Kwizera Inspirations: Telephone

This is part of a series of posts discussing the real-life places, people and events that inspired scenes and characters in my young adult manuscript, “Kwizera Means Hope”.
A far off tinkling floated in.  “What’s that?” I asked.
“A telephone,” Louise answered.  “Installed last week.  It took a couple of months.”  She looked up from her carrots.  [...]

New WIP Week

It has a beginning and an end and a dreaded middle, in theory, at least.  A working synopsis with lots of details and exciting stuff planned.
Eight chapters written and counting (about eight thousand words out of a target 50,000). 
I just rewrote the beginning, again, but I’ll probably do that several more times anyway.  Such is [...]

Kwizera Inspirations: Volcanoes

This is part of a series of posts discussing the real-life places, people and events that inspired scenes and characters in my young adult manuscript, “Kwizera Means Hope”.
II.  Volcanoes
One of the Virunga volcanoes loomed on the western horizon as I trudged up the hill from the tea plantations in the valley to the tarmac road [...]

A look on the bright side

Here’s a mid-week pick-me-up. Read this post by the Guide to Literary Agents on good things that come from rejection letters. A humorous and mostly-true list of reasons to appreciate your agent rejections.

Kwizera the Suzuki

This is part of a series of posts discussing the real-life places, people and events that inspired scenes and characters in my young adult manuscript, “Kwizera Means Hope”.
I.  Maruti
Once upon a time in Rwanda, there was a Suzuki Maruti Gypsy (ours was all-white with our NGO name lettered in black on each side).  The Maruti [...]

Continued Love for a Book

The new school year has begun and my brand-spanking-new reader is in a new grade with a new teacher and a new reading program. 
He is supposed to read for at least ten minutes every day.  He gets to choose two books to bring home each night to read to us.  We record the time spent [...]