Sue Bradford Edwards's Blog, page 255

Happy New Year

Just a quick post to wish all of you a Happy 2016. What am I doing today?  Let’s just say that I’m gearing up to write like mad next week.  That sounds better than reality. On Christmas Day, my son popped the side seam of his coat from arm pit to hip.  He’s just over […]

Favorite Books of 2015

Ask me about my favorite book, food or color, and I’m likely to freeze. A lot of it has to do with what’s going on in my life.  My favorite food? Something I’m craving now. Color often depends on recent yarn purchases. My favorite book?  It changes as I read more great books.  Still, here […]

Writing in the Cell Phone Age

“The fact that everyone has cell phones changes everything.” I’ve heard this said more times than I can count at writers conferences, retreats and critique groups.  The commonly held belief is that because so  many people have access to cell phones, they are no longer in danger or out of touch with parents or other […]

Merry Book-mas

I’d love to say that I got several new books for Christmas but it didn’t quite happen that way although I did give books. My husband got the latest Kitty Norville book.  My son got Enemy at the Gates.  My cousin’s daughter got two Fancy Nancy books.  Another cousin’s new son got No, David! and Jamberry.  A third cousin’s […]

Writing Real

Don’t write down to your reader.  It is a piece of advice that sounds simple but applying it can take many different forms. Don’t oversimplify vocabulary.  Not every word in a picture book has to be short or simple.  Some could in fact be deliciously complicated. Rich, specific vocabulary makes a manuscript sing.  For example, […]

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!   To those of you who celebrate, I hope you are having a peaceful and love filled day. My son has been off school all week and has next week off as well.  Although I’m blogging and reading contest entries, I doubt that I’ll get much else done but that’s okay.  We all […]

Feeling Creative?

Do you feel creative when you write?  Not productive.  Not skilled.  Creative. It’s something we tend to lose track as we learn to effectively adult. This was really brought home to me when I taught Bible school.  The program ran in the early evenings and included adults and children.  I taught the adults but got to […]

Reading the World: More Challenging then you might think

One of the reading challenges that I decided to take up for next year is Reading the World.  I want to read book with a variety of viewpoints and what better way to do it then reading books from every country in the world? Challenge #1 is deciding what constitutes “from that country.”  I started out […]

Writing: Don’t Focus on the Little Things First

Whether we are critiquing someone else’s writing or working on our own, I’m often surprised at how often we focus on the small stuff.  “You don’t need this comma.”  “Use powder instead of talc.” “How should I format my header?”  “Firefly or lightening bug?” We let these small issues bring us to a halt but […]

Reading to Fuel Your Writing

One of my writing buddies and I have been comparing notes.  When she writes, she reads things that are similar in tone, theme or subject to her work-in-progress. Because I do a lot of research when I write, I read things that match my subject before I begin.  I need to have a certain amount […]