100 Love Sonnets: The Only Book You Need for Valentine’s Day
My love for my husband isn’t about flowers and candy on a particular day of the year. It’s about the surging ache I feel when we’re apart and I think of him. It’s about a random image, the shine of his hair, his voice, how he walks. It’s an act…
Why Reading Aloud Is the Best Editing Tool
I’m in the final stages of editing a manuscript. Today I read the book aloud. It took a long time. Doing it such a pain — it sounds strange to hear your voice after sitting for so long in silence, and it’s physically arduous — but my gosh, is it revealing.…
The Struggle Between My Words and the World’s
These last few weeks I’ve been immersed in the final edits of my novel. It’s the slow time for my gardening day job. I sit for two-hour-long chunks (or more) and I read and type words. This has been productive. I’ve lived in the world of my novel: Paris, plants,…
Who Is the Second Most Valuable Beta Reader?
In early November, I sent my novel to three trusted friends for feedback. One is a freelance editor and writer. Another is a memoirist. And the third is a fantasy writer. They were all happy to take on the favor of reading my manuscript and agreed to an early December deadline to…
The Secret to Writing Good Sentences
Lately, I’ve been judging my sentences as too clunky. They get to the point but there’s no inspiration. So I thought about what books in the past inspired me to write interesting sentences. European greats like Tolstoy, Hugo, Balzac, Dickens, James. And then contemporary writers like Anthony Doerr, Richard Ford, Haruki Murakami,…
Back to School Means Back to Manuscript
Labor Day marks not only a day for those who toil to make this industrious earth go ’round, but a time when I can get back to work. Either gardening or writing. In these last weeks, I’ve managed both, mostly small jobs in the mornings, writing in the afternoon. Of…
Overcoming the Guilt of Not Writing
Sometimes, when I’m gardening, I feel the guilt of not writing. When I’m writing, I sometimes feel guilty about not gardening. And I don’t mean having fun in my yard, though I love to do that too. I mean gardening for work, for money, my day job. I own a tiny…
