Sarah Prineas: Class of 2k8

This is part of a year-long series about those intrepid newcomers, The Class of 2k8. To help marketing efforts for debut novelists, these 28 novelists have banded together to create a group marketing effort.
Sarah Prineas
The Magic Thief, HarperCollins,
The Magic Thief Website
Kill Your Darlings
It’s one thing to write a novel. It’s a totally ‘nother [...]

Fear of Regrets

Do you fear failure? So do I. But more than that, I fear regrets.
Fear of Regrets
I hear it all the time, at retreats where I teach, at local critique groups, on blogs — I’m afraid to submit, because I might get rejected. Yes. So what?
Any professional writer has stories about the [...]

When to Ask for a Critique

At what point do you let others read a draft?
First Drafts are $#@#
It’s an open secret that first drafts are awful and the best thing about a first draft is that it is finished. So, do you prefer that outside readers read this draft or wait for a more polished draft? Do you [...]

The Ten-Foot Dash

There are days when you give out and days that you take in. Today, I took in.
This morning, I rode my bike along the River Trail, which runs through the rich river bottom of the Arkansas River: we saw white tails, and cotton tails, and curiously, a black skunk with no white stripe. [...]

The Craft & Business of Writing

From Writer’s Digest Press is the new book, The Craft & Business of Writing.
There are five sections: Getting Started/General Business, Fiction, Nonfiction, Children’s Writing and Poetry. I have two articles in the book:

Picture Books 101: Pay Attention to Structure
Great Expectations: Conferences Can Make a Difference

Meant to be used as a reference book, [...]

15 Page Revision Letter

Sara Lewis Holmes, author of Letters from Rapunzel, received a 15 page revision letter from her editor on her new novel, New Recruit! WOW!
Follow her process as she tackles this revision.

Inventing Plot Complications

Every book on plotting says simply that you must have plot complications. But they don’t give much help on inventing interesting complications. Here are two things I’ve used as I’m working on this expanded outline for my new novel
Look to Setting for Plot Complications
One way of inventing plot complications is to look around [...]

Writing PerHect!

I’ve been StumblingUpon things:

Students Doodle 4 Google
For author-illustrators: Drawing Day – drop everything and draw for the sake of art.
Writers love the moleskine books and here are examples to prove it.
43 Amazing Resources for Writers
Why Being a Mother is like being a writer

You’ve seen Mock Newbery and Mock Caldecott polls. Here’s one for the easy [...]

Mind Games and Other Conversations

Join these conversations:

Roger is playing Mind Games with sugary-sweet children’s book titles.
Baseball compared to poetry!
Alan Gratz muses about the Flitcraft Parable.
Do MORE words mean BETTER words?
Finding Time to Write.

5 Summer Projects for Writers

Plan now to make your summer productive and fun! May is so hectic with school ending, graduations, upcoming June weddings and more. It’s a transition from structured school activities with our kids to the relatively unstructured days of summer.
Productive summer
What can you accomplish in a summer while sitting at the pool, watching ball [...]