The other day a friend asked me how the writing’s going. I haven’t written her back yet, but I did write a new poem. Ha. So, I guess it’s going. Usually in odd ways, at odd hours. I fell asleep at my computer at 9 o’clock last night, but I stayed up after the baby’s 3:45 …
About That Novel…
Baby #2 has arrived (well, four months ago, already!) and we're all swimming in a new reality here. We've significantly lowered our standards on what counts as clean and dinner and a good night's sleep. My writing is no exception. In any given week, I'm lucky to get a half-hour alone with my laptop before someone is crying …
Third trimester. Second baby. First novel.
The countdown is on — I'm having another baby girl sometime in the next couple weeks (yay!). And just in case I don’t have enough to do while preparing for another little one and working full-time and chasing my two-year-old and feeling guilty for never posting here, I’ve set June 30 as the due date for finishing a draft of …
Continue reading "Third trimester. Second baby. First novel."
Writing for Two
I haven't posted here in a while, but I've got a good excuse — this little bug! She's sleeping soundly beside me at the moment, so I'm typing with two hands for the first time in weeks. It turns out that the singlehanded hunt-and-peck-and-backspace-and-rehunt-and-repeck method doesn't work for much beyond composing a few short journal …
Ending with Endings
What better way to end a creative writing course than with a discussion on endings? I pulled together some tips from various sources, and we talked about the kinds of endings we like best. We also read aloud a story with an ending I find incredibly powerful — "Gentleman's Agreement" by Mark Richard. Well, I …
Suspense
So, last night we continued the conversation on plot with a lesson on suspense. I took a tip from Bret Anthony Johnston and began the lesson by reading The Monster at the End of This Book -- a great example of suspense. Then we talked about ways to add suspense to "Cinderella," since that's the …
Plot
I've been dreading the class on plot ever since I signed up to teach. The word itself is just so full and round and all-encompassing. It makes me think of clot, which makes me think of blood, which makes me think of survival. Plot truly is the lifeblood of a story, and in the past …
Setting and Description
This week's class met at the library since the community center was closed (it was the day after Christmas) but my students wanted to meet anyway, which was fine by me. Only four of them showed up, but that's also fine by me. I gave them a handout about setting — what the elements are, …
Dialogue
So far in my class we've talked about characterization and point of view, and last night we tackled dialogue. I wasn't sure how interested my students would be in this subject, but they ended up having a lot of questions — ranging in topic from punctuation to whether it's more effective to use dialogue or …
Point of View
After last week's disappointments, I really struggled with planning this week's lesson on point of view. I wasn't sure how much detail would be too much for the class. Should I just introduce first-, second-, and third-person narration? Or should I also get into third-person objective, limited, and omniscient narration? The third-person specifics seemed like …
