Hello from Lake Champlain!

Every year I spend a few summer days with a group of writers at a retreat center in New York.  It's a good chance to see friends and also get work done.  So until Wednesday, I'm looking out over the lake, hammering out my plot. 

Kids often ask me at school visits if I ever get "stuck" in my writing.  The answer is yes. I will start a novel and it always goes well until around Page 40.  That's when I run out of steam because I don't know what's going to happen next. I have to stop writing awhile and plot out the rest of the story. 

I felt that familiar, unsatisfying, stuck feeling at the end of last week.  So I looked to see what page I was on. . .

38. 

So I'm using my retreat to plot my book past that sticking point.