What I like best about my website is that my webmaster Wess set it up so I can do most of the work myself. That means I have to learn the program, solve problems, and figure out how to get the pages the way I want them. Wess will help if I get stuck. Still, [...]
I’ll be the first to admit it. I’ve done my share of grumbling about editors. Sometimes more than grumbling; raging and swearing. What?! I revised it twice for you and now you’re turning it down?!!! No, I can’t cut that scene. It’s the key to the whole story. If you like it so much, why [...]
My critique group was winding up its bi-monthly meeting. We were in Nancy Coffelt’s living room. Before we called it a night and went home, I raised a question. It had been on my mind for some time. I asked the group: “What exactly is a memoir?” Every time I scan the New Book shelf [...]
Is there anyone who didn’t read William Golding’s Lord of the Flies when we were in junior high school? Golding’s bleak view of human nature left me depressed for a week–which isn’t hard to do when you’re in junior high school. Well, here’s something to cheer you up. There is hope for us yet. Perhaps, [...]
A librarian friend of mine asked me to write a letter of support for the librarians in her distract. The district has been considering eliminating elementary and middle school library positions. This has been happening all over the country. In some cases, the librarians are replaced with interns or teachers working toward a library certification. [...]
I was rereading my post about writing to authors when a thought occurred to me. Writing a letter to your favorite author? How 20th century! I’ve always believed that schools are 19th century institutions that never got around to dealing with the 20th century. Now they’re in the 21st! Most of the letters I get [...]
In my last post I wrote about writing as a process of discovery. I truly believe this to be the case. When you begin a story, you have some vague notions about what you’d like to do and perhaps what you hope to do. Then, as you write, things change. Unanticipated problems show up. So [...]
My last few posts have been about using a new text-to-speech program, Dragon Dictate, in writing an actual manuscript. The program gets more accurate and easier to use the more I use it. The biggest problem I find myself facing involves one of the basic challenges of writing anything. It’s the question writers ask themselves [...]
In my last entry I blogged about becoming familiar with the Dragon Dictate program. I’ve been using it for the past week, mostly for writing e-mails and for answering letters from children. I’ve discovered that the program gets easier the more I use it. Now I think I’m ready for a bigger challenge. I sent [...]
I keep hearing that the picture book genre is dead. The one exception is books for very young children. That used to be defined as kindergarten and below. Now it seems it’s even younger than that: two and three year olds. The pressure is on to get those tots into the Ivy League. They don’t [...]
