Where the Secret Hides

If all the answers seem to be in the night sky, in the starlight, it’s because they are – from Strangely Becoming.

We remembered with only a minute to spare. We raced and had to stand in the middle of the street, where palm trees and electrical wires and rooftops don’t interrupt the view. Then we had to orient ourselves. The streets in our town aren’t laid out the way they ought to be; what the mind thinks is west is really east inching into south, but who had time to ponder the frailty of our sense of direction when maybe we were missing it, were we missing it? And cars kept coming and passing and we dodged them as we searched the sky for the Space Station.

the State of Imagination

It’s becoming clear that some people just aren’t suited to having an imagination. Although maintenance is not particularly difficult, imaginations do need quite a bit of attention and regular, if not daily, exercise.

A healthy imagination will insist on flexibility. While some breeds only need gentle bending, the thoroughbred will strain to race in every direction. Training is highly recommended.

Talking With the Girls

I started working on a new book – the long kind, the middle school kind – and spent just the right amount of time wondering whether my hero should be a boy. It’s not. It’s a girl. And I’m glad, even if the world bemoans (wrongly, in my opinion) another book about girls. 

Motion Potion*

This is what I write and paint: things I’d like to read and see.

It took me awhile to arrive at this innovative technique. Remember when I was a young writer  who explored important ideas? Really important, really literary ideas? Ha. You’d have a hard time convincing me that such things exist now. 

Size Matters

419 words. That’s how many are in my first kids’ book. I didn’t intend to write a story so short, but am glad it’s the final number, glad it’s lean like poetry and has playful rhythm. I don’t think it would have benefitted from extra words. Except …

… well, except that we might be living in a time when people want more.