INK Sisters Write

Dear Alison, I feel vanquished. We've spent the past week volleying back and forth about Rainbow Rowell and all her awesomeness at the #NY16SCBWI conference. We've talked about scones and her books and more scones, and I promise to try that recipe you gave me in your last letter. Perhaps you too will find the deliciousness I've come to equate scones with, but alas, it's time to leave Rainbow. Though I'm sure we'll return to her again--after all, we will see her in a few weeks here in Northeast PA, and we'll both need to talk about that.  I've also devoured her remaining books, and I will need to talk about each book--I'm thinking video. I do enjoy making videos. So back to #NY16SCBWI. For my afternoon session, I attended Rubin Pfeffer's Ready, Set, Go. Rubin Pfeffer: Editor/Agent/Superhero? Rubin didn't wear a cape. I didn't notice any wings or x-ray vision, but he is a superhero isn't he? I've heard he works magic in the...

What does World Cup Soccer and Writing have to do with each other? On the surface, not much, but I wondered aloud what I should blog about and in my sports family, SOCCER rules. Hmm, that's interesting. Writing and Soccer? They ARE alike. We dodge passive voice like Renaldo dodges opponents. We shoot on goal. Agents block our queries like US Goalie Tim Howard blocks shots, but if we write and submit like Messi. We fire from our right foot. Recover the blocked shot with our left and fire again. And again. And again. Occasionally, with hard work and drive and a tenacious streak that won't quit, our relentless shots get through and score. We can write every day for hours at a time. We can read books from our genres and categories. We can network and tweet and Facebook. We can workshop our manuscripts. We can edit out every cliché and passive voice. We can remove the stiff dialogue. We can round our characters til the cows come home, b...