Sue Bradford Edwards's Blog, page 12

How Do You Get Things Done When Everything Goes Kablooey?

Catastrophes unseat the best of plans. I have a deadline for a contracted book. It is due Friday. I’ve also been working on a revision for a grant application. That’s due Wednesday. I was popping along getting things done. It wasn’t going to be easy, but I was going to meet my deadline. Unfortunately, multiple … Continue reading How Do You Get Things Done When Everything Goes Kablooey? →

Using a Mentor Text in my Picture Book Revision

Yesterday I read a whole stack of picture books. Being a writer means I get to count reading as work. How cool is that? There were about 15 books in the stack. A handful were fiction but the vast majority were nonfiction. Why? Because my manuscript is nonfiction and I needed to find appropriate mentor … Continue reading Using a Mentor Text in my Picture Book Revision →

Creative Discipline as Defined by Calligrapher Nhuan Dao

I read a wide variety of newsletters including one sent out by Nhuan Dao, a Vietnamese calligrapher (find her site here). Recently she wrote about something she read about years ago but only recently started to think about in terms of her art. It is the idea of The Discipline Trinity. So often, as Dao … Continue reading Creative Discipline as Defined by Calligrapher Nhuan Dao →

Three Things to Remember about Diaologue in Nonfiction

Last night at book club we were discussing historical fiction vs nonfiction. Given the fact that I write nonfiction it is probably no surprise that I love to read it. One of the women in book club commented on the fact that she likes nonfiction with made up dialogue because that makes it more interesting. … Continue reading Three Things to Remember about Diaologue in Nonfiction →

Skewing Positive in Today’s World

“What should I post about for Earth Day?” Every day, I post on Facebook, Twitter, and my blog. This is part of how I get word out into the world about writing, my books, books I love, and writing-adjacent topics. Today is Earth Day. All of my country books (Australia, Russia, New Zealand, and South … Continue reading Skewing Positive in Today’s World →

Deleted Text: Why It Has to Go?

Last week I started drafted a new contracted book. It will total only 3500 words — 300 words for the introduction and 800 for each chapter. So I knew I had a problem as soon as I checked the word count and discovered that I had 395 words for the introduction. I let it sit for … Continue reading Deleted Text: Why It Has to Go? →

Rewriting’s Order of Operations

I am ready to dive into my picture book revision. I’ve got the best first line in my head! I am ready to write and rewrite. But Kirsten Larson reminds her readers (the book is Reimagining Your Nonfiction Picture Book) that it is important to do things in the right order. You don’t start line … Continue reading Rewriting’s Order of Operations →

Choosing the Structure for My Picture Book

I’m up to Chapter 7 in Kirsten W. Lawson’s Reimagining Your Nonfiction Picture Book. By this point, Lawson has pointed out that your revision starts with the big stuff, the structure. Why? Because there is no point in agonizing over word choice when you still don’t have the structure right. Here are some of the … Continue reading Choosing the Structure for My Picture Book →

My Favorite Place to Write

I have several writing friends who can write just about anywhere. Or at least that is how it seems to me. One friend goes to the library to write in the café or get a study room. Several others regularly write in coffee shops. I’m not going to say that I never write someplace different. … Continue reading My Favorite Place to Write →

Writing Is Like Updating Your Home

Last week, we decided to do some work on our home before our son’s wedding. With so much family hitting town, I wanted to update my kitchen. We’d repaint the cabinet doors and the kitchen ceiling. Maybe we’d retile. This was about the same time I decided to update a manuscript using Reimagining Your Nonfiction … Continue reading Writing Is Like Updating Your Home →