Meg Waite Clayton's Blog, page 2

On the 75th Anniversary of D-Day

It’s a rainy evening in Paris, just minutes before the hour, 75 years ago, that D-Day began. At midnight, RAF aircraft dropped hundreds of dummy paratroopers across Seine-Maritime, not far from here, as a distraction. Ten minutes later, the first pathfinders jumped over Normandy to mark drop zones for paratroopers and landing paths for gliders.

I find the things that move me personally lead me to my best writing, and this is a moment that has moved me for as long as I can remember. It inspire...

One More Day for a Prepublication Copy of The Last Train to London!

Just one more day for a prepublication copy of my new novel, The Last Train to London, to be published by HarperCollins in September. I’ll also be handing some out in August to my Readers’ Circle, which you can join HERE.

More to come later (I’m in Paris at the moment!) but here are some very nice things other writers have said about it:

“An absolutely fascinating, beautifully rendered story of love, loss, and heroism.” – Kristin Hannah, #1 bestselling author of The Great Alone and The Nighti...

Karen Joy Fowler: First Words

In celebration of Nanowrimo, I’m rerunning some of my favorite guest author posts (and trying to tidy them in the process). This one was written by Booker finalist Karen Joy Fowler for June 5, 2013 — on the occasion of publication of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, which went on the win the PEN/Faulkner and make her the first American ever shortlisted for the Booker Prize. The book remains on my all-time fave shortlist. And her post is inspiring! – Meg

My original intro — and I’m very...

Julia Glass: The Not Quite Yes

For NanoWriMo month, I’m going to repost some of my favorite guest author posts, which I’m rereading to inspire myself! This one — by one of my fave authors, National Book Award winner Julia Glass — originally ran in September of 2010! I’ve just moved platforms, and have not yet tidied up everything here yet, but you can find other guest author posts under the Guest Author category through the drop down to the right. – Meg

Julia Glass‘s first novel, the National Book Award-winning Three Junes...

The Lowly Pencil

Pencil, from the Latin penicillus, meaning “little tail.” Little tail?

Not everyone writes even occasionally with the old fashioned yellow pencil with pink eraser top anymore. This astonishing fact came to my attention through a more newfangled way to communicate, the Facebook post. But the lowly pencil remains my writerly tool of choice. I use #2 lead, no doubt a holdover from my formative bubble-tests years. The lead isn’t really lead, either, but rather graphite mixed with clay; I’m okay...

Video Wikis

I know — and use — Wikipedia on a pretty regular basis. But I didn’t know until recently there there is such a thing a a video wiki. Did you?

Video Wikis

This is why we love the internet: so much information that used to be nearly inaccessible is now not just accessible, but engagingly presented.

Readers will love the Ezvid Wiki because, of the 70 or so categories they list, four are book categories.

And if you’re a lover of World War II books, they have a terrific new video, 10 WW2 Books Tha...

Paddling your Bathtub into London: How Great Stories End

I taught a master class on narrative endings at a writers’ gathering this weekend, and promised to share my notes here. They are just my notes, which may or may not be helpful to anyone who did not attend the lecture. With that caveat:

PADDLING YOUR BATHTUB INTO LONDON:
HOW GREAT STORIES END

“Writing a novel is like paddling from Boston to London in a bathtub. Sometimes the damn tub sinks. It’s a wonder most of them don’t.” – Stephen King

The 3 Rules for Ending any Narrative Work

Rule #1 Give...

A Hemingway Story that Started 100 Years Ago Today

On this day 100 years ago, 18-year-old Ernest Hemingway (yes, that guy) was distributing chocolate and cigarettes to soldiers at the Italian front when a shell burst nearby, putting a whole heck of a lot of shrapnel in his leg. He ended up in a Milan hospital, where he met and fell in love with Agnes von Kurowsky, an American nurse several years his senior. I’m sorry to say that Agnes dumped Ernest by Dear John letter (or Dear Ernie, actually–see below) BUT she lived on in his life as the inspir...