Lookit!

| November 16, 2011

Hey, wanna see something cool? I know you do!

On sequels

| November 7, 2011

I’ve been reading a number of highly anticipated sequels lately, as well as editing a sequel or two myself. It has me thinking about the best ways to reintroduce your reader to your characters and plot that they may have just read last week—or maybe it’s been more than a year. How do you avoid [...]

Hm, that’s weird

| November 6, 2011

Sorry, LJ people, again. Since I switched the LJ cross-posting app, it seems that anything crossposted to LJ is turning comments off, even if they’re actually on by default. I’ve never turned them off on LJ, so I’m not sure what’s up. I’ll look into it and let you know when I figure it out. [...]

One parent’s perspective on e-readers for kids

| November 5, 2011

More and more teens are getting e-readers in the last year or so. There was a big wave of e-reader purchases for them at Christmas and Hanukkah last year (see this article in the New York Times covering that trend—a NYT article that actually gets it right about children’s books!). E-books are growing, especially in [...]

Quick review of the redesigned Pilot Precise V5 Extra Fine

| November 2, 2011

In a sentence: WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY PEN?? I loved the old Precise V5s. Almost every editor I know who I’ve ever talked pens with loves the Precise V5. It’s got a fine enough tip to write between lines of text without smearing ink everywhere, and it was steady and sure. And when [...]

Villain POVs

| November 1, 2011

I have to admit, I really hate villain POVs. There are so few villains that have any redeemable qualities, and especially starting a book out with the villain’s point of view when they’re murdering and/or plundering just makes me go, “Why do I want to read this book, again?” This is actually one of the [...]