My advice to would-be young authors is to read a lot, write a lot, and not worry about creating a finished product. Keeping a journal is not a bad idea either.
But this was the first time someone he loved would be gone forever. He didn’t like to think about the forever part. But when he did, which was often, the only place he wanted to be was home.
He couldn’t help but give in to the occasional temptation to replay past events in his mind, altering them, changing them from cruel to comfortable, from sad to happy, from unfair to accommodating. Anything was possible in his imagination. Any ending. If only thinking it could make it so.
Now smile a real smile for me so I know you’re not suffering inside.
When I’m looking for an idea, I’ll do anything – clean the closet, mow the lawn, work in the garden.
If we expose kids to books and art, nothing but good can come from it.
Didn’t it make sense that after something horrible happens, something better should follow?
Try drawing or painting a scene you’re working on. Often this will help free up you imagination.
Today was a difficult day. Tomorrow will be better.
Sometimes all you can do is say, ‘Wow.’
The glittery feeling. She’d named it because it felt to her as if her skin and everything beneath it briefly became shiny and jumpy and bubbly, as if glitter materialized inside her, then rose quickly through the layers of tissue that comprised her, momentarily sparkling all over the surface of her skin before dissipating into the air. Martha.
Sometimes I think as adults we think of them as – because they’re small in size that they’re small in all ways – and they’re not. They have big feelings, and they have big eyes, they see things, they hear things, they’re living life just the way an adult does and I think sometimes as adults we forget that.
You know,” he said, “when you were little and tired like this, I’d throw you over my shoulder and carry you home like a sack of rice. Sometimes I wish you were still that little. I wish I could still do that.” “Da-ad. That is so embarrassing,” is what she said. But sometimes she wished it, too. Sometimes she wished it with all her heart.