Making Time to Write Monday: Writing Retreat
I had the most amazing gift this weekend–a weekend to write. Four of the people in my critique group went to Wintergreen Ski Resort. A generous friend lent us their condo. It was terrible skiing weather at 70 degrees, but it was perfect for writing. We ate sandwiches and…
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Writing Quote Wednesday: Confidence
“Waiting for ‘confidence’ before pursuing success is as absurd as waiting for your muscles to grow before you pick up a dumbbell.” —Resilience by Mark McGuinness It’s the beginning of the year. My writing goals are still shiny and enticing. My writing muscles are a bit sore…
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Writing Quote Wednesday: Small Steps
“All creative work is made by many small steps. The steps themselves are rarely great leaps. It is the faith to begin that we must cultivate.” —Julia Cameron, Twitter, September 15, 2012 And so we begin another year–writing every day. Little by little making our way to…
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Making Time to Write Monday: Getting Unstuck
A couple of months ago, I’d been writing at a rapid pace in my hour every morning. It was pouring out of me. Then it wasn’t. My book that I’d been working so hard to revise was at a standstill, and I wasn’t happy about it. I could force…