A few weeks ago, I stumbled across an article in National Geographic about the longest train ride through India. You know how every now and then you read something that triggers some awakening in your mind, as if the author had composed his language solely for you? To me this article was so arrestingly beautiful, so beautifully phrased, and so poignant that it seemed personal. Bear with me here through…
Balance? What Is This Balance Thing You Speak Of?
Balance. Such a buzzy word these days. I think we are all looking for a magic recipe to make everything snap into place and grant us inner peace. I have no such recipe. What I do have is a sort of polar opposite energy flow on different days of the week. When the boys are at their father’s house, I work, drink coffee, stare into space. These are luxury days…
Roll for Initiative, Press A to Begin
The autumnal equinox is coming up on Friday, so we’ve decided to make this week’s theme about balance: specifically the balance in our lives between work, play, and writing. This has definitely not always been an easy balance for me to find. While I was drafting From Unseen Fire, I was working full-time at my day job — a day job that often involved evening, early morning, and weekend hours…
[News Flash] 9/17 Hurricanes, Debs in the Wild, and More!
Congratulations to Jennifer and Kelley, winners of our #DebBallGiveaway of THE SALT LINE by Holly Goddard Jones. Thank you so much to yesterday’s guest, Jenny D. Williams! If you haven’t already, enter the #DebBallGiveaway to win a copy of The Atlas of Forgotten Places. You can enter by sharing our post on Facebook and/or retweeting the following tweet: [Guest Post] @jclarkab introduces you to the amazing Jenny D. Williams, author of THE ATLAS… https://t.co/KqERS3TwNV pic.twitter.com/ffmUTlzPGQ —…
[Guest Post] Jenny D. Williams THE ATLAS OF FORGOTTEN PLACES
I’m so excited to have Jenny D. Williams on the Debutante Ball today! I first met Jenny in one of the many Binders sub-groups for novelists. She’s always funny, always kind, always helpful to other writers. And she’s incredibly talented. Jenny’s debut, THE ATLAS OF FORGOTTEN PLACES (St. Martin’s Press) is an amazing piece of work. Her prose is gorgeous, and this is a book that will resonate with you,…
I Owe You The Moon
There are a great many people to whom I owe a hefty debt of gratitude for the fact that in just a few months I’ll be able to walk into my local indie and see a piece of my heart on the shelf. Each and every one of those people (Hopefully! Good glory, you would not believe the nightmares!) will be thanked in my acknowledgments. But there are a…
5 people Without Whom My Book Wouldn’t Exist
My siblings will not be surprised to discover that I’m going to cheat in my list of five by combining many people within one category. They will also not be surprised to learn that I don’t care that I’m cheating. But here it is. I’ve crammed as many of you as possible into each group. Sorry about the crowd. # 1 – My parents. Since childhood, they’ve always…
In Which Kimmery Thanks Five People* You Wouldn’t Expect
For this post about people without whom The Queen of Hearts would not exist, I decided to go rogue in order to list a few unexpected influencers: a cranky genius, a maligned but immensely successful author of erotica, a fictional six-year-old, a group of 70,000 over-sharers, and, uh, me. To the usual suspects in a thank-you list (my agent, my editor, my beta readers, my writing groups, and my long-suffering…
Consolidated Characters: 5 People Without Whom My Book Wouldn’t Exist
In creative writing, we sometimes consolidate several people into one in the interest of not driving the reader crazy with an over-populated cast of characters. I’m doing so here to stretch my five people into many more because I have an inordinate love of finding loopholes. Here are five consolidated characters without whom Girlish wouldn’t exist. The Advisor: I was talking to a mentor about writing, and he said, “when are…
To You, My Thanks: 5 people to whom FROM UNSEEN FIRE owes its existence
For this week’s theme, the Debs are sharing the love and discussing five people without whom our books wouldn’t exist. I use “five” a little loosely — but here goes: My family: I mean, this almost seems too easy, but I couldn’t start anywhere else. My parents have supported my dreams of writing for as long as I’ve had them. They knew I’d be good at it before I did. (My…
