by Shannon Dittemore | May 29, 2020 | Author Life, Encouragement, The Craft of Writing, Writing, Writing Life
With three books on the shelf and another on the way, you’d think I’d have a few things about the creative life figured out. But the truth is, I’m always learning. And I think that’s how it’s supposed to be. During my time on the...
by Shannon Dittemore | May 22, 2020 | Creativity, Plot, The Craft of Writing, Writing
It’s Friday, beautiful friends! And today, we’re talking about surprising our readers. I have been elated by all the mystery books appearing on the YA shelves these past few years. It’s not a new trend, by any means. Nancy Drew has been solving...
by Jill Williamson | May 20, 2020 | poetry, The Craft of Writing, Writing
Today we are continuing our talk on prosody, or sound, in poetry. While many poems rhyme, they don’t all rhyme in the same way. Take the following excerpts of famous poems, for example. In all honesty, posting only the first verse of these poems isn’t fair, since...
by Jill Williamson | May 13, 2020 | Creativity, poetry, The Craft of Writing, Writing
Over the 2019-2020 winter break, I studied hard to pass a test that would give me an endorsement for teaching English and Humanities in middle school. One thing I had to study a lot of that I previously knew almost nothing about was poetry. Since we have rarely talked...
by Jill Williamson | Apr 15, 2020 | Book Club Posts, Editing, First Drafts, Getting Feedback On Your Writing, Go Teen Writers Book Club, Learning from Other Authors, Scenes and Scene Structure, Story Structure, The Craft of Writing
This is our final blog post for the Go Teen Writers Book Club. Chapters 24 and 25 of Story Trumps Structure by Steven James were both so short, I decided to combine them into one post. If you didn’t yet read Chapter 25, go read it right now, then come back to the...
by Shannon Dittemore | Mar 6, 2020 | The Craft of Writing, Writing
Like every being of light, Canaan hates fear. It has little effect on him, but humans can’t make such a claim. Only Celestial eyes can see it for what it is. Black and thick. Like tar, but icy and alive. It clings and oozes. It weighs down its victims until they are...