I’ll Find a Way

My sister and her family were here for a visit from Utah and we had spent a fun filled day at the beach. It had been a bit chilly and windy, but a nice day none-the-less and I was sad when it came time for me to return home with my children. I had a piano recital that evening and I wanted to be sure to leave enough time to bathe the kids and get myself ready for the recital. I was especially excited as we had planned to have the recital at a local nursing home.

I figured that by leaving at 3:30 I would have plenty of time before I had to be at the nursing home at 6:30 – the recital was scheduled to begin at 7:00. The drive is only an hour and a half – two hours max.

The kids and I were listening to rousing music and singing at the top of our lungs, the wind whipping around us through the open windows. The van was still out of commission from out Montana drive, so I was driving Moby Dick (a white 86 Mercury Grand Marquis). The only problem with Moby Dick was that the back passenger window was stuck half way down and wouldn’t roll up. The weather had been good, and I hadn’t been concerned, though I had a black plastic bag to fit over the door in case of emergency.

All went well until we were less than on hour from home and I noticed the sky was a strange greenish-gray/brown color. I grew up knowing what the sky looked like in tornado weather and this was it. I could almost picture a funnel forming and coming down. I shook my head. “Must be my imagination,” I told myself. A light rain began to fall, though it wasn’t coming in the window at all.

We drove another 15 to 20 mintures and then out of nowhere the rain came down in torrents. The wind was whipping around so hard that it was raining sideways, pelting poor Emily and drenching her in seconds. I pulled off the main road at the first exit I came to and turned into a parking lot. I sloshed through the water quickly accumulating on the ground and yanked her door open. It took me less than a minute to throw the black bag over the window and hurry back into the car, but I was drenched to the skin – I felt like I had just plunged into a swimming pool with my clothes on. The water was already past my ankles.

I cranked on the heat and threw the windshield wipers on full blast. I could hardly see for all the rain and wind. I turned on the radio and listened in amazement as they gave tornado warnings for the area I had just driven through, claiming one had touched down briefly somewhere in the distant area – “I guess it wasn’t my imagination,” I said. After getting all the pertinent information I turned of the radio – not wanting to scare the kids any further.

After another 10 minutes of driving I came up to the main junction to get onto the highway that led into my hometown. The traffic was at a dead standstill. Cars were lined up for as far as I could see. I sat a while and finally turned the car off, turning it on to inch forward occasionally. The third time I turned on the car I looked down at the gas gauge – it was on empty! There was no way I would make it home in traffic this bad with so little gas.

I knew if I could get around the cement median, I could head to a small town a few miles away where I could fill up. We began to pray that traffic would move enough that I would be able to get around the median and that we would make to a gas station where we could get gas.

Gradually the traffic inched forward until I could just squeeze past the car in front of me and flip a u-turn. We all sighed in relief as we head toward the small town. The kids cheered as the gas station was spotted. I saw the clock read 5:30 – if I was lucky I would still be able to get home in time for the piano recital. As I pulled in, one of the gass attendents began waving his arms, and I rolled down the window.

“We’re out of power.”

“What?” I could hardly believe my ears.

“The entire town is out of power.”

I sat there in shock. My tank was below empty and I had to be at the nursing home in an hour.

“I wonder if I can make it into my hometown anyway.” I didn’t realize I had spoken aloud until a nice man on his motorcycle aproached.

“I doubt it,” he said. “Every road into your hometown is closed because of downed trees. I was just trying to get there myself.”

“I have a piano recital I have to get to,” I moaned to no one in particular.

“I don’t think you will make it ma’am.”

He smiled wryly and joined with me in laughing as I proclaimed, “But I’m the teacher!”

He was very kind, and let me borrow his cell phone to call home and leave Paul a message as to where I was.

At that point I decided I had two options. I could sit and wait, or I could exercise my faith. We had prayed we would make it to a gas station where I could fill up with gas. This obviously wasn’t it. There was another town about 10-15 minutes further away from my hometown and I was informed the roads headed into that town were clear. I sucked in my breath, strengthened my faith and started the car. We had prayed. The car would make it.

We made the drive and the kids once again cheered as we spotted the gas station on the edge of town. I pulled in, and noticed it was as empty as a ghost town – I half expected to see tumble weeds rolling past the pumps. I never minded that fact that you can’t pump your own gas in Oregon until that moment. The silly people had closed because of the storm. Not because they lost power or any other disaster, but because of the storm. After a lot of grumbling, I reminded myself, “You prayed you’d make it to a gas station where you can fill up. This isn’t it.”

So, I started the car again and cruised on through town. A few minutes later I found yet another gas station and the kids really did cheer as this one had power AND was open! Finally my car had gas. I looked at the clock. It was 6:10. There was no way I would get back in time, but I figured it wouldn’t do any good to just sit around waiting, so I methodically began trying roads into my home town. The first road toward town I tried was closed about 10-15 miles out, so I turned around, headed to the main road and drive a while before trying another back road.

This road had just barely been cleared. I waved at the road worker as I passed and was assured the roads the rest of the way into my hometown were clear. By now it was 6:30 and I was contemplating how I could make it to the recital if I just went in jeans with wet soggy hair. Two miles out of town we were rerouted due to an accident. We finally pulled into the driveway at 6:50. My lovely husband had gotten my message and had called the nursing home to notify them that I was stranded and had cancelled the recital – he also figured none of us had been able to eat, so he had picked up some Little Ceaser pizzas for us too.

The usual 90 minute drive took me over three hours. My sister, who was going to stay at the beach arrived home shortly after I did, because the weather had turned so bad.

It was a strange feeling – not being able to get to my home and I am so grateful our prayers were answered. I drove close to 20 miles on an empty tank – the needle was below empty actually – and that to me is a miracle and answer to prayer. I could have been stranded in a storm by myself with five kids, no gas, and no phone. I know Heavenly Father loves us, watches over us, and answers our prayers.

Making Mischief

Food coloring and kids seem to have a magnetic draw. They seek each other out and create beautiful things. In my husband’s case it was a dyed poodle (I think – he can correct me if I am wrong) in Jacob’s case it was bubbles.

He wanted to dye the bottles of bubbles different colors – and dye them he did. I was out with the kids in the backyard and Jacob had gone inside to use the bathroom. Unbeknownst to me he made a swift detour into the kitchen and snagged the food coloring. I noticed when one of the bottles was spilled and looked a strange vibrant green. And then I saw a splotch of blue someplace else.

Then I saw the bottom of Jacob’s feet, after he had stepped in one of the puddles of spilled dyed bubbles – they were bright blue! James got a hold of one of the bottles and had his face dyed blue, his hands dyed blue, his feet dyed blue. It was decided that evening as we hung out in the teepee that we have a tribe of the blue-foot indians.

That was Monday, and I sincerely hoped the mischief was over, but unfortunately the trouble for the week had just begun. Tuesday brought a babysitter and disastrous consequences as she underestimated Jacob’s mischeif making prowess. He ate half a box of icecream bars, went through numerous cans of juice concentrate that I swear were poured all over the floor as you couldn’t walk a few feet without having to leaf a layer of skin behind as you peeled your foot off the ground. He also decided to paint with the toothpaste all over the bathroom floor. And where was the babysitter during all this? My question exactly – needless to say, we won’t be having her back anytime soon.

I had hoped that after yesterday he had exhausted his mischief creativity – but obviously not. Today I had a few important phone calls to make and disappeared into my office while the kids ate breakfast. Apparantly they wanted sugar and couldn’t open the big bucket. To Jacob’s credit, Dorothy was the one who had the big idea – he just was the happy benefactor. She decided to pull the 25 lb (or so) bag of sugar off the shelf in the garage, rip it open, and fetch a cup of sugar.

When I stumbled upon the scene, Jacob was happily sitting in the middle of the garage floor with sugar all around him happily chowing away. There was sugar EVERYwhere. I vacuumed and vacuumed and vacuumed some more, and that floor is still sticky.

Man, if the week keeps going like this, I will committed to the insane assylum at the end of it!

The Fly

Jacob is scared of bugs. Anything from spiders and big beetles to the common house fly. I think it all started with his sisters squealing over bees – anything time something flies around him he looses it.

He has gotten better, but we recently had a conversation that went something like this:

Dad: It’s a fly. There is nothing to be afraid of.

Jacob (a very earnest look upon his face): Yes there is it will hurt me.

Dad: Son, flies can’t hurt you

Jacob: Yeah. They land on your arm and go like this (he grabs hold of his arm and lifts it up ward). They don’t let go and they take your arm and fly away.

Dad: Flies are tiny. They can’t pull your arms off.

Jacob: Yes they can. They stick to you and go like this. (He once again mimics the fly grabbing his arm and flying away with it)

I don’t know that we ever convinced him that flies can’t rip off his limbs and fly away with them, but he definitely gets creativity points

Our last two beach trips

Our last two beach trips have been solo flights for me. Me and 5 kids – alone. The task seemed daunting, but let me tell you, we had the MOST fun! And I didn’t get completely frazzled or tear my hair out, or worry to death about kids in the ocean. In fact, the kids in the ocean thing was my one major rule. Water was off limits because I was worried about keeping everyone safe.

Imagine how excited we were then to land on a beach with giant puddles the first time left behind as the tide went out.

Yes – they are really jumping off that bucket into the knee-deep water – knee deep for them that is. Full fledge belly flopping going on! But boy did they have a ton of fun! And what a gorgeous day to boot!

Then last week I took them to the beach and met up with some friends from Washington who stopped at the coast for a day while on their vacation. Our first stop was the Yaquina Head Lighthouse – they watched the baby so I could take the other four up. It was a bit nervewracking with the ambitious and energetic pre-schooler, but all went well and the kids loved seeing the light flash on and off (it is one of the few working lighthouses).

Then we drove a little further south and hit Seal Rock for lunch and beach time. It is a gorgeous beach with lots of tide pools and a stream for the kids to play in (so they still got their water time) in fact the rocks form a sort of barrier to the ocean so they could play in some of the deeper pools at the edge of the water without my having to worry too much.

They found an amazing variety of seaweed – I wish I had taken more photos of their seaweed finds.

Even thought the tide was going out we would get the occasional amazing wave crashing on the rocks and it was simply gorgeous! All in all the two solo beach trips were a great success and I am looking forward to taking the kids again!

Teepees and the 4th of July

Early 1980s

Tiny lights dotted the skies as the sun set and twilight gradually crossed into darkness. We darted across the yard and pastures capturing as many as we could into jars, screwing the nail-punctured lids on tight. Occasionally we would cup on in our hands and watch the blink in fascination. Though we were careful not to smash them, inevitably one would get crushed and we would stair in amazement at how our skin would glow.

With glowing jars in hand we would parade beneath the dark sky to the sillohuetted teepee at the bottom of the hill. The kid created teepee sported a sheet draped around some poles dragged from the woods and lashed together. We huddle together around our jars of firefly light and my sibblings would begin to tell ghost stories until I was convinced to return to the house.

July 4th, 2009

I have wanted to build a teepee for the kids for quite some time, but haven’t been able to locate suitable poles. Some time at the beginning of the year we were the recipients of some poles perfect for a teepee ranging from 10-15 feet (or more) in length. So, this Saturday as part of our 4th of July festivities Paul and I set up a teepee for the kids.
We didn’t want to spend a lot of time sewing and cutting, so we just draped and tucked the canvas around the poles, but when all was said and done it looked fairly decent and is a lot of fun!

I cut some strips of clothes for the kids for headbands and Emily had a couple of bows (filbert branches and string) that her Sunday school teacher had given her. Jacob crabbed a small stick for a spear and Dorothy pretended she was was blowing poisonous darts. We ate dinner in our teepee and the kids are anxious to sleep in it tonight.

To Monatana and Back

Memorial Day weekend was a whirlwind. With Paul’s brother getting married a quick trip to Montana was on the agenda. With all the stops for the kids, especially with a newly potty trained (as in a few months) boy, the trip takes 18-20 hours. And yes, Jacob is officially day and night time dry!!! WOOHOOO!!!

So, trying to get out the door to Montana was a challenge in itself. We were supposed to leave early Thursday morning. This is how the days leading up to the expected departure went:

Monday morning Emily tells me that her head is itching – yup, that is when we find out about the second lice outbreak and I seriously consider withdrawing my kids from school permanently – heh. So Monday is spent shampooing kids hair, doing haircuts, and deep cleaning the house – shampooing carpets, and laundry – we had to wash every blanket and clothing item in the house – and pillows, and stuffed animals, and….. and did I mention this was the SECOND time this year I’ve had to do this??? Anyway, need clothes to pack if we are going on a trip so I was up to my eyeballs in panicked laundry while we bagged everything else we possibly could till after we got back.

Tuesday I am finishing up the cleaning stuff when Paul comes from work asking me if I put x-amount of money on the credit card for the USPS – “No,” I say, “I never use the credit card.” Yeah, turns out some one tapped into pauls credit card. So Tuesday is spent trying to take care of all of that and canceling the credit card.

Wednesday (day before we are supposed to leave I might add) we realize that we forgot to get the car up to the mechanic for breaks (gee – I wonder why we forgot?) and Paul is ready to take van in, then he realizes – ack! We have no way to pay for it. Our credit card is canceled, any extra money in the account is for gas, and the savings was wiped out do to paying the last property tax payment. Hmmmm…. now what? Paul’s parents came to the rescue and helped us out. Breaks were fixed and after some manic packing we were ready to leave Thursday morning – and at least the house was spotlessly clean!

The drive there was incredibly good and we stopped at this amazing rest-area just outside of Ceour De’laine (I don’t know if I spelled that right) Idaho. They had this big boulders the kids loved playing on. So, we stopped for a much needed playing and lunch break.

The wedding was wonderful, and it was awesome to hang out with all of Paul’s family. It was a whirlwind and all too soon we found ourselves heading back to Oregon. If we thought we would have a nice smooth ride home, we were greatly mistaken.

Somewhere near Pasco, Washington we pulled off to a rest area where a fellow driver flagged us as we pulled off the freeway.

“A while back on the freeway I saw a bunch of smoke poor from your van and a belt came rolling down the freeway,” he tells us.

Ahh, so that would be why the AC quit working. Paul checks the engine at the rest-area and sure enough the AC belt is gone, but everything looks ok. So we are back on our way – hot but happy none the less. The kids are restless, but not too bad and the portable dvd players are doing their job at helping to entertain the little people. (marvelous invention, that)

We had just made it the other side of Hermiston, Oregon – ie – middle of NOWHERE – when the dashboard completely blanks out. We can’t read any of our gauges. We have no idea how fast we are going, how much gas we have, car temp – nothing. With hazard lights flashing we pull off the road and proceed to try to figure out what the heck is going on. Paul checks all the fuses, hoping it is just a fuse gone bad. They all look fine. A lengthy phone call to our mechanic only increases our worries that something is drastically wrong. The mchanic tells us that he is worried that it is either an alternator problem or a battery problem and instructs us to make the rest of the trip home without any extras on – not even the radio. So we do the only thing we can do. We pray.

Paul feels like he should switch the fuse out anyway, and does so. The dashboard lights up like a Christmas tree and we sing our praises and hop on the way with only the sound of five extremely tired children who want nothing more than to be home accompanying us on the way. I read Harry Potter for hours, hoping to entertain them until the light is failing and finally they are induced into sweet slumber.

We made it home, thankfully, on the power of prayer. We need to get the van into the mechanic to find out what was wrong with it – I am currently driving Moby Dick (our big white boat of a car) it fits me and all five kids – the kids like it because they get to ride in front (it’s really old, so no air bags), and Paul has been driving the Silver Bullet (the little grey truck some will remember from college days).

Is it just me or does time seem to be speeding up?

It seems I am continually swamped – there is always something happening, something to do, something to be done… and in the process my blog gets forgotten. Well, not forgotten exactly. It sits there and I constantly scold myself that I need to write on it like I used to, and catch up with my friends. But then something else happens to send things spinning by even faster and all blog thoughts are forgotten until I am laying in my bed late at night and I think “Oh shoot, I was going to get to my blogging and bogging friends today.”

Among other things so far this spring we have dealt with lice twice (like 4-5 months apart – signifying a complete top to bottom scrubbing of the house and everything in it – I am still swamped by laundry and I want to happily strangle the parent who obviously isn’t getting rid of the critter the right way – we have a no nit policy at the school, but if they don’t clean their house right it doesn’t help much. And when you have to shampoo 7 peoples hair (miserable business that is) and rent a shampooer and everything else it gets a might bit expensive. Grrrrr. Emily now has a cute pixie cut again in hopes that she will be spared and we are happily looking forward to getting out of school in a couple of weeks.

We have had A LOT of sickies, a wedding in Montana, an overnight beach trip, a homemade movie involving coconut horsecloppers and a cardboard castle, a break from writing – I’ve been to busy to even do that, getting our vegetable garden in, three school music programs, family car wash, a visit from grandparents and trip to the aviation museum, our usualy Easter trip to the hospital, 2 more birthdays since Jacob’s and a little boy moving into the big boys room (I can’t believe he’s that big now! I keep calling him a baby, and he has been a toddler for a while now – 17 months old already!)

Anyway, I will post about quite a few of these things seperately – hopefully anyway I’d say I was going to try to post every day this month, but then my sister (and her 6 kids) is going to be visiting this week – so I figure that will make it a bit hard to keep up on the goal if I make it .

Anyway, in parting I will leave with you a photo collage or two of our adventures in car washing.

Heart Walk Coming Up

Usually I post about it long before now, but things have been abnormally busy. The annual Portland, Oregon are Heart Walk is fast approaching! I finally managed to get myself signed up for it today. It is hard to believe that Jacob is already four years old! The walk will be on May 17th, and I invite any who are in the area and want to join us, to please do so, and any who feel inclined to donate, your donations are needed, welcomed, and we are very grateful for them!

Join the Walk

Donate

Plot and Conflict with Rachel Ann Nunes

Another fabulous class (actually – they were all fabulous) was given by Rachel Ann Nunes, author of 28 published books including the Ariana series. She spoke with us about plot and conflict.

She started off with talking about why plot is the most important element in a novel. Without plot there is no story. You can have elegant, insightful prose, exotic settings, well-developed characters, witty dialogue, and an amazing first paragraph, but if nothing happens to the characters, no one will care. If you are a little weak in one or two of those areas, success can still be possible IF (and only if) your plot rocks.

She gave the definition of plot as: The causal sequence of events- meaning that each event causes or leads to another event, which then leads to another, Each of these events involves some sort of conflict or tension, which lead to the climax and resolution. You may have several conflicts and resolutions in a book. Without both conflict and resolution, you have no plot.

Plot is:

1. The framework on which the other elements of the story are built .
2. Focused on a single character or a small group of characters.
3. A combination of characterization, a journey for the characters, suspense, conflict and context – draw readers into the story and the decisions the characters will make.

She stressed a few times that a good plot is a combination of strong characterization, a journey for the characters, suspense, conflict, and context – you can make your plot stronger by adding to any of these elements.

Then we discussed the four main parts of plot:

1. Character’s conflict or problem

• What is your character’s problem or goal?
• Start as close as possible to the action or point of change
• Your character is in the most pain ever
• Murder mysteries begin with murder
• Action stories begin with action
• Throw your characters into the middle of a mess, so they have to take action
• Action propels plots

2. Complications – thins get worse – ‘out of the frying pan into the fryer’ – the hero or heroine has something great at stake

Character Motivations – ( so important and something I am continually working on)

• Do things for a reason – act from motivation – not because plot demands they do something
• Examine motivation and find ways to complicate plot
• Readers care about character’s goal and become emotionally involved

Conflict with Others -

• At odds with others (quiet family mand drafted and serving with a playboy, etc)
• Family goals and desires vs. individual
• Society vs. individual
• Workplace
• endless possibilities

Conflict with self -

• greatest siyrce if difficulty with character adn most emotionally staisfying when finally resolved

Suspense -

• The Ticking bomb
• Jack-in-the-box – know somethign will happen and waiting for moment to arrive
• Foreshadowing
• Maintain uncertainty
• Outcome ust seem possible to the reader – even while surprising them
• stakes have to be high (its okay to kill someone) – allow bad things to happen to good characters

Mystery -

• Unresolved questions
• things don’t quite add up – keep in mind that the readers trust you that you will resolve their questions

UP THE STAKES!

The roller coaster ride begins – tension climbs as the characters head toward the first crisis. Then it plunges into sort of a lull, where the characters and the readers regroup before the next disaster – or perhaps a subplot is developed, In a romance, this allows time for the relationship to progress.

Do we need the lulls? Yes – it gives readers a chance to relax a bit from the tension

Costs to hero/heroine:  As each problem or twist unfolds, the next one becomes greater, more dangerous, or more emotion-filled

Beware of coincidence – its okay when:

• It’s an initiating force in the story
• It makes things worse for the protaganist
• It’s religious works or miracles

It’s not a coincidence if it is a logical consequnce brought about by th plot

Ending each chapter with a hook – or a plot complication – keep the reader involved and asking “What happens next?”

The active protaganist:

• Difficulty increses as a result of positive action by the antagontist
• Character needs to stand up, take charge, and do something – even though their attempts to solve the problem make it worse -  your character  can only be acted upon so much until they start reacting
• Problems can worsen without direct impact from character, but the character should always be doing something
• The more significant the events for the character the more effective the plot.

3. Climax

• Major problem is resolved
• Point of high tension and drama
• Major prolem=major climax
• Final climax=moment of truth
• Fully developed scenes
• Deal with crises on-screen

4. Resolution

• Right prevails and evil is punished – usually
• Crucial elements bring everything into focus
• Logical consequence of prior events
• Your resoltion should bfeel inevitable after it is over, even if it is surpirising
• Tying up Loose Threads
• Know When to STOP Writing – one of the biggest problems is the author wants to over-tell the story  – the end should come very close to the resolution – don’t drag it out.

Well, it was awesome class and I was able to recognize some things I was doing right, and found areas I definitely need to improve on.

Grabbing and Keeping Kids’ Attention with Rebecca Shelley

Another of my favorite conference classes was about writing books that would grab and keep kids’ attention. The class was given by Rebecca Shelley, author of Red Dragon Codex and Brass Dragon Codex.

The first thing we covered was Know Your Audience – who are you writing to?

When it comes to kids, there are two major types of readers – the reluctant reader and the avid reader:

Reluctant Reader have their brains in the fast lain

• Brains wire for information age- able to process lare amounts of information quickly
• Super Smashbrothers vs. Space Invaders – she talked about how when most of us remember playing games that are slow paced such as Space Invaders these kids are able to keep up with fast paced very involving games such as Super Smashbrothers.
• Twenty-minute TV plotlines – if it is too complicated, they’ll loose interest – it has to keep moving quickly
• YouTube entertainment – Reading should be entertainment
• Intimidated by thick books and large chunks of text

Avid Readers: The Harry Potter generation

• Have developed neural pathways for deep reading.
• Are confident in their reading ability
• Are a growing demographic, but still a minority

Remember they are diferent audiences and to experiment and practice writing for both.

As a side note about paragraph length – I can’t begin to count the number of times it was mentioned in the various classes I attened that focused on YA and Middle grade lit that when writing for the younger audiences the paragraphs have to be shorter.

Once we deciphered the two different reading groups we focused on writing for the Reluctant Reader:

Formatting:

• Lots of white space
• Short, varied paragraphs
• Varied sentence lengths
• Proper word choices
• Plenty of plot-moving dialogue

Characterization – for reluctant readers it is like a caricature – in fact she would often refer to caricaturization

• The Mona Lisa vs the Ninja Turtles – She talked about giving characters a only few defining traits that would be memorable.  The example of Ninja Turtles went to how each turtle had a specific color and how it related to their temperment – the read one was the angry one, etc.  – another illustration she made was how it was done in Spiderwick - there are little portraits that tell the kids exactly what the characters look like, saving pages of detail for kids who would be impatient with it.
• Complex characters expressed in digest

Pacing:

• Hook and twist every two to four pages

1. Clear and vital character motivation and emotions – she repeated a few times the ever important “clear and vital character motivation” – going back to the characterization class I wrote about yesterday – Motivations are SO IMPORTANT!!
2. Proper grounding (setting expressed by sensory details through close 3rd person point of view)

So – I have to break in and talk about the sensory details a moment, because I need to do this more. She talked about being sure we used ALL five senses – we most often rely on sight and sound, and she stressed focusing on touch, smell, and taste as well.

The reader needs to be inside the character and experiencing their world through their senses. By using all 5 senses every 2-4 pages, and in the beginning of every scene, the reader will be grounded and hooked.

• Twist – something has to change every 2 pages – snappy dialogue, humor, conflict, action, revelation, danger – keep it moving

Physical Action

• Slapstick, battles, chase scenes, etc.
• More action, less sitting around thinking and planning
• Action must be interlaced with setting and character to be meaningful

Cliff hangers: Bait and Hook

She gave the comparison of fishing.  A fisherman waits for the nibble and then jerks the pool, hooking the fish.  The end of the chapter is like throwing the bait in the water, the beginning of the next chapter is the hook so we can reel them in.

• Physical threat cliff hanger
• Emotional cliffhanger
• Puzzle cliff hanger
• Mystery cliff hanger

Write to your strengths and understand you audience:

Recognizing what kind of writer you are will help you find your market.

I must say I was always an avid reader – and so I think I tend to write to that market. My kids love both kinds of books and while I enjoy them too, I always find myself yearning for just a bit more when I read books for the reluctant reader. Honestly, though, before this class I had never considered them as two seperate audiences, and I look forward to putting these ideas into practice.  And many of the points made can apply to either audience.