When students are having trouble with the beginning of a piece, they’re sometimes advised to think about what their character is feeling. Often, this means emotions. But the actual sense of touch can be effective too. This series of posts—Finding Your Beginning—offers tips for students on how to jump-start a scene through the senses. By… Read more »
writing
Story Bite 23: Finding Your Beginning Through Smell
Students often struggle with the beginning of a piece of writing. (So do many published authors as well.) This is the second series of posts—Finding Your Beginning—that offers tips for students on how to jump-start a scene through the senses. Using sensory elements can put the reader—and the writer—directly into a piece of writing. For… Read more »
Story Bite 22: Finding Your Beginning Through Sound
One of the most common questions I’ve heard from students about writing is how to find ideas to start a piece. They’re often told to start with action in the middle of a scene. But sometimes they can’t think of an action or a scene, and the ideas just won’t come. A scene is a… Read more »
Story Bite 21: Writing Symbols
Happy New Year! I hope everyone has a great year of writing ahead. Late in December, I had a lovely chat with a young reader and writer about a story she was working on. She’d come up with a great scenario and there were many places her story could go. Ever since, I’ve been thinking… Read more »
Story Bite 12: The Very Beginning (Part 1)
One of the hardest parts of writing is getting started. This is true for a lot of students I speak with, but also for professional authors. This Story Bite (the first of two) will help you with one part of getting your work of fiction (or nonfiction, though my examples here are fiction) underway. This… Read more »
Words to My Younger Self
There are moments in my publishing journey where I wish I could go back in time, slip my arm around the shoulders of my 14-yo self, and tell her a few things. One would be to show her the review that was posted today in The New York Times. (To say that it was a… Read more »
Flora is just utterly beautiful in any pose she takes. And she hardly knows it!
#catsofinstagram
I took this pic to figure out what kind of furry visitor I had, and it’s so pretty I need to share. Meet my new friend, a tiger moth caterpillar, which, with luck, will transform soon into a gorgeous moth!
#caterpillar #garden #nature