I encourage students in my writing workshops to “write through” with the purpose of getting the story out of their heads and onto the page…. As the author of The 90-Day Novel, Watt has taken that writerly advice and created a successful step-by-step approach to story.
I own nineteen books about—or related to—writing, not counting the big fat Houghton Mifflin Dictionary that I rarely use since I now have the dictionary app on my iPhone.
You’re seated at a large table with a delegation of professors and several classmates. The smell of old books, of the once finely polished furniture, and the faded tapestry rug tinges your nose. You wonder why they would choose such a poorly lit room to have you read in…
We love the zing of a snappy line, the mournful tones of a somber one, the cadence of a staccato beat of dialogue. Once you’re hooked on language, it’s a drug.
After three weeks of training, a period my classmates and I called Truck U., I had to pass two tests (written and driving) to earn a commercial driver’s license.
We’re going into fifth grade. We’ll be the bosses of the school: I’m trained as a crossing guard, and I’m one of a few responsible fifth-grade girls who will cover the phone while the school secretary has lunch…
In the bottom drawer of a dresser in our bedroom I keep two Ziploc bags with some of Noah’s dirty clothes inside…
From the time I was born until his death when I was thirteen, my father and I exchanged probably no more than a few hundred words.
“We don’t throw away bread,” my mother said. She took a few quick steps to the metal trashcan near the kitchen sink and fished out the crusts inside.
I awoke to the tilting sensation you get when somebody sits on your bed. I rolled over and blinked until my vision worked through the darkness to my father, who sat there in his blue work shirt and jeans, grinning the soft grin he saved for his daughters.
