Jennifer R. Hubbard's Blog, page 140

A Tale of Two WIPs

I have two main works in progress. I was at a good breaking point with WIP 1, and considered working on WIP 2 for a while. Last night I opened WIP 2, read through it, and didn't get "the glow." But I've had a lot of momentum with WIP 1. Fine, I thought; I would spend today, when I had a big chunk of time allotted for writing, on WIP 1. Glad we got that settled.

None of which explains why, at the beginning of my writing time today, I opened WIP 2 and put in two good solid hours on it, push...

Notes from a reading

I've seen David Sedaris read a couple of times now, most recently the other night.  Sedaris is the author of When You Are Engulfed in Flames and Me Talk Pretty One Day, among other books.  Despite the fact that he describes himself in his early essays as a walking mass of tics and compulsions ("A Plague of Tics," Naked), at times drug-dependent ("Twelve Moments in the Life of an Artist," Me Talk Pretty One Day), and makes fun of his initial attempts to lead a writing workshop ("The Learning C...

So let your muse out of the closet and hand her a glitter cannon

"Love your material. Nothing frightens the inner critic more than the writer who loves her work. The writer who is enamored of her material forgets all about censoring herself. She doesn't stop to wonder if her book is any good, or who will publish it, or what people will think. She writes in a trance, losing track of time, hearing only her characters in her head."

--Allegra Goodman, "Calming the Inner Critic and Getting to Work," from Writers [on Writing:] Volume II: More Collected Essays...

Bringing YA to PA

Today my guest blogger is Harmony, of the Harmony Book Reviews blog, talking about a new effort called PAYA.  PAYA is intended to help libraries and to raise the profile of YA literature here in Pennsylvania:


PAYA has been in the making for months. It originally started out as something I wanted to do on a much smaller, more local level until I realized that it wasn’t just my library that was hurting. A possibly large budget cut from the state in this economy was not a good thing for any libra...

Another kind of rhythm

I've blogged before about the rhythm of prose writing, the flow of syllables and sentence length, the beats in each line.  Lately, I've been experimenting with scene and chapter rhythm.  I can't say too much about works in progress, but I'm enjoying the experiment.  The way I structured these scenes has had an effect on the tone of the piece as well, and this rhythm fits this character's voice.  And the whole exercise reminds me that white space on the page is also part of the reading experie...

My Invented Life

I have some great posts in store, including an interview with Lindsey Leavitt (author of the upcoming Princess for Hire), and a guest blog describing an exciting new effort to bring more YA to PA (young-adult lit to Pennsylvania, that is) and benefit libraries at the same time. I'm also toying with the idea of telling you what I learned, as a writer, from attending a reading by David Sedaris last night. And now that I've whetted your appetite with the coming attractions, today's main featur...

When Novels Work (a post in which I quote smart people)

My final word on Banned Books week is really Carrie Ryan's word:

"We should question everything and we should encourage teens especially to question it all. We should have faith in them -- in all of us -- that armed with as much information as possible, we're going to make good decisions."

I encourage you to read her whole post.

On the writing front, I was electrified to find this in Chitra Divakaruni's essay, "New Insights into the Novel?  Try Reading Three Hundred," in Writers [on Writing:], ...

Finding the voice

Sometimes I see a great hairstyle or piece of clothing on someone else, but when I try it on myself, it looks terrible.  It doesn't suit me.  I have a different body type or hair color or face shape or whatever, and it just doesn't look the same on me.

Writing can be like that.  I admire the lush descriptions in John Updike's The Centaur, but my own writing tends to be much more spare, and lighter on the physical description.  I have laughed out loud reading David Sedaris and Dave Barry, but I...

Mid-Atlantic Madness! And Merriment!

If you're in the Philadelphia/Haverford area, there are several events coming up that you might want to check out. First is the 20th birthday party for indie bookstore Children's Book World this Saturday. Also scroll down the page of that link to see other events coming up, including an author-illustrator night in November and a benefit for Philadelphia libraries (also in November)! You know I love me some libraries.

When I last heard, the Kidlitosphere conference (weekend of October 17 in ...

Candor

Candor, by Pam Bachorz, came out from Egmont on September 22.  Synopsis: "In a town where his father brainwashes everyone, Oscar Banks has found a way to secretly fight the subliminal Messages, but when he falls in love, he must choose whether to let Nia be lost to brainwashing—or to sacrifice himself."

Dystopia never goes out of style.  I think of it as our way of keeping a check on ourselves: Are we headed for trouble?  Are we already in it?  What are the signs to watch for? Much better to e...