INK Sisters Write

Dear Alison, You talked about character on Monday in your post, Character Development and Food...YUM!  I think about character and food a lot. In fact, since the new year, I've been getting up at 5 (closer to 5:15--love that snooze button) to write. I rejoined the #5amwritersclub. (It's open to anyone who wants to write early. READ: Insane and Driven.) This group is an amazing community of writers. They are happy, they are friendly, and they've got a load of character. We often talk about donuts. We always talk about coffee.  These people have become my Twitterverse friends. We chat throughout the day or continue conversations from the day before or promise to send virtual donuts the next day. In fact, I started this blog post during the #5amwritersclub, but the GIFs didn't want to load quickly, and we know my penchant for GIFs. The past few years I've spent many of my days substitute teaching. During my preps and lunch, I edit or read. The rest of ...

Dear Kim, Thank you for the William Joyce recap. I really enjoyed his talk and more so was impressed with the way he kicked off the #NY16SCBWI conference. There was a certain amount of: MAKE IT WORK air to this year's conference. Don't you agree? It seemed to pulse with themes like HARD WORK, WRITE...NOW, and DO THE WORK. All themes that I can get behind. I was also pleasantly surprised with the level of guidance in each breakout session this year, at least the sessions that I was able to attend. It is difficult to fit lecture, writing exercises, and leave time for questions when only given one hour per breakout session. Alvina Ling's session on plot gave me a bucket full of strategies (and tangible models from Alvina's rockstar editorial perspective), all crammed into a single hour. Alvina began her session with a show of hands. How many start with character? Setting? A single scene? And how may start with plot? In the room of one hundred or so folks the fewest ...