Over the last several weeks, I’ve been working closely with my friend, Liz Carrasco, to create a cover that would perfectly embody what Forever Thirteen is all about. She read the story, and I gave her a vision of what I hoped the cover would look like. Well, she took that vision, and she created …
A year ago, I was gearing up for the release of “A Symphony of Cicadas.” And the anticipation to actually publish the book was killing me. In fact, my patience was so thin, I published it a week before the date I announced it would be released. Here was my official announcement. Isn’t that newbie …
That’s right, we have a release date! The sequel to “A Symphony of Cicadas” is March 15th, 2014. That’s when the answer to What happened to Joey???? will finally be answered. Today was kind of a milestone for me. After several rounds of editing, I finally reached the point where I feel I can’t do …
Only about 7% of NaNoWriMo participants crossed the finish line with 50,000 or more words this year*. If you were one of the lucky few, you deserve a pat on the back and a million publishers** clamoring to get you to sign with them. (*Note: According to NaNoWriMo, 300,000 people signed up, and only 41,940 …
Less than two weeks ago I had the great joy of printing out Forever Thirteen in rough draft form. For weeks I’d been editing the heck out of the raw draft, searching for overused words and weak sentences to bring it up to rough draft status. So to finally get to that point was kind …
When I was 13, I used an actual paper diary. I have a bunch of old journals in my boxes from way back when, chronicling those awkward teenage years. But now? There are a ton of online alternatives for teenagers to record their innermost thoughts and feelings. This is something I had to mull over …
Last night, I wrote out two words I’d been striving to reach since I started the journey of “Forever Thirteen” a little more than three months ago. To make the moment even more ceremonious, I had ditched the computer and scribbled the last 5,743 words into a spiral notebook, feeling every single word as it …
It’s finished! The anatomy of a novel, from start to THE END. Read More »