Mirka Muse

Musings about the writing life and life in general

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Creeps and Crawlers

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The other day I noticed an unfamiliar charge on my card. I monitor my account closely, so I spotted it while it was still pending. I calle...
8 comments:
Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Something and Nothing

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There’s an old Jewish saying- IT’S ALWAYS SOMETHING. (The English version is more like ‘if it’s not one thing, it’s another.’) I ...
13 comments:
Tuesday, January 17, 2012

The Good, the Bad, and the Good

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There was once a young man who, in his youth, professed his desire to become a great writer. When asked to define great, he said, ...
13 comments:
Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Rejection

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It is a truth universally acknowledged that a writer in pursuit of publication must bear a lot of rejection. And that is all right, bec...
21 comments:
Wednesday, January 4, 2012

I Get Interviewed...

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On a Diane Kress Hower’s blog: http://dkhower.blogspot.com/2012/01/passion-for-picture-books-mirka-breen.html?spref=fb My first guest i...
1 comment:
Monday, January 2, 2012

The New Year

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This New Year’s Eve my family watched a most fitting movie: Midnight in Paris . As time relentlessly marches forward and 2011 refuses to s...
14 comments:
Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Family Photos

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Will this be the year we abandon the ‘family picture?’ So Christmas passed, and soon Hanukkah will too. For the first time in thirteen year...
10 comments:
Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Hanukkah isn’t the Jewish Christmas

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We are Hanukkah People, and if I learned one thing, it’s that this charming but minor festival should not, in any way, ever, no-way-no-how...
16 comments:
Tuesday, December 13, 2011

The Gift Givers

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No matter how curmudgeonly you might imagine you are, one way or another everyone finds themselves partaking in the grand gifting exchan...
22 comments:
Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Glamour and glitz

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When I was a little girl reading movie magazines about beautiful people, I read about some who flew their lunch from Paris to Hollywood or...
14 comments:
Tuesday, November 29, 2011

“WHEN DID YOU START?”

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I was asked when I started writing seriously. I have to confess it was long ago. I was six and had just learned how to form the letters. I...
16 comments:
Monday, November 21, 2011

Losing a feline Friend

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When our neighbors relocated six months ago, they moved about a mile away. With them went their adorable dog and two cats, all of whom ha...
15 comments:
Tuesday, November 15, 2011

WHAT IF I DON’T LIKE THE ILLUSTRATIONS?

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Most “How-to” books for picture book writers tell us that after our book is contracted, it is the editor’s job to find the illustrator. In...
15 comments:
Monday, November 7, 2011

Writing clichés

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How many mystery writers does it take to screw in a light bulb? Two. One to screw it almost all the way in, and the other to give it a ...
12 comments:
Wednesday, November 2, 2011

The Shrinking Word Count

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A few years ago, when I began writing story picture books, conventional wisdom in How-To books was that such stories must not exceed 2,000...
16 comments:
Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Connections and Disconnections

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A few days ago our family DSL line was disconnected for no reason that we, or the Internet provider, could figure out. DH’s polite pho...
17 comments:
Sunday, October 16, 2011

Linguistics

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My son, taking a linguistics course in college, is enjoying it immensely. But as he shared tidbits from his professor’s wisdom, this old j...
7 comments:
Monday, October 10, 2011

Who's That?

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I’ve heard that no one ever sees themselves as others see them. There’s no way to prove this, but is seems intuitive enough. So when my ...
11 comments:
Sunday, October 2, 2011

The Rabbi and the Donkey

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My father came to refer to my picture book texts as ‘Rabbi & Donkey’ stories. I have never written a picture book with a Rabbi in it,...
8 comments:
Sunday, September 18, 2011

Mitzvahs

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With the Jewish High Holidays around the corner, I thought I'd throw some ponderings to the universe. I'm definitely not a Rabbi, ...
2 comments:
Sunday, September 11, 2011

Dreams and Gifts

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While most night dreams are undigested odds n’ ends of the day, some dreams seem to have a different quality. I think of these dreams a...
7 comments:
Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Writers writing about writing and about being a writer

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After re-reading the eloquent Take Joy by Jane Yolen, and being reminded by a dear friend that it’s all been definitively said, ages ago,...
Friday, September 2, 2011

Time Capsule

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I’ve posted before about the artistic impulse to ‘leave something behind.’ ( ‘Why?’ August 16 2011) I think of it as creating time capsul...
4 comments:
Thursday, September 1, 2011

Publish or perish?

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Another writer posted on a kid-lit chat board that she no longer cared if she got published. Her post made me reflect on my own journey. I...
2 comments:
Tuesday, August 30, 2011

A Rule for Writers

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There is a lot of advice on how to be or not to be a writer. One bit I heard too many times to count is that a writer should write everyda...
3 comments:
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