This past December, I attended an excellent presentation on Painless Plot Pointers given by David Macinnis Gill. David is the author of young adult and middle grade novels and has taught plot structure for the MFA program at Vermont College. In his workshop, David walked us through the new Three Act plot structure. The traditional […]
The turn of a New Year offers time to reflect back and look forward. I’m not much for resolutions, but I do set writing goals for the coming year. Looking back, my writing goal for 2025 was to complete a first draft of my novel-in-progress. I didn’t quite get there, but I did make significant […]
For the past several years, the Great Dickens Christmas Fair has been on my holiday radar. I first spotted it while researching Bay Area outings for when my guests visit over the Christmas holidays. Unfortunately, the timing never worked out. The fair closes the weekend before Christmas, and my guests arrive a few days later. […]
I’ve just returned from a 10-day trip to England. I’m still fighting the jetlag, but the trip was fabulous. We spent seven days in London, then took day trips to Cambridge, Bath, and the Cotswolds. I hadn’t visited England in decades, not since I was a college student on a term abroad. Long ago, I’d […]
A few years back, when attending a writer’s conference, I signed up for a group pitch session with a literary agent. I had a complete and polished manuscript and had honed a pitch. From prior experience (albeit years earlier), I assumed the pitch would consist of genre, word count, and the back cover teaser. When […]
I’ve been busy drafting my next novel and am happy to report steady progress. Not the chapter a week that I’d been hoping for, but I am cranking out chapters in time to meet my critique group deadline for review. The story muse is speaking to me again. Even when I’m not actively typing, my […]
I don’t typically make New Year’s resolutions, but come January I do think about my writing goals for the year ahead. This year, my goal is to complete at least a first draft of my next novel. I have about eight chapters of this new work drafted. But my progress stalled for most of last […]
Every year on Black Friday, while others are out hunting for bargains, we put up our Christmas tree. We fetch the boxes from the basement, and I carefully unwrap hundreds of ornaments that have been packed in tissue paper since last January.When looking for ornaments, one of my favorite places to visit is the Orchard […]
Every August for the past decade, my writer’s critique group and friends have gathered for our annual writer’s retreat. This tradition started back in 2011, when we sought a weekend away from our daily responsibilities to create space for writing. There are no programs during this weekend, no speakers, no schedule. It is simply time […]
My August started off with a bang, as I attended the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) Summer Virtual Conference. This weekend-long writer’s conference featured keynote addresses by stellar children’s authors and illustrators, panel sessions on the state of the children’s book publishing industry, and a slew of breakout workshops. Pre-pandemic, this annual […]
