Welcome!

Welcome to Lives in Letters, a short term blog designed to assist participants in Plum Borough's six-week Life Writing Course in getting their stories down on paper, although you don't need to be a participant in the course to use this site.

My aim is to post simple writing tips on a daily basis throughout the duration of the course.

Since our class meets on Fridays, the schedule of our tips will follow this cycle:

• Friday:  Overview of the class topic and suggested exercise/assignment for the week
• Saturday:  A few topics and questions to spur the old imagination or inspire writers who may be stuck
• Sunday:  A tip on getting to the "heart" or emotional purpose of the story
• Monday:  A tip on fleshing out the details and helping readers experience the story more fully
• Tuesday:  A tip on plotting the story or reordering it for greater impact
• Wednesday:  A tip on fact-checking and/or caveats
• Thursday:  A tip on revising

You do not need to be a participant to use this site.  Everything here is open to everyone.  Life writing not only rewards the writer, who faces and processes his or her past and puts it down on paper, but it also reaches out to others, enabling a connection across communities and among family members.  This site's goal is to make those rewards more achievable to the average person.

I look forward to seeing you here!