Trailblazer

@loopylin

Yeah I’m having the same issue.

K I’m gonna dump some quotes in here…

“Have you ever wondered what would happen if I vacuumed your hair?” -my brother

“I have sunshine in my soul today.” -a coworker

“We should see that the more we set ourselves to control another person, the less intimate we can be with them, for intimacy is found in vulnerability and surrender, not in…[Read more]

@theducktator

I’m gonna be the parent whose kids can’t date until they graduate high school. At that point they’re 18 and free to roam the world anyway, but I think there’s something special about being able to focus the teenage years on building relationships with God, friends, and family, and being able to grow as a person and begin…[Read more]

@theducktator

If I remember correctly, John Adams fell down George’s chimney and landed in a boiling pot of oatmeal.

Oh my word, I was laughing out loud when I read this! And this:

but one of them had started a rebellion which had to be put down, and he was sentenced to have his hair dyed with glitter and wash all the palace dishes “except the kni…

[Read more]

@esther-c

Lol I started the rant though… one of my biggest pet peeves is watching middle schoolers attempt to date. It just bothers me so much, and like you said, the chances of it actually working out are slim. Even the chances of a high school relationship working out aren’t that high, either.

@theducktator

Yeah for real. My group of middle school girls ironically happens to be mostly homeschooled, but one of the other leaders has a group that is mostly public schoolers, and you can clearly see the difference. Quite often, I’ll come away from our small group time encouraged by the fact that my girls were sharing testimonies of things…[Read more]

@esther-c

I definitely think you can either leave out any romance, or if you do mention the subject of boys and girls liking each other, do it in a way that is appropriate for the readers based on Biblical standards. I remember reading books when I was ten/eleven that gave me the idea that boy-girl relationships were normal at my age and that’s…[Read more]

@hybridlore

Cul-de-sac Kids,

Oh my goodness! I forgot those books existed! I used to read those, too!

@whalekeeper

Oooh I like this question!

The first chapter book series I can remember reading is Little House on the Prairie. I was in like first grade and I loved those books! I had a bonnet and made forts that I pretended were the covered wagon.

The Boxcar Children were also some of my favorites. I read nearly all of them, but I quit when I…[Read more]

I use Slack for work, and that might work, but again there would be more limitations on how many channels can be created, and messages disappearing after 90 days. I also don’t think GroupMe would work very well, from the minimal experience I’ve had with it. I’ve never had Discord, so I can’t speak for that one.

Is anyone on here techy enough to…[Read more]

@whalekeeper

Most of the research I do for my writing has to do with history… quite often I’ll be writing and then suddenly I’m like hmmmm how did this little detail fit into their lives?

This past week I was researching Christmas traditions in the 1800s, what kinds of gifts people gave one another, and trying to dive into how it would differ…[Read more]

@theducktator

This reminded me of a time a visitor to our church told my dad that the number of kids he had intimidated her. She was completely serious and never came back. There were only four of us at the time too. XD

Lol that lady would never survive where I live… I think the majority of families I know in church and outside of church have at…[Read more]

@theshadow

Nothing immediately comes to mind for the first idea you mentioned, but for the second one, maybe a point of conflict could be something that both brothers are trying to achieve and it turns into a competition… you could go as deep into this as you want, whether it’s just petty sibling arguments or if it goes farther into one of them…[Read more]

@theshadow

I’ve written a handful of contemporary (not finished them though lol), and I’m by no means an expert in this field, but I’d say it really comes down to adding conflict, even if it’s as simple as a strained relationship with a family member. I don’t know your characters, and I’ve also never read The Penderwicks so it’s hard to know h…[Read more]

@esther-c

I’m loving this story! It has a warm and cozy feel but also real challenges high schoolers face.

Easton brought his sand bike to a halt a few feet from the campfire the rest were beginning to set up. He removed his helmet, shaking out his hair.

OK I was majorly confused here at first- I didn’t know who “the rest” was referring to until…[Read more]

@savannah_grace2009

Hahaha I forgot about Fire Face! That was hilarious!

@savannah_grace2009

Wow I forgot about this RP lol

@whalekeeper

Oops why do I do that? Lol. See above.

@whaley

I feel like I’m usually pretty good at getting down the idea of where I want my story to go, but then when it comes to actually writing out the scenes (and especially the in-between scenes that are necessary but not easy to write) I struggle a lot with inspiration. For example, I know I want that brother-sister relationship to work…[Read more]

@stephie

Way to go for standing up for what you believe even if it has put you in a pickle! I was homeschooled up until my senior year, so the only religion teacher I had was my mom lol. But in the one year that I was in public school I had some disagreements with one teacher- fortunately he was very open-minded and we were able to have healthy…[Read more]