Share A Story - Shape A Future Week on March, 2025: Shape A Future Week - Readers and Writers: Care to partake in a short little questionnaire?

Share A Story - Shape A Future Week 2025. Share a Story - Shape a Future: Lots to Share for Share a Story To celebrate reading and build some excitement for next week, we wanted to

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Readers and Writers: Care to partake in a short little questionnaire?

Nice 2 meet you to. You sound like a really nice person. I'd like to gt 2 know you. Want to be writing partners! I'm new 2!

Writers:

1. I love 2 write! I started writing years ago when i was 7. 5 yrs on and I still haven't published a book yet, but I'm gonna keep on trying! I loved writing from a young age and my teacher said I was really good so I started writing. I'll miss you Mrs. Jackson! I'll be there when you come back!

2. The story I am currently writing is about a 12 yr old girl called Celeste Parkwood who moves to a country town with her mum because her dad was agressive and abusive. She notices weird things and whenever she gets in danger an invisible force saves her. One day this force is revealed in the form of a scarred black wolf called Kya. It explains about the Invisible World, a world full of wonder, and the Obaku. They are warriors who protect the human race. Celeste finds out she is an Eternal, a human with Obaku blood. She can hover from world to world and see all of the Invisible World. But there are monsters intent on killing both obaku and humans to claim the land that was once theirs millions of years ago, and Celeste is destined to save the world. (sorry that was so long)

i came up with it when I was flicking through the Spiderwick chrocnicles. It gave me the idea for invisibility. And sometimes I feel that theres something behind me, protecting me like a Guardian Angel and somehow i thought it was this black wolf and the story sorta took of from there (I believe in Guardian angels. I thinkn the Obaku may be real. My guardian is a black wolf called Kya, the wolf in the story is based on my guardian)

3. Celeste Parkwood- 12 yr old girl, long silky blonde hair, big crystal blue eyes. Clumsy, difficult at times, very shy, loves mum, chosen one, Eternal, inside has a brave, headstrong, leader-like personality. Heres her pic:

Kya- Obaku warrior, Celeste's guardian, black wolf, scars on face and body, deep green eyes, has blue bioluminence on tips of its tail and has tribal marks on face. Wise, brave, deep voice, good warrior

Jocelyn Parkwood- 41 yr old mum, curly brown hair, green eyes. Loving, caring, worries sometimes, very fun, has daughter (Celeste), has Obaku bloodline, divorced from husband.

Brian Fonsworth- 42 yr old, shaved head, merciless brown eyes, reddish brown stubble. Possesive, aggressive, abusive, daughter (Celeste), divorced from wife, in jail for 2 yrs, Monster in human shape.

Ryu- Old Obaku warrior, leader of the Obaku, old grey wolf, kind blue eyes, shaggy grey fur, thin, wise, Azlan type leader, deep voice, tribal marks on face

(Don't know name yet)- young Obaku warrior, pixie/brownie type thing, brown skin, big watery green eyes, pointed ears, big smile, very silly, naughty, has weird ways of saying things ("i really am confuzzled" or "oh fudgecakes!") Jocelyn's protecter

Shiayn- Leader of the monsters, horrible, merciless, cunning, shapeshifter, sick sene of humour

4. 2 pages

5. (least favourite) Coming up with the idea. i have a little sickness sometimes thats called Writers Block. Luckily i'm sticking with this idea. (fAVOURITE) making up the characters. i love it

Hope this helps. I really enjoyed taking this questionare and i would really like to be writing partners. you have to tell me about your book!

Goodluck and Happy New Year!

Has anyone ever had tendinitis of the ankle?

Has anyone ever had tendinitis of the ankle?

What's contributing to the tendonitis is the activity, not the shoes you are doing the activity in.

If you have tendonitis you shouldn't be running. You should be resting the ankle as much as possible for the next couple weeks. Tendonitis HAS to have rest in order to heal. Failure to do so will worsen the injury and not allow healing to take place. It also just adds to the amount of time you will have to take off from exercise in the future.

I would take a week off for now. Ice the ankle 2-3 times per day for 20 minutes at a time. No more because extended cold on tissues will cause tissue damage. So about 20 minutes is optimal. Then rest that ankle as much as you can.

Try getting a compression sleeve for your foot/ankle. This will help increase blood flow to the area to promote healing and offer some support for the joint while it's vulnerable. It may also help the pain.

If it hurts and/or is swollen take some over the counter NSAIDS like Motrin or Aleve to help with that.

But you definitely need to be off the ankle. Cartilage injuries take a very long time to heal and cannot heal while in use. If you take time off now it's likely you may only need 1-2 weeks away from activity. If you fail to rest and continue running you could be out of the game for 4-5 months like I was because my cartilage damage got so bad. (It's a year later and I still struggle with it).

-Connor

What is a Creative Writing major like?

What is a Creative Writing major like?

The short answer: I have an undergraduate degree and two graduate degrees in creative writing. I loved the experience and would recommend it to others (and would do it the same way again if I could go back in time)--though I still have some reservations about the process and do not believe it is the only way to become a great writer.

As many people will tell you, the point of a creative writing degree is twofold: 1) to teach you how to write better, and 2) to provide you time to spend writing (i.e. if you take classes in creative writing, you will have to produce work for your deadlines, thereby resulting in stuff you've written). Therefore, the heart of a writing degree is "the workshop," which is a class where you routinely (sometimes every week, sometimes 2-3 times a semester) share your work with others. In that class, you can *theoretically* accomplish both those goals.

Here is typical model for how it works: I write a story/poem, then bring copies to class for all of my classmates. They take it home, read it, and write comments about it, then in the next class, they will discuss those comments as a group during the class time (possibly generating new thoughts during the discussion), with me being silent. Based on their comments, I can make revisions to my work, theoretically making it better. (All workshop leaders/teachers will note that certain comments will be useful and others can be considered then ignored.)

There are variations to this model: Sometimes the work is read aloud and discussed on the day I bring it to class, with no "homework." Sometimes the professor will structure the discussion to specifically be about a certain element of craft. Sometimes a professor requires that all criticism be shaped in a certain way (such as "Name one thing you don't want the writer to change, and one spot where the work was less interesting.")

Between my wife (also a creative writer) and me, you'll get mixed reactions about the workshop. She found the criticism was often not useful and sometimes petty or even hurtful. A common criticism of the workshop model, for example, is that certain workshops become places for one or two students to "show off" their brilliance by putting down the other writers so that the professor will see how smart they are. Likewise, other people point out that certain types of poetry/stories do better in a workshop than other types, even though those other types might still be worth reading or even commercially viable. (A common joke is to say that ___X___ influential and highly original book/poem would have been slaughtered by the workshop, even though now it's considered a masterpiece.) For these reasons, and others, my wife on at least one or two occasions felt like crying after a workshop was over, and she has no interest in ever being in one again (though she also has found a non-writing career, if that's relevant).

Though I experienced some of these things, I found the workshop more helpful than not, and my writing improved greatly from my creative writing classes. I learned things about poetic form, about shaping stories, about grammar and punctuation, about what keeps readers reading, about pacing and energy--and most such insights were off-the-cuff, throwaway lines that otherwise I couldn't have ever learned. In addition, through the workshop, I made a number of warm, life-long friends who continue even today to provide me with intelligent helpful insights into drafts of my work and push me to always write better.

To round out this answer, I'll add two things. First, a creative writing major will not *just* be writing classes. In addition to general education requirements (such as one science class, one history class, etc.--this will vary by college), you will certainly have to take a number of literature courses. As well, the introductory writing courses (i.e. writing fiction 101) will likely have a workshop PLUS readings from a textbook, including discussions of craft and works of literature.

Second, if you want to be a creative writing instructor in this day and age, you almost certainly will need an MFA or PhD in creative writing, plus teaching experience, plus a good number of publications (usually a number of publications in creative writing journals like Tin House, The Paris Review, or Glimmer Train, plus the publication of one book). So if you want to be a professor, your graduate work must be in creative writing (though your undergraduate work could be in any field).

Coda: There are pros and cons to being a teacher at the same time as you are a writer. I speak here from experience. I originally thought I'd want that life, but then I taught classes at a college, and now I don't want that life; I instead have been happy to become a professional writer, working as a journalist/editor/technical writer by day and a novelist by night. This is another common career path. I have many friends who are happy to be college professors, but I wanted you to see the other option(s) in front of you.

Also on this date Saturday, March 1, 2025...