Snowy Day

Is there anything better than a snowy day at home to write? I think not.

I wrote Chapter 12 of my novel this morning - I like the book now that I have a sense of where it is going, of the characters' inexorable destiny unfolding. Then I met for almost two hours with one of my wonderful SCBWI writing mentees. We discussed the first two revised chapters of her novel and looked ahead for how she needs to revise the next three chapters. What she is going to work on most is situating us completely in each scene, and in particular, situating us completely inside the main character's head, so that we feel Jenna's complicated tangle of emotions at every point during the conversation and action. I know this author can do it!

After lunch, I reviewed five submissions for an American Philosophical Association newsletter on philosophy and women - the theme of this issue is motherhood - and wrote comments on each one. Such a satisfying task to cross of my list! And then I faced this summer's SCBWI writing retreat. I'm to be the facilitator/writer for the novel strand of the event; Linda Ashman is playing that role for the picture book strand. We've been asked to send in the titles for the FOUR different craft-related talks each of us will be giving over the course of this July weekend. Do I have four different craft-related talks in me? Well, I know I WILL have them all prepared by July, but procrastination is apparently not the style of this event's organizers, who want to have the brochure ready to go to press mid-month. So now I have to curl up and think of what four things I most want to tell my fellow writers - what four things would I most want somebody to tell ME as a writer?

That, plus two huge loads of laundry, makes for a completely lovely day.