Writing Unleashed with Laura M. Harkins

Pen pals.   People you’ve never met in person.   Living in different states and towns.   You write back and forth sharing details of your life.   I still have the picture and letters from my pen pal from elementary school.   She lived in California.   Her name has faded from memory and the pack of letters is hiding in a box somewhere, but the experience has stayed with me for 19 years.    While I was teaching middle school English, I realized my students didn’t have a clue about writing a letter.   How could this be possible?   Students were guided through the education system, graduating with less knowledge than I had when I was 11-years-old.   This could be a teachable moment.   Through a pen pal project my students would learn the proper letter format and conversational skills to keep their pal interested.   Then the light bulb turned on.   Children—digital natives—have grown up immersed in technology. ...

i-likethings.blogspot.com Man, having your momentum rip away feels like someone is sucking the life out of you with a vacuum.  I submitted a short story for my writer’s group, showed up and endured the critique torture, finished my novel and put a blog post up all in a few days.  The progress had me skipping around and humming tunes.  Unfortunately, the expiration date on my happiness came sooner than expected.  My stretches of concentration are short.  I spend most of my time distracted by an endless amount of things.  As a newbie to the writing life, I battle daily with my ability to maintain focus.  But I fear if I don’t get myself under control soon, I will never see lucrative success. So, at the moment I’m learning to clear some hurdles. TV To put it mildly, I have an addiction to televsion. Whether I’m streaming live from Netflix or catching up on shows piling up on the DVR, it’s embarrassing.  I see a support group in my future....