Laura Whitcomb's Blog, page 13
January 30, 2010
Good news . . .
I turned in my novel! Yes, UNDER THE LIGHT is now in the hands of my beloved editor at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Kate O'Sullivan. Stay tuned for a teaser in the near future. Ah, it's nice to have a short rest.
Other good news? The movie option for A CERTAIN SLANT OF LIGHT has re-sold to Kristin Hahn (producer of THE DEPARTED!) I'm delighted!
More news soon . . .
January 26, 2010
come to a reading
If you are in Portland, Oregon this Saturday (January 30th) come to a free reading of a new play written by my sister Cynthia (C.S. Whitcomb) at the Artist Rep Theater at 2:00 pm. The play is called The Wilde Boy and is about Oscar Wilde and his lover Bosie. It's an excellent play and how can you beat free live theater? The A.R.T. is at the corner of SW Alder and 15th Street. See you there!
(By the way, I finished my rewrite of UNDER THE LIGHT and got very good notes from sister Cynthia and...
January 16, 2010
midway haze
Ah, yes, I'm halfway through my UNDER THE LIGHT rewrite #1. Here are the kinds of thoughts that come to me during this sort of crunch:
1.) Hey, how come my manuscript is getting shorter? No fair. (It's from tightening up the writing.)
2.) Did I say this already? (Sometimes I discover that I accidentally inserted a good idea into two different spots in the first draft. I usually detect this when I see the section the second time and remember having revised a certain phrase already.)
3.) Do the...
January 12, 2010
Under the Light, rough
Well, I finished a rough draft of UNDER THE LIGHT.
Now I'm going through, chapter by chapter, and in addition to revising for the big stuff (answering questions like, "Do I love this part? Does this feel right?") I'm also checking for the following things as I read and rewrite:
Is the voice right? Jenny (my first person narrator) needs to sound like herself.
Am I aiming at the crosshairs of the chapter? (See my blog post from 10/30/09 to learn more about crosshairs.)
Are there any transitions...
January 5, 2010
The Art of the Supernatural Tea Party
Since I sense that you're dying to know, I'll tell you how I came up with the Supernatural Tea Party. It all started when I was volunteering backstage at the Portland Christmas Revels in 2007, a show that was set in a haunted castle. My friend Don Stewart Burns (actor and magician) was playing one of the leads, and one evening during the intermission (the house was already open, so we had to be quiet) I found Don talking with one of the teen boys in the cast, telling this lad about a...
January 1, 2010
January Give-Away!
Happy New Year, everyone!
The winner of the December Give-Away was Judi of Colebrook, New Hampshire. I'll send Judi the signed copy of THE FETCH right away.
The January Give-Away is a Grab Bag of five surprise YA paperbacks.
To enter the drawing, email your name and address via the "Email Laura Whitcomb" link on my website (www.laurawhitcomb.com) and let me know if you do NOT want to be on my snail mail list (for receiving bookmarks and other publisher-provided goodies when I have new books...
December 21, 2009
The Kay Snow Writing Awards!
The Kay Snow Contest is an annual writing award run by Willamette Writers in Oregon, but you don't need to be an Oregonian to enter. Student writers are awarded $50 for first place in three grade divisions, $20 for second place, and $10 for third place. For adults, first prize of $300, second place prize of $150, third place prize of $50 one each in the categories of fiction, nonfiction, juvenile, poetry, and screenwriting. Find out more by going to Kay Snow Contest Guidelines. The deadline...
December 8, 2009
the character poem
An exercise I like, a variation on the traditional character sketch, is a character poem I adapted from a now forgotten source (sorry source) a couple decades back. (The bookends of the poem are based on the Biblical idea that if a city had even one good person living in it, God would save that city for the sake of that righteous soul.) The exercise appeals to me because it demonstrates how, in only a few words, a character can seem real to the reader. Here's the formula.
Line #1: Surely the...
December 1, 2009
December Give-Away!
The winner of the November Give-Away, a signed copy of NOVEL SHORTCUTS, is P.E. of Grants Pass, Oregon.
For December the Give-Away is a signed copy of THE FETCH. Email your name and address via my website (www.laurawhitcomb.com) before New Years. (Let me know if you do NOT want to be on my snail mail list for the sending out of groovy things like bookmarks and postcards when new books come out.)
I hope all you Nanowrimo contestants had great results. Although I didn't get 50K words, I did...
November 30, 2009
Let them speak!
Sometimes when you're writing along on your novel, your gut instinct directs your protagonist to say or do something controversial, but you censor yourself and your character. You decide, almost as fast as you thought of the idea, that it is too harsh, too off the wall, too dangerous. But often that gut instinct is right.
When I was younger I tended to have a character think about saying a certain thing but explain why she doesn't. Now I try to let my people speak out or act out. Better to...
