Writing Murder Mysteries
It's amazing the number of people who tell me not to do murder mysteries as an activity with young writers. The interesting thing I've found is that young writers love murder mysteries! The reason they love it could be creating a puzzle to solve, or it's just...
Going Down the Rabbit Hole… of Planning
Yesterday, I had the first Young Writers Group at the Maffra library. There were four young writers in attendance and we had a lot of fun. As is common in these groups, talk turned to writing a novel. A few participants talked about their planning and how they have...
All things hair
This afternoon, we had a fantastic time at Young Writers Group at Monash Library. Somehow, we started talking about hair and how it can be used to show aspects of a character in writing. We started talking about assumptions people make about the length of a person's...
What I’ve Read – April 2022
It's the first day of May already. It seems only yesterday I was posting my books from March! My month of reading was interrupted by a couple of cases of covid in the house. Thankfully it missed me, however one of my kids & his girlfriend tested positive, and I...
Write your story
I have seen quite a few posts recently from people wanting to publish a book and not knowing where to start. My advice is always to start by writing the story. Most publishers want to know there is a completed manuscript waiting for them if they love what you submit...
What I’ve Read – March 2022
Happy April Fool's Day! March was a great month for reading. I finished the first six books chosen and chose another six books, as well as read picture books and listened to audio books. The first book I read was Paws, the new middle grade book by Kate Foster. I loved...
To Be Read – Part Two
Yesterday, I finished reading So This is Love by Elizabeth Lim. This was book six in my pile of books from my To Be Read shelf. You can read about those books here. I found this to be helpful with my reading as it didn’t feel like my choice of books to read was so...
What I’ve Read – February 2022
Welcome to March! This year is flying by. While there haven't been any lockdowns, the world seems to be going crazy with war and floods... books have been a great way for me to get a little bit of an escape from it all. I have been able to read two more from my...
Making Progress on a new story
The other day, I posted that I was getting back to using 750words.com to work on a new story. The thing I didn't mention was that when I first got into writing chapter books, my kids were 8 and 10, and they would get up in the morning and ask to read my new chapter....
Getting back to 750 Words
Many years ago, I discovered the site 750Words.com. This was an invaluable resource to writing the first draft of my chapter books. The idea behind this site is simple - you write a minimum of 750 words each day. I would break down my chapter books so that each...