Jennifer R. Hubbard's Blog, page 124

Lights on

"When you're conscious and writing from a place of insight and simplicity and real caring about the truth, you have the ability to throw the lights on for your reader. He or she will recognize his or her life and truth in what you say, in the pictures you have painted, and this decreases the terrible sense of isolation that we have all had too much of."
--Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

I wrote a whole long rambling blog post, and then I decide Anne Lamott said it better (and certainly more succinctl...

New Novels

It's CSA season now, and along with farm-fresh lettuce, we're harvesting the latest crop of debut novels:



Kid vs. Squid, by Greg van Eekhout.  Middle grade.
I almost believe that, with this title and cover image, we don't even need a one-line synopsis!  But here it is anyway:
Young Thatcher Hill pursues a mysterious girl who steals an artifact from his uncle's museum, and finds himself trying to help the cursed people of lost Atlantis to fight off a witch's curse.



The Rise of Renegade X, by Chel...

Fear, craft, hope, and a laugh or two

Today, I want to share some gems from around the blogosphere:

Deva Fagan on fear and the writer. Some samples: "Even when I’m feeling good about my current project, there’s a voice in my head telling me maybe I’m just deluding myself." and, "In other words: don’t let your fears hold you back from trying something new."

Jeannine Atkins on poetry--no, baking--no, you have to read it to understand. Great quote: "... there’s a time to offer your poem to critique and a time to own it." Bonus: Word...

Nothing Personal

I've always been a big believer in separating life from art. My characters are not drawn directly from real people; I don't even like to use real settings. (Mostly because real settings are subject to change. I live in fear of placing critical fictional scenes in, say, a famous building, only to have that building get torn down before my book can make it to store shelves.  The truth is, once Philadelphia moved the Liberty Bell, all my illusions about the permanence of place were gone, and tha...

Making time

I wanted to link to two interviews I've done recently, one with The Texas Sweethearts in which they featured the Library-Loving Blog Challenge, and the other with Kelly Fineman of Writing and Ruminating as part of the Summer Blog Blast Tour.

In other linkiness, Kate Messner is looking for new bloggers in the kidlit world so we can welcome you all to the blogosphere. If you're new to blogging, leave your info over at Kate's. Don't be shy! :-)

Today has been unusually busy (I had to go vote in th...

How an orchid is like a manuscript

I had a dozen ideas for what to post about today, but none of them have coalesced into a coherent blog post. I think I'm still digesting this past weekend's New England SCBWI conference, at which I pursued my usual strategy, taking a mix of workshops from the practical-business (Skype) to the practical-craft (revising fiction and how to show-not-tell) to the creative stretches (poetry and nonfiction). I also marked up a manuscript at night, and mingled with fellow writers.

My husband was with ...

Backstage at the writer's studio

When we first moved into this house, I had a second-hand desk and chair. The chair had seen better days; it was missing an armrest on one side, for example. And I spend a lot of time at this desk; my chair is one of the tools of my trade.  As a Christmas present, my husband got me a comfy new office chair. It swivels, it has a headrest and two armrests, it is la creme de l'office furniture.  It is so nice that, once it was installed, my husband (who also spends a lot of time in front of his c...

Love triangles

I love it when people are so brilliant that all I have to do is link to their brilliance.

So thank you, Carrie Ryan, for your insight into love triangles in fiction:

"To me, that's the essence of a love triangle -- each man is a viable choice for the heroine but each speaks to a different part of who she is. The heroine isn't choosing between two men, she's choosing who SHE wants to be and that will dictate who the right match is."

Word choice

When I'm selecting words in my current project, it isn't as simple as cracking open the thesaurus and picking the first word I see. For example, look at some synonyms for the word lump, as suggested by my trusty reference book--

hunk, gob, wad, clump, protuberance, excrescence, bump

--and you'll notice that they're not interchangeable. This choice will have noticeable consequences in the story.

Since this is a first-person narrator, I have to find a word that not only fits the mood and rhythm a...

Let it flow or save it for a rainy day?

I want to point out this upcoming signing I'll be part of at Books of Wonder in New York City for a few reasons: first, if you're going to be in New York on May 25 (6-8 PM), it's a chance to meet FIFTEEN writers at once. Second, even if you're going to be nowhere near New York that day but you want an autographed book, you can order signed and personalized books through the store; we'll sign them that night.  See the link for details.

Now for the writerly stuff:

The other day, commenting on my ...