The Write Slice: Write or Wrong

I find it interesting that creative people tend to be creative in a variety of ways. I have a brother-in-law who writes, and he also composes beautiful piano music. My husband's aunt writes and is also an artist by profession. I write and do crafts. For about four or five years, I've been a Stampin' Up demonstrator. (I also do other crafts, but primarily cards and scrapbooking are my main focus.) It's interesting to me how my various creative outlets parallel each other so well. As a SU demonstrator, I've primarily been considered a "hobbyist." That means I have mostly been selling enough to support my own purchases, plus a little on the side. But I haven't been totally satisfied with that, although it is about all I have time for. Recently I've been feeling really stagnant with my demonstratorship. I don't have a downline (SU is a direct sales company), and I have a few loyal customers who come to my classes regularly, but I don't real...

by Barbara Kingsolver So, my book group read this book about a month ago, but I am just now getting around to writing a review about it. First of all, a warning: this is a very long novel, but don't be overwhelmed by that. My husband borrowed the audio CDs from the library and just listened to it during his daily commute. It took him probably about a week to week-and-a-half, and he thoroughly enjoyed it. The basic plot line of the story is that a Southern minister (I want to say Baptist, but don't quote me on that) packs up his wife and four daughters in the 1960s and moves to the Congo to preach for a year. The family (the father in particular) arrives with expectations to change the heathen ways of the natives, and instead the story shows how Africa changes each of the members of the family. First of all, Kingsolver has a beautiful way with words. She describes all the elements of Africa through the eyes of her characters. This is effective because the charac...

So I am literally currently sitting in the main room at Stonefly Lodge in Ashton, ID.  The wall-length and -width windows look directly over the Snake River with a farm on the opposite bank.  The drizzly, gray sky mutes the small copses of trees scattered on the land. And I have yet to step outside. I am participating in a retreat presented by Darcy Pattison all about revising novels (which is why I haven't posted because I was frantically getting ready for this).  Some things have been good, and some things have been not as good, but nothing has been bad.  We are having a break right now, and boy do I need it!  My brain hurts. Darcy is a visual learner, and so she has come up with a variety of techniques for revision that map things visually.  One thing I really like is her shrunken manuscript technique.  She (We/You) shrinks the manuscript down to 30 pages (I had to go 5-pt font to get it to fit).  Then you can highlight based upon various...