Mette Ivie Harrison's Blog, page 129

sketch questions

This may or may not be interesting, but here are some questions (with a few answers) I wrote in the development stage of a new novel idea. I really do write most of the time without an outline and without a clear sense of what will happen in the story. That said, I think I like to have a sense of what conflicts will happen in the story, and the magic has to be something that I have some grasp of to begin with. I often discover a lot about characters when they are in scene, doing things, bu...

last minute signing

I am becoming increasingly conscious of my invisibility, especially in my home state. I need to be doing more events so that people even know that I exist. I suppose that when I began writing, I thought that it was a good thing if the book is better known than the author. Maybe that was once so, but it's not anymore. Books go OP too fast. The author has to have something going right now that is hot.

Along those lines . . .

This year, I sent a couple of my books (signed) to my daughters 5th...

15 driving!

15 has a learner's permit now. She has to get in 40 hours of driving before she can get her license at 16. She has about 5 hours right now. We tried to start her on our van, which is an automatic. But surprise, surprise, it is difficult to maneuver. Most people don't ever have to learn how difficult. A 12 passenger van is not a common vehicle.

So we tried 15 on the wagon with standard transmission. Ah, the joys of learning how to start a standard transmission on a hill! There are many ...

Open letter to editors

Dear Editors,

My books are my children. But that does not mean that I don't see their flaws. I do see them as clearly as I see my children's flaws. I see that sometimes there is no way to separate the flaws and the virtues. I see also that usually there are things I can do to make them better and that it will take a lot of work to get there. I see myself in my books in ways that make me proud and ways that astonish me. Also in ways that make me a little embarrassed to be so exposed.

My bo...

"the dream"

One of my best friends like to tell this story about her parents. She said that when they were older (she is the youngest by a number of years) they bought this tiny little house on a big lot where they planned to build their dream home. They thought and planned about the dream home for a while. And then they stopped planning it. Because they realized they were in their dream home already. The tiny little home on the big lot was small enough that they could vacuum the whole thing in ten ...

outline results

So I'm almost at the end of this quick redrafting of my WIP, the one with the outline. I am surprised to report that it did not change as much as I expected it to. The first 13 chapters remained in essentially the order I had originally charted them to be in, with chapter 8 splitting into two chapters instead of one. The next 8 chapters all happened, but just not in the order I had written them down in. The last 4 chapters ended up getting tossed out with not much replacing them. I have ...

polygamy and feminism

I was looking through a local magazine and came across an ad yesterday that bothered me. It was for an orthodontist. The middle aged man wore a denim shirt and khakis. That wasn't what bothered me. I was annoyed that this orthodontist took this photo for his company surrounded by *9* of his office workers, all women. All heavily made up, all with big hair, all wearing the same white shirt, in contrast to his. Did he have any idea what this looked like at first glance? In a place like U...

report cards

On Friday, I handed over $25 cash to 15 for her report card. I have never paid her for grades before, and she knows why. We've had discussions about what she would have to do to get money for her grades. Her friends didn't believe her. Her teachers didn't believe her. But the cash on Friday was the proof, for her to show anyone.

15 did not get straight A's.

I find this a moment for celebration. Why? Because for three years, she has driven me insane with her panics over getting anything r...

messy writing problems

14 has been at work on a fantasy novel for the last six months or so and is taking a creative writing class at her junior high school. She is disappointed to discover that the other students tend to say little more than, "Wow, this is great" when she reads aloud in class, and that no one finishes anything. I am not surprised.

Finally, she allowed me to read the first chapter and give her comments. It was very instructive for me to see the little comments she had written in on the sides. ...

family race day

I got three of my five kids to do a race with me and my husband this weekend, which was amazingly fun. 15 and 12 did the triathlon (just short of a sprint) and 9 did the 5k portion, mostly with the two older kids. 12 got a little messed up on the course and didn't do both loops on the bike, which he felt really stupid about. Poor kid. 15, on the other hand, took 2nd in her age group, and there were more than 2 people in it! But really cool for her was the thought that she had finished a ...