Ogres in these here woods?

While hiking in the woods last week, I came upon this interesting pile of felled trees.

This is the train of thought that followed:

Those spikes look positively deadly! Maybe this is a stockpile of sinister weapons. 

But who is stockpiling them, and for what purpose? 

An ogre would be large enough to wield those lethal logs! Maybe he's planning a raid of a nearby village. Or maybe he's preparing to defend his home against invasion...

Yeah. That's how my mind works.

What have you seen lately that may have been something besides what it appeared to be?

What I Learned from WriteOnCon

I've spent about the last week absorbed in WriteOnCon, an online conference for children's writers. I lingered in the forums for hours at a time, reading and critiquing queries and first pages and feeling a little amazed at all the incredible work that my fellow children's writers have been working on! I watched videos and participated in forum events and lurked during live chats with "industry pros." And I learned a lot, but two things stood out above it all.

1. A lot of writers are working on fantasy, sci-fi, paranormal or dystopian books, and not too much contemporary fiction.

2. Editors and agents seem to be hungry for contemporary fiction.

This is great news for me, because my book HOUSE OF BONES seems to be just the type of thing many of these industry pros are looking for.

I just have to find the right match.

My book, House of Bones, in a nutshell

I've finally done it! I have successfully whittled the concept for HOUSE OF BONES down to one sentence! Do you want me to share it with you? Of course you do. But first...

...this is the type of scene that inspired the story:

Photo credit: Decay and Delight by Rick Craig (Flickr)

Okay, now on to the good stuff. Ready? Here it is:

HOUSE OF BONES is a YA novel-in-verse about a girl whose interest in an abandoned house leads to a forbidden romance. 

There. Whaddya think?

Before I get whiplash...

I had a blog post idea for today. But how many times can I start and stop, start and stop, before I begin to feel like I did when my sister was learning how to drive a stick?

Lurch, stop. Lurch, stop. Lurch, stop.

Sometimes it's just best to get out of the car.