Kristin Wolden Nitz
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Sometimes beautiful things can emerge when you clean your desk. In this case, I rediscovered my CD of the photos from Egypt. I’d been meaning to share more of them, but got behind with one thing and another. I can’t…
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Not Wrecked!
One of the things that haunts writers when they revise is whether they are making things better or worse. My kids all liked Calyn’s story the best out of everything I’d written. So I’ll admit to being a bit nervous…
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The Call
While acceptances from children’s magazines usually come through the mail, acceptances from publishers usually come in the form of a phone call from the editor or the author’s agent. Struggling writers often wonder if they’re ever going to make it to…
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Holiday Reading
Ever since I was third or fourth grade, Christmas has meant new books. And new books usually meant new places to travel from Middle Earth to Prince Edward Island. For this holiday season, I had the chance to visit Llyvraneth in…
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The Dangers of Find and Replace
Don’t get me wrong. I truly love the editing tool of Word that allows me to replace character names with a few keystrokes. But keep in mind that some truly amusing and annoying problems can crop up if you don’t think…
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Narnia in Reverse
Many writers like Google alerts. It’s a great way to see what’s going on with their latest book, especially for those of us who aren’t New York Times bestsellers. After all, people don’t feel the need to put up a…
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Typing “The End” on Calyn’s Story
I have a ritual for finishing books. I don’t type “The End” until I reach the end. While I was really, really close to having a complete draft of Calyn’s story, I just spent a goodly chunk of the morning…
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Tracking Red Herrings
I enjoyed my time fielding questions during my time as guest author during my time at The Writer’s Retreat. One question about pacing made me think about how to use Darcy Pattison’s shrunken manuscript technique as a way to make…
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Guest Author at “The Writer’s Retreat”
I’ll be serving as the guest author for THE WRITERS’ RETREAT December 6th-8th at the Institute of Children’s Literature’s website. The basic topic is mystery plotting, but I’ll also go into setting, characterization and so on.
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Ten New Chapters
I was fiddling with the ending of Calyn’s story again today and noticed that I was supposedly working on Chapter 16. I knew that wasn’t right, so I went back to discover which chapter I was really on. Interestingly enough,…
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Kristin Wolden Nitz 