Due to an illness in the family and travel, Chapter Ten will have to wait a week.  A good lesson in life-as-a-story here, dear readers: Nothing is more important than caring for those you love.  Nothing. Back next week with a chapter that rocks.  (Hint, Anna will be as stunned as anyone that Michael found her. It can only mean one thing… ”magic” must be on the move.)

In this “So You Want To Write A Book” video post, I fess up about just how disciplined I’m…NOT.  If the standard one-size-discipline fits all doesn’t actually fit you, click play!

Emma,  who writes at http://forever-thinking.net/ is our teen writer of the week. I found her just surfing the net, and loved her blog tag line “becasue I have a brain.” I especially loved that she gave up writing fiction because she didn’t want to give her characters flaws. Not that she gave up (oh no!) but that she cared so much!

From Emma’s About Me blog page:  Who am I? My name is Emma, I’m seventeen years old, and currently what Americans would call a senior in highschool. A Dutch Grammar School to be precise, and although I am a huge procrastinator, I pride myself in my education. Read the rest of this entry

“There’s no one here,” I say to Michael, looking at a huge room full of empty tables.

“They aren’t open for lunch,” he replies matter-of-factly.

I stop in my tracks. “Then why are we here?”

Michael laughs in that rolling hills way again. “It’s okay. I own the place. Well, I will when I turn eighteen.”

I don’t move. Strike number two. Rich, cute boys are rarely fun to play with, and you surely wouldn’t want to actually date one. I’ve been forced to meet enough of his type through Dad’s social circles to know that much. They actually think they don’t have to be decent human beings, because, well, they’ve got what everyone wants. Only for me, they totally don’t. Read the rest of this entry

Okay, fans and friends… don’t laugh too much. I decided to spice up our talk today with a little Irish lilt. Well, it was worth a try! Here you will learn Tips 2 and 3 from How To Write A BlockBuster novel, as seen in the Mayden Chronicles.

There is one question I get fairly often: Do you have to do a lot of research to write a book?  The question itself reveals the problem.  Because the answer is… HAVE to? That’s the FUN part! It’s not all book work, either.

Yesterday, for example, I went to the Asbury Community (a retirement village that is an upscale version of Mayden’s Heritage Village) to find out if I’m on target for my set and setting. I also went to meet with ten of the most indepenent and active residents to ask 1) if I was on target in my descriptions and 2) if they were even remotely interested in this “teen” story.  They were kind enough to read at least the first four chapters online (or printed out) and let me know what they thought.  Since they were all 60+, and some of them were in their 80’s, I was a little nervous. 

Turns out, I didn’t need to be.  They love Mayden! We talked for an hour, and there was a lot to learn about the “health care” section, which is equivalent to the level of care Anna has.  In fact, they said Mayden made them wonder how many of the residents in Anna’s condition were really lucid underneath.  I was able to explain blogging as a format and where I’m going with the story.  They gave me suggestions about where I needed more detail and we discussed Anna’s “backstory”–where she was thirty years before the story started (I had to confess, I didn’t know yet). In short, we all got each other thinking. That’s the heart of research and Mayden will surely be a better story for it. 

I thank Suzanne Edwards, Bobbie Patterson, Mary Ellen Muldoon, Sandra Wilkens, Betty Peterkin, Jerre Musser, and Nancy Mellem! Also and especially, my hosts and wonderful parents-in-law (the ones who made it all happen), Janie and Ellis Knox.  You all were so very helpful!

Okay, readers, I got a big creative brainstorm going this week!  After meeting all the cast in chapters 1-7, we get to some super magic with the newest member, Michael, in Chapter 8.  I knew he was coming, but I wasn’t sure what he would be about.  Then, I saw Gerard Senehi.  Okay, so if you are into reading ahead of the class, go to his website at www.experimentalist.com and watch him perform, and you’ll get the inspiration behind the gifts Michael is going to display. It is important to note that this guy is not going to BE Michael.  Our character Michael is fictional, and so not based on Gerard’s or anyone else’s actual life or personality–it’s JUST the gifts that are going to be similar. Watch for bending spoons, twisting forks, moving objects with his mind…  Such “magical” gifts (magic being what we don’t understand–yet) are rare, but not as rare as you might think! Most important to the writing process, you can get your ideas from anywhere.  Just don’t steal whole personalities, or you could get yourself into a world of trouble. In fact, I asked Gerard’s publicist about this post, and he/she said AOK! :-)  Read on!

The DreamInEnglish website totally got me excited about how we create excellence in writing and this video on Ron Clark exemplifies it wonderfully. (It starts out with promos, but gets to the real man dancing soon enough!) I’m so going to up my game from here on out… Glad to have all you teachers and students along!