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Writing a novel is hard, and some days I find I still don't know what I'm doing. But over the years I've learned a few things. With my fourth novel, BIRD IN HAND, coming out in August, and another novel due in a year, I'm going to blog about what motivates and inspires me, what tips and tricks I use to keep going, and how I deal with the unexpected.

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Christina Baker Kline: Writing/Life Notes on Craft & the Creative Process

English - Writers Tips, The Creative Process, Real Life

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Christina Baker Kline: Writing/Life · 8M ago

Rejuvenate Your Writing Life!

A Restorative Mini-Retreat for Creative Women with authors Christina Baker Kline and Deborah Siegel Friday, November 4, 9:30am – 3:30pm, Montclair, New Jersey What do you need to turn your writing dream into a reality? Maybe you’ve kept a private journal and dream of starting a blog. Maybe you have

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Christina Baker Kline: Writing/Life · 11M ago

Don’t Skip the Sex Scenes

Novelist Ellen Sussman explains why she likes to write – and read – about sex: When the first Amazon reader review for my new novel, French Lessons, showed up on the website, I was thrilled. Five stars! Enthusiastic praise! And then came the last couple of lines: I wish she didn’t write the sex scen

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Christina Baker Kline: Writing/Life · 11M ago

Literary Names: Do Characters Name Themselves?

On Sunday -- June 12 -- I'll be on a panel called "Going Beyond 'Tom, Dick and Mary': Naming and Giving Your Characters Dimension" at Books NJ: A Celebration of Books and the Readers who Love Them, 1-5 p.m. at the Paramus Public Library. (Stop by and say hello!) Consequently I've been thinking a l

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Christina Baker Kline: Writing/Life · 12M ago

Embrace the Digital Age! A Contrarian Opinion

Some time ago I posted a piece by Chad Taylor, a freelancer for Kirkus Reviews and a purveyor of fine tweets (attracting the likes of such literati as Susan Orlean and Caroline Leavitt) on why Twitter is actually a good thing for writers. Here’s his take on the fuss over e-books, self-publishing, a

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Christina Baker Kline: Writing/Life · 1Y ago

20 Ways to Rejuvenate Your Writing Life This Spring

To be a writer is to weather the seasons: we stockpile ideas, we slumber long and hard, we wake up refreshed, and, hopefully, if we are lucky, if the soil has been properly nourished and the sun peeks through the clouds, we bloom. To celebrate spring, and blooming, here are 20 tried and true tips

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Christina Baker Kline: Writing/Life · 1Y ago

Rejuvenate Your Writing Life!

A Restorative Mini-Retreat for Writing Mamas With authors Christina Baker Kline and Deborah Siegel of SheWrites.com Saturday, May 21, 9:30am - 3:30 pm at the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture, 53 Prospect Park West (near the 2/3, F, Q, B) What do you need to turn your writing dream into a reality

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Christina Baker Kline: Writing/Life · 1Y ago

Can Writing about Grief Make You Happy?

It might sound crazy, but for Allison Gilbert, writing about mourning has been an uplifting experience: Several weeks ago my new book, Parentless Parents, was published. This is the third book I’ve written that deals with mourning and loss. And while you might assume I’d be the last person you’d w

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Christina Baker Kline: Writing/Life · 1Y ago

”I Had to Trust that Intimate Voice”

Memoirist Susan Conley finds out how hard it can be to practice what she preaches: Four years ago my husband, Tony, and two young boys and I left the States to live in China, and I began to write what I hoped was a memoir. I didn’t call it that at first, because as yet the writing felt more like tra

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Christina Baker Kline: Writing/Life · 1Y ago

When “Write What You Know” Takes You Somewhere New

Pianist and memoirist Nancy M. Williams on how her passion for music informed her writing – and vice versa: Two years ago, during a cold and snowy winter, I began my first book during a writing residency at Vermont Studio Center. My memoir explored reclaiming my passion for piano at age forty afte

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Christina Baker Kline: Writing/Life · 1Y ago

What Makes a Title Great?

Novelist Caroline Leavitt on the impossibility -- and importance -- of finding the perfect title: When I finished my new novel, I was relieved, excited, overwhelmed, and then terrified. I knew I wasn’t really finished -- I had to do the one thing that makes my head feel as if it is going to explode

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