Okay, pick one of your favorite books or authors, preferably YA or middle grade, but anything fiction will do. Now, go to Chapter 7 and write down the seventh sentence you find in Chapter 7. (Don’t tell us the name of the book. Can anyone guess which book this line is from?)

Here’s mine:  “Wood was scarce in Celtica.”

Please feel free to post your responses to Facebook or Twitter.

I have been overcome by rewriting. I am writing and rewriting every day, striving to make my novel, Secrets of the Grand Grimoire: Destiny, ready for submission. If you hear little from me on the blogs -that is the reason why. . .

“I have rewritten–often several times–every word I have ever published. My pencils outlast their erasers.”
(Vladimir Nabokov, Speak, Memory, Random House, 1966)

“And I think what I’ve always recognized about writing is that I don’t put much value in so-called inspiration. The value is in how many times you can redo something.”
(John Irving, National Book Award Interview, June 3, 2005)

“I work extremely hard so that [my editor] will not have to work extremely hard. I write and rewrite and rewrite and write and like to turn in what I think is finished work.”
(Gay Talese, “Birnbaum v. Gay Talese,” The Morning News, July 6, 2006)

I was considering what to write about for a blog, when my mother and I took a friend out for a birthday tea. While we were there, the owner of the shop, MiMi’s Tea Room, asked when I was going to write my next blog. So, with that bit of encouragement, I said I supposed it had better be something about tea!

We had a lovely bit of tea for the birthday lunch, and it brought back a funny memory for me. As a 20-something American living in London, I hadn’t had much experience with making or drinking tea my first year there. So, when a local English plumber came ‘round to fix the loo one cold November day and I kindly offered him a drink, I certainly wasn’t expecting him to ask me for a “spot of tea.”

Well, I told him I would try my best, but not to expect too much. “I didn’t grow up making it, and I don’t drink it,” I said. “But, I’ll try,” I told him with a nervous smile.

He didn’t change his order.

So, I swallowed bravely and popped on the instant boil kettle as he went to work. I got a tea cup down from the cupboard, found my flat mate’s tea bags, and then poured the now boiling water into the cup. I let the tea seep.

Very soon I gave him the tea; and like many English, he drank his clouded with milk. 

I expectantly watched his face as he sipped. He was remarkably difficult to read.

“Well?” I asked. “How bad is it?”

“I’ve had worse,” he said flatly, and politely took another sip.