I’ve started writing the post that lists resources about girl and woman superheroes. It’s a bit of a massive organizational project, so I’m not done with it yet, but I promise it’s in the works! My revision is so structurally challenging at the moment that it’s funny the things I decide to do instead, because… Read more »
writing
Locating the Moon
There are stretches of time in my writing life when I wake up eager to work and have one productive day after another. Then there are stretches like this week, when I wake up feeling like it’s intolerable to be on page 12 of a difficult 400-page revision, and am I really supposed to be… Read more »
Three Weeks of Revisions, Shown in Nail Polish
When I began this revision, I was feeling a little vulnerable.I wanted my nails to make me think of claws, or maybe little shields. My palette. During the next week, things briefly got impossibleand I needed my nails to help me feel as hard as asphalt. My palette. This morning, I have gotten to a… Read more »
Transitioning to a Revision
This is what focus looks like. Here in the office, we are transitioning from writing the new book to revising, for the second time, one of the old books. (I enumerate my current projects here; the book I’m about to start revising is the one I refer to as the “second book” in that post.)… Read more »
Apocalyptica Face Paints
So, my sister, codename: Apocalyptica the Flimflammer, has given me permission to share some more of her face painting. Please note that she owns these pictures; feel free to link to them but please do not gank them. Barn. Blue jay. I asked Apocalyptica why she likes to face paint. She said a lot of… Read more »
The Most Commonly-Spoken Language in Each USA State Besides Spanish and English
I really like this map! (Thanks, B.) Super interesting. From mentalfloss.com. Image credit: Ben Blatt/Slate. Also, for them that’s interested, the other day, to my astonishment, I wrote two and a half pages. Or, as I emailed to a particular group of interested friends, “tuna half pages.” There are certain dictation errors that I encounter… Read more »
Scrabble Complaint, Stuff, and Things
Graceling now exists in Norwegian. Yay! —–> Published by Cappelen Damm and translated by Carina Westberg, whose excellent translation questions spurred my recent post about how Seabane Isn’t Real. This is another randutiae post. Ready? I really like Rebecca Rabinowitz’s short post called Some things to consider when writing fat characters. Some recent words my… Read more »
The We Need Diverse Books Campaign; Also, Writing Frustration
I want to start by boosting the signal for a series of online events about to take place in support of diversity in children and YA’s literature. This is partly in response to the recent BookCon debacle you can read about here, but also stems from a lot of recent and growing online conversation about… Read more »
Notes from the Writing Room
A friend, knowing my usual one-book-at-a-time writing mode and understanding that at the moment, I’m working on three books, asked me if I’ve adopted a new way of working. The answer is no. I’m writing books the same way I always have. I start at the beginning of a book and write it through to… Read more »
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TED Talk on the Danger of a Single Story
Have you seen novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TED Talk yet? Called “The danger of a single story,” it’s beautifully composed and full of compassion. If you make 19 minutes for it, I think you’ll be glad you did so. Here’s the link to the talk on the TED page, where you can access subtitles and… Read more »
