I'm looking at writing websites today - checking out some websites for writers.
Here's a good article: Writing for Children: Throw Obstacles at Your Characters. Author Laura Backes is the publisher of Children's Book Insider and really knows what she's talking about. She suggests we remember the W's and the H questions... asking ourselves the what, who, when, where and how of plot complications. I like her child-sized example of a broken bike. That reminds me so much of my own son, the bike mechanic and general part collector.
Another site I found today is Contentious. Yes, a contentious site appeals to me. I like this lady's "I'm in it for the money" up-front attitude in her bio. May she get what she wants! I also NEED her newsletter's advice about content writing. This fits in with my business interests from both sides. I need content for Happy Camp News and I write content for others too. It keeps me young. ;)
Yesterday I wrote an editorial - 1000 words on homeschooling. I should go over that again tonight. Today I went to the river access to interview fishermen, and got a great story. God must have been on my side, because I ran into all the right people, and got some great pictures. My pictures from the People's Center dedication on Saturday turned out good too. Now... to turn this all into some good newswriting, and get it all online by tomorrow night. That's the goal.
I've been doing writing practice for almost a week now - choosing a prompt out of a bag every day and then writing a page or more on each random topic. I got the prompts from the Writer's Digest website, printed them, cut them and put them in a paper bag. It is my new ritual to take a prompt out every night before sleeping and read it, then place it neatly inside my notebook to be written about the next day. This way I hope during the night it will sink in and a seed of an idea will begin to germinate somewhere in my subconscious, before I tackle the writing project the next day.
Anyhow, that's a great project but not the one I want to tell you about today... the one I'm so excited about.
While doing morning pages, I had an inspiration to get established as a children's writer by creating stories for magazines before submitting my longer manuscripts. I've had one children's story published in a magazine - but that was years ago. I want a current list of published stories. So my new project is to write a story every week for a year. I made a chart to record 52 stories, the dates started, revised, and submitted.
I started on my first story today. Well, it isn't really my first-ever story - I've written many before - but it is the first of these 52. I started by researching on the internet for information on things that concern kids. Almost right away I found some good ideas... placed them in a compelling situation, and my story unfolded in my mind and outline. I'm excited about it because I think this is a story that works... and it is half written. I just love it when I make progress.
I've had three days in a row of good writing practice sessions. That makes me feel great! Plus today I updated Happy Camp News so maybe my writer's block is finally done with. I have a Writer's Club meeting to go to tomorrow.
Saturday, September 21, 2002 ( 4:00 AM )
It has been a long time since I wrote anything, other than journaling. I've been doing the "morning pages" thing - trying to write three journal pages each morning (or afternoon, more likely) while studying Artist's Way. I'm sure many who may read this have already gone down that path. I'm in Chapter Seven now.
Anyhow, today I finally got a long list of writing prompts and printed them out, and cut the paper into strips and put those in a bag. The goal is to draw one slip out of the bag each day for my writing practice notebook. This will get me out of my block, I believe. I already wrote to the first prompt - it was about receiving wisdom from an older person.
