I'm once again guest posting at Angela Felsted's Blog, My Poetry and Prose Place, a post entitled Making Words Your Playground. I share some exercises to grow a wide and flexible vocabulary, one of the foundational skill sets for writing lush poems.
So, how was your weekend, friends? I spent mine in the Poconos with a great group of teenagers from church. I'm a smidge sleep deprived, but so glad I went. It was really energizing to connect more deeply with some of the kids, and better understand their world, fears, dreams and aspirations. Times like this are so important to me both as a person of faith and as a writer who feels a strong pull toward creating stories for teens that change how they understand themselves and their place in the world.
How do you connect to your target audience? How is what you write connected to other passions in your life?
Monday, February 21
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Sounds like a great weekend and I loved your post over at Angela's. I think my passions/themes in life come out in my writing; friendships, family, overcoming problems, having fun. How can our writing not be influenced by the themes in our life?
ReplyDeleteI had a wonderful weekend--laid back and relaxing! I'll hop over to Angela's and say hi! :-)
ReplyDeleteWhat an awesome, refreshing (if tiring) thing to do! Good for you! I live with my (younger) target audience and I try to stay connected with my teen nieces, but it's hard! :(
ReplyDeleteWe used to do that, Laurel. It was a neat time.
ReplyDeleteAs far as connecting to other passions in my life? *___* What other passions?! LOL One thing at a time. ;D
Hmmm...how is what I write connected to the other passions in my life? Uh...is it totally lame to say that one of my passions is escaping by reading a good book and thus I hope to offer a similar escape to other readers with my writing?
ReplyDeleteI admire that you spent a weekend with teens! To connect to teens I just watch my own and read books for teens and have my teens read my writing about teens. I do need to connect more to my audience, and get out of my 'cocooned' head!
ReplyDeleteLaura: Thanks. I think our best work comes when we tap into our natural passions rather than pursuing genres or themes are supposedly "hot."
ReplyDeleteShannon: thanks for visiting me in both locales.
Susan: Kids relate differently to an authority than they do to a mentor-type person, at least from what I've seen.
Victoria: I know what you mean about the time crunch, but I get stuck or plot-blocked a lot less often when I stay connected to the larger world and really live.
ReplyDeleteHolly: You need to have a few adventures yourself in order to create them for your readers. Otherwise your ideas will become mostly pale copies of others' ideas.
Lynn: Youth ministry is something I kind of fell into, but I love it so much. Being a mentor and friend is very different from being a parent--kids let you see sides of themselves they sometimes hide from parents.