On Writing

 This is a short little assignment for a course I'm teaching on how to use the actions of our hands to help portray emotion and mood in the stories we write. I based the course on this blog post:  https://cbonwriting.blogspot.com/2019/07/living-and-writing-with-less-money-and.html 1. What skills do you have? Draw on these. Are you a quilter, a chainsaw carver, a wood carver or builder, a spinner, a knitter, a crocheter?  Whatever your jam is, whatever your hands have experience doing, meditate on that, and come up with just one emotion, event, or scene that you could illustrate by using the action of the craft. Either tell us your idea, or write out a few paragraphs of the scene. Thank you! Examples: Imagine a woman in her craft room.  SPINNING We have, for example, that poor princess who had to spin straw into gold in the fairy tale of Rumpelstiltskin ( https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Rumpelstiltskin ). While she spun, she worried and worried. BRAIDING/KNOTTING Imagine writing abou

Q: Why would an editor want to teach engineers to write? Because it’s so much fun! Engineers are extremely thoughtful, always looking at a problem from a number of angles and challenging dogmatic ideas. This matches my own approach to life and to language, so I love discussing English with engineers. Conversations with high-IQ people are great. You just won’t get the same level of analysis from a room full of literature majors, who have been trained  in a completely different way of thinking. I love the engineering approach to language. Engineers are taught to invent, to innovate, to question. And isn’t that essentially exactly the same process editors go through when they edit? Ergo, if you ask me, editors and engineers are a natural match! (Caveat: If you’re a dogmatic, authoritarian sort who can’t stand to be questioned and to reasonably and scientifically debate why one word choice or text layout or document format is preferable to another, or give the reasoning behind

I’m sharing this excerpt from my unpublished book “ How to Get a Dragon for a Pet” for the benefit of a class on Magic and ancient Cornwall (Dumnonia) that we’re enjoying together this January 2020. This may sound like a post of pure silliness to some of you. If you have no interest in getting a dragon for a pet,   or possibly no understanding or belief about dragons existing at all, you might as well skip this post and return to my more “professional” writings about how to edit papers for scientists and engineers or how to write lessons to enchant students about math. J Only read this post if you actually are interested in having a dragon, or knowing about people who have dragons. Have a nice day. Meditation to Get a Dragon or How To Actually Get a Dragon for a Pet “Pure-hearted people are not always wise or good for themselves, though they are often very good to others. This is why pure-hearted people need dragons.” -- ScullyRubba Normally when

I thought I'd share this sneak peek into the medieval magic and history course I have on the cooker for January... here's a beautiful blustery little BBC video from the cliffs of Cornwall for you. It's poet Simon Armitage discussing the 14th century poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74glI1lg1CQ It's a pretty male view of magic and history, of course, that misses a lot of the female side... but don't worry, we'll be digging into what women got up to, too! Also of interest to the course, this interesting archaeological find! Nearly the whole bronze age throughout Europe relied on trading tin with Cornwall (then known as Dumnonia) -- did you know that? https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/19/uk/cornwall-tin-israel-intl-scli-gbr/index.html https://www.timesofisrael.com/groundbreaking-study-ancient-tin-ingots-found-in-israel-were-mined-in-england/ Here's the signup link!  https://www.heartsthroughhistory.com/workshops/early-medieval-

By Christa Bedwin In mathematics, exercises and activities help students to systematically build on what they already know.  Through a step-by-step approach, students develop math skills and understanding, and eventually, the procedural ‘how’ evolves into the conceptual ‘why.’ In the same way, language study in natural, practical situations, like travel to foreign countries or even frequent visits to ethnic neighborhoods or restaurants, can provide opportunities for breakthroughs. Basic understanding of foreign language grammatical concepts eventually gives way to natural conversations—opening a new world of possibilities. Let’s say you’re in Italy and you walk into a coffee shop for a cup of coffee and to ask for directions. If you ask about paying for coffee when it’s delivered to you, you would likely try to put together the words from a pocket dictionary, “I + pay,” to form “io pagare?” without even trying to sort out the grammar. The server might reply, “Dopo, dopo,