Cutting the fluff in writing…and in life

August 7, 2014.Reading time 11 minutes.

[A version of this was originally written for a message I gave at my church, House of Saints and Sinners.] By Amanda Cleary Eastep Endless tips for better writing exist, especially when it comes to “cutting the fluff” of adjectives and adverbs that leave an otherwise solid story looking like this: Photo Credit: ozfan22 via Compfight […]

Taking a Red Crayon to a White Wall

July 23, 2011.Reading time 8 minutes.

Seven teenagers sit around the table, notebooks in front of them, looking to me to teach them how words work. How words flow out of the end of that purple gel pen or the borrowed pencil and somehow arrange themselves on lines and into stories. I have barely finished a more-challenging-than-usual semester of teaching a media […]