Sue Bradford Edwards's Blog, page 186

STEM vs STEAM

My son is a STEM student.  In short, he’s working on an Associate degree in pre-engineering.  Then he’s going to go on for the four-year degree.  STEM has always made a lot of sense to us.  For those of you who may not be certain what the acronym means, it is Science, Technology, Engineering, and […]

Theme: Tying It All Together

Today I read two really good posts on theme.  The first, written by Becca Puglisi, reviewed a session on theme that she attended at a conference.  In her post, Puglisi discusses the difference between the theme statement and the theme topic.  Using the play Hamilton as an example, the theme statement was “You have no […]

Accessibility: Helping Your Reader with New Concepts

Sometimes concepts are hard to grasp because they are beyond our experience.  We need to be willing to reach out and hang on while the author builds the framework that we need to access these new ideas.  But this can be made more difficult if the reading level is too high. New concepts paired with […]

Design for Writers

Last week, I spent some time creating a handout with all of my books.  I got the idea when I saw a similar list that Peter Reynolds created.  How cool would it be to have something you could slip into books, post on your site and more?  So I came up with this.  The file […]

Author Copies: Meth and Steroids

Look what arrived Saturday!  I look strangely happy given the fact that I’m holding up books on Steroids and Meth. But that’s the way of author’s copies.  We get excited. These may have been among the most difficult books that I’ve researched.  Everyone who is reporting statistics has a bias. Treatment centers want business.  Use […]

5 Minutes a Day: World Building

Recently I read a post on the SCBWI Summer Conference Blog about Malinda Lo’s session on world building.  As a science fiction and fantasy author, Lo spoke on the importance of creating a culture and setting that make the story feel real.  This isn’t something that takes place only in science fiction and fantasy.  As […]

Writing Nonfiction: What to Include, What to Leave Out

There comes a point in every nonfiction project when you are left looking at all of the amazing facts that did NOT make it into  what you are writing.  “Oh, but that one is so . . . fun . . . cute  . . . sweet . . . shocking.”  Soon you find yourself […]

Writing: Returning to a Project After an Absence

Full-time writer, part-time writer, I don’t think it matters.  At some point you will end up putting a project aside and then having to get back into it.  To put it simply, it ain’t easy. It has only been about two weeks since I worked on my novel.  But that’s two weeks without dabbling around […]

How to Write a How-to

I’ve been working on a 1960s Singer sewing machine that I found in a yard sale.  Job #1 – replace the motor drive belt.  How hard could it possibly be to replace a sewing machine belt?  Not so hard once you have a good how-to.  The manual?  No, it wasn’t poorly written.  That information just […]

Book Covers: My Dog Books

Take a day off work and spend some time on the internet and look what you find.  Book covers! These are two of the books that I wrote for RedLine earlier this year. They are part of a new Capstone Press series, Top Hybrid Dogs. Let me put it simply – these books were a […]