Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > Many times, the compelling urge to write, to create, to make something that reflects our skills and creativity, brings us to the blank page (or blank computer screen) with the intention of…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > Can You Write Science Fiction that Will Survive My Scoff-O-Meter? I won’t mince words here. I always hated sci-fi. There. I’ve said it. I realize those are gasps of disbelief (and yes,…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > When it comes to writing and submissions, there is such a thing as too soon. In fact, the number one mistake writers make in the area of submitting their work is moving…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > How do I go about writing a memoir? As an editor, I often get asked, “What’s the difference between an autobiography and a memoir?” In framing my answer, I sometimes reply, “All…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > Query letters, cover letters, pitches, and proposals all have one very important thing in common. They all require an author be able to describe the story in few words. This is sometimes…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > Submit only when your work is ready, not when your family or friends think you should. Sometimes, the most well-meaning folks can do the greatest harm to an aspiring writer. If Great…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > Your first contact with a publisher or agent does a lot of things. It presents the project you’ve created (or wish to create) in a clear, concise, lively manner. That’s hard enough,…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > Writing is a noble proposition, in and of itself. Published writing is something else entirely. And paid published writing—whoa, Nellie, that’s just glorious! In order to get published, though, you need to…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > If you ask almost any writer what parts of the process they like least, submissions will pop up somewhere in the list. We worry about whether we’re doing it right. We struggle…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > We’ve talked about many ways to use idea starters. Most of the time they don’t need to be based on fancy systems with lots of features. It just takes old school, go-to…
Facebook Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > Get Out of Your Comfort Zone: Try Nonfiction For most people considering children’s writing for a career (or even for a hobby), the type of writing that comes to mind is fiction. For many of us, the picture…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > An offshoot of mining for stories is mapping ideas. For me, it started as a way to think about and control how much money I make on my stories. Those of us…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > “How is a raven like a writing desk?” When Lewis Carroll first wrote the riddle about the raven and the writing desk, he didn’t have an answer. It was simply a riddle…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > If you are like me, writing can be a series of stops and starts. It is all a part of the process. I have a ton of ideas that may have been…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > Over the holidays, as I was putting out the holiday decorations, my daughter and I took time to talk about some the ornaments and other well-loved decorations. Some decorations brought back memories…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > The Hunt for Good Ideas Last week, we talked about having a system in place to keep your ideas organized, now it’s time to dig deep into where you find them. Sometimes…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > One of the most crippling things a writer can do in the early stage of any book is worry about whether your story (or something like it) has been done before. First,…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > As we start a new year, we also often face the big scary thing—a blank page of a new project. If you’re lucky, you already have an idea for the next story,…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > For many people new to writing for children, all children’s books are picture books. If you ask them what they are working on, they’ll say, “a children’s book” as if that is…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > Some years ago, an aspiring novelist told me his main character had a penchant for speaking in song lyrics. I found this idea intriguing—and certainly quirky … although it could get annoying…