olympics

We took our kids to see Women's hockey, Canada versus Slovakia at the 2010 Olympics. While it was exciting to watch our Canadian women play it was equally delightful to be a part of the crowd, to hear thousands of voices singing the anthem or giving a standing O for the Slovakian team's effort. It is the stuff of stories!

history

I'm writing a piece of historical fiction right now as well as fantasy.

settings

I'm re-reading Meghan Whalen Turner's Thief books again. Currently I'm reading The Queen of Atolia. What has struck me this time round is how well Turner describes court life and how countries operate and why they do some of the crazy things they do. For students, for teachers, these books provide an excellent base for thinking about settings for stories, particularly in regards to invented countries. I hope you get a chance to read through them.

writing at home, writing on the road

Things have been exceedingly busy at our house over Christmas and I'm afraid that like many bloggers I have been unable to write anything on the blog for too long.

I'm working steadily on three stories right now - three completely different books - and the range is most enjoyable. Readers and young writers have asked: is it hard to write more than one book at a time? An excellent question. The more I think about it the more I realize that my writing life somewhat resembles my reading life: I am frequently reading three books or more at a time and usually for different purposes. Depending on my mood or the time of night or day I will shift from Sherlock Holmes to Kenneth Opel's Airborne series to Meghan Whalen Turner's new books to another wonderful piece of literature! I find the shift fairly easy and enjoyable. It also seems to help my writing. Reading excellent writing supports the structures of my own writing. So, read on and write on!

names for characters

Some of you have been asking about names for characters:

One of the best sites that I know is babynames.com

It's an excellent way to find names in categories. You can find names by what was popular 20 years ago, or by country, boy/girl, lots of choices. Sometimes just seeing a name will make you think, "That's my character!"

Beyond the Mask

I've been getting emails recently from many of you asking about the third book in the trilogy, Beyond the Mask, due to come out in the United States. The word from Amulet Books is that the book is to come out in 2010, spring. I can hardly wait. The cover is stunning.

On another note, I will be at NCTE in Philadelphia at the end of this week. I have stickers and postcards of the third cover which I will gladly hand out to those who are there.

D

writing pirates, fantasy and things

For the last few days I've been working hard on "Ends" a new novel with Amulet Books. One of the things that makes this book so fun for me is the setting. I used my grandmother's house from when she lived in a small town. As a seven and eight year old, I found the house mysterious and a little creepy. There were Native masks hanging on the wall, creaky stairs leading to dark upstairs. There was a back room at one end of the house that we were not allowed to go into...of course we did! In the back room was a pair of bookend pirates made of bronze. They were so cool to look at. My mom gave them to me not long ago and now they are two of the main characters in this book.
Okay, back to writing!

D