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Revision: Two views
How much should you revise?I'm always curious how other authors answer this question. And this spring, at a Bodleian Library's exhibition on the Shelleys, I had a chance to study how two authors...
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Happy birthday, America!
I remember, years ago, a friend's British cousin telling me that in the UK, the Fourth of July was "just another day." My ten-year-old mind boggled. (I think I'd pictured them all in mourning.) But...
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Alice's Day
I fell in love with Oxford on the page long before I ever met it in the flesh. And I know I'm not alone. Oxford glories in its literary connections, and it inspires a lot of fiction: Colin Dexter's...
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An afternoon in Bath
Isn't it wonderful when you get to meet an online friend for the first time? I was thrilled to meet Stephanie Burgis this past Saturday in the beautiful city of Bath, where she was signing her new...
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Traveling back in time
What do I love best about England? It might be all the time travel. The other week we managed to work our way back to Regency England, and then medieval England, and then finally the Stone Age, all in...
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Ghosts of ourselves
Can a ghost be in two places at once?Last month I saw two houses where the same woman seemed to walk. As luck would have it, she was a writer: the extraordinary Vita Sackville-West.At the turn of the...
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A sale and a leap of faith
As writers, we have to make a lot of leaps of faith: Believing we can create something out of nothing. Believing we have a story to tell. Believing someone will want to hear it. Believing our work is...
View ArticleHighlights from the SCBWI Winchester Conference
I'm writing in the wake of an exhausting but oh-so-wonderful weekend at the British SCBWI annual conference in Winchester. So much to think about, so many people to thank, so much unpacking to do! But...
View ArticleClimbing the story mountain
Tuesday morning, and it feels like I'm climbing a mountain. I'm a quarter of the way up, and I can't even see the top of the mountain for the mists. I'm going to get lost here, I can just tell. I might...
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Lucia Day magic
For me, Christmas always really began with Lucia Day. From way back, I remember waking in darkness and dressing, then sneaking down to the dim warmth of the kitchen, where I would tie the smooth red...
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Resolutions, growing, and gardens
I'm a bit late to the resolution game this year, and that's only partly because I'm in the middle of revisions. Truth is, 2012 is shaping up to be a challenging year. When I finally sat down to take a...
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Revisions and courage
After a month of hard labor, I'm coming into the home stretch with these revisions... hooray! Revising under deadline is always a fraught process, I find. I'm lucky because my editor wrote me a...
View ArticleThankful Thursday: Mr. Lynch's Wonderful Readers
Recently I had one of the best surprises of my writing life, and it concerned a book that came out nine years ago.Lots of people judge whether a book is a success by what happens in that first year, or...
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Thankful Thursday: Writing Retreat
My word for this year is GROW, and that means doing some things I thought were beyond me. I did one of them last week: my first writing retreat.I've always wanted to go on a writing retreat, but until...
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April showers, May flowers
It's been one of the wettest Aprils in English history - the soggiest in over a century. But at least I can attest to the truth of that old saying: April showers really do bring May flowers. Our family...
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Who's in the room?
This has been a busy month, bookwise. I've just turned in the copyedits - hooray! And the flap copy is just about ready to go. It's almost another year before the book comes out - April 2013 - but...
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Some thoughts on Wolves
Ducking out of the revision cave to say that I have a post up on the Enchanted Inkpot today about Joan Aiken and The Wolves of Willoughby Chase.I've loved this book since I was small, and I'm amazed...
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Wordless Wednesday: Alice Day in Oxford 2012
The Dodo at the Story MuseumAlice bemused by the Caucus RaceOur own Alice
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