Be grateful…or John Green will kick your ass

Sometimes when I read about the latest Top Novels being featured by the NY Times and realize mine isn’t listed because oh yeah, it isn’t PUBLISHED I start to feel sorry for myself. And by sometimes, I mean always. John Green would probably call that petty. Talking about the Americans’ access to public education, the […]

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Grandmas, Netflix and other sanity savers for the obsessive writer

  My mom is away this week, visiting my sister in Montreal. And though it’s only been four days so far, already I am going a little crazy without someone to sub me off of Toddler-dom and set my fingers free. Yes, I love spending time with my son, but creativity, when not regularly unleashed […]

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Writing inspiration: an island cabin

  I read somewhere once that going somewhere new is a good for the writer’s mind, the unfamiliar surroundings stimulating creativity and fresh ways of seeing. I just got back from an island retreat with my girlfriends and our collective kidlets yesterday, and was happy to discover a pile of plot tweaks nestled among my sand filled socks. Maybe […]

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Things that inspire me to write #42: Friends

They laugh at my jokes, even if they are not always funny (it happens). They listen to my doubts and urge me to carry on. They think everything I write is Giller worthy (one of them anyway).  They provide alcohol when alcohol is needed, and chocolate when chocolate is needed. I may lose hope of […]

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Things that inspire me to write #45: Ellen Hopkins

Because, she thinks leaning over the keyboard with a crowbar spine, I never believed, I could get pulled into a novel, Written in verse. Or that it was even possible. So thank you Ellen Hopkins, for disrupting–and expanding–my concept of what a novel can be, you inspire me.

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Things that inspire me to write #47: Chocolate Arts

Every year around this time my family and I embark on afternoon of truffle making. It’s a pretty good time–how can anything that involves chocolate, marzipan and liquor filling not be? However, despite all our thermometer watching, ever-so-gentle butter stirring and measured sprinkling–the end results generally resemble very chunky cat-turds. Making chocolates that looks as good as […]

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Things that inspire me to write #49: Meg Cabot

  It takes a lot of work and time to produce a novel manuscript. At least for me. My very first attempt took almost five years. Granted, the subsequent works have not been quite so painfully long to create, but only marginally so–which is why I am always completely blown away when I see Meg […]

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Things that inspire me to write #51: V.C. Andrews

Rape, incest, and abusive rich grandmothers. Though I adored anything V.C. Andrews when I was a teenager, looking back on her novels now I have to say the woman created some pretty dark and demented plots. In fact, I would be surprised that my parents even let me read them back then if they hadn’t allowed […]

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Things that inspire me to write #52: My writing group

  As if the cheese and chocolate dipped cookies weren’t enough, I went to a meeting of my monthly writing group last night, housed out of Christianne’s Lyceum and was once again reminded of the power of community in the creative process. I have always prized my writing groups as a place where I gain new […]

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Things that inspire me to write #54: The Center for Digital Storytelling

I have always loved stories—everything from the pink princess bed time kind to the funny-thing-that-happened-to-me-on-the-way-to-the-grocery-store kind. I guess that’s why I write—and why I was first attracted to the Centre for the Digital Storytelling. A few years ago I took a week long workshop at the Berkeley campus of this organization, and learned not only the […]

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