Lise McClendon's Blog
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Jun.30.2009
Another year, another fabulous and sometimes agonizing writers conference.
I've been on the faculty at the Jackson Hole Writers Conference, a smallish, intimate conference with a kind, casual, down-to-earth vibe, for almost fifteen years. The year after my first book came out I was asked as the...
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Mar.23.2009
Yes, I am one of those annoying (but so patriotic!) people still traveling. All the way to Paris for a cold, rainy week of museums, food, and lots of hard cold cash. Interestingly, the plane, a direct flight from Salt Lake City to Paris -- a dream of a flight, so nice -- was full. I am not alone in...
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Feb.06.2009
The news gets worse everyday. The good news for writers is that nobody can take your job away... but the bad news is they don't have to pay you either. As I get ready to start a new novel -- after scratching my head with what to do with the last one which is out of my usual genre -- I wonder......
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Aug.12.2008
What is it about summer? I love the sunshine, the fresh air, the trips, the long days... and yet, yet, yet. Summer is a time to gather ideas for a writer, to look around, to talk to people, to get outside the little box of the office. Summer is not a time to write, not in depth.
This feeling -- and...
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Jul.22.2008
Writing and fishing have a few things in common but the most apt one is persistence. Stick-to-it-tiveness, if you will. To catch a fish you have to have a fly on the water. You don't catch anything worrying, untangling your line, or brooding on the banks. You have to keep casting. You have to get...
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May.21.2008
Well, I've gone and done it. I've spent hours and hours but it's done. My book -- my first novel, published fourteen years ago and soon to come out in a new trade edition -- has been kindled. I'm not very tech savvy, so some of the aspects of getting the book from a printed hardcover (I never had a...
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May.06.2008
The other card stuck to my monitor is a reminder to be mean.
I have a tendency to be way too nice to my characters, because I grow to love them, I guess. So this quote keeps me honest, that is true to life which does not play nice.
Happiness is good for the body but it is grief which develops the...
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7 comments
May.01.2008
Do you keep index cards or sticky notes stuck to your monitor? I've been known to forget everything when writing so sometimes I have to remind myself of dental appointments and the like. But the other day I was cleaning out my desk and found two index cards that I lived by when I first started...
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5 comments
Lise McClendon's stories are unique and inventive … no traditional formulas for her, thank you very much. Her dialogue is witty, her characters multi-dimensional, and her locales so well defined that the visuals replay in your head long after you lay the book down.
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—-- Goodreads reviewer
About Lise
After more than twenty years of writing fiction the practice has become as natural and essential as breathing to me. I have published nine novels, under my own name and my thriller persona, Rory Tate. With a group of talented women I adapted a short story...