Recent Articles
Why you should write your passion
Writing anything takes a long time. When I visit schools and talk about my writing process, eyes glaze over if I mention revising. I suspect a lot of us feel our eyes glaze over when we consider how much revision a piece of writing requires. It would be nice to be...
Why paying it forward is a writer’s gift
One of the most surprising and beautiful things I have learned about the kid-lit community is it is filled with kind and generous writers. There is an unspoken belief among my fellow writers: We need each other. Sometimes, when we’re immersed in the writing world, it...
There is no right or wrong way to write
Most writers are naturally curious people. We ask a lot of questions about the world. We wonder and challenge and try to make sense of the senseless. And we love to know how other writers do things—how they write a book, how they manage their time, how they...
No one likes losing…but we just might learn the most from it
It’s not unusual in my house to hear someone slam through the front door, along with the words, “I’m not playing with them anymore.” This could be for any number of reasons—someone’s cheating (according to the one upset), someone made them mad, or, the most frequent...
How to train like a writing athlete
Some creative people think that creativity only happens when the “muse” strikes. That always sounded strange to me. Who was the muse? Am I not my own muse? In charge of my own creativity? If I had to depend on some nameless, invisible muse, who may or may not show up...
How to play the mental game of writing
The first year I ran track in middle school, I remember my coach telling us, “Running is about 90 percent mental.” I remember thinking, That’s ridiculous. I’m not running with my mind, I’m running with my body. And my body is too tired for this. And as soon as I...
Practice makes progress: write one sentence after another
There’s a myth out there that says the longer you write the better you get at it. Okay, that’s not a myth. Practice makes progress, after all. But where the myth shows its face is in the belief that as you get better at writing, it also gets easier. Uh…I’m sorry...
Write a GREAT Book Even When Your Time is Limited
