Maurissa Guibord's Blog, page 9

A snippet

Hope everyone is well. I am just getting back to the keyboard, flexing my fingers after some family priorities took over. For want of an actual "topic", here is something I've been working on lately. Here is a bit from "Miss March and the Papyrus of Sekhmet"


The viscount, it must be recognized, was a toad. Rupert St. Lyonne was young and dressed in a morning coat of a particularly insidious green. The skin of his chubby face, though not warty, gave every indication of fleshy excrescences to...

Getting Fresh with your Crit Group

photo by Cutexgal


Today I guest blogged over at Adventures in Children's Publishing about crit groups: tinyurl.com/2v2xqup

Thar be mint Cap'n!

I don't know about other bloggers- but I find it difficult to devote this space to just writing topics. This is the only journaling that I do- so I want to write what I like. It will be a mix of writing and authorly updates and advice, short fiction, and fun or frantic topics that are seizing my brain. Hope that's okay.

Right now I am concerned.
There is a quiet and bloodless coup taking place our garden. But it is none the less epic.
Especially if you are a bunny.

A few years ago I laid out a ...

Drac's Lament

 
Okay this is some complete silliness that was goaded on this morning by mischievous Facebook pixies.You have to picture Bela Lugosi singing this.
With the accent. And wittier- picture that too.
I don't know what the tune is- I haven't gotten that far in my mindless procrastination yet.





Drac’s Lament  My name is Dracula perhaps you’ve heard of me.My story was so proud, so drenched in infamy.But modern times have come and Hollywood’s undoneAll the terror and the fear.They think I’m sexy. I’m a...

Seeing someone- It's an art

I have a hard time picturing my character's faces in my head- and therefore describing them, until I make a connection to a real live person.
So writing has turned me into a people-watcher. And magazine picture cutter-outer.
There is a problem with the whole people-watching thing, though. In order to really describe a face, you have to study it.
This is also known as staring. Which is frowned upon in civilized circles. I'm told that one famous writer from Maine used to take  pictures of...

It's hard to write with your fingers crossed

 

I'm waiting to hear if my lovely editor is interested in my option book.
For anyone who's new to this stuff ( I include me here) - this is the the book in my contract that the publisher has "first dibs" on basically. They have 45 days to decide, based on a synopsis and a few chapters, whether they would like to purchase it.

Needless to say, I hope they do.

But while I'm waiting I'm finding it a struggle just to keep going with the story- it's a mystery, which I love, with ghosts, which I...

Warped Cover!

I got the okay to share the cover art for Warped!!
It was designed by Trish Parcell, who is the lead artistic designer for Delacorte. She has done a fabulous job evoking the essence of my story. Mysterious, romantic and a little odd. C'est moi!

Warped is my YA fantasy about a girl named Tessa who finds a dusty old unicorn tapestry. She discovers the tapestry's enchantment when she pulls a thread and accidentally releases the young nobleman who's been trapped inside for 500 years. Sparky...

Happy Birthday Nancy Drew!

She's 80 years old today! And still as feisty as ever- insisting on doing clock repair in the middle of a damp, creepy forest:


 



Love ya, Nancy!

The Good "No" That Every Writer Needs

 
Yes. I said that, don't shoot me. No can be a good thing.

I've been thinking about my writing journey to this point. In my estimation I've completed about one one- thousandth of it. So it's early days yet, but still I can look back and see where I've been. I've discovered something. In retrospect the rejections that I received were almost entirely for the good. 
The stories, the books that got rejected- they just weren't ready. Some of them were (gasp!) down-right bad. Or maybe they just...

The Tree House- Part One

My three kids are on vacation from school this week and we have decided that this is the week we BUILD A TREE HOUSE.
Building a tree house has become something mythic in my mind. It evokes images of idyllic summers with secret club house meetings, a fat stack of Nancy Drew mysteries, a rope ladder that you could pull up behind you, the sweet smell of pine wafting in through a crooked window.

None of which I have ever experienced, because I never had a tree house. I'm not scarred or anything...