\u00a0<\/p>\n
If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot<\/em>. \u00a0– Stephen King<\/p>\n \u00a0You have all seen writers squinting at their laptops in the caf\u00e9 at Barnes and Noble and scribbling away in the little notebooks that everyone knows a good writer carries with them. What you don\u2019t know, unless you are a writer, is that writers don\u2019t need anything in their hands or in front of them to write.\u00a0 While I have a little red notebook tucked in my purse for those moments when a table and chair in a caf\u00e9 or a park bench presents itself, I do some of my best writing in my head walking my English Cocker Spaniel on our daily strolls through the neighborhood.\u00a0 Yes, I am that lady in the straw hat with the bouncy black dog who looks right through you as you pass her and call out a cheerful hello.\u00a0 You think that I am very snooty and in reality I don\u2019t even know you are there because I am in the middle of scene from my novel.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0Scarier still is when you approach me and realize that I\u2019m talking to someone you can\u2019t see. \u201cMust be the dog,\u201d you say, but in your heart you don\u2019t believe it, because the dog is not paying any attention. What I\u2019m really doing is speaking dialogue aloud to see how it sounds. I try not to do this but sometimes I get so caught up in the writing going on in my head that I can\u2019t help myself.\u00a0 Writers take note of everything no matter where they are: the doctor\u2019s office, the hairdresser, the beach, the ladies room.\u00a0 About eight years ago, I was in the lobby of the Wang Center in Boston during intermission for the ballet Swan Lake. \u00a0A lovely blonde in a classic little black dress walked by me with a tattoo of a long, thick black snake crawling up her arm.\u00a0 That girl and her snake walked right into the first chapter of MacCullough\u2019s Women<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u00a0Summer is here and lots of you will be entertaining little ones.\u00a0 I want to recommend a super book to you: Toad Cottages & Shooting Stars <\/a>by Sharon Lovejoy.\u00a0 <\/a>It says it is “Grandma\u2019s bag of Tricks\u201d but it will work for anyone! It contains lots of inexpensive and creative things to do with kids. Enjoy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. \u00a0– Stephen King \u00a0You have all seen writers squinting at their laptops in the caf\u00e9 at Barnes and Noble and scribbling away in the little notebooks that everyone knows a good writer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathleenferrari.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathleenferrari.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathleenferrari.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathleenferrari.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathleenferrari.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=74"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathleenferrari.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathleenferrari.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74\/revisions\/76"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathleenferrari.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=74"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathleenferrari.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=74"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathleenferrari.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=74"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}