In a sense, they reopen the doors to my own youth when everything was still new and exciting. I tell my young charges that they must pay attention to details and care for the truth. Good writing isn't just pouring words on paper. It is about shaping the material into a form that will give meaning and resonance to a story or a poem or an essay. And to new journeys yet undiscovered.
Nothing matches the joy of creation more than when an idea takes shape on paper.
I read a selection of my published work to the students, encouraging the class to examine the development of an idea or character into a manuscript. Students will choose one of their sentences and illustrate it. Hands-on exercises will help students mine their own memories and enhance their power of observation and description. I open the presentation with a discussion of the techniques fiction writers use to make a character come alive. Students learn how to find the right descriptive detail and incident, thereby revealing the story character through action and description.