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Who Needs This Book?

Anyone Who Wants their 2nd Draft to be Deeper. 30 tips on how to improve your novel.
NaNoWriMo Alumni. You've completed your novel in one month? Start the revisions with simple, 1-minute tips.

30 Simple One-minute Tips for Revising Your Novel

Congratulations! You've finished the first draft of a novel.

According to the National Novel Writing Month organization,1.6 billion words of fiction were written in the single month of November, 2008, and 21,683 writers completed at least 50,000 words. Writing teacher Darcy Pattison says, "After a heroic outpouring of words in a first draft, weary writers stop and say, I have a first draft, now what?' The answer, of course, is to revise."

Revision is not the advice writers want: novel revision is a daunting, scary task if you've never done it before. You might as well toss the 50,000 words into a blender and see what comes out. Writers know the story plot or story characters need work, but have no idea where to start.

"In 1999, I developed the Novel Revision Retreat, which I now teach nationwide," says Darcy Pattison. "I've taken the guess work out of revision." Her goal is to provide simple writing techniques for issues such as story plot, characterization, and language. Instead of genius, she firmly believes you only need tools such as the shrunken manuscript technique or the spreadsheet plotting technique. The Shrunken Manuscript takes advantage of word-processor's ability to change font sizes, thus shrinking a novel into less than 30 pages, so it can be visually manipulated and evaluated. Spreadsheet Plotting uses the columns of spreadsheet software to note key characteristics of each chapter so they can be easily tracked.

Write the Second Draft in One Month

Using these and similar hands-on writing techniques, Darcy Pattison's advice is to write the second draft in a single month, too. Her complimentary e-book, "After the First Draft: 30 Fast, Easy Writing Tips for the Second Draft" is formatted to encourage writers to tackle a single issue each day. By the end of the month, writers will have addressed thirty issues and strengthened their story.

Most publishable novels need four or five major revisions, some many more. By knocking out a first draft in one month and a second draft in another month, the writer has accomplished much of the hard work. The next several revisions will likely be slower, but with this solid foundation, the story has a better chance of success.

WHO NEEDS THIS BOOK?

Any one who wants to write a children's picture book.

This ebook includes 36 self-paced lessons on every aspect of writing, editing and selling your children’s picture book.

Basics
Start your journey toward publishing by studying the basics of children’s picture books: number of pages, word count, audience, setting, characters, words, messages, morals, themes, voice and more.

Write
Once you understand the basic structure of a children’s picture book, it’s time to choose a topic and write your first draft. Learn topics to avoid and perennial topics. Special techniques for editing your picture book manuscript are also covered.

Genres
If you want to write a specific type of children’s picture book, you’ll find tips here for humor, rhyming text, poetry collections, picture book mystery, picture book biography, creative non-fiction picture book, and the ABC picture book.

Submit
Your story is done? Learn the biggest mistake people make when submitting to a children’s book publisher and how you can avoid it. How do you find the name of an editor? What about self-publishing?

Based on the blog series, 30 Days to a Picture Book. This ebook includes material not published elsewhere, including more information on writing in rhymed verse.

Who Needs This Book?

Beginners For those who have no experience with publishing, this is a good place to start. Resources for writing, revising, and more.

This is the notes from a session I did at the 2009 Arkansas Library Association Conference, "I Wrote a Book. Now What? Answers for Your Library Patrons with This Question."

It's an idiosyncratic look at the publishing process and the recommendations are based on my experiences. Included are a discussion of the pros and cons of self-publishing, resources on writing and revising, how to get an agent, how to submit to a publisher, and a resource for kids who want to be published.

WHO NEEDS THIS BOOK?

• Intermediate to Advanced Writers If you are getting those nice rejection letters, but can't quite break through to a contract, this is the book for you.
• Anyone who wants to deepen Plot, Character, Voice, Setting, or Language Take your story to new depths with exercises in this book.
• Not recommended for Beginning Writers:. Read other how-to-write books first. When you have a strong background in writing, come back to this one to polish your skills.

Award-winning author and writing teacher Darcy Pattison provides novelists with innovative, in-depth revision techniques they need to morph their novel into stronger, richer, deeper stories, including:

• Learn to see and understand your story's overall structure for yourself
• How to turn a phrase so that readers are hooked
• Techniques for enriching scenes and developing deeper stories
• Understand both micro-pacing and macro-pacing
• Turns theory into practical skills
• Spark in-depth discussions in your critique group

Foreword by Newbery Honor medalist Kirby Larson discusses her revision experience after attending Pattison's novel revision retreat.

Paper Lightning: Prewriting Activities to Spark Creativity and Help Kids Write Better

WHO NEEDS THIS BOOK?

For those who teach writing to kids
For those who need a richer prewriting stage of their writing.

The #1 Writing Lesson: Prewrite for Effective Essays

When faced with an essay writing prompt, kids need to slow down and plan before they write. The best writing lessons teach students a variety of prewriting activities or techniques to help them write better papers. What is prewriting? Anything that you do before you put pencil to paper. It includes deciding on a topic, exploring a topic, considering audience, etc.

Let your teaching go beyond simple outlining and graphic organizers to encourage new ideas and ways of thinking. In short, a rich prewriting environment encourages exploration and expansion of ideas that will result in stronger essays and creative writing.

If You Teach Students To Do Multiple Pre Writing Activities, Essays Improve

If The #1 Writing Lesson is to prewrite, then The #2 Writing Lesson is to teach students to do multiple prewriting activities, focusing on different aspects of the writing process. For example, some prewriting lessons focus on expansion of ideas, while others focus on vocabulary or language used, which impacts voice. For personal narrative essays, teach students to remember or recall details for the essay. Descriptive essays benefit from lessons on sensory details. Other lesson plans teach students to evaluate the information that research turned up. Some prewriting tasks teach kids to structure or outline the information in a convincing way for a persuasive essay. Prewriting can even direct the research needed for an expository, informational, descriptive, analytical or persuasive essay.

Lesson Plans, Prewriting Skills & Brainstorming Ideas

For any given writing prompt, essay, paper, or writing assignment, you’ll likely teach four or five prewriting activities to strengthen the writing process. That’s where Paper Lightning: Prewriting Activities to Spark Creativity and Help Students Write Effectively can help.

• For teachers: Lesson Plans for over 30 Prewriting Activities, ready to teach, supports teaching the writing process for descriptive, expository, personal or persuasive essays; lesson plans for folktales and short story
• For teachers: Printable Student Pages, easy to teach
• For teachers: Sample Answers
• For teachers: Use with any approach to teaching writing. Includes chart for correlations to 6 +1 Writing, Scaffolded Writing, Writer’s Workshop and the NCTE Beliefs About the Teaching of Writing.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Paper Lightning: Prewriting Activities to Spark Creativity and Help Students Write Effectively, by Darcy Pattison. Cottonwood Press, 108 Pages. ISBN: 978-1-877673-77-1

DOWNLOAD SAMPLE PAGES (pdf file, 1.4MB)

• Introduction
• Acknowledgments
• Oral Storytelling
• Using Strong Words
• Adding Details
• Ugly Writing
• Organizing Facts
• Planning to Persuade
• Planning Fiction
• Folk Tales
• Sample Answers

DARCY PATTISON: Children’s Book Author and Writing Teacher

Children’s book author and writing teacher Darcy Pattison understands the writing process from the inside out. She is the author of The Journey of Oliver K. Woodman (Harcourt), which received starred reviews in Kirkus and Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books and was included on the Best Book of the Year lists from Child magazine and Nick Jr. Family Magazine. MORE About Darcy Pattison

Paperback.

• star "Wonderful . . . All geography lessons should be this much fun."--Kirkus Reviews (starred)
• star "A mini-quest complete with adventure, danger, and suspense. Youngsters will delight in the whimsy."--The Bulletin (starred)

This is the story of a wooden man who crosses the nation to connect a family. Told in letters and postcards, it follows the cross-country journey of Oliver K. Woodman as he seeks to renew the ties between Tameka and her Uncle Ray.

Winhal Eldras is a Wayfinder, able to Find anything lost: a lost ring, the way home, a blue dress in the marketplace, a lost child. But what happens to a Wayfinder who has lost his own way? Sometimes the only way to get through something is to charge straight ahead. After a tragic accident, Winchal Eldras must forget his personal problems in order to save his country which is suddenly threatened by a deadly plague.

Available on Kindle or as an iBook.
(StanzaApp/Smashwords)

Win is given a Finding by the Prince of the Heartland to seek healing from the plague. But the Finding leads straight down into the Rift, a dangerous canyon from which no one has ever returned. His only companion is Lady Kala, a telepathic Tazi hound, who is demanding and stubborn. How will they ever Find their way through the Rift to the other side? Win faces the problems squarely and begins his descent into an emotionally tangled world full of unknown dangers.

From School Library Journal
Gr 5-9-Eleven-year-old Win is a Wayfinder, blessed with the ability to find anything-a highly prized talent in G'il Rim, where dense and dangerous fogs swirl up from the nearby Rift, obscuring everything in the city for days at a time. Lady Kala is a telepathic Tazi hound, used to a life of luxury in the King's kennels, but secretly yearning for some excitement. They meet when the dog accompanies Prince Reynard to G'il Rim in search of a Wayfinder. They need to brave the Rift in order to find the Well of Life, which contains the only cure to the plague that is attacking the Heartland. Prophecy indicates that Win is the only one who can succeed, but a tragic accident has left him unable to find anything. When the Prince falls ill, Lady Kala and Win brave the unknown terrors of the Rift, including a giant eagle, a sly cave monster, and the desperate Wolf Clan. There is little humor, and the relationship between Win and Lady Kala isn't particularly involving, but Pattison has created an intriguing universe and some interesting secondary characters, especially Win's mother, the only person known to have survived the Rift, and the story is fast paced.-Mara Alpert, Los Angeles Public Library

From Booklist
Gr. 4-6. Winchal Eldras, 11, is an apprentice Wayfinder, a member of an elite group of people who can locate anything or anyone. When Win's little sister slips out of the house one foggy night, he tracks her to the edge of the Great Rift, where his fear of heights causes him to freeze, and she falls to her death. Bereft, Win retreats into himself. Then a prince of the Heartland arrives with news of a rapidly spreading plague and taps Win to journey through the Rift to find the Well of Life, whose waters are the only cure. With resignation, Win begins the arduous trek, joined by Lady Kala, a royal gazehound with her own special powers. The pair winds its way past a giant eagle, a deadly crocodile, a venomous tatzelwurm, and other dangers. The relationship between the haughty dog and the boy is handled well, growing from mutual abrasiveness to bonding. The plot is simple, but the adventures will keep readers turning the pages. Sally Estes

WHO NEEDS THIS BOOK?

Anyone Who Teaches Writing to Kids!
Anyone who wants some winter fun, while improving his/her writing.

FREE: Lesson Plans for Teaching Writing with Winter Icons

Use popular Winter and Christmas figures to teach fun writing lessons:

• Frosty the Snowman
• Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
• Santa Claus
• The Gingerbread Man
• The 12 Days of Christmas

These writing lesson plans include 34 different writing goals, loads of fun.

Download this pdf free, as our Christmas gift to educators.
(Free downloads require an email, which is used only to confirm the download. Your email will not be used for any other purpose than to deliver this free pdf.)