Review: The Secret Billionaire

March 1, 2017.Reading time 2 minutes.

The Secret Billionaire by Teymour Shahabi Genre: YA Mystery Release Date: September 2016 An orphan, a private school, and a missing fortune. Teymour Shahabi’s The Secret Billionaire follows the misadventures of Andrew, a teen boy without a family as he struggles to fit into a posh new school, only to find himself stumbling upon one bucket of […]

Review: Windrunner’s Daughter by Bryony Pearce

May 17, 2016.Reading time 5 minutes.

Rating: Four out of Five Stars I received a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review as part of a YA Bound Book Tour. Summary: Think Whale Rider meets Dune. Windrunner’s Daughter offers up a good old fashion girl power story with an unusual twist: hand gliding on Mars. Wren is young woman living […]

On paying attention: a lesson in toothbrushing and writing from Colette Brooks

November 28, 2013.Reading time 1 minute.

On one block I see the windows through which scores of young women once leapt to their deaths, fire driving them from factory floor to the cool of the open air…someone else who remembers place white roses on the sidewalk (Brooks, In the City).” In my attempt to be more mindful of the world around […]

On the Importance of Doing Nothing: Brenda Ueland & Writing

November 8, 2013.Reading time 1 minute.

I have been carrying some pretty heavy writer guilt around lately—and I don’t mean heavy as an office water cooler, I’m talking heavy as-an-Assembly-on-Drunk-Driving, plus the whole damn Mulligan delivery truck. Despite managing to spend plenty of time getting all wet and sandy with my three-year-old, several months have passed and I still haven’t produced […]

Debbie Millman on writing sucess and why I don’t need a bigger home

June 22, 2013.Reading time 1 minute.

The last time I completed a manuscript I was filled with excitement and anticipation. This time, it was more like WIDE EYED FEAR. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the last few projects have fallen flat on their 12 point font faces, that after over a year of work I am […]

Anne Lamott on how to tackle the Great Blank Page

June 2, 2013.Reading time 1 minute.

I finally bid farewell to a manuscript I have been working on for over a year as of just yesterday. My mom’s going to proofread it, then it’s off to my agent friend and the world beyond. Needless to say, I was feeling pretty good about the accomplishment, and stoked to start a new project–until […]

The secret to writing success: no bathroom breaks

May 26, 2013.Reading time 1 minute.

My armpits are sticky, my floor is so dirty it crunches, and yet another episode of Dora The Explorer is glowing across my toddler’s face. I am leaving for a trip to Montreal in exactly one week and have been racing for the last month to get my final final manuscript draft completed before my […]

Take a trip because Stephen King say’s so

April 14, 2013.Reading time 1 minute.

If it was up to me, I would probably spend every minute I am not sleeping or drinking coffee so I don’t have to sleep, or going to Starbucks to get said coffee, or peeing in the bathroom because coffee always has that effect on me, writing. Naturally, it took me a very, […]

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 […]

Things that inspire me to write #3: Eleanor Updale’s The Last Minute

January 26, 2013.Reading time 1 minute.

Like setting and conflict, time is one of those Important Novel Elements discussed in every writing class I have ever taken. When does one scene take place in relation to another? How is that conveyed? And whatever you do, don’t go overboard on the flashbacks. All good advice, of course, however, nothing makes me more […]