It’s a brilliant idea. Wish I’d had it first!

I’m using the time between MSS to catch up on life and books. I’m really enjoying the Shakespeare angle in the YA – it seems to make it appealing to older readers too.

Wow! I hadn’t seen those before – they’re beautiful, especially the ones toward the top of the page. Thanks for the link!

Sarah, I have never even thought about doing the kids’ books. I love books all over the house, and we seem to have them all over ours too. But the fiction I’ve read over the last twenty years is all on shelves in my study.

I guess about ten years ago I started keeping a list on my computer of each book as I finished. Then about five years ago, I went through shelf by shelf adding the fiction I’d read before I started the list. I’m constantly finding a shelf or a pile that escaped, though.

Your YA novel sounds fascinating. I would love an excuse to get into Shakespeare. It’s so interesting to see what books pile up by my desk as I’m working on a new story or novel. Thanks for sharing your list of reference books for this project.

Owl and Sparrow-it’s so nice to hear from you again. I love that your bookshelf is organized by color. You might enjoy seeing these pictures of shelves organized by color if you haven’t already seen them: http://dornob.com/organize-sort-shelve-books-by-color.

I don’t know any of the books you mentioned and am so excited to check them out. Thanks for taking the time to comment.

My writing reference books vary by topic. For my latest YA project, “as u like it,” I have a very marked up As You Like It, the Arden Dictionary of Shakespeare Quotations full of stickies, a Shakespeare biography, baby name books, dictionary and thesaurus. I do a lot of research on line, on site and in person too. I reference my photos and blog too. I’ve read some good books on writing, but I don’t reference them while I’m writing.

Books I refer to when I write…let’s see…

Currently, my three go-to books are Plot & Structure by James Scott Bell, From First Draft to Finished Novel by Karen S. Wiesner, and Thanks, But This Isn’t For Us by Jessica Page Morrell. I’ve read a lot of books along the way, but these are the ones of the moment for me.