Alisa M. Libby's Blog, page 17

it's the book's fault

That is, it's the fault of the book MARKED that I missed my train stop yesterday morning. I looked up and thought, wait, where am I? So, kudos to the Casts for writing such a compelling book!

MARKED is the first book in a series, which sparked a conversation yesterday with Jen, one of my favorite librarians at my favorite branch library, about the lure of series books. She said that picking up a book in a series you've already started is like spending time with old friends, which is a...

books, please

I sent my pages off to my agent and thought, well I ought to get back to that Nanowrimo book. It's still having plot problems and they're not going to figure out themselves. And then there's that other project that I've started; I have a lot of notes and it needs an outline and I need to start writing the first draft.

Then I took a breath, and went to the library. Because you know what time it is? It's reading time. What's the use of barreling ahead when I still haven't figured out how to fix ...

yup, I need to blog about The Tudors…

This season of The Tudors, my dear Catherine Howard was up at bat. I was really hesitant to watch it, due to my proprietary feelings about King Henry's fifth queen. But curiosity got the better of me, and now I need to share my thoughts with you.

The first few episodes of this season struck the right chords: Henry's infatuated with this pretty little thing (played by Tamzin Merchant) who revels in the luxury of being queen but has no freaking idea what she's just got herself into. The...

pages pages pages

Yesterday I sent some pages to my literary agent. It feels good to get the process moving, again. It's impossible to look objectively at what I've accomplished during my time off, but I'm feeling cautiously optimistic. Now I'm thinking about my Nanowrimo project, which still needs some plot assistance!

Also chatted with one of my dearest friends, Lauren Strasnick, on the phone. We were talking about new projects, and how they can seem singular and fascinating in your head, only to disappoint w...

just…keep…revising

Yesterday I was thinking about boredom.

For the last couple days I've been revising each scene in my current draft, slowly and carefully, rewriting as I went. But then yesterday I found that I was breezing by the scenes quickly, not taking the time to revise or even to read them carefully. I was bored with these scenes. But was I bored because I've read these scenes a million times, or was it a sign of a deeper problem?

Breezing through the scenes was my way of avoiding the problem. Upon...

writing day

I had a writing day with my friend Anna. What makes a successful writing day, you ask? Brainstorming, whining, writing. Oh, and cookies help, too. We started with the brainstorming, which lead me to a new idea, which lead me to then drastically revise the scene I had revised the day before. Then I realized that I had added a character to this scene that the main character hadn't met yet. So that caused more revising, and some whining.

Anna and I discussed how writing a book is like assembling ...

the ingredients of a good (or bad) writing day

I'm at home on my writing time right now. Not vacation time – writing time. True, Sunday and Monday were largely spent watching television and eating cake, but that's because Tom was home, too. Now I'm back to my revision. Yesterday felt bad. Today felt good. So I thought I would share my recipe for a good or a bad writing day.

Bad Writing Day
It's not that yesterday wasn't a productive day, it just wasn't pleasant. It was a long day spent reading my current draft, revising, editing, and...

busy week. lots of revising.

It's been forever since my last post! I had a busy week at my day job and then sat down every night with my draft for a good hour or two. The Teen Book Festival – more specifically, the super-accomplished authors and amazingly enthusiastic readers at TBF – has lit my industrious-writer fire. I just hope that I can keep the flame burning.

I've been revising my Nanowrimo book. The book still doesn't have an ending. I have an idea of what the ending should be, but I just haven't written it yet...

TBF Live 2010 (more photos to follow)

I'm back from the Teen Book Festival in Rochester, New York. It was amazing!

In the limo on the way to the Teen Book Festival, I  sat across from Laurie Halse Anderson and Robin Brande – two of my favorite YA authors. And it gets better, also at the festival: Mari Mancusi (wearing awesome shoes), Marissa Doyle, A.S. King, Amy Kathleen Ryan, Lisa McMann, Barry Lyga, Daniel Kirk, Holly Black, Matt de la Pena, and more…the longest list of authors they've ever had at TBF!

As we got closer to the...

Getting ready for TBF Live!

Today: packing. Keeping fretting about public speaking to a minimum. Tomorrow I'm off to Rochester for TBF Live!

Speaking of which, I'm on the TBF blog – check it out: http://carlyreads.blogspot.com/2010/05/hey-readers-tbf-2010-is-merely-days.html

In other news, I read The Dust of 100 Dogs by A.S. King which completely blew me away (plus, this has to be one of the best covers, ever). And I'll be meeting King at the Festival this weekend! It's utterly exciting and overwhelming…but I'll be...