This year, I am participating in NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month! The concept of NaNoWriMo is pretty simple: your goal, as a participant, is to get 50,000 words of a new novel down during the month of November. This requires writing at a pretty brisk clip (something like 1700 words a day), but considering […]
I’m well aware that the pace of my blogging has really fallen off since South Africa. I’d like to say that this is because my life here in London is so much fuller, but that’s not entirely true. It’s definitely partly true — I am no longer effectively housebound, like I was in Joburg! — […]
Warning: This book review contains (minor) spoilers. Proceed with caution. A few weeks ago, my Kindle broke. This was an emergency of epic proportions, as I rely on my Kindle to get me through even the shortest moments of boredom: standing in line, riding the bus, waiting for my coffee to filter, lulls in conversation […]
In my writing, I’ve noticed, I go through periods of high energy and periods of low energy — ebbs and flows. There are weeks in which I wake up every day hungry to write, with ten different projects bubbling away, and not enough time in the day to get everything done. Those are the best […]
I have a confession: I read a lot of blogs that make me angry. And here’s another confession: I don’t plan on stopping. But not for the reason you might think. First of all, let’s talk about hate reading. I have a theory that anyone who spends a lot of time on the internet (yours […]
Exciting news: the first short story I’ve written since high school has just been published. Earlier this year, I entered Narrative Magazine’s Winter 2013 Story Contest and won Second Prize, which was a great and gratifying surprise. Now, my story, Seven Waves for Good Luck, is up on Narrative’s website, for those who care to […]
In the last eight months, I’ve finished two manuscripts of novels. Maybe that sounds braggy, but I don’t mean it to, since neither manuscript is published, so I might as well have spent the last eight months eating bonbons and napping on the couch. (Not to be defeatist about it, or anything.) Anyway, I’ve noticed […]
These next two weeks will be light on blogging because Al and I are going back to North America today for two weddings: one in Canada and one in Mexico. We’re also stopping in DC for a few days, so our itinerary is Ottawa –> DC –> Mexico City, which I like to think of […]
Quick note before I jump into the normal Tuesday book talk: I am so upset, like everyone else, by the Boston Marathon bombings. I lived in the Boston area for three years and love that city, even though its people can be a wee bit prickly – hey, that’s part of its charm. I feel […]
I am back at revising my novel, hopefully for the final time. Exciting! It has been a long and challenging process, but I think I see the light at the end of the tunnel. This week should hopefully be The Week that I send the damned thing off to agents. Finally. So, in order to […]
