I’ve not been blogging very much, mostly because I’m crashing through a 3rd draft of The Game of Hope, the working title of my YA novel about Hortense de Beauharnais.

But I’ve also been slow to blog because WordPress.org has been suddenly problematic, requiring me to insert (horror!) code before publishing a post. For a code nerd, it would be nothing—but for me it’s a pain. Fingers crossed that the next upgrade of WordPress will solve the problem.

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But for now, I’m just dropping by to post a quote I liked in a wonderful book: Show Your Work! by Austin Kleon. I’m going to be passing it on to friends in my book club. I recommend it!

Here’s something else worth noting, re. structure (credit to Emma Coats, formerly at Pixar):

Once upon a time, there was _____.

Every day, _____.

One day, _____.

Because of that, _____.

Because of that, _____.

Until finally, _____.

And so, in the spirt of sharing/showing my work, I finished making the changes to draft 3.1.1 today and have printed it out. I love seeing that big stack. Tomorrow morning, I’ll begin to read it through. I’m already trying to talk myself into not getting too picky. I want to skim for flow, identify the problematic sections and write a new chapter or two. But “picky” is my middle name, so that might be a problem.

I got the draft cover for the paperback edition of The Shadow Queen: I like it!

Here’s the quote:

“The cat sat on a mat” is not a story. “The cat sat on the dog’s mat” is a story. —John le Carré