The Liebster Blog Award was given to me by the awesome Beth Fred, whose blog is magical and has purple sparkles that follow you everywhere you put your cursor! Check it out here.
This award spotlights bloggers who have less than 300 followers (like me, so far). As recipients pay it forward, Liebster love keeps growing. Recipients are also asked to share their 5 top picks, then include the following in their blog:
1. Thank the giver and link back to the blogger who awarded you.
2. Reveal your top 5 picks & let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.
3. Copy & paste the award on your blog. (see award image above!)
4. Have faith that your followers will spread the love to other bloggers.
5. And most of all—have bloggity-blog fun!
Lots of my picks are indie authors to watch. So, here goes:
1. Arthur Slade, a well-published kids' fantasy author, who is turning all of his out of print books into indie gold! Learn how here.
2. Christine Murray, a journalist and author of urban fantasy, who lives in Dublin. Her blog is always thoughtful.
3. Katie Klein, successful indie author of YA fantasy, tells it like it is about her publishing experience. Worth a look!
4. Jenny Phresh's Party Pony blog. OMG, she is the funniest writer alive. I'm not kidding!
5. Angela Carlie, a middle grade & YA author of fantasy. Check her blog here. She's a member of the indie collective, DarkSide Publishing, a very impressive group. And her novel, Land of Corn Chips has the best title and cover everrrrr.
A writer spends many hours in his or her den, office, cubicle, studio, or as I affectionately call mine—the rabbit hole. So, the way that the space is arranged is an important aspect of being able to settle in. Are you someone who needs a window, streaming with morning light, or do you prefer a dark, cave? Do you like music when you write? Do you use a boombox, an analog record player, or do you listen on your earbuds to the cache on your iPhone? What’s your playlist for your WIP? Right now mine is Velvet Revolver and anything metal or spooky.
I love to write outside in the summer. Witness my sandaled foot, perched on the wooden table at the Cape retreat.
On the table are essentials: coffee and my iPhone. In another photo, see my view on the wraparound porch. Then, there’s a pic of one of my writing cohorts, Maggie, who shares the side porch with me. It’s a rare person I can actually share space with when I write. This attests to how comfortable I feel around her.
Oh, and there’s my lovely retreat hostess, Helen, in her monkey PJs. You see, part of the writing process involves lounging on a morning porch in kiddie PJs and drinking about five cups of coffee, while we rant and rave about our stubborn characters,
our meandering plots, and all of the things that intervene in the writing process—kids, jobs, um… life?
I also have a photo here of my home studio in NYC (Above).
The array of stuff that I have on the wall facing my desk seems random, but it's very planned out. This is where I post pics of my characters, so I can “talk to them” when I write. I also have pics of my writing mentors—Dale Peck and Steven Wright, to name two. They were teachers of mine in my MFA program, and I still hear their voices, encouraging or demanding more.
What does your writing space look like? Do you like the Spartan or the pack rat approach? Do you post lots of photos of your characters and settings like I do? Or is most everything filed in your head? Do you put up the occasional inspirational saying? My latest favorite is from author Franny Billingsley: “A book is like an elegant and efficient machine. Each cog needs to turn something else and, if it doesn't, it should be taken out.” And what’s your writing playlist? Dish here.
It’s that time again for the writing retreat I attend. I look forward to it for months. And I’m willing to endure crawling highway traffic and power outages for it. We have coffee on the porch in the morning while we talk shop. Then we go to our “writing stations”, at various spots on the wraparound porch. We work pretty much through the afternoon, with a quick lunch break. And then, when we're hot, tired and our brains are on overload, we trek through the woods to the beach. We take turns cooking dinner, and play writing games at night. Not a bad life for a week.
I’ve attended an assortment of writing workshops, conferences and retreats over the years. There are ones where you mostly workshop, and spend lots of time reading other authors’ work and critiquing. This is great when you're jumping in for the first time, and really want feedback on your work. There are conferences, where you listen to seasoned writers talk about their novels and how to best negotiate the writing life. This type of event is perfect when what you want is a shot of inspiration and information. And there are many permutations of the above. Summer retreats are also a chance to spend time in a deluxe location—Lake Tahoe, Southampton, Big Sur, Mendocino—you get the drift.
There are so, so many to choose from! You’ll discover this when you Google retreats. And they occur throughout the year. If you’re considering one, find out who the presenting writers are, and whether they’re a good fit for what you’re working on. You may prefer a smallish one, or perhaps a huge one, like the LA SCBWI summer conference, where you can blend in and pick and choose which breakout groups to attend. It doesn’t hurt that there’s a spa and two swimming pools out there.
So, Happy, Happy July Fourth! Have you ever attended a writing retreat? How was it? If not, what kind of retreat or conference would you look for? How are you celebrating the holiday? Getting any writing done?
Has anyone been following the Casey Anthony trial? I hate to admit it, but I’ve gotten transfixed. This has only happened a few times with me: during the OJ and the Menendez brothers’ trials.
How does this relate to writing, you ask? A lot. I’m interested in analyzing what goes into a good mystery or thriller, or simply how to write great, prolonged suspense. A complex trial like this one, with so many unexpected twists and turns, and with such rampant lies and weird pathology, by its very nature, is buzzing with suspense.
How could a pretty, popular mom kill her child? Is Casey Anthony a violent sociopath, or was her two-year-old daughter's death a swimming accident? There were no eyewitnesses, so the prosecution must build its case on what's called “circumstantial” evidence—putting together pieces of the puzzle, such as a search on the home computer for chloroform 84 times! Or the question of why would one need to apply 3 layers of duct tape to a drowning victim. And why did this mother decide to throw her father and brother under the bus by saying they did nefarious things to her, when all along the father and brother were her staunch defenders? And then, there’s the meter reader, Roy, who found the little girl, Caylee’s skull, buried up to its eyeholes, in a trash dump. If you believe the defense theory, he arranged the bones and duct tape to get the cash reward (That he never received). If you believe the prosecution, Roy was the hero, who finally found the remains of little Caylee, and helped bring her one step closer to justice. The way the lawyers present their witnesses, and all of the forensics testimony, is truly fascinating to me. One person is a hair expert. Another is an expert in detecting volatile gases. And they all want to drivel on about their gadgets.
Will I ever try to tackle writing trial scenes? A very intimidating idea! One would have to speed through the typical minutia of an actual trial to get to the meat, where someone’s sobbing on the stand, or obviously lying, and perjuring themselves. In the Casey Anthony trial, even though spectators have traveled from all over to get in the courtroom, many have fallen asleep from the droning “experts” only to be kicked out for snoring.
Has anyone tried to write a trial scene? To Kill a Mockingbird comes to me. Have you learned how to write suspense from watching a trial, used forensics in a scene, or written a mystery with any of these aspects? Anyone recall a children’s or YA novel that includes some part of a trial? Dish here.
I’ve been invited by the amazing Pandora Poikilos to post on “The Book that Most Inspired Me” Blog-A-Licious Blog Tour. Join us in the hop that connects bloggers of all genres, backgrounds and locations and share with us all the book that inspires you the most too! For me, without a doubt it is Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
One Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, aka Lewis Carroll, born in England in 1842, wrote a book for Alice Liddell, the daughter of the head of Christ Church. He'd often told her the story of the girl plunging down the rabbit hole, and she asked him to please, please, please write it down for her.
Who can forget his spectacular characters: the Mad Hatter, the Red Queen, the March Hare, the Rock Lobster, the Caterpillar with his hookah and the sleepy dormouse? Alice’s entry into the eensy, weensy door that gained her entry into a magical world inspired not only my imagination, but seemingly many authors who designed similar magic portals in their novels: the wardrobe of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, The Magic Treehouse series, and the list goes on. Who can forget Carroll's wondrous inventions such as the “Drink Me” bottle, or events like the Mad Tea Party, where the guests simply moved ‘round the table when their teacups became dirty?
“A bright idea came into Alice's head. `Is that the reason so many tea-things are put out here?' she asked.
`Yes, that's it,' said the Hatter with a sigh: `it's always tea-time, and we've no time to wash the things between whiles.'
`Then you keep moving round, I suppose?' said Alice.
`Exactly so,' said the Hatter: `as the things get used up.'
`But what happens when you come to the beginning again?' Alice ventured to ask.
`Suppose we change the subject!' the March Hare interrupted.”
And who can forget the Gryphon teaching Alice the lines,
“'Tis the voice of the Lobster; I heard him declare,
You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair."
As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose, trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes.”
Even the great Russian novelist, Nabokov was inspired by the wordplay and logic games of Carroll. Read Nabokov’s Pale Fire and this is quite evident. It is is a fictional 99-line poem being edited and critiqued by an ineffectual, pompous fictional editor. Nabokov's abundance of wordplay and hilarious absurdity is an obvious mirror to Carroll’s work.
The “curiouser and curiouser” Lewis Carroll also gave me the
courage to know that I could do two things at once:
be a serious visual artist and author. The man was
multitalented. Not only the author of brilliant children’s
literature, he was a math professor at Oxford, an author of logic
and math textbooks as well as political essays. He was
also a respected photographer. He even coined
words. Chortle, a nonsense word in his poem Jabberwocky,
which was a combination of snort and chuckle, eventually
made it into the dictionary! He even drew the original
illustrations, which one can see at the
British Museum (see image above).
Whenever and whatever I write, I think of Lewis Carroll;
his unbounded imagination and his joy in playing with
Hi All! Welcome to my blog about writing fiction, with a focus on writing for kids and teens. I am jumping into the She Writes fourth annual Bloggers' Ball a bit late, but better late than never! Meg Waite Clayton, the fabulous host, is an inspiration to all, for her generous community-building. It's always a thrill to discover a new blog that talks about whatever's been on your mind, whether it's what's happening with digital pubbing, or tools to creating a vivid antagonist, or a description of a novel that is just what you're in the mood to read.
As for me, I write YA and middle-grade fiction, and I also illustrate. You can see a couple of my books on my right-side banner, and my banner up top is a pen and ink drawing of mine.
Without further ado, I will now go Blog Hopping, and I encourage you to click into the Bloggers' Ball logo above (The bookshelf) to do some hopping and dancing of your own!
On June 3rd, 4th and 5th I led a workshop in at the Philadelphia Writers' Conference in Writing Fiction for Kids and Teens. I’m used to teaching 2 or 3-hour classes, so I wasn’t sure how much I could impart to students in hour-long segments. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I can, indeed, squeeze a lot in! Handouts worked well, board charts were effective, and I made sure to have lots of interaction with my students, who contributed unique ideas and questions.
I loved my attendees’ enthusiasm and intelligence. Most people had already written at least part of a manuscript and were savvy about the requirements of their genre. Many in the group rose valiantly to my challenge of writing the dreaded 2-line elevator pitch. They are writing all kinds of cool stuff: space operas, high fantasy and snappy realistic YA to name just a few. The thoughtful Kerry Gans blogged about her experience here.
I sat in on Kelly Simmon’s last class on Plot. Kelly is a popular writer of suspenseful fiction. She drew a chart depicting the various kinds of writers: dreamer, outliner, driven worker bee, and what I call “pantser.” I agree with her feeling that most writers should "dream" more before they begin the writing process. That means not only conceptualizing your story and the characters that will inhabit it, but it also means doing many free-writes and prewriting. Free-writing from the antagonist’s POV as well.
Marie Lamba, an expert in publicizing her books, lectured on Marketing. And the agent panel did not disappoint. Agent Stacia Decker, from Donald Maass Literary spoke of her love for suspense and crime fiction. Stacia reps one of my absolute fave writers, Cherie Priest. Frances Collin and her co-agent, Sarah Yake, who rep a wide range of fiction, shared their thoughts on the digital revolution and ePubbing. One believes that the age of paper books is almost over, while the other (ironically the younger of the two) believes that both will be around for many years.
Gregory Frost, fantasy author of Shadowbridge led a 3-segment class on Character. I squeaked into the last class, where he had the whole room laughing about a fictitious character they created en masse. The fictitious man was a single firefighter, and lapsed Catholic who played bagpipes and sported a flame tattoo. Woo boy, lookout! I particularly appreciated Gregory’s insightful take on the literary potency of the symbolic self versus the real self. In other words, the “gap” in self-perception that could make a basically moral man rationalize his crime such as murder. The vast gulf between how one sees oneself and one’s actual actions in the world can be huge, and ripe material for fiction.
Eileen D’Angelo, Carol Sabik-Jaffe, Catherine DePino and Don Lafferty did a great job of organizing the conference, and making people feel welcome. If I forgot anyone, I thank you too. Eileen and I can be seen in the above photo. Hey, what do you want for a low-light scene shot with an iPhone 4? I had to run out before I could get more photos, and I confess, I missed the keynote speaker Solomon Jones, though I heard he was rousing. My excuse was that my brother’s rock band was playing that night up in Bluebell. It’s awesome that he put together a bunch of musicians who happen to be high-level accountants! Who knew accountants could rock out? Anyway, my brother John’s drumming was great, and the pulled pork and baked beans were tasty.
All-in-all, I had a wonderful time at the PWC meeting people, and talking shop with fellow teachers and students. If you’re a writer near the Philly area, do consider going. If you’re not, I recommend attending another writing conference. It helps motivate, inspire and build your writing community. Have you attended a writing conference or retreat? What was your favorite one so far, and what was the most valuable thing you learned from it?
“Truly amazing modern remake of Dorian Gray!” -Bookworm Babblings “Devilish and enchanting” -5-star reader review “Loved it. I’ll remember this book for a while.” - Kayl’s Krazy Obsessions
Click image to buy the box set for your Kindle or Kindle app!
The first two books in Kitsy Clare’s new adult Art of Love romance series are together in this boxed set paperback! Readers come along on Sienna Karr’s exhilarating ride as she juggles friends, relationships and a fledgling art career in New York City.
I write bestselling fantasy & contemporary novels as Catherine Stine and romance as Kitsy Clare.
Head over to my website at http://www.catherinestine.com for info on my author events and to subscribe to my newsletter.
I hang out in NYC, Philly and in the Catskills. I've been known to paint a picture or two. Obsessed with witch tales, bad TV and travel to offbeat places.
