Dear Students, What have you heard about creativity? When I was your age, I thought it meant someone could draw or paint really well. I thought it only had something to do with arts and crafts. “I dream my painting and I paint my dream.”― Vincent Willem van GoghGoodreads That's not always true! One of [...]
To me, success isn't determined by my ability to produce words...
My favorite writing craft book is The Complete Handbook of Novel Writing by the editors of Writer's Digest. This book features articles and interviews from numerous authors and is broken down into five parts.
Great question. I'm here, and I'm working on something big! Check back in later this month for something I never thought I'd share. In the meantime, please enjoy this poem I wrote just now when I'm supposed to be finishing up a baby quilt... From the quilt I'm supposed to be working on... A lot [...]
Oftentimes we're writing merrily along when we suddenly stop in the middle of a word. We know exactly how to spell this word, so the trouble lies elsewhere...
Is this supposed to be one word or two words?
At the end of last month, I entered a short story into my first ever public contest. The Blank Page Challenge is a brand new contest for writers to try their hand at creating a story using a picture prompt. Each story is read by a panel of judges, and then they choose the top three to [...]
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 [...]
The man laughed. “Oh, Sonny, everyone worries about me, but it’s useless. I’m going to do my own thing no matter what anyone thinks or says about it.”
People write for all sorts of reasons every single day: send a text or email, leave or make a note, finish something for work or school, jot down a recipe, send a letter, balance a checkbook, make a grocery list, etc. I, too, write America. As a writer and teacher of writing, I'm also excited [...]
As you may have guessed from previous posts, I love Twitter. I have found wonderful writing communities, teaching communities, and people who share my interests, too. Every now and then, interesting tweets will pop up via one of the daily hashtags, and you will have no choice but to acknowledge them. One such tweet entered [...]
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... [...]
We've all heard of the mysterious writing condition that strikes writer's at the most in-opportune moments: Writer's Block. However, not every writer suffers from this epidemic. Some find their way around it before it even starts. How can they possibly overcome it before it starts? Do these ideas work after it's started? I am a [...]
Teaching writing to middle school students has taught me many things, but one lesson screams the loudest: writer's need to write. I already knew this, right? I'm also a writer, so I had to already have known this. Of course I did, but it was never more true for me as a writer as it [...]
Immortal Words of a Mortal Writer 