How to rediscover old wisdom and whimsy
Sisters on the monkey bars My Grandy at almost 90 still sends cards for every conceivable holiday to her incredibly lucky grandchildren, and untold other fortunate acquaintances in her address book. My Valentine's Day card included a couple photos, including this one of my sister and I playing on the monkey bars when we were kids As always, my Grandy is imparting not one important wisdom with her card, but two! The first, of course, is the card itself The importance of writte
Outlining Your Novel is Like Catching a Sunrise
Sunrise over the Lake I wanted to go Shakespearean "To Outline or Not to Outline" but I think the sunrise analogy is more spot on. Here me out! The sunrise is, in theory, the beginning of your day. The time before you have a massive to-do list, the time when you can maybe just sit, think, relax. And, in exactly that way, the outline is the beginning of your novel. It's right after you've had an idea or the spark of an idea, and when all you wanna do is jump into that idea and
A Faerie Story But Not the Kind You're Thinking
Phantastes by George MacDonald I started off my year of reading by deciding to read one of the books that inspired the books that had such a huge impact on me. Especially The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and The Lord of the Rings books. After the first few pages, it was already so clear where C.S. Lewis may have gotten the idea of stepping into a Faerie world running alongside ours but completely strange and foreign. And, many of the themes (of love, of good, of evil) not
