What a Good Girl Am I (But Apparently Not Good Enough)
As frenetic as the energy can be leading up to the Christmas holiday, I love the days afterward when everything seems to slow down. (Except the hopping party at a neighbor’s house last night; the cops silenced their thumping bass just before 3 a.m.) I was apparently a very good girl this year because various Santas gave me a stack of yummy books I can’t wait to devour. I haven’t started them yet. First, because a library book demanded my attention, and second, because… I don’t know why. I’m a doofus. Or because I have a big editing itch now, Read more…
Pacing: Why You Should be Glad You Don’t Live in a Novel
I may have mentioned I’m working on edits for the Panacea novel now (still untitled, but I’m deciding this week—I swear!). I’ve always goggled at the writers who say they love revising, that it’s the reward they get for slogging through the first draft. Nothing could be farther from my own (admittedly limited) experience. There are certainly challenging moments, times when I’m not sure how to move forward, but overall the first draft is what I live for—that feeling of discovery, the moment a character or plot twist surprises even me, the elation when I’m in the flow and my Read more…
Stories I … Strongly Recommend: The Fall
Okay, so I’m deviating a little bit from my formula here. I wrote about Broadchurch as a Story I Love a while back. The Fall is another amazing British police procedural I heard about around the same time. I highly recommend it, but I can’t quite say it’s a Story I Love. More on why that is in a bit. Unlike Broadchurch, the 5-episode first season of BBC’s The Fall doesn’t follow a single case, but it does follow a single serial killer. And rather than being a mystery, The Fall is more of a cat-and-mouse thriller. The viewer follows Read more…
Where is the Cutesie Novel-Naming Book for Expectant Authors? Reader Poll
With the Secrets in Stockbridge novella now out there making its way in the world, I’m about to dig in on the edits for the second full-length novel. I’ve had ideas for the cover rolling around in the back of my mind for months, and I’ve even browsed stock photo images. Unfortunately, I don’t have my cover designer’s magic touch on the search engine. I know what I want; I just can’t find it. (And yes, it may include a gator–mwah ha ha!) There is one other little thing holding me up on cover design… the title of the book. You’ve probably noticed Read more…
![Puuhonua o Hanaunau by OldPine at wts wikivoyage (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](https://www.judykwalker.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Puuhonua.jpg)
Peeking Warily Out of the Writer’s Cave: Confessions of a Curmudgeon
I’m a big fan of the Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie version of PG Wodehouses’s Jeeves and Wooster. In Season 3, they travel to the United States, and there’s an episode where Bertie’s poet friend Rocky is in crisis. (Bertie always has a friend in some uniquely upper-crust crisis.) Rocky happily lives in the then-relative-wilds of Long Island, but a moneyed relative is forcing him to move to New York City. Rocky says, “Good Lord, l’d have to dress for dinner every night. l won’t do it, l can’t do it. l don’t get out of my pajamas ’til five in the Read more…
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