Last week, I talked about my approach to Social Media. This week I want to talk about one particular aspect of social media: Branding.
I first heard the word ‘branding’ in a marketing breakout group at a conference for children’s…
A few years ago, it might have been more than a few, time is a bit waffle-y, I was sitting at a table with some pretty fancy writers and we were talking about teaching. One of them said the class…
I am reading Jasmine Warga’s middle grade (for 8-12 year-olds) book THE SHAPE OF THUNDER*. It is a beautiful book. Central to the book’s plot is a friendship between two girls whose older siblings are taken by gun violence. (It’s…
Long ago and far away, I wrote a monthly column for Good Life Magazine about parenting. In one of those columns, I talked about boredom as an opportunity for discovery. The example I used was my daughter’s plaintive moan, “I’m…
I remember when I first heard the opposite expression: Those who can’t, teach. It was said by a grumpy filmmaker who wasn’t getting the work they thought they deserved and teaching what they knew to others was somehow less than…
“What has my favorite 101-year-old been thinking about? I glance over at Betty X Davis in the passenger seat of my car. She is sitting ramrod straight and leaning forward, as if eager to get to the Austin SCBWI annual…
Lots of craft books advise writers to construct deep back stories for the main characters in their books. I don’t disagree. But I also like to think about those character’s belief systems.
A character’s belief about themselves and their world…
This is what happened: I was at a wedding. I was minding my own business when a guest came up to me and said, “I can’t believe it. The bride didn’t include her father in the ceremony. We drove all…
Sometimes, it’s time to clean house. Sometimes, you need a vacation. Sometimes, you need to hit pause.
I set myself a challenge this year. I wanted to do regular blog posts, rotating between Writing Tips and Thinking Out Loud. I…
On July 15, 2020, at the age of ninety four, an extraordinary man died. He wasn’t a flashy kind of extraordinary. He was kind. He was thoughtful. He had vision and insight. In short, he was the kind of man…
In a way, reading a writers’ blog is a bit like looking behind the wizard’s curtain. You get to see where my ideas come from, who inspires me, how I think and what I care about. If you want to know what I’m thinking about, please subscribe to my blog below.
A Tree grows in Sedona
Subscribe
Writing Resources
Because we work by ourselves, writers and illustrators often feel alone. We aren’t but sometimes we need to be reminded of all the great resources around us. Here are a few that I rely on for classes, news and general good thinking: