I’m often asked why I write books for kids and teens instead of grown up books, and my answer is always this: I write for kids and teens because the books we read when we’re young begin to shape and define not only our reading tastes, but our very selves. Rarely do the books we [...]

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I have just come off one of the most amazing months of my entire life. April involved traveling nearly the entire month, including a two week book tour, teaching workshops and giving a keynote at a regional SCBWI conference, and attending the librarian paradise that is the Texas Library Association’s annual convention. It also involved [...]

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I can’t help but wonder if whoever designed the Ferris wheel (that would be Ferris, I’m assuming) was after a cheap, momentary thrill or if he was inspired by Fortune’s Wheel of the tarot, intentionally trying to create a carnival ride that would encapsulate life’s ups and downs. For the truth is, we all have [...]

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Every two year old gets it—often better than the adults around her. In fact, once a toddler discovers the true power of No, they use it with abandon, muttering it, shouting it, playing with it, experimenting with it. It’s actually a thrilling step in our evolution as a person—that moment when we realize we have [...]

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I talk a lot about digging deeper in the writing process and putting more of our true selves on the page. It occurred to me about halfway through my second post on the subject that at some point I was going to have to address how to protect oneself in light of all that truth [...]

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One of the things I fear most with all the publishing and promotional advice zipping around the cybersphere is that some people—quiet people who have something really important or compelling to say—will look at all that is ‘required’ of them to get published or to promote their books and they will become so discouraged they [...]

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That collective groan and gnashing of teeth you heard Wednesday was the sound of authors reacting to Amazon’s new Author Ranking System—oh joy!—yet one more tool for us to compare ourselves to others. And for any of us trying to separate our selves from our writing? Well, you can just forget about that. So this [...]

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It’s one of the first rules of characterization we writers learn—give our protagonists a fatal flaw. Even better? Use that fatal flaw to bring about the character’s ultimate triumph. It is one of my favorite character arcs, how that flaw can end up being the thing that saves us, given the right set of circumstances. [...]

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I just got back from attending the RWA National Conference in Anaheim. Every time I had to walk across the lobby, I would brace myself in preparation for the voices of two thousand women as they enthusiastically talked about books and writing, publishing and life. The din was intense, but not nearly as intense as [...]

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I first heard Elizabeth Law speak at a SCBWI National Conference where the title of her talk was, “Ask Me Anything—The Unvarnished Truth About Publishing.” Right then and there, I knew she was my kind of person. Then, during the course of the conference when she told attendees, “Just write your heart out. I promise [...]

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There is a revolution taking place. You can’t miss it, really. It’s rising up all around us—in the way books are published, in how they find their audience, and how authors interact with their readers. The thing about revolutions is that they are both exciting and scary. People and systems are vulnerable during revolutions when [...]

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Therese butting in for a second to officially welcome Robin LaFevers to Writer Unboxed as a regular contributor. So glad you’re with us, Robin! In the comments of my guest post last month, a number of people wanted to know what techniques allowed me to dig deep and find the crunchier stories I had to [...]

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