The Northern Nevada Writing Project

Hello writers gone astray.  Hope your summer has been lovely.  I found a book that would supplant the many fine friends and days we spent together when you inspired me to write on various topics.  The book is a mix of ideas for making your writing better and inspirational quotes to help you write (all of the things we did together for a few weeks).  I think this book would be a nice addition for your professional library as well as your personal book shelf.  There are tips for writing dialogue, structure, style, editing, etc.  For example, one of the hints about improving your writing is a small vignette about “How much are you willing to throw away?”  The author discusses how she struggled with a story for months because she couldn’t part with the first line.  Once she found the courage the story took different turns and twists, but ended up being worthy.  I agree that throwing away words, lines, paragraphs can be challenging- it feels like you are betraying the voice that brought them to life, but then I remember how great it was to dissect that story of Amanda’s (her scary walk in New York).  I think this piece of advice “be willing to throw something out” is worth sharing with students not only about their writing, but about thier life story.  So fellow writers, how do you approach throwing out part or pieces of your writing? 

On the inspirational side, I like many of the tips, but several of them are written as horoscopes:          ” Your prized possession will end up in someone else’s hands”; “Somebody close to you will tell your secret.”; “Unwanted information comes to you through a surprising channel”.  And finally, like some of the other lit. share samples, this book has fun images to inspire writing.  Check it out.  See you soon, Yvette