I’m in my last week of Camp NaNoWriMo, a summer version of November NaNoWriMo in which you get to set your own word count goals and bunk in a virtual cabin with other writers. I wish I [...]
Lately I’ve been trying to decide whether to write another young adult novel or an adult one. I have a YA novel in progress, but I worry that it doesn’t sound YA enough (whatever that [...]
As a writer, I sometimes worry so much about pleasing the marketplace that I become afraid to try new things and lose faith in that little voice that is my muse. This past weekend at Grub [...]
Some writers keep returning to the story they have to tell until they get it right. When I started my YA novel Half in Love with Death (Simon & Schuster/ Merit Press), I’d already abandoned [...]
I often struggle with describing my characters. Right now, I’m banging my head against a wall trying to describe a teenage boy who has visions as more than a blond hunk. This is all the more [...]
Writers think about word counts the way dieters think about calories. By the time I finished my YA novel, Half in Love with Death, I’d reduced it from 97,000 to 90,000 words, and I thought it was [...]