Mette Ivie Harrison's Blog, page 109

story of Tris and Izzie

I read Tristan and Isolde, in translation from Wolfram von Eschenbach's middle high German, my first semester of college back in 1988. It was taught by a wonderful professor who shared my love of language and an interest in the subversive side of literature. I was super anxious about the grading system in college, which wasn't based on tests anymore, but almost entirely on writing papers. I remember I wrote the final paper for the class the first month, shopped it around to the various wri...

what am I afraid of?

I was talking about my frustrations in my career, which are mainly that I keep writing too many novels for any one person to actually sell. And a friend listened to me gesticulate wildly and whine for a while, and then asked me this simple question, "What are you afraid of?"

I stared at her. What was she talking about? I was fearless. I do Ironmans. I am taking piano lessons as a musically impaired person. I stand up in front of crowds of people and talk about writing.

"You are refusing t...

newspaper article

About a new indie children's book store in my back yard! See if you can find me in the photo!

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700055201/Entrepreneur-enlists-help-of-authors-to-open-new-bookstore.html?pg=1

SLJ review of SNOWBIRD

Grade 5-9 Two very different young people cross paths and their lives are changed forever in this fantasy seemingly set during the Middle Ages. Liva has aur-magic, which enables her to change into any animal she wishes. She lives in a cave with her loving mother and father, a hound and a bear. Jens, on the other hand, has no magic. He lives in a village with a cruel and abusive father. Liva and Jens both share a love for animals, compassion for all living things, and genuine selflessness. The...

links

Here is an interview I did recently.

You deserve it!

People are scared of me. Really, it's true. I have writer friends who talk about how often they get requests to read manuscripts for friends, but this almost never happens to me. Because my friends are scared to ask my opinion on their writing, I think. They know me too well, and that I will blurt out whatever I think with tactlessness and all sincerity. I think the same thing is true about exercise. People ask me why I love it, but they rarely ask me for advice. I think this is becaus...

the unnecessary detail

This weekend at my agent's annual client retreat, we spent some time talking about character development. There were a few distinct camps of thinking about character, although I am not absolutely convinced that the way we produce character is much different. Let me try to describe the two:

1. Writers who have a sense that the character acts or speaks to the writer and refuses to do or say somethings, almost directing the novel toward a goal that is rarely the same as the author's original en...

It's Not About The Bike

A few snips from the book:

Why did I ride when I had cancer? Cycling is so hard, the suffering is so intense, that it's absolutely cleansing. You can go out there with the weight of the world on your shoulders, and after a six-hour ride at a high pain threshold, you feel at peace. The pain is so deep and strong that a curtain descends over your brain. At least for a while you have a kind of hall pass, and don't have to brood on your problems; you can shut everything else out, because the e...

Missing princess play wrap up

Some thoughts on the experience:

it was a lot of fun! There were 28 kids, 26 of them under 12 years old. For
all but 2 it was their first real play experience. My main goal as the director
was to make sure that they had a good time and thought plays were fun. I worried
less about line memorization and more about comfort on stage. One thing I was
constantly reminding kids about was to keep their face to the front of the stage and not
to keep from standing in front if others. Staging was pret...

LAWKI month wrap up

LAWKI month ended at our house on Friday night last week, when we got to have our regular date night out, preparing for the race the next day. We cheated a little the last week, because family came to visit and we went out twice to the local amusement park all day. While I did make sandwiches and lunch snacks based on our LAWKI month food, I could see no reasonable way for us to bring hot bean soup and homemade rolls into the park for dinner. So we had fast food. I feel guilty about this, ...