Last Saturday I attended the Missouri SCBWI Conference. 2014 was my fourth year attending, and it’s interesting how my attitude toward this conference has changed. My first year, I soaked up everything. I was new to the world of writing for middle grade and young adult. I was just discovering all of the resources available…
MMGM: ALL FOUR STARS by Tara Dairman
It’s only been two weeks and I have another MMGM. Can you believe it? I’ve been waiting to read ALL FOUR STARS ever since October 2011, when it was entered in the same Secret Agent contest as my first middle grade manuscript. That first page is pretty similar to what I remember :). About six…
YA Review: JUST LIKE THE MOVIES by Kelly Fiore
I read Kelly Fiore’s first book, TASTE TEST, and really enjoyed it, but when I saw the description for her second book, it was like she’d decided to write a book just for me :). I mean, have you read the part of my bio where it says I watch too much TV? I should…
Adventures in Pitch Wars Hashtag Stalking
Normally at this time of year I would be stalking ninjas, but due to the timing of Pitch Wars and WriteOnCon, I didn’t participate as much in the latter this year. I have become an entirely different kind of stalker–a hashtag stalker. Specifically, this one: #PitchWars Now, it’s a little overwhelming to watch the whole…
MMGM Interview & Giveaway: AT YOUR SERVICE by Jen Malone
I’m back! I know it’s been forever since I had an MMGM, but this is a good one because it’s for a book that comes out tomorrow–AT YOUR SERVICE by Jen Malone. I won an annotated e-ARC of this book a couple of months ago, and I loved reading it this way so much Ms….
WriteOnCon! With Advice If You’re Posting in the Forums
It’s WriteOnCon time! WriteOnCon is a free, online conference for picture book, middle grade, young adult, and (this year) new adult writers. If you fit into any (or all!) of these categories, you should definitely check it out! The information I’ve gleaned from this conference over the past few years is beyond measurement. One of…
YA Series Recommendation: The Infernal Devices by Cassandra Clare
Like many others, I decided to read The Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare when the previews for the movie came out. Now, I know die-hard fans of the books have mixed feelings about the movie–I blogged about that here–but I’m glad I waited to read this series until almost all of the books were…
Revision: Killing Those Darlings
If you’ve been following my journey through revisions for my work-in-progress, you may remember that in my last round of revisions I was still getting rid of a number of dangling threads from an early plot thread I’d eliminated. When I received comments back from this round of readers, I was pleased to discover that–finally!–I…
How Writing Has Changed My Reading Habits, Part 2
I don’t have a review today because I spent my week of vacation re-reading one of my favorite romance novel series. Yes, I actually returned from vacation last week and had a review then, but that review was written before I left, and unfortunately the book I started reading upon my return that I hoped…
Thoughts on Revising from Public Critiques
Two weeks ago I was privileged to participate in #BLOGPITCH, a blog hop hosted by Authoress for the purpose of gathering critiques for my Twitter pitch and first 250 words. First of all, I want to say how much I appreciate everyone who stopped by to comment on my post. I really appreciated the critiques….
YA Review: ALIENATED by Melissa Landers
Have you ever picked up a book and thought, “This author has been inside my head?” That’s kind of how I felt when I started reading ALIENATED by Melissa Landers. Completely different premise, and yet her alien race and planet bore an eery number of similarities to those in my middle grade sci-fi novel. Hmm….
What I’ve Learned in Three Years of Querying
Today marks three years since I seriously started querying my work. As a frame of reference, I’ve queried three manuscripts during that time. All of them started out middle grade, but one of them I aged up to young adult after a revise and resubmit request from an agent. I’m currently getting a fourth manuscript…
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