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Book Review

The Mommy’s Pen Podcast – Episode 2: Cleopatra & the First Plot Point

July 12, 2018 by Sue Campbell

This week on the podcast we discuss ancient Egyptian body odor and the story structure concept of the first plot point.

It’s twelve minutes of fun! Listen now…

We are now available on Apple podcasts! As a new show, reviews are VERY important to help us grow. Please consider leaving a review.

You can also listen using any number of podcast platforms and apps including Spotify, Breaker, Pocket Casts, Radio Public, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts.

Show Notes:

Season 1, Episode 2: First Plot Point

Nora reviews Cleopatra VII: Daughter of the Nile from the Royals Diaries series. Sue explains the function of a first plot point (FPP) and Nora takes a stab at identifying the FPP in Cleopatra and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.

Nora also clues us in on how ancient Egyptians handled body odor (hint: it involves snakes) and points to some great places to learn more about history.

Read the full transcript.

Things we mention that you should check out:

  • Our mailing list! Sign up today and you’ll get cool subscriber only perks like bonus material and artwork from my forthcoming novel, The Cat, the Cash, the Leap and the List.
  • You can follow Mary Beard on Twitter and read her column “A Don’s Life” in the Times Literary Supplement. But please do yourself a big favor and head over to YouTube, search for her name, and start binge watching documentaries on ancient Rome. This woman is one of my heroes — a brilliant presenter AND totally unwilling to wear make-up or a bra while fronting programs for the BBC.
  • Horrible Histories started as book series and is now a television series in the UK. It’s bloody good fun and you can watch all the episodes on Hulu.com.
  • If you want to learn more about first plot points and a four-act structure for stories, I highly recommend the work of Larry Brooks. You can see a list of his books at the Story Fix website.

This post was lovingly sponsored by my Patreon supporters (you can become one, too!). 

[Read more…] about The Mommy’s Pen Podcast — Episode 2: Cleopatra & the First Plot Point

Filed Under: Book Review, Podcast, Writing Tagged With: #amwriting, Book Review, middle grade fiction, middle grade novel

Announcing the Mommy’s Pen Podcast!

July 5, 2018 by Sue Campbell

What could be better than sharing a passion with your kid? Nora (age 11) and I love to talk about books and what makes a good story, so we decided to start a podcast so everyone else can listen in.

So, go ahead!

You can also listen using any number of podcast platforms and apps including Breaker, Pocket Casts, Radio Public, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts.

We’ll be on iTunes soon, but in the meantime, you can add us to the Apple podcast player manually by navigating thusly:

Shows—>Edit—>Add a Podcast by URL—>https://anchor.fm/mommyspen

Show Notes:


Season 1, Episode 1: Inciting Incident

Nora reviews My Name is Victoria, a historical middle grade novel by Lucy Worsley, including her take on the inciting incident of the novel. We also fight about Lucy W.’s eyebrows and whether or not she has the help of a ghostwriter for her novels. (I mean, holy cow, if she doesn’t, this woman is good at everything and insanely productive. She’s also a historian, the Chief Curator of Historic Royal Palaces in Great Britain and a well known presenter for the BBC.)

We also discuss our plans for the podcast: we’re gonna talk about books, stories, and story structure. Specifically, in each episode we’ll discuss some aspect of story structure. This time around, it’s “inciting incident.” This is an event that thrusts a character into a particular situation and sucks a reader into a story.

Read the full transcript.

Other things we mention that you may want to check out:

  • Our mailing list! Sign up today and you’ll get cool subscriber only perks like bonus material and artwork from my forthcoming novel, The Cat, the Cash, the Leap and the List.
  • The Penderwicks Series by Jeanne Birdsall
  • More from Lucy Worsley at her website, including all her fabulous work with the BBC.
  • If you want to know more about story structure and don’t want to wait for the next podcast, I highly recommend The Story Grid website, book and podcast.

This post was lovingly sponsored by my Patreon supporters (you can become one, too!). 

 

 

Filed Under: Books, Podcast, Writing Tagged With: Book Review, Lucy Worsely, middle grade, My Name is Victoria, podcast

Book Review: NurtureShock (The Lost Hour)

July 9, 2010 by sue campbell

This post is part of a book review series of NutureShock, by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman. Chapter two is “The Lost Hour.”

When I don’t get enough sleep, I tend to do things like put shaving cream in my hair while I’m showering.  When Nora doesn’t get enough sleep, she gets cranky, defiant and wild eyed.

On dark winter evenings, it’s easy to put Nora to bed by 7:30.  This time of year, it takes diligence.  I make dinner and take Nora outside to do some gardening.  Suddenly, it’s seven.  Wind down time should have started a six-thirty.  If we’re not reading stories by seven, she won’t be calm enough to sleep until almost nine.  I can’t let her sleep much later than 5:45 in the morning, or we’ll be late for work.  If bedtime is late, she gets eight and a half hours of sleep instead of nine and a half.

Since I read chapter two of NutureShock, we’ve been ratcheting bedtime back to seven-thirty where it belongs.  I’ll even skip a much needed bathtime in order to get her tucked in on time.  Kids today are getting an hour less sleep on average than we did as kids.  It’s causing attention problems, behavior issues and even obesity (when your body is sleep deprived, it produces cortisol, which causes your body to store fat).  Studies have shown that even fifteen minutes less sleep has measurable effect on academic performance.  An hour less sleep will cause a six grader have the test scores of a fourth grader.

The authors explain that kids sleep differently than adults:

Using newly developed technological and statistical tools, sleep scientists have recently been able to isolate and measure the impact of this single lost hour.  Because children’s brains are a work in progress until the age of 21, and because much of that work is done while a child is asleep, this lost hour appears to have an exponential impact on children that it simply doesn’t have on adults…sleep problems during formative years can cause permanent changes in a child’s brain structure — damage that one that one can’t sleep off like a hangover.

 Studies on sleep in teenagers have pointed out that the surly, depressed young people so common today may actually be sleep deprived, not just hormonal.  High schools who have changed to later start times have seen improvements in test scores and a reduction in the number of car crashes teens are involved in.  Parents report happier teens.

The evidence is absolutely overwhelming.  Anything you can do to ensure your child is well rested improves your child’s quality of life — and yours, too.

On Monday, I’ll review chapter three “Why White Parents Don’t Talk About Race.”

Filed Under: Book Review Tagged With: Book Review, NutureShock, The Lost Hour

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What kind of blog is this?

This is a blog for PARENTS. True, the writer, Sue Campbell, writes books for kids. But this blog is for grown-ups. It has some swearing and would be super boring for kids. Except for the swearing.

The PODCAST is for KIDS and PARENTS. In fact, my twelve-year-old daughter is my co-host.

If your kids like Sue's books, send them over to suecampbellbooks.com where there's some kid-friendly content. EVEN BETTER, join the mailing list. You get stuff for grown-ups and printable stuff for kids. And sometimes there will be super ill-advised giveaways or coloring contests for free books.

MORE ABOUT SUE: She makes an ACTUAL LIVING from writing words and marketing books and lives with her husband, two daughters, six chickens and one messy house rabbit in Portland, Oregon. And yes, Portland IS that weird. She really couldn't be any luckier.

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