Shrunken Manuscript Reveals Novel’s Strengths and Weaknesses

Shrunken Manuscript Technique Helps Visualize Problems
Following my directions for shrinking, marking and evaluating a novel, here are some recent examples:

Digital Versions of The Wayfinder

My novel, The Wayfinder, is now available in two different digital versions. You can still find used copies of the book on Amazon, Abebooks and other online stores. In addition, you can download the novel from Amazon’s Kindle store and from Mobipocket’s Ebook store.
Amazon’s version requires the Kindle, Amazon’s exclusive ebook reader. Mobipocket can [...]

Ebooks

Are Ebooks finally ready for Prime Time?
I hated it when, about ten years ago, my local library went to the online digital version of the reference book, Books in Print. I tried to look up something about quilts. There were about 5-600 entries beginning with Quilt in the title, and in the paper version, I’d [...]

El Dorado School Visit

School Visit Focuses on State Projects

Character and Plot

I’ve been working on my plot this week – which means I’ve been working on character.
I’ve been struck again by how interwoven these two are. We artificially separate them out to talk about them, but in practice, you can’t work on plot without considering character.

Conflict. For example, when I tried to decide on what conflict [...]

First page

First Page: So much from so few words
At the AR-SCBWI fall retreat this weekend, Alexandra Penfold, Associate Editor of S&S took us through a discussion of first pages of our novel mss. She commented on the pages, then opened the discussion for other comments or questions. Here are some observations on the discussions (Note: these [...]

character development

4 Stages of Character Development
When you write a first draft, there are really two novels at that point. There’s the one on the paper and there’s the one in your head and they are not the same.
I know this. But I’m experiencing it again as I’m working through this revision. In order to put on [...]

Treadmill Desk

Treadmill Desk
What sedentary lives we writers lead. When I heard about the treadmill desk, I decided to try it out. Here’s the update on how it’s working.

LA retreat

The Louisiana retreat this weekend was great!
We met at St. Joseph’s Abbey in Covington, LA, which is just north of Lake Ponchitrain. It was interesting

Retreat Trailer

For an inside glimpse of the Novel Revision Retreat, here’s a short video podcast or trailer from the recent San Rafael, California retreat.