Lines in Time: October 2009

Monday, October 12, 2009

We have a special treat today! I want to introduce you to Nancy I. Sanders, author of Yes! You Can Learn How to Write Children's Books, Get Them Published, and Build a Successful Writing Career. E & E Publishing. 368 pages. Available at Amazon.com. for $19.95. You can visit Nancy at http://www.nancysanders.com/.

Know Yourself

. . . From my forthcoming book A Step-by-Step Guide to Writing Fiction for Young Adults. E & E Publishing.

In the creative writing classes I teach, we spend some time getting to know one another.
Students interview other students, asking questions about their families, their childhoods, their likes and dislikes. They report their findings back to the class, and we do a lot of laughing and back patting. Then I tell them that this activity was a prelude to learning more, not about each other, but about themselves.

Lines in Time is a place where I will share my thoughts on writing. Sometimes I will be a dreamer, other times a pragmatist. Occasionally I will expound on the joys of syntax and the peskiness of incorrectly placed punctuation.But most of the time, I will talk to you from my heart.

This means you will get glimpses into whatever I'm currently working on -- or what I want to be working on. I'll talk to you about how I'm trying to make my characters come alive; about plots that tend to meander; about setting and voice and dialogue and how sometimes the words flow and other times they seem stuck to the end of the pencil and won't come out.

Now and then, I'll tell you a little about the family stories that I'm trying to record. I'm collecting them, little by little, by linking together strands of memory and weaving them into tales to be remembered. These are as true as I can make them. But I do use fiction techniques to tell them, so the dialogue is, by necessity, the way I imagine it would have been. For who on earth can remember half a century of words coming out of people's mouths?

I invite you to visit me here and share in my joys and struggles with the lines that I write in segments of time. I welcome your comments and promise to answer any questions I can. Consider this an open forum. The only rule is that we talk about writing -- which, of course, is what changes everything!
I want these columns to be sometimes helpful, often humorous, and always inspiring in the sense that they make YOU want to pick up your pen and get going!

To all of my Schmooze friends: check in with me regularly to let me know what you need in the way of discussions and programs. Share what you are writing about. Ask questions. If I don’t have an immediate answer, I’ll do my best to find one asap.

To members of my writing groups: this blog offers a quick and easy way to spread the good news among other writers. You are already experts in the field. Perhaps you would like to write a guest column!

To Inland Area Writing Project Fellows: drop by and say, “Hello!” Share with us the ways you are using writing in the classroom. Let us hear how your own writing projects are developing

Lines in Time

Monday, October 12, 2009

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Know Yourself

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