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Friday, May 29, 2009

How you know that your kids are growing up....

Usually I post about writing, but today.....

I was talking to my nineteen year-old daughter the other day. She is a beautiful, wonderful girl, just finished her first year of college, and truly in touch with her inner-dork. Maybe she had no choice about the dorkiness....her mother does, after all, dress in crowns and capes and various jewels.......

Anway, I asked her a question that perplexed her. She still has no answer.


Here is the question:

Would you rather attend Hogwarts Academy.........



OR......

Serve an internship on the Starship Enterprise?
Yeah, I know.....

Tough! My husband says that it would be ridiculous to serve on the Enterprise when you could have magic.......But.....well.....hmmmm......tough.

My daughter finally decided that she'd go to Hogwarts first then serve on the Enterprise. Um...no, that wasn't the question. It was Either Or.....

So....no, I don't have the answer.


hrh


Friday, May 15, 2009

When the writing is easy....

It's kind of like when things are going well, you never appreciate them, but when things are going bad, you look back to when things were good and say, "Why didn't I realize how good I had it?"

Well, I have it really good right now, so this post is to remind myself that I am appreciating it.....a little.

What is working right now for me is writing. I feel so lucky, like I have a million ideas, and I am getting good work done each day on stuff that I really like. It feels sooooo productive. (And yet, no one but me is really reading much of this stuff right not, so I could totally be kidding myself.....maybe it's all crap.) But there is a magic time when one is writing and one is happy with whatever one scrawl's on one's page....ahhhhh.

And the ideas!!

Seriously, has a title with such promise every graced the idea page of my writing book before? Are you ready for it? I mean, I cannot even think about it without, I dunno, cracking up. Realize, though, that now even a word of this book had been written yet (I am engaged with other projects) but it makes me smile every time I scroll by this little folder (even though it is empty). But the promise.....ahhh, the promise of something wonderful to come.

That is when the writing is easy. When it is filled with promise.

and the title I love is........













Chicken Wizard and the Egg of Destiny

hrh

P.S. I am quite sure I'll be writing soon about when the writing is hard......sigh.

Saturday, May 9, 2009

More of What I Believe......

Kids are honest. Sometimes brutally so. If you are boring, they will tell you in one way or another. If they are very little, they will simply say. “Teacher, this is boring.” If they are older (and more polite) they might just stare out the window and look at the ceiling or the walls, but most teachers can tell if a kid is engaged in the lesson or not. Kids haven’t learned how to fake interest (few adults do it well, either). If you are open to a child’s honesty, it can really help you become a better teacher. If learning isn’t interesting, then kids aren’t interested. To take it one step further, if the writer interested (in the writing) the writing isn’t interesting.

To create honestly good pieces of writing, children need to be allowed to let their voices shine through. They need choices in their writing. Remember the old saying: Choice leads to Voice. It is true.


hrh

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Friday, May 1, 2009

Reading about Writing

So....I am pretty much a sucker these days for reading blogs about writing. I just can't stop. There is something so wonderful about reading other writers thoughts as they walk down the same paths that I try to navigate. Some of the writers I read are published, some are not, but I find myself checking their blogs everyday or so looking for more of what I love...those little bits and pieces of gold, the evidence that the magic of writing abounds....(abounds? what the heck...?)

Yeah, it's late for me. Should go to sleep.