Jennifer R. Hubbard's Blog, page 119

July debuts

July debuts, for your consideration:



Other, by Karen Kincy. Young adult. Half-pooka Gwen searches for answers to the serial killing of fellow Others--shape-shifters, vampires, werewolves, etc.--while hiding her paranormal background from a boyfriend whose religion calls Others an abomination.



Crossing the Tracks, by Barbara Stuber. Young adult. Fifteen-year-old Iris is sent away from home to be caregiver to an elderly woman, in this novel set in 1920s Missouri.




Shadow Hills, by Anastasia Hopcus....

Therapeutic writing

There are different ways to write, and different reasons to write. Some things we may write just for ourselves, or for family members, or friends. Some things we write for publication, seeking a much wider audience. Some projects are really just exercises to get our juices flowing; others are projects we hope to present to the world.

Sometimes writing serves as a way to confront, digest, or work through significant events in our lives, including trauma. Diaries and for-our-eyes-only memoirs of...

Beats

I've written before about prose rhythm, and as I'm revising my current project, I'm noticing the way I use beats. Here are three of the ways in which I deliberately manipulate prose rhythm (though not always consciously--I usually find myself fixing the rhythm of a sentence "by ear"):

Dialogue tags. Inserting "she said" or describing a character's action introduces a beat, a pause, into the scene. It can add extra emphasis to the words just before the pause; it allows us an extra few seconds t...

"To be continued ..."

If you're writing a series, or hope to write one someday, I recommend reading this post (including the comments) at the blog of tracy_d74  , for a list of pitfalls that series and sequels can fall into.

For me, by far the biggest turnoff is a book that feels incomplete, that can't really stand apart from its sequel or the rest of its series. If I can compare the book-reading experience to a meal, what I want is a complete meal: appetizer through dessert. If the meal is good, I'll be happy to he...

When characters hold back

I'm doing minor revisions to a work in progress, and for the most part it's going swiftly and smoothly. But there's one scene that begs for tinkering--and then a little more tinkering--and then a little more ...

It doesn't help that the main character in this scene is confused, guarded, defensive, frightened, angry, and suspicious. With all that, I have plenty of material on which to build. The problem is that in every pass through the scene, he reveals a little more, which takes the scene in ...

Odds and ends

There are two blog posts I must link to, and when you see the excerpts I'm posting here, you will see why:

First, when Phoebe Kitanidis said, "don’t confuse your love of writing with your drive to be published," she was giving advice to young writers, but frankly that advice works for anyone. I also love that she wraps up her statement this way:  "... treat your writing itself as you’d treat a best friend. Make time for it, consistently. Appreciate it for what it is. Support its growth. If yo...

Keeping up--or not

This weekend, Philadelphia is changing the way it labels its commuter trains. (This does connect to writing, I promise. Stick with me.) For decades, the regional rail lines have been labeled "R" and paired with a number. For as long as I can remember, the airport train has been the R1, the Paoli train has been the R5, and so on. But now they're doing away with the numbering.

And being a writer, I couldn't help but be grateful that I haven't written a novel set in Philadelphia that's currently ...

writerjenn @ 2010-07-21T22:20:00

This is from Anais Nin's diary, Volume 6:

"I am not indifferent to the greater dramas hanging over us, but drama is everywhere the same, microcosm or macrocosm."

I think I like this quote because I tend to write about very specific characters and situations, but with an intent to illuminate larger issues.

Thick Skin

You may have heard that writers need to develop a thick skin so that they can accept critique, face rejections, and deal with reviews. My take on that is: Well, yes and no.

I don't think it's possible--or desirable, for that matter--to become impervious to the reception of our work. One thing I've learned about life is that pain can only be shut out at the cost of shutting out joy, too, and anything else to which we might wish to remain open. Writing is an act of communication; most of us writ...

Recharging

As much as writing may fill our souls, most of us also need time away from it on occasion. And then there are the auxiliary activities that go with writing--the market research, querying, promotional work, networking, proposal writing--that are even more essential to set aside on occasion.

The world is moving so fast now, and publishing in particular is changing so quickly, that it's easy to think if we step away for two days, we'll be left behind. Scrambling to catch up. Lost in the crowd. Wi...