2011 ALAN Workshop Authors

The 2011 ALAN Work­shop will be hosted at the Chicago Hilton from Novem­ber 20–22 and will con­tinue the tra­di­tion of cel­e­brat­ing the very best of young adult lit­er­a­ture. This year’s lineup is won­der­ful indeed: M.T. Ander­son will deliver the keynote address at the Work­shop, and Jacqueline

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April 11, 2011 – 3:55 pm | Posted in Events | Tagged | Comments Off

Starting at the End

When it comes to blog­ging on a reg­u­lar basis, I often feel like one of the Weasley chil­dren” “Where have you been?  Beds empty! No note!” It’s been a cou­ple of months since my last post, and I can say in answer to where have you been is–Mars. Last I left y’all, the fast draft …

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March 7, 2011 – 5:21 pm | Posted in Blog | Tagged , , | Comments Off

Fast Draft Day 20: Done

60,020 words. That’s the final word count of Draft 1 of Invis­i­ble Sun, the sequel to Black Hole Sun. This is an alpha draft, unfit for human eyes, except for my own. There are many holes in the plot, a few miss­ing scenes, and even a char­ac­ter who did not exist in the out­line but …

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December 20, 2010 – 3:44 pm | Posted in Blog, Craft | Tagged , | Comments (1)

Fast Draft Day 19: Fail

Only 700 words today. Quota fail. A com­bi­na­tion of Christ­mas shop­ping, foot­ball, and a stom­ach virus come lim­ited the time and energy for writ­ing. It hap­pens. So you for­give your­self, remind your­self that you’re still ahead of track, and that you have one more day to reach 60k words.

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December 20, 2010 – 2:13 am | Posted in Blog, Craft | Tagged | Comments Off

Fast Draft Day 18: Crank

3028 words for the day. No insights left. Date/Words/Total 12–18/3028/57813 12–17/3111/54758 12–16/3187/51647 12–15/3027/48460 12–14/3016/45433 12–13/3190/42417 12–12/3001/39228 12–11/3070/36227 12–10/3007/33157 12–9/5584/30150 12–8/3003/24566 12–7/3043/21563 12–6/3075/18520 12–5/3110/15445 12–4/3093/12335 12–3/3014/9242 12–2/3131/6228 12–1/3087/3087

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December 19, 2010 – 3:30 am | Posted in Blog, Craft | Tagged | Comments Off

Fast Draft Day 17: Grind

One word after another makes a sen­tence makes a para­graph makes a page. Grind, grind, grind. Date/Words/Total 12–17/3111/54758 12–16/3187/51647 12–15/3027/48460 12–14/3016/45433 12–13/3190/42417 12–12/3001/39228 12–11/3070/36227 12–10/3007/33157 12–9/5584/30150 12–8/3003/24566 12–7/3043/21563 12–6/3075/18520 12–5/3110/15445 12–4/3093/12335 12–3/3014/9242 12–2/3131/6228 12–1/3087/3087

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December 18, 2010 – 4:24 am | Posted in Blog, Craft | Tagged | Comments Off