Lacey Louwagie (Page 3)

Persistence Over Talent

“To be persistent is way more important than talent — we all know talented writers who will never publish because they won’t get in the chair and write the book. I am not the most talented person by miles, but I am incredibly determined.” – Susan Mallery, Writer’s Digest Interview,

Book Reviews

Retelling Book Review: Jem & the Holograms #1- Showtime

Jem and The Holograms #1 by Kelly Thompson My rating: 5 of 5 stars Book Riot Read Harder Challenge Item: A non-superhero comic that debuted in the last 3 years I am not afraid to admit that nostalgia may have inflated my rating. However, it’s not as if I’

Writing Quotes

On Creation

“I was in the middle of writing and did not want to go anywhere, much less face my kin, who were in the middle of childbearing and child rearing. Creating a book was not a legitimate pregnancy.” – Terry Tempest Williams, “When Women Were Birds.”

The Writing Life

Need a Writing Boost? Shake Up Your Schedule

I haven’t blogged here in a long time, and usually that means I’ve been having trouble finding enough time for writing, period. Happily, that has not been the case these last few weeks. Instead, I have been enjoying the forward momentum that comes from getting in a little

Book Reviews

Why Do We Feel the Need to Redeem Rumpelstiltskin?

Over the weekend, I finished reading Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin by Liesl Shurtliff. It is a middle-grade retelling told from Rumpelstiltskin’s point of view, when he is just 12 years old. This book came out when I was working on later drafts of my own Rumpelstiltskin retelling,

book promotion

Rumpled Giveaway and Easy Book Promotion

Starting in less than an hour — which will probably be “right now” by the time most people read this — a copy of my novella retelling the story of Rumpelstiltskin — Rumpled — will be offered as a giveaway on PrizeMojo, a new giveaway site that, full disclosure, is coded by my husband.

The Writing Life

Doing Away with Writer's Guilt

Last week, I spent all of 15 minutes revising the novel that I’m supposed to be moving through at a rate of one chapter a week. (It was supposed to be half an hour, but I got a work call that truncated it.) Last week was a terrible one

Book Reviews

Retelling Book Review: A Wild Swan and Other Stories by Michael Cunningham

A Wild Swan: And Other Tales by Michael Cunningham My rating: 4 of 5 stars This is a collection of stories beautifully retold in Cunningham’s masterful prose. Stories that are haunting in their original form (i.e., “The Monkey’s Paw”) are even more haunting with Cunningham’s treatment,

Book Reviews

Retelling Book Review: Straw Into Gold by Gary Schmidt

Straw Into Gold by Gary D. Schmidt My rating: 3 of 5 stars After years of avoiding Rumpelstiltskin retellings while I worked on my own, it’s been fun to read different interpretations of one of my top three favorite fairy tales. This book takes for its premise that the

Uncategorized

What "Cool Girl" Can Teach Us About Writing Women

For about four years in my adolescence, I refused to read books by men. This was because when I was 12, I was so turned off by the way Fred Saberhagen wrote about women in one of his Book of Swords installments that I figured I better stick to women

The Writing Life

Keep the Writing Connections Alive

Usually, I begin each day by writing in my journal for half an hour. This allows me to sort of “declutter” my mind before moving forward into the day ahead, and it also prompts me to record more of my life than I would if I was only writing when

Book Reviews

Retelling Book Review: Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier

Guess what I did over the weekend? I started ACTUALLY WRITING on one of my novels again. It felt so good, and I’m so happy to be working on a long-term fiction project again. Cobbling together lots of smaller projects during my writing time makes me feel a little

The Writing Life

My Writing "Retreat"

Today I did not have to go to work for my “primary” job (yay government holidays), and yet it’s still taken me almost all day to come here and write. Once upon a time I had this great idea that every time I had a “bonus” day off from

Blogging

My Year in Disney Movies: Final Thoughts

Reposted from my A Year in Disney Movies blog, which was my primary writing project in 2015 (although I didn’t intend it to be!) Well, we’re halfway into the first month of 2016, there are no unwatched movies in Disney’s animated canon, and it’s officially time

Blogging

2016 - A New Year For Writing

It’s a new year, which means a new writing resolution. This year, I have only one: to put my middle-grade novel through another rigorous revision and submit it to an editor who has given me permission to do so. It also marks the end of last year’s writing

books

Bring it on, 2016 Reading Challenges!

For the last six weeks, I’ve sort of been obsessing over which reading challenges I will do in 2016. I was particularly interested in checklist-style challenges, such as “read a book written by an African American,” “read a book retelling a fairy tale,” etc. I like my challenges to

100 Normal Days

Last Friday, I was listening to the Stuff Mom Never Told You podcast titled #Blessed, which was about the way women choose to portray themselves on social media. That prompted me to take the following photo and post it: Listened to this great podcast today about our tendency to make

Book Reviews

Retelling Book Review: Call Me Ixchel - Mayan Goddess of the Moon by Jamie Havemeyer

Call Me Ixchel: Mayan Goddess of the Moon by Janie Havemeyer My rating: 3 of 5 stars This book ended up being better than I expected it to be. At first, the book’s tone was really off-putting, trying too hard to be conversational and “modern” in a way that

book reviews

Fairy Tale Book Review: Snow White and the 77 Dwarfs by

Snow White and the 77 Dwarfs by Davide Cali My rating: 3 of 5 stars I’m going to let this conversation with my husband serve as my review: Him: This book is stupid! Me: Why is it stupid? Him: It has no point! There’s no moral. Me: It

Book Reviews

Writing Book Review: Second Sight by Cheryl Klein

Second Sight: An Editor’s Talks on Writing, Revising, and Publishing Books for Children and Young Adults by Cheryl B. Klein My rating: 5 of 5 stars The market is saturated with books about the craft of writing and the nuts and bolts of selling, publishing, and marketing your work.

Book Reviews

Fairy Tale Retelling Book Review: Cress by Marissa Meyer

Cress by Marissa Meyer My rating: 4 of 5 stars I deprived myself of this book for far too long because I didn’t want to read any Rapunzel retellings while I was working on the second draft of my own. But this one was worth the wait. I loved

Book Reviews

Retelling Book Review: Fairest by Marissa Meyer

Fairest by Marissa Meyer My rating: 3 of 5 stars 3.5 Although I didn’t rate this book as highly in the others in this series, some parts of it really impressed me. In a lot of media, villains are treated in one of two ways: as exclusively evil

Jem

Retelling Movie Review: What REALLY Ruined the New JEM Movie

I went into the new JEM movie expecting to hate it. In fact, I even judged myself a bit for letting my curiosity get the better of me to support a movie that I was pretty sure was going to crap all over my childhood. Still, I couldn’t totally

NaNoWriMo

Resisting the Siren Song of NaNoWriMo

So, it’s that time of year again. The time to start thinking about writing novels in November. Even though I do not do NaNoWriMo every year, not a single November has passed since I first participated in 2005 that I haven’t thought about it. This year I told

The Writing Life

Finding "Space" to Write, Refilling the Well, and Cheating: Balancing the Need to Create with Everything Else

This past weekend, despite still recovering from a nasty cold, my husband and I drove six hours across the state to Hill City for a writer’s workshop. I’ve returned more tired than I ought to be after a weekend, but also recommitted to my writing, reassured that I’