It's been a busy couple weeks lately, but yay, copyedits are done! (If you don't know what copyedits are, it's the last round of edits before the manuscript goes to the typesetter, and takes care of all the dots and commas and people without matches lighting torches.) It's an exciting time but also a scary one--it's getting closer to being a real book that people are going to see in real life and read!
Last weekend I went to a write-a-thon at the home of Diane Holmes, where we had workshop presentations by Diane and Lorin Oberweger, then worked on our own stuff in the afternoons. In addition to finishing up the edits, I went to a brainstorming session to figure out the plot of my next midgrade novel; I had a character I like, her family, some things that they're doing, but not one of those pesky "plot" things. I can't believe how helpful the brainstorming session was--within about twenty minutes I had some great ideas about where the story needed to go, and this non-plotter now has a skeleton of a plot to work with. I'll do a post about the brainstorming session next week.
Meanwhile, here are some of my favorite things I saw online this week:
For those of us who wish we were at the annual SCBWI conference in LA, we can follow along on Twitter with the hashtag #LA11scbwi. It's almost as good as being there. Ok, not really, but we have Shark Week.
Check out "You're Kind of a Big Deal" by author C.J. Redwine if you haven't yet--an inspiring post about her rocky road to publication.
Do you want an "editorial" agent, or one who's more hands-off? Agent Jennifer Laughran has a great post comparing literary agents to real estate agents.
Jay Kristoff guests posts on the YA Muses about writing like a girl even if you're not one in 5 Tips On Writing Outside Your Gender. (And if you're interested specifically in male-female dialogue differences, see the "Dude Talks Like a Lady" post I did last year.)
Now for some fun videos. First, there's the beluga whale dancing to mariachi music:
And the New York City construction worker who entertains the crows during his lunch break. How long before this guy gets a recording contract?
Have a great week!
No comments:
Post a Comment