My first post - WIFYR

I've been thinking about doing this. I've listened to other writers talk about blogging, but it's taken a bit to decide I was ready to start my own. Having gone to WIFYR last week has me pretty motivated. It seemed like a good time to start. So here goes...

The Writing and Illustrating for Young Readers Conference stretched my brain in many directions. I was fortunate enough to be in Kathleen Duey's class in the mornings. She really helped us all to understand what it takes to get inside a character's head and keep their viewpoint consistent.

I've heard of interviewing the characters in your story, but have never been successful at this. I was trusting the generic list of questions you can find in many books and lists. But Kathleen encouraged us to interview our characters as if we were sitting on the bus getting to know them. This really clicked in my head and the questions I am asking are now specific to my characters and their situation. Questions about why they made a certain decision or felt a certain way about something that happened in the story. It's very exciting. My characters are beginning to show real emotion and personality that was lacking before.

So excited to live out this dream and finish this novel.