
tidying up
Yesterday I spent time in my art room. I wish I could share good stuff I created with you. But, my time was spent putting away, throwing away, and creating… Read more tidying up →
Yesterday I spent time in my art room. I wish I could share good stuff I created with you. But, my time was spent putting away, throwing away, and creating… Read more tidying up →
The Invention of HugoCabret by Brian Selznick(Scholastic) We gave Sam The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick for Christmas. Sam and I have been reading it together ever since.… Read more hugo cabret →
I believe celebration is the core of a writer. It’s what keeps us going. It’s not just about celebrating big things like products and publication, but about celebrating the ordinary day-in-and-day-out living as a writer. This week I’ve been working on a digital celebration for a kindergarten classroom. The teacher opened her doors to me and let me dabble a little with opinion writing. “Whatever you want to do, go for it,” she said. I accepted the invitation and was amazed at the work our youngest writers did with putting… Read more writing celebration →
STOP! Don’t read any farther, because this is the end of a slice I wrote with my writing group (BONS — Bits of Nothing or Something). To get the whole,… Read more writing group part 5: the end (soLs) →
A month ago I shared my notebooks and a little about my process on Amy Ludwig VanDerwater’s blog, Sharing Our Notebooks. (It is a must-read and should absolutely be added… Read more fierce wonderings (soLs) →
You know, my writing process is a bit of a mess. It didn’t used to be. There was a point in my life when I could be given an assignment, make a plan, crank it out, reread it, make the deadline, and earn an A. The same is true when I started teaching. I wrote alongside my students, cranking out the assignments, jotting in my notebook, churning satisfactory pieces of writing out in time for deadlines. Writing has traditionally been easy for me. In fact, I would even go as… Read more what happened to my nice-neat writing process? →
One of the things I try to really tune-in to is what project I should be spending time on. I have a lot of writing projects: Blogs Professional book, Celebrating Writers, due out later this year from Stenhouse YA book Choice Literacy articles Scrapbook pages, where I like to document stories with photos + words Writing to use with students Work responsibilities Recently I added another project to my list of writing projects. I’m not even sure it can be called a project, but it is taking up my 1000… Read more writing project decisions →
It’s been more than a month since my writing group met and I’m beginning to feel the kinks that come from missing a workout. We were supposed to meet last Friday, but due to conflicts, changed our meeting to Wednesday, December 21. (You do realize that’s four days before Christmas, Tam pointed out. We didn’t care, though, because we had to meet.) I’ve been thinking about my writing group a lot since the hardest revision ever, which I think is a funny name because the next time I’m faced with… Read more writing group →
Cutting and piecing and sweating… Recently someone offered to read my first YA novel, Strength, along with the query letter, and offer me feedback. She didn’t offer once, but a… Read more the hardest revision ever →