Ginger Snapped

Last week, I helped a woman who is moving from a very large house (probably over 3000 square feet) to a three-bedroom apartment. We sorted the contents of her garage into piles of garbage, piles of recycling, piles of donations, and piles of things to keep. Some things were easy to sort: the bags of trash that had been sitting for weeks; the broken picture frame; the dented metal garbage can; the bags of clothes that no longer fit. Some things were not so easy: the dollhouse that needed a few touch-ups but still had many hours of good Barbie time left in it; the unused $600 ski rack; the deflated soccer ball. It was not my stuff, so it was easy for me to be objective. I had no emotional attachment to any of it, no history, no story, no memories lacquering the surfaces of these objects. They were just things. If I were to sort the contents of my own garage, I might not have such an easy time. We humans have a touch of the squirrel in us, a touch of the magpie. A response of “...

Yesterday, after a solid day of BIC [Butt-in-chair for the non-writers out there], my brain was fatigued. The little decisions of revision -- To be or not to be? To keep or not to keep? Is this a separate scene or part of the same scene? Does it matter? -- immobilized me for any other decisions, like what to make for dinner. While most normal people would just order pizza or go for Chinese, the choices for pizza delivery and Chinese take-out in these parts are scant. I can't over-use them or I lose my sole ace. Sole ace. Solace. It's pretty lame when your sole ace/solace is take-out. No wonder writers tend to live in big cities. There are more options for take-out. Anyway, I turned to Facebook. Let's crowd-source dinner decisions. And Facebook came through. With one single note that I had cauliflower, I got recipes and links to aloo gobi, stir-fried rice/cauliflower, cauliflower alfredo, roasted cauliflower with tahini and yogurt, cauliflower and bacon baked with gruyere ...

1 And the Lord spake unto Moses in mount Sinai, saying, 2 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye come into the land which I give you, then shall the land keep a sabbath unto the Lord. 3 Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the fruit thereof; 4 But in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest unto the land, a sabbath for the Lord: thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard. This blog is in its seventh year, its year of sabbatical. In that year, I have revised two middle grade novels, wrote two picture books, attended three writing retreats, served as a graduate assistant at VCFA, met Julie Paschkis, had lunch with Roger Sutton, spoke to Katherine Paterson, received an honorable mention for the SCBWI Work-in-Progress grant, committed to return to my art studies, and traveled domestically and abroad to refill my cup. It's been a good year. The writing life is alive and well, and n...

Words, words, words. Normally you would post a photo today. A photo of some place you'd been, some place you'd lived, some place you found beauty or pattern or shape or color. But today is a day for words. Today you will finish a draft of a third novel. It's a good novel, a funny novel. It is not finished yet, but it's getting there. And you want to finish it, so today is a day for words. You will sit at your desk, working in twenty-minute spurts until the bus comes delivering the gingerbread boys, and you must stop. You will sit, rewriting the ending, deleting and adding and tweaking as the snow comes down outside, swirling through the treetops, landing on pillows of snow. And all will be well, for the end is near.

Well, friends. I did it. I wrote a brand new novel in less than 30 days. It is very, very rough, but it is there in fledgling state, and I will proclaim February to be NaNoRevMo: National Novel Revision Month. Care to join me?