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I was hoping no one would notice that.;) (Public libraries have been pretty good with me about it in the past tho.)

1. Get rid of television. 2. Get rid of internet. 3. www.librivox.org (this works esp. well in tandem with a player that can speed up playback). 4. downloadable books from the library. I realize others in your household may well protest the elimination of TV or internet (and in this day...

This article is... wow. I'm sort of laughing and crying at the same time. Which is an accomplishment of sorts... YA and Middle Grade stories have a unique feeling that is extremely rare in "adult" stories, which too often are filled with conniving or cynical "players" moving through a world...

The online quizzes and personality charts/character creators have been zippo help for me. People I know in real life, ditto. My characters simply appear and grow, though what's in my head doesn't always end up coming to life on paper. What I have found moderately more helpful is finding their...

How about trying to jump more thoroughly into the daughter's head- what she loved about her mother, or didn't love? I've never had this particular problem.:(

You could always steal someone else's plot and modify it for your world. But to be safe steal a well-known, classic one, free of legal repercussions and which you can belatedly claim as a sort of "symbology" (or whatever the word is) for your tale. Worldbuilding lives in the first three...

Ideally a story's outcome is determined from the beginning by the characters and situations first given. A plot twist is an unseen part of this structure; a deus ex machina isn't, and in a sense it never resolves the thematic problem set out at the beginning, though it can wrap up a good...

So that's how one gets men into Jane Austen...

Finish first draft before chopping you must!

You know the old advice about "getting your characters into trouble and keeping them there?" It's true.:D Otherwise, I'll add another "write, write, write, write!" to the pile. That voice is telling you you don't have what it takes to be a writer, right? Well, are you going to prove it...

If you flip "write what you know" on its head, you get: "Know what you write." Much more useful, don't you think? Let your imagination free, but if it's something many readers will be familiar with, then for heaven's sake, at least give the manuscript to a member of whatever group of...

My muse usually has to be goaded into working. My usual method is to set a high (50k/month) word limit, to get over the perfectionist impulse. If I'm really stuck or uninterested, I organize my notes, and that can get me past a block. Beyond that, I have often found a block means that I've...

There's a program called SuperNotecard (www.mindola.com) that's a set of virtual notecards. I've found it much more useful than the real ones. Takes up less space, too.

She'd probably be the best thing about a new Peter Pan too, if it's made by Disney.

I get very confused when two main characters have similar names. I don't know how it happens, but often you'll have two characters with the same first and last initials, and then it's REALLY confusing.

I've been expecting epic fantasy to take a long vacation for years now, and it never seems to. People DO love elves, wars, and magic.;)

So, you own the books, but you're asking us for an opinion on them?;) I read the first one. Thought it was okay, but not really my thing. I found the whole "order/chaos" thing a bit overdone/cheesy, but a lot of others seem to like it.

Dickens. Previous acquaintance with the storyline of David Copperfield and Great Expectations did nothing to actually introduce me to him. He's so much funnier than I ever imagined. It's the best argument against EVER reading abridged or "children's" versions of books- they butcher the best...

While I don't like the practice of retitling things for American audiences, I DO have to admit that I like the sound of "Sorcerer's Stone" and "The Golden Compass" better than the original titles... Authors often have little say over the covers of their books. And publishing companies have...

Part of the problem is that science is no longer a fantasy of its own but a reality; it's lost its romantic, fantastical promise through familiarity.