Sue Bradford Edwards's Blog, page 258

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 […]

Stretching to Write

I didn’t realize how much time I spend sitting at my desk until last spring when it started to bother me.  Not that I realized it.  It wasn’t until I had full-blown sciatica that I put two-and-two together.  The good news is that my sciattica isn’t bad and yoga has been a been a huge help. […]

Plot: Make It Believable

It’s December, that time of year when your mind turns to “maybe next year…”  Sometimes I think of this as fantasy time because, even though 90% of what I write is nonfiction, I start thinking about writing fiction. I’m not a complete pantser but I don’t completely outline my stories either.  I want to know […]

Query letter vs. jacket copy

“When you write a query letter, make it sound like jacket copy.” I can’t even begin to tell you how often I’ve been given this advice by my fellow writers.  The problem is that it may not be the best way to do things.  It all depends on the jacket copy you chose to emulate. […]