Sue Bradford Edwards's Blog, page 216
June 29, 2017
Empathy: Why I Write What I Write
Black Lives Matter (Abdo 2015). Hidden Human Computers (Abdo 2017). What Are Race and Racism? (Abdo 2017). Twelve books since 2014 and 3 of them are about race. And don’t forget my book on the Dakota Access Pipeline. As a society, we tell ourselves that that is all about the environment and energy but it too […]
June 28, 2017
Cutting Words: What to do when you have way too many
About two weeks ago, I blogged about having to cut paragraphs and scenes. This week, I’m cutting again but in a different way. Late last week I got my editor’s comments on the electoral college book. For a variety of reasons, my first chapter needs to be shorter. No big deal, except that it is. […]
June 27, 2017
It Stinks! What to do when you can’t stand what you wrote
Every now and again it happens to the best of us. You work and work on an article, blog post or chapter and . . . you just have to face it. It stinks. Can it be saved? Maybe yes, maybe no. But the first thing to do is walk away. The blog post that […]
June 26, 2017
Your Online Persona: Reality with Limits
Recently I read a Writer’s Digest post about platform building and letting readers know the “real you.” Something the author emphasized that I thought was interesting is that your readers need to feel like they know you. But really? They don’t. This is because there are things that we all hold back. Sometimes it is […]
June 25, 2017
Find Yourself as a Writer
Tracee Ellis Ross is a comedian and a producer, a model and an actress. Obviously she is a woman of great talent but I have to admit that I was surprised when I saw an interview where she talked about journaling. I guess that as a writer, I tend to think of journaling as a […]
June 22, 2017
Story First, Theme Second
I’ve come across another example of a picture book that delivers a theme but does so without preaching. If you are a picture book author, you need to read BunnyBear by Andrea J. Loney. BunnyBear is a bear. He can roar. He can stomp. He’s big and strong and furry. But when he’s alone he likes […]
June 21, 2017
Focus: When You Need to Write
This past week has been a bit of a writing night mare. I have writing to do. Some of it I want to do. Some of it I have to do because deadlines are involved. But I am just barely meeting those deadlines and I’m doing it with no wiggle room to speak of. My […]
June 20, 2017
Balance in Nonfiction
When you write educational nonficiton for young readers, you aren’t generally trying to sell one side of the story. Instead, you are laying out the facts so that your readers can make up their own minds. For some books, that isn’t particularly difficult. The Zika Virus isn’t so much a pro and con kind of story. […]
June 19, 2017
Back It Up: Saving Your Bacon
Recently I read a post over on InkyGirl.com, the blog of writer/illustrator Debbie Ridpath Ohi, where she talked about a routine update erasing a large number of her illustration files. If she hadn’t had a full back up system in place she would have lost file after file. Imagine watching files disappearing from your hard […]
June 18, 2017
Plot and Subplot: Using One to Strengthen the Other
Okay, this entire post is going to be littered with plot spoilers so if you haven’t read David Baldacci’s The Fix you may just want to come back later. Although I normally listen to his work on audiobook, I took the opportunity to read this one and found a novel that uses the subplot to […]
