Meet the women of the book, Friendship book series.
This week (December 28th , 2021 2PM PST/ 5PM EST) I spoke with Martha Brockenbrough (The 50/50 Friendship Flow – Chapter 5- Live Your Values).
Martha Brockenbrough is the award-winning author of more than 20 books for young readers, and two books for adults. She founded National Grammar Day, is the former editor of MSN.com, and works on the faculty at Vermont College of Fine Arts, where she teaches graduate students how to write books for children and teens. She plays a big role in my writing career and she shares insights into her career, writing for children, writing in multiple genres, and tips and tools for the aspiring writer.
Martha’s 3 Tips for the aspiring writer:
- “Okay. So the first piece of advice I always give is to read, you have to make time to read, because if you don’t, you’re not going to learn the key things about writing, and I want you to read as a writer. And so your job is to understand how the writer is doing what they’re doing on the page.”
- “So, the second thing is to understand the purpose of books, the purpose of books is to give a reader and emotional experience. This is whether it’s fiction or whether it’s non-fiction – non-fiction is supposed to delight and instill wonder and solve problems. Um, those are all emotional experiences that you have fiction. We laugh, we cry, we fear all of the human emotions, and it gives us a chance to practice what it means to be a human being. And so, reading as a writer means that you look at what’s happening on the page, and you understand what you’re feeling as you read it. And then you study the elements of craft that create those emotions.”
- “The third tip is to persist, to be resilient. I was having a chat on Twitter today with one of my former students who has been so frustrated for so long. And, she’s just let me know that she has offers of representation from not one but two excellent literary agents. And had she given up when she wanted to, when it really hurt. And when it was frustrating, she wouldn’t have had the news of the last couple of days. And so this is, a career that favors people who have great perseverance.”
Martha can be reached at: www.marthabrockenbrough.com
and via social media at:
http://facebook.com/marthabrockenbroughbooks
http://twitter.com/mbrockenbrough
http://instagram.com/marthabee
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