Something I learned about writing today: SQUIRREL!

March 10, 2013.Reading time 1 minute.

I love Pixar. Pretty much any time I see a lamp hopping across the screen at the start of a show I know I can expect the next two hours to be a good time, full of all kinds of fun and silly unexpected twists. SQUIRREL! Which is why when Emma Coates says jump, I say, when, […]

Something I learned about writing today: it is like an infected sore

March 4, 2013.Reading time 1 minute.

“When you stop [writing] you are as empty, and at the same time never empty but filling, as when you have made love to someone you love.” – Ernest Hemingway (sourced from Brain Pickings) Someone once complimented me on my writing discipline. They were wrong. Thing is I don’t write because I am ultra strict when […]

Curious George deepened: a reading (ahem, ahem cough cough) by Werner Herzog

March 3, 2013.Reading time 1 minute.

“In the city George puts on airs trying to live like a man but is rendered a buffoon.” -Werner Herzog (ish) I have a lot Curious George in my life these days. In fact, I have at least a dozen of his story plots memorized for the nightly story hour and can hear the animated version playing […]

How’d she do that? A peak into the making of Ruta Sepetys’ new novel

February 26, 2013.Reading time less than 1 minute.

As much as I love reading books, what I love even more is the stuff that isn’t on the page: the journey that the author took to creating their finished work. In so many cases, this story can be just as dramatic as the works themselves–such as with this one, about how a pair of […]

Something I learned about writing today: Say. It. Fast. And. Mean. It.

February 25, 2013.Reading time 1 minute.

I have been somehow obsessed with word count and page numbers lately. It’s like there’s a restless kangaroo pounding at my belly and urging me to hurry up and finish that manuscript already you useless idiot! Or maybe that’s just my three year old. Either way, I am always wishing I could do things faster […]

Human Books…and no, you can’t take these ones in the bathtub with you

February 24, 2013.Reading time 1 minute.

I was more than a little confused the first time I heard about one of these. Human Book? What other kinds are there? It’s not like elephants have gotten into the publishing business, they don’t have fingers. Then I remembered that thing called ‘Internet’ and was enlightened. Actually, human books are people, not paper bound […]

Meg Tilly is coming to town!

February 21, 2013.Reading time less than 1 minute.

Yay! Meg Tilly has come out with another Young Adult novel, A Taste of Heaven, and though I haven’t read it yet, hello, it has rainbow sprinkles on the cover—what more can a person really ask for? Wait I know! How about getting to see her in person? That’s right, Tilly is coming to Vancouver’s […]

Something I learned about writing today: The Joy of Delete

February 17, 2013.Reading time 1 minute.

“The road to hell is paved with adverbs.” Stephen King, On Writing. I received some feedback from an agent friend of mine a couple weeks ago and have been doing a lot of work revising the manuscript in question lately. However, when I got to the part where she suggested I cut out any words not […]

Something I learned about writing today: Covers matter…a lot

February 17, 2013.Reading time less than 1 minute.

Despite that saying about not judging books by covers and all that, they do. Big time. Just look at all the fervor generated by the recently released version of Anne of Green Gables, featuring a hot blond instead of the classic diminutive red head. I admit, the change is rather surprising, considering the many reference […]

Something I learned about writing today: It takes a village

February 12, 2013.Reading time 1 minute.

I don’t know if anyone else besides the author and the people listed within them ever actually reads them, but I have soft spot for Acknowledgments pages. They are like a little peak behind the scenes, a tiny glimpse into how the book in my hand was created. And sometimes a much needed lull at […]