I have a love-hate relationship with scenes that establish setting of the story. I find these scenes the hardest to write, but also the most rewarding. When I write them well, my readers tell me that they feel as if they are there, perched somewhere in the scene itself, having a bird-eye view of the action. They can visualize the scene, experience it along with the characters. Setting is the…
Boy do I LOVE run-on sentences. I discovered this recently while working on the audio version book of The Trying Game: Get Through Fertility Treatment and Get Pregnant Without Losing Your Mind. Now, many authors don’t get to read their own books (especially novels) but when the head of Penguin/Random House first called me, she wanted me to read the intro to my book. But then she read my book, and discovered…
I’d always thought of world-building as something that happened in science fiction and fantasy, which is probably how I ended up with such a dialogue-heavy draft of MINOR DRAMAS that my agency’s in-house editor, in a fit of exasperation, asked me if I thought I was writing a play. Layering in setting (for me, it goes hand-in-hand with inner thinking), led me to a much richer, seemingly tangible final product….
In The Talking Drum, one of my main characters, Omar Bassari, reminisces about the day in 1965 when his father, Ibrahim, sat him down in their Senegalese village and told him that The Festival of the Black Arts was coming to the capital city, Dakar. Kings, emperors, and presidents from all over the world would be coming to the festival. Ibrahim’s musical hero, composer, pianist, and orchestra leader Duke Ellington,…
I grew up very introverted, completely over sensitized to the world on a daily basis and retreating inside my head to cope. From ‘Baby Yoda’ me, till I was around 17, my personality type could be very easily summed up by the words “bookworm”. Books were my escape, my safety blanket, and my deepest friends. Looking back, it was my own form of obsessive coping mechanism. I was a depressed…
Let’s just be honest, here. I’m having a lot of trouble composing this week’s article—on how my personality affects my writing—because I’m not honestly sure what my personality is. I mean, I’m a little serious, I’m an extrovert, and a bit of a workaholic, but “I write a lot” does not a Deb article make. So. I took a bunch of Buzzfeed personality quizzes. “This Sorting Quiz Will Tell You…
This week’s topic is how our personalities impact our writing. I wrote quite a lot about my personality when we discussed balance, or in my case, lack thereof. It’s funny, though. I’m feeling a little different than I did five months ago when I confessed my unrelenting anxiety and quest for perfection. There’s no doubt I’m still myself–driven and compulsive–but to be honest, I feel a little less aggressively so….
I never realized that my personality influenced my writing until I had an agent take a look at an early version of The Talking Drum. The agent read it through several times and gave me an in-depth critique. One remark she made stands out from the others. She said that every time my characters came close to having a conflict I would have them retreat and resolve matters quietly. She…
I am so happy to welcome Leah Garriott to the Deb ball this week! Although she earned degrees in math and statistics, Leah Garriott lives for a good love story. She’s resided in Hawaii and Italy, walked the countryside of England, and owns every mainstream movie version of Pride and Prejudice. She’s currently living her own happily ever after in Utah with her husband and three kids. We’ll be giving…
I am so very into being inspired. I love being exposed to new experiences, ideas, art, stories, sounds, tastes. I used to feel I could only be inspired by things when I felt safe. I felt like I needed to shut out others to find inspiration from within. While this is still true, as I can find inspiration in quiet contemplation, I’ve also found I can be very inspired when…
