I just wrote an epic Twitter thread with advice for parents who have suddenly found themselves thrust into homeschooling situations due to COVID-19. I promised to compile it here for easy reference, so here it is! Dear Suddenly & Temporarily Homeschooling Parents: I’m a work-at-home mom of six who has been homeschooling for over 20…

How Tolkien’s personal letters have influenced my writing practice — I’m an ink-and-paper addict, and I thought I was already documenting every possible piece of my life in my various notebooks and planners. I keep a detailed daily task list; I write morning pages and poetry; I keep a Lynda Barry-inspired notebook for sketches, quotes, and “Ten Things I Saw…

It took morning pages and poetry prompts to unstick me from a seriously stuck place — Two years ago, I was in trouble. I had breast cancer. I had a book due. I had to move my family from San Diego to Portland. Writing it like that, it sounds pretty dramatic. It felt dramatic at the time! The cancer was an early catch, so (long story…

A poem for creatives — Always leave thread in the needle and the sentence half-written. The plunge into chill water is the hardest part, so leave the burner on, the hot tap running. Don’t let ink sit in the pen for too long — it clogs the nib. …

Something there is that does love a wall, that sends the gangly boy-limbs clambering up and bids the mother not to fuss or call out words of caution, not to spoil the bliss of racing, arms outspread, along the bricks, along the road that crests the world, the whole huge…

This simple, visual three-column system helped me keep track of all the edits I needed to make, big and small. — A few days ago, I turned in the revision of my latest middle-grade novel. My awesome editor at Knopf had given me notes on a few things she wanted me to focus on in this pass—fleshing out a couple of characters or relationships; deepening a primary theme; adding more setting…

Let’s face it, you’re never going to melt down all those broken crayons to reuse in Pinterest projects. — 1. This is going to be terrible, so start with something easy. Let’s say: board games. Collect all the boxes from the playroom shelf and put them in the middle of the floor. Go through each box. Have an old Tupperware container handy; you’ll need something to hold the stray buttons…

It took me a year of baby steps, but my phone works for me now. — Something unprecedented happened to me yesterday. I didn’t even think about opening Facebook until 12:35pm. Or Twitter. Like so many others, I read Cal Newport’s Digital Minimalism recently and it has dramatically changed the way I use the internet. But my shift toward a more intentional use of my phone…