What I Learned This Week

My brain is stuffed so full of what I'm learning about teaching (I teach kindergarten and I'm trying out some new approaches this year), sometimes it doesn't feel like there's any space for my writing. It's hard to get a good balance between writing and the rest of my life sometimes. That's why I love reading other people's blogs to help me focus on the writing process. Here's some great things I learned this week:

1. What it really means to start a story with action. In a recent blog post, Jill Corcoran discusses how intriguing the reader is not the same as being thrown into the middle of an action scene.

2. How writing for different age groups might affect the process of getting an agent from Mary Kole over at kidlit.com.

3. Some benefits of going to a writing conference. Between getting the time to do it (anything that happens during the school year and involves travel is out) and the cost, I always let them pass me by. But after reading this blog post by Jennifer Hubbard, I'm thinking about it again.

4. It is possible to get past Chapter 2 in revising Novel #4 (still no title). What I needed was someone to talk with about my ideas and help me to feel okay about taking the simpler, more obvious path instead of a more complicated, less logical one. I'm learning not to create unnecessary complications for myself when writing a story.

P.S. Happy Thanksgiving if you're celebrating this weekend!