Perfect balance is important to a tightrope walker. Without it he’d plunge to his death. Do writers need perfect balance too? I’m a Libran so my zodiac symbol is the scales. I’m not entirely clear if that means I should be good at achieving perfect balance and harmony, or if those things are just important [...]
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Happy Halloween! This week in the Tollbooth we’re talking about what scares us. As a middle-grade writer I try to remember what it felt like to be nine or ten years old and translate that to the page. I find it pretty easy to remember things that made me sad or mad or even really [...]
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Today we’re finishing the artists’ toolbox series with a paw through a sculptor’s kit. And I’m inviting you to a party… but that comes at the end of this post, after all the explosions. The finished product is so lifelike… only better. So delicate, yet strong. Whether it’s Michelangelo’s David or Dale Chihuly’s glass work [...]
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“You’re writing is almost there… but… I couldn’t connect with the story…characters… (fill in the blank)…” Have you ever received feedback like this? What does it mean? Even more important– how on earth can you fix it? When I read a manuscript that’s almost there but not quite, when I can’t quite connect with the [...]
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We writers talk a lot about our “toolbox”– all the tips and techniques we’ve collected to lift a story up. Some of my favorite tools are psychic distance, descriptive details, and internal monologue (okay I know Sarah Aronson’s teeth are grinding now! She HATES internal monologue!) But are there other tools we rarely think about? [...]
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Summer, I love you. When I was in Washington, DC year around you were always hot as heck-o-pete. But here in Vermont you’re cool, calm, and collected. Instead of lazy I feel inspired. This summer I’ve fed my inspiration every morning with Julia Cameron’s morning pages. Three fast and furious (or serene) pages of free [...]
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There are always lots of great new books coming soon from Tollbooth authors. This fall look for these new releases in your bookstore! DEAR BULLY, a short story collection edited by Carrie Jones– including one of Carrie’s stories will be in bookstores on September 6. Get scared! Carrie Jones’ AFTER OBSESSION comes out on September [...]
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Melanie Fishbane posts from the residency this morning. Stay tuned later today for a post about the opening of the Alumni Mini-Residency. Debbie Wiles will be speaking about structure and character. A slew of agents and editors will be meeting with alums and listening to readings. And group of alums, including Tollboothers Sarah Aronson, Zu [...]
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VCFA COINS A NEW TROPE! History was made today on the VCFA campus when faculty member, Martine Leavitt, dubbed a new literary technique, abstract concretion, during her lecture. In defining the term, a sibling of the objective correlative, Leavitt offered the following: “Abstract concretion takes the abstract emotion and creates a concrete desire line from [...]
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Today’s post from the Vermont College of Fine Arts is from Lyn Miller-Lachmann~ Meg Wiviott already had a book under contract when she began the two-year program in Writing for Children and Young Adults at Vermont College of Fine Arts. Benno and the Night of Broken Glass came out from Kar-Ben Books in her third [...]
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