by Stephanie Morrill | May 4, 2022 | Description, Editing
Writing descriptions has never come naturally to me. My first drafts are very scant on any sort of description, and I have to work hard in edits to fill in those gaps. Stephen King has a great quote about description: “The key to good description begins with clear...
by Stephanie Morrill | Apr 27, 2022 | Characters
Ed Catmull is one of the founders of Pixar, and I really enjoyed his book, Creativity, Inc. about the history and inner workings of Pixar. I especially loved this insight he shared: “The definition of superb animation is that each character on the screen makes you...
by Jill Williamson | Apr 20, 2022 | Author Life, Encouragement, Getting Feedback On Your Writing, Goals, Grow An Author, Learning from Other Authors, The Craft of Writing, Writing, Writing Life
If you have spent any time in the world of education, you might have heard the term: lifelong learner. This is the concept that as time goes on, some teachers lose their motivation and fall into a comfortable routine. They stop pushing themselves to grow in their...
by Shannon Dittemore | Apr 13, 2022 | Author Life, Productivity, Time Management, Writing, Writing Life, Writing Tools
Stephanie, Jill, and I are back at our respective desks this week after six days together at a writing retreat on Puget Sound. It was a lovely time away, and I thought it I’d give you a snapshot of our week as I share thoughts on why retreats like this are so...
by Stephanie Morrill | Apr 6, 2022 | Writing
Hello from Seattle! Check out the view from our house here! Jill, Shannon, and I are on a writing retreat together in the Seattle area. This is the first time we’ve all been together since 2014! Monday night, we taught at the Northwest Christian Writers...
by Stephanie Morrill | Mar 30, 2022 | Creativity, Writing, Writing Life
When we arrived home from our spring break trip a few weeks ago, my husband tasked the older two kids with cleaning out the camper. I ran to the grocery store and came back to find them still hard at work, vacuuming and sanitizing. As I put away groceries, my oldest...
by Stephanie Morrill | Mar 23, 2022 | Guest Posts, NaNoWriMo, The Craft of Writing, Writing
Stephanie here. I’m SO excited to be hosting Colin Cannici today! Colin has been a part of our community for a while now, and I loved reading his insights from writing a novel so quickly. I kept finding myself nodding as I read through it. Even if you’re...
by Jill Williamson | Mar 16, 2022 | Writing
Do you struggle with introducing a large cast of characters in memorable ways? Recently, I read several Agatha Christie novels, and one of the things that popped out to me about her writing style was her character descriptions. Since she wrote mysteries, it was...
by Shannon Dittemore | Mar 9, 2022 | Author Life, Encouragement, Goals, Productivity, Writing, Writing Life
I wrote this post two years ago. It ran shortly after Covid shut the world down, and after the headlines of this week, I knew I needed to read these words again. I hope it encourages your heart. – SD There’s an old poem with no title and an unknown author, and...
by Stephanie Morrill | Mar 2, 2022 | Creativity, Writing, Writing Life
I don’t use words like always and never very often on the blog, but I feel pretty good about stating this as an absolute: If you stick with writing for long enough, you will go through a hard season. More than one, I’m guessing. My first hard season came...
