“Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. They are the destination, and the journey. They are home.” ~ Anna Quindlen
Thought for the Day: "Art doesn't have to do anything. It just has to be there for the fierce pleasure we take in doing it." ~ Raymond Carver ~ Gifts for My Writer Friends: We all want our books to be meaningful. HERE is a good post by Mary Kole on How to Write Meaningful… Continue reading THE TRAIL — Review & Giveaway
Thought for the Day: “Any writer worth his salt writes to please himself. It’s a self-exploratory operation that is endless.”~ Harper Lee ~ Gifts for My Writer Friends: Sometimes we just feel like throwing in the towel, but there are good reasons not to. HERE is a good kick-in-the-pants post on Writer Unboxed by Rachel… Continue reading OFF THE MAP — Review
Thought for the Day: "I shall live badly if I do not write, and I shall write badly if I do not live."~ Francoise Sagan ~ Gifts for My Writer Friends: Backstory is something we all need to deal with, but how? Too much and we bury our story in it. Too little and we… Continue reading NOT NOTHING — Review
Thought for the Day: "Writing is… being able to take something whole and fiercely alive that exists inside you in some unknowable combination of thought, feeling, physicality, and spirit, and then store it like a genie in tense, tiny black symbols on a calm white page." ~ Mary Gaitskill ~ Gifts for My Writer Friends: Getting… Continue reading THE LONG WAY AROUND — Review
Thought for the Day: "There is something delicious about writing the first words of a story. You never quite know where they'll take you." ~ Beatrix Potter ~ Gifts for My Writer Friends: Excellent character description can add so much to a story. HERE Rebecca McClanahan, writing for Writer’s Digest, gives us 11 Secrets to… Continue reading COYOTE LOST AND FOUND — Review
Thought for the Day: “When you write a book, you spend day after day scanning and identifying the trees. When you’re done, you have to step back and look at the forest.” ~ Stephen King ~ Gifts for My Writer Friends: If you want to get geeky about grammar, Tiffany Yates Martin might be the go-to gal… Continue reading MUMMIES UNWRAPPED — Review
Thought for the Day: "It is a magical thing for a handful of words, artfully arranged, to stop time. To conjure a place, a person, a situation, in all its specificity and dimensions. To affect us and alter us, as profoundly as real people and things do." ~ Jhumpa Lahiri ~ Gifts for My Writer… Continue reading STONES AND BONES: FOSSILS AND THE STORIES THEY TELL — Review
Thought for the Day: "I don’t like to write, but I take great pleasure in having written – in having finally made an arrangement that has a certain inevitability, like the solution to a mathematical problem. Perhaps in no other line of work is delayed gratification so delayed." ~ William Zinsser ~ Gifts for… Continue reading THE ENIGMA GIRLS: HOW TEN TEENAGERS BROKE CIPHERS, KEPT SECRETS, AND HELPED WIN WORLD WAR II — Review
Thought for the Day: “Be brave. Take risks. Nothing can substitute experience.”~ Paulo Coelho ~ Gifts for My Writer Friends: It’s important to know what drives our characters. HERE Barbara O’Neal writing for Writer Unboxed has a terrific post on The Wound and the Contradiction. Writers Helping Writers has a great post HERE by September… Continue reading OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS — Review
Thought for the Day: "Not all reveals serve the story best if maintained throughout; sometimes you gain more narrative mileage by spilling the beans sooner, so readers see the aftereffects of the secret and its impact on the characters and story." ~ Tiffany Yates Martin ~ Gifts for My Writer Friends: No one wants to… Continue reading SOUNDS GOOD!: DISCOVER 50 INSTRUMENTS — Review
Rosi Hollinbeck 