Just Write and See What Happens
Today, I ask my students to describe their childhood backyard. It’s a lesson on setting. I don’t give any instruction other than to use as much sensory detail as possible. “Just write and see what happens. See what your brain does with this.” I’m fascinated by the results. Students write about things they don’t expect: […]
My Two Favorite Games to Play with Young Children
My two favorite games to play with my children are Memory and Jenga. During the holidays, it relaxes us all to just sit and play games. After all the doing and going, I love sitting down in the living room–amid all the holiday decorations and smells of pine and baking things–and play games. I used […]
Catch
This morning I read a verse I don’t remember reading ever in my life. Deuteronomy 33:27 offers this wonderful promise: “The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.” I try to imagine God’s everlasting arms underneath me. Even if I fall (or am falling), the everlasting arms are underneath me. They […]
Downhills
It’s arduous: We’re driving up the mountain to go hiking, and my youngest tells us all how much she loves chugging uphill in the car. “It’s because the uphills mean the downhills later.” She knows it’s a fast, twisty thrill ride downhill. The arduous task affords us all the ease and joy later. There’s something […]
Impressive
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to stop trying to impress people all the time? Wouldn’t the holidays be so easy if the motivation behind our behavior was genuine love and not a desire to impress? Recently, my friend and I laughed about all the things we fear folks finding out about us. We carefully construct ourselves […]
Strayed
Sometimes, characters in novels take on lives of their own. They do things that deviate from the originally storyline. It might be a small detail (the time of day, a food she eats, a piece of clothing she wears), but it ripples through the story. Sometimes, this small change easily folds back into the story, […]
Hardening
We’re driving on the highway behind a huge concrete truck. The revolving drum on top the truck mixes the concrete even while on the road. The concrete must be continually stirred or else it hardens and loses its workability. It hardens too fast and too soon. As the drum revolves, the right amount of water […]
Influence
Today I realize all the ways one might influence an environment. In writing, an author influences the mood of a piece by using primarily sensory detail: sight, smell, sound, touch, and taste. Writers generate moods for their readers; they manipulate language to produce sad moods, happy moods, suspicious moods, romantic moods, or humorous moods (among […]
Sooner
My shy daughter finally befriends a little girl she’s crossed paths with for years but never had the courage to approach. She finally invites the girl to play, and now, it feels like they’ve been best friends all this time. When I’m tucking my daughter in for bed, she says, “Mom, I have a regret. […]
“It’s All About Tension”: Writing and Living Advice
My amazing agent and I are working together to prepare a manuscript to submit to publishers. (It’s a contemporary adult novel that you’ll hear more about next month.) He says to me, “Always remember that tension is the lifeblood of the novel. You cannot resolve the tension too quickly.” In fact, he says, you want […]