January | 2011 | Cathy C. Hall Writes

Here’s the thing I found today: I love Twitter.

I love how this HUGE community of people come together and share thoughts on just about everything. I follow lots of writers, editors, and publishers, so I find tons of tweets relating to the subject I love best. And I LOVE how these folks find submission opportunities, or book giveaways, or funny little videos or vastly interesting blog posts that I would never find myself.

But I also hate Twitter. Because when I sit down at my little desk, telling myself that I will only look at Twitter (and if I’m being perfectly honest, Facebook, too) for fifteen minutes, PROMISE, and then I get up to stretch TWO HOURS later, I am not happy.

But a part of me is happy. Because I’ve learned so much that I didn’t know before. It’s just that I’m paying for that knowledge when I finally finish my To Do list at 12:30 AM. Whew. Anyway, that’s how I found a tweet that took me to Steve Buttry’s blog.

Steve Buttry happened to be interviewing Roy Peter Clark, the man behind Writing Tools, which was published as a book–and now Mr. Clark has a blog of that name over at Poynter.

Of course, you can peruse all those delightful links, because really, there’s lots of good writing stuff there. Or you can go directly to this shortcut of the 50 Writing Tools, Quick List. Where you will find that number 2: Order words for emphasis, is the rule that Mr. Clark finds terribly important for all writers.

In the end, it was all worth it, right? (Or…It was all worth it, in the end. Right?)

I’m already smiling, just writing the title of this post!

I had such a lovely time when I visited a group of home-schooled students who meet regularly to share their writing. One of the coordinators, Debra Mayhew, is a fellow writer friend of mine, and asked if I’d come and share my puppet play with the kids. And I said, “Wheeee!” (That’s Yes! in Cathy C. Hall language.)

Deb made wonderful puppets for the play, and I had help from several students who did a wonderful job playing their parts in “Oh, Dear! Oh, Deer!” Since the play is all about homonyms, we chatted a bit about words that sound alike but are spelled differently (and I told my all-time favorite knock-knock joke. Always a plus when I can find a way to fit that in!). And they shared their pictures of homonyms (there may be a few budding artists in the bunch, too).

I rambled a bit about my road to publication and brought some of the books where my writing shows up (but honestly, they just wanted to read Uncle John’s Facts to Annoy Your Teachers Bathroom Reader. I don’t blame ’em. That book rocks!), and then students shared their writing. It was such a pleasure to spend time with these kids. Because here’s the thing. Here was a group of kids who were eager to share their words and ideas! They clearly enjoy writing and write all the time.

And all I can say about that is Wheeeee! Wheeeee! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!