Please Don't Read This Book

Head on over to Please Don't Read This Book and check out my guest review of Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys. And don't forget to leave a comment so you can win a copy of this gorgeous work of historical fiction.

Thought of the day!

"All art is just

problem solving."

Empathy

Congratulations to Kathrine Erskine- winner of the National Book Award for Young People's Literature for the book Mockingbird. I reviewed this book last year and knew it was destined to be a big success!

Having worked with high school students for the last 12 years, I can say that, Asperger's or not, empathy is sorely missing from so many young people in our schools today. Lately, bullying amongst kids and teens has been in the news and I think that books like Mockingbird can go a long way toward helping young people feel empathy for those around them. Yes, there needs to be policy and consequences for threatening or teasing in schools, but we also need to focus our resources on building communities that value empathy, kindness, praise, and love. And literature is an effective way to start doing just that.

Shump, shump, shump it up!

Check out the fabulous fashion blog Zannazine!
Read the newest post, "My Lovely Lady Shumps" and see if you can find the A Lil' Sumpin' Sumpin' shout out!
Boom! I'm coining words like I was Abe Lincoln!
Get it? He's on the penny. It's a coin.
Nevermind.

Quote of the Day

"Language and magic. Where is the connection? Think about it this way: when we form letters to write words, we create something out of nothing, so that the still air or the empty space on the page fills with meaning, as if a wizard created a blizzard from a clear blue sky."

-Roy Peter Clark, The Glamour of Grammar

I Have a Stomachache!

And it is no wonder! Yesterday I spent my day hanging out with good friends having good times, which meant eating lots of junk food. And now I'm paying the price!

For breakfast, okay it was 2:00, but it was my first waking meal, so it still counts as breakfast, I met my girls at Spot for some delicious Thai coffee and cupcakes. You can read all about the experience, and see which cupcake won the taste-test challenge here. (Lemon Yuzu was by far my personal favorite- and I would gladly accept a Lemon Yuzu birthday cake from Spot- hint, hint.)

Then I travelled to The Wing Bar in Carroll Gardens for some Sam Adams seasonal brew, Buffalo wings, and brussels sprouts... fried brussells sprouts.

Dinner consisted of pineapple pizza, brownies, and wine. Yum. And they gave me the strength to dominate at Scattergories and Cranium. Boom.

A Creative Eden

Just read a great guest post

by Jeremy C. Shipp

on the blog Not Enough Words

about embracing one's own creativity.

A simple lesson, but one that is surprisingly hard to enact.

He starts off by saying, "Early on, I didn’t think about the creative process. I simply enjoyed it. I wrote what I felt like writing. I didn’t hold anything back. I didn’t edit myself. In a manner of speaking, I was living in a creative Eden."

This is a place I would like to get back to sometime soon. Having made the decision to declare myself a capital W- Writer has increased the pressure I put on myself. What was once fun and the thing I did to relieve stress is now the cause of most of my stress! I am easily overwhelmed and paralyzed when I have complete creative freedom.

Recently I had the opportunity to write a chapter following an outline laid out by someone else. It was so liberating. Since I was not responsible for the character arc or plot, and therefore did not feel the same sense of vulnerability, I was free to relax and enjoy the simple act of playing with language. I think I have always thrived when there was some sense of structure; creating a theatrical adaptation of a classic, writing "in the style of" another author, or responding to an assignment. I feel like within limitations I can be at my most creative, perhaps because I love pushing against boundaries and breaking rules.

For me, it is about learning how to set my own structures and honor them as I would those set by another. That will be my path back to the verdant landscape of creativity.

How about you? Are you in your creative Eden now?

Or have you also eaten the apple?