Probably, indeed, the larger part of the labor of an author composing his work is critical labor; the labor of sifting, combining, constructing, expunging, correcting, testing. This frightful toil is as much critical as creative. ~T.S. Eliot
The real secret of magic is that the world is made of words, and that if you know the words that the world is made of you can make of it whatever you wish. ~Terence McKenna
Tell the readers a story! Because without a story, you are merely using words to prove you can string them together in logical sentences. ~Anne McCaffrey
The beautiful part of writing is that you don't have to get it right the first time, unlike, say, a brain surgeon. ~Robert Cormier
If you don't feel that you are possibly on the edge of humiliating yourself, of losing control of the whole thing, then probably what you are doing isn't very vital. If you don't feel like you are writing somewhat over your head, why do it? If you don't have some doubt of your authority to tell this story, then you are not trying to tell enough. ~ John Irving
Sometimes making stuff up feels a lot like Coyote* running across the empty space between one rocky pinnacle and the next, and as long as you keep moving you're fine. When you stop and look down, it's suddenly all too apparent that there's absolutely nothing underneath and that you're keeping in the air by a peculiar effort of will.
And then a good day comes, and you start running through the air once again, and, if you're smart, you resolutely don't look down. ~Neil Gaiman
I have not fallen off the face of the planet (since of course it is flat). No, I've begun teaching again and the first week is always slaughteringly busy. Hence my not poking my head up much. I am teaching the freshman composition course this block, called Foundations of Language, and tomorrow the first essays come in. Should be exciting. And while feeding my daughter a bit of my bread today, I nearly had my finger bit off. When she eats, she means it.
uglies, by Scott Westerfield Coraline, by Neil Gaiman the second firebirds anthology Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley
All of them are on the ya side, but ya has really become more complex, and more importantly, will be quicker to read. We only have 3 and a half weeks, and these are mostly students who haven't read a lot. So I can introduce them to major tropes and etc, and still get them to read a reasonable variety of stuff. Anyhow, that's the reasoning. Hope it works.