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Summer Vacation Vs. Back to Writing: 10 Tips to Unblock Your Plot
Bryce Canyon I’ve returned from a lovely vacation in Utah, where family members met and hiked in Bryce Canyon and Zion National Parks. There is one slight problem with vacations, however. They end!...
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Losing Your Way in Your Novel
Question: I’m in the middle of writing my novel. Help! I’m stuck. I know what is going to happen later, but I’m not sure how to get there. I’ve lost track of some of my story. What do I do? Writing a...
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How’s Your Sniffer?
Everyone I know has their nose in their peanut butter jar. A recent study has shown people who have Alzheimer’s or later develop the disease couldn’t smell peanut butter while plugging their right...
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What secret elements make a quest/adventure book great?
If you’d like to read a great new middle grade, choose Clare Vanderpool’s Navigating Early, a quest adventure story about a boy dealing with his mother’s death after WWII. Sent to a Maine boarding...
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Are You Writing a Novel? Or Should it be a Short Story?
I love this writing advice from Elizabeth Sims in her recent Writer’s Digest article, “Miscalculations & Missteps.” In both children’s and adult writing contests, I’ve read many short stories that...
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Write Out of the Box!
“If they give you ruled paper, write the other way.” Juan Ramon Jimenez In kindergarten, my son’s teacher gave each student a construction paper Christmas stocking along with decorations. Their...
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The Good Fall: How do your Characters React to Trauma?
While examining tide pools at the coast, I hopped from one wet, slippery rock to another. Down I fell . . . Bam! As I lay on my back in the water and stones, pain throbbed from my knees, legs elbow and...
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10 Tips for Winning Writing Contests, Scoring an A, or Attracting an...
1. Hook your readers with a vivid scene right away. How? Read on. 2. Specific senses will get your reader to experience your story. Example: Gary D. Schmidt’s Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy...
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Deepen Your Writing with Symbols
I turned the page of my book, soaking in the story, silence, and reveling in peaceful solitude. Not total solitude, since my Yorkie, Zoie’s rhythmic breathing relaxed me as she slept in my lap. MOO!...
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How YOU can Write a Short Short Story
Benjamin Franklin says it all: “I have already made this paper too long, for which I must crave pardon, not having now time to make it shorter.” Henry David Thoreau wrote, “Not that the story need be...
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