The Young Writers Program (or YWP) is a way for NaNoWriMo to be accessible for participants 17 and younger (18 only if they're still in high school). Writing 50,000 words would be near impossible for young writers, so YWP allows them to choose their own writing goal.
You may or may not have heard about mind maps for brainstorming ideas. However, I find coming up with those ideas to be considerably difficult sometimes, especially when it comes to teaching essays in class.
This exercise creates questions. Will all the answers show up in the novel? Probably not... but the answers will help us better understand our character.
I don't know about you, but every time I go into a store that sells notebooks, I find myself picking up each one and flipping through it. Even if I don't intend to buy one, I imagine what could be written on those pages.
For my return to Author Toolbox, I want to share with you the four ways I've used to find my motivation to write again. I hope that some of them will work for you if you ever feel like this writing thing needs a break.
Welcome back to Red Pen Tidbits (click for a full table of contents)! Last time we looked at a few of those tricky commonly confused words. This week, by special request from Erika Beebe, we'll dive into verb tenses and how they affect our writing. What exactly are we talking about here? We're all aware of the basic verb [...]
Welcome back to Red Pen Tidbits! We took a dive into three steps for using pronouns and antecedents correctly. I hope you've been practicing! This week, we're focusing on commas with coordinating conjunctions. Don't worry, I'll try to make this as painless as possible! This post is also part of the Author Toolbox Blog Hop. Feel free [...]
Welcome back to Red Pen Tidbits! Last time we focused on the topic with the most votes (those tricky one or two word combos). This week, we'll discuss the second topic with the most votes: how to use me, myself, and I correctly. This post is also part of the Author Toolbox Blog Hop. Feel [...]
Welcome to your crash course in phrases of the dependent variety! Do you feel like you're at school, yet? Don't fret, there's no test. This time. Let's start with the basics: What is a phrase? A phrase is a word or group of words that expresses a single concept within a sentence. It is dependent, [...]
A book review -- your opinion about a book based on evidence from it. We've seen them on Amazon and Goodreads. We may have even read a few... but are we writing them, too? Wait? Writing a book review? I can't do that. I don't know how to do that... Please don't ask me! Please! [...]
Epistolary.
What? Is that even a word? It sounds like a word that would get your mouth washed out with soap if you say it in front of your mother. Is it one of those words?
Absolutely not. It's a beautiful word that inspires beautiful writing. Epistolary writing is...
When you try something new, your expectations are set quite high. Some people give up on the new thing when it becomes too difficult or when the high expectations they set for themselves aren't showing. Last year I decided to join in on the first #FlashFicHive challenge (hosted by Anjela Curtis). This month-long event challenged writers to create [...]
NaNoWriMo... Gibberish, right? That's not even a word. How do you say it? To writer's, it is the month when the entire world ceases to exist... when life on Earth becomes a distant figment of our imagination... when we forget all the other hobbies we had if they don't include a notebook, a pen, or [...]
If your September has been anything like my September, then you have been a busy bee. School started, so my days are filled with teaching, lesson planning, and after-school activities. (Thank you #51Writers for today's topic of Oxford commas. As you can see, I am definitely on #teamoxfordcomma!) The problem... Okay, so we're busy. What [...]
What can I share for this month's Toolbox? What can I write about that could be even slightly helpful to other writers? I've been trying to answer this question for a few weeks in preparation for this post, but I still didn't have an answer until recently. Someone suggested I write a brainstorm about zombies... [...]
Too many ideas. A writer's best friend or worst enemy? We can ask the same thing of a first draft. Our hearts start racing and our minds start whirring after the first few sentences. We know we've got this. When does that feeling end? How many of these first drafts do we have? How many [...]
Immortal Words of a Mortal Writer 