writing - a learning process

Like so many other things, writing is a learning process.   I am constantly discovering things I didn't know.  Although I haven't taken any writing classes recently, I have taken quite a few in the past.  I still read books and articles on writing and probably always will.  Occasionally I'll reread a book, sort of like a refresher course; when I do I usually come across something I've forgotten, or at least a reminder of something that I should reconsider.  I find myself thinking more critically about the books I read and the movies I watch, analyzing why the author handled the characters or the plot a certain way.  Talking to my fans about writing also helps.  It makes me think about things I haven't consciously considered for a while. 

At a recent book signing, a fan asked about tips to make a description seem more real.  Since then I've thought about my response and what else I could have told her.  I'm going to add my thoughts to my tips for writers page.  I'll continue to add to the page as I learn or rediscover more.  (These are all things that I wish someone had told me when I first started writing.) 

horses in winter

And yet another horse day.  We have a lot of them in the winter.  More horses are in stalls now, which means more stalls to clean.  The hoses freeze, so we have to thaw them before we can fill the buckets and tubs.  The water in the tubs freezes, so we have to break the ice.  We're just hoping that we don't have all the snow we had last year.  Slogging around in snow higher than your knees makes everything harder as well as take a whole lot longer.

Of course there is an up-side to winter.  Everything looks beautiful when the snow is fresh.   The horses and the dogs love to play in it.  (Some of the horses even like to make horse angels in the snow!)  No, I wouldn't say that I hate winter, but I sure do like spring!

discussion questions

I realized recently that I haven't written discussion questions for many of my books, so I've started rereading some of them.  I just finished writing the questions for The Salamander Spell.  The Dragon Princess is next.  It feels odd rereading my older books.  I almost always find something that I would change if I could.  Small details mostly - nothing major.  I might have tweaked the dialogue a bit for The Salamander Spell, but that was about it.  In addition to rereading books and writing discussionn questions, I'm working on the outline for the sequel to The Wide Awake Princess.  I looks as if it's going to be a lot of fun to write.  I'm going to include some of the old classic fairy tales, just like I did for the first book.  Once I finish the discussion questions for the older books, I'll be able to work on the new one full time.  I'm already looking forward to it!