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The Next Big Thing and My Next Book

February 13th, 2016

Just as I was finishing up a very fast first draft of #3 (see question 2 below), the wonderful Jenny Meyerhoff tagged me to be included in the Next Big Thing, a blog campaign started somewhere by someone in Australia. And that last phrase, I just realized, sounds like the old Telephone Game where the details of the message get lost or totally muddled. The fact does remain that I’ve been asked to answer the following questions about my next book and in doing so, it’s my responsibility to tag a few more willing souls.

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Anatomy of a First Draft: The Process Begins (or Began)

February 10th, 2016

I can never start at the beginning. If you ask how I come to write a book, I’ll can never start from absolute zero. At any given point at any given day, salient thoughts may swirl around and eventually lead to character or plot development or some sort of mood that paves the way for a new book, but I pay them little direct attention.

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Even Still

February 9th, 2016

There’s this movie scene when the Ghostbusters must keep their minds utterly blank to avoid total disaster. Dan Ackroyd’s character fails. Ba-doom … ba-doom … ba-doom. Massive footsteps proceed the creature. Ba-doom … ba-doom … ba-doom. Here comes … what? I won’t spoil it, but believe me it’s coming, looming over, fraught with impending terror. Pretty much out of the clear blue.

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Toying With Picture Books

February 7th, 2016

I was perfectly situated to write picture books. I loved kids. I loved kids’ books. I wrote advertising. I was set to write with an economy of words. And I did. Or I tried. Deep in my file cabinet I have at least a couple dozen picture book manuscripts, all, if not brilliant, then on the verge of brilliance. At least I thought so. Publishers? Not so much.

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