5/25/07 — A big benchmark reached this past Tuesday: I am now done with author visits for the 2006-2007 school year. It all ended at Hayden Meadows Elementary in North Idaho, a wonderful school full of enthusiastic teachers and young writers. (An…

5/16/07 — Trip report: Had a great weekend on Mt. Hood. Below is a photo of me after the steep hike up to the cabin. At 5,800 feet above sea level, there was still plenty of snow on the ground, at least five feet or so. The debris you can see on …

5/11/07 — I’ve had a productive week of writing, and now for the icing on the cake! Early tomorrow morning my wife, Debbie, and I leave for a trip into the backcountry of the Oregon Cascades. We’ll drive from Corvallis to the north side of Mt. Ho…

5/9/07 — Been working the last three days on STORM MOUNTAIN, particularly as it relates to the main character, Ben, and how he changes /grows during the course of the story. In “writer talk”, this change/growth is called the character arc. To hel…

5/1/07 — Whew! I’m back from a long trip speaking in schools in the Orlando area of Florida and in Greensboro-High Point, North Carolina. Great time in both states. Wonderful kids, and teachers, and librarians. On a personal level, of particular …

4/10/07 — Below is a photo of my office. I post it because I believe that where a person writes matters. For me, that means a space where I can organize all of my notes, have plenty of light, the equipment I need (gotta have my Mac), and privacy …

4/5/07 — A bit confused today on exactly how I to handle the two main characters falling into a crevasse in my novel, STORM MOUNTAIN, it was clear I needed to step back and look at the big picture. Once again I resorted to the following handy aid…

3/23/07 — I’m back from school visits in Michigan. Great trip. Great teachers doing great things with kids. Nice to see.Been working this week on the first rewrite of STORM MOUNTAIN. Have made my way to chapter 6 and so far all is going well. I’d…

3/10/07 — Back on February19th I reported in this journal a major shift in the plot of STORM MOUNTAIN. I didn’t reveal it then (got to keep the reader guessing!), but it involved the death of one of the main characters. (Heavy stuff.) Since then …

3/06/07 — Started my first rewrite of STORM MOUNTAIN. On a whim I tried switching from the first-person present-tense I used in the first draft to third-person past-tense. For example, “I stare in complete and total confusion,” became “He stared …