Daily Post. WordPress Photo Challenge: Night time
Even though literary critics sharply criticize this line as clichéd, I still like it. Even a dark and stormy night can be exquisitely beautiful.
It was a dark and stormy night. Janice Heck, photo
I count among my friends Kathryn Ross of The Writer’s Reverie.
Kathryn, a Performance Storyteller, is passionate about literature, history, and biblical truths, giving performances to both home and public schooled children in the Southern New Jersey area.
Dressed in the clothing style of her time frame, she dramatizes her stories and brings them to life, much to the delight and wonder of her audiences.
Kathryn’s words describe her work:
I’m Kathryn Ross, an Enrichment Artist with a passion to bless and inspire others to a life more abundant and purposeful in all good things and beauty.
I share such treasures through the power of dramatized storytelling, blogging at The Writer’s Reverie, publishing my works through Pageant Wagon Publishing, hosting teatime hospitality retreats, and exploring handcrafted creative arts through Cameo Impressions at Etsy.
My love of God and Biblical values also permeates the original literature and history programming I write and perform for varied audiences as Pageant Wagon Productions LLC. Blogging has been a way for me to explore my craft and connect with kindred spirits where a constant stream of inspiration enriches me – so I can be an enrichment in the lives of others.
Here is a video that Kathryn has just released describing her picture books that explore biblical principles.
I had the pleasure of editing one of Kathryn’s posts: Blogging: The Proof is in the Prep. Read this for seven tips for writing better blog posts.
Kathryn and I met each other fourteen years ago at a meeting of the Cumberland County Chapter of the New Jersey Society of 
Christian Writers, organized by Dr. MaryAnn Diorio. We were members of the group for several years, but then I moved to another state. We recently reconnected at the Greater Philadelphia Christian Writers Conference at Cairn University in Langhorne, PA, organized by Marlene Bagnull.
In September, Kathryn and I will take the leadership role for the Cumberland County Chapter of the New Jersey Society of Christian Writers. So we have come full circle as friends, and our writing efforts have grown stronger through the years. Now we want to share what we have learned with other developing writers.
If you live in our area and want to learn more about the writing process and writing craft, join us at 7 pm at Calvary Chapel, 4630 Mays Landing Rd, Vineland, NJ (between Millville and Mays Landing). We look forward to seeing you. Maybe Kathryn will give you a preview of her coming book: Mother Chicken’s Eggs!
Three years ago, on a lark, I started my first blog: Janice Heck: My Time to Write. After writing 370 posts and getting over 52,000 hits, I decided it was time to reevaluate that blog and plan my next steps. You can read that post here: Dear Readers: On Flying Deeper into the Blogosphere.
One conclusion of that post: I want/need to focus more on writing process and writing craft to help developing writers become more effective writers.
My first blog is an eclectic blog, on which I write about such topics as CATS, travel, photography, current events, food, recipes, book reviews, family, senior health issues, and eldercare. And then I write about writing topics: grammar, usage, punctuation, writing quirks, common writing errors, “fix-its” for common errors, and effective writing tips.
Quite a mix, isn’t it?
Here is my new, more focused blog for developing writers:
Janice Heck Writes: Power-up Your Writing! Build Your Writing craft.
The goal of this blog is to help writers “Power-up” their writing by learning more about writing following this model:
Writers often hear such terms as passive voice, parallel structure, serial commas, dependent clauses, cumulative sentences, periodic sentences, and many more. But just as often, these terms seem a bit fuzzy, especially to newish writers.
The focus on this new blog will be to un-fuzzy these terms by using…
Wordy Grammar Books
Pick a grammar book at random and what do you see? Pages and pages of words telling about grammar, showing an example or two, then giving incorrect sentences to edit. Sometimes the grammatical term receives little more than an honorable mention: “Don’t use passive voice.”
In this new blog, I take a writing tip and show you, with graphics, how the grammar (or usage or punctuation) works so you can translate it into your own writing.
Other posts will focus on qualities that enhance your writing as well as common writing problems that interfere with effective writing.
Writing Strategies
To give you an idea of what the posts on Power-up Your Writing! Build Your Writing Craft will look like, take a peek at a few posts from my first eclectic blog: (Posts written for the annual A to Z Challenge held every April):
Coming soon: Look for my first official post on this blog here: One Tired, Tarnished Writing Tip…and Six Twists.
So come along for the ride. Ask questions and leave comments. I would love to hear from you.
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Janice Heck, retired educator/administrator, hosts two blogs:
Janice Heck: My Time to Write, an eclectic topic blog.
Janice Heck Writes: Power-up Your Writing! Build Your Writing Craft.
She is co-leader of the Cumberland County chapter of the New Jersey Society of Christian Writers along with Kathryn Ross of The Writer’s Reverie.
Over the years, Jan has given workshops on writing for schools, local and national special education and general conferences, and has published Evaluating and Improving Written Expression: A Practical Guide for Teachers (Janice K. Hall, Allyn and Bacon, Inc., 1981; Pro-Ed, 1988, 1999). That book is now an OOP (out-of-print).
Jan’s favorite retirement activities are traveling, blogging, singing in the church choir, eating out, and collecting old grammar books.
Educator, Writer, Editor, Blogger, Photographer;
Co-leader (with Kathryn Ross of The Writer's Reverie) of the Cumberland County Chapter of New Jersey Society of Christian Writers
Janice Heck Writes 