So for this revision round, I have sixteen scenes left --- where everything starts to converge together and pushing toward the end --- which in the draft form is still cloudy (but that's for another post). One thing I've been noticing with my characters --- the antagonist Kendra is just really all shades of bad, which is boring and one-dimensional. I've made notes on the manuscript where I need to go back and fix that. All-bad villians are no fun. I need to find something to make her more … [Read more...]
Flashback Friday (3)
March 19, 2010 Read Comments
Things are little crazy at the day job (as usual these days). So I thought it was time to share another Flashback Friday. Since I write for teens, I thought it would be fun to revisit my own years during that time. I've kept most everything from my high school years --- some of it fun while others --- let's just say I'm so glad that part of my life is over. This installment is another note from a boy --- it looks like I saved every letter I ever got --- I have tons of them. Anyway, here's … [Read more...]
Twenty Minutes of Fame
March 17, 2010 Read Comments
As a writers with other responsibilities like a day job and/or a family, it can be really hard to find blocks of time to write. For me, it was even a challenge to find time to write this blog post since I'm in the midst of some heavy lifting at the day job with my pending software release. But you can find time to squeeze in writing -- even an hour a day -- if you break it up into twenty minute increments. And if you're really stretched thin, you can find even smaller pockets of time. So … [Read more...]
Daylight Stealing Time
March 15, 2010 Read Comments
If you're like me, you're probably a little groggy from daylight stealing savings time. I'm not a morning person as it is so the fact that I'm losing an hour -- I'm so not impressed. But I'm in the home stretch for this first revision phase. I've only got the last third of my novel left. I've set a deadline of April 30th to be done. Then I'm going to let it rest for awhile and start phase 2 in the summer. So with deadlines comes scheduling and priorities. The software deadline will be … [Read more...]
