Whispering Pines

One of my favorite pieces of wisdom from Whispering Pines retreat last weekend, from the wonderful Cynthia Lord, author of the Newbery Honor Book RULES:

"Books take the time they take."

This is a writer to listen to. These are words to write on my walls as a reminder! Perhaps a tattoo. Cynthia, thank you!

Whispering Pines was a great success – I only attended on Saturday, but I went home FULL of new techniques. That said, I'm too close to my WIP to have a real opinion on what I produced, but I will say this: starting over can be a GOOD thing. Seriously. If you think you need to start over, don't beat yourself up about it. You've made an extremely valuable realization about your book, and now you can proceed down a new, better path. (Here's hoping my agent agrees with me.)