Teen Voices

Listening to Teens
Yesterday, I taught writing to a dozen at-risk teens. We worked on a personal narrative for about 4-5 hours. Now, the kids didn’t want to be there, but had to be. They didn’t want to write, because it’s summer and who wants to do English class in the summer.
For the first fifteen minute [...]

Kids

Keeping in touch with kids is hard sometimes. I’ve been working on lists of picture book ideas for Friday Ideas and I find myself writing nonsense! No kid would be interested in some of the ideas I put down.
Then, my grand-daughter came to visit and I remembered what I must never forget: kids have a [...]

Balancing

Commitment v. Revision
Your total commitment to the current draft of your novel is in direct conflict with the need to maintain an attitude of revision
Teaching Freshmen to Have an Attitude of Revision
When I taught Freshman Composition at a local college, I started on the first day by pairing students up with a partner and asking [...]

Stress

Writers Plan Around Life Events
Do you plan your writing year? Do you plan a month or a season ahead? How do you deal with stressful periods of life?
I view my writing as my work, something I am privileged to do every day. I do try to plan ahead and make sure I’m accomplishing something. I [...]

Between Projects

I am between projects.
I don’t have a WIP. No work in progress and not sure what to do next?
One novel is being read by friends and it may have a major flaw that will mean gutting part of it. We’ll see. Another novel is making its way into the publishing world. We’ll have to wait [...]

Sky challenge

Craft Challenges for the Writing Life
Whatever you write – novels, poetry, picture books, nonfiction – it’s important to keep your craft growing and improving. I take this seriously and find ways to challenge myself.
One way has been the Friday Ideas group, which has kept me searching for viable picture book ideas.
This year, I’m taking [...]

Book publicity

What Book Publicity Tools Work Best for You?
Today is a question about book publicity: What works? In your experience, what has helped the most?

Prioritize

What Do Writers Do All Day?
I’m just back from Illinois where last weekend, I taught a Novel Revision retreat to a fantastic group of writers. One of the humorous things that happened: One writer had a chapter in which a character wrote about a condominium, but the character couldn’t spell, so wrote, “. . [...]

6 Distractions

Why Some Distractions Are OK
I am distracted these days from writing my novel. It’s partly because I’m teaching a Novel Revision Retreat in Illinois this weekend. But I also find these things to be distracting.

Family. Well, of course, family interferes. Katherine Paterson has said that family takes up so much time and energy, [...]

First Contract Advice

Last weekend, I was in Chandler, Oklahoma, a sleepy little town on the old Route 66. I didn’t get much sleep, though, because I was there to teach a Picture Book Retreat. Here are reports from Sara,
Susan Meyers, and Leeth. Also, check out the Okie Book Woman, who added lots of photos of the [...]