napibowriwee gone wrong

Depending on your perspective, I was either duped, shamed, or lured under false pretenses into participating in the NaPiBoWriWee. Write seven picture books in seven days.  It’s a great idea started by a fab gal, and I have absolutely no business participating.
Because this is what you get, when a YA writer turns her talents on [...]

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i hate to make you read this: critique guilt

I feel guilty.
Critique group yesterday.  Chapter 10 gallops along—pathos, intensity, drama.

Fearless leader reads with vigor and gusto.  Including the “fudge” word.
Only it wasn’t “fudge”.
And Lord, the name-calling, including, “baby-lick”.
Only it wasn’t “lick”.

And by golly, Fearless Leader read it like she meant it!
At first I laughed, but then, I was mortified at what I had done [...]

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1T

I have been chastised.

By Bottled Lightning and Freckles McYoungest.  (Boywonder doesn’t give a flyin’ monkey butt.)

About my language. No, not the %&**@#!! kind.  They’re fine with that.  It’s text slang.  Apparently, you have to have a license to use it, and there’s an age criteria.  Under 30.
Things like “K” instead of okay.
Squee.
Prolly.
I guess those words [...]

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book report #6: nerds are real characters

If you’re going to write a YA novel with a less-than-popular teen character, you’ve got to read  the book American Nerd: The Story of My People  by Benjamin Nugent.
Nugent confesses to being labeled  a nerd in high school.  But he doesn’t rest his expertise on his personal experience. He looks at the nerd in scholarly studies, interviews, popular culture, and [...]

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