How to Begin Your Story.  How Do you have a good or a bad opening for your story? How can you tell? Here’s an article on the Institute for Writers blog that addresses this topic. “A fantastic story can be hindered by a bad opening,” starts the article off. Then we are given three pointers: (1) Something Happening – Strong openings are about thrusting us into a specific moment of the story and getting the thing moving. (2) A Surprise – A really strong opening almost always contains a surprise. (3) An Interesting Voice – Your writing should sound like your writing and no one else’s. Click on the link above to read more about beginnings of stories. 

And here’s another great piece from another Institute for Writers’ blog. This one offers “Five Common Character Motivations” for young readers. They list five: (1) Survival, (2) Peer Pressure, (3) Curiosity, (4) Guilt, and (5) Fear.  So after reading these, let’s get back to work on our writing.

I’ve been busy working on poetry and some picture book manuscripts. I also just signed up for a poetry workshop. Will let you know how that goes.

Always carry a notebook. And I mean always. The short-term memory only retains information for three minutes; unless it is committed to paper you can lose an idea forever. – Will Self

Poetry Collection. I’ve been working on a poetry collection of about 50 poems, so far. The theme is about characters on a certain street in my old neighborhood. As I look back, these were lively, spirited characters with different perspectives on life that made them so vibrant and rich.  Even though it’s been years, I still remember these vecinos (neighbors) who breathed life into my barrio. In my mind, I travel down the street with each character. I plan to enter this collection in poetry contests and see what happens. Wish me luck.

At one of the SCBWI conferences which I attended in Los Angeles a while back, Ms. Mem Fox was one of the keynote speakers. She is a highly-regarded picture-book author in Australia. Her books are read worldwide. On her blog, she listed 20 dos and 20 don’ts for writers writing picture books. Take a peek at her website to learn more.

Here’s a list of “The Most-Anticipated Children’s and YA Books of Spring 2017” published on the Publishers Weekly online blog. Great books!

Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. – Barbara Kingsolver