The Writing Life

Do you know anyone who makes his or her living by writing?

Some people make their livings as bloggers.  Blogging is a type of writing gaining great popularity in the technologically driven modern world.

Other people make their livings as authors of books.   They could write fiction, non-fiction, poetry, or drama.

Others write educational materials to help teachers and students learn as much as possible about the world around them.

We are investigating all these types of writing in our classroom this month.

In addition to launching our student blogs, we are writing stories, poems, dramas, biographies, essays, and even recipes about topics we love and then including complementary activities for teachers to use in their classes every year.   This writing will be published in traditional, hard cover books.  Our deadline is the Ides of March. 

This week we divided ourselves into publishing houses.  Each house will research, author, edit, illustrate, and publish its own book. 

Here are some photos of us organizing our teams. After deciding on the subjects of our books, each author chose a topic, a genre, and an activity.   Our upcoming books include:

Hoop Legends: Look for essays, biographies, and stories featuring Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Dr. J, and Magic Johnson.
World Myths: You’ll find retellings of ancient myths from six of the seven continents.
Fabulous Food: Reach for this cookbook when you want a healthy recipe and an entertaining story about the dish.
Teddy Tours Ancient Greece: Teddy escapes his family again in the third book of the series Teddy Tours . This time the crazy canine cavorts around ancient artifacts in Athens.
Sports Around the World: Learn about the history, regulations, and athletes of netball, lacrosse, jai alai, motorcross, soccer, and baseball.

What do you think is the best part of being a professional writer?

What do you think is the most difficult part of being a professional writer?