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Wednesday, March 3, 2010

A Quiet, Gloomy Wednesday

Hello, hello. Well, don't just stand there! Come in. Would you like some tea? I've still got some Tesco Scottish tea saved up. I'll put the kettle on and we can chat.

Reader, I am lonely. Let's pretend that you've come over for an unannounced afternoon chat and some hot tea. Play along, won't you?

Other than being a bit lonely, life is going well. Yesterday afternoon was so thrilling that I had to share it with you. I went to...

wait for it

the Middlebury College Library!!!

Yes, I really, truly did!

No, that's what I really did. I'm not just saying that so you can attempt a polite response only for me to say, "Ha! I can't believe you fell for that. Seriously, I went to the circus...in Narnia."

When my husband got a job at the college I didn't realize how awesome this could be for *me*. I actually have access to the library and can take out books like the students. I've been doing a lot of research on faeries in Victorian culture as well as some old faerie ballads, particularly about changelings. I left the library with a small pile of beautiful, old books hugged to my chest. I was actually making little gleeful noises to myself.

I do not remember being this excited about the library when I was actually in college.

I'm getting more and more excited about my next novel. This one is going to be be about fraternal twins, not just sisters. And I'm going to play off my favorite fairy tale Snow White and Rose Red, as well. Just making that decision has made me realize a lot of things about the book, the way the twins interact, and the motivations behind some of their actions.

My plan for today is to prop myself up on the couch and do some reading. And then hopefully, if I'm brave enough, then very soon I'll actually begin writing...


And before you go, I wanted to share a great blog post from Maggie Steifvater, author of Shiver. The post is about her early writing and how terrible it was, which I suppose is meant to show us writers than you CAN improve and go on to be a New York Times bestselling author. But what I took away from it, was that Maggie was always writing, always trying new things, and essentially throwing herself off of proverbial cliffs and seeing how many sentences she could write before she hit the ground. She never stopped, she just kept getting better. Just something to keep in mind. Maybe very soon I'll have enough guts to throw myself off the looming cliff so I can see if this new novel catches me or not.


I hope you liked the tea. Thanks for stopping by!

2 comments:

  1. Oh, that's a great blog post by Maggie. I especially love the nonsensical description example.

    I will drink your tea, and wager biscotti with dried cherries. As a fellow unemployed-on-top-of-trying-get-published chica, I can relate to that loneliness. And as someone who just flat out loves books, I would be giddy (silly grin and all) if I found a new library to loot.

    And I love fairy tale retelling/reimaginings. I'd love to see what you do with Snow White and Rose Red.

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  2. Thanks for bringing the biscotti. Yum! And for sharing the loneliness. Sometimes I feel guilty for admitting it since I'm lucky to have all this time to myself to write. But still, it's hard being alone.

    Snow White, Rose Red is a weird little story. I'm excited to weave it into my WIP. I always need a little structure at the beginning to narrow down the plot variables!

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