Ernest Hemingway famously said all first drafts are garbage, except he used a way more *effluent* term instead of garbage. This is something that I’ve, at various times, thought was completely true, completely false, and now believe is somewhere in the middle. First drafts are your best effort at the time, and I hate to say anyone’s best effort at the time is no good. I’ve also read lots of…
April 24th is Indie Bookstore Day and to celebrate, I wanted to shine a light on my favorite local indie, Blue House Books in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Blue House Books is everything you want from a local bookstore: not only filled with amazing books from every genre you love to read, but owned and operated by a warm and welcoming bookseller. Samantha Jacquest is a one-woman small business maven who started…
I am a self-proclaimed craft geek. I love craft books, craft classes, online or when possible, in person. I have traveled as far as Maui to take a workshop and have purchased audiotapes and videotapes and bid on private craft lessons with superstar instructors at online auctions. Sounds a bit like an addiction, I’ll admit it. But for nearly two decades, writing workshops fell under my idea of a great…
It feels a little funny to be writing about milestones and celebrations before my book comes out. It almost sounds like the kind of article I’d write 30 years from now, when I’ve got a shelf full of bestsellers, a trophy case jammed with awards, and a desk built to look like my celebrated novels. What’s that last thing, you ask? I’m sorry, has no one shown you what Danielle…
Many, many (many) years ago, I was a soccer player. Mind you, I wasn’t amazing—I knew I’d never play professionally (no matter how many times my Dad made me run around the block with a tire strapped to my waist. Seriously.) But I was good enough to play for my college. My non-athlete friends always looked at me like I was a mad-woman when I came back from practice dripping…
I had a really hard time choosing a major in college. I went from Business Administration to Retailing, to Fashion, and finally landed in Art History – a perfect place for people like me who love art, but lack all artistic ability. Art History was a really fun major, and I enjoyed my classes tremendously. We’d scrutinize paintings, paying attention to style, technique, and symbolism, and listen to stories our…
A funny consequence of having a book coming out is that friends and family (and the occasional stranger on the internet) now come to me for advice on writing and publishing. It’s weird to give advice because I feel like I’m still learning these things myself. I don’t have an MFA – I literally just learned about the concept of negative capability this summer! But when I’m asked…
“It’s a black fly in your chardonnay. It’s a death row pardon two minutes too late.” Alanis Morissette was kind enough to give us many definitions of irony in 1995, and to those I would like to add, “It’s a jackhammer in your basement when you’re trying to write a blog post about writing through distractions.” We’re getting our house earthquake-retrofitted — a project that was initially supposed to take…
When writers talk about “world building” they mean more than just setting. Setting is where a story takes place. But a fictional world is setting, history, the special rules of that particular place, the people who inhabit that world, as well as the general tone or atmosphere that sort of floats over every page. The setting of the Harry Potter books is England, but in order to build her fictional…
I have had such a ride this year in publishing The Goddess Twins! There’s no way I will ever forget this journey of launching my debut novel – it has stretched me more than I ever thought possible in a multitude of directions. Out of all the highs and lows, I feel most grateful for the reader feedback. After years of work and insecurity and secret hopes about what this…
