I am a wife. I am a mom. I am a writer. I am a crafter. My favorite craft is paper crafting. My second favorite is drawing. Even that involves paper. As does my writing. When I craft, I think.  When I think, I write.  When I write, I get published.  When I get published, I earn money.  It nearly always starts with crafting for me.  As I've taught my writing students, thinking is a huge part of writing. I've spent weeks thinking about things I've written before I finally sat down and wrote them. Funny thing is, when I spend so much time thinking about writing, before I even write, when it's time to write those thoughts down, they are usually written within 20 minutes and these are the ones most purchased by a publisher. So, whenever I'm in my studio making pretty paper crafts, I'm actually working on a writing project. Write often. Write well. Just write. ~Tricia

I love a blank piece of paper.  I love a blank computer screen.  The blankness is enticing to me because it's a clean slate, representing a new beginning each and every time I sit down to write.  For me, it goes something like this: 1. As I go about my day, I'm constantly thinking. 2. This thinking leads to ideas. 3. These ideas lead to my desire to voice them. 4. My desire to voice them leads me to my paper or computer. 5. The paper or computer screen are blank......which is, to me, an invitation to write. 6. An invitation to write brings on an avalanche of writing, much of which I never even print or publish! Thus, you can see why a blank paper or computer screen is so enticing to me.  My days are busy with my large family and that means there are days when finding time to write is challenging. What about you? Does a blank paper or screen excite or intimidate you?  Do you feel overwhelmed by it or eager to get started? Think about your writing sty...

Lately I've seen a regular theme in the writing blogs I follow and that theme is simply that the best avenue to writing is to write. John Steinbeck once said,  “I have written a great many stories and I still don’t know how to go about it except to write it and take my chances.”   He knew that the "secret" to writing is to write. Writing is a process.  In the past two weeks, I've sold two articles (one just this morning!) and they were alike in that they both required a lot of thinking before I actually wrote them down.  I don't have the luxury of a certain time of day I can set aside for writing. I have eight children and am still home schooling my youngest two, so their needs come first.  Even though five of my eight have grown and left home, they call, text and email frequently to talk to their mom, so I'm still in demand in their lives.  (I'm so glad!)  Anyway, I say all that to emphasize that my writing does not have a schedule or predictable t...