Tag: feeding the muse

I’ve been a mighty quiet blogger lately — not because I’ve been busy writing…but because I’ve been busy NOT writing.  Laurie Halse Anderson calls it “filling the well,” taking time to do things that aren’t writing, things that feed our souls in different ways.

For me, that included visiting with writer friends at the New England SCBWI Conference in Nashua last weekend.  I attended fantastic workshops presented by

, who talked about the ins and outs of writing a series,

, who explored the concept of improvisation as a writing strategy, and

and Charlesbridge editor Yolanda Leroy, who teamed up to present two fabulous hours on writing nonfiction. 

The day after the conference, we left for a trip to Florida’s Gulf Coast to visit family and do more well-filling.  It was a wonderful week of long, morning coffee conversations and play time on the beach.

E and I spent a whole afternoon finding just the right sparkly shells for our sand-mermaid’s fin and gathering enough seaweed for her hair.

We all loved the fabulous and far-fetched sights of Sarasota’s Ringling Circus Museum…

My husband swears that if I’d been with the circus in the early days, I would have been the woman being shot out of the cannon.  Do you suppose he means that as a compliment?

My favorite part of the trip was the morning we spent in the Everglades.

This week it’s back to school and back to the drawing board, with a middle grade novel revision that I started tackling on the plane trip home.

My muse is happy tonight, full of play time and nature and Nana’s chocolate chip cookies (no, wait…it’s me who’s full of those).