Sara Ryan

Handy Tip, courtesy of Shannon Hale and Libba Bray: If you’re in a restaurant and you are in a hurry because you have a signing to get to, use the ketchup bottle as a microphone and begin singing an improvised version of “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” with lyrics such as  “And I need to OR-DER now — I would like to HAVE an omelette –”

Waitress showed up in a flash.

It was great to see Libba and meet Shannon. It was also cool chatting with the Children’s Place folks. What a great bookstore. I even got to sign a copy of Rules, totally unexpectedly!

I came away feeling equally inspired and guilty about my own lack of productivity. (So I’m blogging now! Go me!)

Anyway, to kick-start myself, I was going through my folder of fragments. (Every writer should have one, to keep track of those little bits of things that might become stories.)

I found some notes for short comics. One’s about a Cuban girl boxer. There’s another set in the eighteenth century with a Resurrection Man as one of the characters.

Wait, did I write this? I found myself thinking.

Yes. Yes, you did. But you didn’t finish. Now step away from the Internet, and get to work.