Get Ready for the 2nd National Day on Writing, October 20, 2010!

I cannot tell you a better way to spend my day than writing and the NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English) along with Senate have dedicated a day for just that. Here is some information so you can join me and many other writers in celebrating what we love . . . writing!

Choose any piece you have ever written, spoken, drawn, texted, or videoed and submit it to the NCTE Gallery. Ask your family and friends to publish to the National Gallery, too! In this great mosaic representation of how people write today, every piece counts. As long as it is significant to its author, the NCTE has a place for it in the national gallery.

Talk to the classes you teach, community, service or church groups you belong to, or journalists/media personalities you know about publishing to the National Gallery. In the National Gallery of Writing the NCTE is collecting all kinds of writing from people from all walks of life—people just like you. Submit stories, poems, recipes, emails, blogs, even audio, video, and artwork.

You can download and post the National Day on Writing Flier!

Organize a celebration of writing in your school, group or community on October 20! The list of plans forming up around the country is impressive—everything from writing marathons, to poetry slams, to memoir chains, to journal read-ins, to post-it note plot schemes are in the works. Get creative and make your celebration memorable! Read about more ideas for celebrating here.

Share the news that the U.S. Senate has passed a resolution declaring October 20, 2010, the National Day on Writing.

Want more information on contributing to the National Gallery? Learn more about submitting your writing and about starting a gallery.

You can learn more and get more ideas at http://www.ncte.org/dayonwriting

Interview Friday with J.D. Holiday

J.D. Holiday is the author and illustrator of two children’s books: Janoose the Goose, picture book and a chapter book for six to eight year olds, THE GREAT SNOWBALL ESCAPADE. A chapbook of her short stories called, Trespasses was published in 1994 and she has had short stories printed in literary magazines and numerous articles about writing and publishing published. She is a member of both The Society of Children’s Writers and Illustrators, (SCBWI) and Small Publishers of North America, (SPAN.) J.D. Holiday lives in the Delaware Valley of Pennsylvania. VS : I want to thank you for being my guest here on The Writing Mama today. It is so exciting because you are my first World of Ink Tour Guest. It’s been a fun couple of days and the tour is only getting started. Okay, so I know your children are grown and out of the house, but I’m sure you’ve had to balance your writing life around them at one time or another. I know being a parent and writer can be hard and I find ...

Guest Post: Tips on Writing Your Memoirs

Whether you have lived a rough life or had a silver spoon in your mouth, it is normal to want to write your memoirs. This is especially true if you are getting up into middle age or beyond. Otherwise, it could be a pretty short story. Assuming you are ready to put 40 years or more down on paper, here are some tips for maximizing the effect of your finished work. First of all, give yourself plenty of time for a project like this. You are going to remember things as you work through the memories that are freshest in your mind. For this reason, it makes sense to give yourself lots of time, even as much as a year or more. Hopefully, you have a supply of old photographs you will be going through at the same time. But even if you don't, you can dig out those memories that are buried within. A good place to start is with a general time line of your life. You may find that you need to make more than one draft of this line, because you are likely to remember important ...

5 Places to Find Writing Ideas

If you've ever struggled in coming up with creative ideas, welcome to the club. For most writers, discovering new writing projects involves conscious pursuit of their thought trails. But where do start on our quest for inspiration? Here are a few places you can find new ideas for writing: 1. The world around you. Just like a photographer, you must start looking at life through your own personal lens. You will get a tremendous amount of writing material if you start filtering your own experiences. Soon you will start noticing ideas everywhere around you. Very often the muse will come at strange times and from unusual sources, so be prepared. The world is full of surprises that can materialize in your next book or article. 2. Writers’ associations and networks. If you are a professional writer, you probably belong to an association or writer's group. Generating new ideas will feel much easier after meeting other members or attending writing workshops and conferences. You ...

VS Grenier ~ Award-Winning Author, Speaker & Podcaster

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